KAY
by Tonzura123
Author's Note: This story was inspired by "Herald of a New Age" and the revelation of Arthur's attack on the Druid camp. We, as viewers, know extraordinarily little about Arthur's childhood, and of what we do know, Arthur has shared the least of it. This is an attempt to fill in some of those gaps.
Before there was Merlin, there was Kay, and Arthur thinks of Kay hourly, finding memories in moments of sunlit courtrooms, the lift of a breeze in the springtime, the rush of the blood in war. Arthur thinks of Kay when he sees Merlin, hears Merlin complain, wonders when Merlin can't lift a mace to save his life. Kay is in Arthur's very blood, seeing out of his eyes, a thoughtful voice, consistent in his right ear.
In some ways, Kay made Arthur who he is. Arthur is Kay.
And in some ways, Kay never was.
No one remembers Kay, but Kay is the first thing Arthur remembers.
Three years old, standing at his father's knee, watching men talk in loud voices. And there, in that throng, a boy twice his size carrying a dagger that Arthur was much too young to touch.
"You are too little." Kay, as tall and silent as the winter moor, had removed Arthur's curling fingers from the hilt. "You cannot have that."
"I can!" Arthur is embarrassed to remember that he had shrieked it, flash-fire temper and ruddy red cheeks trembling with all the arrogance and entitlement of a lone prince. "I can!" He had not yet been told "cannot".
But Kay had only looked at him with stone-grey eyes. "You're acting like a baby. Stop."
If he had struck Arthur, the young prince could not have been more stunned. He stood, gaping at Kay. Then blushed; he knew he was acting like a baby. He had seen babies cry for whatever they wanted, and like them he was given what he wanted when he screwed up his face and wailed.
He cried then, Hot tracks of tears, real for the first time in his memory, felt from a deep and exhausting place in his chest.
The men around him seemed to hover in an intangible wall. Someone angrily yelled for a maid. Women then, collapsed like wings around him and petted his hair and patted his back, eventually whisked him from the room.
Kay did not look at him, but stared straight ahead without emotion, without empathy. His left hand covered the dagger's hilt, resting easily on the metal.
Shame was the first lesson Kay taught him.
It was too soon after this that his father had become something dark and frightening for the first time in his memory. Cruel-looking where he had been stern, yelling harshly at the courts where he had brought order.
A full grown Arthur fancies that on that day the Glint entered his father's eye, because a full grown Arthur remembers that day well:
The whole kingdom was in uproar. The skies were streaked with shooting stars, day and night. The animals all gave birth at the same time and servants were rushed from the kitchens into the fields to help deliver the lambs and calves and pups. The castle began to moan and shift without a single stirring wind. A deep, triumphant rumble seemed to roll out of the deepest cellars of the citadel.
Supper was very late that day.
And while a three year old Arthur felt completely abandoned, a grown Arthur knows that was the first day he was not alone.
It was on that day, with his entourage of typical chaos, that Arthur's Destiny was born.
"I have not forgotten your lazy, arrogant ways, or the fact that you called me a clot-pole..."
- 2x01 The Curse of Cornelias Sigan
Arthur was eight and Kay was twelve, which meant that Kay was already a page for one of the lords and Arthur was left to burn with envy.
He wanted nothing more than that feeling of a fight, like when he and Kay fought. The pain in his arms, the light in Kay's eyes that arrived only when he knew Arthur had done something right. Arthur loved that light. He lived for it. At that age, he could not remember a moment without Kay somewhere nearby.
"The best part of this," Kay told him, "is that I can start training you now. We can get a head start on the other royal warts."
"Can you show me now? As in right now?" Arthur exclaimed, porridge spoon halfway to his mouth. "And I'm not a wart!"
It was a late morning when they first discussed this, sometime in the spring. Arthur sat at his table, enjoying breakfast while Kay went between the bed and the dresser, folding and sorting Arthur's clothes. It was a typical morning, interspersed between the arrival of the young Lady Morgana (an orphan whom Arthur's father had taken on as his ward) and the discovery of girls as a species (which Arthur had never realized could come in so many different styles and temperaments as Lady Morgana and little Handmaiden Guinevere).
