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themorningtide · 4 years

Text

author’s note: FINALLY I GOT TO IGRAINE. Be kind to her, she suffered a lot.

xxxXXXxxx

When the word comes, it is like she is finally awake in her own body. No longer a passenger, no longer afraid or trapped. Igraine lowers her chin slowly, dark eyes soft upon the messenger who trembles beneath their thrones. At her side, Uther’s body stutters as if it too knows she is listening.

“What have you said?” The Queen asks, authoritatively even. An old authority, of the Duchess she had been, of the free woman Tintagel had raised. When was the last time a man looked upon her in fear? She cannot know; she cannot remember.

“Lady Elaine is not to be found, your Majesty.” The boy whispers. "We have found a letter in her chambers. It is for you.”

There is a small pause as the messenger looks at her, at her whole attention which he knows to be rare but not frightening, not until that moment. He cannot spare a glance at the King before he places the frail paper onto her extended hand. Something in her does not allow it.

(Could it be magic? Could it be something of Gorlois’ left to his widow? Who would ask in the vicinity of Uther, as his gaze thunders and threatens and rejoices for once, as he sees his Queen come to life! Oh, as she was. Older but alive as she was when he first stole her!)

Igraine does not need to read the message because she knows exactly what it says. She knows them, after all. She birthed all of them, saw them walk first, develop first. She loved them first, fiercely, with all the strength her body and life could muster. She knew what each would do even before they thought of it. Morgause would die avenging her father while Morgan would die becoming Him. Elaine? She would wither away forced into her mother’s shell. And her Arthur, her kind boy would crumble in his father’s shoes.

So away she pushed them, one after the other, away where they wouldn’t need or want her, away from this Court which meant nothing and the man who had trampled all of them for a woman he did not deserve. What did it matter if they hated her? Not to her. Not as long as they were safe, happy in some manner that did not include her. Oh. And she had done it! Day after day after year after century, while she ignored pleading gazes and trembling hands. She had done it!

“Igraine?”

They are alone. Uther stands beneath her throne and never has she seen him like this, literally below her, hopeful that he will be chosen now that the last of her children has left and she has nothing but herself.

But herself is all she needs.

“I have done it,” she declares and there is strength in that declaration. “I have done it, my love,” words spoken to the air, to wherever her husband was sent after this creature at her feet destroyed them. If she opens her arms just so, she can almost feel him. “Our children are safe. Our children are away and he cannot harm them anymore. We are free.” There is her in those words, Igraine, Lady and Duchess, Mother and Wife; there is her finally! Not the puppet Uther had dangled from countless strings while holding her children beneath an axe’s blade!

And she sees exactly when he understands this; that something is very very wrong. His lips part as if to inquire over her sudden rebirth but this is not his plot and there is no part left for him to play in her life.

“No,” Igraine interrupts swiftly, raising the message forbiddingly as she stands. “Today, you do not speak! Not Today! Not on my day of victory!” Even the crown feels hers, finally, for once and her smile is brilliant as it has not been for years without count.

Blind Uther seems so confused, the poor old man. She has gone mad, finally and his thoughts play like shadows upon his disgusting face. But why should she care of his thoughts? Of his emotions? Did hers matter, at any point? Did she matter, other than to become what he wanted of her?

“You cannot harm me anymore, Uther,” she smiles down at him, a cold smile Morgause had always wore and he had never recognized until that very moment. “Last night was the last night you have ever touched me. Do so again and I will jump out of the closest window. Force me and I will bite my own tongue. Come near me and I will have the entire Kingdom wondering why their silent, kind, gentle Queen was driven mad by her own husband. I will have your reputation in tatters, even more than you have already sullied it. Because today, I have lost the very last you could steal from me.”

Uther had thought her an ornament. A beautiful mare that Gorlois had caught unaware. He had never seen her as she was, the girl who had ran after a Fae, the woman who had ensnared him, the ruler who had kept all of hers intact and safe until that wretched wizard had deemed her a thing to be used. He had thought she would forget.

And like her children, Igraine knew how to wait.

“Enjoy your prize, your Majesty,” she whispered. “I doubt it will last long.”

#of gorlois' inheritance #igraine of tintagel #igraine #uther i guess #arthuriana #hey it only took forever for me to get to my poor lady #who is badass seriously #from here on out feel free to understand she makes uther's life miserable

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themorningtide · 4 years

Text

author’s note: final part to the short story I started in october. don’t judge me, it’s been a weird few months.

Part 1

Part 2

xxxXXXxxx

Arthur would like to believe Morgan remembers them. She does not, not exactly. She would not act so if she did; staring at each sibling in turn, searching for something familiar and the King feels her despair in the nails digging blood into his wrist. Whatever spell is woven upon her is a tapestry, covering all the thousand little moments they shared so many years before.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the half-Fae finally whispers (his cheek cradled in her fine hand, her remaining testing one of Morgause’s light curls). He cannot read her – not anymore – but he’d wager her mind is running through thoughts, one after the other, thinking seven moves ahead of him like she always had. He had had only had one until then. Find her. Now, he drowns in her presence and knows little else. “You do not belong,” her eyes narrow; she feels more real, more grounded, more her and human. “The world outside runs faster.”

“Much much faster.”

They are not alone. They are not safe.

Arthur steps back from his sisters only to finally realize that the remaining Fae have encircled the plateau with their bodies. Some have sat, some still speak with their companions, but their eyes never stray far. They are the bars of a cell which slowly tighten, and he feels like his connection to Camelot deems with every second.

In the middle, the throne still stands with its royal cargo.

The Queen’s smile is a knife against his spine.

“Do you know how long my cousin has dwelled between these trees, boy?” The crowned being looks so very amused and the shape she wears wavers underneath her distraction. Fingers sharp and thin like tree branches rest upon the arms of her chair and her hair is a thousand little serpents sliding through the cold air. “How long since I’ve taken her away from that prison you’ve all thrown her into? Two, three, ten years outside and here, here we dance for millennia, my people!”

The enclosing circle of beings cheer, swallowing his understanding with its clamor. Morgan is old, he realizes. Older than the boughs above their heads, than them, than their mother and father and Kingdom.

“Old enough to not answer to you,” the Fae completes, her voice meshing with his thoughts in an unwanted symphony.

They have abandoned her to ages without count. Alone.

His heart breaks all over again and Arthur, King, Knight, Brother, feels like crying like the children they had been.

