Seed of a Pomegranate; Merlin
Title: Seed of a Pomegranate
Authors: mydoctortennant
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Gwen, Tom, Gwen's mythical Mummy...
Warnings: None for the show.
Disclaimer: Not real. Despite birthday wishes and night time prayers to Santa (all Hail Amy Pond!) Merlin still isn't mine!
Rating: PG13
Summary: When the God of the Underworld takes a fancy to something, he'll stop at nothing to make sure he can call it his...
Author Notes: Written for my darling miki_hime1221 who wanted a story based on the Greek myth surrounding Persephone, I read up on it as much as I could before doing it, there's several different takes on the story (like our own legend) so it might not be to the exactly story you know/I might have taken a few Merlin-esque liberties.
As always, beta'd by my gorgeous Wifey, sgmajorshipper ♥
And I do promise to post the final fic from the 2010 table up before the year mark of the prompt being given... =D
My Merlin Prompt Table 2010 :: 2011
Spring time on the Upper Plain was always a beautiful sight to behold. The sun shone high in the sky from Mount Avalon across the city of Camelot. Between the plumes and the greenery, you could guarantee that you would always find one girl.
With her coffee coloured skin and her corkscrew curls she was every part the beauty you would expect of the Goddess of Spring. She was modest and shied away from the world, choosing to pick flowers and create arrangements with them. To the people she was known as Kore, the Maiden of Spring, but to her family and close friends she was Guinevere; Gwen.
She moved her fingers with grace over the soft petals of the roses she tended in her gardens. She had every sort of flower from the lowly wild flowers to a small collection of orchids in the far reaches of her garden.
In contrast to the Upper Plain, the Underworld was dark. Lit by candlelight only. The souls of the dead rushed by your feet as you walked. One man lived down there, one man alone. He watched the world above from the darkness of this chamber through a portal of magics. From his cavern beneath the world he watches what he once knew.
Arthur lost a bet once upon a time. Between the Upper Plains, the Sea, and the Underworld, he’d drawn the short straw on luck and ended up destined to rule over the dead for eternity.
There was one face, the face of Spring, that made his days as he viewed the world he craved. Her brown curls blew into her face in the sun. Her chocolate eyes glittered in joy as she picked a fresh flower from the shrub before her.
Feeling as if she was being watched, Gwen looked over her shoulder, a little concern on her face. He watched her as the skin on her forehead gently creased. A small smile raised on her face as she turned back to her garden, plucking a sprig of lavender from the small plant, rubbing the bud between her fingers and then sniffing them.
She looked perfectly serene.
He imagined her in his chambers, the light she would bring with her into his darkness; the life to the death he was surrounded by each day. Her heart was so full of love and admiration for those around her that he felt he needed her in his life more every day.
When he watched the Upper Plains he searched for her and her alone. The world that he lived in was the polar opposite of hers. There were no rainbows or sunshine, and the waters were full of death, not life.
Xxx
Everyday he watched her.
He smiled to himself; she approached a new shrub that had appeared, and reached out her hand, “What are you doing here?” she asked it, plucking a plume from it.
There was a gust of wind whipping up through her hair and around her, surrounding her and stopping her from moving. She started to scream.
The wind subsided and she stopped screaming. Her breathing was ragged. She looked around, eyes darting this way and that. The sunlight was gone, as was her garden, “Welcome, Guinevere.”
She whipped around, “Who the hell are you?”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” he hopped down off of his throne-like chair and approached her, “I’m Arthur, Keeper of the Underworld.”
“What am I doing here? I’m not dead.”
“I’m afraid you touched the wrong thing.”
xxx
Walking through the corridors of their home, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, looked for her daughter, “Guinevere?” she called out; she’d already been in the gardens which usually was where she would be at this time in the afternoon, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in her bedroom either, “Guinevere?”
When there was no answer she turned her mission into finding her husband, “Tom?” he was in the main reception room taking a few minutes to himself before his busy afternoon commenced, “Have you seen Gwen?”
