xregicide-deactivated20140812:
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.
“Don’t leave me, anwyl, cariad,” Summer whispers shakily. She lays Mordred out in the little thicket, setting the fingers of one hand to the wound and cauterizing it. Her hands tremble as she lifts away his breastplate, pushes the chainmail aside. “If you leave me, I will go myself barefoot and unarmed to the very gates of Annwn and bring you back, do you hear, so do you stay now, with me.”
HIs skin is terribly cold now, breathing shallow and heartbeat so faint. Recklessly she warms the air, and sets fingers to the wound again. There’s something inimical there, something that sucks away his spirit from between her clinging fingers, and she sets herself against it. The magic that has burnt in her blood since she saw him fall surges, sliding in golden strands and bright threads through and around.
Fire cleanses.
“Stay with me,” she chants, raggedly, “do not go where I cannot follow. Rwy’n dy garu di, peidiwch â gadael i mi.”
Fire purifies.
Crying, Summer bends over him, her hair falling to shield their faces, and kisses him.
No one can survive a blow from a blade forged in a dragon’s breath.
No king.
No queen.
No knight.
No magic holder.No one. He wondered if Summer knew that, he wondered if she would understand why he couldn’t come back, why he couldn’t find the strength to breathe or open his eyes. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to, it because fate wouldn’t allow him to. She had been right, Morgana had used him, just as Arthur had, just as everyone had and he paid the price for his naivete.
He’s still slipping through her fingers, though. Each heartbeat comes after a longer period of time, and the magic is ebbing with it. She’s closed the wound, burned away everything and anything else, but she can’t burn away the touch of Excalibur.
Kissing him one more time, Summer lays her head down on his unmoving body and just cries, for a long, long time.