"No, not right now, Wart," replied Kay. He patted Arthur on the head as he crossed the room to the dresser. "Today, though. After your lessons with Geoffrey of Monmouth."
Arthur groaned, kicking his legs out under the table and rolling his forehead back and forth on the grainy wood. "I'll be half asleep by then, Kay!"
Something kicked his chair. Arthur's porridge was upset by his head and spilled over the table, sticking in his fine, light hair. "Eww! Kaaaay!"
"All right, all right!" A large hand grabbed him by the bangs and lifted his head up while a soapy rag attacked from the opposite flank. "Stop wiggling like that, Wart, or we'll never make court on time."
"Court!"
"Yes, court. That place with the big throne and the King sitting in it?"
"I know that. I just forgot, Kay."
"I didn't. Change your shirt."
Arthur held his arms up over his head and looked expectantly at Kay, who sighed.
"You're getting too old for this."
"No, I'm not," Arthur insisted. He wiggled his arms in the air and waited for Kay to walk over.
"Ready?" Kay asked, taking hold of the hem of Arthur's tunic.
"Ready!"
"Skin a cat! Skin a cat!" Kay chanted, and pulled the tunic up and over Arthur's head. For one glorious moment, all of Arthur's vision was red, red, red- Then his head came out of the collar and there was Kay, tall and serious before him, trying not to smile.
"Go ahead," Arthur encouraged. "Let it out, Kay."
Instead, Kay grabbed him around the middle and threw him easily over one shoulder, causing Arthur to whoop in surprise.
"All right, you pasty little wart," Kay said, turning Arthur dizzily around. "Where did I put your fresh shirt?"
"In the wardrobe!" Arthur shouted.
"Which wardrobe?" mocked Kay, turning this way, then that, swooping low as if to bend over and completing full circles, all with his hands locked around Arthur's kicking legs.
"Other way!" Arthur screamed, kicking delightedly, and the whirling blur of his bedroom began to slow, reverse, and pick up speed at a wonderfully alarming rate, until all of it blended together into a series of dancing lines: red and white and Kay's low laugh shuddering through Arthur's middle.
"So that means his life is worthless?"
"No, it means his life is worth less than yours."
-1x04 The Poisoned Chalice
Arthur is ten when he first hears someone call Kay a bastard.
This word means very little to Arthur on its own. But when he sees Kay's stoic face blush, a fury fills him unlike any he has ever known.
He is flying at the offending lord's son before he realizes his own actions. His fists are so small compared to the man's face, but he can see the red, red, red of the blood from the man's nostrils, the purpling of his cheekbones and the blackening of his eyes. Men are yelling all around him, serving only to fuel Arthur's anger. The man is trying to push him off without hurting him; Arthur grips his coat with one hand and punches with the other.
It is Kay who pulls him off.
He's kicking, yelling unintelligible words when strong arms loop under his arms and lock behind his neck. Arthur is still screaming obsentities as Kay drags him away. The bloodied face of the lord wets Arthur's mind in a veil of angry red.
"Listen," Kay tells him, lifting him onto a barrel where they hide, deep below the castle in the clammy dark. "You can't fly off the handle every time that happens."
"He insulted you!" Arthur rages.
"That doesn't matter. He is a nobleman. I am an illegitimate son, and a servant at that."
"That shouldn't matter!" Arthur is trembling, face hot with unspeakable anger. "When I am king that won't matter."
Kay is silent for a moment. "You may feel differently then."
"Kay, you're my brother," Arthur said. "Whatever you're called, however you came to be, you'll always be my brother."
And something deeper in the darkness of the cavern seemed to chuckle, rattling the stones and humming into the earth herself.
"There's something I tell all my young knights: no man is worth your tears."
-2x13 The Last Dragonlord
Arthur was fourteen and he was cursed by a vengeful sorcerer.