“Not since she left this morning,” he said honestly, but there was something in his voice. She knew her husband, and there was something he wasn’t telling her.
“Tom?”
“I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” his voice wavered; he didn’t look at Demeter as he read through his paper.
“Thomas? She isn’t in the gardens. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Thomas!”
“Arthur! She’s with Arthur.”
“Arthur? Arthur! God of the Underworld, Arthur?” his wife raged, grabbing his paper from his hands and discarding it on the floor with great force, “What - pray tell me - is she doing there?”
“I,” he stuttered, the fury in his wife’s eyes scaring him, “He- he likes her. He wanted her to-“
“To what?”
“To be his wife.”
“You get her back, Thomas! You get her back!” she screamed, pointing her finger at him, “My daughter will never be stuck in the underworld! You get her back to me!” she ran from the room and continued her journey out of the house.
“Demeter!” her husband followed her, running down the front steps, “Come back.”
“No. You bring her back to me or I shall never return.”
X
The Upper Plains started to wilt. The leaves on the trees started to die.
Guinevere watched the Upper Plains through the link Arthur had shown her. She’d watched her mother leave and had fought him to return but he held her back. She’d turned on him, pounding her fists against his chest but he didn’t let her go.
“Everything is dying! The people won’t survive!”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Just let me go!”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because your father made a deal!”
“What?”
“I made a deal with your father,” Gwen looked up out of the link to the Upper Plain. It switched to look at her father. He sat in the reception room looking into the fire.
“What have you done?” she asked him, eyes brimming with tears.
X
With Demeter gone, the fruit on the trees failed to grow. The people started to go hungry. Tom knew he had to do something; they were looking to him for guidance and for help. There was nothing he could do; everything he tried, from trying to find his wife and daughter to trying sorcerers to bring the fruit back to the trees, but despite all his efforts nothing worked.
He only had one place left to turn; Arthur: “You cannot go back on your world. You promised her to me.”
“Perhaps we can revise it.”
“I am to make her my wife.”
“Please, Arthur.”
He knew that she wasn’t happy with him. She refused to eat anything and until she did she would never be bound to him, “I will return your daughter to you. I might be the god of the underworld, but even I don’t want the added work load of having the extra dying people coming through if they’re starving.”
“Thank you, Arthur.”
“Do not thank me. You should be thanking your wife. It’s only because she is withholding the fruit from the world that I am willing to help you,” he caught Gwen coming towards him out of the corner of his eye and vanquished the link to the Upper Plain, “Guinevere.”
“Arthur.”
“I have something for you, a gift.”
“A gift?” he handed her a fresh pomegranate fruit, “I don’t understand.”
“I know they’re your favourite and I know you won’t eat anything here. As much as I want you for a wife, I don’t want to force you here. You aren’t happy. Despite being the God of the Underworld, I’m not heartless.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I’m sending you home.”
“What? But,” a smile slowly spread across her face, “thank you.”
“Here. Take it,” he placed it firmly in her hand and closed her fingers around the fruit, “As a memento.”
“Thank you, Arthur.”
“It’s been,” he paused for a second in thought, but he was stuck for words, “nice.”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“No, you were an awful potential wife. Now go, before I change my mind.”
X
Upon her return to the Upper Plains Gwen called for her mother. With the help of a sorcerer she found her, “Hello Mother,” she greeted before she was enveloped in a tight hug in her mother’s arms.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said as she smoothed back Gwen’s hair and kissed her gently on the forehead. The fruit on the trees began to grow again as her mother smiled down at her, grateful to have her daughter returned to her.
X
In the freshly blooming gardens Gwen sat amongst the trees on the old seat swing. She had the pomegranate that Arthur had given her in her hand. They were her favourite fruit, and somehow he had known it. She hadn’t ever mentioned it; she had barely spoken to him in the time she was down there.
