Title: Queen of Hearts
Rating: M for mature situations
Disclaimer: I disclaim. Merlin belongs to BBC/Shine.
Genre: Future Cannon (no spoilers beyond season 3) Angst/Drama (hurt/comfort)
Characters: Guinevere, Arthur, Morgana, Merlin and some more to be revealed
Summary: Months before Guinevere's wedding to King Arthur she is faced with an obstacle. Is it time to let the past go?
Author's Note: Elements of the first part may be disturbing for some. It will balance out. I have auction fics I'm still writing, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone. The story is already completely written and edited. Any relation to the episode with the title's name is mostly minimal.
This is part I of a three part story that is fully written already. I'll be posting the updates a week apart.
Part I
Night Terror
Clothed in black obscurity, a witch seeks revenge for the death of her sister. Blended into the mist of advanced night, she conjures a hideous chimera.
III
The room is warm, lush. Shimmering curtains surround, colorful, bright. Blown softly by an unseen wind. Each so ethereal they reveal glimmers of movement beyond.
The breeze lifts one, a sound echoing. It makes the woman observer shudder with embarrassment. The sound. There's something so prurient about it.
Flowers appear upon the ends of the curtains, beautiful flowers of lavender. One brushes over her fingers. Such delicate petals.
Another curtain lifts. She glimpses what must be a bed, high, adorned with gorgeous lavender silk and velvet coverings.
A third curtain feels the breeze's song. It too lifts, showing feet, ankles. They vibrate rhythmically against another set, a thrumming of intimate interaction. She blushes at it as her hand finds her breast.
A fourth curtain parts way to show even more. Nakedness. Stripped bare of clothing, thighs widely spread. Sharp hips above pummel into hot wet surroundings. Skin kisses skin. It's what the sound was. This is a lovemaking pair. She's an audience to it. This is terribly wrong. She should leave, but her hands markedly touch her body instead.
The fifth curtain becomes the wind's possession. It lifts to reveal that the upper parts of the constitutions are just as bare. A man's hard chest rubs against a woman's bouncing breasts with every thrust of his lower half. Skin is flush, set in deep arousal of nearing consummation. The woman observer's thighs widen as she strains for something she doesn't yet fully understand.
Now it is the sixth's turn. It whips upward vehemently as the wind increases. The action on the bed rips into a frenzy. Skin slaps skin, hard, erotic punishments. Long grunts. Moans slip past lips. Wild animalistic punctuation. A pounding of thrusts. The lovers' bodies move so torrentially fast that they are a storm of approaching climax. As it reaches pinnacle, one of the lovers howls with vicious abandon.
The woman observer's thighs clench painfully. Burning sensation. She feels such hot wetness as the identity of the lovers becomes clear. It is her future king, his beautiful golden sand streaks of hair, that pout of lips she loves so much. The woman has midnight curls of hair that fall around her face wildly now.
It is she and her king. This is how it will be. The woman observer feels the swarming wet heat between her thighs smolder to near peak.
They turn around now to face her, smiling ever so languishingly. It's his beautiful expression, rained upon by lovers' sweat, but hers-
Hers-
That near peak turns to burning ice.
It wrenches coldly, freezing her so brutally inside that she contorts with pain. Far away is wicked laughter as the woman is no longer her.
NEVER was.
She is unknown, more than one, faces flashing of his past acquaintances and those she does not recognize. All are golden in beauty, perfect really, perfect princess ladies. He smiles her way, a grin so satisfying that it does not care one shard for her frozen agony. Barbed icicles impale her insides. They twist her previous excitement into frigid horror. She pleads to whatever evil tempest this is, for it to end.
But the worst has not yet occurred.
With another smile directed her way the naked sweating flushed lovers change positions. The woman climbs atop the man, spreads her wet glistening thighs over his beaded waist. With an indulgent lazy smile he lies back against the pillows. Her king so languidly enjoying the attentions of another woman. He thrusts upward. The woman coos with pleasure. Grabs her breasts. Lets her head fall back with erotic pleasured abandon.