“Tell me, my cousin. What say you?” Like a tree falling onto the ground, the Queen stands from her throne. Her arms, extended towards Morgan, are whitened branches, are brittle bone, are soft grey skin. And with her, the words resound like a shackle. My cousin. Mine. My own. Morgan is an adornment to this woman, he realizes; she is the light above them, the floor beneath their feet and so is every single one of those beings around them is, leashed together and to their ruler in this parody of a feast. A never-ending feast where happiness is a mask. “What do you say to this man?”

Morgan stares at her Queen, toneless eyes slowly gaining a blue edge. She steps forward, in front of them, tall like a reed and her shadow is a cloak upon their backs keeping them from all evil. If she shakes, Arthur cannot discern it (even if she did, they trained it out of her; no emotion beyond the mask, only revelry without end and fake laughter as song and dance).

“I remember the walls,” she whispers. Low and soft, it echoes through the suddenly frozen audience. “I remember screaming against them and no one came. Except you. You were in a mirror. You told me I would be free.”

It sounds as an accusation.

“And you have been,” the queen confirms with a simile of a kind smile. “Years and years, dancing underneath the stars.”

“But to which tune?” The woman counters, gaining steel in her tone, earning it with every step forward. “It felt my own. It felt to the stars. To the moon and the trees. And all I wished were for no walls. It felt right.” Many nod as she speak, swaying softly in the breeze like branches of the trees above them. “But then, why did I leave? I remember leaving. I remember searching. Why did I search? Do you know?”

Morgan turns her back to the Queen and walks. Walks past them, walks forward, arms raised as if searching for something invisible. She walks and walks, steps further and a little more and keeps walking against something. Some mist, perhaps? Whatever it is, it keeps her walking in the same place, beneath the boughs of the tress and in the Queen’s sight.

“Tell me!” She screams, white hair in the wind (little black strands whispering in) “Tell me I haven’t lost something I can’t get back! Why do I feel like this, like I am back between walls? What is this? Why have you come, come now, come here? Why have I stopped leaving? Why!”

She is lost, lost and his throat is a vice knot made of steel.

“I want to walk away.”

The light of the stars above them no longer feels joyous.

Elaine, little Elaine, slips past him and Morgause. She spares no attention for the Queen’s gaze, doesn’t bother to check for weapons (perhaps because she trusts him to), only cares for the lady who she lost so long before.

“You see,” she declares to their lost sibling and only to her, as if nothing else stands between them. “Morgause and Arthur have both feet there. Outside. They had to or we would have faded long ago into what they wanted us to be.” Elaine’s fingers are soft and gentle on their skin but when they tug, oh, it is with the strength of the wind. “But you and I can tiptoe back and forth. All we need is iron.”

The world around them flinches. A weapon is better when no one is aware of it.

“And not all iron needs to be real,” the princess’s voice sings gently at their ears. “Be it inside, in your mind, in your veins. Be strong, be real, be conscious. Look around, look up.” They do, audience, brother, sisters and only the Queen does not, her lovely smile caught in a snarl. “It is a forest, is it not? Not a cathedral. Not a Palace. Just the trees and the boughs. I can hear the leaves and there is no song which is more beautiful. Look, Morgan. There is the sky.”

Morgan’s head tilts up, her eyes (blue blue blue) searching through the darkness for the starlight.

“Look down, sister. We are here.”

And she does. At Elaine’s expression, mischievous as she always was (before; when a child; when with her). And.

The lights go out.

The forest sounds drive through, they silence the music and the crowd.

They stand in an empty clearing, all filled with the creatures whose magic swim in his sisters’ veins but the magic has run out. Has died like a blade has been driven into another’s skin. The Queen is still the Queen, still otherworldly and frightening but there is no light upon her skin, no amusement in her gaze. No. He would dare to think her angry as she stares upon the small group. Like a child throwing a tantrum when a favored toy is taken away.

“Morgan. You know what you are returning to.”

The half does not spare her a glance. Her gaze is upon her wrist, upon a hand that reaches into the air to grasp something invisible hanging between her and the queen. It cuts her skin. Blood drips. Slowly. Sluggishly.

There is a dent on her wrist. Tight like a vice.

“You knew I had never come to stay,” Morgan whispers slowly, every word dragged out of with tooth and nail. “There’s a part of me that does not belong here. It is why you weaved this, wasn’t it?” The blood dips onto the ground and each drop sounds like a bell. An harp string plucked by a talented musician.

Anger colors the Queen’s features. Sharp teeth slip past her façade and drag across a bloodied lip.

“I know your name, Morgan.”

“I know yours.” The crowd whispers, oh, oh, that is a true threat. Does she really know it? When has she learned? Will she share? Arthur moves to the side, a tall column of iron and man covering her back from any attack that is to come. If Morgan notices, she makes no mention of it. Her smile finally appears, and it is familiar as the air they breathe – Morgause’s at her sharpest. “You should be happy I am leaving, your Majesty,” the half continues. “Why, one might once see me crowned in flowers and oak.”

Her hand pushes at the invisible thread. Strongly, ripping apart a bandage that is no longer needed.

Snap.

The crash of broken glass in an empty room, it crashes through the air and brings the world to its heel. And the next thing Arthur knows, they alone stand in an empty clearing. The trees whisper above their heads, there is a little moonlight flitting through the leaves and branches.

In front of him is Morgan. Black haired, the woman stands straight, more solid, with traces of a healthy tan on smooth skin and tall and thin like a reed. Her clothes are old, made for someone much smaller and barely covering her form. Her eyes – blue, blue, blue as a still lake, blue as the night sky, blue as his – waver nervously for the very first time as they rest on the small group of siblings.

“Thank you for coming for me,” she whispers. The child that had been abandoned so long before. “Even if I don’t remember.”

Arthur knows exactly what to say.

“Thank you for believing we would.”

Morgan smiles. It is not wide. It is small and fearful and pure.

When they hug, all four, all together, the world is remade anew.

#arthuriana #anne morgause #arthur pendragon #morgan le fay #elaine of garlot #of gorlois' inheritance #part 3 of 3

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themorningtide · 4 years

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One can hear the servants milling around, that is a horse, that is the miller’s daughter coming by with her father’s work. One can hear the soldiers’ training in the courtyard, there is one who has been singing for the past thirty minutes for something of a bet and it mingles with the sharp metal sounds of his more industrious colleagues. There are children playing, there is a litany being repeated by a lower voice as he guides their hands into unknown patterns, and she can swear those gestures drawn upon the air sing as well. Everything comes together into this sound which is too loud, too big, too wonderful. Igraine sighs, weaving her happiness into the overall tapestry with a smile.

#drabble request #arthuriana #igraine

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 22, Ghost.

xxxXXXxxx

By the lake, they say, by the lake you will find her.

