Lightning Strike
Author: archaeologist_d
Title: Lightning Strike
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/s: none
Character/s: Percival
Summary:. Percival’s village was slaughtered and him the lone survivor. Every time a storm hit, he remembered it all.
Warnings: canon violence
Word Count: 500
Camelot_drabble # 556: Electric
Author’s notes: pre-canon, Just giving Percival some backstory.
Disclaimer: I do not own the BBC version of Merlin; They and Shine do. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No money has changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/
Percival never liked storms. The growing electricity in the air, the way heaviness seemed to settle into his chest, the feeling of insects skittering across his skin. The rumble of thunder coming closer and the flash of lightning breaking through the heavy curtains.
Him cowering under the bedsheets like the coward he was.
He knew that if he ever told anyone, they would shake their heads or maybe look at him with sympathy, or worse yet, tell him he was just reacting to memories of long ago, that he should get over it, that there was nothing to fear in Camelot.
But every time lightning flashed, he remembered that storm, one that broke on the day his village burned, and everyone there was slaughtered.
He had just been a kid then, running home ahead of the squall, knowing that his mum would need help closing the shutters and bringing in the hens. Behind him, the wind whipped up. There was the crackle of lightning strikes, and that just made him run faster.
But when he got back to his village, there was silence, more silence than he’d ever known. It was dark, too, the thunderstorm blackening the sky and making it difficult to see. Not even the hens were clucking nor the puppies yipping in Grayston’s hut.
It was eerie, the thunder behind him and the quiet ahead.
Stumbling in the darkness, he called out to his mum, apologizing for being late but there was no reply. As he rounded the corner, he nearly tripped on something, and when he looked down, there was Tom, lying there, his throat cut, as another flash of light roared across the sky.
Percival’s heart stopped then and for a moment, he didn’t know what to do. Then, panic pushed him forward, yelling for his mum, hoping against hope that she’d hear him and call out his name and surround him with love as he cried for his dead friend.
But her eyes were open and there was blood everywhere and the lightning kept flashing as he stared down at her.
He just stood there then, as the storm hit, pouring rain washing away the blood, and electricity in the air. He didn’t even flinch when lightning hit the barn, turning it into an inferno of heat and death. Watching it spread from hut to hut until he was surrounded by fire and hissing rain.
Perhaps he should have looked for survivors, perhaps he should have released the pigs or rescued the hens. But there was only silence or the storm. No moans, no clucking of chickens, no call for rescue.
He alone was alive. They must have slaughtered everything.
-----------------
In future times, they might call it survivor’s guilt, but in the darkness of kingdoms and cruelty, in the real world, even as he grew into a man, he could only cope with quiet shrugs and hiding under the covers whenever a storm began to gather.
And hope that it would soon pass.
But it never did.
Title: Lightning Strike
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/s: none
Character/s: Percival
Summary:. Percival’s village was slaughtered and him the lone survivor. Every time a storm hit, he remembered it all.
Warnings: canon violence
Word Count: 500
Camelot_drabble # 556: Electric
Author’s notes: pre-canon, Just giving Percival some backstory.
Disclaimer: I do not own the BBC version of Merlin; They and Shine do. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No money has changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/
Percival never liked storms. The growing electricity in the air, the way heaviness seemed to settle into his chest, the feeling of insects skittering across his skin. The rumble of thunder coming closer and the flash of lightning breaking through the heavy curtains.
Him cowering under the bedsheets like the coward he was.
He knew that if he ever told anyone, they would shake their heads or maybe look at him with sympathy, or worse yet, tell him he was just reacting to memories of long ago, that he should get over it, that there was nothing to fear in Camelot.
But every time lightning flashed, he remembered that storm, one that broke on the day his village burned, and everyone there was slaughtered.
He had just been a kid then, running home ahead of the squall, knowing that his mum would need help closing the shutters and bringing in the hens. Behind him, the wind whipped up. There was the crackle of lightning strikes, and that just made him run faster.
But when he got back to his village, there was silence, more silence than he’d ever known. It was dark, too, the thunderstorm blackening the sky and making it difficult to see. Not even the hens were clucking nor the puppies yipping in Grayston’s hut.
It was eerie, the thunder behind him and the quiet ahead.
Stumbling in the darkness, he called out to his mum, apologizing for being late but there was no reply. As he rounded the corner, he nearly tripped on something, and when he looked down, there was Tom, lying there, his throat cut, as another flash of light roared across the sky.
Percival’s heart stopped then and for a moment, he didn’t know what to do. Then, panic pushed him forward, yelling for his mum, hoping against hope that she’d hear him and call out his name and surround him with love as he cried for his dead friend.
But her eyes were open and there was blood everywhere and the lightning kept flashing as he stared down at her.
He just stood there then, as the storm hit, pouring rain washing away the blood, and electricity in the air. He didn’t even flinch when lightning hit the barn, turning it into an inferno of heat and death. Watching it spread from hut to hut until he was surrounded by fire and hissing rain.
Perhaps he should have looked for survivors, perhaps he should have released the pigs or rescued the hens. But there was only silence or the storm. No moans, no clucking of chickens, no call for rescue.
He alone was alive. They must have slaughtered everything.
-----------------
In future times, they might call it survivor’s guilt, but in the darkness of kingdoms and cruelty, in the real world, even as he grew into a man, he could only cope with quiet shrugs and hiding under the covers whenever a storm began to gather.
And hope that it would soon pass.
But it never did.