[merlin] Abyssus abyssum invocat | Nimueh/Uther/Igraine | for fortassetu
Fandom: Merlin
Title: Abyssus abyssum invocat
Characters: Nimueh/Uther. With "background" Uther/Igraine, Nimueh/Igraine.
Rating: PG15
Warnings: adult themes suggested | femslash | direct spoilers up to 1x09
Word Count: 2733
Summary: Red dress, bourgeois lips, bare feet and wicked smile. Oh, yes, and a white rose.
Notes: For lovely fortassetu in her birthday! OMG DARLING I HOPE YOU LIKE IT, OK? And that it's not complete crap. ♥
Notes take 2: Abyssus abyssum invocat is Latin for: Hell calls hell.
Beta: I got parvati_blossom to take a quick look at it. All remaining mistakes are mine!
“There’s a lady on the Hall, my lord,” Uther glances up, the young servant backs off a little, waiting.
“What’s her business?” The King asks, and returns his eyes to the paperwork he is working on.
“She has requested an audience with the King, my Lord. She says she brings something the King might be interested in,” the servant pauses a bit, Uther scribbles some notes. “Of course, I could just…”
“Let her in,” he leaves his work to the side, and waits for the guards to let the woman in.
When the door opens, he sees her, tall and beautiful, walking the aisle that brings her to him. Red long laces of her dress falling to the floor where bare feet stand. Soft locks of black hair dance around her face, and her eyes, made of deep blue ocean, are fixed on him. He is enchanted by her mere sight, and can feel the magic she projects almost immediately. He stops thinking, aware of the power the woman in front of him carries.
“King Uther,” she bends lightly. Just a bit, showing respect, showing position. Her lips are curled in a mischievous smile. “I’m Lady Nimueh”
“What brings you to my court, my lady?” He observes the woman, the child, with caution. There’s something odd about the witch, but he doesn’t know what.
“I come to offer my services to my King.” She kneels and extends her hand. Her lips barely move as she pronounces an enchantment. He sees it, though his guards do not (Uther makes a mental point to reprehend them for that). When the woman is done, in her hand rests a rose. It’s white and pure, and lights pour out of it.
“What’s that, Lady Nimueh? What are you offering?” She stands and walks to him, placing the rose in his hand. It feels soft and warm in his skin.
“I’m offering you my life.”
**
Igraine is like a lost child. She smiles and plays. Her heart is made of chocolate and silk. Her eyes illuminate the whole court. She takes her around the grounds by her arm, there’s something that screams ‘she is mine’ in her grab, Nimueh doesn’t really mind. She’s nobody’s after all. Igraine talks about the future children, the sun, the court, the magic of this world, of her love for Uther, of his love for her, Igraine talks a lot. Nimueh doesn’t mind either.
There’s something about Igraine that compels her to watch, to look out. Igraine wakes the most instinctive feelings of her life.
“You should talk to Uther about this travel of yours, my friend,” she is cheerful, optimistic, a gleam of light. On the contrary, Nimueh is the darkest shade of black. “I’m sure he would not object to such journey.”
“I don’t intend to disturb my king with such nonsense on such a busy week, my lady,” she tickles the back of Igraine’s hand with magic and she giggles. It serves its porpoise; Igraine leaves the matter alone and asks her about magic and her previous life.
Nimueh raises her head to meet the cold eyes of Uther on the balcony. They share a simple nod to acknowledge each other’s presence and they keep on with what they were on. Nimueh can feel his eyes on them as they stride the length of the yard.
**
It always feels like a lie. It is a lie. In the dark, hiding from Igraine’s eyes.
“Will you?” “If she…” “She won’t”
They feel guilty, every single time he bites her neck, every time her legs wrap around his waist. They curse it; they blame it all on themselves. They don’t stop.
It’s harder every time. More desperate, more needy. She can’t leave, she knows she has to, but in the night, when Uther’s meeting about war becomes too much, he goes to her.
And in her, he hides.
**
“My lady,” he greets her with a soft smile. Gaius nods in the back and leaves before he is ordered.
“My King,” she smiles back once they are alone.
“Why are you honouring me with your presence?” he grabs her chin, drawing her closer. She lets him, hand clasping with power on his legs. Moving slowly in indecent ways for the court throne.
“I need to ask something from you, my King,” he glares at her, hand still cupping her face with all his strength. He knows she’ll hide the bruises afterwards. It’s not usual for the witch to request anything from him.