The sun was shining high in the sky and it made her smile. The new plants were growing and full of life. She turned the fruit over in her hand; if she didn’t eat it soon it would start to wrinkle and it would go waste.
She dug her nail into the skin of the fruit and peeled it back before she, rather hesitantly, took a bite of the succulent fruit, enjoying it as the juice ran past her lips and across her tongue. She sucked the excess into her mouth and swallowed. It tasted gorgeous. She closed her eyes as she drew in a breath. She licked the juice from her fingers and opened her eyes once more.
She was no longer in the Upper Plains. She was back in the confines of the Underworld with Arthur sitting in his throne-like chair at the other end of the room.
“Welcome back, Guinevere.”
“What am I doing here?”
“Eve never should have eaten the fruit, Guinevere. Did she teach you nothing? It’s forbidden.”
“Let me go,” she said firmly dropping the remains of the fruit to the floor.
“You know, I don’t think I will. Especially with you being so wasteful. With little to waste down here compared to your world, I think you should remain here.”
“You can’t do this! My father won’t allow it.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.”
“And what? You’ll live with a woman who hates you? I’d rather die.”
“That can be arranged,” a dangerous glint flashed across his eyes, “Do not forget who you are talking to, Guinevere,” they regarded each other in disdain for a few moments. Gwen clenched her jaw, half-wishing she still had hold of the pomegranate so she could throw it at him now. He registered her anger, it would have been impossible to ignore, “I’ll cut you a deal.”
“I don’t make deals with the devil.”
“God of the Underworld, different things,” he quipped, “Spend three months here out of a year. Three months. Then I shall return you to the Upper Plains for the remainder of the year.”
“And what of the three months I spend here? The people of the Upper Plain won’t survive without the fruit!”
“The whole year or three months, Guinevere, it’s your choice.”
X
Hostility was what greeted Arthur, god of the underworld, whenever Guinevere was forced down into his presence for the quarter segment. She glared and frowned and refused to smile. She said it was the flowers that made her happy. She didn’t like the darkness he forced her to live in. She liked the winter months as much as the spring and summer. The leaves on the trees turning orange and falling, the red berries in contrast to the greenery of the holly. It was a time of different colours.
Instead of spending her days with him she would watch the Upper Plain. She would recite the names of all the flowers and plants she could see. Some days she would watch her mother and father. She missed them and they missed her. It was only three months of her year but it always seemed to Guinevere that the three months she spent in the Underworld with Arthur levelled to the nine months she spent with her parents and Elyan on the Upper Plains.
“Guinevere, come, you must eat something.”
“Not from you.”
“You cannot starve yourself.”
“Perhaps that way you will relieve me of my duty,” a silence came over them. She knew the answer, “Then I shall not eat.”
A little under a week later and Arthur found her empty plate outside of her chamber. He smiled to himself. Although he doubt that she would ever trust him completely at least now she wasn’t punishing herself. In time she would get used to the arrangement, until then he knew he would have to withstand her resentment.
X
The three months passed slowly.
It was drawn out but eventually Guinevere came to accept that if she spoke to Arthur, her time in the Underworld would pass faster than if she ignored him and spent her days alone.
It didn’t take a day for her to find out that he wasn’t that bad a person. She uncovered that he had longed to stay up on the Upper Plain but a bet he had lost many years ago between her father and the Goddess of the Seas, Morgana, left him as the keeper of the keys for the world below. He had been forced to live the life of a recluse; always alone. It explained so easily why he wasn’t as adept with people as he liked to think.
By the end of her stint living with him she found herself thinking about what she would do with her time whilst she was on the Upper Plain. She would no longer fill her days with endless conversations with him.
“I’ll see you in nine months, Guinevere,” he nodded as he opened the porthole to the Upper Plains for her to exit through. She smiled at him in acknowledgement. She moved to leave, stepping into the light. She chewed the inside of her lip and turned back to him. She gently pressed a kiss to his cheek and promptly left him standing there watching as the connection closed behind her.
