~oOo~
Winter
As Merlin vacates the warmth of his cottage, his weight shatters a thin layer of ice hidden beneath a dusting of white snow. All around him snow falls, touching the ground softly and audibly. A lantern held aloft leaves his features in partial shadow as he makes his way to the graves of his family. The area where they rest looks no different than the surrounding clearing, but Merlin knows exactly where they lie. The ground was equally as frozen when he was forced to bury the only mother he ever knew; and where she, in turn, had buried his birth mother years earlier. He kneels on the cold ground; the snow seeping into his clothes and boots, seeping into his bones and heart.
He closes his eyes and tries to imagine the pair of them sitting across from him, though he does not know his mother's face. He pictures kind eyes, an affable smile. Features he somehow knows her flesh and bones molded to contain. Merlin conjures images of her speaking animatedly, head turned as she speaks to Auntie A., obtaining her opinion on something he's undertaken, then turning back to him anew. Eyes glistening, pride dwelling within them. If he could only receive her opinion, her thoughts on matters to help guide him through life.
Mother, what should I do?
Auntie A... it hurts to even think about her. Both were trapped in their own worlds.
She'd know what to do about Queen Mab. A meek laugh expelled of energy escapes his mouth as he imagines Queen Mab being confronted by his Auntie A.
He knows sadness regarding her departure is not something she'd want. He can almost hear her scolding him. "Up on your feet boy, I'll have none of that crying. You know I'm better off than you are!" He dries his tears on the cuff of his shirt and tries to summon the courage she'd placed in his heart.
He whispers his love to the dark, for no one living can hear.
Past and Future
The sun was beginning to set as the crowd slowly dispersed. A pattern of footprints on the damp soil was the sole evidence that a gathering of people had moments before congregated to listen to an old man's story. Shoulder to shoulder, strangers and friends alike had become caught in the web of another person's memories, experiencing them with such a level of vividness, it was as if they were their own. Some walked away without waiting for the end, tired of his embellishment. Others did not notice the passage of time for their involvement in his story.
And now, at the end of the day, Merlin was in the near dark counting his meager earnings, withdrawing and inspecting a clover bud someone had thought adequate payment. In the past he happily would have accepted flowers, weeds even, in return for something so simple as a story, but now he found resentment in the notion. He pursed his lips and shook his head. What has become of him? He sighed as he pinned the clover through a worn spot in his tattered cloak.
In the box there were enough coins to purchase a modest meal for the night. Though he was famished, it would have to do. He looked forward to sitting at the table and ordering a bowl of stew, half a loaf of bread.
The remuneration was placed in a drawstring bag at his waist as he started for the inn. As he passed merchant stalls, he heard a few souls acknowledge his departure. He waved or nodded to those whose eyes he met, but he did not often speak. He knew that most preferred it that way.
A small child peered from the door of one of the small huts, and he lightened inwardly at the connection. He cautiously wagged a finger at the child and watched as it quickly disappeared inside the house.
He was for a moment reminded of the past, an unrelated moment, when matters had been considerably different. When he was a young boy unaware of his future or the magic that existed within him. He remembered running through the woods; free and without pain. Each day had been much the same; he would wander the forest, sometimes speak to his few friends; he would gather herbs, mushrooms and berries, but always in the evening he would find himself comforted by Ambrosia, who was the same as a mother to him. She would listen as he recounted the events of the day over supper, and she would share with him stories of her day, her girlhood, her family. He would sleep at night without worry or fear, thinking only of what the next day might bring. Trivial things pleased him, a valley of violets, ripe apples, the discovery of woodland animals.
He was far from that boy now. Old and a beggar. Bitter. He'd lived through such heartbreak, such incredible loss, and so much of it caused by his own folly. Not a day passed without him wishing he could go back to somehow alter matters. He consistently wished for different outcomes and played them out in his head as if ballads. Prose that would see him not on the streets selling his cherished and hard won memories for small coin, but with Nimue and the children they might have had. The life they might have gained after such sacrifice.
But that was not meant to be.
He feared he would never see Nimue ever again. He wasn't long for this world, but he was still a part of it. There was enough life in him to hold on to the hope that he might see Nimue in the future, in another life after this one ended. Merlin did not share Christian beliefs nor the hope to be reunited in Heaven. His ally in this case, one that no one could argue, was that death was unknown. And in the unknown there is room for hope, no matter how slight.
