Semper Fidelis, Semper Fortis
Title: Semper Fidelis, Semper Fortis
Theme and/or Prompt/s: (Drama/Angst) A3 (Axe - http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1278/1347099512_6ae798299d_m.jpg)
> > B11 ("Stolen kisses are always the sweetest." - Leigh Hunt )
> > C4 (Bonded with chains.)
Rating: PG13
Word count: 4996
Characters/Pairings: Arthur, Gwen, Morgana, Mordred, Morgause, and a few more / Pairing (Arthur/Gwen)
Spoilers/Warnings: Character Death, Violence / Speculation/Imagination based on season 1 to season 3
Disclaimer: Fully disclaim, written for fun. Merlin: BBC and Shine own it.
Summary: Love, its faith, its strength, is the bravest most vital rescue, beyond magic, beyond weaponry.
Author’s notes: Future Fic, WIP (Cannon mostly) This is the first part. There will be one more part.//This was written for an ag_fics challenge.
Semper Fidelis, Semper Fortis
Part I
“He’s dying.”
No.
One more stolen kiss
Life.
Before
Two girls run through a bare primeval fort, emerged from capacious palace towers. No titles, no required roles, freedom is infinite here. They are kindred spirits, pretend sisters in this imagined creation.
Gwen opens her eyes, finds herself upon the grand bed of his quarters, the side nearest chilled. She spots the cause; wistful, he is standing at the window sill. Lowering the thick covers, she vacates the bed, bared feet taking her past the smoldering embers quietly burning in the fireplace. It is barely able to heat the icy floor, but at least illuminates the way for her more powerfully than the pale moon and its star twins.
“Arthur?” She whispers, and as he doesn’t react, steps closer to offer a shield of comfort.
Arthur feels the thick cotton of Gwen’s nightdress press against his back, even more intimately, the swell of her breasts through the not so substantial white tunic he wears. He locks her hand into his, holds it fast at his heart, closing fatigued eyes, needing her nearness and calm strength.
“What are you thinking?” Her lips murmur against his neck, her free hand sheltering his waist with tendering circles of motion.
There is momentary hesitation before he breathes out heavily, “Years ago what I told Merlin was wrong; a lost man is worth at least a few tears when he’s proven his worth, shown himself to be brave, noble and, just fun to be around.”
Gwen thinks how the past year has been one with so many alterations, that parental illness and this kind of change, death, is cruelest.
Arthur continues, “Perhaps my father was right about only nobles being suited for knighthood. If I had followed that creed, Percival never would have been in this battle, had a blade struck through his back.”
Grasping his waist, Gwen turns him around. Counseling unwaveringly, she takes Arthur’s face in her small, but worked hands, strong from years of servant toils and a spirit that has never been weak.
“Percival loved being a knight; he went into battle bravely. You must not blame yourself for his demise nor take away his honor by lamenting so strongly.” Fingering his cheek, she whispers with tender reminder, “Percival would not want that.”
Arthur soberly agrees even as the pain is fresh with the burial just this day and the actual death less than a week ago. He has always been close to the knights, but especially now with the brothers in arms who he started up himself by lifting the rule of noble blood during a time Camelot’s fate was threatened.
The remembrance of this time brings out his anger. “Why has Morgana started this? What exactly does she want, well that is other than the throne. Is it not enough that my father is ill from her failed attempt to rule this land? That I can’t even reach him anymore? Doesn’t she care that this entire kingdom turned itself inside out to find her when she was missing? Doesn’t it matter to her that she’s my sis-
His voice breaks and Gwen, Arthur’s lover, companion, and soon to be queen, wishes she could take him away from this building tumult. Pressing her fingers to his chest, she sweetly steals his lips with her own, warding off the chill of not only winter, but grievance.
Pausing between, she voices, “I wish I could tell you something soothing, but I too have no answers to those questions. I once thought she was my friend.”
Arthur sighs distressingly, increased bandit attacks, political issues of his decisions, Perceval’s untimely death, his father’s mental-physical ailments, and his half sister’s betrayal, weighing heavily on his mind, but also he knows this has been no easier for her because Guinevere truly loved her mistress.
He presses cold fingers against her neck, feeling them warm as they touch her not so icy skin, “I know how hard this has been for you too, how her deception was so unexpected and damaging.”
Peering at her curiously then, he inquires, “What were you dreaming of? You whispered a few words in your sleep.”
