If asked how she came to be who she was, Nimue would be unable to give an answer. Her origins were hazy at best, nonexistent at worst; all she could remember, as far back as her memory would go, was living at her lake, watching the days go by as she filled her time with whatever small comforts she could attain. If there had been a beginning to her existence, it was long gone by now, and time continued to pass. It passed and passed and passed on by, and Nimue and her lake still remained.

She had the patience of a saint, the tool of any immortal being, or an adaptation to keep one from losing their head. With patience came knowledge, and with knowledge came wisdom. Nimue taught herself magic, water-based spells that the lake provided her, and she practiced and practiced, mastering her craft until she was able to make spells of her own design.

With her own two hands, she made Excalibur, a sword bound to her life essence, whose scabbard carried the same curse as she. She based it off of and linked it to the sacred sword Caliburn, who had fallen into her lake one day, so long ago. Nimue had been delighted at the company, holding her first conversation as far as she could remember, and so it was with him in mind that she created her own sword, silent but powerful, and as she wielded it, she had been filled with an overwhelming sense of yearning. The desire to run across the globe, her weapon drawn and at the ready, prepared to strike down any attackers that came her way… it coursed through her body like blood through her veins, and yet… and yet…

She was trapped. Nimue could only go so far outside her lake before a force more powerful than herself rooted her to the spot. She could never make it as far as the tree line which separated her home from the forest surrounding it. She had never even touched a tree.

But what could she do about it?

It wasn't all bad. Nimue's studies filled her waking hours, and when night fell, she rested as a mortal would, enjoying a respite from eternity, and sometimes, with any luck, someone would happen by her lake, and Nimue would be able to talk to someone again.

The years passed and turned into centuries, and Nimue found friends, took lovers, made a name for herself and allowed her reputation to spread across the land, and lost everything over and over again. Every time yet another important person to her died and never came back, Nimue grieved something awful, but she couldn't let herself stop. Her heart, broken and healed too many times to count, refused to stop letting people in. Her romantic soul told her never to push an interest away to spare herself. Even when she discovered that she was barren, that children were an impossibility, that no matter how desperate she was, she would never have an eternal companion, she refused to isolate herself any more than she was already forced to.

She would rather be in pain, over and over again until she had no tears left to shed, than be lonely once more.

Still, she had to wait for others to come to her. Even as she taught herself how to project her image across the land, 'visiting' those she loved, Nimue knew she wasn't truly with them. She was bound to her lake by an invisible contract she couldn't remember signing, and she couldn't help but wonder what would become of herself if Misty Lake were ever destroyed. Would she be free? Would she disappear instantly? Both possibilities frightened and intrigued her, but her home stayed pristine and untouched by disaster.

She was a warrior who couldn't fight. A lover who would lose everyone she cared for. One of the most powerful people in the land who couldn't even find a way to leave her home. Sometimes Nimue wondered if the reason she couldn't remember her origin was because she was being punished for committing an unspeakable sin, and this was her repentance.

And then she found Lancelot.

The instant she had held the terrified, soaking wet baby in her arms, had felt the warmth of his soul and had sensed the greatness he would achieve, she knew he was hers. She held him, clutched him to her chest, knowing she couldn't be a full-time caregiver for a mortal boy but still unwilling to give up her first ever chance at being a mother. Even as she handed him over to his new grandfather, Nimue's heart stayed with him, and every time he visited thereafter was one of the brighter points of her existence.

She watched him grow and become strong and smart and handsome. She saw him become the warrior she had always dreamed of becoming. She watched him run through the trees with Arthur, another boy with the glimmer of freedom in his eyes, bound to a destiny he couldn't escape. She saw her son inherit her romantic heart, to her delight and chagrin, and saw that no matter how much he suffered, no matter how much loss and pain and heartbreak he endured, he still couldn't stop letting others in. Nimue wished with all her heart that she could have been there, with him, as every episode of pain entered his life and he was left scarred in more ways than one.

Well… she had been able to comfort him once. Once, when he ran to her with a crazed, remorseful, agonized look in his eyes, and she held him as he cried, speaking of committing an act of violence so foul against his fellow knights, all because he feared and felt shame over the feelings he couldn't hide in his heart any longer. Nimue soothed him as he wept into her shoulder, feeling his fear with him as Lancelot begged to go back in time to stop himself from launching such a fierce attack, having put two knights in intensive care, knowing that he might as well have killed them…

Lancelot cried and shook and gripped on to her, and Nimue shed some tears with him, finally feeling like a true mother in the most bittersweet kind of way.

Lancelot had also given her Galahad, and Nimue adored her grandson to the stars and above. From the moment those wide golden eyes had landed on her, Nimue had felt the same pull as she had felt toward Lancelot, the same knowledge that this was, without a shadow of a doubt, her family. She watched him grow as well with the years passing mercilessly, a boy so powerful and pure-hearted and destined for greatness, just like his father. It didn't seem to matter that their family was made from choice rather than blood, for she saw plenty of herself in Lancelot, and plenty of them both in Galahad. Her family was small, and it grew slowly, but it was good and strong, and the love she carried for them was more powerful than any magic she could conjure on her own.

She knew that, one day, they, too, would pass and fade into nothing, but Nimue couldn't bring herself to regret having them in her life, making her existence something beautiful and to be cherished rather than an endless cycle of waiting for something to happen. Nimue couldn't regret her family.

Nimue loved so completely and with so much of herself that it was almost impossible for her to distinguish herself from those she cared about. Sometimes, Nimue had to wonder if she was, perhaps, a spirit of Avalon itself, harboring love for everyone therein. The Lady of the Lake loved her home, and wished for only the best for it. She would play her part, on the outside looking in, and accept what she had while she had it, and once what she loved was gone, she would weep and grieve and scream…

...and then she would open her heart once more, because there was no other way for her to exist, and what else could an immortal being do, but exist?

Nimue would love forever. That was her blessing and her curse, equal parts beautiful and terrible, and she would keep on going until, perhaps, a choice to make it stop was finally given to her.

But even if such a choice existed, Nimue didn't know what she would decide.

Nimue's existence is love and pain and I wish I had more of a role for her in the overall scheme of things, but in the end, she truly is someone destined to watch.