X
The next nine months Arthur spent with his link to the Upper Plains consistently open; watching her every move. He should have felt worse about it but he couldn’t resist the urge. Between helping people pass over to the other side and sleeping he watched her.
It seemed to him that he was waiting for the months she would be back with him whilst she seemed to be enjoying herself, laughing with her brother and her friends. She was always surrounded by people. Something Arthur wished he had. Apart from Gwen the only people he interacted with were dead. They weren’t nearly as exciting.
Occasionally he got an interesting person who had a good story to tell, but usually he was hag-ridden with people who had taken overdoses or criminals or had led such boring lives they made him want to ram his head into the wall.
Eventually Gwen returned to him.
For the first week she was quiet. She didn’t speak to him. She ate the dinner he brought her but never said anything to do, just leaving him her empty plate once she was done.
It took her another week after that to get used to being in his presence again. She told him of the people she had met on her time on the Upper Plain. He told her of the more interesting deaths people had suffered and gradually they fell back into their comfortable talking pattern.
After the first month Gwen started to come with him when he dealt with his usual business. Her judgement was valuable to him and he often listened to what she had to say, but there was the odd occasion where she let certain information cloud her ability to cast fair judgement.
“Guinevere, you can’t just send people up because they’ve done one good thing. It doesn’t work like that. It’s a matter of balance.”
“What about redemption?” she’d argued back, “Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Sometimes it’s not enough. Acts of morality and immorality have values. Just because they saved a cat from a tree or helped an old lady across the road doesn’t counter balance years of tormenting and abuse.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“No, but that is how it works. Why don’t you just let me do my job?”
“You made me your wife. You made me the Goddess of the Underworld; why won’t you let me do the work?”
“Because you’re not good at it. You’re too good to be casting judgement on these people. Good doesn’t exist in everybody. You have to stop seeing it in each person that passes by us,” their heated debate reached its climax. They were in each other’s faces, hot breath on the other’s skin as they ranted their opinions at each other.
A break in their words was filled with heavy breaths and clenched jaws.
His hand was in her hair and her arms about his shoulders before either of them could quite register it as they kissed. It was sloppy and heated and anything but perfect but it didn’t stop them.
X
Waking next to another person wasn’t something either of them was used to, but they no longer clambered for the right words within each others presence.
“Guinevere, wake up,” she was fighting consciousness. She was happily asleep and warm. Waking up would mean being very aware to the chill that seemed constant in Arthur’s world, “It’s time for you to go,” she stirred then knowing he wouldn’t let her sleep more.
“Some would think you wanted me to go.”
“Can’t wait to be rid of you. You do nothing but litter the place.”
“Then I’ll be in no hurry to return,” she said in a haze as she allowed herself to drift back to sleep.
“Come on, I thought you’d want to go.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I want to see my family,” she said with closed eyes, “But sleep is too good,” a cold hand fish-sliced her from the comfort of the warm covers and propped her upright, “But also not a part of my life at present,” she complained rubbing her eyes.
She dressed and made her way to Arthur’s main chamber. He presided over his throne in his usual cocky fashion as he waited for her.
With a click of his fingers the porthole opened for her to leave him back to the Upper Plain, “I’ll see you in nine months, Guinevere.”
“Nine months,” she said with a sad smile. Before she set foot into the porthole she pressed a soft kiss to his lips which he returned with a pleasured vigour. She rested her forehead against his chin, her eyes closed to the world around her, “Nine months.”
“It’ll fly by.”
“Which both pleases and upsets me,” she said trying to laugh.
“I’ll see you soon, Guinevere.”
“Bye,” she sighed and stepped into the porthole.
The last thing Arthur saw before he closed to link to the Upper Plain was Gwen wave goodbye to him for another nine months of the year. Nine months that at some point recently in his life had become too much to bare.
