TITLE: Interview with a King II – Post Excalibur
AUTHOR: Inukshuk
SPOILERS: Excalibur
DISCLAIMER: The characters and situations of the television program "Merlin" are the creations and property of Others, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
FEEDBACK: yes please … writers need food. Suggestions, comments constructive criticism always welcome.
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Interview with a King – Post Excalibur-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She knew.
Do not be swayed by her wide, watery eyes or her bitten, cherry red lips. Beautiful women cannot be trusted simply because they lack ugliness. Sometimes the ugliness is hidden beneath.
Nimueh?
She always knew the law.
She has delivered this lie a thousand times. So has the rest of her kind. It is their stock and trade to lure the uninitiated into treachery. They perpetrate their crimes of confidence and betrayal to feed their lust for power over others.
That law is not obscure as she would have you believe. It is not buried in the fine print. It is not confined to the indexed sub clauses where a legal argument can be fought by old men quoting arcane precedents. A child would know by the time it could walk just as we understand our natural laws. Cold freezes. Fire burns. Gravity works. It is not a secret. These laws are greater than any man; any court; any philosophy. They are constant. Immutable.
Every last one of them knew it.
Including her.
In order for a life to be saved, a life must be taken.
The words haunt me yet.
They are echoes of the past, the present – and I believe though I have not seen it – the future. I can close my eyes and hear a multitude of voices repeating it across time. Gaius. Nimueh. Advisors. Soldiers. And my Ygraine. Oh, my beloved Ygraine.
When I discovered it what was I to do? My wife. My son and heir. Trade my past and present for my future? How could I lose everything I loved to save everything I had hoped for? I cleaved myself in two to save him once. It was almost easy for me to die a second time.
And so it was that I knew the moment Arthur picked up the gauntlet that for my son to live, another life would be sacrificed. I tried to command him to rescind his challenge. But he grows more like me every day. Arthur – my son who becomes ever worthy of the crown – refused. He will one day be a good and just king.
If he lives that long. If his brashness is tamed.
I tried to convince him to refuse. It was my life or his. I fought to save us both but I could not tell him this because I feared he would simply give his life for mine. There will be a day when he is king. There will be celebration and song; not anarchy and hatred. Honour and duty and courage – these are his assets. He earns their respect. He tries to be more than they can be and look to him as the highest standard possible. It is his destiny to be king.
In my own realm, I alone uphold the constancy of the law. My will be done. My will is done. I say it and so it is thus. My son will not die for sins I have committed. His sacrifice would not have been noble; it would have been a wasted life.
The laws of magic cannot be broken.
But neither can the laws of love.
Who is to say which is more powerful?