Archive of Our Own

There was a girl that wasn’t supposed to be anything more than what she was. She loved her mother and her father very much; she swam with silver fishes across the lake; she counted clouds on the sky; she followed bees and never took any honey from them; she stood on the top of mountains and had whole worlds ahead of her.

But Destiny knew better. There was a storm; there came a man; thunder struck and girl killed the man. His mother had the girl atone forever more. At night, she had to follow people like bees and take everything from them; from the first drop of blood to the last breath. On the crooked path she was walking, the girl suffered for all. But one wanted to free her, and he gave her a rose. Another one freed her completely, and he gave her a wound. In the end, she lied on the bottom of the lake and she had worlds on her sides.

She became a goddess of this threshold between ‘here’ and ‘there’; her loneliness summoned all other lonely souls. They danced around her and they were happy. Every sin was forgiven, every mistake was forgotten. Lost friends found each other. They were happy, and even the dark soul of the doomed knight glowed, when a lute player came in the crown made of  flowers.

*

There was death waiting slowly at the foot of the bed, watching with amusement an old physician trying to save a knight who had been wounded on his first mission. Sir Mordred didn’t move, his eyes closed, hands loosely by his sides. He was breathing slowly, and every pause between breaths was longer than every previous one. The pungent odour of savoury didn’t wake him and he couldn’t be made to drink more than a sip of water or eat something other than a bite of bread. The Queen had visited him and sat by his bed, talking to him about the shining sun. The King himself had stood silent and frowned.         

In the middle of the night, Mordred suddenly opened his eyes and Gaius saw a reflection of a lake, framed by high mountains, pearly-blue in the moonlight.

“Is that it?” Mordred asked weakly. “Not much like in tales…” he sighed, with a little smile sneaking around the corner of his mouth.

Gaius reached out his hand to close Mordred’s eyes, but then the fire eclipsed the moonlight, and colour started to come back to his cheeks. Something saved him, Gaius thought, surprised. Miles away, laying in the roots of the oldest trees, Destiny played with a sorcerer and let him think he was the one to make choices.

*

“You’re staying, Mordred. We have to make sure you’re healthy, before you risk your life again”, the King laughed, and all Mordred could do was stand by a window and watch the wind billowing the knights’ capes, casting red shadows on the backs of the horses. He walked away from the window after an hour or two. He didn’t really know how quickly time was passing. Was it faster than birds, racing above Camelot’s towers?

It was just as Mordred came out of the library, when he heard a familiar sound; a sound that made him think of raspberries crushed between fingers and smiles wrapped around faces like golden balloon silk. He quickly walked down the corridor, opened the door, not bothering to knock, and there it was.  Narrow fingers pulling the strings, a voice trying to catch the voice of the instrument. The layer, a lady-in-waiting as it would seem from her dress and the bracelet on her wrist, raised her head and blushed as she saw Mordred, staring at her in way that couldn’t be considered appropriate.

“Sire?” she asked unsurely, taking her hand away from the strings.

“Don’t stop,” Mordred said. “Please. I’ve missed this sound.”

The girl bowed her head and soon she started playing again.

*

If someone had asked Sir Mordred what he thought the King loved most, he would answer: Camelot itself. To him it was obvious, from the way the King touched the marble handrails of the stairs, and how fondly he looked at the pennants dancing high above. When he stood on the balcony, eyes locked somewhere above, maybe on the crystal window where the sun was reflected or maybe on the pillar, where an artist had carved a myth and time had carved the history, Mordred could sense from great happiness. Not one of the euphoric kind, that erupted violently and left with a sense of emptiness, like a flame, but the calm one, that could engulf a man like the sea.

Mordred himself could not understand it. For him, the castle was no home to be loved. It was too quiet when there was no one around and too loud when he was surrounded by the crowd. Nothing was similar between Camelot and Mordred’s home, which had been forest and forest only.

The Knights were trying to make it easier. Sir Percival often patted him on the shoulder and Sir Gwaine made a habit of ruffling Mordred’s hair and giving him cookies, stolen from kitchen. At least, he intended to give him those, but usually he had already eaten them on his way.

And there was this girl - Mordred had learned her name was Kymme - that played for him every song she knew. But not the one Mordred remembered.

*

The King took his men on another mission and again, Mordred was told to stay and “keep an eye on the Queen”. For that one, the King earned himself an annoyed pat on the ear and a few snickers from most loyal and brave knights of the whole of Camelot. Emrys only rolled his eyes.

Mordred thought he understood him better now and he grew to admire him, even. Everyone would have done so, if they had seen Emrys’ mind in the ways Mordred had. It was all Arthur, bright centre of Emrys’ thoughts. Every one of them, from the tiniest to the greatest, were somehow connected to the King. And there was no bitterness, only loyalty. On the edges, there were shadows, dangers that were to be destroyed. For some reason, Emrys had placed Mordred among them. He didn’t wish to understand that, and even if he did , he couldn’t. Slipping into the mind of the most powerful being in the world for longer than a half a second would not have been wise.

Soon, it was impossible to distinguish one scarlet dot on the horizon from another.

 “They left us on our own again, these horrible men”, the Queen sighed, but there was fondness in her eyes. “Come Mordred, I should like you to accompany while I will be signing documents. And”, she added with a sparkle in her eye, “Kymme will play for us on her lute.”

*

There was a boy who would be the best knight and the most favoured friend of kings and queens. Turning dolour into joy, making villains fall, he would win hearts of all. And his too would be won, and this bitter victory would make a kingdom fall. The boy heard about wasteland on the edges of the world, land grey and sorrowful, reigned by a living corpse, whom only the chosen would be able to slain. The boy, pure as morning light rode there, young and fair, and his sword was the sharpest sword in the world, that was sure. The boy chose himself to be chosen, for he thought himself the noblest knight that ever was. But Destiny knew better.

In the wasteland the boy met her, little-handed princess of nothing, trapped in the tower as her birds were trapped in the cage. With voice clear as rain, she made his ideals tremble and eyes wet. The boy loved her one night, because in any other way it would be too painful to look at her.

Morning light made him see and he understood. Nothing could be done by him now, when his confidence was gone. The boy saw rust on his sword and dust on his hands, and he ran away from the shame, but shame never left. It was with him when he whispered into ear of shy maid; when he fought with griffins and dragons; when he felt his heart breaking apart. Through the veil of death the shame could not follow and so the boy walked there happily.

A hero made one mistake, so the story never followed. But from this hole, the glory has come, to lighten days of the doomed.

*

Father used to laugh and call her Elaine of the Birds every day since he had made her a present of two little yellow balls of plumages, sitting in the cage that was surely silver - at least that’s what Elaine thought

“Two”, her father had said. “So one would never be alone” and then he went to Elaine’s mother’s room and sat there until the dawn.