Authors: mydoctortennant
Pairings/Characters: Arthur/Gwen, Tom, Gwen's mythical Mummy...
Warnings: None for the show.
Disclaimer: Not real. Despite birthday wishes and night time prayers to Santa (all Hail Amy Pond!) Merlin still isn't mine!
Rating: PG13
Summary: When the God of the Underworld takes a fancy to something, he'll stop at nothing to make sure he can call it his...
Author Notes: Written for my darling miki_hime1221 who wanted a story based on the Greek myth surrounding Persephone, I read up on it as much as I could before doing it, there's several different takes on the story (like our own legend) so it might not be to the exactly story you know/I might have taken a few Merlin-esque liberties.
As always, beta'd by my gorgeous Wifey, sgmajorshipper ♥
And I do promise to post the final fic from the 2010 table up before the year mark of the prompt being given... =D
My Merlin Prompt Table 2010 :: 2011
Spring time on the Upper Plain was always a beautiful sight to behold. The sun shone high in the sky from Mount Avalon across the city of Camelot. Between the plumes and the greenery, you could guarantee that you would always find one girl.
With her coffee coloured skin and her corkscrew curls she was every part the beauty you would expect of the Goddess of Spring. She was modest and shied away from the world, choosing to pick flowers and create arrangements with them. To the people she was known as Kore, the Maiden of Spring, but to her family and close friends she was Guinevere; Gwen.
She moved her fingers with grace over the soft petals of the roses she tended in her gardens. She had every sort of flower from the lowly wild flowers to a small collection of orchids in the far reaches of her garden.
In contrast to the Upper Plain, the Underworld was dark. Lit by candlelight only. The souls of the dead rushed by your feet as you walked. One man lived down there, one man alone. He watched the world above from the darkness of this chamber through a portal of magics. From his cavern beneath the world he watches what he once knew.
Arthur lost a bet once upon a time. Between the Upper Plains, the Sea, and the Underworld, he’d drawn the short straw on luck and ended up destined to rule over the dead for eternity.
There was one face, the face of Spring, that made his days as he viewed the world he craved. Her brown curls blew into her face in the sun. Her chocolate eyes glittered in joy as she picked a fresh flower from the shrub before her.
Feeling as if she was being watched, Gwen looked over her shoulder, a little concern on her face. He watched her as the skin on her forehead gently creased. A small smile raised on her face as she turned back to her garden, plucking a sprig of lavender from the small plant, rubbing the bud between her fingers and then sniffing them.
She looked perfectly serene.
He imagined her in his chambers, the light she would bring with her into his darkness; the life to the death he was surrounded by each day. Her heart was so full of love and admiration for those around her that he felt he needed her in his life more every day.
When he watched the Upper Plains he searched for her and her alone. The world that he lived in was the polar opposite of hers. There were no rainbows or sunshine, and the waters were full of death, not life.
Xxx
Everyday he watched her.
He smiled to himself; she approached a new shrub that had appeared, and reached out her hand, “What are you doing here?” she asked it, plucking a plume from it.
There was a gust of wind whipping up through her hair and around her, surrounding her and stopping her from moving. She started to scream.
The wind subsided and she stopped screaming. Her breathing was ragged. She looked around, eyes darting this way and that. The sunlight was gone, as was her garden, “Welcome, Guinevere.”
She whipped around, “Who the hell are you?”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” he hopped down off of his throne-like chair and approached her, “I’m Arthur, Keeper of the Underworld.”
“What am I doing here? I’m not dead.”
“I’m afraid you touched the wrong thing.”
xxx
Walking through the corridors of their home, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, looked for her daughter, “Guinevere?” she called out; she’d already been in the gardens which usually was where she would be at this time in the afternoon, but she wasn’t there. She wasn’t in her bedroom either, “Guinevere?”
When there was no answer she turned her mission into finding her husband, “Tom?” he was in the main reception room taking a few minutes to himself before his busy afternoon commenced, “Have you seen Gwen?”
