A/N: So I was sick for a while, but I'm better now. I blame the huge amount of salt in the stew my granpa made because it made me, my grandma and him sick. Bleh! Anyway, so not much going on. I'm finally able to eat normally again, which is an improvement on the very very very little I had yesterday and the almost nothing I had on the day before.
Anyway, so yeah, I'm feeling better after two days of nothing but feeling terrible. :3
Cu and Arturia in my head are beginning to turn into slave drivers, screaming at me whenever I slack off in the middle of doing a chapter to get movin' pronto. Gilgamesh isn't nearly as pushy, he's too busy being bored. Meanwhile, Tom takes up the greatest portion inside my head now and makes snide comments at random.
Chapter Forty-Two
A stone marked the spot under a tree. A mound of dirt and some grass growing was the indication that someone was buried under it all. The stone was circular, like a wheel, with a line around it with various slashes against the line in an old blessing that few, very few, knew how to read outside of those who kept up the oldest ways of the Irish people. On the ground in front of the stone was a marker stone, a name engraved into it so those who wished to find her could do so.
Cuchulainn stood in front of the stone and stared at it solemnly. The leaves were beginning to turn, indicating winter was coming. The slight chill in the air made his prosthetic joints ache slightly. He had been gone for so long away from her and was not even able to see her one last time before she had died. The thought left a cold bitterness inside of his heart that hurt terribly. He had never hurt so much inside except the day he had to kill his own friend.
He knelt down and touched the dirt that had yet to take seed. It had packed down over the months he had been away and was smooth instead of loose. For a moment, he could hear her heart beat in the earth, as though the earth was Emer herself. He lied down on the ground and put his ear to it, closing his eyes. He heard nothing but the earth, but that was calming enough.
In his dreams, he saw Emer looking frantically for him. When she looked up, he held a bow and arrow up and had brown hands. He shot her in the heart and a couple of times in the back before Cuchulainn woke up with a start, wondering where he had been. Those came often and he wondered if it was a message from his Emer from the grave.
He looked at his hands and thought carefully. Brown hands could be anything from a black man to an Indian to an Arab tribesman to a Babylonian. He thought carefully and closed his eyes against the light as he remembered how his hands were adorned. They had white cloth sleeves and colorful tunic sleeves over them. So was it really as what Fergus and the other men deduced? Someone hired an Arab tribesman to assassinate Emer? But why would anyone want to kill the queen when the queen was young and pretty and the king was the one to get rid of? It made no sense!
He sat up and leaned against the tree; pulling his knees up and hugging them. Frustration over the mysterious death of his wife and the pain in his joints was bothering him terribly. Who would want to get rid of a woman?
Fergus looked at the mirror that Merlin had given him through one of the wizard advisors so he might better communicate with him should something come up on his end. As he gazed at it, thinking about many things, he thought he saw a flash of a pair of feminine, gold eyes. He frowned and put the mirror away and started moving quickly. Someone wanted to talk to him, but had stopped partway through the mirror viewing. He found his room and went into it quickly and locked the door. He moved to his bedchamber and closed that door as well, sitting at a small desk made from some wood he couldn't really name.
He pulled the mirror back out again and looked into it again. "Yes?"
At first nothing appeared and then slowly out of his reflection, he saw the eyes again. The eyes suddenly were held by a face and the face bloomed into that of the little queen, Arturia. Fergus blinked at her. "What are you doing on this, little queen?" he said.
Arturia eyed Fergus a moment before looking elsewhere and then back to the mirror in her hands. "I was wondering what this device did, for I had seen that silver haired woman talking into it earlier. Fergus Mac Roich, correct?"
"Ah, so you aren't simply missing as the messenger said," said Fergus with some amusement in his voice. Arturia flushed slightly in the mirror, though her face went back to its normal doll like masked soon afterward. "What is it you need, dear lady?"
Arturia gazed at Fergus and looked as though she were mulling over a big decision. He smiled at her faintly as she looked away to her lap and fidgeting for a moment before looking back at him. "I… I want to know…"
"How the lad is doing?" he said, smiling faintly. She really did care for the boy, even if he was as well known for going off at random. "He's well if that's what you're asking. He's told me a great deal of what has happened… especially you taking a couple of things away from him." She stiffened visibly and, as he watched, the shell she had carried back when he had first met her, fell neatly into place over her. "I don't think he's too upset anymore, though he's not really known for showing a great deal of what goes on inside that head of his. He certainly doesn't act as though he just lost an arm and a leg."
Arturia's gaze softened and she relaxed slightly. "I… want to see him. He most likely won't come back here…"
"Why don't you go home? Your people need you, you know," said Fergus.