“Ask, my lady,” He can feel her hand moving up, her magic coming out of her fingers, getting to his skin. “Play fair if you want your wish to be granted, Nimueh”
“I must set off on a journey,” she moves closely enough to whisper into his lips, her hands now still on his legs. “Grant me my wish, and I’ll grant you yours.”
He kisses her before he can’t form a ‘no’. Blood and poison in their mouths. Betrayal in their hearts. She sits on him, and he brings her as close as he can.
“Of course, madam” is all he manages to gasp.
**
If Igraine notices something different, she doesn’t say it. She curls at his husband’s waist and kisses him good night. He smiles fondly; his love for Igraine is the biggest thing he has and yet… there’s a void left by Nimueh’s disappearance from the kingdom.
Two weeks without news and he is getting desperate, anxious, brutal. Only Igraine seems to steal smiles out of him, and for that, he is grateful.
It helps to keep up the charade.
On the fourth week, he feels like waling through the walls. Igraine clinches to him in bed, and Uther just stares to the wall, desperate to have Nimueh back. He dreams of her skin, of her twisted lips on his body, of her hands, of her curves, of her magic inside him and him inside her. He wakes up panting, kisses his wife and softly makes love to her. Softly, as if he was afraid of breaking her. It’s not what he wants, what he needs, but he will have to settle.
On the fifth week, Igraine finds out she’ll never be able to grant him a child. And that’s when hell arises.
**
Nimueh comes back on an autumn afternoon. She looks exactly the same she did the first day she arrived at Camelot. Red dress, bourgeois lips, bare feet and wicked smile. She smells of salt and magic, of new worlds and new fantasies. She presents herself in front of her King and offers her magic to his command. The King eyes don’t lift up.
He sees her as a ghost, something that is there but at the same time is not. He feels the months that have passed on his shoulders, the news he can’t reverse in his stomach, and the lost he has learnt to live with knocks at his door in silence.
“Is there anything my King needs?” Nimueh asks, her voice soft, too soft, her eyes perverse. He nods at the guards and they leave.
“Madam, you have been gone for more than three months and you expect to be welcomed back with arms fully open,”
“Like the first day, my lord,” she shortens the distance. Her hands on her back, her lips red as blood moving softly, her eyes fixed on him.
“These are no times for glory, Lady Nimueh,” he barks. He feels the rage under his words, under his skin, and when she is close enough, he grabs her neck and pulls her to him. “This is a time of grieve, madam”
He spits poison, he knows it. He feels Nimueh’s pulse under his hand, where he makes pressure. She doesn’t move, she doesn’t fight. She doesn’t even look scared. She just waits, barely breathing until he finally lets her go. He sees her fall to her knees, desperately filling her lungs with air.
“Do something, witch” he glares at her, kneeling at her side. “Do something, because you ran and hid, you left everything behind. Now, do something.” He is full with rage and pain. He is more desperate than ever.
“I handed over my life to you, it is yours to take.” Her voice is sore, probably due to the pressure he put on her throat. He can already see the marks of his hand on her skin.
“You are strange,” he looks away, unable to keep more eye contact with the woman that reminds him of his sins.
He feels her as she gets up and walks to him. Her hand on his hand, her hand on his cheek, his lips on his mouth, her tongue darting and fighting against the numbness in his own. It’s sweeter than it has ever been and at the same time, it’s more repulsive than ever. She sits on him, on the throne, on his legs, and walks her way with his tongue down his chest.
“I gave you my life, would you give me yours?”
**
Igraine hugs her with arms open and tears on her eyes. “Oh, Nimueh, I needed you so much.”
Nimueh stays the night with her, while the Queen tells her everything she needs to know, every piece of news, every piece of pain. She even tells her about the cold bed that waits her every night.
“I will never leave again, my Queen,” she promises with light kisses and warm hugs. She is afraid this is a promise she won’t be able to keep.
**
He calls for her one afternoon; Gaius comes to her door with the request. She smiles fondly, there’s something deep inside Gaius that makes her comfortable. In a few minutes she is ready and walking down the stairs.
He is waiting for her on the yard. His mere presence indicates he is the King, and some metres away, a pair of guards look out for him. She laughs internally; Uther is better at protecting himself than any of those boys. When she reaches him, he takes her hand and kisses it politely.
“My lady,”
“My king,”
They smile, and it’s so strange to see Uther smiling in the past days that it makes her heart shrink a bit. There’s something twisted about that smile and she is not sure she likes it.
“Is there anything I can do for my lord?” she asks, her hands on her lap, her eyes going past the King. She knows he knows her. Respectful, a doll in front of the court, powerful and dark where they don’t know. It’s what attracts him, her confrontation, her curse and her loyalty.
