~o~
The Queen of the Old Ways was reflecting in her royal chambers in the Land of Magic.
Alone in his bed, with his knees nearly drawn to his chin, Frik envisioned Mab pacing back and forth, scheming in her crystal enclosure, throwing shards empty of life to the floor.
Like a distraction from another room he could see Morgan le Fay from afar; he could hear her dreams and was therefore restless. He longed to be with her, but hadn't yet been temporarily dismissed from the Queen's services.
Knowing that his mistress was one with the night, he rose to meet her. Hoping to quicken his release from her duties.
Mab stepped over the floor of her palace, its surface sharing its translucency with ice. She had been looking into her scrying crystals, and what she'd seen had left her troubled and distracted.
Frik entered the chamber with trepidation.
"What do you want, Frik?" Mab hissed over her shoulder, sensing him before turning.
His eyes became distant, unfocused; his fingers intertwined as he fidgeted with them. Swallowing, he realized that perhaps now was not the best time to test Mab, but it was too late to vanish. He stepped forward. "Ah, Madame. Seeing as how I am unneeded here at the moment, would a visit with the mother of the future king of England not seem a more fitting use of my services?"
Mab knew the unborn child's well-being had little to do with Frik's mission, but she didn't bother to voice her thoughts. She would gladly welcome time away from the gnome.
Finding no rage in Mab's reaction, Frik pressed further. "In fact, I could stay until the child's arrival. To - to make certain there are no complications."
Both understood that years in the mortal world could pass as though moments in the Palace Under the Hill. A few months of absence would be nothing. If Mab needed Frik for any reason, she could summon him back to her side whenever she pleased.
Forever repulsed by her servant, Mab motioned him away with a wave of her glittering hand. "Go on, Frik. Can't you see I'm busy?!"
Frik smiled and disappeared before her eyes, leaving behind a thin cloud of coal where once he'd stood.
He reappeared seconds later in Morgan's room at Tintagel Castle. His transformation into his typical guise of the golden-haired swordsman was accompanied by the sound of clock gears. He turned, half in a daze, and found that at a quarter after twelve the woman he loved was still asleep. Seeing her features free of the thoughts of her waking self, Frik was arrested by her beauty.
Morgan's belly was swollen beneath the throw partially covering her body. Her arms, feet, and upper torso were left to the elements. Glimpsing such, there was a whisper heard only by Frik, something that made him pause, agape as he listened. It was a foolish notion, a jealous wish, that the child inside Morgan could be his, not Arthur's. Distress was visible on his face as he pushed aside the thought.
He bent to kiss her forehead, then found a chair and brought it closer to her bed. Sitting down, he carefully moved Morgan's throw to cover her in full and then waited for her to wake.
When Morgan opened her eyes, she was met with the vision of the disguised gnome walking to her bedside from another room with a heavily laden breakfast tray.
"Good afternoon, my dear."
"Hello," she said nonchalantly, tearing crust from a piece of bread. She was still tired. "What awe you doing heawe?"
"Making sure you're kept comfortable." He grandly threw himself on her bed, landing on his side, his hands clasped. His eyebrows raised as he added, "And entertained."
A thinly veiled laugh escaped Morgan. A laugh that sounded more like a growl. "Mmm, I like the sound of that. I could use some entewtainment. It's awfully dull awound heawe." She spoke with her mouth full, looking over her room, the man beside her. Her tea stained gown was loose over her reclined body.
"I aim to serve." He bowed from the waist up. "Now Morgan, please eat. You need to keep up your strength."
Morgan looked to the tray, to the Turkish delights, fruits and creams. To sesame cakes, dates, pudding and milk.
"Let me read something to you to pass the time." He reappeared in the seat by her bed, a table stacked with books at his side. Frik missed his days reading aloud to his former pupil, Merlin. It had become a favorable pastime, one he wanted to share with the woman he'd come to love. A way to connect through shared experience.
He didn't know it, but books were a small source of comfort to Morgan. She'd taken to them in her loneliness after Lady Igraine's death.
"Now let's see." He mumbled to himself as he sorted through the assortment of books, tossing the ones he'd decided against to his side and behind him. He'd summoned tomes from the past, present and future. "This one looks promising," he said, displaying for Morgan the title in his grasp; Jane Eyre. "I like the looks of that fellow." He raked a finger under the visage of a roughened gentleman in the corner of the illustrated cover, underlining his importance with touch.
For Morgan's benefit he assumed the forms of the characters in the novel as he read, that of the foreboding master of Thornfield Hall, his daughter's governess, her young charge, the madwoman contained in the dark recesses of the Hall, and all others. With a swift turn, like that of a child's spinning top, he was transformed; hair growing, shrinking, changing color. Features made effeminate, voice changed. Frik was in his element: He'd finally found someone who appreciated his talent for acting and the constant reinvention of himself. He conjured the music and sounds of the book, images of strange machines and lands, until Morgan felt as though she were truly experiencing the shadow of a future she'd never know.
Morgan asked for another book after the tale ended. This time she was transformed as well, changing if only minutely — the color of her hair, her clothes — to match the idea she'd created of the heroine, and all other characters she wished to inhabit.
They returned to their play-acting intermittently over the course of Morgan's pregnancy. They could go on for hours, reaching deep into the night. Ceasing only when Frik was made to carry out a task for Queen Mab, one she'd invented only because she could see he'd been enjoying himself too much.
When Frik could see Morgan had grown listless, he would on occasion read from a tome whose contents were less than literary. One that he would find more than agreeable to act out, usually with an able-bodied male depicted on the cover, his shirt open or non-existent. Frik's usual continence for Morgan was, after all, a mimicry of the faces he'd seen before on the covers of such books.
She loved it when he acted out a passage from so silly a book. She'd fight him away at times, feigning disgust, her head bowed as she laughed.
He would stop before it grew old, laying at her side, his head on her shoulder, reading to her as any human would. No enchantment. Her mind and eyes weary, and they would sleep that way.
~oOo~
He suddenly sent his hand out to the night then brought his closed fist to his ear, as though it held something he wished to keep contained.
Quizzically, he brought his hand to Morgan's ear, who had been watching him. What she heard within his grasp sounded like a summer forest alive with the songs of insects.
Hearing the song that was meant for her, she turned to the blond, asking without words what he next meant to do. He opened his palm, lifting it skywards as though letting free a host of captured souls.
When his hand returned to eye-level, Morgan saw it and the sky were void of life. Frik then took her hand and mimed pouring something - sand, liquid - into it, and soon she could hear the cicadas and crickets singing in her own hand.
He bent to her ear, whispering something that sounded like another language, but somehow she knew to repeat it. When she did, the insect voices were silenced. He moved his hands over hers, implying she should say the phrase again. When she did the noise resumed.
Frik had given her a spell. Some of the magic promised to her long ago. It was a worthless spell, but a spell, nonetheless.
~o~