Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I was six years old when my father married Lady Guinevere of Cornwall, making her the Queen of Camelot. 

The royal wedding was a grand affair, open to everyone in the kingdom, unlike the previous king who had wed his unwilling bride in private. My mother, to the shock of everyone, was one of the few who received a handwritten invitation. It was a peace offering, claimed those few who were sympathetic to us. An olive branch extended from the king to reconcile with his only sister. Of course, few of those people, if any, knew the full truth of the situation. Most of the kingdom believed that Mother was merely angry that Uther had skipped her in the line of succession, despite using his status as her legal father to forcibly wed her to Lord Lot, former king and current Duke of Lothia. That she had a bastard child and fled the Continent nine months after King Arthur's coronation was entirely unrelated. To be otherwise was unthinkable. I was unthinkable. 

Most everyone else called it a foolish mistake, a moment of weakness. He had caved to guilt, they said, and allowed a witch to attend his wedding. Many believed that she not only should have not been invited, but that he should have banished her. Me too, if I was truly not Lot's child. 

Mother called the invitation a trap and forbade me from attending with her. Instead, she attended with her husband and firstborn, as custom demanded, and I remained home in the safety of Avalon's long-standing neutrality with Aunt Junia. It was hard not to feel left out. The wedding was all anyone could talk about for weeks, and I had never seen the king, except in an outdated painting Aunt Junia had shown me to pacify me after Mother left. I spent my early childhood hearing about my father -- that he had taken something from my mother, that he didn't care about me, that he was a coward. I didn't learn who he was until I was five, when my mother sat me down and told me everything. The war, the taking of my grandmother as a trophy, my mother's unwilling wedding, and the coronation, where she met my father. She hadn't known who he was, nor he her. All either of them knew was that their lives had been turned upside-down and they were truly alone. They sought solace in each other that night, when I was conceived, and learned the truth too late. 

Mother ended her tale by telling me that while what they had done was wrong, it was an accident. It wasn’t my fault, she assured as she stroked my hair, and despite everything, I was still Arthur's eldest child. His only child, for he had not been blessed by the Lady with a child since then. Mother said it was divine punishment for rejecting me if he never had another. I was never to speak a word of this to anyone but Aunt Junia and Sir Accolon. One day, I would claim my birthright, but for now, it was unsafe. Lord Merlin would have me killed if he could. 

Once Mother had returned, I knew not to ask about my father. It only ever upset Mother, and besides, I didn't want to hear about a man who turned me away at birth. Mother told me that she had once brought me to see him and to plead for him to recognize me, but he merely turned away in disgust, refusing to look at me. She had humored Aunt Junia's question about the new queen's bouquet, however: forget-me-nots, baby's breath, and evening primrose, which made her scoff for some reason. 

"That's a serious face," Nimue said, poking my cheek. "What are you thinking about?"

I nearly jumped, glancing up from the seashell I had been staring at. "Oh, er… Just stuff."

"Ah, stuff. What stuff could have you so contemplative?" Nimue teased, sitting daintily in the sand next to me. She was always so grown up, even though she was only a few years older than me. Her eyes always danced with secrets that only she knew. "Oh, that's a nice shell."

"The king got married." I handed the shell over to Nimue for her inspection. 

She took it and smiled, running her fingertips along the shiny, smooth side. "Matters of state, then. Seems awfully big for someone so small."

"I'm not that small!" I pouted, though it was hard to argue when Nimue was the one babysitting me. "You're only ten!"

Nimue laughed. "And you are only six. That's barely not a baby. Though you'll be seven soon enough, I suppose, and you'll start your training. Have you given it any more thought? Last time we talked about it, you sounded like you didn't want to go."