“Not since she left this morning,” he said honestly, but there was something in his voice. She knew her husband, and there was something he wasn’t telling her.
“Tom?”
“I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” his voice wavered; he didn’t look at Demeter as he read through his paper.
“Thomas? She isn’t in the gardens. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Thomas!”
“Arthur! She’s with Arthur.”
“Arthur? Arthur! God of the Underworld, Arthur?” his wife raged, grabbing his paper from his hands and discarding it on the floor with great force, “What - pray tell me - is she doing there?”
“I,” he stuttered, the fury in his wife’s eyes scaring him, “He- he likes her. He wanted her to-“
“To what?”
“To be his wife.”
“You get her back, Thomas! You get her back!” she screamed, pointing her finger at him, “My daughter will never be stuck in the underworld! You get her back to me!” she ran from the room and continued her journey out of the house.
“Demeter!” her husband followed her, running down the front steps, “Come back.”
“No. You bring her back to me or I shall never return.”
X
The Upper Plains started to wilt. The leaves on the trees started to die.
Guinevere watched the Upper Plains through the link Arthur had shown her. She’d watched her mother leave and had fought him to return but he held her back. She’d turned on him, pounding her fists against his chest but he didn’t let her go.
“Everything is dying! The people won’t survive!”
“That’s not my problem.”
“Just let me go!”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because your father made a deal!”
“What?”
“I made a deal with your father,” Gwen looked up out of the link to the Upper Plain. It switched to look at her father. He sat in the reception room looking into the fire.
“What have you done?” she asked him, eyes brimming with tears.
X
With Demeter gone, the fruit on the trees failed to grow. The people started to go hungry. Tom knew he had to do something; they were looking to him for guidance and for help. There was nothing he could do; everything he tried, from trying to find his wife and daughter to trying sorcerers to bring the fruit back to the trees, but despite all his efforts nothing worked.
He only had one place left to turn; Arthur: “You cannot go back on your world. You promised her to me.”
“Perhaps we can revise it.”
“I am to make her my wife.”
“Please, Arthur.”
He knew that she wasn’t happy with him. She refused to eat anything and until she did she would never be bound to him, “I will return your daughter to you. I might be the god of the underworld, but even I don’t want the added work load of having the extra dying people coming through if they’re starving.”
“Thank you, Arthur.”
“Do not thank me. You should be thanking your wife. It’s only because she is withholding the fruit from the world that I am willing to help you,” he caught Gwen coming towards him out of the corner of his eye and vanquished the link to the Upper Plain, “Guinevere.”
“Arthur.”
“I have something for you, a gift.”
“A gift?” he handed her a fresh pomegranate fruit, “I don’t understand.”
“I know they’re your favourite and I know you won’t eat anything here. As much as I want you for a wife, I don’t want to force you here. You aren’t happy. Despite being the God of the Underworld, I’m not heartless.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I’m sending you home.”
“What? But,” a smile slowly spread across her face, “thank you.”
“Here. Take it,” he placed it firmly in her hand and closed her fingers around the fruit, “As a memento.”
“Thank you, Arthur.”
“It’s been,” he paused for a second in thought, but he was stuck for words, “nice.”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“No, you were an awful potential wife. Now go, before I change my mind.”
X
Upon her return to the Upper Plains Gwen called for her mother. With the help of a sorcerer she found her, “Hello Mother,” she greeted before she was enveloped in a tight hug in her mother’s arms.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said as she smoothed back Gwen’s hair and kissed her gently on the forehead. The fruit on the trees began to grow again as her mother smiled down at her, grateful to have her daughter returned to her.
X
In the freshly blooming gardens Gwen sat amongst the trees on the old seat swing. She had the pomegranate that Arthur had given her in her hand. They were her favourite fruit, and somehow he had known it. She hadn’t ever mentioned it; she had barely spoken to him in the time she was down there.
