We shall scatter the stars

by Song of Stillness

Morgaine and a dying Arthur wait on the blink of oblivion to be accepted back into Avalon. Morgaine reminisces about her life and how it has somehow inexplicably and tragically been intertwined all along with her brother's.

We shall scatter the stars

Author's Note: The Mists of Avalon is such a haunting book and movie and my favourite interpretation of the Arthurian legend. Even though I only saw snippets of it years ago, it stayed with me. This has been a one-shot in the making for a while but went through necessary changes and editing and I didn't get to finishing it until just recently. It uses a mixture of inspiration from the book and the movie and also Gavin Scott's original movie transcript. I hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer – I don't own anything – The Mists of Avalon belongs to Marion Zimmer Bradley, the movie to Gavin Scott and various other people.

Scenario: Morgaine and a dying Arthur wait on the blink of oblivion to be accepted back into Avalon. Morgaine reminisces about her life and how it has somehow inexplicably and tragically been intertwined all along with her brother's.

o0o

Oh see, my brother, how the moon glides fair above the sea,
And lights a silvered pathway there upon the rising wave.
There must we follow you and I and at its ending be
At last secure and safe within the sanctuary you crave.
For we shall be at Avalon.
(Nightflight)
o0o

I watch and wait in the pre-dawn chill like a person possessed. Floating, vulnerable on this sea of blackness. The great dark shroud of night threatens to overwhelm me, pull me under and the water is calm, unbearably calm and I hate it for being so.

I can barely look at you, hearing instead your harsh, ragged intake of air, each laboured breath nearly stopping my heart.

"Sister..."

I reach down and touch your pale forehead gently, trembling from some unknown emotion. "What is it dear one?"

"You are sad." Your eyes open for a passing moment and I am caught up in the fierce, adoring devotion that I have always remembered since childhood that grew and matured as you did. Deep, unfathomable, profound.

I turn away. "The mists will not open for us little brother... the goddess will not allow it."

And I am afraid because I cannot heal you... But I do not speak the fears that are on my mind. I must be strong for you.

I feel your light touch on my arm, as faint and insubstantial as the passing wind. "It matters not sister... I would have liked to see the fair Isle of Avalon, but I am content to float on this god-forsaken sea if you stay with me."

Your words make me smile. "Always, brother." But who knows where the wind will carry us… Perhaps, beyond Avalon itself...

You are quiet for a moment. "Morgaine...? When I pass through the veil, will I go the gods of my ancestors or to the Christian's god?"

I pick up your hand and kiss it fiercely, refusing to believe even now that I will lose you so soon. "To whichever realm you choose Gwydion."

Our souls are immortal, I'd always been told that, and so I believed. When we died, our bodies would be given back to the earth, as was the way of life, but the transcendent, living part of our being would rise like a silver osprey from the water, giving flight to the new dawn, whether to be re-born on the earth or fly to immortal realms, one could never be sure.

You smile as if you remember something, maybe a memory, my playful use of your name has brought on. You look up at me with bright eyes, the sparkle still not quite faded. "Do you remember the times we used to take the stable horses and escape from our lessons?"

I close my eyes and laugh silently. How could I forget...?

"Father Cuthbert was always so angry..." You ramble on, glowing, made young by your boyish memories. I am caught off guard by your radiant face, and it is as if for a moment the pain is eased. I remember it well. We were young and impetuous then and so incredibly free.

You laugh and your life-blood bubbles up and runs a path of coral-red red down your chin. "Hush – Gwydion love – stop talking..." I cover your mouth with my hand.

You move your lips impatiently against my palm, your eyes fevered. "You once told me that all things happen according to the will of the gods. Is this what they have willed Morgaine? For Britain to fall into enemy hands?" You speak quietly, but I can sense your anguish. "Did they foresee this? Or have our lives all been lived for nothing...?"

"Not for nothing love. Never for nothing…" But I interlace your fingers with mine, the past, a misty fog before my eyes.

All lives are ordained... I had been told, and all things pass into the mists of time...

But to what extent? For I remember everything…

As a child, I would kneel by your bed-side. Night time at Camelot was magical. The shadows lingered, throwing gloomy shapes against the walls. And most often than not, you couldn't sleep and so would beg me with all the audaciousness of your five years to tell you stories.

"But Morgaine you promised!"