“Walk with me,” he proposes, and she nods, enlacing her arm with his.
The lands are empty there, every single soul in the Kingdom working, seizing the day. It’s calm and colourful, and Nimueh feels sick with contradiction. Her days since she arrived have been black and tainted, full of gray desires, falling walls, betrayal and lost friendships. The madness of the interior of the court seems too far away from this peaceful section of land.
“Once you promised to grant me a wish,” he starts talking eventually, and her eyes fix on his face immediately. His jaw is clenched and his eyes distant.
“I remember granting your wish, my lord,” her smile sparkles at the memories, it might have been long, but her memories can last decades. “I doubt you have aged enough to forget that, my lord.”
“Always so strange and sincere, my dear Nimueh,” his eyes finally look at her and they stop walking. “That was never my wish, and you, oh so wise, know it.”
“I can’t grant you your wish, Uther,” her arms fall limp at her side as he looks at her, outrageous. “Oh how I wish I could, but it’s not my place to grant you what you so desire. You would not understand the consequences of such actions, my King.”
She spins and leaves, feeling Uther’s eyes following her all the way to her rooms.
**
In the end, everyone gives in, Uther knows that. He has been in too many battlefields; he has reigned for enough men to understand that. All it takes is the correct payments to be done. He gets on her bedroom at night while Igraine is peacefully sleeping on her own. He claps her mouth before she wakes. Her eyes look at him warily.
He knows she will try to say no, but in the end, it is ‘yes’ what they both will know.
**
“Are you sure this is safe?” she asks Igraine. There’s a smile lighting her face, and Nimueh can feel herself flooded with the happiness her friend used to have.
“Yes. Uther trusts Gaius, and apparently Gaius says it’s a safe way. I only need to take the medicine, dear. It’ll be perfect.”
“Of course it will,” she lies and grabs Igraine into an embrace she doesn’t want to end.
‘Nobody can know’ the words echo in her head, and she hides her pain in Igraine’s lips. It’s not as if she hadn’t lied to her before.
**
It all goes downhill from there. She begs Uther to stop this, she begs and prays and tells him he is cursing his life, all their lives.
“Won’t you give me your life?” It’s all it takes for her to shut up every time.
**
The night she performs the enchantment she knows she is going to hell, if hell exists for people like her. She is playing with magic she is not supposed to; she is giving her life for a son that won’t be hers.
She draws herself into the Queen’s bed; she lays kisses on her forehead, on her lips, going downward to her breasts. She mutters words Igraine doesn’t hear, she promises worlds they will not conquer.
And when she leaves, Uther is waiting for her. Grand and powerful, he grabs her lips with his mouth; he searches for the love of his life in her. He’s rough and hungry. He lifts her from the floor and she complies, it’s her purpose, her duty. Her life is his; his life is hers, even before Igraine.
They are destined to become each other’s fantasies, each other’s weakness, and yet, not each other’s soul mates. She whispers spells and words he doesn’t understand, he takes her in the middle of the hallway, just a door away from his wife. It’s the circle closing without him knowing, taking over Nimueh’s power, creating a life that should have never been allowed to exist.
When he leaves her, barely standing against the wall, thick and tired, completely exhausted by her magic and by him, he doesn’t look back. His eyes focused on her wife’s door. She sees him go in, and then gives in.
In her sleep, magic will create her deepest fear, her enemy; the same magic that built her will, in the end destroys her.
**
The night she leaves Camelot it’s with tears in her eyes, blood in her hands and scratches in all her body. He watches her leave. Bare feet, red dress, red blood. She doesn’t look magnificent or exquisite; she doesn’t even look forbidden or addictive. She looks small and weak. Nimueh is after all the murderer of his wife.
He makes himself believe so, he takes her warnings out of his head and he hits the wall until his hands bleed, because she is not there for him to ease his stress. He erases the memories of Nimueh; he curses her and puts black on her skin. He mourns his wife, his true love, the only thing he left behind and he now doesn’t have.
In the night she leaves, Nimueh walks with tears in her eyes. She finally knows what betrayal feels like on her own. She curses Uther and her own magic, their ways of life, their unjustified lust, their need. All this is their fault, and somehow, she is the one that lost the most.
**
She dies without glory. He dies old and shattered.
Only then, the white rose resting under the castle, on the deepest caverns one could reach, shrivelled and broken, dies and becomes dust.