Elaine of the Birds, she repeated to herself, lying in the crumbling bed, and then spider’s webs were laces, dust became crumbs fallen from stars, and thoughts of morning were a promise of  the best knight, that would come to the Perilous Lands to free her great grand-father and take her away to places she knew from tales and songs.

Elaine of the Birds buried her father when she was only fifteen, and she couldn’t think of burying her hopes. She sang to herself of the knight, chivalry and courage and two closed doors from her, an ill King cried.

A knight came of course, on a horse, with a sword that had surely been the sharpest sword in the world, or that’s what Elaine thought. He didn’t say anything about spiders or dust, instead he took Elaine in his arms, kissed her sweetly, and promised her the world. The next day, Elaine of the Birds woke up alone and cold, King the Fisher was still bound to his chair and the knight was gone. The Old Guardian standing on the bridge pitied him, his pride and his shame, and Destiny whispered into his ear that the memory of Elaine would hunt him till the end of his days, and make him the humblest of men. That he would leave now every time, thinking –knowing - he was unworthy to stay. And he would live in despair, since one was always lonely.

Elaine of the Birds hadn’t been alone for long. Her son looked nothing like his father.

“You will never leave me,” she whispered into his white-golden hair. “And there will be two of us, no one alone.”

*

Mother called him simply: Galahad, but Galahad himself always added “of Perilous Lands”. In the songs that mother sang to him, every knight was “of”. And that he was to be a knight, Galahad had no doubts. Born of pure maiden, with the best knight as a father and a doomed sorcerer two closed doors from him, it was clear that Galahad must have had some destiny. The more verses his mother taught him, putting his hands on her lute, the more Galahad was sure it was his to do. All the quests he heard about, all the curses to be taken off, all the damsels to be saved, all the innocents to be protected, it was Galahad’s to do.

He rode Perilous Lands on the barely breathing horse and found no quest to complete, no greatness to achieve. Not even one troubled man to be helped. Only a smirking goblin, smoke seeming to come out of nowhere and dead trees. His armour and sword, with such an effort found in the Fisher King’s armoury, were for nothing. So was the bow which Galahad had been learning so long ago to use.

Eyes gleaming like eyes of the prophet, he came to his mother and announced:

“Farewell, my mother. I will miss you when I am looking for my destiny.”

His mother said nothing. She gave him her lute and a few apples from the only living tree in the Perilous Lands. They always left, didn’t they? Her father, her love, her son. These horrible men.

“Play sometimes and remember me.”

Galahad kissed her on the forehead because that’s what heroes in tales do and mounted this horse, so old it was snowy white. When she could no longer see him, Elaine came to his chamber and sat there until the dawn.

*

The World beyond the Perilous Land was as glorious as tales and songs promised it would be. Trees were green and whispering, the sun was shining, the sky had a colour, there were flowers and birds and everything that his mother had sung to him about. Galahad rode slowly, eyes wide and with a smile he wasn’t even aware of as he tried to memorize all he had seen.

He went hunting as kings did with their knights, and he didn’t miss even once. He picked up raspberries, squishing them too hard so the first few of them were left on his hands, never reaching his mouth. He laughed loudly when he saw a squirrel. He was amazed when a procession of ants crossed his way. He saw stars, for the first time so clearly, and he dreamt of being one of them. He was being very much and he loved it.

Soon, Galahad remembered that he had the quest to complete. He kept training with the imaginary enemies, he spoke to invisible people, he bowed to kings he saw in stones covered in grey moss. Because in the forest there was still no one to be found.

Sometimes, he played the lute and thought of his mother’s very grey eyes.

*

Smoke was what began The Great Quest of Galahad of the Perilous Lands, or at least that’s what he had been thinking when he nudged his horse and pleaded with him to go faster. The smoke was too black to be a sign of a mere campfire. It meant fight and in fights there was always someone wrong and someone wronged, that’s how it had been in songs.

Galahad rode through the forest for two days straight without rest, not taking eyes away from the smoke, afraid it would disappear, as any other dream did. But he never reached the source of it; he never saw flames that consumed a camp of people who were so miserable they dared to be revolutionary. Instead, he stopped by an old elm, in the roots of which there was someone lying.

Galahad jumped down off the horse. A string of his mother’s lute had caught in a stirrup, making a little sound. Galahad came closer to the elm and crouched down. He turned the stranger on his back, trying to be as gentle as possible. It was a boy. Unhealthy pale, bruised, dirty with mud and blood. Breathing.

It wasn’t the beginning of The Great Quest, as Galahad had supposed. But it was certainly the beginning of something.

*

There was a girl who would be a queen, high in the mountains cold; who would have the most beautiful gowns; who would be wedded to a king and loved by him and more; and lived happily  ever after, with four sons to love and take care of. But Destiny knew better.

The Girl’s mother couldn’t love her father enough; and for making him unable to want her love, she had to give the child of this love and she did. The girl was smuggled by a trembling man, because someone knew someone whom the man loved.

Love and lack thereof shaped the girl, sharpened her and softened her in invisible ways. She was taught of great things and she didn’t see any of the world besides the island lost somewhere in the mist. She was told to love her sisters equally and the Triple Goddess above them all, but in dreams she saw the sister no one told her of, and she loved her only. When the isle lost in the mist burnt her eyes were dry.

She wandered around the world, a scary paradox of a human, golden and black, hidden in mist, hidden in smoke, never seen. She tried to be a lover for Beltane, she tried to be a mother for Imbolc, Destiny made her a warrior for any day. She fought her way to her sister; she took her nightmares away and made them her own; she summoned the past to win her sister the future; she gave her a brilliant crown.

Her life was tangled with someone’s love, her death was a gift made of her own love, yet she never loved the one who was truly her bone and her blood: her son. But it was he to learn that love was more important than power he wielded.

*

Mordred didn’t say a word out loud until he was seven and later he never talked much. He communicated with others by images and sensations, sent by winged thoughts. It didn’t occur to him that for some it may be difficult to see them, let alone understand until Cerdan told him that it would be better if he at least tried to put his thoughts into the shape of spoken words.

In the beginning, he didn’t understand what Cerdan had meant. Because Mordred, he always saw things. Sensed them. He heard voices in his head and they were never quiet. There was the ever present fear, that lied with them to sleep in the evenings. Memories of executions, the echo of beating drums, the image of a man with something gold on his head. With this image came pity and sometimes, anger. But there was also the happiness of waking up in someone’s arms, the delight of seeing a rainbow spread above the trees, the rush of magic sparkling around his fingers. And when there was no one around, Mordred could hear the forest itself, a tangled, very old being, pulsing and changing with every second. He never considered the possibility of not sharing someone else’s thoughts, to not have them tied up to his own.

“It’s a gift, Mordred”, Cerdan told him. “A terrible gift you need to be careful with. If you let things be like this, you will lose yourself.”