He comes upon her at twilight. The rain has yet to come but she feels it in the clouds, heavy and grey upon the skies. The scent of the forest is strong, as if it is closing upon itself in defence of the future weather. The trees whisper of his arrival – unexpected and unwelcome in their eyes – and their warning flits onto her well before his steps sound upon the half-frozen ground.

“You are lost, my darling. This is not the place for you.”

His hair is dark, ringlets upon ringlets of black, eyes which were wide and thin and as dark as the depths of her lake. Short still, young still, like a little tree which has yet to reach for the skies. He feels newborn to her, who has seen so many like him through her years. Not like him, no, perhaps she cannot think that. None can be like him, a sunlight filled gem hiding beneath triviality.

“It is not like I chose to get lost, lady,” he grumbles uncomfortably, shuffling a little in his place, burrowing a bit more into his coat. “What’s the way back to the road?”

She smiles. With her smile, he relaxes, a little less lost, a little less bothered by the odd situation. His arms lower under the leather coat, stop reaching for a weapon to defend himself over no threat he can perceive as they should. This is her place, her feet are rooted and every trace of land her roots reach is hers and her. A gesture in his direction and war will cross upon the land once more. It is a promise she has fulfilled time and time (and) again.

“What is your name, my darling?” The Lady asks.

(He finds he cannot ask why she sits upon the lake, skin hovering over its misty waters. Why she is there when he is so lost? In the middle of this place he does not know and has no idea how he has come to. He was never of them after all, of the grey-skilled, of the silver-tongued.)

“You know, people warn about strangers asking to give names away around here,” he laughs. It feels like a joke, a mere little trick when it is the rules that govern the world. The poor boy. Such an innocent.

“My dear, I did not ask you to give me one,” she corrects him softly, fingers tempted; there is a strand of hair upon his forehead, threatening to find its way onto his vision with every passing moment. “It is fine. It is not needed. To see you alive and well is enough.”

The Lady can see the hesitation in his gaze. There is a little something inside of him speaking now, trust her, it is fine, it is her and how can you not trust her! It is hard to listen to it, she will agree, when his presence is due to her weakness. Years pass and every now and then she will wish to see him once more, alive and well, safe and happy. Of all of them who once wandered in between the walls of Camelot, who else would deserve it but its Father?

“Walk north,” she instructs. “Count to yourself, ten steps, then ten more and then walk further. You will find your road back.”

Tempted, tempted, it might be a century, three more, she is never quite sure when he will find her way to her. The Lady gives in, raising herself from the cold waters. Oh, how warm he is when she hugs him, a mass of humanity, of flesh, bones, blood, all of it living and breathing. He feels strong! Hale! A Stronghold of brittle bone and soft skin!

“Lady?”

The sound is confused, almost as confused as his arms, tight against her without his awareness.

“To the north, my darling,” she coaches once more, stepping back before she locks him inside, before she drags him to the water and shackles him to where he cannot walk away from her. That part of her is still stronger, it has always been ever since she was young but for him, always for him, she controls herself. She calls above the part that is human, that little remain her mother gave her. He does not deserve the cold waters. He would never feel happy here. “Don’t forget to count.”

The Lady watches with a wide smile as the man steps back and moves away (from her), counts each step that will take him away to the living world. He will come back and visit sometime, she hears his thoughts, he will come back to speak to her of his life and his friends, maybe a wife, maybe children.

(He will not come. He will not find this lake every again in this life, this happy life without worries or a kingdom to rule. He cannot because he is human. Regretfully, happily human.)

“What a good boy,” Morgan whispers to no one. Maybe to the waters. They would take her words to their sisters wherever they were now, she is sure. “I am sure he will be a good man this time as well.”

There is a flash of light. The storm has come.

There is a flash of light upon the lake. None remains to see it.

Maybe none had been there to begin with.

(What do you believe?)

#arthuriana #morgan le fay #arthur pendragon #wordtober day 22 #wordtober

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 17&18, Freeform.

author’s note: this is a longer piece that I have been working on and trying to finish for wordtober. Link to part 1 in the end.

xxxXXXxxx

For the first hour, there is no path. Trees line up as far as the eye can see, leaves and branches continuously barring their way entwined in a gigantic web. He would feel a little silly, walking seemingly nowhere while holding hands with the two women like he is still a child. He would. If the night wasn’t that deep. If the trees didn’t seem to move with each step they give, opening a path in front of them and then embracing the space they have just vacated once they pass through. Fear steadily raises inside of him, especially when, out of the corner of his eye, he spies a furtive smile on Morgause’s face that she quickly hides. The way Elaine struggles to remain tied to him even though her feet which to draw her elsewhere.

What the Fae have, they wish to keep. It is quite obvious that this earth, this land they cross, considers his sisters very much its property.

Arthur does not agree. The further they walk, the closer he draws them to himself, making sure he remembers the land where they live. The long muddy roads, the tall castles, stone and iron, everything which is stable. There is a tile at the edge of his childhood room which has never been replaced. He and Elaine broke it while playing, with the poker from the fireplace. He remembers being scared momentarily before Morgan had appeared from virtually nowhere, prodding the shattered material with a dirty nail. No one would notice it, don’t worry, she had said and there it was, a tile at the corner, broken in half and then half again that no servant had ever touched. He remembers its jangled edges, the little piece at the side which kept moving but never strayed, he remembers the color and Morgan laughing at their anxiousness before she fixed the situation. He remembers the exact pattern and shape. Every time he does so, the lights above his head shine more faintly and the world is now crossing into feels more real and less magical.

Arthur enters the clearing as himself, King Arthur, not a puppet of the fae and that, more than anything, gives him the confidence to barge his way through the small crowd of amused onlookers.

The clearing they arrive to is not especially large. Tall, yes, the moment they have entered it is as if the trees have grown, have invaded the skies and formed a dome, a Cathedral tall as he has ever seen. The half moon of flooring is paved with large stone slabs, polished up to a fine shine by a careful hand, chairs and tables are placed on its outside, heavy food and drink he has never tasted. Lights, little orbs of starlight hang in the middle of the air here and there like the most beautiful of rains.

And at the top, lays a single throne. Bronze has been melded and carved into tree roots, entwining over and over until there is a chair and there is a crowned woman upon it.

“We have visitors, my court.”

Arthur will be hard pressed to describe the Queen at a later date. If pressed, he will say she was short. Appeared to be – though at times she seemed taller than the trees above them. The same white hair and grey skin of her court, rail thin to the point where one would deem her sickly, her chin rests on an impossibly delicate hand, shimmering in the dark like made of starlight. With each movement, the surface of what he would call skin, ripples, it becomes solid before shifting once more into liquid. The creature – whoever it is – might guise herself into the form of a human, head, shoulders, arms, legs, a dark dress which is as fine as any he has seen in his court but it is not a human. That simile of a woman is a courtesy. One given by creatures which usually do not bother.

