Work Text:
Love is ivy, no matter what lies the poets tell. It chokes you and looks beautiful doing it. It tears at walls, slowly, quietly, and leaves them rubble years later. But you don’t know that yet. (You will, O daughter of Niniane, born under an eclipse and unlucky stars.) You are young, and beautiful, and so very in love. You wish you could tell someone, but, well. You are in love with the Queen and the Lady of Tintagel both. A crime, technically. Not something you would die for (you would… not exactly be… glad to, but you would, all the same) but a crime worth exile.
And the best part is this: they love you back.
And the worst part will be this, one day: they loved you back.
Ygraine laughs, gold lighting her eyes as flowers spill from her hands. “Look, fy annwyl! I did it!” You grin, so happy in this moment it’s like you’ve gone to the Otherworld. Vivienne wriggles out from under the furs and blankets, breath misting in the morning chill.
She squints at the sunbeam turning her rusty curls to magefire. “Pandr’a hwer?”
You twist your fingers and the flowers become a crown to settle on your Lady’s wild head. You lean in and kiss her, just because. “Ygraine got that flower spell she was working on, ma ker. See? Aren’t they beautiful?”
Vivienne smiles, nods her freckled head. “Keslowena, Ygraine,” she murmurs, placing the flower crown in Ygraine’s lap and dragging the blankets back over her head. Your queen throws her head back, laughing. Your lips itch to taste her pale skin, but you stop yourself. No visible marks, you know this. You want, though. And that’s the thing. You want. Greedy thing, aren’t you, daughter of Niniane?
But you are not the only one. You know for a fact that Uther watches Vivienne with hunger in his eyes (she doesn’t mind, or you would singe his dark hair right off his pompous head) and Gorlois visits the House of Godwin’s Lord and Lady both (Vivienne doesn’t mind that either). (Gorlois adores their toddling son, Leon. Gorlois will be a good father for the daughter in Vivienne’s belly.)
Vivienne has two daughters, one blonde from Gorlois and one dark haired infant from Uther, when the king approaches you with an idea. You scream at him in fury. “How dare you seek to alter the will of the gods! Does your pride know no limit, son of Constans?” You look out the western window after he leaves, fuming, and see Gorlois hoisting little Leon on his shoulders as the blacksmith’s children--Gwen and Elyan, ages three and two, according to Leon, who’s four and very talkative--beg to be picked up too. Morgause shrieks, laughing, trying to catch the butterflies a troubadour conjures for her, her mother helping Morgana take her first wobbling steps. Further into the courtyard proper, the dragonlord’s son offers to carry some of the Court Physician’s baby sister’s packages, stepping neatly around Morgause. Ygraine sits under the weirwood tree, watching the children with a wistful look on her face. Watching her watching them, you know already you will cave to Uther’s demand. How could you not, when a child of her own has been your lover’s most fervent wish since she was a child herself?
You should have known better than to tempt fate, O daughter of Niniane. You were born under unlucky stars, after all.
You perform the spell to the exact letter, exhausted by the drain on your magic. It requires a life, usually, so you gave it yours. You never tell anyone this mostly because you don’t think it worked at first. It is magic, girl. It never does anything by halves, you know.
Ygraine struggles all through the birth, but finally there is a squalling infant’s cry. A son. You start to smile, but something is wrong. Ygraine’s life fades before your horrified eyes, even as you scramble with your magic to do something, anything to keep her here. She hasn’t even seen her son yet. “Arthur,” she gasps out, “his name… is Arthur.” There are mourning bells ringing somewhere, but all you can hear is the way her breath rattles in her chest as she dies, over and over that horrible sound.
Magic, the king spits, is the cause of his wife’s death. The only thing that makes it through the fog of your grief is Vivienne’s gasp of fear as she clutches your arm, and the way Uther can’t even say her name. (You can’t either, but that is for a different reason than his.)
Vivienne can do no magic. Vivienne has never done any magic. Vivienne is druid-born. Vivienne burns.
Gorlois spirits Morgause away and says she died also. He retreats in his grief to his ancestral home.
The blacksmith’s wife Margid is left handed and sometimes can predict the weather. Her eyes have never turned gold. Margid drowns.
The Court Physician smuggles his sister out. The dragonlord’s son--the last dragonlord, now--follows.
Uther builds pyre after pyre, and you pretend not to see Ygraine standing beside her son. You pretend not to see Vivienne trailing after Leon, trying to catch him when he stumbles. (Leon has Gorlois’ mane of blond curls, but he will not remember that and his parents will not have the heart to tell him.)
The king turns on you last, strangely. You don’t even know why you’ve stayed this long, except for the ghosts of your lovers in these halls.
You kneel on the floor you used to dance with Vivienne on, weighted down by chains, wearing the now-torn red dress Ygraine gave you the last Yule she was alive. Arthur is five, now, and very frightened by the look on his father’s face. There is a bruise around one Ygraine-blue eye, not quite hidden by Ygraine-blonde hair. Uther screams at you for bewitching his wife (he still can’t say her name). You snarl back, because you are the daughter of Niniane, her father a dragonlord who had no sons. There is the blood of monsters in your veins, so you will be monstrous. It is your birthright, after all. “You may have married her,” you grin, viciously, “but she loved me!” One of the guards strikes you, heavy-handed. There is blood on your teeth. “You never even had a place in her heart!” Your eyes flare gold, and two things happen. One is a spell to take you far from here. The other is a spell to keep Ygraine’s child safe. (It will only work for the first twenty years of his life, but you can’t do everything.)
Ygraine and Vivienne follow you to the Isle of the Blessed. You are almost glad of it.
You learn magic you would never have touched years ago, in an effort to make Uther feel something other than rage. (Ygraine would’ve stopped you, and Vivienne would’ve cried, begging you not to, but if they were really here, you wouldn’t be doing this at all.) You talk to their ghosts and learn new magic and somehow fifteen years pass without your knowledge.
You are still young, and beautiful. You gave that magic your life, after all. So it took your life.
The afanc was just a test, really. And you wanted to see the children again. Arthur looks so much like Ygraine that it hurts. Morgana resembles her father, but she has Vivienne’s rage. Gwen is a spitting image of Margid, and Elyan is nowhere to be seen. Leon has grown tall and far too serious. It takes you a moment to place the Merlin boy, but then you realize. He has his mother’s eyes and none of his father’s gracefulness.
He also has magic. You worry for him, just a little.
Poison is quick enough, and generally painless. It is an act of mercy.
He survives. Resilient boy, that one. Ah well. The Cup of Life and Death should work.
It takes the wrong person, and Merlin screams at you in his rage. Ygraine’s shade weeps, and Vivienne smiles. Almost. Ma ker, ma melder. You say something meaningless about joining forces, and a storm lashes your skin. You smile, right before the lightning hits. Ma ker, ma melder.
You are young, and beautiful, and so very in love. Ygraine laughs, gold lighting her eyes as flowers spill from her hands. “Look!” Vivienne wriggles out from under the furs and blankets, a sunbeam turning her rusty curls to magefire.
In sibbe gerest, O daughter of Niniane, born under an eclipse and unlucky stars.