1.
the child born on the 27th of November in the early dark of morning in the wizarding hospital sr. mungo's is born choking screaming dying,
drowning on air, lungs collapsing inwards
inwards
inwards
(like a failed cake, crumbling, disintegrating, ruined, w a s t e d.)
she is so small and so fragile and so blue and white and purple and her mouth opens in silent howls as pain wracks her fragile body and her mother is the only one who weeps for her.
her father is distant, uncaring, and her sister is not yet born and no one else in the world cares about the greengrass bastard.
(no one else cares because she is seen as a mistake and a failure and she has only just been born but this is the way of the elite: picking at one another like crows, screeching like scrubjays. they are uglier than the demons of hell, slimier than the grime of london, but oh, they look so b e a u t i f u l. darling, it's just a mask they wear to make themselves feel pretty. look like the flower, but be the serpent under't.)
she is expected to die within the hour. and then a miracle happens:
a woman shimmers into existence in mungo's, takes the baby from wailing cassandra, and breathes life into her. before their eyes the baby becomes pink and happy and healthy.
even in a world of magic, this is strange, a never-before miracle.
when the woman fades away, her presence remains, and this time cassandra weeps for joy.
the baby's father then takes it upon himself to name the baby daphne, because if the bastard child that is not even his is going to live then he might as well. and because he is a bastard he does not ask cassandra what she would like to name her baby and because she is tired of his bullshit and because she is from a lesser family she determines to call the baby artura, after an old king from centuries ago because she wants her daughter to rise up like the sun like a king like arthur: fatherless nobody to king. because women can be king's too. because she has to be.
(she later decides that she will call her just "wart" until she reaches a certain age, because artura is an awfully large, heavy name for a baby. and because she thinks it's kind of really funny.)
2.
when wart is eleven her sister is born and she loves her desperately and she swears she will always always always protect her, but she also hates her fiercely because their father loves astoria. she is the apple of his eye, the star of his heart.
(and wart hates herself a little too because why why why can't her father love her? and how how how could she hate her precious her beautiful her perfect baby sister?)
3.
at fourteen wart falls in love: her best friend is named pansy and she is sharp and witty and acidic and silver and green and she is everything wart is not and wart loves her she loves her she loves her until there is nothing left in her heart but an uncomfortable prickling carving ruinous love.
this is the end and the beginning.
because when wart is fifteen pansy finds out.
when wart is fifteen pansy shoves her into a stinky slimy sixteen foot deep pond and when wart is fifteen instead of drowning she surfaces on the shore in the middle of a lake a thousand years in the past.
even in a world of magic, this is an unheard of miracle, a disastrous doomed magical mishap.
depends on who you ask, really, but it can only end in tragedy.
4.
when wart comes up choking gasping screaming, a woman is waiting for her.
long dark hair dark eyes pale bone white skin red lips red lips red lips
wart vomits at her feet and the woman only smiles which honestly is kind of weird.
it's kind of very weird and wart doesn't know what to make of it and she knows even less how she feels when the woman opens her mouth her wide gaping mouth and says
"daphne artura greengrass, welcome to camelot. i am nimue, lady of the lake."
the magic here is deeper, stronger, it flows from the earth like a river, and wart finally understands that in her world her time in london in 1998 magic is dying.
it's a sad thought a bitter thought but she likes it here she loves it here she fits in here, here she is artura king of albion king of magic and not just daphne not just wart not just the greengrass bastard who is in love with her best friend (a girl a girl a girl) who is ruined
and she is only fifteen but this only makes her more honorbound more dutiful more desperate to succeed and maybe they know this maybe that is why she was chosen.
