Disclaimer: nothing you recognise belongs to me.
When the candles are extinguished and there is nothing but darkness and the heavy, comforting weight of him beside me, my Arthur speaks the words that he does not wish to share with the many people who follow him. He tells me of Rome. He tells me off the brutality of the colosseums and the beauty of its buildings. He tells me of his hopes and his fears, his past and the future he wishes for. It is no hardship to listen, for I am curious to know what has made him the man that he is and grateful that he wishes my opinion on what is yet to come. He is my love, my king, but not so long ago I was known only as Merlin's daughter, and I have secrets of my own.
I am known throughout these lands as a beauty; the notion still makes me smile sometimes. Had the people who watch me in my silks and finery seen me only a year ago they would change their minds. Arthur thinks that he found me beaten and bloody in the Roman's dungeons. He thinks that he saved me, and it is true, he did, but I saved him first. Unlike the tales of his courage, my stories belong to me alone, for there are few who could understand why I married the man that I tried to kill.
My mother died long before I was old enough to remember her, and my father re-married swiftly. It is the way of our people - we grieve, we endure, and we move on - but I never thought much of my stepmother, and she never thought much of me. Her husband had been lost in battle; perhaps that changed her. Perhaps, but I am not convinced. She always favoured her daughters and I did not blame her for that: blood calls to blood after all, but the many petty cruelties she bestowed built a tower of resentment in my mind. Anghard and Cerys could do nothing wrong and I could do nothing right. They were taught to hunt by the best archers of our tribe. They were allowed to watch the battles between our kind and the Roman interlopers while I sat safe and twitching with irritation back at camp. They were chosen and I was ignored, and while my father was kind when he had time to notice me, my resentment lingered.
It wasn't a difficult choice to make when I came to rebel. Picts and Romans fought from time to time, but planned attacks were rare. The news that a Roman troop were approaching was unusual, sending our encampment into a frenzy. Anghard and Cerys spoke of nothing else, and our tribe thrummed with the anticipation of battle. I was thirteen years old then, when the Romans rode to the great wall. Some said that they were there to kill us all, others that they were merely resting before heading north. I listened when my elders discussed strategies and battle plans, I watched my step sisters prepare their bows and hid mine far from prying eyes. My attempt at an ambush it wasn't successful, and as an introduction to battle it was downright disastrous.
They don't tell you of the blood, those warriors who return from the battlefield, they don't tell you that that the people killed are, well, people. I had marked my arrows carefully, followed my sisters to battle without turning the head of even our best scout. I had thought to kill that day, I had thought to prove myself as something more than Merlin's daughter, and I could have done.
But he was handsome, the man who lead the knights to the wall, and in the crisp, bitter light of dusk, he was so obviously human that my fingers fumbled uselessly against my bow. Romans were my enemies; shoot true and run, that was what I had always been taught, but he was different. When my fellow Picts ran towards the little group of soldiers he turned his horse and fought. They were obviously not his equals in rank, but he fought for them even though he could have ridden to safety without much difficulty. Dark hair flying, he rallied the young men that followed him, and perhaps that is why I did what I did. Eadgyth is ,was, one of our finest archers. He drew back his bow in the melee of Picts and Woads, but my arrow hit home first. I hit the young Roman in the shoulder, knocking him from his horse and away from the arrow that would have hit him in the throat.
I didn't see the rest of the battle. My aunt saw me fire and dragged me back home, and I promised not to disobey my father's orders again, although my dreams were haunted by the man that I had shot. In time I grew older and as I became a woman, so I became useful to my people. It is a strange feeling to at once love and yet resent the people you care for, but I felt both emotions when I was sent on a scouting trip to the north. After being captured by the Roman, Marius, I did not think that I would live to see sunlight again. He beat me, he raped me, and he took the lives of those who were not strong enough to survive. In the darkness of the dungeon I dreamed of better places; sunlit meadows and icy forests. Sometimes I even dreamt of him.
And he came for me. Ah, you think me foolish. Perhaps I am, but If that is so then I am a happy fool. I know who I am. I know that some see me as the hope of my people. I know that I am seen as a traitor to others.
I don't care.
Arthur told me of his first battle when we were newly married and his body was a confusing thing of muscles and sweet pleasure. He told me of the first scar that he received in battle, and how he sought vengeance to the man that had inflicted the wound upon him. My kin mark our arrows, and he tells me that there was a time when would check the quivers of each man he cut down in the hope that he would find the man who first marked him. He keeps the arrow that was torn from his flesh by the scrolls sent from Rome. It is a grubby, twisted thing, but the carvings upon it are still clear.
I kiss the scar that marks his shoulder when the night is cold and quiet, I keep my bow and quiver hidden in the woods behind the stables, and I keep my secrets to myself.
A/N a bit weird this one. I couldn't imagine Guinevere leaving a shoe so this way "Prince Charming" gets an arrow instead. Happy holidays everyone :)