Author's Note: Merry Christmas to those who celebrated, a good day or night for those who don't, a good Thanksgiving for some and a round of bows to those who review. Here's a chapter for everyone, may it be a feast for the eyes.
The baby Mordred part you see, is kinda... well... baby.
A special thanks to JurichuZ and Fid99 for the idea in this fiction.
Altria Pendragon had experienced being a father for approximately three solstices. Now, as she put down the necessity preparations on her part of bargain on Mordred's second winter, the satisfied smile she produced gave away her contempt to what tomorrow will bring.
After all, it would be that day she met Mordred in the dreadful castle of her true mother, laid in the most expensive blankets, three years prior. And so, with a banquet feat for her little girl and nobilities which overflows to stay at the castle to adapt in its unusual welcoming doors, she made it wise to stabilize all before a three day long celebration will hold, tournament and festivities included.
Although she gave emphasis to the nobilities and castle, her people will not be left to dust at all. She gave them a free reign of feast to greet their day at the plaza, a wide tent to beckon and protect the food from the chills of winter, where a whole stuff of goods and sweets were to be given to them as a good will from the royal family.
There will be dances learned, tournaments applicant accepted, banner rising and decorations that awaits to be revealed by the world, Altria made sure it would be priceless, astonishing for her babe alone.
She opted to hope for a peaceful day without any compulsion, for a day did not come that her child will not make everything dull... as well as a headache Altria tend to ignore when this thought cross her mind.
CHAPTER VI: MISCHIEF-MAKER
The castle at the center of the Capital are abuzz with Servants on route to their objectives in rush; cleaning, preparing and serving the nobilities on the East Wing with their favored breakfast, and are doing everything with prescription to place the last touch of the celebration to the stone halls and walls.
The windows are decorated with blue curtains, classic and bright, not a single patch of snow unseen much to the irate and determination of sweepers to eradicate the snow for the event which will be held not too long from their work area. It is their duty to make the castle as best as it is, for a feast of celebration will be held at the longest night of the year, anon- in respect to the tradition and the bundle who bears the name Pendragon.
While the guards and knights are unusually calm and happy to passed the year surviving rebellions and bandit feats in different areas of the kingdom, much more so to the diligent servants scurrying in every direction like a headless chicken amok, the Queen of Camelot has a thing or two she needs to deal herself with...
"Mordred, darling!" ... and that is how to capture her wayward daughter, sprinting out of the halls bare footed, weaving and pushing her way at the numerous helpers, trying to outrun her mother.
"Yah ain't cat' hing me, Momma!" the toddler giggles in mischief, fat hands and feet in action, dress in blue clothes like a tiny little prince, trying to outpaced her mother who she splashed with water just like a gardener will do to the flowers in the queen's bedchamber.
"Oh, I shall- Dear God!" Guinevere gasped in concern, her heart leaping in panic as Mordred almost crashed into a trolley, before the cub swivel away clumsy, and her uncoordinated feet saving her grace.
Mordred has been a blessed child, who is able to speak out her thoughts intelligently and a physical body which subpar those on her age. She have a leeway for everything, almost exactly how Guinevere discovered Mordred can stand on her own and walk five days ago- albeit still concerning and uncoordinated until now, it still encage the horror it becomes, as her roll turn into a crawl, a walk and now a run.
Guinevere barely ever rests her heart in panic, as those five days had been a serious challenge to the sanity of the queen. She can still remember how the tot's run had been, almost plummeting down a flight of stairs, giving the queen a heart attack, before her husband prevents it with a reflex faster than sound.
Don't get her started with the other incidents, like the bushes of thorns, the tea set in the kitchen, a dive on a lake- which Guinevere fainted- and the life threatening run of her child into a competing stallions while she and Altria are not looking. It was the events marking how Mordred's action had been taken a great measure of precaution from the guards next to their liege.
Truly, what a cute harbinger of heart disease Mordred have been.
"Cat' me , Mama! Cat' me!" Mordred childishly laughs as she rounds the corner, blonde hair in bun, crawling fast at a Servant's wide spread leg before standing again and continuing in the open area called hall for entertainment. She tried to haul herself faster, for she knew that person is there waiting for her.
"Oh I will catch you alright!" Guinevere responds with a playful threat, grasping the skirt of her royal velvet gown, fitted and embroidered with white roses and insignia of their house.