“Our cousins have returned! Welcome home!”

The creature stands from her bronze throne, opening her arms slowly in an expansive welcome. Each step she takes, Arthur wishes to draw back, draw them back behind him before reaching for a weapon he does not have. “You are to drink and feast with us this night? What a wonderful idea! What a wonderful night!”

He is nothing in this conversation. None spares him a glance. All their eyes are on Morgause and Elaine, both of which are now standing straight, waving with their free hand to one creature or another all the while fielding the attention of the queen.

“Let us dance, my court! Let us feast and dance until the sun decides to break our reverie!”

There are no instruments, no musicians or singers. But the music comes from somewhere (all around) and Arthur flinches with every note as if physically struck. Oh. Oh, no. It is real. It is the hand in his right one, Morgause’s, clenching so hard he feels his bones grinding against each other. He breathes deeper for a moment before that sister moves forward, shielding him from the Queen’s amusement.

“We are here for Morgan.”

The amusement of the court falters. The music stutters for a moment. Some exchange glances, some actually look worried. If Morgause pays them any mind, Arthur cannot read it in her countenance. Just in that hand, tightening, more and more because she is afraid, his wonderful strong sister. She is afraid.

The Queen sits once more, reclining forward while biting a nail delicately with razor sharp teeth. Her eyes are narrow, pupils dilated like a cat which has found its prey. “Morgan is mine, my dear,” she explains gently, as if her visitor is rather daft. “She wishes to be with her people. It is her birthright.” Like a wolf who will not share what belongs to it.

Her birthright is to be Princess. It is in His Court, His Castle, His Kingdom.

“Morgan is ours, Queen,” Elaine rebuts. “She should be with her family. We who are hers.”

“She has come to us.”

No, that is wrong. She was taken away. She was a child and they lied to her, he’s sure of it.

“You have stolen her from us when she was weaker! I know she is stronger! I know she can make a different choice if given the chance.”

Speak. Speak. Speak, damn you!

“She will return with us.”

Each word literally hurts as he speaks it. Acid drips down his throat, bile rises and threatens to be spat through his lips, burning every trace of flesh in between.

The Queen smiles at him (at him finally, at him solely, in a manner that makes him wish to throw up).

“Then find her then, human. Search for whomever you wish, for how long you wish. And when you fail, feel free to dance or die.”

The gentle lights that had, until that moment, done little more than hover over their heads, shine brighter, shine more strongly until he has to turn his eyes away. It is daylight in the clearing, shaking that odd world into awareness.

“Search, Boy,” the Queen says, waving at the gathered crowd. “You have little precious time, you humans.”

Arthur doesn’t acknowledge the challenge. Or the prank, he can see it from a mile away. No, he has precious little time and Morgan to find. Without waiting, he turns to the audience, releasing the hands in his with a sharp movement. They are strong. They are all strong. They can do this.

Where is she? Where?

(He was a boy when she was taken away, just a boy, a mess of reedy limbs and awkward movements, watching as his sister is taken away. She didn’t cry. He didn’t cry. Morgause and Elaine stood silent and quiet, their hands joined in the middle of them as the remaining kept on his shoulders and he can only remember those tears, not the features, not the traces).

The small crowd smiles at their discomfort, grey eyes and white hair. Short, tall, willowy, broad, plays on dark, grey, white skin. They are a crowd leached of color and given everything else. He sees fur, he sees long limbs of plant-like material, branches instead of arms, claws and teeth sharp as sin. Damn you, he curses inwardly, damn you all to all hells, damn you to the seven, damn you, damn you, damn you, may the gods take you.

“You are too kind, young King,” the Queen declares, tapping at the arm of her chair. Her amused smile makes his skin crawl and every time she moves, the little bells woven in her white hair tingle unpleasantly in the cold air. Every time, he shivers. “I think you will make a welcome addition to our court. And you, of course, our lovely cousins. We miss your father dearly.”

He wants to kill this being. He wants to wrap his hands around its pale neck and squeeze until its bones break under his strength.

“All who knew him do, Lady.”

He wants to run through the hall (run her through with a blade he does not carry) and make her confess. Where is his sister? Within whom of these faceless beings is she hiding?

Yet Elaine is there, steady, her voice wrapping around him and shackling him onto the ground. She searches still, her smile just barely there, like a disguise as strong as metal armor. How can she smile like that as the different beings dance around her, playing with her hair while hanging lights in the empty air? All the while, Morgause stands tall in the front of the Queen, look at me, he hears her breathe as she protects their search, always look at me, voice soft, smooth and cutting in gentle accusations.

“It is such a shame that care did not save him.”

“That does happen when wanders from home.”

There is a woman by the corner. She isn’t smiling or laughing like the others. She doesn’t show herself or gives into the game of fooling him. The woman stands alone. Silent. Her bloodless eyes move from one mortal to the other in absent curiosity but that is all she does. While the others dance and make a mockery of their despair, it is like watching the sole sane person in a ball of children.

That is why Arthur looks at her. It is why he comes closer.

“A family does not break due to distance,” Morgause continues behind him. “It does not break with dishonor. It breaks once you chose yourself over it and turn your back to which you promised to defend. And Father always did right by us.”

“Your Queen is more family than that woman who bore you, my dear.”

Her eyes are wide and thin; a clear blue that is a touch darker to be the morning sky, just a smidge away from river water. He sees the color underneath the white irises, coming and going as the waves of the sea. Taller than Elaine, he realizes, as he walks closer to her, almost as much as Morgause. There is a little brown spot marring her pale skin right underneath her right eye, isn’t there?

There are two beings in his way to her. Arthur doesn’t notice. He just pushes them aside. He pushes more, waves through the creatures like struggling through the morning tide.

Her hair is white as snow. That is not right. Her hair was black, pure deep black, curling around her ears and down her back. Her jaw is Morgause’s. Arthur doesn’t know how he missed it. He sees Elaine in the ridge of her nose and the wide of her mouth. There is something else, of course, someone else, a thousand someones he does not know hiding in her features and there is him, in the turn of her lips and the sharp finish of her eyes.

Arthur asks for no permission to grip her elbow and tug her close enough for their noses to touch. The eyes are large and round, exactly like his. Same shape, same color, same structure. She looks like Morgan was, disposed of her humanity and taken over by the fae.

But she is Morgan. She is; he is so very certain.