Mordred knew what such Druids looked like. Their eyes were behind the mist and their minds were large snakes eating themselves. He didn’t want to be like that. He felt fear, not only Cerdan’s, but his own.

*

It was good to have Mordred around. He could warn them about patrols, because he felt their thoughts, sharp as their swords. They were simple thoughts of soldiers, orders. Kill. Burn. Destroy. No one shall be spared. The younger ones had shy hopes for glory between them, glimpses of light gliding across the rust.

It was good to have Mordred around, but never too close. Most of people didn’t like their minds being seen, even if they claimed to accept it. They wanted to. They truly did, but an instinct to hide was stronger than that.

Only Kara didn’t avoid him, Kara and Cerdan. But Cerdan was gone now. She knew all good jokes that little girls with daisies in their hair shouldn’t; she knew how to find the best tree for climbing and she did things that no one else thought of, like holding his hand when he told her about the King, who was burning ice. She was the only one who heard him out when he told her he wasn’t sure if Emrys was whom they had thought he would be.

“He was scared and he was lying Mordred said, with eyes in the sky and feet tickled by the blades of grass. “And the castle hated me.”

It would be much later, when he would learn that it was the dragon whose hatred he felt and that the greatest sorcerers to ever walk the earth have the right to fear and make mistakes as much as anyone.

*

Then Lady Morgana came, mind trembling like a bird, afraid of warmth in her eyes. Mordred was trying to calm her, untangle knots she made of her insecurities and bitters. He didn’t hear the golden fury of the prince coming  to save her, or the rough and steel minds of his men. It was Emrys’ wish to somehow warn the Druids that made Mordred realize what was happening, but it had been already too late.

Morgana again wrapped herself in, shutting him off, and the mass of desperation that was slaughter hit Mordred, who was completely unprepared. Arthur’s fury, Morgana’s hopelessness, the knights’ ruthlessness, they took over Mordred and washed him all away.

Kill. Burn. Destroy.

He didn’t notice when Kara disappeared.

No one shall be spared.

 *

Alvarr found him when he was trying to be a deer. He took him and gave him something to eat, said they were all brothers and brothers needed to help each other in need. His thoughts were strong and steadfast, red and definitely great, even if a bit fallen. He gave Mordred a direction, a purpose, something to be for and because of. Enmyria made him loyal and passionate, Alvarr’s people made him admire their leader. There was a pleasure in the thought that he could get his revenge.

He found Morgana again, happier than any other time she had seen her, with anger pulsing under all the delicate smiles, ready to erupt when the moment would come.

He didn’t manage to talk to the Crystal, to hear it properly, because there it was again: voices becoming silent, when other roared in the triumph, Morgana mad and furious, and it was again, and it threw him back to the first time, to losing Kara, to losing Cerdan. There was so much pain. It was curling around him, flowing in his veins, cloaking his mind with a veil of red.

Kill.

Burn.

Destroy.

When he spoke, it was him, it was Alvarr, it was every one of them together and each on their own.

 “I will never forgive you, Emrys. And I will never forget.”

And all Emrys did was to be still, very blue and very sorry for all of this. Not enough, Mordred thought, when he was running away. Never enough, when he smelled fire. After then, there were no more voices to be heard.

*

He collapsed at the foot of an old elm, tired of constant running. And the forest murmured so kindly, so softly. It wasn’t enough for Emrys to be sorry, but it was quite enough for Mordred. It could all be over, now. He wouldn’t have minded this. He could think always as one of the elm’s roots, and die when he would have finally forgotten to eat.

It could have ended here. It didn’t.

*

There was a boy who had his heart split up in four. He thought he should love his mother first and his siblings next. But Destiny knew better.

 Still, he tried very hard, but his mother was too pale, too gold, too indifferent, too much like a star in the sky to be a mother to someone like him: with leaves lost in his hair and berry juice on his teeth. That’s when the boy learnt he was a bastard. He tried to love his big brother and his little sister, but it was  trouble for them and the boy was told not to ever try again.

So he decided to love the idea of his real mother, because no one could forbid him. He imagined her to be the queen of the kingdom somewhere overseas whom his father loved more than anyone else, and certainly more than his new wife. When his little sister was chosen a man to be wedded to, they all arrived at the great castle, which looked his mother’s might have looked. In the castle there was a lady that did not smile and looked just like the boy’s mother might have looked.

So he loved her next and called her a moon, a swan, a pearl lost in the sea, and she looked at him sadly and kissed her husband on the cheek with a face of disgust. His little sister died and her husband went mad. His big brother fought the mad king, and they both wanted to die for they both loved the one who died. The Mad king had a better sword and the boy had to go away. In the fire of Beltane, he met something very much black and a little bit golden, with eyes of boy’s love.

So he loved her next and called her a flame, a raven, a ruby lost in ashes and she laughed wickedly and danced with him till they forgot why they had wanted to forget. He was found by the one who carried shadows and had a shadow of her sister on her arm. He loved her last, and he didn’t call her anything, because he didn’t know how.

He died wondering if boys without mothers had to always be so unhappy. Yet his son without mother and father was happier than the boy ever could be.

*

What woke Mordred Was a sound he had never heard before. He couldn’t tell what it sounded like. The most similar to it would have been the sound that rain would have made falling at the wings of a dragonfly. Later, he heard crackle of twigs licked by fire, the hum of trees, quiet calls of owls somewhere far away. Then, he heard more. He heard the forest waiting for the rain, thirsty and dusty, and he heard someone with thoughts brighter than any he had ever heard.

He decided to open his eyes and not attack the one who played, whoever they might be.

It was a boy. Golden in the light of a camp fire, holding a strange instrument in thin arms, with his head bowed and strangely long curls falling on a very old cape. Something had have told him Mordred was conscious, because the stranger quickly turned his gaze to him.

“I am glad to see you’re awake” he said simply. Mordred sneaked in to his thoughts once more to find out that the boy, whoever he was, meant truly and only what he had said. It was a puzzling discovery, as Mordred didn’t encounter such honesty often. Even Alvarr, with his charisma and ability to craft words beautiful as jewels, didn’t want to turn every thought into them.

“Who are you?” Mordred asked, seeing an old sword, in a richly ornamented scabbard, lying near stranger’s feet. Then, he stopped playing.

“You’re right, I forgot,” he said with a sheepish smile. He putted his instrument away, straightened and with some exultation now in his voice, he spoke: “I am Galahad of the Perilous Lands.”

Mordred glanced at the sword again, then on the instrument.

“Are you a knight?”

Galahad looked at his sword, too.

“I wish to be, but I can’t say I am a knight just yet,” he answered quietly.

There were no blades wading in chests, no screams. Only words that were nobler than gold, speaking of the most glorious things.

Those were good thoughts and Mordred was happy to fall asleep to their sublime rhythm.