Her gaze grew hard and cold as the mask fell over her once more. "I do not wish to go home yet."
"Your people want you back, you know. They need you. You are their queen. You can go back to wherever that school is anytime you wish, you could come over here any time you wish, I think, as well." Fergus frowned at her odd behavior. She had fought hard to become the queen of Briton and now she didn't want it?
"I can't," she said.
"Why can't you?"
"If I go home, I will never be able to come back here or to Ireland ever again," she said softly, though her face was hard. "Leadership is a cage. I will endure the cage for as long as I live, but it prevents me from doing what I want when I want." For a moment, she looked impassioned, her cheeks flushing slightly and her eyes glittering like the women he had loved in his past. She had found something to want and he knew who it was.
"So the lady has something she wishes to do when she wants to do it without the cage keeping her wings clipped?" said Fergus, smiling faintly. "Come here. Dress simply and wear a cloak. Ask one of the wizards there if you can borrow a portkey to here. I'm sure one of them has one, since the wizards here go there at times. Do this within the hour and I will go to meet you."
She nodded after a moment. He smiled and nodded toward her. He started to put the mirror down when he heard a very faint "Thank you" come from her. He looked back, but she was not there anymore. He grinned broadly at his reflection. While he felt Emer had been a perfect match for Cuchulainn when he had married her, something about the sincerity with which the little queen pursued him made him feel good about her being with the boy. If things continued, perhaps in time, when the boy finally finished mourning, he would move on and take the queen as his wife.
Fergus waited in the room with the wizard portkeys, avoiding touching any of them, even in curiosity. It had been thirty minutes since he had told Arturia to meet him using a portkey to the Ulster Castle, though he had said "within the hour" to her. It was getting later in the day as he stood there, feeling rather foolish and more than a little nervous to be around so many transportation spell covered objects.
He waited longer and longer, feeling the air grow colder. What had kept the queen away? Did someone not give her a portkey? He pulled the mirror out of his pouch and looked into it. "Little queen? Are you there?" he muttered to it. Nothing happened.
He walked out of the room and tucked the mirror back into his pouch. Had she decided not to come? No, she would have given him a message if she had! He ran out the doors and saw the sun had gone down all the way. In the distance, against the old tree where they had buried Emer, he could see Cuchulainn sitting with his head leaned back against the tree, his knees drawn up with his arms resting on them.
Fergus walked toward him and stopped. "Lad! Lad!" he called. Cuchulainn didn't budge. Fergus reached him and knelt down beside him. He was firmly in sleep's grasp. Perhaps he was dreaming of his wife in the world between life and the afterlife?
He pulled off his cloak and draped it around Cuchulainn's shoulders before walking into the castle. He would figure out the mystery of Arturia while he got something into his stomach.
The sky was sunny and warm, the lush green grass beneath his feet smelled sweet and green. A tree stood in the middle of the green, the branches large and long, the trunk huge and thick, the leaves bright green and lit up by the sun. Cuchulainn stood up and gazed at the great tree in all its bright glory. There, at the base of it, stood a circular stone with the old ogham writing on it. Beside it sat a beautiful woman that made his heart leap. Her long purple hair shimmered as she plaited it with her graceful fingers, the smile on her face genuinely radiant as she hummed softly.
"Emer?" he murmured. He wasn't certain if what he saw was an illusion or just a dream or the real thing.
Emer opened her beautiful eyes and gazed at him with the gentlest of looks. "I've been waiting for you, Cu," she said and left her hair alone for a moment before standing. Cuchulainn ran to her and pulled her up into his arms as he used to do. She laughed and it was like little bells to his ears. "My hound, my precious hound," she said.
Cuchulainn nuzzled into her neck as he held her to him and smelled her. She smelled of green grass and fresh air, but not his Emer's usual perfumes. He blinked and looked to her; she smiled faintly and stroked his face before cupping it with her gentle hands. He closed his eyes and nuzzled aganst one of her palms. "Emer, what is…?"
"It is a dream," she said softly, "But here you can be with me for now."
Cuchulainn gazed at Emer and let her down before hugging her around the waist, on his knees and nuzzling against her stomach. She touched his hair and smiled faintly at him. "Who killed you? Do you know?"
"No… I only know he was a man with brown skin, dressed as an Arab tribesman," she said softly. "His accent, however… was very distinctive. He sounded as though he were taught to speak by a royal or a royal advisor from Briton. It was a very upperclass English accent that he had."