In the blackness of his sight, he wavered between hope and despair, imagining that coal shadows are almost grey. That he could see the blackness itself moving in huge, cloudlike shifts.
At times, his door would open. It creaked softly, announced the heavy step of boots before the silence.
Arthur knew that it was his father, come to watch him lying helpless in the bed. Uther never spoke; Arthur never spoke to him. He closed his eyes against his invisible dresser in the invisible room and imagined that no one could see him- that he was the darkness, the blanket over their vision. The cool cut of light from the window disturbed him, because the only color left in the sun was molded black like a trembling bubo...
One day, while lying in his covers and staring at the black that should have been the brilliant scarlet of his canopy, light feet slid through the door.
Arthur bolted upright. He strained his eyes at the sound. "Kay?"
"It's me," came Kay's deep voice. Something made the bed dip to one side and Arthur slapped his hands out, finding cold armor and chin stubble.
"Where've you been?" Arthur demanded. He barely cared that his voice warbled.
A rough leathery glove patted him clumsily on the cheek. Then it tweaked his ear.
"Ow."
"Wimp," Kay laughed. It made Arthur smile a little. "A few days without me and you're right back to how I found you."
"Hey," Arthur said. "I'm a warrior. I've been training to kill since birth."
And then something small and metallic found its way into his hands. "What's this?" Arthur's fingers stumbled over scratches on the rounded surface, finding thick links latched in a circle. A necklace. "Kay, not that I'm not flattered, but..."
His ear was tweaked again. "Just put it on, Wart."
Arthur fumbled blindly with the necklace for a moment, finally fingering the latch open and hooking it around the back of his neck.
"Is it on?" Kay demanded.
Arthur frowned. "Yes it's-"
A sudden, terrible white washed through Arthur's eyes, and he howled with the pain of it, clutching at his face. Distantly, he heard Kay's deep voice asking what was going on, what was happening, but it was beyond Arthur to answer. Eventually, he felt Kay grip him hard around the back of his neck, and Arthur gripped back for dear life.
Finally, breathless, Arthur found the strength to lift his head.
He blinked in wonder.
All the blackness, like water, began to drain away. The dull greys evaporated in rosy reds and purples of the twilight hour through his window. He could see the bright sunlight, the rough stonework, the faded chairs and carpets and tapestries. He could see the burn of the fireplace, the plane of the table with a single, pale pear tipping near the edge. He could see his threadbare shirts through the gap in his oaken wardrobe. He could see the ruby of his rumpled bed sheets.
He could see.
Wordlessly, he turned to Kay.
Kay's eyes did not meet his. Kay's eyes did not meet anything. The stone-grey irises were waxed over with a sort of film, making them sickly. Milky. They faced a point just beside Arthur's head, and Kay's flat mouth smiled.
"Did it work?" Kay asked. "Or do I need to kill somebody?"
OoOoOoOoO
Kay continued his duties without much care for things like corners and chairs and ill-placed boots. After he nearly brained himself on the table edge for the third time in two hours, Arthur forced him to sit.
"How are you supposed to train with me like this?" Arthur demanded, chucking his things into chests and his wardrobes and under the bed. Several of them made terrific smacks on impact, and his scabbard rang like a church bell off of the stone floor.
"Work around it," Kay said. And concerning Arthur's cleaning rampage; "There are other servants for that, you know."
His hands- already torn and scraped beyond recognition- rose to find familiar landmarks, but Arthur pushed them back again.
"You can't fight blind," Arthur insisted.
Kay's hand gripped tight on his forearm. "I can."
"You canno-"
The world flipped and the air rushed from his lungs; he blinked up from the ground. Stars framed Kay's stoic mask. His arm twinged in Kay's hold.
Then he was crying and Kay was heaving him to his feet, sitting him the next chair. They didn't speak for a long time, until the light blur of Arthur's watery sight became a twilight blur and the bells rang over Camelot's lower towns. But when Arthur was calm enough to plant his face in his hands and take a long, deep breath, Kay's big hand settled on the crown of his head. It was heavy and warm. Arthur felt his neck buckle to hold it up.