*

Days were all very summer like. The Sun shone through the leaves, casting yellow-green light; flowers smelled sweetly; ferns rustled softly when a hare ran through them; bushes were red and pink with twigs heavy of fruit. On days like this, it was not difficult to fall in love, for everything was soft on the edges and warm, and easy. Words tasted like raspberries and there was nothing wrong if one of them fell because there was plenty to pick, and all of them shone a little bit.

Mordred felt he had been having a really strange dream, sitting on the horse that was still alive by a miracle, eating berries and wild strawberries, listening to songs  about a world so convincingly beautiful Mordred would even love it. And all of his anger, his pain, it didn’t matter that much. He let Galahad’s thoughts catch him in a glistening net. Maybe he would be able to stay there for a little bit of forever.

*

Since he could remember, Galahad had known his great-great-grandfather, King Pelles, had been a sorcerer, horrifying in the battlefield and a wonder-maker for his people. The Power inherited by his descendants grew lesser and lesser with each generation. All Galahad could do was to sometimes feel something before his mother said it or to know she was crying at night, when in the morning she would greet him with a wide smile.

He sometimes wished he could change something in what he had seen or heard, but he didn’t know a way. There was nothing in songs about it, so he didn’t consider it for long. Not until Destiny – because it was of Destiny’s making, Galahad was sure of it – put Mordred on his way. It wasn’t so easy to tell during the day what Mordred was thinking, his eyes always somewhere above Galahad’s head, expression always the same, but as silent as he was when the sun shone, he screamed just as loudly as soon as he fell asleep.

Galahad didn’t see him opening his mouth, not even once, but he heard Mordred screaming with horror, with fury so terrifying, Galahad didn’t know how Mordred was able to hold it all in his body. When it was getting worse, Galahad could see the images. Fire. Corpses. Red capes. Crystal falling in the mud. And then, always the same ending, eyes a radiant blue, sharp and clear. The person with these blue eyes looked at Mordred as he was killing them. There were no swords, no fight. Only one mind crushing another, until there was nothing more.

When Galahad sang all those hopeful songs, he hoped they made the nightmares go away. He hoped that one night, when Mordred would fall asleep, he would see a meadow covered with lovely flowers, and that would be it. There wasn’t any meadow, not once.

*

Mordred accepted nightmares as the price to pay for peaceful days. What he was running away from had its right to get him when he was bogged down in dreams. He didn’t try to stop the scenes unfolding before him, or himself where there was the last part to play. There were thoughts and thoughts he swallowed and there was no other way to free himself from them. No other way, but to kill Emrys over and over, and give each one of dead that lived in him their revenge. One for Alvarr, one for Enmyria. One for each of them all.

*

And one time, he dreamt that Galahad was standing next to him and told him:

“Don’t.”

Mordred did it, anyway.

*

There was a storm in the afternoon, so when they dared to leave the small dale they had found a shelter in, there were puddles everywhere, just so the horse could step in each one of them, and cover Galahad in drops of mud. Droplets were slipping off heavy leafs; snails were everywhere; the air was fresh and tasted green.

Galahad was playing his instrument – a lute, Mordred learned, he liked the sound of this name, in Galahad’s mind a lute was also my mother’s hands; my mother’s voice; my mother’s very grey eyes and a dozen of other things that Mordred had never thought of. The song he chose was slow and sorrowful, and Mordred could sense a concern twirling around other thoughts passing by Galahad’s mind.

“What’s wrong?” Mordred asked, not expecting an answer but an image that surely would appear as soon as Galahad heard it. It did. It was Mordred, as seen by Galahad. High on the white horse, silent and broken. Then there was a red cape, the Crystal - and then Mordred went away as quick as possible.

As usual, Galahad replied honestly:

“You. I didn’t mean to bring it up, but your nightmares worry me. I wish I could help, but I don’t know how.”

“No one can help” Mordred answered, sharper than he intended to.

“I supposed so”, Galahad sighed. What’s the point of willing to help those in need when don’t want it? Mordred heard. Then, a memory of a fragile woman Mordred learned was Galahad’s mother appeared.

“It’s not your fault” Mordred said finally. “I don’t know how it could be helped either.”

Galahad began to pull the strings on his lute in a completely accidental order. It still made a nice melody.

*

When he reached the last moment, there was a hand on his shoulder. No words, just this hand.

It made it bearable, almost.

*

There was a girl smiling when others didn’t and telling filthy jokes as she picked up daisies. She was a brave girl, compassionate and loving. She was all the good things that she could be and she thought that was enough to be happy. But Destiny knew better.

When rusted red covered her home in blood, she ran away. Through the woods; through the nights full of terror; through the villages where people cursed her as soon as they saw her mark. She came onto the seashore and it was a very bad day to be there. It was a day of black ships and men with long knives. It was a day of taking slaves. She was taken by the largest of them all, with bruises all over his face. He wanted her to show him her magic, to be his little plaything. She had no magic; she tried to explain that not all of those who were marked were blessed. He didn’t understand a word and used her in every other way.

A porcelain doll she was; not able to control her own body, she closed herself in her mind. Her eyes became mirrors; her voice was an echo; her face was a cold mask. One day, she sneaked on to the ship that was coming to the land she was from  and she returned there, as a shadow of all the good things she could have been. She had a mission; a purpose making her blind for everything else. To take revenge on the one that made her suffer all she suffered.

She failed and was offered to be a slave of the King; to always have a debt of mercy to repay. She refused, a desperately brave porcelain doll, and her mirror-eyes reflected her friend’s tears when she was dying.

Sometimes she tried to remember she was once a girl picking up daisies, but it was hard. Her friend’s scream was all she knew dying.

*

They left the woods with their quiet melodies and yellow-green breath behind them, and stood on the wide fields that seemed an endless sea of rough blades. Galahad froze for a moment, breathing in this large landscape, grander than anything he had ever seen before. He had never thought that sky might have been so high.

Mordred was standing next to him, now he didn’t ride on the old horse anymore, as he supposed he was in the better condition than it was. He smiled at Galahad’s delight and looked for a while at the world through his eyes. It was a wonderful world to see.

*

After a few days of warmth blown by wind across the grasses, Galahad and Mordred found themselves on the shore of shallow and rapid streams glittering under the sun as it tried to touch the smooth pebbles lying at the bottom. Their clothes were suddenly scattered over shore, under the horses’ sleepy gaze. Water was just as it should have been, refreshingly cool but not trapping blood still. The sound of the stream flowing quickly was mingling with their laughs, because somehow there were so many things to laugh about. And then:

“Is that a Druid Mark?” Galahad asked, with eyes locked on the dark ink, painfully vivid against Mordred’s white skin. Mordred stepped back, raising one hand and covering it, raising another with a glimpse of gold in his eyes. Pure fear hit Galahad’s mind and he trembled under its crushing force.

“Why are you afraid? What happened? Mordred, don’t!”

