A/N: Hello! This is the first posting of fanfiction under this pen name. And if this looks familiar, it probably is. I actually posted this story once before, but I kinda lost that account. So I figured I'd put it back up.
Disclaimer: I don't own King Arthur. Nice and simple.
Weary Lullabies
"A gentle breeze flies through the trees,
Whispering sweet lullabies.
Into the West the sunlight takes it's rest,
Like closing of weary eyes…"
How many times had she sung that song silently to herself as she worked, or hummed it softly whenever the memory of him grew strong? The number had surely surpassed the thousands mark by now.
It had been their song – a lullaby sung by mother for her eldest child. He had been a fussy stubborn thing, with the curls of his father and his mother's temperament. This old tune had been the sole thing that would lull the infant to sleep each night.
Even as he grew older and was fast approaching manhood the song had remained their special bond.
O! how that memory was dear to her now!
Had she sung it to him that night? The last he had spent at home? She could no longer remember, for that recollection had been misplaced among her dreams and half-memories.
Fifteen years had passed. Fifteen years of restless slumbers and feverish hoping for the safe return of her boy. Even after all this time, the tears that had begun with his departure would still catch her off guard some nights. It had been more so in recent weeks; the weeks during which he should have been traveling homeward.
Is.
Is traveling homeward -- not should be. She must remain optimistic. It would do no good to wish ill-fortune upon her son.
Snapping the bedding in the still air outside of her cabin, she gazed longingly toward the blue sky. Was he watching the same clouds drift by, thinking about her, too? She would know soon enough.
It was then that she heard it. The steady rumble of hooves vibrated the grassy earth underfoot, the sound so like thunder that a few of the young ones fled to the safety of their homes.
A smile she thought she had lost lit her face as the caravan peaked the crest of a hill in the distance. It was now after so long that her restlessness would be set aside.
As the company rode their steady pace toward the village, she searched their grim faces and, little by little, her smile faded.
He was not among them. It was enough confirmation to watch as the group passed her forsaken little home without so much as a backward glance.
So it would be then: her worst fear come alive. Lancelot would not return, no matter the promise he had made her fifteen years ago.
And though the familiar prickling of tears stung her eyelids, they would not fall; instead, she closed her eyes and lifted her spirit to a strong wind travelling East.
As she pondered her son's fate, the wind playing through her hair somehow set her soul at ease. She opened her ears to its whispers, and could not suppress another small smile at what she head,
"I've come home at last…"