"There you are, Arthur."
Maybe it was the low sun that was hitting Arthur's neck, but the assured way Kay said his name made Arthur feel like a child in every warm and comfortable sense of the word. He took another deep breath, lifting Kay's hand with the force of it.
"There you are." He dropped his hand from Arthur's head.
"I wish I was still the blind one," Arthur said.
"Wishes always have a cost."
Arthur thought of the dancing dark and grit his teeth. "I'd take it."
"Mmm." Kay rolled his shoulders and leaned back. "We'll start training again tomorrow."
"Wait- Are you sure?"
"I'll leave it to you to sort out the knights- no use having them clogging up the field." Gaining momentum, Kay stood and made for the door, leaving Arthur scrambling to stop him from running into the thick oak. "Oh," said Kay. "Before I forget."
He knocked Arthur hard upside the head. "No more crying, Wart. I'm not worth your tears."
"I froze; I didn't know what to do."
-4x10 The Herald of a New Age
Arthur was seventeen and he stumbled, bloody, back from the raid.
Kay was visiting sites on the far side of the kingdom, so it was the guards and sentries, not his brother, which greeted him as soon as he entered the castle walls.
Before long he found himself swaying before the King in full court, watching some nesting bird beyond the windows and listening to his own voice relating details in empty precision.
"We found the Druid camp."
"Did they fight?"
After my men started on them "They did."
"Prisoners?"
"None, Sire."
He could see them everywhere, dying, drowning, dead.
He wanted to stop it.
But Arthur froze: they would never stop.
OoOoOoOoO
He came-to sitting backwards on a chair in Gaius' work area, talking. He had a sense that he had been talking about agriculture, but couldn't remember. He stopped speaking mid-word, "my-"
Gaius' hands paused.
"Sire?"
He wondered what Gaius was working on, behind Arthur's back. He felt nothing. There was a buzzing numb that covered him like a thick, cloudy skin.
"I'm a murderer." The words fell petrified and rattled in Arthur's throat.
The irrigation ditches really needed to be recoursed that year, he thought. It was a wonder the lower fields could grow at all, what with the dry spell they'd been having...
OoOoOoOoO
The pretty lady's maid helped him back to his rooms, and Morgana was right behind her.
They reached his chambers and Morgana and the maid worked around each other, passing bowls of water and cloths and pulling back the covers so that Arthur could collapse, face-first, onto the mattress.
"Get his feet, Gwen."
And his feet were lifted and pushed under the rest of the blankets.
"Hand me that pitcher, please Gwen."
And the water sloshed inside the silver pitcher: metallic and deafening.
There was no word for the next action, which rolled Arthur onto his back. He frowned at his father's ward, who held the goblet like a sceptre and glared imperiously down at him. By her side, the maid had lowered her eyes.
"Arthur," Morgana said. "Gaius will be here soon. See if you can drink something."
"And risk losing the rest of my feast?" Arthur muttered.
"It's not like you to be ill."
There was the magma, not yet still, shifting inside the crust. Arthur, suddenly possessed by the urge to know, asked. "What am I like?"
"What?" Morgana laughed.
But Morgana was the wrong person to ask; Arthur knew she would never give him a straight answer. As suddenly as the urge came, it cooled and Arthur let himself fade back into the bed and wait in dark dreams for the morning.
OoOoOoOoO
There was no peace, even in the dream; there was a person lurking in the darkness with him, close and following closer no matter what Arthur did. The shadow of Destiny stayed.
In the dream, Arthur said to the shadow, "If I had a sword, I'd teach you a lesson."
In the dream, it laughed. "I don't need a sword to teach you one."
And there was only gold fire burning, burning, burning Arthur up.
Wreathed with wretched heat, Arthur could see a face by the light that was white and gaunt. Arthur dreamed that he knew that face.
"I see you," he told the face of the shadow, whose fire hurt less and less.
The face of the shadow smiled. "And I see you." The curling smoke lifted and dragged curling lines in red like blood 'round the pale shadow's eyes, a chanting like incantation drifting through the acrid fog.