The woman observer tries to find an out. An escape. But there is none. Every attempt leads her to another curtain. Another vision of these lovers. In a new position. As the laughter echoes hideously behind her. Position after position. Sweat. Hot. Naked. Lovers. Her king. Always smiling. Impaling her heart. One bladed icicle after another. Making everything between her thighs turn to ice. Frigid. Cold. She runs. Rips the curtains away. Lovers behind each one. Laughter surrounding her hearing.
Sounds of skin pushed against skin.
Thrusts of sex.
She rips harder at the curtains, but once one is gone another slaps her face. And laughs. Lustful actions. An assault of them. Of his smiling face. Snickering at her. Humiliating her. Rending her apart. She claws again and again. Her fingers start to bleed. She looks down at her hands, at the thick trails of dark red crimson blood-
That is where it ends.
Finally.
Mercifully.
Before her heart can bleed itself out…
Gwen screams like she has never before.
Over and over.
Ripping.
Contortions of sound.
Sitting up in her bed, they thrust, bleeding cries from her mouth until her throat is raw. She is wet, sweating horridly. When she looks down she sees that her chemise is askew, lifted wantonly. She pushes it down furiously, tears of sweat running down her face, trickling from her curls of hair. Down there wetting her thighs.
She shoves shaking hands to her hair, telling herself over and over again that it wasn't true. Wasn't real. Just a dream. A night terror. Arthur would never do that to her. Arthur loves her.
Again and again. A mantra.
It heals nothing.
III
The witch howls wretchedly. Before the chimera can cause complete madness, actually bring on blood, it ceases. Suddenly. Without warning. The witch is thrown back against the caved floor. Stunned. Someone, someone, some entity stopped it. The witch is suddenly assailed by memories of her times spent with the girl. The girl being the handmaiden of course.
Picking flowers. Going to the market. Laughing at the prince's expense. Sitting upon her bed giggling. Getting dressed with her friend's help. Riding on horseback to her father's resting place. Feeling the girl's gentle strong hugs after a dream. Waiting for her to be returned home. Endless moments of agony standing at the window looking to see if ever her face will be there again. And then. She is there. Returned with the prince. She is in her arms, her dear sweet handmaiden, her adoring brave friend-
"NO! NO! NO!" The witch screams, tearing at her long dark locks of hair. "I don't feel this way. She is nothing to me. She betrayed me by accepting his love over my friendship. She went to him pretending to be on my side. She cannot stop my power. Not like this. She has none. She's just a simple servant girl, nothing.
I am Morgana. The Witch. I have lost my sister. They STOLE her from me. I have nothing now so I have nothing left to lose. I want her dead. I want all of them dead.
So why? How? Who? Keeps me from this? Gwen has no power. She can't do it! Who? What? Protected her from my chimera? WHO?"
More of the images come, making the witch coo with fond remembrance, before she screams out,
"ENOUGH! I don't care about her! I don't care about any of them!"
And yet maybe in the most fathomless depths of her heart that is not so true.
For tonight the Queen of Hearts survived.
The drive to madness failed.
Morgana, the witch, is puzzled.
How did it not work?
How?
III
Gwen wipes her face and body of the night terror's sweat. Physically she is cleaned; mentally its awful images cavort viciously in front of her eyes.
She cannot stay here.
Finding her purple cloak, she wraps it around her shaking body, slips on her shoes, and departs out into the night, leaving behind in her tiny house a shining celebratory gown that hangs beyond a lavender curtain. It is made for a day only months away.
Rounding a group of houses that are near the marketplace, she stops at a rustic one. Her hand freezes over the door. This is indulgent nonsense. A shudder of the dream comes back. She fists her hand and knocks hard.
There's nothing at first, but as she adamantly continues to hit the door, it comes, sounds of movement and the burning flicker of a flame. A disgruntled voice.
"Arrr—who is that? I-OH!"
There's a loud crash. Gwen winces at it.
"AH! Stubbed my toe! What is that dang pot doing there? Grrr…I'm MAD—you hear me whoever's out there! You're going to be sorry you disturbed my sleep!"
Gwen almost shrinks back from the door as it suddenly whips open. The man, with his tunic askew and hair messily falling over his forehead, gapes.
"GWEN?"
She feels foolish, unable to stop them.
