Title: Trust no one
Rating: G
Character/s: Uther, Gaius, Arthur
Summary: Uther remembers how he trusted magic and how it betrayed him.
Word Count: 275
Uther trusted no one. Everyone he'd known, everyone he'd loved, betrayed him in the end. Even his beloved Ygraine slipping away from him into death, leaving him behind. Hers was a kind of betrayal that, while unplanned, destroyed him, leaving him with nothing but a squalling boy and emptiness. And he had never forgiven her for it, or those who had a hand in her demise.
Gregor, Jaden, Elanthia, Nimueh, a thousand names, a thousand screams for mercy. They were the traitors that talked Ygraine into betraying him, reassured her that all would be well while magic swelled her belly. Yet in the end, magic, corrupt and vicious, betrayed him and them. In the end, magic delivered all but one into Uther's hands. A spectacle of burnings and drownings and blood soaked into the straw at Uther's feet.
Only Gaius had not betrayed him, only Gaius begged him to be cautious. Only Gaius lured the treasonous dragonlords into a final solution of death and destruction at Uther's direction.
But not even Gaius was to be trusted. For Nimueh escaped and she should not have and who but Gaius could have arranged it. And because of that, over the years, Uther watched and played Gaius for a fool and waited for the final betrayal of his once friend.
And his treasure, his squalling son, now grown, had the potential for treachery, too. Arguing with him, denying him the utter allegiance a son must give his father. And how much more defiance could Uther accept when all he saw when he looked at his son was Ygraine and her betrayal?
For Uther trusted no one and nothing.