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Mordred stopped, placing his vambrace down on the bench, his heart sinking. For a moment he concentrates completely on his armour, how could he answer such a question? Telling her would mean her life and the lives of those whom called Camelot home. An impossible predicament.
The young knight turns to face her, his fingers brushing lightly against the metal of his armour. “I’m not hiding anything” he tells her simply.
Now more than ever Summer yearns for telepathy; some way to speak to Mordred without being overheard, or to know what he’d said. Had she been a fool to come here? There had been no thought in it, only the need to change their last knowledge of one another.
“They don’t know I’m here,” she says. “If I am being used, it’s without my knowledge, without my consent. I know nothing of you, my lady, but I would not betray Mordred.” Her eyes flicker away, from Morgana to Mordred to the floor, and she adds, “I didn’t know where you had gone until tonight. I knew /nothing/, and you shoved me away. I tried to do what you wanted, I went to them, but how could you expect me to watch them, knowing once I too had had that and it was gone?” The words spill out like a dam bursting.
“Such loyalty,” Morgana mocks. “You expect me to believe you are here for love?”
“Believe what you like, my lady,” Summer flares back. “Rwy’n /dal i/ dy garu di, cariad, Medraut, ni all unrhyw tynged newid hynny.”
The witch lifts her hands as if to strike, then drops them, a cruel and mad smile curling her lips. “How sweet. Mordred, kill her.”
”Rwy’n ceisio, ac yr wyf yn methu, nid oes unrhyw beth mwy y gallaf ei wneud am y peth,” he tells her solemnly, avoiding her gaze as he spoke. He felt that if he looked at her he would melt or fall to pieces. At Morgana’s words his gaze flies up to meet her own and he freezes, his heart in his throat, his blood frozen, ringing in his ears.
”No.”
”What did you say?” Morgana asks, turning towards him, anger settled in her eyes, spanning out to contort her face. The druid pulled himself up, looking down at her, his face expressionless. “I said no, I refuse to kill her,” he tells her and a small smirk dances around her lips. That’s when he realized that everything she had done to him earlier was indeed not repentance enough, no, nothing would ever be enough. “Let her go, Morgana, she means no harm, please, I beg of you,” Mordred pleads, his voice cracking.
“Summer is not who you want, it is Arthur, and in days you will have him, in days he will be dead. There has been too much bloodshed, especially of our kin, Morgana, you of all people know that.” At his words a flicker of recognition crosses Morgana’s face. “Kin?” she questions. “She has magic?”
Just as Mordred, Summer stills utterly at Morgana’s ultimatum. She closes her eyes, overcome with unexpected relief at his soft word. She expected to sense a clash of loyalties — but there’s nothing. Only Morgana’s madness, and a chill, spreading throughout Mordred, until something shatters, but it’s not his love that gives.
She barely hears the words he speaks, begging Morgana for her life. She only comes back to herself when the witch speaks again, sliding out of Mordred’s heart, awareness of the physical world crashing back in. “Yes,” she says, and has to clear her throat. “Yes. I do.”