Friends and Enemies
After being dismissed from Queen Mab's services, a soldier's armor was no longer a guise for Frik but a vocation. He was daily faced with the harsh truths of the title as he wandered through mazes of bodies, those living and dead. The impenetrable fog of the forest battleground was disorienting, and from its depths escaped men from both armies. They flew past him as if possessed.
The cries of the wounded and dying rose from the ground; aligned with future breezes, they were interposed with the elegies of their gravesides. Earth soft and pliable was imagined falling from the gnome's hands and onto their concealed bones. Soldiers shouted in the shrouded foreground. Unseen swords rang out against enemy blades.
The world appeared to him as though tilted at an angle, a moment caught in time without hope of righting itself. It spun partially as if to complete its circle, only to repeatedly return to its previous position. To steady himself, to retreat from the battle he was hardly ready to accept, the gnome paused by a tree. After a moment, he turned as if on behalf of a whispered request, and searched the land to his side, an area framed by the branches of an oak tree. Immediately he discerned the wings of Mordred's helmet, and his eyes followed the well-known paths of his young and haughty face. The boy's lips spread to a grin as he witnessed the carnage around him, in his element. It was the same smile that had graced his face as his mother died.
With the memory of Morgan's death made fresh, Frik was seized with a desire to end Mordred's life. To see him struck down and made to undergo the pain that had eluded him his entire life. To see that sly smile fade from his face.
No... Morgan's voice said in his head. He's still my Mowdwed. He pictured her standing beside Mordred in the clearing, her hand on his armor covered shoulder. Her brown eyes distant, saddened. Frik knew he couldn't harm Mordred, despite how much he disliked him.
That swaying dark frame held as a vase the last of Morgan's blood.
Lies
She bled from wounds that invariably occur. Far-reaching and painful, Nimue's injuries were pictured in her mind as the tears of blood shed by saints, though she did not dare compare herself to the immaculate.
Always, as with the morning, things began with hope but petals quickly withered with doubt and fell as dust in the prevailing light. In such light she was made to recognize the truth for what it was as Merlin set promises as water flowers in the pools surrounding her feet.
Each time he departed he left her with promises of his return. Promises he could not - or did not - always keep.
If the world did not have to interfere... if only Merlin would let God see to the endings of things rather than attending to them himself... If he could let the anger of his heart calm before vainly seeking revenge for wrongs that could not be remedied... Their lives could be so different if he would step back and let the world go without his guidance.
Sealed in a haven of Mab's creation, she imagines Merlin resting in her arms, sleeping peacefully beside her. His face, mouth open, at her neck. His hands at her waist. His gentle touch is that of a husband. No enemy threat or fear for the future to take him from her. Only the sound of his soft breaths in the still dawn, unawakened hands weakly searching for the things he maintains in dreams.
She by now should be long accustomed to such sights for she and Merlin had been courting in their hearts since first they met. There had been no other for either of them in all their lifetimes apart, all their seconds together. The memories she recreates should not be as new as they are, so painfully fresh.
In her idle thoughts he is bathed in the sun's glow, the heat of summer, and his steps are made over the yielding sand as Avalon's waters recede. An island, a woman left without guard, without the right to give into temptation. Marriage did not unite them in the eyes of God, but, in Merlin's absence, she at times found herself wishing she had acted on impulses as they were presented.
As in life she did not sway in dreams as he was beside her again, beads of perspiration on his brow, a smile on his impish face, a mystery behind his half-lidded blue eyes. The eyes she so loved. She sat motionless, listened, spoke with her hands, heart and soul. Spoke with the man across the room, at her side, in her bed. His lips were like currents, his hands stains. His voice a token of his soul. Soft and kind, his voice acted for his hands, reaching the tips of fingers, the moons in her nails. The stars and comets of her lips, teeth, throat, collarbone. He kissed her over and over again. And she closed her eyes, her mind swaying as though she were aboard a ship. Employed were means other than magic to enchant and willingly she fell under his spell.
This continued until she woke as he promised again that he would be with her forever.
~oOo~
A/N: Friends and Enemies was written after I found out my dog had cancer. I realize the notion is ridiculous, Frik could in no way cause harm to Mordred. Morgan's warning was more for him than her son. Past and Future was written more recently, hence the mistakes. Lies was written at the top of a steep hill in Autumn. Winter was started months past and resumed a few weeks ago, thus the reason for its state.
~oOo~