Cuchulainn gripped the back of her dress and continued to nuzzle against her tummy, as though just holding onto her would make her come back to him. She hummed softly and continued to comfort him with her soothing stroking of his hair. After a while, she knelt down and kissed him. He, in turn, kissed her passionately, pulling her hard against him. She pulled away from him for a moment before gazing at him and stroking his lips with her fingers. He kissed them as he watched her.
"Who took you from me? Was it the queen?" she said.
"Aye, the little queen pulled me to her kingdom. She—," he stopped and felt as the world and Emer began to fade. "Emer, what's going on?"
"You are waking up, Cu," she said with a smile. "Just wake up… I will see you again." With that, the world he was in faded around him, Emer faded from his arms and night surrounded him. He found he had a man's cloak laying on him with a horse head pin stuck to it. Fergus. It would be just like the man to have a horse for a cloak-pin when the man had a name like "son of a horse"!
He sighed and leaned back against the tree behind him for a moment, tears coming to his eyes for the first time in a long while. His heart broke slightly, chipping at the edges as he could still feel Emer in his arms. He cried silently for a while, letting the tears come to him and letting them wash down his cheeks. When he had no more tears to cry, he listened to the sound of the breeze making the grass and the tree leaves move.
When he opened his eyes and looked out at the night around him, he saw a figure walking, black against the stars. The cloak the figure wore was simple, made from wool possibly; pinned with a simple broach or a dragon. It was a woman wearing the cloak and she was very small, possibly elderly by the looks of the old wool cloak. "Hello, dear lady," he said, waving a hand before standing. "What brings about a woman into the night? Are you a spinster, perhaps? Come to spin our flax?"
She stopped and the hood of the cloak moved toward him. He couldn't even see her face! He walked toward her and bowed. "I am Cuchulainn," he said. "I asked if you were perhaps a wandering spinster."
The woman didn't do anything for a moment before curtsying to him gracefully, her hands small and delicate, her sleeves trimmed with black lace. He recognized the lace, but couldn't place it. "I… am a spinster," she said, her voice odd as it cracked slightly. She was young; she had to be, for her hands were far too young looking to belong to an old woman.
"Please, come inside and we will set you up a room with a wheel so that you might do your trade. We will give you food and what you need to work and money when you are done," he said, eyeing her carefully. Her head was constantly bowed to him so that he couldn't get a closer look. If she was who he knew she had to be, why the hell was she there?
He wrapped her arm around his and ushered her into the castle where people were milling about; some talking, others working on one thing or another. Fergus looked up and blinked at Cuchulainn with the cloaked woman next to him. "Er… where did you find that one?" said Fergus, coughing as his voice cracked slightly from surprise.
Cuchulainn eyed Fergus for a moment before smiling broadly. "I found this wandering spinster walking around aimlessly. I felt that since she was so elderly we should take her in and let her do her honest work. After all, it's so hard for a woman to get work when they're all alone..." He smirked as he eyed the cloaked figure that was indeed very short compared to him. "Especially one who's small enough to pass as a child," he said.
The woman twitched slightly; not very much, but just enough of a twitch to give Cuchulainn an indication. She said softly, "My size should not enter into it."
"Indeed, but size does matter when you're being set upon by bandits and raiders, aye?" He grinned broadly as she twitched again.
"It doesn't matter if you have the will to win," she said. He noted a slight heated tone in her voice and smirked deviously.
"I'll take you to your quarters then, shall I?" said Cuchulainn. "After all, you will probably want to rest well before the morrow. You'll have a full day of work ahead of you!" Without another word, and Fergus gaping slightly as he tried to get a hold of Cuchulainn before he shoved off, Cuchulainn ushered the spinster up the steps. They passed several floors before a pair of girls in the hallway looked up. Caley and Elish grinned broadly as they saw their father appear. He waved to them and smiled. "Caley! Elish! I have brought a guest to Ulster! Please be kind to her."
Caley and Elish stopped and looked to the cloaked figure and then to their father before grinning and curtsying to her clumsily, little Elish almost losing her footing. "We're pleased to meet you, ma'am," said Caley.
The woman bowed her head to them, folding her hands in front of her. Indeed, he saw the lace and knew that lace from only one woman. He had forgotten, however, that it was a lace undergarment she wore, not lace on the dress itself. He opened a door after he walked past Caley and Elish and ushered her into the room. It was a grand room, very expansive, much like a king's chamber. He nodded to her as he closed the door and released her. "All right, this will be your room until you leave. We'll bring a wheel in tomorrow so you can do your work. I'll send food up so you can eat dinner if you wish."
She shook her head under the hood of her cloak and looked to the bedchamber door. "Is that my bed?"
