Woad and Knight

Author's Note - I posted the beginning of this story a few days ago and then rewrote it. My previous beginning wasn't good so I decided to make it darker and focus on two characters instead of one. This takes place after the film and focuses on two characters: Lucan, who was just a little boy in the movie but is now much older in this story. The other is Guinevere's daughter, Aranwen. Let me know what you think. The prologue is named after the song by Moya Brennan from the official soundtrack.

Summary - Aranwen becomes Merlin's apprentice while the orphan, Lucan, fights to be worthy enough for Dagonet's sword - and knighthood. Both seek a way to carry out their destinies. Lucan / OC. Rated 14A for future war / torture violence, suicide and mild language.

Disclaimer - I do not own any of the character featured in 'King Arthur'. I own nothing but my original characters.

Prologue - Tell Me Now (What You See)

It had been almost eighteen years since he had last attempted to pull the sword from the burial mound. "You know where the sword is," Arthur had told him all those years ago. "When you are stronger, come back for it." And so there he was, alone as it were, feeling as weak and as hopeless as he once had been with nothing but the restless wind around him to whisper sarcastic assurances in his ear and nothing but the countless burial mounds surrounding him to remind him of the things he had tried for so long to forget about.

"Lucan," a soft voice called from behind him. He did not need to turn around to know who it was. A hand smaller than his own rested itself delicately upon his aching shoulder. She did not say another word. All he heard from her was a sorrowful sigh that seemed to imitate the lonesome, melancholy noise that was the wind. Now, it wretched and howled and the sound of it alone was enough to make him tremble with cold underneath his worn tunic. He wanted someone to speak - he wanted to hear her voice in the hopes that it would comfort him.

"Speak to me, Aranwen," he murmured. He did not turn to look at her for he did not want her to see the tears that streamed down his dirtied face. How pathetic he felt, just like that little boy once long ago. He stared, lost, at the sword before him that protruded from the burial mound that still seemed fresh to him even after almost two decades. He fell to his knees in hopelessness and wondered if he could gather the courage to try again - to accept the burden he was so eager to take on eighteen years ago.

"What would you like me to say?" Aranwen responded quietly, her voice in a low, almost fragile, whisper. She ran her fingers through his sand-coloured curls as Guinevere, her mother, had done to him when he was a boy. Aranwen let another sigh escape her lips and knelt down beside him on the dewy grass.

"For years... years I have prepared myself for this moment. Your father told me to return when I was stronger - to get the sword in which I had dreamt of having in my possession for so, so long. And yet I wonder, even after all of my hard work, if I can truly claim the title of 'strong' in his eyes. Stronger was not good enough for me... it was never good enough," Lucan reached out to brush the hilt of the sword with his finger. Aranwen placed her hand upon his own and gently encouraged him to grab it.

"I do not think that matters to Dagonet," she said gently though the name on her tongue was alien to her. She had not yet been born when this great knight fell though Lucan had spoken countless times of the solemn warrior who had cared for him when the others would have left him to die.

"I only knew him for a short while, Wen," he said, addressing her with a long unheard childhood nickname. Her heart warmed at the sound of it and it reminded her momentarily of how things used to be. "For just a short while," Lucan repeated. "And yet I felt as if I had known him for all my life. Am I strong enough to take the sword, Aranwen? Am I truly strong enough?" at this, he finally looked at his female companion. He stared into her eyes, one the colour of bark and the other an ancient emerald, and betrayed a weak smile.

"I think you are," Aranwen told him. Lucan slowly reached out and wiped the smudge of blue from her cheek. Her expression turned dark and solemn suddenly. She looked north of where they were and trembling, placed her hand on the dagger that hung faithfully at her belt.

"I hear the drums," she said. Her voice did not give way to her fear. She stood up and with a fierce determination in her unearthly eyes, motioned for Lucan to hurry. "You must be quick, Lucan!" she urged. "If you will not take the sword now when you have the chance, the chance may never fall upon you again! Do it for Dagonet, Lucan... take it now!"

"They cannot come now... Aranwen..." his voice faded suddenly as his ears finally picked up the monotonous, almost eerie, beating of an unseen battle drum. He had not the senses Aranwen had. She seemed to hear everything that naught but the wind could carry. She listened to nature, as was the natural instinct of any Woad. Aranwen, who had seemed just a mere child just barely passed the latter half of her girlhood just three years ago, was now a woman. He looked down at the hand still resting at his shoulder. It was worn and beaten - each finger appeared as if they had been twisted and broken. The same thing happened to her mother, he thought sadly. He still remembered Guinevere's tortured screams and the lies that were her confessions. He remembered them still after all this time.

"They are coming now," she said through clenched teeth. "They come and they come - they never leave. And they will keep coming, Lucan, unless we can gather our courage to fight them. We must finish the battle our fathers and mothers started. We must be brave... even if it means we shall be brave until death. My mother was not afraid to die and so I should not." But there was a trace of fear in her eyes. For a moment, Lucan admired the way her raven hair blew wildly about her head. Her confidence gave him courage.

Will I take the sword now? he thought. Arthur's words returned to him. "You know where the sword is... when you are stronger, come back for it." Then, he remembered words uttered more recently. "Decide where you belong, Lucan. Decide what is yours, what you will give and what you will take. Decide where you will go and do not dwell on the places you have been... or the things that have been. Everything changes and you must know that and understand." Lucan remembered his reply.

"But, uncle, it is like the great wheel in the sky. It turns and turns... always different with each constellation - with every night and every day, with every spring, summer, autumn and winter. But eventually, we will end up where it all began."

"For Dagonet," he said with determination. "For my father," he uttered under his breath. "The only father I have ever known in this lifetime." He took the hilt of the sword, which would have looked plain in the eyes of ordinary men but looked grand in his eyes, and pulled it upwards with all his might. Arthur had did the same with his own father's sword, he reminded himself. He pulled it from the burial mound and held it triumphantly with his right hand high above his head. Dagonet would be proud, he hoped.

"They are coming," Aranwen repeated, this time her voice quavered out of anticipation. She pulled her crimson cloak more tightly about her in the merciless cold. Then, she pulled her wild hair hastily into a tamed knot at the back of her neck and adorned it with the one feather she had earned during her few days of battle. She grasped hold of the wooden bow she had strapped to her back and pulled it free.

"You will take your own father's sword into battle, Aranwen?" Lucan asked, casting his eyes down so as not to meet her mournful ones. There had been no time to drive Arthur's sword into his grave. There was not even time to burn his body as had been done to the others who rested in Badon Hill. When he finally looked at her, she was holding Arthur's Excalibur. She did not speak for the words, though unsaid, were there on her face. Little Arthes, he thought of her silently, calling her by what Arthur had always called her by - a word that meant 'little she-bear' or 'little Arthur'.

The drums grew louder as the wind grew stronger and the shrill call of a foreign horn sounded almost too abruptly for comfort. The sun was finally visible over Hadrian's wall though it hung in the sky half hidden behind a dismal cloud. It was as if the sun did not want to see the events that were about to unfold. But it has seen many battles, Lucan told himself. Surely this one was not so different.

"Are you ready?" Aranwen asked him. She looked hastily towards the forest with the knowledge that they were not truly alone. Then, facing Lucan, she held out her arm, which was covered in intricate designs of blue, and took his hand in her grotesque fingers. Suddenly, he pulled her close as if he never wanted to let her go. "Big brother..." she murmured. Somehow, the words stung him bitterly but he nodded his head with a forced courage, almost doubting himself all over again.

"Yes," he said gravely, his heart beating in the rythm of the drums, "I am ready."