And then here was no fire, but burning cold and Arthur lifted his arms to cover himself, but stopped, terrified by the markings he saw there- red triskilions- hundreds of them looping and wrapping themselves around his forearms and fingers, his chest and face and legs and toes and every inch besides.
And each bloody triskilion had a voice: angry, sad, hopeless, accusing:
"YOU DID THIS YOU DID THIS YOU DID THIS YOU DID THIS YOU DID..."
OoOoOoOoO
For the first time in his life, he didn't mind lying to his father.
Arthur slipped from the castle in the early morning (grossly disturbed by the lack of effort by the guards to turn their heads from time to time at suspicious crannies) and made his way to the lower towns. He was decked in borrowed servant clothing- some of Kay's. He breathed the scent of them and wandered.
There were a few pubs still open, and Arthur found the one the farthest from the castle called "The Golden Fleece" even though there was nothing golden or flocculent about it. There were a few grimy men sleeping over tables and one or two doggedly finishing their umpteenth mug.
Arthur joined a table in the rear and ordered a round. It was brought by a heavy-set woman with two teeth and the beer was grainy and stale, but the shared silence was warmer than the interior of his quarters. He finished his drink, paid and left, deciding to take a scenic route through his city.
There wasn't much to see.
Many were still sleeping. The sun wasn't even threatening the horizon yet. It was a little after the witching hour, when everything felt more haunting and somehow dangerous, including Arthur himself.
He blazed through alleys with all the possession of a lion. His city. His kingdom. Those were his houses; those were his people, that was his mud and his cart and his blood.
It was this mindset that led him before a row of houses, lit from the inside. Their residents stood on the street in the no-light with wicks and candles and sticks from their fires. There was a man huddled before them. The people looked on him and spoke in irate voices.
"What's going on?" Arthur demanded.
They turned to him, sizing him up. One woman's hair was braided down her back. A boy stood at her side that could barely be younger than Arthur, holding a torch.
"Caught this man creeping in," she told him. "We're waiting for the castle guards."
"What has he done?" Arthur asked.
The cowering man shouted from the ground. "Nothing! I've done nothing!"
"He was conspiring," said another man. He sounded almost bored. "He's a magic user."
The cowering man began to bawl loudly that he was nothing of the sort. Arthur believed him- a sorcerer could have easily used magic to escape this mock court in a matter of seconds.
"Let's not be rash," Arthur tried. "Did anyone even bother asking who this man is?"
"Why?" asked the bored man. "He'll just lie about it. All sorcerers do."
"I'm not a bloody sorcerer!" roared the sorcerer in question. "I'm an architect!" He seemed to be growing more and more confident with an ally in Arthur.
"Why are you protecting him anyway?" asked the boy.
The group turned as one to Arthur, who found himself cowed by the weight of their attention. He thought of the numbers, the lack of weapons on his part. If he could find some kind of staff, Arthur knew he'd be able to at least retreat from this encounter.
"You came from nowhere," the woman said.
"And I have never seen your ilk before," the bored man said.
"Run mate," cried the not-sorcerer. "Save yourself!"
The people of Camelot began to advance on Arthur and, panicked, he said the first thing that came to mind;
"Stay back: I have a spell!"
They stopped. Arthur grew encouraged.
"Yes," he said, drawing out the word in what he hoped was an evil and sinister way. "A very special spell. One word and each and every one of you will..."
He thought, 'grow a tail,' 'turn green,' and 'keel over' before his mouth opened almost of its own accord and said;
"You will all be turned into sorcerers!"
Silence fell. Arthur thought he saw the bored man take a small step back.
"You're bluffing," the woman said.
Arthur threw up his hands and spread his fingers, thinking of the sorcerer that took his sight and trying to remember the actual words. "Don't risk it."
The bored man definitely retreated at this point and, steadily losing male allies, the boy began to pull his mother back into their home saying, "Come on, Mum, give it up, Mum, it's not worth it, Mum."