Mordred, wild and full of energy yells in glee when her mother raise a hand to try and grasp her form, until her father came into view with his loyal knight Lancelot, and Mordred caught this opportunity, to call and raise her arm forward, tackling one leg in joy.
"Dada!"
"...!?" Altria skids backward in pressure, blinking in surprise at the bundle hugging her leg with a wide grin on her face. "Mordred... what is it now?" Altria tried to sound exasperated, but the calm mask breaks again as Guinevere collides in her chest happily, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on her alabaster neck.
All went still for the seers, as the King froze on his spot, taking all in his wife's magnificence, until the ball of mischief that is his daughter rebukes again.
"No~! Ain't cat' me!" the baby hurdles, circling the sighing father while the queen achieved her goal as she sprint close to the child.
"I caught you!" Swiping her out the floor, Guinevere and Mordred laugh at their childish antics, twirling together and losing track of anyone who saw the scenery, amused and entertainment dancing on their expression.
"No~! You chea' ed!"
"I certainly did not!" Guinevere mocked to be hurt, poking the sensitive spot which earns her a rumbustious giggles.
"... Are you two done?" Altria pinch the bridge of her nose in exaggeration, pity dancing on Lancelot's eyes as he boldly claims the adorable way the child and mother have lit the room bright. Altria harbor a deep feelings for Guinevere- she really do, but each passing day, the tight and proper queen she wed had been reduce into a very affectionate mother, pampering their child which create problems none could endure for long.
"Indeed we are," Guinevere smooches the child's forehead, eyes shining in mirth to her husband's doubtful terse expression. "... And what of your post, husband?"
Altria looks at her companion- Lancelot- who responds for the King. "The preparations at the capital are accomplished right on time, Your Majesty, the rest of the nobilities and subjects are waiting for your arrival to start the tournament. The horses are ready for your travel, the best of all we have in our stables."
"Wha' we doen'?" little Mordred asked her father, whom gave her an almost affectionate pat on the head.
"We are going to celebrate your birth day anon, starting out the Arena where we will meet our people."
"Ma bi'th da'?"
Altria and Guinevere shared a look, a message within the tip of their gaze, communicating without words. They will make this day treasurable, as much as it is precious to the tradition of their people.
"Hn, ... your birthday." the King turn her face away from the child and the other visible eyes, uncertain how to hide the warm emitting sensation in her cheeks at the innocence of her babe.
"How odd," Guinevere blinks in confusion, after they went at the front bailey, with three horse trainers holding the reigns of three beautiful horses- Altria's stallion 'Haunt', her snow white mare called 'Augusta' and a little pony with an ethereal glimpse of the first snow of winter, barely half of her Augusta's height. "Aren't we commonly riding on a carriage for these events, my love?"
"Hn," Altria nodded in reply, tying the knots of their child's footwear with intensity. "However, I had granted Sir Lancelot's request of boon for our child, given by the faeries themselves."
"And that is?"
"A pony with a magical ancestry, My Queen." Lancelot proudly straightens up his pose, a huge smile on his usually stern face. As he proudly pronounce the things he was trustfully given up, the babe was placed in the said magical little pony's back with care while her parents mounts secured her sides to not let a potential fall to happen.
It would not be the first time Mordred will come out of her confines, such as her confidence to wave and greet the people with ecstatic hands.
They ride slowly, letting little Mordred indulge with squabbling giggles and coo for the pony she named 'Skippy', earning a cough of implication from the guards and citizens who heard the absurd name, except to the two parents- oblivious to the meaning of such word.
They arrived at the Arena, banner raised proudly with their insignia and an immense field of such, hearing the noisy rumbles of the people inside. Mordred takes the surrounding keenly with interest. Looking up at the mountainous structure, she swayed slightly, righting herself as she almost fall, creating an amusing sight who saw the little princess in her little world... until a butterfly caught her short- sighted attention.
She grinned in happiness, following the pretty butterfly with her sight.
Guinevere, who is holding the child's hand accidentally tripped in small debris, instinctively letting the little hand go to tumble in her husband's arms, those long blonde bangs hiding the incredulous raise of the calm King's eyebrows.
"My~ my, what a pleasant place it is within your arms." She teased, purring lightly and caressing her husband's firm but lean biceps, earning a controlled laughs from the watchers who saw and are transfixed to the blossoming awkwardness in the King's façade.
"Wife..." Altria hold her tongue, lest she meet the fate of a love struck wanton unbefitting for her status.