Mordred blinked, his eyes turning pale blue again, and shuddered as the magic fell from him.

“Sorry, it’s an instinct” he said after a while, sounding terribly tired.

“An instinct?” Galahad repeated. “I don’t understand.”

So Mordred showed him. Images sharper without the softening illusions of a dream, carved with blade and screams in Mordred’s memory. The attacks, the execution, the king that was ice burning, Sorcery is forbidden in Camelot, the beating of the drums, minds silencing. Red caped knights who rode with the sun at their backs, dreadful shadows of predators, Cerdan that had broken like a crystal mirror, flames, blood and death.

When they came off the stream, Galahad announced he was going to hunt something for the dinner. Mordred pretended he didn’t know it was his first lie and that Galahad would be crying for the next two hours.

*

Before the fire died out completely, Mordred told Galahad the story about how he had witnessed Beltane once. He was very young then, a white smudge against the black wall of trees drowning in night, and with his mouth opened in wonder, he had tried to catch every single flaming thought, tasting somehow exciting and a bit like sweet summer vine. The chaotic beating of feet, when one jumped across the burning twigs of may bushes, the heady scent of garlands, stolen smiles and stolen kisses, lovers looking together for bits of an eternity between fading stars.

“It sounds amazing,” Galahad whispered, as if he were afraid to break the charm with a voice too loud.

“It was” Mordred replied, hoping it would be what Galahad would dream about, and nothing else.

*

In the middle of a love-song, whose every verse was a petit poem itself, Galahad stopped abruptly, sighed deeply and locked his eyes on one of the clouds passing above his head, as there were answers for all mysteries in the world. His fingers still pulled at the strings of the lute, creating a fitful melody.

“Mordred” he spoke, voice distant as it was soaring among the clouds as well. “Have you ever had the lady that you would woo?”

“Woo?”

“Yes. Worship, be devoted to, do everything for her. You would love her.”

Mordred tried looking for answer in the sky as Galahad would choose, but for him, there was nothing there.

“I don’t know. We were young and I never really thought about it then.”

Fingers broke away from the strings.

“What happened to her?”

“When our camp was attacked, she ran first and I didn’t know where I should have followed her.”

 Galahad turned his eyes to Mordred. He thought it was ridiculous to have such large eyes for things so ugly, but it seemed Galahad couldn’t be in any other way, but this. Eyes wide open and hurt every time, never learning.

*

They ate very little. Birds that Mordred caught in his mind and convinced it was a good idea to fly towards the ground, without stopping. Pieces of bread that an old man gave them when they came across his tiny hut, laying in the ocean of fields like a lost shell. But it was alright, because the hunger was not so much, when the sun was bright, the days still warm and the lute was playing so cheerfully.

“Mordred, look what I found!”  Galahad would say, when they rested in the shadow of beech bosket. Mordred would raise himself on his elbows, and see Galahad radiant with joy, clutching a little purple thing in his hands. He would give it to Mordred with a proud smile.

“A violet” Mordred would say, somewhere between confusion and laughter.

“I’ve never seen such a thing. Isn’t it lovely?”

“Yes, it is” Mordred would laugh in the end, and hide the violet deep in his pocket.

And it would be enough.

*

On the horizon, there was a grey-black line, with contours lost in the distance. Mountains, where refugees from the Isle of the Blessed with few Druids found home. The largest aggregation of magic users that was there still.

“If nothing’s changed” Mordred said when Galahad was finished.

They both knew what that meant.

*

In the ruins of forts, the battlements of which were covered by morning glories, where wounds of past were hid by ivy’s generous brush, Galahad sat between statues of forgotten nobles and sang to them of great adventures. He was beaming and sure that in this place, something of his songs must have had place. Maybe an act of incredible courage, maybe, maybe – he was thinking of possibilities and each of them was more magnificent than another.

Mordred sat across the fire and watched.

*

“Galahad.” Mordred’s voice was quiet. “Behind this abandoned cottage, do you see?” Galahad nodded. “A man is hiding there. He will fight us and we – he has to be killed.” These words were strange to him, after these weeks spent in light of Galahad’s presence, when even his nightmares haunted him more rarely, and memories of them were fainter.

Galahad nodded and slowly pulled the sword out of the scabbard. His bright thoughts changed their shape and every fairy-tale hero stood there with him, summoned shadow in silk cape.

What happened next, happened fast. They reached the cottage, their horse snorted or maybe Mordred sighed, but then there was a movement, a blow, anger and desperation, steel too close to Galahad’s throat – and then Mordred let himself in the man’s mind where hovered the simple want to kill, to kill, desperation, hunger, my sister; my sister’s children; need to get money. Mordred focused and made him stand still, as Galahad with horror in his too large eyes, put his sword in the man’s heart.

It was Mordred who pulled the sword out and wiped the blood off. He brought it to Galahad, sitting on the steps of the cottage, with fingers tangled between blades of grass.

“I thought-“ Galahad tried to say. “I thought it’d be more like in tales.”

Then, there was silence.

Mordred sat next to him and listened.

*

There came autumn rains, and sometimes they just sat in caves and watched how the world was turning all grey. Apples were crunching and sweet and they were sitting close. Calk of the lute sometimes tapped Mordred’s arm. Galahad closed his eyes and murmured something under his breath to the sound of silence between the tones of the melody.

Mordred sat next to him and was. Simply like that.

*

There was a boy that was Destiny’s beloved child; with a voice that held a power of many and a spirit free and strong. The boy was too much, always. He loved too much; he cared too much; he hurt too much. When he couldn’t take more from the people of his own village he left, hoping there would be happiness looking for him elsewhere. But Destiny knew better.

 Instead of happiness, there was an old dragon; a haunted princess in the tower; and a lost prince, that couldn’t even see she needed saving. The boy meant everyone well, was hopeful and kind. He learned he had great things to do and got everything wrong. He was thinking too short; when he thought he was to bring magic it wasn’t now or even in the future soon; it was at the end of times, again.

He didn’t know many things, this boy of eyes radiant blue, but there were girls freed, sinners in temples, priestess in shadows, bastard sons and porcelain slaves to teach him just enough. The boy grew up but still didn’t understand the lesson well. And the dragon had gone, the princess had haunted herself away and the prince couldn’t save even himself, the boy didn’t understand completely.

Fortunately, he had millennia to change that. But he knew nothing of the broken smile of his king’s killer.

*

The Ground was under a thin layer of snow, catching their feet as they entered the shadow of the mountain. With all the clothes and scarves they had wrapped around them, hands hidden deep in the sleeves, they slowly made their way to the city, hidden somewhere between stones and stunted trees with barks pale. They couldn’t find the gates.

By an accident or destiny’s wish, they were found by a couple of golden-eyed hunters. One glance at Mordred was enough for them to lead both him and Galahad through the rest of the way.