Gwen pushes the pain in her heart away, realizing that his rescue is much more important to her, because his burden is greater. “Just fragments of childhood. Happy ones.”
Finally a smile edges past his stolid lips, bolstered as he feels her hand reach for his, pulling him back to the warmth of the bed. He submits as she aligns herself with the mattress, coaxing his head to rest upon the rise of her heart. Sighing, Arthur grasps the cotton material of her sleeping gown, rumpling it with his battle wearied fingers.
Gwen weaves hers through his aureate trails of hair soothingly, holding steady, saving him from laborious duties of day. Here in this bed and sometimes in her smaller one, they find intimate respite, the extent of their relationship only known to those closest to them.
Coming to a quick decision, Gwen whispers against Arthur’s ear, “I think you should take your leave tomorrow early in the morning, a trek through the wood on your own.”
He actually laughs at that, reminding, “I’m not just a young prince anymore Guinevere without fierce obligation, more-so I’m regent king now and I can’t just go traipsing through the wood like I did as a boy. You’ve always counseled me to not relinquish my duty.”
“I’m not saying any different now, just everyone needs release; with what has transpired in the past days you especially are entitled to one.”
“Saving me from my work?” He teases.
That brings out her soft but firm smile. “Yes, perhaps, now listen to me; if you go early enough no one will know much of it. You can return within first hours of sunlight.”
Arthur attempts averting the suggestion, but as the night comes to its final hours before morning, Gwen insists strongly, cupping his chin, stealing another kiss from his cold lips, “It will help to be away from this Arthur, even if for only a short period.”
He kisses her back slowly, the intensity escalating as Arthur’s fingers move over the material of Gwen’s gown, his hand possessively cupping her breast with the passion of love, sweetly stealing kisses of his own, for this woman does it now as she always does, saves him for a tender private moment from the awesomeness of who he is expected to become. “I’ll go.” He whispers, grasping her body closer with desire, caressing it, as she lifts her hands under his tunic, crisscrosses them intimately over the bare of his back.
^*^
As this mostly secret relationship is fulfilled in the castle, beyond in a basic abdicated edifice, are three who plot. The first has visions often, one most recently alerting her to what will transpire the next day; now they will use that revelation, the two of them. The third plotter is a woman who has led most of this assuredly, but now she has a nettlesome choice. The boy has interfered with the close relationship between the two women and so has the truth, that they are not sisters, that another is related to the regent king and therefore too, has a right to strip him of the crown.
^***^
The sun battles the misty nebula for dominance, effectuating imperfect success as the icy winter night leads to a morning of frosty drafts. Through the mist rides Arthur Pendragon, realizing with a languid smile that his lover is right. This is the respite of salvation he has needed. Wearing a thick coat, he leads his favored horse to a relaxing canter through the peaceful wood.
Beyond, in a cave are two of the plotters from the edifice, wearing hooded cloaks. Together with concentrating hands they invoke through the cauldron’s steam a mounting formation that as it builds casts a shadow over them.
“Just about ready.” Morgana smiles, pushing away the troubling dream of just the night before, and the ghost of days past, that has whispered the wrongness of this.
“Yes.” Mordred agrees, happy to be away from the third part of their party who when they suggested this negated it as foolish.
Unfortunately for them that third party member realizes that they have plotted against her, as she is in close vicinity conspiring with others to make sure their plot doesn’t come to fruition.
Past all of that is an innocent person who knows none of this plotting, as his reason for being in the wood is to get some healing plants for his sometimes ailing mother, a blundering sort he does have one distinction, that he once played a knightly role. This day his number of distinctions may increase.
Spying people who he knows are enemies of Camelot, the man looks for a tree, finding one climbs high above. He may not have had the best coordination as a knight, but since being a boy he has been an agile climber. In his pack is a net that now with his rear set upon the tree branch, he drops without warning.
It hits Morgause suddenly; the tangling netted material constrains so she cannot interfere with Morgana and Mordred’s plan, allowing whatever they have brought forth from the cauldron to come to life.
The bandits who aid Morgause, because they abhor Camelot’s rising power and unrestrained efforts to prevent men like them from having their freedom, look on in shock. This wasn’t meant to happen.
It is as Arthur passes from the thick foliage to the needled pines, his horse snorts apprehensively. “What is it?” Arthur asks, pulling out his sword.
As the beast inches closer, giving him a sharp glance, Arthur’s eyes widen; the horse bucks underneath his rear fearfully. “Oh.” Arthur breathes.
