Post by Incapability on Apr 28, 2008 5:00:03 GMT 9.5
Well, here goes. The third part of the Wrath series.
Huge Thanks go to Mab Rox for the original story and for allowing me to write a sequel, and to himiko for Angry Cheddar (for inspirational purposes only, of course
).
**********
Three
Nimue had once told him that her life had been divided in patterns of seven.
His own was governed by three.
Three mothers had shaped his life: one to give it, one to help him begin it, and one to destroy it.
Three sides were said to belong to his third mother: a virgin, a mother, a warrior. No one had mentioned the temptress.
Three kings he had seen on the throne: Vortigern, Uther, Arthur. None’s reign had saved the land.
Three times, he had known happiness in Nimue’s arms: in Vortigern’s castle, in the abbey of Avalon, and in the forest hut.
Three times, he had deceived: Uther, when he stuck the sword in the stone, Igraine, when he sent the wrong man to her, and Nimue, when he did not come back.
Three kings of the Elements he had known, and liked to remember none.
Three stages of magic he had mastered, and abandoned them all.
Three lives he had lived: as Mab’s enemy, as an old man, as Nimue’s lover.
Merlin knew that his life had come full circle.
Only, he realised, that there was one flaw:
Twice he had felt the burning touch of the Queen of the Old Ways.
Once in the Land of Magic, where she had lured him to her as a boy, and taken advantage of his innocence.
Once in the World of Man, where she had come to a young man who was in anguish, and taken advantage of his weakness.
After that, she had owned him, and Merlin had never forgiven her for it. He had also never stopped yearning for her. She owned him; they both knew it.
And she never came back to him, not in that way. It had lingered between them whenever he saw her, whenever he thought of her. He had tried to ban it from his mind.
Merlin had sometimes suspected that she knew about the patterns of three, and that she was holding it over his head, and kept away from him, revelling in the fact that there was still something he needed from her.
Over the years, his suffering had not lessened, but he had learned to cope. Like pangs of hunger faded into normalcy over time, the ache he felt for her was something that was simply there and that he could not make go away.
When she had opened the war between them, and he had decided to vanquish her, he sometimes asked himself whether he could. Could he send her into the void and let her take that third time with her?
When she was far away, and he was faced with the things she had done, he was convinced that he could. He could take a lifetime of something missing. After all, what was one man’s misery compared to what the world would become after Mab was gone?
But when he and Mab were face to face … the pain sprung to rather vicious life time and again. Every time, he could not help but to notice how slender she looked beneath her increasingly dark, increasingly concealing robes, how fragile.
And he could not keep the images from coming up; images of how she had looked on the forest ground, and he thought of how her pale skin would look under his hardened, roughened hands. Would he leave traces if he touched her now? Would her eyes mock him again? There had always been anger in them when he had seen her later on, anger and disappointment. He was sure she didn’t know he had seen them. He had often wondered if the anger would disappear if he touched her again. If the disappointment would fade.
But she never encouraged him past a knowing look, and he never had the courage, and every time they met again, her eyes had become that little bit harder.
Later, whenever he thought of their last encounter, the irony almost tore him apart; the irony of two broken souls standing face to face, each determined to destroy the other. Funny, how they hadn’t realised that there had been nothing left to destroy.
For a second, he had contemplated going to her and grabbing her, and letting all that anger and hatred and desperation consume them, for surely they would go up in flames. They would go down together, and other people would be left to pick up the pieces.
He wondered if it would have been different that time, if now, they would be clinging to one another, instead of him clawing at her like a drowning man, or her crushing him like an insect.
He’d even gone as far as to raise his hand towards her, ready to pull his fingers through grey streaks and give a last thought to what they had felt like when they were black and silky, and to kiss her ashen skin and make her forget that it had once looked like ivory and moonlight.
He was perfectly willing to go and capture that mouth that had the colour of dried blood. What better way to die?
It was said that memory idealised, and while Merlin doubted that time could smooth over what was already perfect, there was no denying that there were worlds between the ethereal being that had lain before him on the forest ground, and the broken shell that stood before him now.
And yet, and yet he would not have wanted for her to be any different. There could be nothing that would be more fitting to this World Ending situation than Mab, in her dusty robes that went up to her chin and down to the floor, her pale, pale skin that had lost its fairy shimmer, and her hair, her once glorious hair.
But the notion died, and when she faded away, he tried to forget about patterns of three and a nagging pain in the back of his mind.