*

Inside the mountain was a tangled web of narrow corridors; intervals between torches were so dark they almost weren’t at all; there were holes in the walls, completely out of order. Closer to the centre – Heart, their guides called it – the ceiling was higher; edges were straighter; torches more abundant. The Heart itself contained few rooms which were surrounded by a bigger hall, where tables were arranged in a circle around the great fire. The Hunters left Mordred and Galahad there, carrying their prey somewhere further. 

“It’s strange here,” Galahad stated. He was still upset that he had had to part with his horse, which, as had been explained to them, wouldn’t have made it through the gates and outer corridors.

“It’s safe.”

*

They were sitting on the bench and growing to think they had been forgotten when a woman approached them, looking like all the other women that had passed by them before, bronze and amber in the duskiness.

“Lady Ninien wants to see you” she spoke, looking at Mordred. The name of Ninien made a few people around them turn their heads in their direction, but soon they returned to their duties, whatever they were. “You alone” she added, when Galahad stood up too.

*

She terrified Mordred on a deep, unexplainable level. White shawls covered her entire figure from the top of her chin to her fingernails with a cloth wrapped around her head, leaving only her nose and mouth visible. And she saw and felt just as much as Mordred did. He felt her nurturing presence picking up his thoughts as she wished, and examining them with a frown.

“You have come a long way,” she said finally.

“There are no other Druid camps between Camelot and here.”

“Have you encountered any patrols?”

She waited for an answer even though she had already seen it.

“Twice. We lied our way out. We saw them riding near a few times more, but they didn’t come up to meet us.”

“Then I guess the King still looks for his stolen ward” she chuckled, what sounded like a hiss of boiling metal.

“Why did you want to see me?” Mordred asked then.

“Because you’re fascinating. I enjoy watching the meanders of your thoughts.”

*

“What was she like, this whole Lady Ninien?” Galahad asked when the candle went down and they were left alone with the sounds of their breaths in their cell.

Mordred didn’t reply for long.

“Intimidating. A seer, perhaps.”

*

“I didn’t ask for you, Galahad of the Perilous Lands” was what Lady Ninien first said to him when he found her sitting in a library – a Room of Scrolls, inhabitants of the mountain named it. “What do you wish to hear from me?”

Galahad stood straight, head proudly raised.

“I think you may tell me, what is my future.”

“Why would I rob you of this secret?”

“Because I have a destiny and I can’t complete what is mine to be completed if I don’t know, what it is.”

Lady Ninien sighed.

“Wrong and wrong, Galahad.”

“Wrong – but – I am a son of a pure maiden and the best of knights, I –surely there is something I am destined to do?”

“Your mother is but a girl with dreams too big and your father, he – he had never been knighted” Lady Ninien spoke, sounding almost kind. “There is nothing to be done by you, there never was.”

Galahad murmured a farewell and left the library in a hurry.

*

Galahad wouldn’t say a word, only play on the lute. Children would sit around him in the Heart, enchanted by these charms that made wood and threads sing so lovely. His eyes low, he would walk past the corridors, now only a boy, always a boy, never a great hero to be. My mother; my father would Mordred hear.  Streams of gold that Galahad’s thoughts used to be would turn into the pale lake, bleak and colourless.

*

Lady Ninien made a rule: every time Mordred visited her, he had the right to ask one question. That’s how she ensured herself an amusement for every day – or were there days passing really, when there was no sun, no moon?

“Why did you tell him that?”

“To not have him following an illusion.”

“Are you a Seer?”

“No.”

“How do you know all you know?”

“I was shown.”

“By whom were you shown?”

“By Destiny.”

“What is destiny?”

“This question is posed wrong.”

At the same time, Mordred felt like someone more skilful than him crafted his thoughts into a creation strange to him. Memories of forests, of fields, of long days spent with laughter were on the backside, when the main threads were attacks, knights and it’s safe (here).

*

“How do I make him feel important again?”

Lady Ninien took her hand away from Mordred’s hair, where she liked to have it so much.

“You tell him he can see the future, when he plays. You tell him he can move people hearts with his little instrument, because what he sings is truth, just not yet.”

*

“How do I make him happy?”

“You make him go, back to his birds and flowers.”

*

“What happens when I leave?”

“You die.”

*

They left during the Rest, when most people of the mountain slept. Mordred knew which holes to walk in and which corridors to choose, he saw the map in the minds of many enough times to learn it by heart. Galahad walked slowly, but on the lake of his thoughts circles appeared, as soon as Mordred let the rock of we’re leaving fall and sink there for good.

Isn’t it safe here? It is. Can’t we be killed on the outside? We can. Won’t we be hungry, wet and tired? We will be, for too many times. Then why are we leaving?– there is nothing to be done by us, we may stay here and die. Yes – but we may as well leave and have so many adventures there will be not enough troubadours to sing them all.

That was how he made Galahad smile again. The sight of clear, blue skies had done the rest.

They were free. They had no destinies, and no one expected them to be great. They chose to be.

*

There was a girl that was never in the centre, but a bit in the shadows. She followed, not led; she supported; she helped. She used to have a friend, a sister, someone she thought she would be with forever, one and another, ‘and’ always between their names. But Destiny knew better.

 It made her friend someone too powerful; it made her a universe. The girl watched how her friend’s dark eyes turned into black holes; how her voice became a symphony of stars; how her dreams made people collapse and turned them on different sides. Her friend meant well; she wanted a new dawn. Instead, the girl got a conflagration that ate her home, her sisters and a half of her face.

The girl walked in clothes and shawls; blind for real; with words of the universe echoing in her ears. She knew everything that was meant to be; she knew everything that meant nothing to Destiny. She hid in the shadows again, under mountains white and high and people hid with her, making her the centre, the Heart. They wrote her words on the scrolls and called them prophecies, they wrote the names of Emrys, Arthur and Morgan le Fay.

The girl hated it; that they drank all her words and spilled them with their ink. When a lost little thing came to her and didn’t listen at all, she loved it; she covered herself with a shadow and observed it; and while it asked her funny stupid questions, she tried to make it forget about anything else. It left.

And all the girl tried to do was save him before what Destiny had for him to do.

*

On twigs of trees with barks pale, very green leafs were weaving. Rain washed the dust and smell of the Heart, sun shined away darkness from their minds. They came down the mountain and they weren’t looking back. Galahad smiled and smiled, remembering how good it felt. When they stood on the fields, green as they always were before, they felt like kings of the world, mighty to do everything they wish. Euphoria blew away everything else.

“Which way do we go?” Mordred asked. Galahad just shrugged.

“I think now all directions are good,” he said, as he pulled out the lute. His music broke free, not tamed by walls, the wind was playing with his uncut hair, and he felt very light.

*

When they lay on the ground somewhere between the stars and flowers, unsure which they were closer to, Galahad asked with closed eyes.

“How long were we there? Winter? A year and a winter? Two years?”