It is a fiend of sorcery, the Questing Beast. The last time he encountered one its lethal bite nearly decimated him, and it’s possible he could face the same threat this day, for now the beast leaps. Trampling frail bushes and shortened trees, it swats them away with its long limbs.
Arthur gives the horse a hard turn into the wooded depths, the dense foliage precarious. Usually minded to his horse’s moods and the terrain, Arthur’s concentration is now too shaken. He rides straight through a bramble of brush, causing the horse’s hooves to tangle.
Horse and rider careen downward. Arthur rolls head first before his back slaps the ground brutally. The horse regains its footing soon enough, but the Questing Beast’s scream makes its eyes go wide before it erratically flees. His stomach scraping the ground, the regent king groans with pain, but with the situation dire, he gets to his feet, runs.
Coming to a patch of opening, he backs up, gauging the distance between himself and the beast. The lower part of his back hits something that feels oddly edged for nature. Turning to look, Arthur notices a tall stone that makes him shrug with indifference at first. Giving it a second look, he realizes that coming out of the tall stone is shining metal, the handle of an actual sword.
Take me.
Arthur jolts with shock, looking around, but nothing accompanies the voice carried on the wind.
The Questing Beast bashes through a grouping of trees. Then it stomps toward Arthur with a predatory cry.
Arthur shivers, knowing his arsenal will fail against this conjured creature.
The wind rustles around him, hums contrary to the thundering footsteps.
Bring me out of the stone.
Now.
Warily, Arthur turns to the sword drilled into the stone, pulls hard at it, but nothing happens.
He shakes his head, pushing away his fear, thinking of family, friendship, love, Guinevere. Too, he imagines himself as a noble courageous king. As he concentrates on all this, Arthur’s mind actually communes with the humming wind.
This time when he pulls at the sword, with a trill whistle of metal sliding through rock, it comes out. It’s grip is stealthy, a finely made sword, but also like nothing he’s ever seen, shining so brightly gold it’s utterly beautiful, the oddest part being what’s burnished into the metal, an ancient language, perhaps diabolical.
Arthur turns rapidly, sideswipes with the sword straight to the beast’s middle. Dark curdling blood spews in his direction, stains the blade as the beast lets out a hideous scream. There is a flash, akin to lightening, the beast’s tortured cry, an explosion of sound and sight, particles of the beast’s body actually puzzling into the air and then, nothing.
Only the shining sword is left in Arthur’s hands, once again, stainless. The beast completely disappears. Arthur’s aghast as he realizes what he didn’t dare ponder upon before. As much as the beast was a fiend so is this sword, malevolently created by sorcery, what he has been raised since birth to believe as evil.
Shaking hands release it; the sword falls far down below, landing with a muted splash. So stunned by what has happened Arthur doesn’t become aware of the woman standing behind him fast enough.
Morgause, escaped from the net, ponders him quietly, almost resisting, and then with hands raised, releases a brutal force of wind. Arthur’s body is taken by it, his head and back smacking against a tree’s rigid trunk. He cries out at impact, and then falls limply to the ground.
Morgause looks to the bandits who aid her, showing little emotion as she examines that the regent king is unconscious.
“Go below. Get me the sword he dropped.” Toward one bandit, she gestures to the fallen Arthur, “You, carry him.”
Morgana and Mordred secretly watch the action, disappointed their plan has failed.
In the tree the uninvolved party stays still, waiting until they’re all out of hearing distance before he scrambles back to Camelot.
^*^
As Gwen is descending the palace steps to check on the kitchen, she hears a scuffle at the entrance. Seeing William, the same man who pretended to be a knight so Arthur could joust with his identity hidden, she calls out to the guards, William’s frantic expression alerting her strongly.
“Let him pass.”
Her close relationship with Arthur partially known to them, the guards heed. Gwen descends the rest of the steps rapidly, coming to stand before the ragged dressed man. “What is it William?”
“Arthur, he-he’s in trouble. There was this horrible animal. It nearly killed the regent king, but he stopped it with some odd sword. Then Morgause escaped the net I tried to trap her in, knocked him out magically-
Gwen hears little more before she rushes out of the castle, her long skirts fisted into her hands.
^*^
The bandits come to the lake where in its shallowest depths gold flickers through. They tread into the water as it hums, trills.
Leave.
The roughly faced men startle before laughing away the sound, fighting over who will be the one to keep the magnificent sword, stunned by its flaming beauty.