The King feels like crying.

“Sister!”

Her body is warm against his as he hugs her close, exhaling lowly into her white hair, closing his arms tight around her form. Oh, oh, this is relief. This is peace. True peace, not the imaginary he had felt at the entrance, not any moment passed in his father’s Castle. Her arms hang lost by her sides. He swears he can hear her gasp but it might be just his wishful thinking because, when he looks down, her tone-shifting eyes are bland and uninterested, her expression akin to a painting forever frozen in time.

“Have you found her?”

Morgan is ripped from his hold and transferred into Morgause’s and any complaint he might have is silenced because Morgause – his strong, amazing, capable sister - looks fragile. Broken. Disbelieving. Her hands – always strong, always assured and so very talented – shake on the other woman’s face, fingers trailing down the ageless skin again and again as if she wishes to memorize it with each passing.

“Oh, my Morgan.”

There are tears in her voice. Tears in her eyes. Tears sliding down her cheeks and ignored.

“Morgause, do not hog!”

The confusion is still on fae woman’s face as she finds herself hounded by three bodies. In the moment Morgause is near, the moment Elaine slips in, their embrace is a tiny group of four children, four lost souls tied together once more. They are whole! Four rivers connected, strong and fierce, they are fortresses, they are high and tall and powerful and no one can face them.

(More than that, they are iron and steel! There is little else Fae hate as much. Why do you think they steal just one? One child! One man! One woman!)

“We have missed you, little sister.” Their words bundle together, spoken by three voices and rhyming into this unending litany. I love you, I missed you, I needed you, I need, I want, you are here, alive, well, with us. It is a confession without end, woven by male and female voices that seems to encompass all the words which should have been spoken throughout the years.

With this moment alone, they have won.

Part 1.

#arthuriana #morgan le fay #elaine of garlot #anne morgause #arthur pendragon #of gorlois' inheritance #wordtober #wordtober day 17 #freeform #part 2 of 3

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 17&18, Freeform.

author’s note: this is a longer piece that I have been working on and trying to finish for wordtober. Link to part 2 in the end.

xxxXXXxxx

Arthur expects a dark night; foreboding, cursing every step taking upon the path. After all, it is not every night that one attempts to enter the Otherworld. It should be foggy, a deep dark night where none would dare to venter outside the house. Perhaps rainy, lightning flashing at every moment.

Instead, stars light up the clear sky, blessing their every move. There are flowers on the few houses they ride by, songs and dances inside protected residences. Peace. The young King feels it with every step and the night rejoices with his happiness as he steps closer and closer to where he knows he will find his missing sister.

“You cannot go alone.”

Morgause still stares him down even though they are both adults, tall and queenly and so very sure of herself as she always was. Arthur can see himself a little in Elaine and, from what he remembers of Morgan, they shared eyes, the shape of their jaw, the form of their ear. Of the three children of Gorlois, Morgause is the most like her father, physically, and the king can see the man his father killed hiding in her countenance.

Especially when she is like this, arrogant and direct.

As if she knows best of all.

“You cannot get there without us,” she adds bluntly.

A pressure on his arm stops him from storming off – from yelling, from arguing as they always do – and when he looks at its owner, Elaine’s features disarm any anger. “You are of iron, Arthur,” she explains, fingers stressing against his skin. “Iron body, iron covered and iron-mind. They would come for you as a cat for a plaything. If you want to enter as you are, human, sane, you need us.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Morgause smiles once more and he scowls, like the child he once was. Their dynamic was always like this. The eldest speaking as she liked, cutting corners and never showing her whole thoughts, Elaine reading what could not be said and bluntly letting him know why he should follow and Morgan, who should be there (because when she was, Morgause had been softer, Elaine had been sweeter and there’s this whole hole where she should be where not even air can whisper through.

But that’s why they are here, isn’t it? Here, at the crossing, where the Fae dwell and where their sister is too. They fear she isn’t. Silly boy, silly girls, the Fae do not kill their own. You catch them, you teach them, you shackle them close if they stray.)

“How can we enter?”

A hand slips in between his, thin long fingers trembling lightly in his hold, for all the certainty she shows in every action. “You walk forward, little brother,” Morgause instructs simply, tugging him with her towards the dark edges of the shrubbery. “They want you to enter. They need it. But like this,” her hand is a stone vice around his skin. “You will be yourself. Test it. Can you still hear the music?”

Music? What music?

All the houses they had passed by are suddenly quiet and silent. There is no dancing. There is no fire. Arthur looks back in surprise, feeling the urge to peek through every closed window, every boarded door – god, they are boarded, locked, afraid. He cannot even discern the human presence anymore. Every brick house is dead or dying in their wake and no straining of his ears can bring them back.

The world feels dead beyond the forest they now stand in front of.

“I thought. I could hear…” Arthur swallows but his throat feels like he has gargled with sand. “That was them?” He asks, unsure of the need to lower his voice to a murmur.

Neither sister answers. Elaine shuffles closer to him, her skin not so subtly touching his. The world feels more grounded when she does so. There are beautiful lights around them still but it is the moon, not magic. Not fog. Just moonlight dancing in their air above them.

The King loses exactly one moment, wondering what he would have been had he been born as they are, part Fae, part human, always tripping over the edge of both worlds without paying attention.

(he does not understand that he is iron, that they need him as well. No Fae walks away so easily from their forests. And so he misses Morgause’s hand, tightly clasped. He misses Elaine tugging at his sleeve skittishly, trying and failing to hide the excitement her blood is humming in her veins. He does not see the half-bloods so very lost in their own skin).

“We will get her back.”

He doesn’t miss the fear in his sisters’ eyes.

“We will.”

The King is first to walk forward.

Part 2.

#arthuriana #morgan le fay #elaine of garlot #anne morgause #arthur pendragon #of gorlois' inheritance #part 1 of 3 #wordtober #wordtober day 17

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 11, Snow.

author’s note: for more on this particular storyline, read here.

xxxXXXxxx

The Executioner did not notice the passage of time as she walked through the vast landscape. The cold was slightly more bothersome than the heat - it made her steps heavier and slower – yet the soft chill air was actually something she enjoyed. As much as she could, at any rate. Snowflakes littered her hair, fell upon her tongue with a taste that was not there but she could swear to feel nevertheless. Everything was new now that she had abandoned the Ruler’s Domains. It was harder, more painful, freer than she could have ever imagined.

In the back of her mind, the lonely soul that had attached to her continued yammering away. It had a name. It had had a name? Nakir did not know if those were lost upon death but the boy seemed to care little about her opinion or her difficulty in judging his current state. Perhaps it was his fault that she was like this right now. Running, freer and yet chased from one corner of that world to the next.