5.
when she is seventeen she goes to war and she knows why she was chosen because morgan comes down from her mountain tower to be by her side and morgan is beautiful and her dark dark dark hair dark as night reaches past her knees and her eyes are sharper than a hawk's and her smile is slyer than a cat's and brighter than the Sun's and redder than cherries than red licorice which wart has only seen once in a muggle shop and which she had desperately wanted to taste and magic dances at her fingertips courses through her veins thicker than blood and wart looks at her and knows:
this girl will ruin me and i will love her for it
and that has to be why she was chosen because this is the only thing that matters the only thing that matters the only thing that matters.
(later, wart finds morgan walking among the fallen and she kneels before her because she cannot think and morgan's name feels most familiar on her tongue and she is so terribly beautiful and wart just wants to tell her every single thought she has, thoughts that begin and end with morgan and sunlight sunlight sunlight
only perhaps it is too soon for that so she only kneels but morgan smiles and takes her hand and says
"rise, artura, daughter of the Sun,"
and she does because she would go to the ends of the earth for morgan and then morgan says
"surely we were made from the same star, you and i, for i feel my heart beating in time with yours"
and everything artura feels spills over and becomes magic.
6.
they grow together and love together their bones aching as they shoot up and up, their hearts cramping as they become larger and heavier and fuller and they never agree on anything
war thunders in morgan's blood, peace stagnates in artura's, and they are two haves of a same whole but they can never see eye to eye for that is their curse and their burden to bear and it aches and stings like a salted wound but their are worse things because at least they love each other
(but it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not enough it's not)
(and late at night when they have had warm wine and bread and sausage and they lay before the crackling leaping fire morgan whispers in artura's ear:
"i will be the end of you, and that will be the end of me" and artura knows it to be true and only holds morgan closer and loves her fiercer)
(morgan may be war and artura may be peace but artura's love for morgan is fiercer and bloodier and more ruinous than any war)
(still, she will not shed blood for morgan. not at the cost of albion.)
(not at the cost of her heart.)
7.
the final war is the bloodiest war artura has ever seen. there will never be another war like this, not until the twilight of the world, when magic has all but died, when all are ragged and weary and worn.
artura does not remember what they are fighting for, only that she had felt in her heart that albion was in terrible danger.
morgan had disagreed, as she was cursed to do, but artura had known: for as magic ran through morgan's veins as blood, albion was in artura's bones, sinew, lungs, heart.
and albion was crying out in fear.
she does not remember who the enemy was-- only that they are a disease.
only that they must be stopped.
(and in the end, when morgan's sword finds its way to her heart and blood burbles over her lips and splatters onto morgan's chest, hot and frothing, she realizes that she was mistaken: morgan was the enemy all along.)
(but she could never raise her sword against morgan.
this is where they differ, and she has always known it.)
(i will be your end, and that will end me.)
(i love you,
artura whispers, chokes, sighs.)
(i hate you,
morgan screams, mutters, sobs.
tears stream down her face as she leans heavily on her sword, and artura smiles, lips coated red with her blood,
this
is
their
f a t e.)
1.
the child born on the 27th of November in the early dark of morning in the wizarding hospital sr. mungo's is born choking screaming dying,
drowning on air, lungs collapsing inwards
inwards
inwards
(like a failed cake, crumbling, disintegrating, ruined, w a s t e d.)
she is so small and so fragile and so blue and white and purple and her mouth opens in silent howls as pain wracks her fragile body and her mother is the only one who weeps for her.
her father is distant, uncaring, and her sister is not yet born and no one else in the world cares about the greengrass bastard.
(no one else cares because she is seen as a mistake and a failure and she has only just been born but this is the way of the elite: picking at one another like crows, screeching like scrubjays. they are uglier than the demons of hell, slimier than the grime of london, but oh, they look so b e a u t i f u l. darling, it's just a mask they wear to make themselves feel pretty. look like the flower, but be the serpent under't.)
she is expected to die within the hour. and then a miracle happens:
a woman shimmers into existence in mungo's, takes the baby from wailing cassandra, and breathes life into her. before their eyes the baby becomes pink and happy and healthy
and she says
"my name is morgan le fay"