Mordred reached out for him and held his hand for a brief moment.

“It doesn’t matter, we left.”

If Galahad dreamt about it, Mordred would hold him still.

*

If they reached a village by night, they went to the tavern, for there were always taverns to be found. Galahad would sit by the fire that painted him soft orange and gold, and play. The other guests would gather around him, some trying to steal his glance. Some would point at flowers that were lost in his hair - daisies, buttercups or poppies. Some would close their eyes to focus only on his voice. It wouldn’t take him two songs, to get a room, warm dinner and few apples for the road from the innkeeper.

Mordred would be somewhere nearby, not exactly close, and he would watch, listen and be.

*

Sometimes they encountered things strange and marvellous that they thought were dreams on the next day. They stood on the shores of the river and out of what seemed to be nowhere, a shining barge came, a lost creation of some sorcerer’s perhaps, only waiting to be taken into another dream. It was Galahad to take the first step and lead them, but soon they were together, watching in amazement all this beauty that was so vivid outside Camelot’s monstrous laws. What it meant, to forbid sorcery? It was as sensible as to forbid rain to fall. Uther was a shadow of a shadow when they arrived at islands of eternal happiness, where stars and sun shone altogether.

They hunted bizarre beasts and white stags with golden antlers and they let them free as soon as they looked them in the eye; they battled knights in armours red that claimed bridges to be theirs and they told them to go far away and try to plough fields; they were dancing with faeries; they were laughing with gods.

And it was exactly when they forgot to try their hardest, that it became exactly like in the tales.

*

Once, they stayed in the castle, where lived, as people called her, the Princess Unloved. Gossips said that a prince was somehow involved, and dark magic, too. The prince stole the heart of the Princess Unloved and gave her nothing in return. There she was, with eyes wet, sighing all day long.

“I once heard of such a spell,” Mordred said when he and Galahad were on their own. “That could be broken only by true love’s kiss.”

They talked to the Princess’s very own maid, who seemed strangely relieved by what they told her about the spell.

“And I thought Viv – her Highness really loved that idiot of a prince!” she exclaimed. On the next day, princess Vivian was suddenly healed and her maid seemed very pleased with herself.

Mordred thought for a while about wandering into their minds to see if everything was alright, but seeing Her Highness’ smile, he thought he probably shouldn’t.

*

There were adventures darker than this, when they weren’t so sure it wouldn’t be their last time doing something meaningful. When a witch trapped them with a glance of her scarred eye or when there were two, three, four knights not one, all with swords close to their necks, they were nervous, Mordred and Galahad. But one did think with another, two of them tangled into each other, knowing what the other would do, and somehow, somehow there would be a loop in the witch’s mind, perfect to sneak into; there would be a space between the blades, and Galahad had trained all his life, hadn’t he? Then Mordred, when there was really a need to, would finish it for him, quickly shutting down their minds.

“For a while there, I thought it would end really awfully” Galahad would sigh when they were good few miles away.

“Me too,” Mordred would answer.

And then they would walk straight into the sunset, wondering how another adventure would begin.

*

One afternoon, Galahad lay on his stomach, waving his legs and murmuring quietly.

“Your smile is like a golden balloon made of silk. The quicker it fades away, the more precious it is to me.”

Mordred opened one eye.

“That one sounds nice. Your new song?”

The answer came only with Galahad’s thought. Not quite.

*

There were days in summer when they did nothing but catch shadows of one particularly branched tree. There were days in autumn when they were lost on the fairs, with a soft plum in one hand and divination from the old lady claiming to be a true enchantress in another. All divinations never sounded different like this: Your life will be full of adventures. There were days in winter that ended before they began, leaving them in the moonlight, somewhere that was a bit of nowhere. On such days, they found an empty house which was always down to the road and they were close, to warm each other with their own thoughts.

Then, they finally dreamt of meadows.

*

When the moon started to fade away, Galahad still played, something otherworldly sneaking in between his words, raising them higher and gathering in strange ways. He liked to have his eyes closed in such moments, and sometimes he smiled at what he saw. Sometimes he frowned. Sometimes he cried. But Mordred was always there, to hold him.

*

Once Galahad sang, locked between vision and reality. When he finally opened his eyes, they were blue and scared.

“I think it was something important and I can’t remember what the words were” he muttered. “Do you remember how it went?”

“The love that binds us is more important than the power we wield.”

*

Sometimes Mordred would remember the  scared little thing, running through the forest to get away from the ugly world, wishing to became an elm root. What happened to it, he wondered. How came the world was no more ugly, only beautiful, always beautiful.

The answer was between the tones of the lute.

*

There were Beltanes, which were finally theirs, not stolen, not only memorized. They were theirs, felt, breathed and touched. Vibrating air, smiles like fulfilled promises, fires trying to reach the sky, people jumping through the light. Leaves in hair, twigs lost in loose dresses, a flower petal in a cup of vine. One girl between them, thinking in the way young titmice do, thoughts flying quickly to match the rush of blood in her veins. They danced around her, wrapping her in tangles of their own thoughts and letting her wrap them as well. Before it was dawn, they were one; they were the world.

*

It was one of those days that was not winter, not spring, but this strange grey something in between. Rain poured down all day and they arrived to the tavern soaking wet. Galahad went to talk to the innkeeper and Mordred sat on the bench next to a few men, clothed as if the winter was to never pass, with furs and capes and gloves. As Galahad played, they talked in quiet voices.

“Is it sure money?”

“We will be paid well.”

“But the job, I hear, is a little dangerous?”

“Not much more than the others.”

The one sitting the closest to Mordred asked:

“You trust her?”

Laughter answered him, and then:

“Gods old and new forbid, no! Lady Morgana, she is of the Pendragons, after all!”

*

“You must go” Galahad repeated, white and silver in the light of the pale morning. “Why?”

Mordred shook his head.

“I don’t know, I feel like I owe her… for every good thing she had done for me that I was never able to repay… I think she needs me, needs someone.”

A clod of snow fell off the tree next to them. But I need you too. A bird sang.

“Alright,” Galahad sighed. “Just…” One is always alone. “Take care.” Sing sometimes and remember me.

Cool wind blew around them as they stood in an embrace on the dirty back of the tavern.

Remember, how it went?

“We will see each other again,” promised Mordred on his way back to the tavern. “This isn’t the end.”

*

There was a girl more everything than anyone else had ever could been. She was the proudest and the best; what she wanted was only great. She led her friends from the shadows towards the sun. Her sisters chose her for speaking in their mother’s voice; for her one to be the triple.  When she came to the prophet; the ghost of the troubadour on the gods’ service; he told her that time of magic had passed; the lands of myths would soon disappear; her beloved island would fade away into the mist, as soon as the cross stood on the shore of the lake. But she knew better.