I had thought about it, though it hardly made a difference. Mother insisted I had to be trained as a knight and join the Round Table, the king’s circle of confidants and most trusted knights. This would give me the opportunity to claim my birthright, she said. Another reason to hate the king: if I wasn’t his heir, I could stay in Avalon forever and become a priest or a healer. The Continent sounded terrible anyway. Lord Lot was there. Mother never had anything good to say about him. “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“You’ll meet your brother,” Nimue said, handing her the shell back. “I wish I had a brother, but it’s just me and Mother, or Father when I visit him. You’re lucky.”

“I have you. You’re like a sister.” Nimue had been there as long as I could remember. She taught me to find seashells and skip rocks. We spent almost every afternoon together, except for a few weeks every summer when she left to stay with her father in Camelot. It was easy to think of her as a sister. Gareth was a stranger. Sometimes Mother would speak of him, but most of her stories were things he had done as a baby. He was nine now, according to her.

Nimue smiled at me fondly. “That’s sweet of you, but I’ll be leaving soon as well. Tomorrow I take the boat to the Continent and then I’ll stay with Father all of the time.”

“Are Camelot and Lothia close?” I asked hopefully. Once I left Avalon, she would be my only friend on the Continent. 

She shook her head, and my heart sunk. “It’s a few day’s ride."

We were both quiet for a while. I worried that Lord Merlin would turn her against me and then she wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. 

Suddenly, Nimue said, "Mordred, ask me for a prophecy, like you always do.”

”You’ll give me a real one this time?” Nimue was always playing tricks on me. I had to keep my guard up. Last time she "prophesized" that I would get wet, then splashed me with seawater. 

“No tricks,” she said with a grin. “I promise.”

I took a breath and asked, “Will you tell me a prophecy, Nim?”

“We will meet again,” she replied easily. “We will grow up and meet again, you as a squire and me as the Lord Sorcerer’s apprentice.”

”That’s so long,” I protested. 

Nimue ruffled my hair and stood up, brushing the sand off her dress. “It’ll feel like no time has passed at all. Let’s go home. Your mother told me to bring you back before dinner.”

The day I left for the Continent, I cried almost as much as I did when Nimue left. This time, it was a goodbye not just to my childhood playmate, but to everyone I knew. I didn’t know when I would return, though Mother assured me that I would, when I ruled Camelot.

That felt so far off in the future and provided me little comfort, especially once we docked in Tintal. At first, it felt magical. I had heard tales of Tintal, our ancestral home all my life, and it was like being in a fairy tale to skip through the streets. It was so different from Avalon. Everyone wore woolen tunics or pants, with big, broad-brimmed hats. It was busy too, with fishmongers and tradespeople hawking their wares in the street. 

Mother was tense the entire walk, though she remained upright and proud as ever. Lord Bernard Allard, Duke of Tintal, and his wife and children greeted us at the gate, and we were given a tour of the castle, during which Mother made several pointed remarks. She was in a very bad mood that night. 

After dinner, I was sent to play with the other children while Mother and the other adults talked. Very quickly things turned south as I approached the toy chest, taking a small toy dragon, intent on playing with the youngest two, who appeared near my own age. Before I could, the oldest boy, perhaps three or four years older than me, snatched it out of my hands. "Bastards don't touch our toys, and we definitely don't play with them."

It was not the first time I had heard that word. Mother had used it once, when I asked why my father didn't take me in the summers, like Nimue's father did. I was his bastard, an illegitimate child born out of wedlock, though I couldn't have told you why that mattered to anyone. Allard's son was the first to spit it at me with such venom, though he was far from the last. I had never felt hated before. Even my father mostly seemed indifferent toward me. "I only want to play..."

"We don't want to play with you," he said, tossing the toy he'd snatched from me back in the box. "You're a bastard, and your mother's a witch."

His sister glanced between us, uncertain. "I'll play with her Nicol. She seems okay."

"The le Fay's are traitors," Nicol said to his sister, with a surprising gentleness for all his harshness toward me. "They cannot be trusted. Father says they would throw us on the street if they could and take everything we've earned."

