Beðungum (or: Tempus ut lavaretur)
Who: Uther and Chase and Eilonwy and Gwydion. And Old Lace.
What: Bathtime
When: Immediately after the Abstract discovery thread.
Where: The Castle
( Uther regarded his children with some skepticism... )
What: Bathtime
When: Immediately after the Abstract discovery thread.
Where: The Castle
( Uther regarded his children with some skepticism... )
Storytime was an important rite in the household, one that Uther regretted not being able to perform more frequently the first time he had been a father, though he had done fairly well, all things considered. This time around, he had the luxury to never miss it.
"Once," he began, "there were great hunts in the land, by kings and by the noble-born, of the princes among the wild creatures. These were known as the venery beasts, to differentiate them from the beasts of the chase and the beasts of the warren, who anyone might hunt for food to eat and pelts to keep warm. There was the hare, who is fleet of foot and can test the agility of one lord alone with a pair of hounds. There was the wolf, who is shy towards men but is a lord and a hunter in his own right, and must be controlled ere he take all the other game in the forest for his own. There was the bear, a creature of enormous strength hunted in Caledonia and in Hispania.”
“Where’s that?”
“Caledonia is the mountainous land to the north of the Britons, where the Picts live, now known as Scotland. Hispania, on the peninsula the Greeks called Iberia, lies to the south and across the sea, beyond Cornwall and beyond Brittany.”
“Where’s that?”
“Do you remember that some of the Britons went to Gaul to help defend the ancient empire? And that some stayed because the Saxon threat in Britannia was so great? The lands by the sea, where they settled, became Brittany, and that is where your father went to study war and combat when he was a boy.”
“When you were like us?”
“A little older.”
“What about the animals?”
“Ah, there are two more still to name. There was the boar, who is fiercest and most dangerous among the beasts of venery, against who many of the greatest heroes and heroines have pitted their skills and courage, and about which you must remind me to tell you another time. But the very greatest in our land, the king of all the forest, was the deer. And the prince stag?”
“The hart.”
Uther nodded. “Yes, the hart, a fully-grown red deer stag, the largest of the deer to be found in all of Britannia and beyond. He can be told by his size, and his shaggy red coat, and by the shape of his antlers. Of all the laws of the hunt, the right to the hart most truly belongs to the king of the land, because he, too, is a king among his own kind, and to hunt him par force is the noblest form of hunting.
“Now, most harts are auburn, but sometimes, you might see a white hart, and that is a very rare thing indeed, a sign that you are about to trespass upon the otherworld, or perhaps that you have been sent a message or a quest. Prince Pwyll was once hunting and came upon a pack of white hounds with a white stag at bay, and when he drove those hounds away so that he could make the kill and give his own dogs the curée, he angered their lord, Arawn of Annwn, king of the otherworld. King Arawn then took Prince Pwyll’s throne in Dyfed and put Pwyll on his own throne for a year and a day, and made him promise that at the end of this time, he would engage Arawn’s enemy Hafgan in single combat, and slay him with one and only one blow. Pwyll did this, and further, honoured Arawn by his chivalrous conduct towards the queen of the otherworld, and that is how an enduring friendship was won between the kingdom of Dyfed and that of Annwn.
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“Apollo!”
“--when Artemis and her twin brother Apollo came upon Hercules with the deer, she was understandably angry that Hercules had desecrated her sacred animal. Hercules explained that capturing it was one of the tasks he must perform in order to atone for his previous wrongdoing against his family, and promised that he would return the deer as soon as he had shown it to the king. Artemis forgave him and allowed him to go on his way. But King Eurystheus tried to keep Cerynitis for himself, and Hercules knew that he must keep his promise, because it was his word, his fides. So when Eurystheus came to take Cerynitis from him, Hercules released the deer, who you might remember could run very fast, and that is exactly what Cerynitis did.”
“But…”
“Yes?”
“But...don’t all the deer belong to the King?”
