I was single for years at a time after my husband's untimely death. Grief took over my usually calm and collected self. He was- and is my everything. He's gone now though. Today, I'm going on my first date since...the accident.
Gwaine had just walked into my chambers, making me more nervous than I'd been since I proposed to Merlin. My most loyal knight never came into my chambers...ever.
"I'm sorry, Arthur, but your husband was involved in an accident."
"What kind of accident?"
"You know that thing that he loved so much?"
I chuckled, "Magic? It's apart of who he is."
It was then that it sunk in what my most loyal knight was trying to tell me. No, it couldn't be.
"NO! No, no no no." My head turned toward the sky. "Please God, anyone but my precious Emrys." My voice went hush, hardly able to breathe. "Anyone but him."
Tears streamed down my face unshamefully.
"Father? Are you alright?" Amr said as he fixed my shirt, making sure I looked perfect for my date.
I sighed heavily, "I'm sorry, I'm fine. I'm just...scared. The last date I was on..." I faded out to memories of him.
Our son let me think of him for a few moments, but he had to stop me before I started crying. "Father, I know you love him and probably always will, but I know Dad and I know he would've wanted you to start dating some one else. He would have wanted you to move on. He loved you, you know that, but he would've told you it's time for you to find someone new to love."
Lohot, our first son together, spoke up. "Dad would've been SO jealous of your new guy. You look HOT, Father!" He pulled me up out of my seat, covering my eyes so that I could not ruin my sons' fun by looking at my appearance for my date.
"Can I look?...Please." I was growing anxious. I just wanted to see what my date was going to see. Whether or not he was going to love what my sons' prepared.
Amr batted away my hands that were on Lohot's because I was trying to see my reflection. "NO! We're not done yet!" My boys can be really quite frightening when they want to.
I felt something being put on my neck, the heavy end dipping down into my shirt. I could feel the cool metal on my pale skin and scruffy chest hair that Merlin once loved laying his head on when he was too tired to actually put his head on a pillow, saying that my chest was "a better pillow than any real pillow could ever be." I chuckled, he always said sweet things like that. I don't know how it is even possible, but every day that I spent with my Emrys, I fell deeper and deeper in love with him. I could even say that I am falling more in love with him now.
"Father...Open your eyes now. You are perfect." Lohot had told me.
I did as my son told me. My mouth dropped. I was amazed to see his ring on the necklace. It was his ring. I thought that we had buried it with him all those years ago. I turned around to face my sons with a glimmer of hope.
"Ha-"
My sons, knowing me too well, knew what I was going to ask. "We asked the funeral home to remove his ring before he was buried so that one day we could return it to you one day. They did as they were asked, quite well in fact. They were under strict orders to not tell their king anything of their arrangement, which they obviously did very well. Dad also gave me this to give you in the future, if anything was to happen to him." Amr reached into his trouser pocket, searching for something, he found it, and handed it to me. The item that my son handed me was my husband's most prized pocession because while it was the seal of the reign of Pendragon, it also was his engagement ring. "Dad loved you, but he also knew the price of magic. Dad figured that what would be the end of him would be magic...and it was. He didn't want to leave you. He really didn't."
Gwydre then spoke for the first time in two months, "I was there, Father, when it happened. I was with Dad when he died." He looked up from the ground for the first time since I opened my eyes and locked eyes with mine. "He was teaching me a lesson about magic. Aunt Morgana came. Dad stopped the lesson when he saw her. She looked dangerous, Father. I was only six and was just beginning to learn magic, I didn't know how I could help against someone as powerful as your half-sister. Dad whispered something before he fought her." My son choked on his own tears, he was so full of regret. Regret that he did not deserve to have. Especially over something he could not change.
I ran to him, gave him a huge hug. I had no idea how to soothe my son. I had no idea how to soothe his troubles and fears. I felt worthless.
I felt him struggling to breathe once more, retelling the truth that I had so longed to hear if it had been anyone else...Anyone other than my son. Our son. "Dad mumbled, 'I love you all,'" My son's tears fell harder. "I had no idea what he was talking about then, but now I do, He was speaking to us. He knew he was going to die that night. He walked towards her, emotion completely erased from his face. He was ready. When he finally stopped walking, everything seemed to become impossibly slower. Dad tilted his head and Morgana flew across the room. Everything still was incredibly slow. She was mad. Oh, mad didn't even begin to describe her anger at him and what he'd done. She opened her mouth and started to scream. That high-pitched one where she yells his name, the one that the Druids call him. Eventually, she threw the last blow. She changed the weather. It was so beautiful that day-the sun was shining and the birds were singing their songs in harmony, but then everything changed. Suddenly, I could no longer see the sun. There was nothing, but rain-filled clouds in the sky. The only light in the sky was lightning. It wasn't soothing. Dad called for Kilgharrah, but he never came. Aithusa was there though. She didn't help." He licked his lips and swallowed before he continues his story. "She was the one who killed him. He didn't try to stop her, but he did order her to kill Morgana after him and to take me home, unharmed." His emotions were getting in the way of his speaking. "Dad sacrificed himself to save me."
I brought him closer into my chest, "It's okay, Gwyde. I'm sure he saw no other way out of the situation you were in. It was a unique situation. You survived, that's all that matters." There were six words that lingered in my brain that I could never say aloud. If only he survived as well.