The waters run deep. The surface tells me myself, and mocks me.
The others have left me now. I am sick of their timid looks of pity, their feeble words and flimsy gestures of consolation.
Let them think it was a spell. Let them take comfort in that, that no true woman of her own volition would yearn for such a monster, such a hideous form and let him cherish her core. Let them think the love was but a product of the spell.
But I did love him. No spell on earth can change that truth. The spell was for his benefit, but on my part, I had loved him all my life, in every heartbeat, every breath, every cell in my body. Such love cannot be consumed by one alone.
I loved the Goddess first and Kevin second. I accepted these flowering emotions as an effect of the magic, and did my duty for the Goddess. Yet what folly! This love is real, more real than my betrayal, my guilt. I see it reflected in the water, taunting me with the treasure that I have thrown away and betrayed.
I love him, and will love him, no matter where his grave will lay. They will give him fire, the fate of a traitor, and tell him he deserved it. But I know, deep inside, he was never made for this, this task. He was a musician, but they made him a Merlin, snubbed him throughout, then scorned him when he failed.
Above all else, I remember his music. Now all condemned to inferno. That absence alone cracks the beauty of this hollow earth. If, without him I must walk on, what then? What then?
If I must be brought down to reality, I will do it by my own hand. Morgaine and Avalon have been kind, but I have seen something more real. My mirror ripples. The water tells me myself, and reminds me of all that I have lost, and all that I could gain.
So be it. I will douse the flames for him.