“It’s true, that the deer of the forest are the King’s animals, but although the King is the highest in the land, Artemis is a goddess, and as such sits above earthly kings, as God does. God watches over the land, and puts the king upon it to govern and protect it in His name, and to act as a steward over His dominion. That is how the line of kings is given its divine right.
“And as steward over the land, the High King himself has special reason to hunt the great hart. In spring, when the power of the winter must be broken, and new life must be brought back from the land of shadows, it is said that the High King of old would run with the deer, swift and strong, annointed with its musk and crowned with its antlers. And on that hunt, he became the King Stag, who was the Horned One, who was also Hyddwn the Son, and he slew the King Stag, piercing the animal behind the shoulder forward to the heart. In the unmaking, the blood of the High King Hyddwn renewed the earth, and because of him, all could rise and give birth to new life, and he could rise and reign forever.
“That is a promise, too, that the king makes when he becomes king. He becomes the kingdom, and he gives himself to and for the good of the kingdom. It is his patronage to all of his people, and it is an extension of his fides, the same as when Hercules kept his word to Artemis and Pwyll kept his word to Arawn. And because he inherits it from his fathers, who were kings before him, it is his pietas too. This is his duty, and the basis of his authority; this is how he earns his divine right to rule.”
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There was something achingly familiar about it it, nevermind the fact that Chase had left California all of a handful of times, nearly every time ending up in New York (present day and not, by his own will and not.) The feeling was one he'd been trying to place since story time began (or at least until he felt comfortable enough to be part of it.) Some nights it felt like a memory of deja vu, all the talk of fidelity and loyalty to king and kingdom.
'Maybe that's because it doesn't all sound like bullshit to you anymore,' Chase thought with a soft smile and a knowing, almost demure look towards Uther near the end of his stories. 'You found the one magnificent bastard on the planet who really fucking means it when he says it.'
A year ago, Chase couldn't imagine looking at Uther as he did now, and it had nothing to do with the young king himself. Power in his time had been something wielded over Chase and the others : power to separate them when they needed each other most, power to threaten, criminalize the family they had built. Those that had tried to use their powers to help them had been thwarted too early on to do any real good: Cloak and Dagger had been willing to hear them out and because of that Chase and the others had come to their aid without thinking when they'd called, on something as flimsy as a promise.
Once, Chase would have called that desperate, but looking at Uther as he smoothed the blankets out around Gwydion's small form he knew better now. That was what power wielded compassionately could do. Power wielded for others, not just yourself. (Though there was a balance to be struck. Try to "do the right thing" long enough and you ended up like The Avengers, there was no perspective anymore.)
"G'night princess." Chase said, smiling down at Elionwy and planting a kiss on her forehead. He waited for Uther at the door. Old Lace tended to stay until the twins were both asleep and then wander back to Chase's room a few doors down. Chase waited a moment to speak as the door was pulled softly over.
"Hey, uh Uther..." the blond began as they made their way down the dim hallway. "I just wanted to say that..." the words were strange and awkward in coming; he'd never imagined himself saying them let alone thinking them. "I mean, I know when I got here I had a hard time buying the whole noblesse oblige thing and I said a lot of really dumb stuff." A hand rubbed the back of a tan neck sheepishly. "That's nothing new for for me, I've always been a pretty massive idiot. But I just couldn't buy someone who'd been... who was still an adult could really believe any of that." The idea of Uther being young and old at the same time was easier to handle these days. Perhaps because Uther himself was handling it.
"But I guess you changed my mind and I--"
'Love you.'
"Whatever happens with the Abstract, I meant what I said. I won't let anything happen to your future if I can help it. It's seriously the least I can do."
A hand reached up to grip Uther's shoulder and Chase leaned in, planting a quick, chaste kiss on Uther's cheek.
"Just uh... try not to worry too much, okay? We'll figure this out."
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"I know," he said. So much there was for two small words to convey, so much appreciation and trust, faith and understanding. It seemed as though the things they had gone through were to be only the beginning, but already they were bound to one another in a way that banished doubt.
"We'll figure it out together."
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