"Ah, forgive me, my love~." Guinevere winks at her husband, dusting herself and awaiting for the guards to lead them inside the Arena.
Altria and Guinevere stand perfectly side to side to step forward in their first celebration with their child. They both held their hands in their between, awaiting those chubby hands to cling to their fingers...
Until a long moment pass and they felt nothing at all. Alarmed, they look down in unison-
Only to find Mordred's previous location void of their babe.
"MORDRED!"
Little Mordred stops at her tracks of following the cute little butterfly in the muddy section she enters. She thought she heard her Mama's cry.
Looking around, she did not recognize the place she is in; must be too distracted to the little butterfly waving its wings and flying to the sky.
"Buttah' flah!" she giggles like a mischievous toddler she is.
Sticking her thumb to her mouth, baby Mordred walks forward in search to the pretty wings again, almost tumbling in her lithe feet but managing to right herself. Again and again, the butterfly leads her into different paths. The noisy rumbles of the Arena her Mama is talking about is decreasing, and the people which she sees looks uglier than the monkeys in the castle with them wearing good dresses that did not fit their faces.
Hairy, untamed and smelly, little Mordred can't help but pout at the stench. Her Mama smells like roses and honey. Her Dada smells like old books and sweet pudding. The knights smell like rusty metals and putrid feet. Her nannies smell sweaty and foamy soaps they used to watch her nappies.
Yet this bad odor, she can't help but pout more as her eyes tears up when the people coo and approached to where she stands. She run and dodges the smelly people, guided by the beautiful butterfly flattering not far.
She run and run in her little feet... until little butterfly suddenly disappeared. She looks around in the tight way she was stranded, eyes wide and questioning. Then, though she realized Mama and Dada are not with her, a small whimper rings on her throat. She strain her ears in a sound she heard in an open window, and she dumbly follows it, trying to search if she can find a semblance of her Mama amidst the dark and old woods she forcefully entered.
The window is high, so she tried to tiptoe and listen closely to the voices inside the dirty home. They were loud and there is a rustling. Someone will yell and sometimes another one will cry. It is continuing again and again, then there's that long sound.
"Mah nana' s kettie?" she asked herself, identifying it just like how her nanny's kettle would produce that high pitch sound other than her screech. Then there was silence, and soft murmurs emerge that she can't quite understand.
"He' oh? Mama, you tha'?" she tried to asked the two persons inside wanting to know if it's her Mama, patting the wood repetitively in impatience. "He' oh? Mama, you tha'?" when she was met with a deafening silence, a surge of... mischief runs along in her head like a horse.
If the person inside ignores her question, so be it- but Mama says everything has its consequences and it's rude to ignore those in need.
Searching for something to catch the insiders off guard, Mordred slowly puts her hands in the muddy soil she is standing; ruining her hands and creating a circle Mama teach her on the first week of snow in winter. Creating two not too heavy muds; she throws it with all her might to the window as her tot's strength would allow, before running with a stomp and a yell of 'meanie!' behind her back, returning to where she came from.
Unfortunately, she did not see the figure which poke his head in the window, mud splattered on his pristine white hair, a deep frown etch in his face.
"That damn brat!" Merlin hissed, annoyed, retreating back to the supple skin of the lady beside his bed.
"Mama?" Mordred looks to another baby who asked, next to the entrance of the narrow street she just went out. She's thinner than Mordred and has boring brown eyes and hair like her nannies. She wears dirty clothes with a dirty ragdoll of a scarecrow in her shabby little limbs.
"Mama. Know whe'e Mama?"
"Ain' no Mama." the babies talk back and forth with a knowledge the others would not understand, but a time had pass and something within the lines of 'noisy', 'Awena' and 'Skippy' escapes its way into the mouths of the two blubbering babies did they walk with the dirty girl leading Mordred out the smelly streets.
They walk and walk with the other people in their scary dirty clothes sneering at the toddlers, before Mordred met one knight running in their direction, catching the attention of the others who went away from the two children, as if bewildered to the things the knight had spoken.
Mordred could not understand it all, it's too fast and incoherent like hers-
"Darling!" – until her Mama's voice pierce through the metals and jeers. She was immediately elevated and hugged by her Mama, crying in her pretty blue dress.
"Mama!" she greet in her joy, ruining the dress of her mother due to her dirty little hands, and kissing the wet tears of the queen.