“Who would walk into a snowstorm,” she heard in the middle of its litany, echoing through her consciousness, “You are all idiots, foolish spades that don’t know what they’re doing, I don’t even know how you have been us time and time ago.”

Well, a weapon did not need to know what it was doing. Just to strike when its master commanded.

“Oh yes. There you go with the tool excuse,” Haneul continued, “One day you’ll actually have to take responsibility for your own actions, do you think it’ll hurt when you do that?”

Nakir tuned him out. The boy swung between kindness and pure hatred with far too much speed for her fledgling conscience and she truly did not want to bother with it for a while. It was easier to keep walking, keep cherishing the snow on her flesh and the cold on her skin.

A sound broke through her revelry. Even through Haneul’s discourse. It was not a sound of the road. Of nature. It was a soft mournful gasp. One breath, two breaths. None.

“Nakir?”

The woman walked forward, away from the road she had contented herself to walk until that point. Her head moved from side to side carefully, drawing a grid with her movements as if it was nothing more than a mission, analysing each square her mind drew upon the frozen floor. Stones and trees covered her eye of sight, giving little away while the tall canopies drew shadows all around her form. One breath. One more. None. The sound was still there, faint but more audible.

Lowering herself, she drew the large dagger from her boot, the silvery surface flashing with what little magic she could spare without warning any pursuers of her presence. She blew upon it, her breath condensing in a small puff of smoke before the blade swallowed her heat and glowed. Red light illuminated the small clearing she had walked into. And at a corner of it, half slumped against a tree, was a man.

It was not old – though she was hardly the most capable person to analyse such things. It seemed young. Full head of hair, dark skin made paler by the thin covering of snow it had gathered. Its eyes did not move. In fact, none of it bar its chest, up and down, slower and slower with every moment.

It would die. Wouldn’t it. If she left it?

And? Who would care? Not her. She could walk away, she could even sleep at its feet and wake in the morrow with a frozen body by her that nothing in her would twitch except in acknowledgement. Why was it there anyway? So far from civilization, from others like it, like Haneul. It was not up to her to fix this. Besides, how would she?

“Nakir. What are you doing?”

So why was she gathering it in her arms?

Her frail coat was wrapped around the body – breathing, she was sure of it. Her muscles strained, complained but she was what she was. An Executioner was built to be strong and resistant. What was a little snow and effort when a task was to be completed? She had never had problems with fulfilling those before, she thought, and even if she didn’t know what she was doing or why, she would be able to do it. Her body was strong enough to.

The road awaited her. The body was heavy on her arms but still alive, still breathing, greedily soaking up whatever warmth she had to provide in order to survive.

“You do realize I told you to do nothing,” Haneul stated confusedly. “This is you.”

The Executioner stopped, her bland eyes staring down at her burden, watching as the man’s chest went up and down, up and down, and she could not feel happiness, there was no relief or pride because, she had not been build for it. She was practical, bones; stone and wood don’t need to feel after all. Still, she stared down at the man and nodded.

“Yes.”

She didn’t know the why for her actions. Maybe she didn’t need to know them to begin with.

Nakir started walking.

#one hundred lives #wordtober day 11 #wordtober #nakir #haneul #original writing #original work

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 8, Frail.

author’s note: bloodborne fanfiction, prior or during the gascoigne fight. Lullaby for Mergo can be found here.

xxxXXXxxx

The song was torture. It was a soft song, a slow song. Like a lullaby, lulling his rage to sleep. Each note of the song chipped at its certainty, even as the Father fought it every step of the way; claws and teeth snapping against every tone of the cursed instrument.

He hated it, the remains of his humanity growled out, he wanted it gone, forgotten, smashed into a pulp so fine that the lightest breath of life would tear it asunder.

The song kept playing.

It screeched into his ears unwelcomely, fanned the red fog away from his eyes, grounded him into a furless body, clawless, mortally human, regrettably. Even as the Hunter begged for it to never leave. Broken and in mourning, feeling every wound previous battles had carved onto his flesh.

The first thing Gascoigne felt once released from the rush of the holy blood was also a blade against his throat. Chains and chains of live steel sneaked around his limbs and his opponent stood near. Blood-stained, blood-covered, the Blood, it ran in her veins and colored her flesh, it reached through his insides and the beast yearned to taste it.

If only the song stopped!

If only he could reach, bite, rip the human apart. He could almost taste it.

“Shut up!”

A hand fisted on the hair on the back of his neck, ripping his blindfold away until he was forced to see beyond the dark. Human, tall, unnatural blue eyes met his. “Your kid is waiting for you,” the woman screamed into his almost surprised face. “Your kid! She has nothing else. Her mom is dead and her father is actively trying to abandon her. Do you hear me?” Her voice was a claw, digging at his skin and burrowing into his flesh. “I will carve every inch of your body before I let that happen!”

There was a child. He had a child.

“You brought her into this world,” the woman bellowed, her unfamiliar wounded features contorted into something far more bestial than the creatures at their feet. “A scary, horrible, fucking dark mess and you abandoned her to it!”

It was an axe at his neck. A relic carried it, a mirror image of him and Maria, Ludwig and Simon, of when things were frightening but they made sense and the world could be held upright by the blade of a weapon.

Amelia. His little Amelia, alone in a cold house.

“Release me.”

Two children. His little Amelia, his gentle Victoria. Frail soft glimpses of a better world.

“Release me,” he repeated. “I need to go back.”

The hunter’s eyes, that unnatural unfamiliar blue narrowed further. He could hear her thoughts almost – probably the beast still nipping at the edge of his sanity – loud and clear as a bell. No, she shouldn’t trust him. But quite frankly, she had overpowered him once. Who would say she wouldn’t manage to do it again?

There was a moment of hesitation, a slight tremor of the weapon against his skin before it drew away. A minute after and the sound of iron chains sang into the open cemetery and they fell as his feet. Gascoigne’s mind felt clear - broken beyond belief, drowning in sorrow and avoiding every so strongly the vision of his wife’s body on the nearby roof – but still clear. Sorrow made everything clearer. Even that which you did not want.

“Yes,” the woman agreed calmly. He had not noticed she was still near, still holding his hair, still speaking as if every word she spoke was the word of the gods. “Yes, you do. From here to your home without deviating. I will walk you there.”

“I don’t need!”

“Yes, you do. You do need an escort. I have stopped you from becoming a beast for now and I won’t bother to give you a chance to transform again.” The shattering of glass followed her words as the Father blinked in confusion. Small crimson vials smashed underneath her feet, one after the other, their blood-red contents staining the stones below. “There will be no more blood for you. Or me. If we are wounded, we die. It is best than to litter these streets as beasts.”