At last, only Arthur and the not-sorcerer remained on the dark street. Arthur turned to him and offered him a hand up.
"Thanks," said the not-sorcerer, letting out a shaky breath. "The people here are nutters."
Arthur scowled. "I live here."
The not-sorcerer shook his hand. "Then you're a credit to your kingdom, friend. But I should be returning to mine. This is about as much welcome as I can take."
He made to leave but Arthur held him back, and when he tugged on the man, something like a powder came off of the man's bare arm, revealing three swirls joining at their center.
The man froze. Arthur gaped.
"You're a Druid," Arthur whispered, and his heart began to hammer inside of him. Something like retribution froze him in place.
'This man will strike me down,' Arthur thought. 'Now that I know what he is, he will certainly kill me.'
The Druid tried to pull away but Arthur held him fast. "So, what? Are you going to arrest me? Have me burnt at the stake after all?"
Arthur laughed; he had never killed a Druid by fire in his life.
"Depends," he said, "How do you feel about Prince Arthur? Planning on taking revenge?"
The Druid squinted at him. "Honestly, there are days I'd give anything to do it."
"Me, too," Arthur said honestly. He thinks, 'This is the moment.'
"But," the Druid looked down, "no man should be responsible for his father's sins. Or for what his father has taught him- taught everyone- about our kind." The Druid looked up and said fiercely, "We're not monsters. We believe in mercy, even for those who persecute us."
"Show me," Arthur said.
And he let go.
"It is once again clear to me that those who practice magic are evil and dangerous."
- 2x8 Sins of the Father
Arthur was nineteen and it really wasn't the moment to be asking soul-searching questions.
"What am I like?" he asked Kay. Blindfolded, he could only see the highlighted edges of strings that made the binding. His ears felt like they might pop from straining through metallic clinks and wooden clacks. His feet found holes and divets and stones in the grass as he circled the darkness with a staff in hand.
Pain slapped into his arm- Kay had scored one soundless point.
"Well," said Kay, "you look like an idiot."
Arthur scowled. "You don't know what I look like."
"You don't either."
There was a wiff of wind and Arthur turned just in time to block Kay's wooden staff.
"Am I spoiled?"
Another wiff another smack of the barest deflection. Kay was moving quicker than usual.
"Very spoiled. Absolutely rotten."
Instinctually, Arthur swung behind him- felt the connection of his staff with the gentlest tug of fabric. Very close.
"Am I evil?" Arthur wondered.
He sensed a pause. Kay wasn't circling him anymore. He kept his bow staff up, just in case, but frowned and faced where Kay's calm breathing was.
"Are you evil?" Kay repeated and Arthur's face burned.
"That's what I said."
He was answered with a laugh. "We're all evil, Arthur. I'm evil. Your people are evil. The world is evil."
"What a delightful outlook."
"That's what makes the good things so much better," Kay said. "Nobody is good. People steal and cheat and kill no matter where you go."
"Really, my spirits are being lifted very high right now."
"Shut up. What I mean is that despite all that evil, people do good things. I think people are meant to be good. And every once in a while, they have the ability to see how the world could be- How they can be."
The blindfold tugged and light bit at Arthur's eyes so that he squinted and blinked very rapidly, shielding himself from the afternoon sun. Kay stood a little to one side, holding the blindfold up in the air and looking as big as the sky itself.
"You see more good than most, Wart."
Arthur smiled.
I see you, he thought.
"That's how these things work, I'm afraid. You can never be around to appreciate them."
-4x6 A Servant of Two Masters
Arthur was twenty, and the sorcerer- Thomas Collins- was being dragged away from Kay's dying body.
"It was an accident!" cried the man, feet kicking at air. The courtyard rang with his cries. "He wasn't meant to die! I wasn't aiming for him!"
Arthur could not look at him. He was captive to the sight of red, red, red in front of him.
Kay was gasping, there was blood on his tongue and dribbling down the sides of his face, getting into his hair, his eyes writhed under fluttering lids, he squeezed Arthur's arms, down to the screaming bone.
