The Lady Of The Lake

"the world" tarot card, 2023, inspired by excalibur (1981)

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

arthur’s death

Observances

Merlin/Arthur | Mature | No Archive Warnings Apply | Word Count: 373

Historical AU | Festivals | Prophecies | Second Person POV (Merlin)

For the @merlinmicrofic prompts "feast" and "new year."

Will post to Ao3 once it's back up.

Arthur's halls are decorated for the birth of the sun, Saturnalia was a sennight ago, and you saw an ominous sign this morning in the movement of the birds.

small tw: for animal (bird) death

☾ ☾ ☾

Arthur’s hall is decorated with yew branches. Up and down the benches there is elaborate food upon decorated plates of a dull silver that he told you was called pewter. His hounds whine and beg for scraps from the revellers, having grown bored of the swan wing that had been tossed to them. Now it lay on the straw strewn floor, gnarled and upsetting. 

Your eyes are on him, but everyone’s eyes are on him, they always are. Warlord, lord, king. Tonight he wears an abolla that is a red as rich as blood (and you’ve seen plenty of blood, by now). His hair and eyes are pale against the colour but not diminished by them. 

But his eyes are on you. They shouldn't be on you, not as much as they are, they need not ever be on you, but they are. You’re a servant, what’s more you are of the Silures, reviled by his father, yet his eyes have been on you since you were crowned with oak leaves for saving his life.

What a strange mix of observances that he claims as his own. 

On Saturnalia he said that you could do anything, so you sat in his lap and had him feed you figs and almonds with his fingers.

But that was a sennight ago, now above his chair there is a bower of willow and ivy, now he raises his cup and you go to his side to pour him grape wine from across the sea. 

He would put you to death for your aurgury this morning. It was the flight of the hedge sparrows that alerted you just a breath before it happened; a peregrine claimed an ouzel, too slow to retreat to the coppice, right before your eyes. There are signs in everything, you are finding, even the strange prognostications of the Romans. Ouzel cock, black druid, guide to the otherworld. Your people go unmarked in death as they do in life. There are few left, even, to cry your name. Fewer still will survive to see the spring.  

The fire is making you sweat, causing the woad staining your arms to run. 

His cup goes up, the room stills.

“The sun is reborn,” Arthur says. 

The Terror | 1963 | dir. Roger Corman

I feel so seen 🥺😈

For the ones that need it today

bat

Aberdeen Bestiary, England ca. 1200

Aberdeen University Library, MS 24, fol. 51v

arthurian gothic

there is scratching in the woods. they tell you it is the questing beast. you’ve never seen the questing beast. you don’t even know what it is.

a knight introduces himself. he is a cousin of gawain. you have never heard of him, but no one thinks anything of it.

there is something wrong with the lake. everyone whispers that there is something wrong with the lake. no one will say what.

everyone keeps telling you the queen is the most beautiful woman in the world, but you can’t get past her eyes. they are dead.

there are footsteps in the hall. there are always footsteps in the hall. there are not always people.

you have never seen the king. some say he is the man in velvet. some say he is a war hero. some say he is a sad old man. he is a roman, someone tells you. another one insists angrily that he is a knight. a third says he is gone.

no one sits in one of the chairs at the round table. you ask if you can sit down. a knight crosses himself.

you are on a horse. you can’t remember how long you’ve been riding. “where are we going?” you ask. “on a quest.” it is always a quest.

the queen is no longer the most beautiful woman in the world. there is another girl, under the pavilion in the forest. her eyes are black.

the red coat of arms on the back of a chair has been removed. there is a different coat of arms, now, and a new knight sits. no one remembers the old one.

castle carbonek is beautiful, they tell you, but be careful. you see a door cracked open. the light that streams through blinds you.

you are speaking with a woman who insists she is elaine, but you know better. elaine was a different woman yesterday. all the women are elaine.

you see a telescope in the castle. you are confused. you have never seen anything like it, but they insist it has been here since the time of the romans.

one of the knights is missing. you ask what has happened, but all anyone will tell you is that it was a fit of madness. he is back the next day.

there is blood on the rose bushes outside the queen’s window. they are trampled.

everyone wears black in may. you ask why everyone is wearing black. no one answers.

