The Exile, Part II, Chapter VIIII In the Mourning
Title: The Exile
Chapter: In the Mourning II
Author: AGDoren
Rating: Teen
Genre: Romance-Fantasy, AU
Spoilers: Up to and Including episode 4x9
Characters/Pairings: Elyan, Arthur, Merlin, Gwaine, Kilgarrah and Aithusa
Summary: Arthur and the knights react to the news of Gwen's apparent death.
Author's notes: I've had Arthur's parts of the next two chapters done for months and have been dying to publish them. In the Mourning is another two part chapter, please read In the Mourning I.
Betaed: by myself and my roommate
Artwork: none
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The Exile
-Part II, Chapter VIIII
In the Mourning II
The arena, place of so many victories, stood empty now. The noon-day sun beamed down, baking the hard packed sandy ground and heating his neck and shoulders to the point of slight discomfort. He rubbed his left hand against his thigh to ease a dull ache there. She liked the feeling of the sun soaking into her muscles; he liked standing in the shade of a tree and watching her savor it. Relaxing in the sun was not an activity for the arena.
He had no armor today only trousers and sandals. On this day they would wrestle like Greeks. That dull ache in his left palm increased and he flexed his fingers in an attempt to ease it.
He looked toward the royal box. His mother and father were seated there together; somehow this did not surprise him. Uther's gloved hand rested atop Igraine's. Without looking he knew that the rest of the arena would be empty.
"Mother."
He said her name and she frowned disdainfully before turning to his father.
"He's not ready yet."
"But they've tricked him." Uther said as if it explained everything. Arthur massaged the ache in his left palm and looked up already knowing who would be there.
Lancelot stood, dressed as he, in trousers and sandals. The dead man did not look at him though instead he addressed the pair in the box.
"It matters not, he has to be ready."
Now the knight faced him and in the winking of any eye Lancelot dropped into a crouch and came at him. They were locking up in a test of strength and he wasn't ready, not grounded. He fought back of course, he'd always fight but Lancelot was faster and stronger than he'd ever been in life. Arthur gasped for breath; somehow the other man had gotten him into a chokehold.
He tried to push away, push back, let all of his weight fall on the other man and none of it worked. The knight's position was too solid, too well grounded.
Lancelot's forearm pressed down on his neck and the edges of his vision began to blur. This was dangerous he should tap-out. He gasped for air and Lancelot's arm pressed down harder. His eyes watered and all was a-blur now, the stink of sweat stung his nostrils and the heat of the sun beat down hot and hard.
"I thought you were smarter than this." Lancelot was taunting him? "I stepped aside for you. I gave up my life for you. I thought you were smarter than this."-
Arthur felt his struggles growing weaker.
"I gave up my life for you-"
He tried to lift his hand, tap out but found it heavy.
"-you were smarter than this."
His life was draining away.
- The arena place of so many victories stood empty now noon-day sun baking the hard packed sandy ground heating his neck and shoulders to the point of slight discomfort. He rubbed his left hand against his thigh to ease a dull ache there. She liked the feeling of the sun soaking into her muscles; he liked standing in the shade of a tree and watching her savor it. Relaxing in the sun was not an activity for the arena.
He was here again without armor. He looked to the royal box and saw his parents.
"He's not ready yet."
"But they've tricked him." Uther said as if it explained everything. Arthur massaged the ache in his left palm and looked up already knowing who would be there.
Lancelot stood, dressed as he, in trousers and sandals. The dead man did not look at him though instead he addressed the pair in the box.
"It matters not, he has to be ready." Lancelot came at him and it happened just as before:
"I thought you were smarter than this." Lancelot was taunting him? "I stepped aside for you. I gave up my life for you. I thought you were smarter than this."
Arthur forced himself awake already knowing the outcome
"I thought you were smarter than this." Arthur opened his eyes, "I stepped aside for you. I gave up my life for you. I thought you were smarter than this."-
Lancelot's words echoed in his mind and then memory surged. For a moment he studied the familiar canopy of his bed arching above him.
Guinevere's ring on a cord of leather landing on his desk, like challenge.
"You killed my sister," surely a nightmare, surely.
His left hand ached.
He looked down and the silvery moonlight showed his left hand clenched into a fist resting atop the bedding. A telltale leather cord escaped his grasp, black and stark against the creamy white bedsheets. His mouth was suddenly dry. Guinevere's ring would not be there or- if it were this was surely another dream. He flexed his tense, stiff fingers and uncurled them with agonizing slowness, waiting, waiting…
"You killed my sister."
The ring lay in a bloody red circle on his white palm.
"No," the tears came hot and fast then "nononono," he sat up bringing his hands to his face for a moment before hurling the ring across the room, rejecting this new reality, this new world. He heard it land with a dull clank on the stone floor. She could not be dead. Arthur got out of bed and hurried to where he thought the ring might have landed.
He needed it, needed to keep it, needed it to give back to her if she ever wanted again, just in case. He didn't see it right away and felt panic surge souring his stomach and raising sweat on his palms. Where? He had thrown her away again. He crouched, coming down hard on his knees, to look under the wardrobe. Silver moonlight glinted from it and Arthur reached for the ring, he needed it- The moon ducked behind a cloud and he groped blindly for a moment before his fingers encountered the warm resistant metal.
