My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer
"Looking For Your Face"
Rumi
In the spring, she taught him to dance. With the music crackling out of the speakers of the ancient radio, her body moved in time with the steps of whatever dance youth was caught up in these days. Real youth- like Vivienne, and not the facsimile of youth that Merlin wore. A young face masking a millennium and more; a young face that had forgotten how to be young. Until she taught him how to dance. And run, and breathe, and wish on falling stars, and the thousand other things that age steals from youth when it attempts to be dignified before trying to outrun death.
In return, he told her stories, clearing the cobwebs out of the attic of dreams that was his mind, shining light into forgotten corners until the half-remembered dreams emerged as full-blooded memory. By night, curled beside her in bed, he narrated the centuries and uncovered the true story of Camelot, Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table until he was altogether whole again- Merlin the Enchanter, Emrys. Servant, sorcerer, and a man altogether in love. There was only one more story left to tell. A story he shied away from, no matter how often he tried to tell it. Vivienne sensed its reluctance to be told and respected it. Stories had their own time and their own rhythm. Forcing the story would destroy it, so she let it go.
"Tell me. . . " was her nightly refrain, About dragons, of Samarkand, Arthur's coronation, your travels along the Silk Road, of Lancelot's courage, voyaging to the New World, about Guinevere's reign as Queen. . . So many stories. She didn't care if he told them twice or a dozen times, as long as he told them.
"Tell me. . . " Vivienne bit her lip in thought, tracing her finger along the line of his naked collarbone, then down the chain around his neck, her fingernail catching every link until she held the chain's heavy ring between two fingers. "Tell me about this ring. You never take it off."
"I've told you about that ring." Merlin smiled, knowing she would insist on hearing the tale again. He wound his fingers into her night-dark hair. The candlelight danced in her eyes. "But you want to hear it anyway, don't you?"
"Yes."
"All right. After Arthur, Guinevere reigned as Queen in Camelot for over forty years. Her love for Arthur was so great, though, that she couldn't bear the thought of marrying another so when her time came, she passed the throne on to Sir Leon's son, Constantine."
Vivienne held the ancient ring up to the light, turning it back and forth so the worn gold edges of the dragon of Camelot could shine again. "And when Guinevere died, you sent her to Avalon to join Arthur there."
"Yes. In a boat filled with the same kinds of roses that decorated the great hall on their wedding day. I still remember the scent of those roses. The castle smelled of them for days, even after they wilted and we took them away." He grinned and folded his fingers around hers, trapping the ring between their hands. "But the flowers aren't the point. When Constantine was dying, he passed the throne on to his son. The night before the coronation, I stole into Camelot unseen and replaced the signet ring with a perfect duplicate."
"You thief," she laughed.
"I've been accused of worse." His smile faded. "I'd had a vision that told me of troubled times ahead. I feared Arthur's ring would be lost, and I knew he would need it when he returned. Symbolism is a powerful tool for a king, and the signet ring is as great a symbol as a crown or a sword. His crown was gone, and I'd returned his sword to Avalon years before. But anyway. My visions were right. The Saxons returned, and then the Norsemen came. History ran its course and the Five Kingdoms of Albion became Britain, and then England and Scotland and Wales, and here we are today."
"Here we are today, wrapped up in one of History's Great Events." She sighed, and her eyes drifted shut. Merlin thought she had fallen asleep, but she looked up at him again, her ever-changing irises dark as the evening sea. "Do you suppose he'll come back soon, with the war and everything being the way that it is?"
"I don't know," he whispered, "I've given up trying to predict that. Every time England was threatened, every time a great war blew up, I thought Arthur would come back. So I went back to the Lake of Avalon to wait. And I waited and waited for so long. But I never saw anything in the water but my own reflection. Not the Sidhe, not the Lady of the Lake. . . "
"Freya. You told me her name, too." Vivienne brushed her thumb along his jawline, tracing it upward until she could run her fingers through his hair. "Time has been unfair to you."
"Life isn't a fair proposition, I've learned. I kept trying to make it so, but Fate kept undoing my work. All I wanted to do was save the world," he said ruefully.
"You didn't have to save the world. You just had to save Arthur. And you did that." She pressed her fingers against his lips to silence his protests. "And don't tell me you didn't manage it, because in all these stories you keep telling me, you saved his life too many times to remember. You helped him survive to become such a king that we still remember him, even after all this time. The Golden Age of Albion, you called it. Arthur began it, Guinevere kept it alive, and if you hadn't been there, it never would have happened. So don't you dare say you're a failure because you buried him when he was still so young."
He took her slender hand in his and kissed her fingertips. "I'll try to remember that, My Lady. But I still dream of Camlann, and of what came after. Some nights, I can't sleep. . ."
"And that's where you make your mistake, Mo Chroí." She let go of his hand and sat up. The blankets fell off her thin shoulders, the dark swirls of her hair writing elegant calligraphy along her pale skin as she stretched to blow the candle out. In the darkness, she settled beside him, her fingers mapping the length of his arm, her lips feathering kisses along his cheek until she whispered into his ear. "Some nights weren't made for sleeping at all."