Only then, they rest. Only then, they vanish from earth. Because what was given, can’t be taken back.
c'est fini
Title: Abyssus abyssum invocat
Characters: Nimueh/Uther. With "background" Uther/Igraine, Nimueh/Igraine.
Rating: PG15
Warnings: adult themes suggested | femslash | direct spoilers up to 1x09
Word Count: 2733
Summary: Red dress, bourgeois lips, bare feet and wicked smile. Oh, yes, and a white rose.
Notes: For lovely fortassetu in her birthday! OMG DARLING I HOPE YOU LIKE IT, OK? And that it's not complete crap. ♥
Notes take 2: Abyssus abyssum invocat is Latin for: Hell calls hell.
Beta: I got parvati_blossom to take a quick look at it. All remaining mistakes are mine!
“There’s a lady on the Hall, my lord,” Uther glances up, the young servant backs off a little, waiting.
“What’s her business?” The King asks, and returns his eyes to the paperwork he is working on.
“She has requested an audience with the King, my Lord. She says she brings something the King might be interested in,” the servant pauses a bit, Uther scribbles some notes. “Of course, I could just…”
“Let her in,” he leaves his work to the side, and waits for the guards to let the woman in.
When the door opens, he sees her, tall and beautiful, walking the aisle that brings her to him. Red long laces of her dress falling to the floor where bare feet stand. Soft locks of black hair dance around her face, and her eyes, made of deep blue ocean, are fixed on him. He is enchanted by her mere sight, and can feel the magic she projects almost immediately. He stops thinking, aware of the power the woman in front of him carries.
“King Uther,” she bends lightly. Just a bit, showing respect, showing position. Her lips are curled in a mischievous smile. “I’m Lady Nimueh”
“What brings you to my court, my lady?” He observes the woman, the child, with caution. There’s something odd about the witch, but he doesn’t know what.
“I come to offer my services to my King.” She kneels and extends her hand. Her lips barely move as she pronounces an enchantment. He sees it, though his guards do not (Uther makes a mental point to reprehend them for that). When the woman is done, in her hand rests a rose. It’s white and pure, and lights pour out of it.
“What’s that, Lady Nimueh? What are you offering?” She stands and walks to him, placing the rose in his hand. It feels soft and warm in his skin.
“I’m offering you my life.”
**
Igraine is like a lost child. She smiles and plays. Her heart is made of chocolate and silk. Her eyes illuminate the whole court. She takes her around the grounds by her arm, there’s something that screams ‘she is mine’ in her grab, Nimueh doesn’t really mind. She’s nobody’s after all. Igraine talks about the future children, the sun, the court, the magic of this world, of her love for Uther, of his love for her, Igraine talks a lot. Nimueh doesn’t mind either.
There’s something about Igraine that compels her to watch, to look out. Igraine wakes the most instinctive feelings of her life.
“You should talk to Uther about this travel of yours, my friend,” she is cheerful, optimistic, a gleam of light. On the contrary, Nimueh is the darkest shade of black. “I’m sure he would not object to such journey.”
“I don’t intend to disturb my king with such nonsense on such a busy week, my lady,” she tickles the back of Igraine’s hand with magic and she giggles. It serves its porpoise; Igraine leaves the matter alone and asks her about magic and her previous life.
Nimueh raises her head to meet the cold eyes of Uther on the balcony. They share a simple nod to acknowledge each other’s presence and they keep on with what they were on. Nimueh can feel his eyes on them as they stride the length of the yard.
**
It always feels like a lie. It is a lie. In the dark, hiding from Igraine’s eyes.
“Will you?” “If she…” “She won’t”
They feel guilty, every single time he bites her neck, every time her legs wrap around his waist. They curse it; they blame it all on themselves. They don’t stop.
It’s harder every time. More desperate, more needy. She can’t leave, she knows she has to, but in the night, when Uther’s meeting about war becomes too much, he goes to her.
And in her, he hides.
**
“My lady,” he greets her with a soft smile. Gaius nods in the back and leaves before he is ordered.
“My King,” she smiles back once they are alone.
“Why are you honouring me with your presence?” he grabs her chin, drawing her closer. She lets him, hand clasping with power on his legs. Moving slowly in indecent ways for the court throne.
“I need to ask something from you, my King,” he glares at her, hand still cupping her face with all his strength. He knows she’ll hide the bruises afterwards. It’s not usual for the witch to request anything from him.