And so I knelt and proceeded to invoke the magic of storytelling during witching hour. The sea crashed against our high walls and candlelight flickered in the gloom. Your eyes shone blue-black in the darkness; our whispered secrets gave way to giggles. The candlelight became a fire, the bed-sheets; the open sea. I'd demonstrate the killing blow as the knight crushed the serpent. One hand stretched to poise, and the other ready to crumple up the blankets in a tumultuous heap of feathers and rough linen. There was no talk of destiny then, only light and warmth and dear familiarity.

"When I'm older Morgaine, will I live forever?"

"No one lives forever silly."

"But what about the stars...They live forever don't they?"

"I don't know Gwydion."

"Then I will be a star Morgaine and I will never die! I will shine brightly so that you will know where I am and we will be together always..."

Always.

But destiny had its say eventually. The spring held long shadows in the grass. Mother's tear-filled eyes, Father watching on as the Merlin pulled you from my arms, Viviane watching with trepidation.

"Don't leave me Morgaine." And your eyes became an ocean. And it was in that moment, that I realised I would lose you... perhaps forever. But instead we locked eyes and fates and hands and promised we'd come back for each other.

I'll never leave your side.

And so I was initiated into the sacred heart of the Mother goddess, learning to still my mind, to become one with nature, to master the elements. It was there I met and fell in love with my Aunt's son, Lancelot on the rocky steps of the Tor, who in turn fell captivated to the vision of a girl through the mists in Glastonbury, a girl that would ultimately be his undoing. I dreamt of war and suffering and destiny and promise... and you, you most of all.

But we were destined to meet, oh yes, played by the forces around us, in a way we would never have wished upon ourselves.

On that one fateful night... when I was but a trembling virgin, a priestess, taking on the guise of the Mother goddess, my body painted with the symbols of the earth. That night I would meet the chosen one, the Horned god, the one who would unite the Old religion and the new one in a ritual as old as time itself.

Beltane, red earth, red heat and a song... a vibration, a hum. Faint at first and then louder and louder until it became a resounding beat, strong, echoing the beat of my heart. A man stood against the red heat of the firelight, antlers illuminated by the dancing flames, who was young and strong and full of life, virile and passionate, whose arms and lips were fire and where we met and merged, the heavens trembled...

But in the morning, when sticky eye-lids greeted the early morning sun, we were merely human; a man and a woman in each other's arms. It was then that you looked at me in recognition, remembered my voice.

"Oh gods... my brother... Gwydion?" Gwydion. The child-hood name – meaning bright one – named so for your bright hair.

"Arthur," You had whispered.

I had a vivid memory of my mother's sad, tired-worn face, her lips moving: "This is your little brother and you must love and care for him..."

Surely it couldn't have been you... not my baby brother...

No – not this strange, beautiful man who lay all night with me, who touched me and held me in ways I'd never known and in doing so, pierced my heart. And in that twilight chamber beneath the earth, we wept together in terrible grief as I held you like I used to do all those years ago, overwhelmed at the forces which strove to determine our destinies and play us like pawns.

For that is what we became brother... little pieces on a game-board that would be used for the good of Avalon and the saving of the world. Even as King, you were golden, victorious, every hope and every dream made manifest. You were everything that the people needed and yet you suffered and I suffered with you.

"Morgaine I -" And your eyes had been pleading, anguished, bright, on that wind-swept hillside.

"Arthur – I know what it is you want to say but -"

"By the gods, Morgaine – I promised I would always love you and -"

"No!" And I was harsh, uncompromising.

"You must put this madness behind you brother."

For that is sometimes the way you must show love. By being harsh, strong, unyielding.

I had run away from that place in tears, for I had discovered that I was with child. Your child.

I turned on Viviane in fury.

"What else must I give Aunt? First my mother, then my father who died because of you, and now my poor brother Arthur, who was a baby in my arms, who loved me more than anything in the world... And I loved him... You've torn him apart; you've taken our pure, innocent love and turned it into shame!"

She had looked at me with that hard, unflinching stare, that I used to think were the eyes of the Mother goddess herself. "I would give anything – my very soul for the good of Avalon!"

And in her eyes I saw my fate and I renounced it.

I renounced it all.

Never,

Never again would I set foot there.

But my life it seems was destined for sadness dear brother.

All those I really loved, I could never have... poor Lancelot who it seemed I had wanted forever… Accolon... How you would have pitied me brother. But you had your own bout of sadness to deal with. Your Queen was childless while I bore a son. Dark and beautiful and Fay-like, but with eyes teeming with millions of squirming things.