"Where have you gone to, my baby?" Guinevere breathe Mordred's blonde hair in satisfaction to see her safe, before shakily opening the hands which carelessly smeared her gown. ", And what of this dirt, what have you done, hm?"
"Mud' bahll." Mordred's little companion replied to the queen who went startled by the little girl.
"Mud... ball?"
"Un, mud' bahll," the brown haired girl nodded, like she was saying a deep secret that needs to be hidden. "Th'ow mud' ball in' skippy kettie. Ah see' ehm, skippy kettie."
And the others could not fathom the words to speak, hanging their jaws low as the babies tried to speak.
Altria slowly breathe through her nose as another round of pompous cheers resounds in her throne. In front of her, drunk as cats in a heat season, are the nobilities and knights who underwent a knighthood in her hands upon the instruction of Pendragon Codex for the Solstice event.
She tried to remain calm in the indecent wasp of language hanging off in their mouths about women and their role as baby makers for their Johnsons, for she detest being insulted as for who she is.. especially if those naught words placate the genuine quirk of lips in her queen's face into a force and thin smile.
They have remain sober and responsible, sitting still and mighty in their throne, a new experience to the disguised King who dwells into the bliss of the flame of alcohol scorching her nerves whilst it ease her adrenaline after many wars and court rebellions she had faced. She had never been peeved to be unaware of what she is doing when taking a toast, but she will let this moment rest her mind in peace.
For they- not as a King and Queen- but a father and mother- have a responsibility to uphold to their daughter. And the said daughter which they longed to be with instead to be entertain by a bunch of hooligans parading what little meat they have in their between.
Altria drew another sigh, this one with a subtle action to hold her wife's hand on Guinevere's lap, clench in worry- as well the continuous gleam of the sun orbs. The queen snapped back her hands away from the king, certainly angry to what she done.
She could not dwell much to the tight and unbearable emotion the sudden absence of her daughter had brought in her heart; she let her wife searched for their babe while she methodically spur the tournament with a speech so cold it sends shivers to those who is near. Already accomplishing her deed and painstakingly shrugging of nobles begging on her feet, she was replaced by her past self again; unforgiving, cold... monster... perfect. Perfect not as a ruler of Camelot, but a perfect way to deduced how a father would feel if his child was doom to be taken in your cocoon.
She searched everywhere and anywhere with her strength and speed, almost rummaging the hidden passages of Camelot, before she saw her wife with their cub, telling her of the child's whereabouts- to the red street of prostitution and carnal desire. She felt angry, worried, happy, confused- grateful, but she let it aside with a swift of her mask.
But it doesn't end there; Mordred's mischief. They have cleansed her, Mordred and Guinevere with a new clothes to wear and a tight security to not let even a second pass without looking at their princess, but she outsmart them yet again, now in a form of a cheer, messing things with the nobilities close to them, splashing drinks and throwing unwanted food to the snappy old men. The humiliation it wrought, and the shame it brings into her name. Altria let it slide, as well as the queen.
The child is more dangerous than they think, sneaking quite surprisingly at the center of the commoners, parading as one of them like some kind of a lowborn- as her counselors said. She let it slide too, for Mordred is not at fault. Her two year old cub will not do things that will make it spectacularly known.
Then the tournament had been cancelled due to Mordred's doing; opening the horses stables, lighting the son of the counselors, ruining the flow of the competitors, shuffling the banners and what's more- she have been given a moniker worse than Merlin. Altria tried to disagree and come up with a more logical reasoning that it is impossible for a child to create a ruckus as much as this.
However, she's always been on the scene. Mordred is always the only one seen.
And the disappointment it was to prove her wrong. Her child had given her the most innocent and outrageous look of all, the babe stick up to her, garnered her attention and... and she almost look like a leech the King hated about her witch sister. Altria felt the bitterness, and then- and then!- she raise a hand to her for the first time.
She raised a hand to her little daughter. A two year old child.
The bastard of mine. Altria morosely thought, remembering those tear streaking eyes, the whimper Mordred produced when she was slapped by her father.
And Altria could not help but be miserable. Guinevere is there, frozen and engulfed in anger, but Altria cease her by a cold command, an order greater than her status as a queen and they sent the crying baby back into the castle, locked up in her own room- ordered by Altria herself.
Now, as she mule and reflect back to what she did, comes the grave realization of what she forgotten.
Mordred's birthday.