You were warned.
The still water ripples, coming to quietly rise over the men’s feet, before it ascends to their ankles, past their knees, their waists, and then a low roar as it mounts their heads.
The men scream, but there is no relent. They are sucked into the lake, transformed into something not entirely human by what lives in the water. It was never herintention to make them foe for those who are noble, but something she has no control over, for years ago she herself was cursed likewise.
They depart the water with roaring cries of agony and predatory howls. As they lumber away on four unaccustomed feet into the wood, it lies again within the lake’s shallowest waters, a glint of gold.
^*^
Gwen tidies one room after another, exhaustively, telling herself she did the right thing, that the knights will find him, but her heart is conflicted. She lowers to the guest bed, tiredly closes her eyes.
^*^
Morgause and the bandit enter the edifice. Dragging the regent king, the bandit follows her into a small dark windowless room, chains hanging from the ceiling. Morgause gestures to them. “Lock him in.”
^*^
Girls start a game of chase through the fort’s open doorways, laughing with youthfulness. They pursue each other playfully. Then suddenly everything changes, as the game is no longer so innocent, a familiar voice crying out in pain.
Gwen wakes with a scream, ominous realization coming to her. She jumps from the bed, heading up the steps until she reaches the floor of the knight’s quarters. Finding her brother’s, she spots something of interest that she takes with her.
Then ascending another flight of steps she comes to Arthur’s room. First searching the armoire and then a trunk she finds pants and boots that she owns. Unable to locate one of her shirts, she takes from the chair his red tunic and from the armoire one of his jackets. Carrying the clothing behind the changing screen, she shrugs out of her dress.
^*^
As Morgana and Mordred return to the edifice, they hear voices.
Morgause ponders the regent king quietly as his eyes start to open. “Awake now?”
Arthur stares at her before grimacing tightly, struggling against the chains. Morgause shakes her head, letting Arthur know that they are bonded by magic, so he will not be able to break free. As Morgana steps into the small room, watchful, Morgause releases words of sorcery.
Arthur is still for a moment, before he cries out in anguish, the delineation of his body charged with angry sparks.
^*^
Gwen rides a silver-white horse out of Camelot’s gates with haste as icy night fully descends. She pushes on at a dizzying speed until nearing a quiet lake, the horse suddenly halts, letting out a shrill cry.
“What’s wrong?” Gwen asks, kicking her feet into its sides, but the horse won’t budge, not even with her coaxing. She jumps off its back, pulling at the reins, but it is too spooked by something she can’t see, to go forward. Soon enough she hears it. Moans come from behind, that grow into hisses, into roars, into screeches. The horse’s nostrils quiver, its eyes widening, before it runs off at a fierce gallop.
Her throat dry, Gwen pulls Elyan’s axe out of Arthur’s borrowed utility belt, turns around slowly, mouth gaping at what she now sees.
Animals are there of hideous creation, not natural, mostly wolf, fragmented human. Blood seeps from talon-like incisors as they howl in torture.
Gwen lifts the axe higher, forcing the fear she is feeling to not take over. There are probably five of them, outnumbering her for sure, but there has to be a way out of this.
The animals advance upon her, circling to block their desired prey in.
Backing up, Gwen cautiously tries to get away; at that moment one of them veers from the pack. It lashes out at her arm. Gwen screams in pain, the creature’s claws tearing her skin raggedly, making it start to bleed. Stumbling into the muck of the lake, she loses her footing, falls to her rear, her right hand hitting something foreign.
The beastly animals seem wary of the lake, but one of them does brave it. Entering slowly, predatorily, it snarls threateningly at Gwen.
Use me.
Gwen startles at the unexplained voice, thinking to herself maybe it’s just the whispering of the waves. She looks down at what her hand touched upon after she fell, something flickering through the water. Grasping hold, she lifts out a shining sword just as the beastly animal treads closer, baring barbed teeth, a widening jaw.
NOW
Gwen strikes with the sword, hearing the animal’s agonized shrill as the blade makes contact with its flesh, and then with an explosion of volcanic particles is gone, the sword’s blade untarnished.
The beastly creatures depart with fear, enabling Gwen to come out of the water with relief and questions. Looking down at her bleeding arm, she rips the hem of Arthur’s tunic, makes a crude bandage, in wonder at what just happened, but not so much that she forgets why she rode out of Camelot so rapidly.