I wonder what went through your mind when you saw him for the first time? When you realised he was your son...? Did you see me in him?

Did you see yourself...?

Did you ever think that you would be each other's undoing in the end?

He turned you into a frail, ghost of a person, your hair matted and falling into your eyes. You had looked at me that day in the empty throne-room with eyes so devoid of hope.

"You have come back..." your haunted eyes had said.

"Arthur, you must make ready, the Saxons are almost upon us..."

You had looked at me with dull, glazed eyes. "I am but a sinner who slept with his own sister, who loves his sister like no other, whose son is running rampant through Camelot turning the religion of the mother goddess into a whorehouse..."

"Arthur! We are all sinners, but does that mean we must cower and beg forgiveness for the rest of our days? Or are we going to stand and fight and continue fighting until our dying breath? Your people need you!"

"I am unfit to lead the people."

"You can do this and you must. You are the chosen one. Now stand!" And I had put Excalibur into your trembling hands and urged you to fight. One last time.

And now here we were… the outcome of a bloody battle, the remnants of a lost glory…

Mist and coolness and the chill of dawn bring me back to the present. I turn to you, realising for the first time, how weary you look, how time has changed us. Irrevocably. Completely.

"I am sorry sister..." you whisper. "I wish..." you struggle as if trying to convey some incomprehensible emotion. "I wish things were -"

"Hush." I put a finger over your lips, a burning in my throat. I do not wish for things to be different for it cannot change my love for you. I look down at your dear face and ache from a cut too deep to fathom. You solemnly touch the strands of my long beaded hair like a child. I lean down and kiss your forehead. Cold.

If I could give you the world, I would.

But I can't...

I can't give you everything dear brother.

The goddess only knows I wish I could.

But some things are not meant to be...

Sometimes dreams of shining like stars only belong to stories,

To legend...

Some things you have to let go of, brother.

And you cannot know how hard that is.

I have fought to protect you my whole life.

For we are like two children on a black sea, on the edge of oblivion, locked out of Paradise.

The goddess had abandoned us, yes – but we had abandoned her.

"Perhaps..." you whisper quietly, as if reading my thoughts. "Perhaps we need to give something ... in return..." And you motion weakly to the blade at your side. I look at you curiously for a moment and take the shining blade in my hands.

How many hopes and dreams had been caught up in this precious object?

And with a determined will and strong arm, I stand and spin Excalibur straight out into the misty blue. For a moment, it seems to dissipate like light on water and disappears in the form of a cross. The earth holds its breath and flutters in ripples and waves. Then right before us the heavens sigh and open up, spilling forth like a raiment of stars and an unveiling of cloud, and through the clearing mist a beautiful, undying land spreads vast and green before us. I can hardly believe my eyes. We've been accepted after all. I let out a long drawn-out breath.

Avalon.

I feel my heart clench within me. It fills me with hope and inexplicable joy. I wrap my arms around you and lift you so that you can see it.

"Look... Arthur... We're home." And I sit you up against me like a child and in my mind we are children again, laughing and playing against a sun-lit landscape.

But you do not answer.

"My little brother... my love..."

"We're home."

But you have slipped quietly away, your soul flying light and care-free into the clear dawn. I hold your body in my arms and cry my heart out, marvelling at the irony of it all... that you have gone to join your forefathers in realms unknown and have left me behind.

The sun appears and rests calmly on the water and for a moment it is as if you are bathed with red and gold fire; a blessing of sacred proportions. I lean down and lightly kiss your mouth; blood on my lips. Crimson, like the sky-line.

"Sleep brother..." I whisper. "And be at peace."

For it is in your legacy, your memory that you will live on. You had once told me that you would be a star and would shine brightly so that others would find you, so that I would find you… I hold you close to me fiercely. Yes brother, we will laugh and wade through the cool, green shadows of Avalon forever. We will ride our horses through wheat-fields and oceans and constellations. We shall scatter the stars.

o0o

Note: The poem at the beginning is the first stanza of a beautiful poem cited from a website, titled 'Glastonbury - Camelot Revisited'

Gavin Scott's first original script for the movie adaptation The Mists of Avalon (which in parts is quite different to what they ended up with) is from a website 'The Two Evil Monks.'

Thank you for reading! And now kindly review :)