And the King innately clenched her insides to bleed, berate her mind for overreacting... and killing her wretch heart with guilt.
"Your Majesty?" Bedivere called as his liege abruptly stands in his position, face hidden on view. The king left without a word and the queen bristled in her seat, deciding to follow the blonde after she professes to adjourn the celebration for the day after.
Altria walked briskly, ignoring the salutes and bow in favor to collecting her thoughts. The torches and lamps gives the earie coldness seeping in her eyes a shadow for the observers to mind their manners, as the king raise a hand to order them to leave the vicinity, hence they all did like their life depended on it.
Altria sighs for the third time, opening the door to Mordred's chamber and entering it with a flourish. What she see breaks her heart.
There's no light, not even a shade of star to twinkle in the sky. Like Altria had completely set her cub in annihilation- isolation in a very day she was born.
She felt sick, she felt responsible to what this gnawing corruption is, and so she carefully set alight in the chimney and candles, alighting the room.
If the darkness have made her heart broken, what is more to see her cub completely pressed at the farthest side of the wall, pushing herself against it in fear, eyes brimming with tears and small whimpers of pain still hangs in the air? Altria swallowed her grief and walk closely to her cub, which grew more afraid, and starts weeping in her folded knees.
The king pulled the cub in her arms, restless and afraid of her. She nestled Mordred on her lap and gently pry the arguing limbs, the green eyes flowing with the stench of scream for someone to help- to get her away from Altria's embrace. With the dim light, she can still see the redness and swell which turns into a very angry shade of green and violet on her cub's cheek, the cause of her gauntlet clad hand. She did not sent a servant to tend the wound, and now it paid its price, a marred touch of what should not been there if she just keep her calm align with her mind.
"Mordred, it is I." Altria tried to sound fatherly.
"..."
"Child, do you want something you would like me to fetch?"
"..."
"Child, what is it that you need?"
"... wha's Mama?"
Her vision blurs without knowing and finally, the itching bile in her nose and throat is back again. Altria blinks away the confusing reaction, but then again, it stopped the child from whimpering, staring at her in fearful wonder.
"...Mo-" Altria tried to speak, yet her throats blocking her voice to say her daughter's name. She tried again, but the sensations redoubled and her muscles and breathing became ragged and twitching. "Do... d- do you want your mother instead of I?"
"... Ah... Ah wah' Mama."
The confession cripples her more than she was stupefied for her life on battle.
Mordred, terrified but definitely curious, pushed a shaking hand on her face.
And Altria knew, she's crying without stopping. A sob escape her lips, a whimper and a flow of dam breaks away. Altria loudly cried in her child's front, hugging Mordred, kissing her face over and over again. Apologizing... asking for forgiveness repetitively without consent.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." there's so many things Altria wanted to apologized, yet it would not be enough to pay the horrible thing and insult she gave to her flesh and blood. She wanted this day to be wonderful, so full of life... and yet... she created a delirious mistake of blaming her child.
She's the worst father.
The worst husband.
The worst of all-
"Dada..." Mordred halts her depressing thoughts. The child is drying her tears away, bravely encompassing her deep terror to her father just to console Altria with her word.
"I'm sowwy~." The child pats her cheeks lightly, clumsily cleaning her face. "Mowded bad, Mowded sowwy Dada."
... How can she resist not crying again? After all she done, after all the negative feedbacks her actions accursed Mordred, the child blame herself for what she did herself.
"Mordred..." the King sulked, lightly tracing the abomination of a thing she imprints to the beauty of her daughter. A present she had given Mordred. A first cursed present for her birthday. The voice in her head sneers in tandem.
But the bundle gave her so much more, a present none can replicate.
Trust.
Love.
Forgiveness.
Chance.
So Altria vowed to her child, tenderly kissing the swelling cheeks and vowed with all her heart, because when she no longer are able to change a situation, Altria are challenged to change herself, change her ways and change her fate. Some says there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter, and Altria can proved it, with all her flaws bare in her little girl's eyes.
"I may be a bad father for you, making you tear up in the day of your birth. I might have been the worst scum on earth. I might have given you the world. I might have given you my throne," Altria smiled sadly, a tear falling down her loving eyes to her child's cheek. "... but if I willed it be, I will give you my life, I will turn back time and change my mistake, make you my most wonderful girl and change my ways. For every tears you shed, is a fresh wound to my heart. My daughter... forgive me, if all I can give you is my love."