Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters. I also do not own either Lancelot and Elaine or The Lady of Shalott by Tennyson or any Arthurian legends, which is where the inspiration for this fic came from. This fic will be very angsty and will also include character death and suicide, so you have been warned.


"I want to go with you, Mother. Please, why can't I go?"

The sad blue eyes set in an even paler face than his own locked on his as his mother sighed softly before shaking her head. "It isn't safe, darling."

It isn't safe. Kurt knew everything there was to know about that—even at the young age of eight. Going outside without his mother, father, or nurse wasn't safe. When he was allowed outside, he wasn't allowed beyond the gates—and certainly never into town.

And the worst part of it all was when he asked why because the reply would always be the same.

"Because you are special."

He didn't feel special, not at all. He had horses that he could not ride and beautiful boats made of stiff parchment and the paints that mother gave him that he could not sail. But one day, he discovered what they really meant when they would say those words to him. As he watched the other boys from the village run along the river that ran behind their house, he finally understood. It was not because he was special. It was because he was different.

And different was not good. His parents knew that.


The reflection of the boat paints a shadow in the beautiful, clear water of the river as it drifts. Drifts. Drifts toward the brightly painted city hidden between two mountains. The water is the same colour as the wide, unseeing eyes of the boat's lone passenger. It is strange how peaceful he seems in death, with his full lips drawn into a smile and the pink of his cheeks not yet faded to the dull, ashy gray that they will undoubtedly be by the time the boat reaches its destination.

A note is stiffly pinned to his shirt, both stunningly white as the clouds in the tapestry that is tucked tightly around his legs.

If you listen closely, you can hear the birds singing for the boy, "Tirra lirra."

Listen.


Lady Islene of Astolat tears out of her bed before she is fully able to extricate herself from her bedclothes. She does not register the ice cold stone floor or the fact that she is only in her nightgown and has not even pulled on a dressing gown to protect herself from the elements of winter that the stone walls of her home do little to deter. Her feet slap against the stone as she runs feverishly down the hall to the very last door on the right. She takes a deep breath, holds the breath, and opens the door. And releases the breath before collapsing back against it.

Her beautiful boy is fast asleep, his hair (her hair) swept across his forehead. His eyes (her eyes) closed and blissfully unaware of his fate. His heart (her heart) still beating (beating) while he sleeps. But for how long? The young man in her dream was several seasons older than her baby boy that lay before her, but he still had the glow of youth upon his face. He could not have been any older than seventeen.

Islene turns away and shuts the door behind her before turning to the stairs and climbing to her own fate, the duty that she has set before herself since her first dream some fifteen years before. It is a curse, her life, but she must live every day as is destined until that day (she knows it's coming, it is upon her) that she is to leave her family defenceless to their own fates.


The last thread is finally knotted and Islene is finally able to breathe for the first time in sixteen years. Her life is hers again. The facts have been shown to her as they will occur. Deaths, marriages, births, she has seen them all in her dreams. She has known how she will die since she was thirteen and that night that she woke with the taste of river water still heavy on her tongue, choking her and pulling her under. Her nose burns in anticipation and her eyes begin to run.

She also knows how her son will die, her beautiful angel that made her damned life worth living. And her husband,(;) her lovely, strong, caring husband…his heart will stay strong in her absence, Kurt will keep him strong and give him something to live for, but—

She plays with the corners of the tapestry—Kurt's, his was last—and takes in the colours. So many reds, so much black—so much blood and so much death.

"Mother?" her son's tiny voice calls up the stairs. She has instructed him never to come into this room and her Kurt is a good boy, he has listened.

She breathes in the cloth and allows her tears to fall and mix in with the blue waters that carry her son to his fate.

"Make sure your father's ready, darling."

The tapestry is ever so carefully folded before being stored in the wardrobe. Waiting until its time.

"Mother, he is ready! He is."

She descends the gray tower and once she reaches the bottom, gathers her son into her arms.

"I love you."

Kurt frowns, stomping his small foot, "I want to go with you, Mother! Please, why can't I go?"

Islene gazes into her son's eyes, memorizing them, though she will never forget their colour. She will also never forget the way they look when he is dead, gazing blankly at a blue sky that refuses to obey the dark shadow that his death casts over her heart and will, and in the future, over her husband's.

She shakes her head and closes her eyes, trying in desperation to clear the images from her mind. There is no reason to dwell on death any longer, there is no reason to dwell on anything.

"It isn't safe, darling."

She runs her hand through his hair and down the side of his face, the smooth skin soothing her unsteady heart.

"Now go with your father. I will see you again before you know it."

Kurt turns and reluctantly makes his way down the hall, his hand listlessly trailing along the wall.

Islene pulls out the note she wrote eight years ago after she gave birth to Kurt and touches it to her lips and slips it inside the book that lies on the table beside her husband's chair. There is nothing more.

She slips out the door silently, but the door closes with a resounding thud behind her, shutting her off from her husband and child as she steadily walks toward the river.

"It is done," the voices call.

"You've done well," the birds respond.

She has done nothing. Her son will do nothing and her husband will do nothing. Everyone walks to their deaths. She is walking steadfastly toward hers as the wind blows her braid loose.

"Mother?" another voice calls, this one is not one of the voices from her dreams. This one is a voice that she knows all too well.

She knows this part. It was the hardest part.

Still she walks, unwaveringly to the river, the sound of small feet rustling in the grass behind her.

"MOTHER?"

The water is around her ankles now, her knees. Her skirts are becoming weighted and now the water's to her waist, but the voice will not stop.

"Mother, NO! Come back! MOTHER, COME BACK!"

The water is in her mouth and burning her nose and her eyes and she can hear no more.

Then she is no more.