sirmordred-thedruid:
iamthefirechild:
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.
Morgana sits for a long moment, contemplating the tent flap dreamily. When she moves again, her hand goes to the box with the Nathair in it, but then she seems to think better of it. “I’m not finished with you, Summer,” she murmurs. “Not yet.”
Nevertheless, the guards chain Summer back up, hands and feet. “I want you to watch them die,” Morgana whispers, and the empath shudders again.
There was the clang of metal that sounded around him, blood staining the air and the dirt. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as the field around him began to clear until there was far more bodies laying than there had been standing. That was when the boy had caught the king, resting on his knee before him. Mordred tightened his grip around the hilt of his sword.
It was as if Arthur had almost sensed him and instinctively turned, bringing his sword up to be met with his former knight. For a moment the boy hesitated and Arthur got to his feet. The look on Arthur’s face was one of sorrow; Mordred, for a second time, hesitated before anger washed over him, and he jammed his sword into Arthur. The king stumbled backwards in disbelief. “You gave me no choice,” he tells him, looking over him. He hadn’t been expecting the next move, when Arthur brought his sword up, the blade piercing his armour. Mordred gasped, gripping the elder man’s armour before a smile tugged at his lips, pain ripping through him.
Summer can’t say what Morgana did to her — her magic has always been so very limited, despite its seeming power. Whatever it is, she can’t shut out anyone’s emotions now, can’t call that one magic that’s always been hers, and the sorceress has brought her to share the vantage point above the battle.
True to Morgana’s word, she is forced to watch, chained and powerless and broken open, as the soldiers and knights of Camelot die all across the field, and the Saxons die with them. Long minutes now she’s been in a daze, helpless in the face of so much death.
Morgana guards Mordred, and Summer is unwillingly grateful, both for the guardianship and for that it means the mad sorceress is not standing over her. He seems to move as a dark angel across the killing field, untouched and untouchable, his sword stabbing bright and rising bloody. She sees him confront Arthur, whose hair still somehow shines golden amongst the blood and dirt.
She sees them pause, and the swords flash, and both bodies fall. The pain of both wounds does something to her; magic pours into her veins like some kind of burning cordial. From a great distance, it seems, Summer looks at the men guarding her, and they fall, flaming, burning, dead. She rises to her feet, and the chains crumble from her limbs. A hot wind stirs around her body, swirling her hair in mad waves about her.
Somehow, she is at Mordred’s side. Merlin is there, too, with Arthur, though his form is strangely altered, and as he takes the fallen King’s body he whispers, “What are you?”
“Yr wyf tân,” Summer says, in a voice unlike her own. She takes Mordred from that terrible place, by main force of will keeping the life in him. She doesn’t know where Morgana is; she doesn’t care. All the threats, all the prophecy, none of it matters.