Strangeris
Who: Uther and Mordred.
What: Uther finds a stranger skulking about the castle.
When: A few days after the twins are born.
Where: The castle.
Rating: R for related.
Status: Semi-private and incomplete.
It had been an emotionally wrought fortnight. The babies had been delivered, safe and sound, and all were well. Morgana was resting and seemed well on the road to recovery. Uther was almost puzzled by his sense of well-being. The days after Arthur's birth had been full of pain and horror, and Morgana had not been his, and he had all but forgotten--or perhaps had never noticed--all the mundane things that went with the arrival of a new life. The feedings and the changings and the sleeplessness. At his age, and with two babies and few servants, it was exhausting.
Uther was enjoying it immensely.
He marveled still, each time he saw them, at the perfection of their little wrinkled faces, at how peaceful they looked in slumber, how bright and big and clear their blue eyes when awake, how absolute and without abandon their cries when hungered or tired or soiled. They lived each new moment of their lives as though it were the most momentous thing, and without any reserve. And Uther wondered, as he watched them, what they would become.
It was a marvel he ever left them at all. But mother and babies needed their rest, and so Uther forced himself to walk the halls alone, musing on their little hands and their soft heads long into the night.
Which was how he heard the sound that should not have been there.
Instantly alert, he became Uther the warrior again, his hand going to his sword. He trod softly toward the shadows, listening for the sound, drawing his sword as quietly as he could, wishing he'd oiled the sheath more recently.
What: Uther finds a stranger skulking about the castle.
When: A few days after the twins are born.
Where: The castle.
Rating: R for related.
Status: Semi-private and incomplete.
It had been an emotionally wrought fortnight. The babies had been delivered, safe and sound, and all were well. Morgana was resting and seemed well on the road to recovery. Uther was almost puzzled by his sense of well-being. The days after Arthur's birth had been full of pain and horror, and Morgana had not been his, and he had all but forgotten--or perhaps had never noticed--all the mundane things that went with the arrival of a new life. The feedings and the changings and the sleeplessness. At his age, and with two babies and few servants, it was exhausting.
Uther was enjoying it immensely.
He marveled still, each time he saw them, at the perfection of their little wrinkled faces, at how peaceful they looked in slumber, how bright and big and clear their blue eyes when awake, how absolute and without abandon their cries when hungered or tired or soiled. They lived each new moment of their lives as though it were the most momentous thing, and without any reserve. And Uther wondered, as he watched them, what they would become.
It was a marvel he ever left them at all. But mother and babies needed their rest, and so Uther forced himself to walk the halls alone, musing on their little hands and their soft heads long into the night.
Which was how he heard the sound that should not have been there.
Instantly alert, he became Uther the warrior again, his hand going to his sword. He trod softly toward the shadows, listening for the sound, drawing his sword as quietly as he could, wishing he'd oiled the sheath more recently.