After all, what is the misery of one man, in a world that didn’t become what he had dreamt it to be, now that she is gone?
Huge Thanks go to Mab Rox for the original story and for allowing me to write a sequel, and to himiko for Angry Cheddar (for inspirational purposes only, of course
).**********
Three
Nimue had once told him that her life had been divided in patterns of seven.
His own was governed by three.
Three mothers had shaped his life: one to give it, one to help him begin it, and one to destroy it.
Three sides were said to belong to his third mother: a virgin, a mother, a warrior. No one had mentioned the temptress.
Three kings he had seen on the throne: Vortigern, Uther, Arthur. None’s reign had saved the land.
Three times, he had known happiness in Nimue’s arms: in Vortigern’s castle, in the abbey of Avalon, and in the forest hut.
Three times, he had deceived: Uther, when he stuck the sword in the stone, Igraine, when he sent the wrong man to her, and Nimue, when he did not come back.
Three kings of the Elements he had known, and liked to remember none.
Three stages of magic he had mastered, and abandoned them all.
Three lives he had lived: as Mab’s enemy, as an old man, as Nimue’s lover.
Merlin knew that his life had come full circle.
Only, he realised, that there was one flaw:
Twice he had felt the burning touch of the Queen of the Old Ways.
Once in the Land of Magic, where she had lured him to her as a boy, and taken advantage of his innocence.
Once in the World of Man, where she had come to a young man who was in anguish, and taken advantage of his weakness.
After that, she had owned him, and Merlin had never forgiven her for it. He had also never stopped yearning for her. She owned him; they both knew it.
And she never came back to him, not in that way. It had lingered between them whenever he saw her, whenever he thought of her. He had tried to ban it from his mind.
Merlin had sometimes suspected that she knew about the patterns of three, and that she was holding it over his head, and kept away from him, revelling in the fact that there was still something he needed from her.
Over the years, his suffering had not lessened, but he had learned to cope. Like pangs of hunger faded into normalcy over time, the ache he felt for her was something that was simply there and that he could not make go away.
When she had opened the war between them, and he had decided to vanquish her, he sometimes asked himself whether he could. Could he send her into the void and let her take that third time with her?
When she was far away, and he was faced with the things she had done, he was convinced that he could. He could take a lifetime of something missing. After all, what was one man’s misery compared to what the world would become after Mab was gone?
But when he and Mab were face to face … the pain sprung to rather vicious life time and again. Every time, he could not help but to notice how slender she looked beneath her increasingly dark, increasingly concealing robes, how fragile.
And he could not keep the images from coming up; images of how she had looked on the forest ground, and he thought of how her pale skin would look under his hardened, roughened hands. Would he leave traces if he touched her now? Would her eyes mock him again? There had always been anger in them when he had seen her later on, anger and disappointment. He was sure she didn’t know he had seen them. He had often wondered if the anger would disappear if he touched her again. If the disappointment would fade.
But she never encouraged him past a knowing look, and he never had the courage, and every time they met again, her eyes had become that little bit harder.
Later, whenever he thought of their last encounter, the irony almost tore him apart; the irony of two broken souls standing face to face, each determined to destroy the other. Funny, how they hadn’t realised that there had been nothing left to destroy.
For a second, he had contemplated going to her and grabbing her, and letting all that anger and hatred and desperation consume them, for surely they would go up in flames. They would go down together, and other people would be left to pick up the pieces.
He wondered if it would have been different that time, if now, they would be clinging to one another, instead of him clawing at her like a drowning man, or her crushing him like an insect.
He’d even gone as far as to raise his hand towards her, ready to pull his fingers through grey streaks and give a last thought to what they had felt like when they were black and silky, and to kiss her ashen skin and make her forget that it had once looked like ivory and moonlight.
He was perfectly willing to go and capture that mouth that had the colour of dried blood. What better way to die?
It was said that memory idealised, and while Merlin doubted that time could smooth over what was already perfect, there was no denying that there were worlds between the ethereal being that had lain before him on the forest ground, and the broken shell that stood before him now.
And yet, and yet he would not have wanted for her to be any different. There could be nothing that would be more fitting to this World Ending situation than Mab, in her dusty robes that went up to her chin and down to the floor, her pale, pale skin that had lost its fairy shimmer, and her hair, her once glorious hair.
But the notion died, and when she faded away, he tried to forget about patterns of three and a nagging pain in the back of his mind.
After all, what is the misery of one man, in a world that didn’t become what he had dreamt it to be, now that she is gone?
