(Don't fight me)
Footsteps fell in a uniformed thud, thud, thud, thud, breaking the heavy silence of the air. Ten pairs of eyes never left my form even as the footsteps neared, the same way those gazes hadn't wavered through the chill of the white mist, shrouding us lightly, announcing the arrival of dusk. They hadn't touched us – they daren't touch us – but that was only because they were waiting for… him.
My eyes slid shut and I took a slow step back, and I felt the back of my boot-clad calf nudge a solid body on the ground. A solid, breathing body was what I'd prayed for, during the gruelling 40-minute wait spent surrounded by ten men whose gaze followed every flick of my eye, every rise of my breath. I in turn had counted the seconds as they passed us by, and calmly eyed the five men who were in my vision – the rest were circled around me, beyond my sight.
They had met my gaze, blank and unflinching, showing not the slightest bit of recognition. I had a feeling that I should be disappointed, but I wasn't. I was all the more grateful for it. It took an inch of the burden on my shoulders away, the small yet insistent inch that grinded on my brain for what I was prepared to resort to. These men were innocent. They were unaware. They did not deserve to die for another man's sins. Of all the things I've done, I've never ever laid my blade on an innocent person.
But it was either them or him – him, lying motionless on the ground, him, that I didn't know was alive or dead - and I chose him.
My eyes remained closed as the footsteps finally reached us. Soft slithers and rustles let me know the circle was being parted for this newer man to enter. I opened my eyes – and tried to quell the whiplash I felt in my heart.
He was the same as I remembered. Unchanged, slick, clever, clever man.
"Finally." His voice was soft, awed even. It spoke volumes. Finally, we've caught you. Finally, you failed. Finally, you are here. His glittering eyes narrowed at the body at my feet. "Is he dead?"
I kept silent.
His head tilted to the left as he watched me. Then he gestured to one of the men at the outer right of the circle, and said, his eyes still on me in a sort of quiet fascination, "Check his pulse."
The man moved one step forward and I had my sword out and poised over the body on the ground, defensive. The move was quick and automatic and I hadn't even realized it – every muscle in my body was trained to protect this man – and when they realized my weapon glinting in the air, every man, save for the one with the glittering eyes, whipped out their sword and readied for attack.
"Stop." He commanded. His head was still tilted curiously, and that twisted fascination was more clear on his face now. The men halted, hesitating, but held their weapons at the ready. I kept my guard up, too. It was going to happen. Any moment now.
He took a small step forward, his glittering eyes slowly hardening, and he said my name in a soft purr. "Step aside."
"If you want him," I spoke for the first time in days – my voice was not hoarse, but it rang with a clarity that surprised me and the surrounding men. "You're going to have to fight me."
He had halted at the sound of my voice, and I knew he was thinking back to the night we duelled, when I called him a traitor and swore I'd wiped him from my existence – I knew he was, because I was thinking about it, too – I hadn't spoken a word since then. An inexplicable flash of hurt marred his expression for one brief, tiny second. But I saw it. I recognized that hurt because once, he loved me, and once upon a time I loved him, too.
He said my name again, and this time the softness was gone, replaced with a cold hardness that reminded me why I wanted him dead.
"Move, and his death will be painless. Move away, and I will forgive you."
And he still loved me, and he will continue to love me to the day he dies – that was his tragic, tragic flaw: a flaw that made a traitor, power-hungry murderer seem almost human.
I levelled my sword away from the men at the circle and raised it in front of me as an answer.
The soft grasp on my calf nearly shocked me to the point of dropping my sword. Nearly. I looked down, heart thudding frantically, and I saw the man I've been fighting for clutching my leg weakly, his face upturned to mine.
A tidal wave of relief swept through my body. He's alive.
The men's swords raised and this time they shifted and asked for instructions, shocked – apparently they had thought him dead. I ignored them and scanned his face, his blue eyes, the red rims underneath them, and his pale lips – lips that had covered mine over and over again last week, the night we escaped, before they stopped moving against my mouth and fell away, silent. It all happened in the span of two minutes.
That was the last time I'd seen him awake until now.
His eyes had been desperate, angry, grateful, and an entire universe of emotions then. Now they were dull, sad. He reached a hand up, but I couldn't meet him, I had to keep my guard up. And he told me, in a hoarse voice, "Go."
Go.
"Do as he says," he rasped. "Leave me. Go."
He broke my heart, and I broke myself then, and I knew I loved this man more than I ever loved anyone in my life.
His blue eyes filled with water, and he shut them briefly and opened them, and squeezed my calf. His face was rapidly paling, and I thought that he was using whatever energy he had left to tell me to abandon him.
I turned my face away, facing the man in front of me, who was watching us both with a hard expression, eyes narrowed. It was a while before his spoke, and his voice dripped with bitterness.
"Your lover is telling you to go," he drew his sword out slowly, "what's it going to be?"
I stared at him, calculating my chances against wiping him out versus wiping the men out, saving my lover versus saving us both. The man in front of me set a stance, sword raised, and I knew he would kill us both after this, if I gave him the chance. I had loved him once, in a childhood by the sea that seemed a million years away now, and back then I would have dropped my sword for him.
But we grew up and he found himself, and he found power, and I watched my boy turn into a cunning, power-hungry usurper. He became everything I hated, and I hated him, and then I was lucky enough to fall in love again, but he wasn't so lucky. And he turned bitter, he destroyed the good in him and let hate and power run his head. And so I watched him spin tales of lies, blood and deceit, manipulated anyone and everyone to his advantage, and turn every person in the country against my lover. Not me, never me. He hadn't expected me to be immune to his lies.
My eyes darted from him to the man on his right. This man was the tallest, he had taught me to duel. As far as I was concerned, these two were my biggest obstacles. The rest were nothing but toys to play with.
"What's it going to be?" he asked me again, and I saw his eyes flick to the man at my feet, now unconscious again. He was probably dead. Maybe not.
I slipped my leg from his weak grasp. "You'll fight me."
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not mine, including Laura Marling's chillingly beautiful song, Night Terror.
Author's Note: If you understood what this was about, then… tell me your interpretation because I have no idea what this is about. One second I'm listening to Laura Marling's Night Terror, the next I'm falling in love with specific lyrics and using them to cook up, well, this. I think this is sort of set in a parallel universe involving just Merlin, Arthur, and an unknown girl/woman (I am 100% positive it's not Guinevere or Morgana. She is new.) where.. well, where this happens. I can't tell you who is who, because I honestly have no idea. Some part of me started out the villain as Arthur, another part Merlin, and somewhere along the middle the line got blurred and I can't tell whom and what.
Do drop me your interpretation of this story, though! Much love.