Gwen ascends the hilled terrain away from the lake, until she hears what sounds and feels like the pulse of movement upon the ground, possibly another beastly animal. Scrambling behind a tree, heart beat rapid, as she’s already faced plenty, Gwen grips the axe with whitening knuckles.
^*^
Hanging from his entrapment, it being the only thing keeping him upright, Arthur groans, in pain from his injuries of earlier, but even more-so, the wickedly bonded chains. He feels like his body is being burnt by the sun, by flashes of a storm’s lightning. Trying to show strength, he manages to regally lift his head, eyes cold for whoever stands there watching, now his sister.
With disgust he calls out, “Why are you doing this Morgana? Don’t you care at all that we are related by blood? That I searched for you for a year?”
His voice is hurt, Morgana can hear it, more by the treachery it seems than the physical pain of Morgause’s torture. She feels the other woman’s eyes on her, guarded. Morgana realizes that their relationship has been strained since her co-plotter joined the group.
As if on cue, Mordred now enters the room with a sneering look and a belligerent tone as he demands from Morgause, “Why did you stop us?”
She doesn’t even bother to look at him, focusing instead on the regent king who is quickly falling under the torturous magic of the chains, perhaps a side effect of his odd way of coming into the world. “Because your plan was ill prepared.”
“And this is better?”
Morgause unleashes another wave of energy, glaring at the annoying boy Morgana insisted would be a perfect ally. Arthur’s body contorts as his dignity can’t prevent the scream from escaping his throat. She watches curiously before departing the room, breath suddenly heavy, her voice echoing, “Yes, it’s better.”
^*^
Gwen brings the axe down swiftly, but something catches at it just as quickly, cutting off the blow. She gasps, ready to fight harder, grunts as she swings again, but then suddenly hears her name.
“Gwen!”
She knows that voice. Gwen drops the axe, seeing as the man steps closer, the familiar hood he often wears on his head, even under knight’s uniform. “Elyan!” She breathes with relief, hugging him before he insists she explain. Gwen relates the entire story, even the beastly creatures and sword she found in the lake.
Just returning from a knightly mission, Elyan insists now, “I know you want to save him, but you can’t go alone.” He stops his argument as he notices the shine against Arthur’s jacket. She told him about the sword of course (and her strange attire), but he had no idea it would like this. Reaching forward, Elyan brings it out. Gwen turns it over as he holds it, showing him a motif on the side.
Elyan stares at it with wonder, thinking it’s impossible, because this sword is like none he’s ever seen, but that motif is very familiar. “Dad?”
“He always put on his handicraft this exact motif.”
Elyan quietly agrees, the sword a strange mystery that he wonders if ever-
His thoughts are ceased by a hand that tugs on his arm, eyes looking upward to his with intensity. “I have to rescue him; there’s no telling what Morgana and Morgause will do.”
Elyan hears the crack of pain for her mistress, but mainly for the regent king. Smiling gently, he gestures for Gwen to get on his horse first. “Let’s go then.”
^*^
As the night proceeds, Morgana sleeps with troubled dreams, Mordred’s whereabouts are not so clear, and Morgause reenters the small room, hearing the man’s ragged breathing as he tries to struggle against the chains stubbornly.
“You don’t recall? They are made of magic.”
Arthur sneers in the dark, looking away from the torch Morgause puts close to his face, glaring. “I will hunt you down myself for this.”
“If you live.” Morgause intones ominously, touching his shoulder, feeling Arthur flinch away like she is poison. Her expression gentles, contradictory as she whispers, “Why didn’t you kill him? I gave you everything you needed, showed you what he did to o-
your mother.”
“You showed me lies.”
“No.” Morgause sadly states. “I showed you truth Arthur Pendragon, of a woman who I loved greatly. Morgana is not your only sister. I am too. We are both of Igraine, you and I. She was OUR mother. And you betrayed her by allowing the king to live. For that, you will pay with your life. Perhaps a life that never should have begun, since the sorcery you hate, created you, and with your father’s ill will murdered our mother.”
Horrified, Arthur spits out. “You’re LYING!”
“Am I?” Morgause’s voice is melancholy, before she sneers, battling feeling and power, chanting words of ancient language. Arthur has no time to emotionally react for soon his physical self is writhing. Emotionlessly, Morgause watches before letting it go with a snap of her hands, departing the room.
Arthur pants heavily, agonized.