The sun was shining high in the sky and it made her smile. The new plants were growing and full of life. She turned the fruit over in her hand; if she didn’t eat it soon it would start to wrinkle and it would go waste.
She dug her nail into the skin of the fruit and peeled it back before she, rather hesitantly, took a bite of the succulent fruit, enjoying it as the juice ran past her lips and across her tongue. She sucked the excess into her mouth and swallowed. It tasted gorgeous. She closed her eyes as she drew in a breath. She licked the juice from her fingers and opened her eyes once more.
She was no longer in the Upper Plains. She was back in the confines of the Underworld with Arthur sitting in his throne-like chair at the other end of the room.
“Welcome back, Guinevere.”
“What am I doing here?”
“Eve never should have eaten the fruit, Guinevere. Did she teach you nothing? It’s forbidden.”
“Let me go,” she said firmly dropping the remains of the fruit to the floor.
“You know, I don’t think I will. Especially with you being so wasteful. With little to waste down here compared to your world, I think you should remain here.”
“You can’t do this! My father won’t allow it.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.”
“And what? You’ll live with a woman who hates you? I’d rather die.”
“That can be arranged,” a dangerous glint flashed across his eyes, “Do not forget who you are talking to, Guinevere,” they regarded each other in disdain for a few moments. Gwen clenched her jaw, half-wishing she still had hold of the pomegranate so she could throw it at him now. He registered her anger, it would have been impossible to ignore, “I’ll cut you a deal.”
“I don’t make deals with the devil.”
“God of the Underworld, different things,” he quipped, “Spend three months here out of a year. Three months. Then I shall return you to the Upper Plains for the remainder of the year.”
“And what of the three months I spend here? The people of the Upper Plain won’t survive without the fruit!”
“The whole year or three months, Guinevere, it’s your choice.”
X
Hostility was what greeted Arthur, god of the underworld, whenever Guinevere was forced down into his presence for the quarter segment. She glared and frowned and refused to smile. She said it was the flowers that made her happy. She didn’t like the darkness he forced her to live in. She liked the winter months as much as the spring and summer. The leaves on the trees turning orange and falling, the red berries in contrast to the greenery of the holly. It was a time of different colours.
Instead of spending her days with him she would watch the Upper Plain. She would recite the names of all the flowers and plants she could see. Some days she would watch her mother and father. She missed them and they missed her. It was only three months of her year but it always seemed to Guinevere that the three months she spent in the Underworld with Arthur levelled to the nine months she spent with her parents and Elyan on the Upper Plains.
“Guinevere, come, you must eat something.”
“Not from you.”
“You cannot starve yourself.”
“Perhaps that way you will relieve me of my duty,” a silence came over them. She knew the answer, “Then I shall not eat.”
A little under a week later and Arthur found her empty plate outside of her chamber. He smiled to himself. Although he doubt that she would ever trust him completely at least now she wasn’t punishing herself. In time she would get used to the arrangement, until then he knew he would have to withstand her resentment.
X
The three months passed slowly.
It was drawn out but eventually Guinevere came to accept that if she spoke to Arthur, her time in the Underworld would pass faster than if she ignored him and spent her days alone.
It didn’t take a day for her to find out that he wasn’t that bad a person. She uncovered that he had longed to stay up on the Upper Plain but a bet he had lost many years ago between her father and the Goddess of the Seas, Morgana, left him as the keeper of the keys for the world below. He had been forced to live the life of a recluse; always alone. It explained so easily why he wasn’t as adept with people as he liked to think.
By the end of her stint living with him she found herself thinking about what she would do with her time whilst she was on the Upper Plain. She would no longer fill her days with endless conversations with him.
“I’ll see you in nine months, Guinevere,” he nodded as he opened the porthole to the Upper Plains for her to exit through. She smiled at him in acknowledgement. She moved to leave, stepping into the light. She chewed the inside of her lip and turned back to him. She gently pressed a kiss to his cheek and promptly left him standing there watching as the connection closed behind her.
