[snapshot]

[illgotten]

He's standing to one side of the path around the lake, looking at the rosebushes with a faint, preoccupied frown. The late afternoon breeze ruffles his hair, grown longer than it has been and now straying into his eyes; it does not make his expression any easier to read.

One might easily come upon him unawares, in this place.

[/sock] open post,

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[rightismight]

"Should I question," asks a light voice from a few metres away, "if there is something wrong with the roses?" Should Mordred turn towards the sound, Arthur's not even looking not him.

[illgotten]

He stiffens, half turning. "No," he says after a pause, shortly, and starts to edge away.

[rightismight]

"Ah," is all he can manage at first. "Then I will not."

[illgotten]

"Your pardon," in a less than contrite undertone.

[rightismight]

"'Tis yours." His tone is flat.

[illgotten]

(--a wary boy, standing just about here, hands in his pockets, with a muttered "Sorry"-- just that gruff, that awkward, but not that cold--)

Abruptly he stops, turning back again. "Tell me--"

[rightismight]

Arthur's never been a man to deny second chances (third chances, no those he sometimes has trouble with, but no, left to his own devices, he'll always forgive-- to an extent).

"What would you hear?" It is soft.

[illgotten]

A long, knotted silence. Then:

"The truth," Mordred says, and if it's no less of a challenge, it is less defiant.

[rightismight]

It is a weighty promise to make, and so he does not-- yet.

"Of what?"

[illgotten]

A bitter look. "Anything."

[rightismight]

There's a pause for the wind, if there is any, and yet a pause even if there is not.

"I am sorry." Once again, he's not looking at Mordred.

[illgotten]

Who draws breath sharply, as if to retort, and only then seems to register his tone. He falls silent, instead, standing very still.

[rightismight]

(--it's truly an apology-- the only apology he can make, for what does one say when there's a life one didn't intend, and a troubled life at that? but Arthur, Arthur tries not to think in these terms--)

"What would you of me?" It's not a challenge. It's a request.

[illgotten]

And Mordred looks away, his face tightening strangely. "Truth, --father." Harshly, because the word is double-edged, hurts to say as much as it could to hear. "No more than that. No less."

[rightismight]

It does hurt to hear. It stings; it hurts more than he'd ever thought it would, and not the least because he does have a hope to hear that word again (be he never will).

"Then--" and he speaks gently, yet with a power, a command that says he is a king and he is the king. "Then it is what I shall give you." There are too many things to say and so he adds only: "Ask."

[illgotten]

Too many things to ask. "Why?" is all that comes: softly, roughly. A child's question.