Cuchulainn moved closer to her and leaned down, putting his hands on her small shoulders and smirking as he hissed into her ear. "Aye, it is your bed. It should be warm and cozy." He felt the shiver run through her and grinned more before moving away. "I am leaving now. Thank you for your services, lady." Then, he walked out, closing the door behind him. He had to refrain from laughing until he reached the main hall where he burst out laughing with such force that he fairly exploded with it.
Fergus ran over to him and put a hand on him. "Lad! What?"
"You have some gall, Fergus," said Cuchulainn. He grinned and clapped his foster father on the back as the man started getting a grin of his own. "Good work, Fergus."
Fergus laughed and shook his head. "You pup! Just wait until you're my age and then see why I do these things!"
Arturia pulled the cloak off her and set it down on a chair. She walked around the room, gazing at the many tapestries on the walls and then went into the bedchamber. It was a very fine room indeed, one that she had for herself. It was fit for a king! She walked around the bed and gazed at the blue comforter and blankets, white linen sheets and feather pillows. The curtains were blue with silver thread decorating them in beautiful designs. She took off her dress and lay in the bed wearing the lace undergown she always wore with her dresses. She took off her sword and laid it behind the bed where she could reach it and pulled her boots and stockings off as well.
After a moment, she blew out the lamp next to the bed and took her hair down before falling asleep. She would have to sleep lightly in order to know when to get up before Cuchulainn came so she could cover herself with the cloak once more. She didn't know why she felt it was necessary to hide, but perhaps hiding was the thing she had to do. As she dozed off, she could smell a familiar smell in the bedding. It was a masculine scent that forced her to drift off into dreamland where she was comforted.
Emiya found a mirror and looked into it, hiding away in Arturia's bedchamber where Merlin wouldn't go. It was no ordinary hand mirror, for he had seen Merlin talking into it. When he whispered to it, the glass shimmered and a woman with blonde hair appeared in it, gold eyes glaring at him.
Emiya immediately shoved the mirror into his coat; afraid she had seen him and might tell Merlin. It wasn't a key to how to transport himself to the school, but it was a key to talking to the school. With that in mind, he got under the covers of his bed and slept, holding the mirror close to him.
Arturia felt warm at her back, warm flesh against her own. She felt warm hands caressing her sides and pulling the skirt of her undergown up over her legs. She smelled a masculine scent that made her senses fire up and moved against the man holding her so intimately against him. "Mmmm who touches me?" she said as she started to move away from him. Strong arms pulled her back, wrapping around her as the man's face nestled into the base of her neck and rooted around.
She shoved at him and thrashed, but he was stronger than her. She felt a hard bulge against her and knew what it was. She saw blue hair out of the corner of her eye and settled slightly against him. "Cuchulainn?"
"So you figured it out that it was me? I'm surprised you didn't try to castrate me with your bare hands," he said, grinning at her before licking her ear.
Arturia shivered and groaned. "I was asleep and was uncertain as to what I should do, for the smell and the warmth reminded me of you," she said.
He stopped and looked to her as she turned partially to look at him. He smirked faintly and leaned closer to her. "It could have been someone who happened to feel and smell like me, you know," he said softly, keeping his mouth from hers purposely.
She tried to kiss him, but he kept back from her. She frowned faintly. "Why is it you tease me?"
"I wish to know why you are here, dear little queen. Shouldn't you have gone back to Briton where your people need you?" He rubbed her breast and ran a hand down over her body, watching her writhe a little as he pinched her nipple through the lace. He nipped her earlobe and grinned when she moaned. "Why come here when you should be getting back to your own life and away from me? After all, you still haven't married."
Arturia went still and looked away. He eyed her a moment before kissing at her neck. She didn't respond. He nipped at her flesh, over her shoulder and over her neck, as his hands worked her body. She grunted and twitched against him, trying to stay silent. "If you don't talk to me, I'll only keep teasing you until you speak," he said, taunting her with a low growl in her ear.
"Because I want to marry," she said softly.
"Mmm yes, we have already established that you need to marry soon, but who will the unlucky blighter be?" said Cuchulainn as he ran his fingers between her legs, teasing her folds. He grinned when she whimpered. "I'll make you tell me. Is it your little lapdog?"
He continued tormenting her until she let out a yelp, shuddering around his fingers inside her; panting hard as he held her against him. All the teasing her had caused his cock to stiffen in his trousers and push very hard against the front of his trousers, at least that's what it felt like! He groaned and shuddered when she brushed against him, pumping his fingers inside her once again. She whimpered and shoved at him. "Tell me," he said, biting her ear gently and running his tongue over it. "Tell me who it is you wish to marry or I'll make it even harder for you to remember their name," he said, his voice husky with need.