In a hidden corner is Mordred, a light sleeper from years spent with the druids, he watches curiously, with an odd smile. He too has secrets that Morgause will be shocked to find out.
^*^
It is eerily quiet as Gwen and Elyan come to the fort from Gwen’s dreams, the edifice. She notices something odd that she now mentions to him, seeing through his utility belt the glint of the burnished sword that he now carries. “Not even guarded.”
“Right.” Elyan is cautious as he gestures to a glassless window for Gwen to go first. “Careful. It may be on purpose.”
Gwen nods her head, stepping inside the familiar primeval dwelling, knowing without much light the four rooms’ placement. Elyan goes to one side as she heads in the other, holding his axe ready.
As she comes to a small windowless room, she hears muted moans her heart knows. Gwen hurries inside, catching a shining glint. Lifting her eyes with intended focus, she sees that it is chains hanging from the ceiling; locked within them is the man she loves.
“Arthur!” She breathes, rushing forward, noticing even though there are no obvious bruises or cuts, he seems badly hurt. His body hangs lifelessly from the chains that bind his wrists, his expression worn ragged.
Gwen caresses Arthur’s cheek, stunned to find it burning, “Oh, so feverish!” Lifting up, she steals from his half parted lips a sweet kiss, fingering his wet hair, tracing away the hot sweat from his flaming skin. She tenderly caresses it, whispering,
“Arthur, my love, open your eyes.”
Slowly his lashes flicker; blue eyes unsteadily focus on hers, “Guinevere?”
Arthur’s time here has been hellish. He can barely focus on anything right now, but her face, the salvation she brings.
“Yes.” Gwen feels tears in her eyes, but pushes them away, no time now. Looking up at the hideous chains, she swings the axe far from his wrists to not mangle the cut.
Arthur listlessly informs, “They’re bonded by magic.”
Realizing he’s been tortured by sorcery, Gwen calls out quietly, “Elyan, come quick.”
“Go. Get out of here. Too dangerous.” Arthur warns.
“No.” Gwen counters strongly. “Not without you.”
“You found him!” Elyan appears, grimacing at Arthur’s poor condition.
Gwen, holding protectively to Arthur’s wet flaming cheek, orders firmly, “The sword I found at the lake, give it to me Elyan; and please be ready to catch him.”
Elyan gives his sister the sword without argument, but wonders about its possible use.
Gwen feels the firmness that her father put to his craft, sees the motif, as she slices upward. The chains break apart with a flash, saving Arthur, to whom Gwen is engaged, the golden glint on her finger exposing that now.
Freed, Arthur falls into Elyan’s arms, the contact making Elyan whisper with shock, “His skin, it’s burning Gwen!”
She worriedly echoes, “I know, we have to get him out of here.”
A voice stops their progress.
“You’ve come uninvited. Now you will have to meet his fate.”
Gwen veers, holding the sword fiercely, worry melding with angered calm. Arthur is gravely injured, ill, hurt by this sorceress; she will not allow that to happen without response. She has never been one for retribution, but is disgusted right now by what has been done to the man she loves, that Morgana has allowed this.
“Take Arthur away Elyan.”
Morgause thinly smiles before she speaks words of magic to make the sword hers, holding out her hand, expecting.
“No.” Arthur weakly warns. Elyan gets his sword out from its belt, prepped to defend his sister.
The burnished sword doesn’t budge though, not one bit. Even Gwen is stunned, but keeps in heart the magical happenings at the lake, the motif of her Dad.
Morgause tries again. Nothing happens, making the sorceress glare with frustration.
Gwen stands even more stolidly, sword locked to her palm, pressed to her fingers, abiding to her will. Gwen is unyielding, almost fearless as she commands her brother quietly. “Now, Elyan.”
Elyan moves, but as Arthur whispers unsteadily, yet with insistence, Elyan doesn’t go that far, firmly replying back.
Two others enter the room, one with shocked eyes; Elyan is surprised at the third, the boy not that familiar to him.
Gwen stands courageous as a knight, love, loyalty and protection on her side, solid reason the sword stays steady in her hand as she rescues her king further. It is meant to safeguard him, originally crafted by her blood kin, and given by her own hands to Merlin years ago to keep Arthur secure then.
It is Excalibur
She, the queen of future days, is ready to wield it now if necessary, with valor, allegiance.
Semper Fidelis
Semper Fortis.
End of Part I
Semper Fidelis is Latin for Always Faithful
Semper Fortis is Latin for Always Brave