"Kay, Kay," Arthur said, not wanting to, not being able to help touching. Red, red, blood was all over him, all over both of them, it ran into the mud and mixed with the water. "No- Kay- Don't, Kay please. Please."
"Arthur-" Kay was choking on his name, drooling blood that should have been Arthur's. Arthur was killing him. "Listen."
"I'm listening," Arthur said. "God, please- Kay. I'll fix you. I can fix you." He yanked off his cloak, the Pendragon twisting; claws extended, and pushed the fabric against the wound. The smell was overwhelming- the magicked sword had pierced Kay's intestines.
Kay fought to hold onto him, for a moment, Arthur could have sworn Kay saw him: completely, perfectly.
"Listen to him," Kay choked. "Listen- Emrys is-" He made a gargling sound and struggled.
Arthur pulled him up and into his arms, breathing, begging, "Stay with me. Help! Someone! Stay with me- oh God, Kay- I can fix you. I promise I can fix everything..."
Kay's head settled against his neck, tacky with blood. Arthur talked until he couldn't hear anymore, until a cool numb swept over him and he quieted, cradling the body of his brother. The bloody waters were silent. A cold breeze carried a single ripple.
And then, Arthur was alone.
It was like Kay never was.
Was the body burned to ash?
Was it buried deep in ground?
Did ravens crow or crows revere?
Was there silence?
Was there sound?
Were two coins placed upon the eyes
And laurel braided for the crown?
Did Hermes guide or gods condemn?
Was there silence?
Was there sound?
Did man greet the gripping grave
As boys farewell their friends?
Did he weep or rage or speak? No-
He was silent:
Kay slept sound.
"You speak of honor and nobility: you're nothing but a hypocrite and a liar!"
-2x8 Sins of the Father
A nondescript man enters his chambers the very next day, claiming to be his new manservant and Arthur hates him. He rushes the man, lifts him with one hand by the scruff of his neck and lobs him out into the hallway. Fruit and meat and special garnishes go all over the floor. Arthur slams the door so hard, he hears the lock break. He moves his table in front of it, then crashes his wardrobe on top of that. He finds the latch to the windows and throws them all open.
There can be no barrier from death here.
He can hear pounding on the doors but deigns not to answer, ripping apart his bed, his trunks, swords and gauntlets and legal documents. He rends his clothes and warps his armor. He hacks at the bedstead until shards of wood have splintered over the floor.
"Arthur!" It is his father's voice, furious, stern. There is a solid BANG and the door gives way, knights pouring in.
Arthur turns with sword in hand. He is more than ready for the match.
"Stop this, at once," Uther demands. His old, scarred face is scored with lines like tallies. "You are prince of Camelot. It will not do to behave this way over the death of a servant!"
"My brother," Arthur growls, "My prince, YOUR SON!"
His father's eyes are like flint, and his mouth is set, and there's such a familiarity there, such a whisper of Kay, that Arthur turns away and collapses on the side of his bed, dropping is face into his hands.
"...Leave us," Uther commands the guards, and they depart slowly.
Uther's step is heavy. He walks to the bedstead and fingers the scored wood. Arthur is aware of nothing but the burning ache, the hollow echo that fills him, screaming for this brother. It is a long while of silent agony before his father draws breath to speak;
"I knew his mother before the war. Before I had ever met your mother. There was a great likeness of her in his face, and from the first I saw of him, I knew I could never... Well. But you had such a fondness for him, and he clearly doted on you.
"The law is clear: he could never succeed me. From the beginning, though, I could see the potential in him. His mind, his tactics, the way he addressed the knights you trained with. It was the closest I could come, to training you myself."
"You used Kay as a substitute for yourself," Arthur echoes. "To train me. To raise me while you fought your war on magic. Me- the one child you had within wedlock."
"It was necessary," replies Uther. "Both goals were so extraordinarily tasking. I could either lose the war on magic, or fail to raise you as Crown Regent. But in the end, the discovery of Kay as my offspring was the perfect balance. I could win the war and I could precede a noble ruler."
