the dragon's daughter

[bravegoewin]

(Just when you thought there couldn’t possibly be any more of King Arthur’s children unaccounted for…)

Goewin is looking for Lleu.

She is Arthur and Guinevere’s daughter, Lleu’s twin sister and his senior by a few scant minutes. She’s not sure whether she’ll find him alive or dead-or worse, some terrible state in between-and she may be so fixed on

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[lesser_son]

"My lady?" Melou has a sword, for his part, although it's starting to rust over in places (don't tell Gawain). His hand goes immediately to the hilt thereof, a reflex, and he looks at her uncertainly. "Wherefore--Mother of God, do you be careful."

Melou is a coward, but not stupid, and fully willing to believe that she could kill him if she tried. Ergo caution.

[lesser_son]

Melou looks very white. "I do not remember it, but it was winter, and I had no provisions, and I slept in every flooded ditch in Britain while I ran from him."

There. He admitted it.

[bravegoewin]

And here he is. And he is not lying. And it is winter, and maybe he does think he is dead.

The white face melts her. It could be Lleu. It could be his story. She throws down her spear and grips him by the shoulders, one strong and slender arm circling his back.

"In the story you have told me," she says quietly, at his ear, holding him close, "your father and mine have slain each other."

[lesser_son]

"O, Mother of God." His thin body tenses against hers. "I didn't know he had any child."

[bravegoewin]

She does not let go. "Two. Myself, and my twin brother, Lleu. And I left my twin with Medraut."

[lesser_son]

The Mordred Melou knows killed his own brother, so the idea that he'd kill someone else's, especially one of Arthur's children, is not very far out. "I--our mother took us from him when we were young, and we went not to war until he was dead. I do not know what men were his enemies or who he slew, as much as I know his friends."

[bravegoewin]

She cries out in frustration and despair, "But I left Camlan this morning, and all was well there! You speak as if it were months ago!"

[lesser_son]

"It was! I came in the winter of the year before this one."

[bravegoewin]

"Came where?"

T: o god, I'm sorry, make it quick. I promise she'll catch on right away. She *does* know where she is by now, only not in this conversation!

[lesser_son]

"To this place. It isn't any country I know, it isn't Britain, it isn't Wales, I truly don't know it."

[bravegoewin]

"You're not from Britain. I mean, we both are. But not from the same place." She says it with conviction, though it doesn't make much sense.

"I think--"

She is frightened now, and holds onto the back of his shirt or cloak or whatever he's wearing, for support. "I think you've told me of my future. Not exactly as it will be. But close to."

[lesser_son]

His tunic. He holds back to her, though he's still shaking. This time when he speaks his voice is anguished. "I told my cousin too. Mother of God, Mother of God, I should think--I don't mean to tell you all how terrible it will be--"

[bravegoewin]

"But you remember. It must be, sometimes, that you can't think of anything else."

T: She's his aunt, by the way. (to quote Anna Russell.)

She adds, more softly, "There is no shame in running, when you are being hunted."

She does not speak with experience, yet. But she means it.

[lesser_son]

"They call me coward."

[bravegoewin]

"Anyone who does has not been hunted."

She remembers Lleu staggering into the garden after last summer's game of the Wild Hunt, barefoot and briartorn, with eyes gone senseless as a deer's.

[lesser_son]

"My lord was ashamed of me. I think he is still."