"Gads, you're shivering!" He pulls her quickly inside his disorganized house, rapidly placing the pot that must have been on the floor atop the simple pine table. As Gwen silently scans it all she feels the hard spontaneous force of his hug.
"Eh now, what happened? Is this about the princess? If he's done something-
She needs to stop this before all of Camelot is awakened by his wrath. Pressing upon his chest to create some distance, she tries to find her usual calm. "Gwaine, it's nothing like that. I just-I don't know if I'm being irrational, acting like this."
As Gwen, the future queen of Camelot, and his friend, stumbles on her words with upset, Gwaine frowns tightly. "Ah, come on now. What happened Gwen? I've never seen you like this. If Arthur-
"No. It's not Arthur." She insists. "Well not directly anyway. I-I had this awful dream. I know it sounds foolish to get so upset over a simple dream, but it was very real, very ugly. And I just, I need you to help me now Gwaine."
"Like how? Take the dream away?" Gwaine, underneath his heap of unruly dark hair, looks clueless. "What was it about anyway?"
Gwen gives no answer to the questions. Instead she holds his hand gently for a moment. His hug warmed her up slightly, but the chilling shudders have not totally vacated.
"You're the only knight other than Elyan who doesn't live in the castle. And I can't go to Elyan, not about this. I can't do it alone either, not with the guards so fiercely watching. It would create chaos."
Gwaine frowns. "True, they're extra diligent after what happened with Morgause. Arthur knows that Morgana will soon come wanting revenge. Thus security is tight."
Gwen nods her head, pain forming in her heart at the name of her former mistress. There was a time that the two of them were almost inseparable. She misses that Morgana. "Exactly. Which is why I need you to get me in, tonight, now. I- - oh Gwaine, I need to see Arthur."
Gwaine touches her cheek gently. "Are you sure you're all right Gwen?"
"I will be. After I see him. Please Gwaine."
Gwaine doesn't need to be convinced twice. If Arthur hadn't snatched up her heart first he probably would have competed for it. Beyond her natural almost humble beauty, there is something solidly special about Gwen. It gets people to pay attention.
"Sure, we'll go now. That is, unless I can persuade you otherwise." Gwaine looks around haphazardly before finding his boots underneath a blanket from his bed. He pulls them on over his feet, speaking with cool charm.
She's in love with the king, but that doesn't mean he can't keep trying. Might get her to smile a little more.
"After all, you're beautiful, a born to be queen in every right, and I fight better than the princess, am better looking and a whole list of other things. So what do you say Gwen, save you the trouble of the trip to the castle. I can help you forget that dream."
He kisses the back of her hand to punctuate the flourishing statement.
Gwen snickers as he releases her hand. "That's how you get all the women? With that charm and outright boasting?"
He shrugs, unruly hair swinging with the motion. "Most of the time. That and the fact that I'm a knight. They love that one. Go all melty over it." He winks.
It's infectious. Gwen can't help but smile. "SIR Gwaine."
"Um-hum."
"Take me to Arthur now."
He offers her his arm in knightly fashion. "Sure. Had to try."
"Of course." She takes it.
Her smile is back, but then without warning another shudder rocks her. Gwaine frowns at it. He was teasing of course. He knows that Gwen is deeply in love with Arthur, and that it's returned. If it's Arthur she needs then it's Arthur she's going to get. Disengaging his arm from hers, he instead wraps it tightly around her shoulders as they vacate his house.
III
They get past the guards after Gwaine states his knightly importance, affirming if they don't let them in he will start shouting until the king is awakened. Doesn't hurt also that he flashes the gleaming blade of his sword in their direction.
It took mere minutes for the key to enter the grip of his hand after that.
Now as he and Gwen make it to the king's quarters, she holds back.
Gwaine grips her arm worriedly as a shudder shocks through her body.
"Gwen, you keep doing that!"
She shakes her head. "No, just-
He gestures with the key.
"What is it?" She says nothing, doesn't move. He tips his finger under her chin to see her eyes. "We're here. You can go in."
"Am I wrong in doing this?"
Gwaine shrugs with only a little understanding. "You said you needed to see him."
"But is this being too indulgent?"
"Gwen you're never anything near indulgent. You're always giving to others. For you to want to see him this badly, to be shaking like this, I know that dream did a number on you. And Arthur will realize that too because if he doesn't he's an idiot, but I'm betting he'll get it. This is what you want. I'd knock down this door to get you in there to see him."