“Ask, my lady,” He can feel her hand moving up, her magic coming out of her fingers, getting to his skin. “Play fair if you want your wish to be granted, Nimueh”
“I must set off on a journey,” she moves closely enough to whisper into his lips, her hands now still on his legs. “Grant me my wish, and I’ll grant you yours.”
He kisses her before he can’t form a ‘no’. Blood and poison in their mouths. Betrayal in their hearts. She sits on him, and he brings her as close as he can.
“Of course, madam” is all he manages to gasp.
**
If Igraine notices something different, she doesn’t say it. She curls at his husband’s waist and kisses him good night. He smiles fondly; his love for Igraine is the biggest thing he has and yet… there’s a void left by Nimueh’s disappearance from the kingdom.
Two weeks without news and he is getting desperate, anxious, brutal. Only Igraine seems to steal smiles out of him, and for that, he is grateful.
It helps to keep up the charade.
On the fourth week, he feels like waling through the walls. Igraine clinches to him in bed, and Uther just stares to the wall, desperate to have Nimueh back. He dreams of her skin, of her twisted lips on his body, of her hands, of her curves, of her magic inside him and him inside her. He wakes up panting, kisses his wife and softly makes love to her. Softly, as if he was afraid of breaking her. It’s not what he wants, what he needs, but he will have to settle.
On the fifth week, Igraine finds out she’ll never be able to grant him a child. And that’s when hell arises.
**
Nimueh comes back on an autumn afternoon. She looks exactly the same she did the first day she arrived at Camelot. Red dress, bourgeois lips, bare feet and wicked smile. She smells of salt and magic, of new worlds and new fantasies. She presents herself in front of her King and offers her magic to his command. The King eyes don’t lift up.
He sees her as a ghost, something that is there but at the same time is not. He feels the months that have passed on his shoulders, the news he can’t reverse in his stomach, and the lost he has learnt to live with knocks at his door in silence.
“Is there anything my King needs?” Nimueh asks, her voice soft, too soft, her eyes perverse. He nods at the guards and they leave.
“Madam, you have been gone for more than three months and you expect to be welcomed back with arms fully open,”
“Like the first day, my lord,” she shortens the distance. Her hands on her back, her lips red as blood moving softly, her eyes fixed on him.
“These are no times for glory, Lady Nimueh,” he barks. He feels the rage under his words, under his skin, and when she is close enough, he grabs her neck and pulls her to him. “This is a time of grieve, madam”
He spits poison, he knows it. He feels Nimueh’s pulse under his hand, where he makes pressure. She doesn’t move, she doesn’t fight. She doesn’t even look scared. She just waits, barely breathing until he finally lets her go. He sees her fall to her knees, desperately filling her lungs with air.
“Do something, witch” he glares at her, kneeling at her side. “Do something, because you ran and hid, you left everything behind. Now, do something.” He is full with rage and pain. He is more desperate than ever.
“I handed over my life to you, it is yours to take.” Her voice is sore, probably due to the pressure he put on her throat. He can already see the marks of his hand on her skin.
“You are strange,” he looks away, unable to keep more eye contact with the woman that reminds him of his sins.
He feels her as she gets up and walks to him. Her hand on his hand, her hand on his cheek, his lips on his mouth, her tongue darting and fighting against the numbness in his own. It’s sweeter than it has ever been and at the same time, it’s more repulsive than ever. She sits on him, on the throne, on his legs, and walks her way with his tongue down his chest.
“I gave you my life, would you give me yours?”
**
Igraine hugs her with arms open and tears on her eyes. “Oh, Nimueh, I needed you so much.”
Nimueh stays the night with her, while the Queen tells her everything she needs to know, every piece of news, every piece of pain. She even tells her about the cold bed that waits her every night.
“I will never leave again, my Queen,” she promises with light kisses and warm hugs. She is afraid this is a promise she won’t be able to keep.
**
He calls for her one afternoon; Gaius comes to her door with the request. She smiles fondly, there’s something deep inside Gaius that makes her comfortable. In a few minutes she is ready and walking down the stairs.
He is waiting for her on the yard. His mere presence indicates he is the King, and some metres away, a pair of guards look out for him. She laughs internally; Uther is better at protecting himself than any of those boys. When she reaches him, he takes her hand and kisses it politely.
“My lady,”
“My king,”
They smile, and it’s so strange to see Uther smiling in the past days that it makes her heart shrink a bit. There’s something twisted about that smile and she is not sure she likes it.
“Is there anything I can do for my lord?” she asks, her hands on her lap, her eyes going past the King. She knows he knows her. Respectful, a doll in front of the court, powerful and dark where they don’t know. It’s what attracts him, her confrontation, her curse and her loyalty.