 She bargained with gods; she bowed them to her will. They told her destiny said another thing; she became the Destiny. She altered every part of the story, to get her desired ending. Her daughter wasn’t a seductress, but seduced; a mother of many became a sister of a one; a brother of three was an only son, who loved three times too much; ordinary girls were goddesses or her sharp tools; depending on which way she chose for them to go.

All in all her desire was to trap magic itself in the body of a human and make him live forever. She made him; she planned him whole, beginning with the radiant blue eyes and ending with the too-sensitive heart. In the chaos the world became, he was the only straight line. And they could hunt all the dragons down; they could: say that faeries were only a fairy-tale; her beloved creation would live millenniums and be; and when he would finally understand; he would bring magic again; thinking it would end his waiting.

You made them miserable, her shadow of a friends accused her. Destiny didn’t care. Even for broken smiled destroyer of the king.

*

Mordred stayed away from the minds of the hirelings. He tried to remember the ways of Galahad’s thinking, curled one next to another, all happy. It was difficult.

*

He found out the eyes of Emrys didn’t scare him anymore. Maybe because they were now more afraid than his, travelling always to the back of his prince – the King now, Mordred learned. Yes, it would make sense. His thoughts carried now heavier bound.

*

When Morgana spoke, he trembled. Her voices came out of the abyss. Thens were with nows; Arthur was one with Uther and her captor; it was an eternal night  she walked through, not thinking it was possible to find any light.

*

Galahad sang the same songs, in the same way not allowing listeners to steal his glance. The problem was, now there was nothing for him to glance at. Only an empty chair or a threshold with no one standing on it, head cocked on one side and a reflection of Galahad’s own smile in their eyes.

*

On Beltanes, he lived off memories, woven out of his own thoughts  and the thoughts of someone next to him. When crafted well, the past seemed as present as the fire next to him.

*

Yet the world was still full of charms, hidden in the bellflower’s cups. Galahad sang them out of hiding and smiled when they danced around. Pale spirits with rosy cheeks, of fingers sparkling with drops of dew, liked Galahad greatly and sometimes sang with him, a whole day and a whole night. Nightingales were jealous when those songs began.

*

He missed this silence that visited the back of his mind, that held him still when he was slipping away, then, after the time mountains stole from them. But he never tried to look for Mordred in his songs, he could; he could; he could, he was afraid of what he might have seen.

What if there was no good ending for this tale? Did he really want to find out first?

He was always first; he led them onto the shining barges.

*

Dreams came to him, from time to time. A little sigh with a little smile: not much like in tales, they said. The sight of pale blue eyes let Galahad sleep peacefully through the rest of the night.

*

And he travelled across the realms. Tempted by folk of alders’ nonchalant posture, he came when they summoned all those lost beings with the voice of their silver flutes. He played for their Queen, tall and bright, with dress of summer light and eyes emerald - and she smiled.

And he met knights who chased after the endings of their own songs on the horses with sapphire bejewelled bridles; and he saw a white dragon once – but that was a dream; and he slept in the castle that was made of laughter; and he saw the tournaments; he counted the secret glances exchanged by ladies and their beloveds; he talked with madmen; he listened to the blessed and he sang about it all, sometimes even waiting for it to happen first.

*

Mordred saw it all in her mirror-eyes; all the years that had taken away her childhood and trampled it like wilted daisies. Her hurt, her pain, her suffering became his. Kara’s few words opened every wound and made more. Kara’s scream that did not happen when she died shattered him into the pieces.

Remember, how it went?

Mordred couldn’t.

*

When Galahad fell asleep in the home of his host, he slept long enough for their daughters to play with his hair, to tangle all the flowers they could find into it. Usually didn’t realize it, staring somewhere into the future or into the past, anymore just right now. But sometimes a violet fell on the top of his nose. Then all of the world ended and began between his eyes and the purple petals.

*

Mordred fell back into the abyss without a single protest.

“I know where he is,” was all it needed to take.

Maybe that’s all that he was made for.

*

Galahad dreamt of battles, too. Sometimes he wished he could stop the soldiers by putting his hand on their arms and telling them: Don’t. For some reason, it never really worked.

*

Behind Arthur, he could almost see the shadow of something brighter than them all, saying one word:

“Don’t.”

Mordred did it, anyway. With a smile.

*

On the hill, there was something strange lying in the foot of the tree. Galahad came closer and saw a mound made of rocks and a sword lacking one piece. He cried for the dream he never wanted to come true, and put a violet next to the sword, because he always had one with himself as the token of the good old days.

A violet.

Isn’t it lovely?

Yes, it is.

*

Once, on the picnic held in the village Galahad had been passing by, he heard about a troubadour calling herself Greybird that could look into one’s heart and sing out all his worries, leaving nothing but peace. When he came to her – she stayed in the smallest of houses in that village – he found her playing with a villager’s child. She looked at him and there was a sparkle he didn’t recognize in her very grey eyes.

“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

So he told her everything. There was a hand on his shoulder. It made it bearable, almost.

*

Galahad looked at people when he played, now. He listened to the songs of their minds and although they weren’t  familiar to him, he learned to appreciate them, enjoy them, and fall a bit in love. He fell in love with the butterflies of children’s minds, colourful and bright. With roses and swords that could be found among the thoughts of young, with oceans of memories of elders, abutted upon the sand of little moments that were now. He sang for them and they sang for him.

*

And a long, long time ahead, there would be an old man, narrow and silver like a strait of an arrow, who would have hands dancing across the strings, and through his thin skin you would see all of his light blue veins, matching the pallor of little flowers someone had made him a crown of. You would ask him:

“Remember, how it went?”

And he would always remember.

*

There were two boys who had never needed to meet each other to complete what they had to do, but they did and felt completed. They did a lot of things that were unnecessarily wonderful; they lived in their minds, which sounded beautiful together. They had a lot of adventures that Destiny knew nothing about. That was the thing with them – they made great use of every loop. Whenever Destiny didn’t care or forgot; they made it theirs. Every space between points changing life was theirs; every moment between something glorious was glory on its own; everything not mentioned in the ancient prophecies was their secret. Nobody told them to look for beauty in this world; that was their will. It was them who shaped themselves; not Destiny’s play. It was them who held the power in their hands. There were knights better known; there were kings mightier than them; there were sorcerers seeing deeper; but no one had ever been so free.

Together, they lived for each day alone; never counting on something to come.

*

This was how it was supposed to be: Emrys got up, looked upon his King with a silent apology and fought Morgana back. The King was so taken aback; he didn’t say anything when his servant turned out to be a sorcerer. They ran away. Mordred helped Morgana to stand up.

*

This is how it was: Emrys lied, not yet strong enough to fight again. The King looked at Morgana, sure it was the last time he would see her. Morgana raised her hand. Mordred stabbed her in her back, because he remembered what she had forgotten.

Right there, right now, he was free of destinies and such. He remembered how it went.