"Or you could just use the key."
She smiles dryly, getting him to also.
"Yeah, could do that too."
Gwaine opens up the door with the key and waits. Gwen gestures nervously. "It's okay. You can go now."
Gwaine's hesitant.
Gwen manages a warm smile. Touching his shoulders, she gives him a kiss of gratitude on the cheek. She never could have done this without him. They wouldn't have allowed her into the castle in the first place and even if she managed it still she would have been embarrassed to have the guard bring her to Arthur's quarters. "Really. It's fine. I'm here. Thanks to you Gwaine."
He smiles with rare seriousness, tapping her chin. "Anything for the future queen. Good night Gwen. If you ever get bored of the princess, you know where I live."
She blushes, a titter of laughter falling from her mouth. Gwaine smiles at that and leaves.
Hearing the heavy beat of his boots retreat down the hallway to the stairs, Gwen lets out a long sigh. Quietly pulling the door open a bit more, she slips inside and shuts it slowly to dull the noise. Only a slight creak echoes.
She gazes down upon the sleeping king. She has never shared a bed with him. So much has happened in the past months that their time together has been limited. Mostly all they've done is partake in passionate kisses. That's why at first she was excited for the dream to be about the two of them. It was something they've yet to do. When it became about other women, it made her feel beyond hurtful betrayal, her deepest insecurities. Which is all just crazy because Arthur has not betrayed her. The dream is wrong.
And yet still…
It makes her shudder.
Gwen takes a step further inside the room, hearing a faint repeated sound coming from the bed and tiny crackles of popping wood from the fireplace.
His vast bed is covered in deep red linens. He sleeps silently within the middle of all the covers, alone. Some of the blankets are falling off the edge, possibly from night kicks. He looks so peaceful in sleep. Young. Unbothered. And yet she knows well that the past months have been tiring ones for him, emotionally and physically.
Only two weeks ago Arthur became king, officially. Unofficially he assumed the role months before. After Morgana's failed attempt to take Camelot, Arthur's father was in no mental state to rule the kingdom. Arthur took over, heavily assisted by advisors, the knights and Merlin. By the time Uther's physical health deteriorated also, Arthur had learned much about being king, and relied upon others more for guidance than getting things done for him. Still, experience of his title couldn't lessen the emotional blow when Uther succumbed one night late into the evening. Arthur sat at his bedside pushing away his battle related exhaustion to deliver his father gently to Heaven. Gwen watched protectively from the doorway. After his final breath, the king was buried and Arthur was given a quick coronation ceremony.
In two months' time, at their wedding, more celebration is planned to fully bring Camelot to healing. There Gwen will be crowned Queen Guinevere by her king, the man she loves. A man who is sleeping so soundly she's reluctant to disturb him at all.
Gwen advances further upon the bed. She manages a smile, noticing more as she gets closer. Arthur is shirtless, lying on his back, and softly snoring. That was the other sound when she first came into the room. He snored like that when she invited him to her home that time he pretended to be Sir William. Only now the snoring is not so loud, faintly there.
Her smile is cut away as another night terror reminder makes her body shiver violently. Gwen braces herself on the bed's corner. Pressing her hand to the red satin coverlets, she sinks down upon the luxuriousness. Looking around the room, the fireplace crackling softly, she presses her palm to her heart. She hates having no control over her emotions now, controlled by the dream like it's some sort of evil spell.
She looks over to the fire, to the orange red embers gently flashing across the burning log, and sees cut through its peacefulness, a variation of ugly images. The faces smile at her wickedly, taunting and uncaring of her pain. She kicks away her shoes and brings her knees up to her chest, shutting her eyes and shivering.
The king turns in his sleep, shifting slightly to his side, feeling a pressure at the foot of his bed that seems strange, but mostly annoying, and Arthur doesn't like annoyances. Thinking it's a stray pillow he kicks at it sleepily, but as it lets out a crying protest he stills his foot and opens his eyes rapidly. Already his hand inches for his sword as he jumps halfway up, but then he notices that the figure at the edge of his bed is a woman who moved under his near kicking assault. She's further down the bed's alternate side of his offending feet, shaking.