Guinevere's ring, his mother's ring- gift of the dead. He closed his fingers around it and sat up breathing deep, weak with relief.
Lancelot, his father, his mother, all the dead that he loved together, all but Guinevere, because…? Because she wasn't dead! He looked at the ring resting in his palm.
"Guinevere," Arthur said her name softly, recalled sliding the ring onto her delicate brown finger, "Guinevere," he said it again and again, like a prayer, a litany caressing the ring with the fingertips of his right hand until a cold dull ache settled into his thighs and buttocks from their contact with the stone floor. He used the wardrobe to pull himself to his feet and leaned briefly against it. He couldn't go carrying it around, it wasn't safe. He needed something other this leather thong.
Arthur opened his wardrobe; he had a simple silver chain amongst his jewelry. He found the chain quickly and very carefully untied the leather cord and replaced it. With a satisfied sigh he settled the chain around his neck and pressed a soft kiss to the ring before letting it settle against the bare skin of his chest.
"Guinevere."
The leather cord was worn and rough but he had to keep that too, keep it safe. It might be the last thing she gave him.
He had pushed the carved oaken box to the back of the wardrobe but of course it was still there. He pulled it forward now, throat and chest growing tight at the memory of her tricking him into buying his own present. He thought briefly of the little things she'd made for him, filling it and making it far more valuable with gifts of love, a pair of knitted socks, a pair of gloves, a belt and a bottle of woodsy cologne all made by her own hand, strawberry jam his favorite. They were not in there now of course. The jam had long since been eaten and accessories were all safely put away.
He opened it intending only to place the cord with his other treasures but then the heady scent of her perfume floated up to him and he inhaled deeply. Arthur let his eyes drift shut. He could imagine her footfalls soft, rhythmic and steady on the floor behind him; she would say his name undoing him with two syllables. He'd turn and she'd be standing there, not in one of her new dresses -he liked them well enough-, but in her old dress the one she'd been wearing the morning he'd kissed her for that first, fatal time. That simple soft linen dress flowing over her creamy brown skin, the bodice embroidered with flowers and peacock. It had that tempting teasing ruffle edging along the neckline taunting him to run one finger along the swell of her breast. She was perfect in that simple dress.
Arthur swallowed the sob in his throat and reached into the box pulling forth the token she'd given him that morning, the gift that had prompted that impetuous kiss.
It had absorbed the scent of her perfume and he lifted it to his nose. Arthur closed the box and took it from the wardrobe where it had sat untouched these last ten weeks, seventy-three days to be exact. He carried the small chest to the table and sat down. The box was now the guardian of her most treasured gifts, things of value to none but himself. He laid the simple token on the table, smoothing the white linen fabric against the gleaming darker wood. From the box he took two roses -now dried- one purple, one red tied together with a ribbon, him and her, her love given to him freely. Arthur placed them carefully atop the linen and turned back to the box. He pulled a folded piece of paper that he could not now bring himself to read forth, another tournament, another token, the braided leather belt that she'd fastened round his waist herself after the pants incident. He stroked the stem of the purple rose and finally lifted out the gift he'd never gotten to give her.
Shortly after their betrothal someone had given Guinevere a silver bracelet. He'd been immediately jealous. Who was giving her jewelry and why? He'd almost insisted that she discard it, but then he though the better of it. It was probably a congratulatory gift, one that would be rude to refuse. No, he had a better plan. A silver cuff bracelet with Pendragon rubies would adorn her arm-far, far better. It was to have been given on their wedding night with a necklace and earrings to follow as customary gifts for the birth of their first son.
Was everything he'd given her now in the possession of bandits? The sliver handled, boar hair bristled brush with comb and matching hand mirror, the setting sun hair clip, the new dresses for which he had purchased the material, the silk stockings he'd fantasized about sliding off her thighs a thousand times, was it all being pawed over by bandits and greedy merchants? What of Guinevere herself? The ring was only a thing, maybe…
Was Elyan right or had she gotten safely away? He could see it now, strange savage men laying rough hands on her. She would resist but…
She didn't like to be alone in the woods.
"You've got me,"[1] "I wasn't going to let anything happen to you."[2]
He sobbed no longer able to hold it back and the tears followed…He had failed her and it didn't matter that she had betrayed him because she was horribly, violently dead and he had sent her to it. Amidst the remnants of his canceled love, bathed in the pale light of the moon Arthur let his grief flow over him.
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A/N- I wore the Utena Adolescence soundtrack and U2's With or Without You writing this.
So dear readers I have lost my artist. The good news is sometimes waiting for images would mean I delayed updating by a day or two and I was keeping the number of chapters down in an attempt to have an image for each update. What does that mean for you, dear readers? Why it means shorter chapters and more frequent updates of course.
I also have a tumblr now. Check the links box for Tales of the Blacksmith's Daughter.
[1] Merlin, The Castle of Freyian s3x7
[2] Merlin, The Last Dragonlord S2x13