The Hunter paused for a smile, appreciation of a job well done as she patted her gloves against her cheeks and rearranged her hair before grabbing for her axe “Let us take you home, shall we? Amelia will be rather happy. She said you might be frail in your old age.”

#wordtober #bloodborne #bloodborne fanfiction #headcanon is that this hunter doesn't take blood and just keeps dying over and over #some bloodborne spoilers #particularly for the little girl storyline #wordtober day 8

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 5, Build.

Arthur finds his sister on the edge of the forest. She is sitting in the cold earth, black braids swinging as her head moves rhythmically to the sound of humming. Her humming. The song is soft and sweet; unknown though there is a lost memory which whispers he should know it. The King is worried and he doesn’t know why. There are moments in which his elder sister stands, moves like commanded by a puppeteer or by an omen with no messenger. This is one of them. Sitting on the half humid ground, the lady sings and hums under her breath, drawing sticks and stones into a makeshift pile of something.

It is a house. A little house. It has a stony wall and a large hole all around – which he supposes to be a moat – carved onto the ground by finger and nail. It has something he would vaguely call a chair at the front door, it has little rocks for people and it all sits in this large pile of sand, like a mountain or a simple hill. Morgan hums and hums and the house grows and grows as her hands shift every stone here and there until she is pleased.

It is a house. It is a village. It is a Castle!

And the hum is no longer a hum; it is not a song! It is shrill and loud and noiseless though it pierces through his ears and burrows into his mind until Arthur is sure all the people in his city can hear it. Because how can they not! How can anyone ignore it?

“Morgan?” He calls almost desperately.

“One moment, my darling.”

She flicks the construction with a finger. A mere touch and it comes down and down and down, stones rolling with this sound that is almost like an echo. It takes its time to come down too. Like the little stones are not that heavy and they struggle against gravity, tying themselves to the air because they want to remain together. Morgan tuts at them like a displeased mother, ticking the most stubborn ones with a broken fingernail – the ones that seem to float upon the air – until they follow their comrades into the small pile of debris.

When she raises her head to Arthur, her smile is blinding, beautiful and wide. It almost distracts him from the grayish pallor of her skin or the white roots in her black hair.

The King does not ask what she did. He doesn’t have to. The Fae do as they wont and tomorrow, there will be news of a fallen Castle by the shore he had known to be inhabited by bandits. There will be testimonies, confused words about how it had happened out of nowhere, this hurricane, this earthquake, this something that had shattered the building into a pile of sand and stone and those guilty and innocent. The Fae do as they wont and Arthur fears he will lose his sister to them merely because she wishes to help him build this pacified kingdom.

He hugs her tight when she raises from the cold floor.

#wordtober #wordtober day 5 #arthuriana #arthur pendragon #morgan le fay #of gorlois' inheritance #i feel this series is becoming loooooong

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 4, Frozen.

Terrance didn’t know how long he had stood upon the frozen ground. Long, had it not? The last steps of the villagers had faded well before the night had descended. He remembered laying still in the bloodied snow, praying with all his heart that they wouldn’t look back and found him still breathing. He had been so silent. The last blows (the ones which had cut through his ribs) had barely pushed a whimper from him. If he lived through that, he could live anything else and he wanted to live so very much.

That was what he had thought barely hours before, before passing out for the first time. Then, blanketed by the newly fallen snow, he struggled to grasp again that urge to survive. The boy was cold. Everything was. He had no limbs, no flesh, no blood. He was an empty and discarded vessel lost in the forest and nothing of him remained but his persistent mind, still yammering away sluggishly against the cold.

He would die. That was not right.

A white eye met his.

It was not, he argued to the eye. I am not a bad person! I just broke a few things. The water was warm and it hurt my fingers!

(and the men had said, if it is warm, we will cool you down, boy).

I am not to blame, Terrance continued logically. I don’t deserve this. So I won’t die. I just need to move.

Move. To move was easy, one step after the other. Fluffy snow whispered as he tugged himself a little upwards. It was easy. An unfeeling hand (which was his, he checked, it was attached to an arm which was also his, attached to his shoulder and) served as support to tug his body away from the floor. Huh. He had never heard that noise from his body before. It sounded like breaking apart the ham in the morning, when someone had been silly and left it outside in the shed. A bit frozen.

The eye blinked. The wolf blinked! It was a wolf in front of him, his muzzle a thin space from his lips, staring directly into his eyes as if deciding if he was dead and ready to be eaten. Well. He was not! He was going to survive. See? Already moving and standing.

The wolf did not bite him. It sat there, his white eyes blinking placidly in silent judgement. Since when could a wolf be judgemental? Terrance was doing the best he could with what little he had to work with. Underneath his flesh were parting gifts from the men of the village; broken bones and bloody footsteps on his back, even the thin stabs which had broken through once or twice. It was enough to explain why every movement was slow, slow as the falling snow. Humans were animals, the child concluded.

Move, boy.

No one had spoken, no sound had broken the stillness of the dead winter forest. Had the not-sound come from the animal? But animals didn’t speak. Perhaps if the humans were animals then animals could be humans?

The white eyes blinked, blunt and chilling, resting on a furry body, the largest wolf the boy had ever seen in his life.

It would not save him, the wolf not-spoke.

(It would not save anyone that didn’t want to be saved)

Move, the wolf said with its white eyes and the fur which should be warm and soft and the only source of warmth in that frozen landscape. Terrance stepped forward. He should move. He needed to survive, to show them that he was strong and capable.

He could move.

One step, he thought, as he followed the wolf. One step. One could always move as long as a leg ripped itself from the snow, screamed in pain as it dove in front and received the weight of the body. And one step always followed the first. It was just a matter of remembering that. One and two and three. The ice swallowed the broken bones, it cauterized the open wounds and kept infection, it ate away useless limbs. Walk, his mind sang, walk and follow and he did because he would not die. He wanted to live, so he walked.

Terrance didn’t know for how long he followed the wolf. Many would ask (laughingly) through the years that would follow but he would always reply the same. A year and a half and two hours after that. Who cared for how long? He had followed the wolf, watching its grey hair fluttering in the winter night air, its long tail going from one side to the other, always moving and that not-voice resounded in his mind and told him to walk.

While there was snow, while there were trees, away from the lakes and through the forest, away from his village and ahead, always ahead. While there was a road and he could move. Until sunlight had started to break through the long night and he had to raise his eyes from the floor to welcome it.

There wasn’t a wolf nowhere to be seen when he did so.