The familiar midnight curls make his eyes widen. The rigidness of her upper back alerts him strongly.
His voice fighting the grogginess of sleep, he asks, perhaps to make sure it's no dream. "Guinevere?"
She bites her bottom lip, opening her eyes, but does not turn to him, the dream still everywhere.
Arthur sits up further, presses his knees into the mattress and crawls over. "Are you alright?" He asks with squinting eyes, a wrinkled brow.
She says nothing, just stays locked within her own arms, trying to ward off the phantom dream.
Arthur frowns. Between steady quaking her body gives surprising jolts of shock every few moments. Why?
"Guinevere, what is it?" Arthur touches her shoulder delicately, worry escalating. He's never seen her so tightly woven like this. Like something is threatening her.
"What happened? Did someone hurt you? If they did, they will rue-
She doesn't move. She doesn't say anything and it drives him so mad that he anxiously grasps her chin, gets her to turn his way. "Guinevere."
His voice is piercing. Demanding. Needing.
Arthur's heart trembles at the tear that falls down her face. His stomach roils uncomfortably as he grasps her cheek with fingers that have roughened skin from sword practice and repeated battle. He fights the primal urge to force it out of her. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."
More tears fall. She shudders within herself, the dream not letting go, that languishing smile still there as the woman above-
Her body jolts.
Arthur stares at it with fright.
Gwen feels as if a curse has been set upon her, stealing her voice, her dignity and her strength. Another strong jolt hits, following an image of one of those positions.
Arthur locks both hands around her cheeks, feeling the wetness of her tears with dread. He stares at her so closely he can see where the fire's orange gold flickers shine in her dark eyes. "Tell me please."
She can't get away from his penetrating look. Doesn't want to.
It was a dream, she keeps telling herself. It's barely effective. His eyes, so blue, so full of anxiety, force her lips to part. She can't hold like this and not tell him. He looks ready to burst.
"I had a…bad dream."
It's ridiculous to her ears. His eyes widen with bemusement. She sounds silly.
"Oh."
Gwen starts to lower her face with embarrassment, but Arthur's hands are strong still on her cheeks.
"No." Arthur's perplexed certainly. He spent a tiring day dealing with kingdom politics and a bandit raid attempt at the south-eastern side of the forest that leads to Camelot. It left him with a nicked shoulder and a sore back, the latter from the political dealings, having to sit in a firm backed chair so long without movement. Now suddenly she's here, crying, shaking, and he has no reason why. He guesses it's the middle of the night by the way the fireplace's embers are not strong, but only softly glowing. That means this dream had to have some strong significance. She wouldn't be here this late for any other reason.
"I didn't mean to sound so casual about it. What kind of dream?"
"You were in it."
Arthur makes only the slightest gesture. Doesn't seem too awful yet.
"You were with someone in it."
Okay, Arthur's still not getting the point. He considers himself clever enough, maybe not one to act on wisdom first, but smartly tutored and quick to form ideas.
Gwen continues, mad at herself for not being more direct. Everything in her mind is jumbled up now though within the dream's memory. "You were with a woman. Not me. Actually more than one woman, some from your past, some I didn't recognize. You were kissing them."
Arthur nods his head, a small relieved smile forming on his face as he caresses her cheeks happily. "Is that all? Just a dream Guinevere. There's only one woman I enjoy kissing now-
"It wasn't just kissing." Gwen cuts through piercingly. Her voice chokes as one of the images slices back in.
The woman is against his chest, as he fondles her breasts, smiles lazily at her deep moans.
Gwen pushes Arthur's hands away from her face. Bringing her palm up to keep them apart as he stares at her, she goes on. "I thought it was me at first. But it wasn't. It was a different woman every time. Engaged with you. In lustful acts. Private sensual acts. And you were smiling at me like you-
Like-you didn't care. It was like you wanted me to see. It h-hurt me."
He gapes at her like she's seen an omen as she shirks away from him to the farthest corner of his vast bed.
III
End of Part I
I know, sort of a cliffhanger. It wasn't really intentional. It's just one of the two best places for the story to have a break. Second part next week.
Thanks for reading. Feedback is appreciated.