(Untitled)

[worth_killing]

Arthur had had very few things to trouble him over the past few weeks. Life was progressing more peaceably, more smoothly than it ever had before. The few days spent in the dream of his former life, of his former home, had made him nostalgic for a time, and even guilty. Just because the Saxons had been defeated once did not mean that they would

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[thedescent_into]

She steps out of the trees, stopping close by but well out of harms way, watching the smooth arch and thrust of his sword and the intense gleam in his eye, her own weapon strapped safely at her hip.

"Who are your opponents?" she asks. It's clear that he has one, even if they are visible to no one but him.

[worth_killing]

He halted suddenly at the question, an easy thing considering he had just thrust forward powerfully, his blade parallel to the ground. The movement was completed, and there was no set format to his practice, no steps to follow. Gaze shifting to Sarah, Arthur idly wondered if Tristan could even have sensed her approach, then dismissed the thought as a futile one.

Dropping out of the aggressive stance, Arthur let the point of Excalibur fall downwards. "None. Yet," he answered. "Only what I imagine."

[thedescent_into]

"What are the ones you imagine?" she asks, stepping a little closer, her footfalls nearly silent. "You have one. Or more than one. I can tell by your face."

[worth_killing]

Arthur paused before answering, gaze falling aside for a moment as if he were admonishing himself before Sarah might. "Demon horses," he said. "And other such dark things that have been haunting the minds of some I know." He looked to her again, a faint upward turn to the corner of his mouth. "And when those were felled, I planned on slaying a few Saxons."

[thedescent_into]

"You'll fell them, of course," she said, her lips crooking into a smile, almost a mirror of his own, "It should be a comfort, shouldn't it? I'm not the only one to see things worth fighting."

It wasn't. There wasn't much Sarah found comforting anymore. Apart from the woman she shared her hut with. Her life with. Or whatever was left of it.

[worth_killing]

"It would be more comfort to have nothing left to fight," Arthur countered. "Real or imagined." He paused, considering her quietly, his face even, a blank sort of openness to his features, free of judgment. "Do you still see your demons, Sarah? In the caves or outside?"

[thedescent_into]

"Outside. In the jungle. On the beach. I try to stay away from the caves now."

She tries but she doesn't always succeed. There's always something. Something drawing her back.

[worth_killing]

Arthur was actually disappointed by such news, a feeling which only showed in the momentary falling of his gaze. When he looked to her again, he was calm as always. "It's good that you avoid the caves," he remarked. "I wish I knew of a way to defeat these visions. But they have no blood to spill."

[thedescent_into]

"I've had enough of blood," she says. To Sarah, it wasn't a matter of defeating the monsters in the dark. It was a matter of learning to live with them.

Tucking the fallen strands of her long blond hair behind her ears, she stepped forward, tilting her head to get a better look at his sword.

"It's beautiful."

[worth_killing]

Another considering glance was directed at Sarah, and then Arthur turned his attention to the sword. He lifted it, letting the sunlight slide down that shining metal. "Thank you. It's called Excalibur," he explained. "It was my father's."

[thedescent_into]

The name is familiar, and it is a shock realizing that she should have made the connection months ago. She hadn't really been in the frame of mind to make even the simplest of connections, let alone one so strange.

"You handle it well," she said, more a statement of fact than a compliment.

[worth_killing]

"I have had need to learn to do so," he returned, not one to glorify battle except in the reasons for the fight. Arthur could have been just as happy -- more so -- if he had never lifted a sword in his life. "It is a skill that does little to serve me now. Except in battling dinosaurs," he remarked.

[thedescent_into]

"Do you often find the need to battle dinosaurs?" she asks with a ghost of a smile shown more in her eyes than her lips. It is still difficult, her muscles stiff and atrophied to the point where even smiling often feels unnatural.

[worth_killing]

"Only when they do not know their place," Arthur answered in a wry tone. "Thankfully that is not often. The island is blessed in that way." And cursed, in several others, but Arthur did not want to mention that at the moment.

[thedescent_into]

"Yes, I suppose so," she says, though she doesn't see things as blessed or cursed any longer. She stopped a long time ago.

They simply are.

[worth_killing]

He paused, letting a quiet hang between them for a moment, then asked, "How have you been, Sarah?" He wanted to see her thrive, but was careful as to how much he pushed or asked, wary because of their initial meetings.