Impossibly tall, like a tree of human limbs stretched onto the skies, a creature stood, crystal-skinned, jagged pieces of ice cobbled and smashed together into something that could be a body if a sculptor had had no idea of what a body should have been like. It had no clothes. It had no weapons. Dark hair, straight and heavy extended down its body and around it like a cloak, carpeting the ground, dipping into its shadow, floating into the skies. A thin stick-like arm raised in the air, pointing vaguely towards the rising sun.

“Move.”

It smiled. It had no mouth to smile with and its eyes – glittering jagged white – were as alien as the rest of it. But it smiled. It seemed proud as it observed him, it expanded, it was the sky, it was the clouds, it was the snow upon his shoulders and in his flesh and in his heart, it was Winter, it was the wolves and the urge to go, to survive, to move forward! And Terrance knew why it had helped him. He had moved. He had wanted to survive.

Winter helped those who helped themselves.

Carefully, painfully, the child followed the pointed indication. It would be an hour before he made his way into the village.

xxxXXXxxx

Terrance returned to it once his body healed. The creature was still in the icy night, glittering eyes, shadowy tresses and the hint of curious teeth, its non-smile almost kind.

Have you come to die?

“No, no,” the child denied cheerfully, his offering slipping through his fingers to fall at its feet. “I came from my own accord! Skadi, Skadi, could I follow you?”

It laughed.

#wordtober day 3 #wordtober #norse mythology #a hint #I think I wrote more these past 4 days than like the past half a year #skadi #i rewrote this like 5 times

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themorningtide · 5 years

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Wordtober, day 3, Bait.

author’s note: this is really dumb but my brain’s fried.

xxxXXXxxx

The laboratory on an autumn evening was not a silent place. There was always the humming of the various machines, the echo of the alarms of devices not well closed. The clank of that old elevator that even when no one was in the building, it would still move. Still rattle like an old organism. Which was why he should have left as soon as the sun settled. There was no reason to remain. In fact, he was so hungry, the growls of his stomach were one of the litanies of the lab, grumbling underneath his skin to force him out.

Oh but the smell.

It smelled like meat, warm meat, freshly off the bones. It smelled like bread and fries and he winced when the smell reminded him that he had not eaten since the early morning. Who was bringing food inside the building? The higher ups would never allow it. Sure, he thought this but the fact was that as a dog on a prowl, he was already crossing the halls, sniffing the different rooms for the origin of the heavenly smell. Was it an experiment? Some of the new hires seemed to have been trying to simulate new animal tissues and god knows that smelled odd and strangely nice and was that a sandwich…

A plate rested carefully on his desk with its enticing bait. If he looked carefully enough, he could even imagine the scent creeping through the air, calling him in, tugging him closer and he was so very hungry.

He took a step forward.

It looked nice. Sure, it was odd. Who would just randomly leave him food? An admirer? Surely a gift from such a person would come with a person attached, maybe a note? Was there a note? God above, he was so hungry.

Henry took another step.

That was the signal his visitor required. A shadow, small and fast, it bowled him over into the room, rolling to the side as he attempted to understand why he was suddenly not standing and his head seemed to have smacked against white tile. What?

“There! The samples are on the desk, the professor will be here come the morning!” No no no no no! “Don’t forget to turn off the lights when you’re done! You know, in six or so hours!”

His colleague, short and stacked and horrible Dana, laughed over his pain.

“Dana, I fucking hate you!”

Laughter echoed from the closing door, footsteps not hardly enough to disguise her loud and mocking tata! as she ran before he could react.

An all-nighter for a sandwich.

He was, all facts considered, a fucking idiot.

#god knows what this is #idek #in all fairness i would be trapped by a sandwich #wordtober #wordtober day 3

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themorningtide · 5 years

Text

Wordtober, day 2, Mindless.

It was said among humans that those with hard tasks should not think. Nakir had never had that problem. It was bred within her, the capability to see blood as if it was rain, to cut someone open without a flutter of eyes or a shake of her hands. She was as she was and what she was was a tool, a mindless little tool used only to punish the wicked and then placed aside until such a time for her use returned. The Executioner did not even think about this matter. She was bred not to.

What a lovely job the rulers had done in their old labs. To sew a thing in a parody of a human and not leave her a shred of what a human should have had. To make something as empty, as devoid of feeling as they themselves were. They had to be proud. Monsters were always proud of their achievements.

They had bred her not to think, little mindless tool in the shape of a human. But, how had they failed to understand? The shape of the human was not just the feet and legs. They had a head and a neck and a spine, leathery skin and tokens of fur. They had a heart, as large as the world and a mind that expanded beyond borders. When they took this thing and smashed it together, they did not expect her to grip all these little remains of humanity and save them somewhere underneath her duty. Save enough of them to hesitate upon harsh words.

“I am innocent!” The child screamed at her feet, regular tears, fat and heavy rolling down her cheeks. “I did nothing wrong! Why are you hurting us?”

The blade was heavy upon her hands, barely resting upon the floor.

“They sent you here, didn’t they? They told you we were wrong! But they are the ones who bleed us dry, who cull us down when we get mouthy. Who is right and who is wrong, Executioner?”

Nakir did not think; that had been taken from her. And so the weapon was raised and the culling was performed, efficiently and safely as she had always done, uncaring of the dark blood staining her non-descript clothing, the dark blots on her shoes, the sticking feeling on her hair when she returned. She was a tool and that was all that she was. She was a tool, she was just a tool, that was all…

“That is all that I am?”

The Ruler looked up from the documents he had been signing directly at her, his sharp grey eyes narrowing in displeasure after being interrupted.

“Have you said anything, Executioner?”

Nakir swallowed. No, this was not the time to speak, she thought analysing the features of the creature upon whose song she danced, this man should not be trusted.

“No. I have not.”

Of course she wouldn’t have. She never had before. Nakir saw these words reflected upon the Ruler’s expression as he returned to work, neither dismissing her nor ordering her upon another task. The tool should stand until she was required once more. The tool could wait. Even if the tool was thinking! Thinking how easy it would be to run, how easy it would be to flee, how easy it would be to kill him (and her heart fluttered weakly underneath her chest as if those pieces of humanity have been dislodged with her last crime(s)).

Her newfound thoughts sounded very much like the boy she had killed that morning, like his short arms were wrapped around her neck and his lips were at her ears and yes, lie, whispered the voice of the child, if they have made you a tool, I will make a human. The small soul curled invisibly around her shoulders and sneered at the man in front of them. And when I do, we will smash this world of theirs into nothing.

#one hundred lives #nakir #omg how have i managed to write in this story

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