"All for the war."
Arthur turns away from his father, not trusting himself to contain the murderous rage boiling inside of him.
"You made my brother a servant, denied him his place on the throne, all because of a war?"
No, he knows, as soon as he's said it. The answer is no.
"Yes," says Uther hollowly.
"No." Once the spark lights, Arthur cannot dismiss the thought. "Not just the war."
Another thought, treacherously possible;
"Who was Kay's mother?"
His father does not answer, but that is answer enough for Arthur.
Slowly, he turns back around to meet his father's eyes.
"She was a Druid," Arthur realizes. "A sorcerer. That's the real reason you hated Kay."
Uther says nothing.
"What was her name?" Arthur presses. "This woman?
Uther swallows, gathering himself in bits of broken memory.
"Her name," he says finally, "was Nimueh."
"Was?" Arthur asks. "Did she die?" Did you kill her, too?
"I have not seen her in many years," Uther says. "If she wants to remain on this earth, she will not dare show her face now. Anyone who practices magic in Camelot will be sentenced to death."
Anyone? wonders a small voice in Arthur's mind. He reflects on the night after the raid, when he had pretended to use magic, when he had defended and released a magic user without reporting him. Would Uther kill his own son?
Of course he would, Arthur thinks.
"I am tired," he says. The buzzing numb blankets him. "I think I'll sleep now."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
His father moves as though to touch him, but aborts it, and swiftly exits.
Arthur lies awake until the dawn, wishing he had been the bastard son instead of Kay.
"Don't run away!"
-1x01 The Dragon's Call
The days are long. The nights are endless.
Thomas Collins is executed and Arthur does not stay to watch. He cannot bear to watch.
Instead, he finds himself in the practice field closest to the markets, watching the visiting Lords' sons throw daggers at a moving target. The servant holding the target is trembling, but Arthur recognizes him from that morning after Kay, and he feels nothing but savage pleasure in watching him shake.
"Sire!" calls one of the Lords' sons. He looks over to see the boy hold out a knife, hilt first. "Care to join us, your highness?"
He doesn't, but he does anyway. The handle of the knives are as familiar as his clothes, as welcome as the sight of Camelot on a bright morning. There is a rhythm and a pulse and a way about this that lets Arthur relax, however minutely. The blade flies true. He begins to make the servant run.
Run. Run, he ushers the wretch along with his eyes, thinking Stop me. Anybody stop me.
But who in all of Camelot would dare, knowing who he is? What he's left from?
"Hey. Come on; that's enough."
Arthur thinks he makes some haughty remark, that heat rolling in his stomach that is sickening and volcanic, rumbling through his blood, poisoning and purifying like death. Just like death. And he thinks Stop me to whoever is listening, takes up the boy right then and there, barely a fight, a single twist of that skinny arm and Arthur's won. It's so easy. After hearing something as impressive as I can take you apart with less than that, Arthur had expected more of a struggle.
"I could have you in the dungeons for that," Arthur muses aloud, twisting at that arm.
"Who do you think you are? The king?"
That king- that murdering king.
"No," Arthur hisses, leaning in, pulling down. "I'm his son."
His only son. Most wretched son.
And it's all Arthur can do to say his own name, in the stead of Kay's.
A/N:
I keep using geology to describe things in the Merlin fandom and I can't for the life of me figure out why I keep connecting them. I took the course over a year ago and tidbits from class keep popping up while I write.
This sucker took forever and a day to write. If you finished, you deserve a medal. Or a cookie. Or something of equal merit. Congrats!
Sir Kay is primarily in T.H White's novels, though he is mentioned in other places. I desperately wanted him to show up in the TV series, but he never did. Bereft of that, I decided to put him in here.
Please, please, PLEASE let me know what you thought of this one! I worked unusually hard on it, and it's highly experimental and I want to gauge your reactions. Hate it? Love it? Want to send it back into the abyss? Send me a PM or leave a one-worded review.
As Always,
-Tonzura123