“Walk with me,” he proposes, and she nods, enlacing her arm with his.
The lands are empty there, every single soul in the Kingdom working, seizing the day. It’s calm and colourful, and Nimueh feels sick with contradiction. Her days since she arrived have been black and tainted, full of gray desires, falling walls, betrayal and lost friendships. The madness of the interior of the court seems too far away from this peaceful section of land.
“Once you promised to grant me a wish,” he starts talking eventually, and her eyes fix on his face immediately. His jaw is clenched and his eyes distant.
“I remember granting your wish, my lord,” her smile sparkles at the memories, it might have been long, but her memories can last decades. “I doubt you have aged enough to forget that, my lord.”
“Always so strange and sincere, my dear Nimueh,” his eyes finally look at her and they stop walking. “That was never my wish, and you, oh so wise, know it.”
“I can’t grant you your wish, Uther,” her arms fall limp at her side as he looks at her, outrageous. “Oh how I wish I could, but it’s not my place to grant you what you so desire. You would not understand the consequences of such actions, my King.”
She spins and leaves, feeling Uther’s eyes following her all the way to her rooms.
**
In the end, everyone gives in, Uther knows that. He has been in too many battlefields; he has reigned for enough men to understand that. All it takes is the correct payments to be done. He gets on her bedroom at night while Igraine is peacefully sleeping on her own. He claps her mouth before she wakes. Her eyes look at him warily.
He knows she will try to say no, but in the end, it is ‘yes’ what they both will know.
**
“Are you sure this is safe?” she asks Igraine. There’s a smile lighting her face, and Nimueh can feel herself flooded with the happiness her friend used to have.
“Yes. Uther trusts Gaius, and apparently Gaius says it’s a safe way. I only need to take the medicine, dear. It’ll be perfect.”
“Of course it will,” she lies and grabs Igraine into an embrace she doesn’t want to end.
‘Nobody can know’ the words echo in her head, and she hides her pain in Igraine’s lips. It’s not as if she hadn’t lied to her before.
**
It all goes downhill from there. She begs Uther to stop this, she begs and prays and tells him he is cursing his life, all their lives.
“Won’t you give me your life?” It’s all it takes for her to shut up every time.
**
The night she performs the enchantment she knows she is going to hell, if hell exists for people like her. She is playing with magic she is not supposed to; she is giving her life for a son that won’t be hers.
She draws herself into the Queen’s bed; she lays kisses on her forehead, on her lips, going downward to her breasts. She mutters words Igraine doesn’t hear, she promises worlds they will not conquer.
And when she leaves, Uther is waiting for her. Grand and powerful, he grabs her lips with his mouth; he searches for the love of his life in her. He’s rough and hungry. He lifts her from the floor and she complies, it’s her purpose, her duty. Her life is his; his life is hers, even before Igraine.
They are destined to become each other’s fantasies, each other’s weakness, and yet, not each other’s soul mates. She whispers spells and words he doesn’t understand, he takes her in the middle of the hallway, just a door away from his wife. It’s the circle closing without him knowing, taking over Nimueh’s power, creating a life that should have never been allowed to exist.
When he leaves her, barely standing against the wall, thick and tired, completely exhausted by her magic and by him, he doesn’t look back. His eyes focused on her wife’s door. She sees him go in, and then gives in.
In her sleep, magic will create her deepest fear, her enemy; the same magic that built her will, in the end destroys her.
**
The night she leaves Camelot it’s with tears in her eyes, blood in her hands and scratches in all her body. He watches her leave. Bare feet, red dress, red blood. She doesn’t look magnificent or exquisite; she doesn’t even look forbidden or addictive. She looks small and weak. Nimueh is after all the murderer of his wife.
He makes himself believe so, he takes her warnings out of his head and he hits the wall until his hands bleed, because she is not there for him to ease his stress. He erases the memories of Nimueh; he curses her and puts black on her skin. He mourns his wife, his true love, the only thing he left behind and he now doesn’t have.
In the night she leaves, Nimueh walks with tears in her eyes. She finally knows what betrayal feels like on her own. She curses Uther and her own magic, their ways of life, their unjustified lust, their need. All this is their fault, and somehow, she is the one that lost the most.
**
She dies without glory. He dies old and shattered.
Only then, the white rose resting under the castle, on the deepest caverns one could reach, shrivelled and broken, dies and becomes dust.
Only then, they rest. Only then, they vanish from earth. Because what was given, can’t be taken back.
c'est fini