"YOU!" she snarled. "I want to marry you!!" He stopped and watched her as she panted and looked to him over her shoulder, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with passion. "I have always wanted you since the very moment I heard of you," she said, her tone hot and hushed.
He gazed at her intensely, watching her lips move and licking his own. Her body was driving him crazy with her heat and wriggling. "You want me?"
"Yes," she said, calming down some. She looked away and settled with her head on her pillow. "I've… always wanted to marry you."
"Because you wished the hound of Ulster as your mate or because you wanted me?" he asked, watching her carefully.
"Because you intrigued me… because some part of me lifted when I heard your name. I do not know how to explain it other than that," she said softly. "A man my age… making himself a legend…"
"Yes, that would be intriguing to you, I suppose," he said, smirking as he pumped his fingers inside her again. She moaned and writhed against him. "Mmm and you're wet."
She lay still once more and he frowned. She was disappointed with something he had said. He continued to pump his fingers and nuzzled into her hair. "Are you waiting for an answer to your partial proposal, dear little queen?"
"I never proposed to you, that is the man's duty," she said stiffly.
"Aye, but you said you wanted to marry me, therefore, you have begun a proposal to me," he said softly, stilling his fingers for a moment.
She still wouldn't look at him, keeping her face turned so she wouldn't look over her shoulder at him. He pulled her leg over his hip and pulled his cock out from his trousers, groaning from releasing it. He rubbed the tip of it against her wetness and pushed it slowly into her with a groan. She moaned and shivered from the feeling of him filling her. "Will you not even look at me while I make love to you?"
"I…." She gasped as he thrust quickly into her. She was losing her ability to think coherently! He leaned over her and kissed her neck, rubbing her breast with his free hand and pinching her nipple gently.
He was tormenting her, he knew it. It was to get her to talk to him and his patience had started to wear thin. Truth was, he didn't know how to take her admission to him. Half of him still didn't like her for how she took his arm and leg and the other half screamed for her.
She screamed as she shuddered tightly around his cock. He groaned and kept thrust into her until he gave a loud shout and shot his seed into her. After a moment, he nuzzled against her shoulder and kissed her there. He undid the lacing of her gown and rolled her onto her back, underneath him. He moved down her body and suckled at her nipples as he teased her back to life once more with his fingers.
"Cuchulainn!" she gasped. She writhed and wriggled before she rolled him under her and held him down with her hands on his wrists, straddling his stomach. She gazed at him hotly as he snapped his jaws at her. "Why….? Why do you do this to me when you do not want me?"
He pulled her under him and kissed her hard. "If didn't want you," he growled, "then I might get a decent night's rest for once! You fill my dreams when I don't have Emer there!" He kissed her again and held her down, pinned beneath him as he dug his tongue into her mouth. Her moans echoed his groans as his manhood came back to life.
She pulled away and shoved him underneath her once more, cupping his face in gentle hands. He hair was tossed around her head as gold eyes burned like molten metal into his red ones. He gazed at her, uncertain of why it felt as good as it did to be held that way by her. She leaned down and kissed him gently, nuzzling against his forehead. "I can't marry you. I would tie you down and force you into a life you can not live."
Cuchulainn panted, flicking his tongue at her mouth. He caught her tongue and rubbed his against hers. "The only way I could live a life I wanted would be if I had never become a king," he said, "And now I will not live that life anymore. I am a king now and thus whatever you could do to me could not pull me down anymore than that could."
"Then, do you accept?" she said softly.
He eyed her a moment before looking to her mouth. In a second he had her under him again and kissing her as hard as he had been before. She moaned and clawed at his back through his shirt. When he let up, he gazed at her and licked her lips gently. "Yes, I will be your husband," he said.
She touched his face with such tenderness that he barely knew what to make of it. She stroked his cheeks and his lips with her fingers, watching him kiss her fingertips and close his eyes. Then, he kissed her again, gentler this time, letting the fire grow once more between them before he pulled her dress from her body and his shirt and trousers from his. Then, he entered her heat once more and thrust into her. He moved slowly at first, but the fire grew and burned hotter and hotter until he was making the bed shake from the force of his movements. She cried out in pleasure over and over, building higher until she cried out his name as her body shuddered around his stiff manhood, pulling him over with her with his seed spilling inside her. He cried out as he spilt himself inside her and panted as he lay on top of her until both their bodies had cooled. In the morning, he would announce their engagement and he would have a ring made for her to wed her with. But for then, they slept peacefully in eachother's arms.