X
The next nine months Arthur spent with his link to the Upper Plains consistently open; watching her every move. He should have felt worse about it but he couldn’t resist the urge. Between helping people pass over to the other side and sleeping he watched her.
It seemed to him that he was waiting for the months she would be back with him whilst she seemed to be enjoying herself, laughing with her brother and her friends. She was always surrounded by people. Something Arthur wished he had. Apart from Gwen the only people he interacted with were dead. They weren’t nearly as exciting.
Occasionally he got an interesting person who had a good story to tell, but usually he was hag-ridden with people who had taken overdoses or criminals or had led such boring lives they made him want to ram his head into the wall.
Eventually Gwen returned to him.
For the first week she was quiet. She didn’t speak to him. She ate the dinner he brought her but never said anything to do, just leaving him her empty plate once she was done.
It took her another week after that to get used to being in his presence again. She told him of the people she had met on her time on the Upper Plain. He told her of the more interesting deaths people had suffered and gradually they fell back into their comfortable talking pattern.
After the first month Gwen started to come with him when he dealt with his usual business. Her judgement was valuable to him and he often listened to what she had to say, but there was the odd occasion where she let certain information cloud her ability to cast fair judgement.
“Guinevere, you can’t just send people up because they’ve done one good thing. It doesn’t work like that. It’s a matter of balance.”
“What about redemption?” she’d argued back, “Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Sometimes it’s not enough. Acts of morality and immorality have values. Just because they saved a cat from a tree or helped an old lady across the road doesn’t counter balance years of tormenting and abuse.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
“No, but that is how it works. Why don’t you just let me do my job?”
“You made me your wife. You made me the Goddess of the Underworld; why won’t you let me do the work?”
“Because you’re not good at it. You’re too good to be casting judgement on these people. Good doesn’t exist in everybody. You have to stop seeing it in each person that passes by us,” their heated debate reached its climax. They were in each other’s faces, hot breath on the other’s skin as they ranted their opinions at each other.
A break in their words was filled with heavy breaths and clenched jaws.
His hand was in her hair and her arms about his shoulders before either of them could quite register it as they kissed. It was sloppy and heated and anything but perfect but it didn’t stop them.
X
Waking next to another person wasn’t something either of them was used to, but they no longer clambered for the right words within each others presence.
“Guinevere, wake up,” she was fighting consciousness. She was happily asleep and warm. Waking up would mean being very aware to the chill that seemed constant in Arthur’s world, “It’s time for you to go,” she stirred then knowing he wouldn’t let her sleep more.
“Some would think you wanted me to go.”
“Can’t wait to be rid of you. You do nothing but litter the place.”
“Then I’ll be in no hurry to return,” she said in a haze as she allowed herself to drift back to sleep.
“Come on, I thought you’d want to go.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I want to see my family,” she said with closed eyes, “But sleep is too good,” a cold hand fish-sliced her from the comfort of the warm covers and propped her upright, “But also not a part of my life at present,” she complained rubbing her eyes.
She dressed and made her way to Arthur’s main chamber. He presided over his throne in his usual cocky fashion as he waited for her.
With a click of his fingers the porthole opened for her to leave him back to the Upper Plain, “I’ll see you in nine months, Guinevere.”
“Nine months,” she said with a sad smile. Before she set foot into the porthole she pressed a soft kiss to his lips which he returned with a pleasured vigour. She rested her forehead against his chin, her eyes closed to the world around her, “Nine months.”
“It’ll fly by.”
“Which both pleases and upsets me,” she said trying to laugh.
“I’ll see you soon, Guinevere.”
“Bye,” she sighed and stepped into the porthole.
The last thing Arthur saw before he closed to link to the Upper Plain was Gwen wave goodbye to him for another nine months of the year. Nine months that at some point recently in his life had become too much to bare.