Gwen & Merlin | Teen & Up | No Archive Warnings Apply | Word Count: 500

Post-Canon | Ghosts | Grief & Mourning | Immortal Merlin

For @merlinmicrofic with the dialogue prompt "almost" and the @tavernfest Merlin Horror Month 2024

An elderly Gwen summons Merlin to Camelot on Samhain. Their old friends walk the Earth again for a night.

☾ ☾ ☾

She was sitting by the fire in the chambers she had once shared with her husband. The flames sputtered in the grate, attacked by the late autumn winds. Upon the hearth there were food offerings; it was Samhain, the eve of the night the dead woke from their sleep and roamed the Earth once again.

“Merlin,” Gwen called to him softly, her eyes shining and a little cloudy in the light, evidence of the cataracts laying claim to them. She stretched out her hand and he hobbled over with his staff and took it. It was soft, wrinkled, but strong. 

Gwen had received him earlier in the throne room but this, with the night blackening the windows, was when they could truly speak. 

He sat down groaningly beside her. Immediately, she leaned towards him in her chair and poked his knee. “I heard a rumour.” 

He leaned as well. “A rumour?” he croaked. 

“I’m told that you're not as you appear to be. That you…” she seemed to search for the words. “They say nature has not taken hold of you as it has me.” 

He opened his mouth but she stopped him.

“Let me see you as you really are... Please.” 

He changed, letting go of the glamour he had assumed. 

By the way she reached out, he knew she couldn’t help it. She cupped his unbearded face, swiped a thumb over his cheek like there was a tear there just as her own eyes filled. 

“It’s like…” she trailed off in wonder. 

“Seeing a ghost?” he guessed. 

“No,” she shook her head, retracting her hand. “No. I should know… I called you here because-” 

There was a knock at the door. 

She cleared her throat, emotion leaving her voice. “Come in.” 

A knight entered.

“Is it time?” she asked.

“Almost.” 

“Help an old woman up, Merlin?” 

They were on the ramparts of the outer walls, it had been a struggle to get up here, but Gwen, now bundled in Merlin’s cloak, had been singularly determined.

It was a full moon but the night was choked with mist. 

Merlin’s magic prickled, beyond the walls something had stepped back onto the mortal plane. 

He tried again to implore her to return to the palace. “Gwen, it's Samhain, we shouldn’t-” 

“Just… Watch.” 

He grimaced but did as his queen bid. 

A horse whinnied faintly, like the tail end of an echo. From the mist, three caped figures on horseback were given form. Ceremonial Camelot banners, washed grey by the night, waved silently in a non-existent wind above them. Their shape, their faces, tilted up, serene, their eyes on the queen – Merlin startled. “It’s-!”

“Gwaine… Lancelot… and Elyan,” she finished, her voice breaking more with each name. 

“But..? Gods, why-?”

“They came last year, and the year before that,” she said, breathing. She drew her borrowed cloak closer. “I know now. They're waiting for me.” 

In Avalon his friends would be together again. Death had never been kinder, and fate more gruel. 

Im unwell about Morgan again.

Im reminded that some modern stories make Morgan evil for no reason AFTER Camlann. And I hate that.

Like, Vita Merlini, Didot Percival, Vulgate Cycle, Post Vulgate and Le Morte D'Arthur all agree Morgan saves Arthur and brings him to her island.

And other stories like Tirant lo Blanc, Bataille Loquifer and Huon de Bourdeux have Morgan and Arthur hang out together.

But it feels like most Modern stories, like, straight up ignore this to have their "supervillainess", who exists only to be beaten up by the heroes in their works.