Dóchas Materpost
Title: Dóchas
Author: phys_nut
Beta: dwarfandelf
Pairing/s: Arthur/Merlin, Uther/Morgana
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,247
Warning(s): Religious themes, Age differences (Arthur/Merlin - 18/24, Uther/Morgana - 39/26)
Summary: After his wife is killed, Uther quits being a reverend and turns his back on God and religion. Arthur follows his father’s hatred, until he meets Merlin, a trainee priest, who takes it upon himself to help Arthur foster his own faith and belief.
Art link: Can be found HERE by the utterly fabulour jhava ! maow maow MAOW! This is absolutely lush, I feel so honoured to have had this piece created for my story!
Disclaimer: Unfortunately I don't own the BBC's Merlin or the Arthurian Legend, I'm just borrowing them for a little fun! No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
Author's Notes: First of all, I’d like to give a big GIGANTIC thank you! To my beta dwarfandelf , she is an absolute goddess for putting up with my throwing stories at her out of nowhere, and this story wouldn’t be half as brilliant(and grammatically correct/free of bad spelling) if it wasn’t for her! :D Secondly I’d like to thank frellen_rocks , who has been my bestest friend, cheerleader, hand-holder and shoulder to cry on/rant at - you’re an absolute babe frellen for putting up with my moaning and giving me loads of head-swelling compliments to keep me writing! A giant GIANT thank you to jhava , my artist, who created one of the most spectacular pieces I’ve seen - I literally couldn’t imagine a better piece of art to accompany my story, they were made for each other! I wanna give a big shout out to all the peeps at paperpushers, who have been a great source of inspiration and motivation when I was ready to give up! I’d also like to thank all my non-LJ friends, who had to put up with MONTHS of my moaning, procrastination and blabbering about Merlin! Lastly, I’d like to give a giant thank you to the mods who organised this wonderful fest, you people are absolute stars!!
This story was both a joy and a PAIN to write - I’ve never actually managed to get such a large story written in such a short space of time (I thought I was nearly done at 17,000 words and would just about scrape the 20,000 mark when it just suddenly BLEW up with only 2 weeks to go, leaving me a quivering mess of a writer), and such a personal one too (being Irish and catholic meant that a lot of my personal feelings and opinions ended up in this in one way or another), and I am so glad I decided to take part! This story is quite a lot like life - mostly serious with moments of crack thrown in (the goldfish wake is taken from a RL experience), as I’m unable to write purely in one sort of genre.
Oh and if anyone's interested, Dóchas is the Irish for Hope.
Right, sorry to take up your time! Please read, and I hope you enjoy my story! :D
(prologue) (part 1) (part 2) (part3) (part 4) (part5) (part 6) (part 7) (notes)