Traitors, cannot be trusted, taking what's ours. Accusations that were true of Duke Allard. Mother had said so. He had betrayed my grandmother, caused the fall of Tintal to Camelot during King Uther's war, and stolen my mother's birthright. I cannot tell you what hearing these accusations levied against my family, by the son of the man that had destroyed us, did to me. I felt indignation at the lies, and I blurted out what my mother had said many times to anyone who would listen: "Your father is a traitor and a coward! He rolled over for the king and betrayed Tintal! This isn't your home!"

"Your mother is a-- a whore! No one even wants you here, not even your father! You're some hedge knight's bastard, and everyone knows it!" Nicol's face turned red as his pitch raised. His sister, clung to his leg, half-hiding behind him. "Lady Morgana doesn't even have the-- the decency to admit it. She parades around, trying to pass you off as Lord Lot's trueborn daughter!"

With each slur spoken against my mother, my temper rose. I had lost control of my magic before. It was why Mother made me practice outside, but I had never wanted to hurt someone before. Now the Pendragon fire rose within me, licking at my fingertips, ready to destroy. With both hands, I reached out and shoved Nicol hard. "Shut up!"

It happened so quickly that I barely registered what had happened. A blaze of fire erupted from my hands, Nicol's eyes widening in terror as he tried to throw up his hands to protect himself. The smell of burned flesh and hair filled the nursery. I have never forgotten that smell, nor the way Nicol's howls of pain quieted into sobs. I couldn't see his face. He had covered it with his hands and turned away from me. His siblings watched in horror and shock, until the littlest one, the girl who offered to play with me, wept. I wept too. 

The adults burst into the room, and I ran to my mother, burying my face in her skirts. She knelt immediately, wrapping a protective arm around me. To the duke, she demanded, "What happened? What did your little brats do?"

But Nicol's mother must have seen his face, because she screamed and the room erupted into chaos. 

The younger children tried to explain what happened, their voices overlapping. I could barely make out what they were saying. Someone called for a healer and Mother and the duke began arguing vehemently. The duke raged at mother. "Your little monster tried to kill my son! How dare you accuse my children of wrong-doing!"

Mother grip on me tightened just for a moment, and then she stood. I felt the surge of magic in the air, and the hairs on the back of my neck raised. Lord Bernard screamed as a snake appeared around his neck, threatening to strangle him. Just as he managed to throw it off, it transfigured back into the harmless necklace it had been before. "This castle is not yours, and I will take it back. That is a promise."

She wrapped an arm around me and swept out of the room as I stumbled and tripped out after her. Our luggage was unceremoniously thrown after us, and it was made very clear that we were no longer welcome. 

"I know where we can go," Mother said after a moment. "A place where we will be welcomed."

When I didn't respond, she knelt down in front of me, cupping my face in her hands. "Darling, are you alright? I'm so sorry that boy hurt you. I should never have brought you here to these thieves, and you shouldn't listen to any lies they tell you. They don't know anything."

"Will Nicol be alright?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. The scent of his flesh burning had soaked into my very being. I couldn't stop thinking about it. "I... I didn't mean to hurt him."

It was the first real lie I ever told her. I had meant to hurt Nicol, because his words had hurt me. I just wished I hadn't.

She hesitated. "He'll have a scar, but he'll live. It was well-deserved. You shouldn't feel bad."

Except he hadn't even hit me. He hadn't even tried. I thought about his sister's fear of me. He had been cruel, but she'd been kind. I had repaid her by maiming her brother. 

"Alright," Mother stood and used magic, this time to enchant our luggage to follow us. "This will tire me, but there is no choice. Come along. We've a long way to go."

That was only the beginning of my experiences on the Continent. Things only got worse from there. 

Chapter Text

The smell of burning flesh and hair woke me that morning, and I sat up in my bed, hyperventilating. Finneas nuzzled against my shoulder.

What’s wrong, Mordred? they asked me.

It took all my strength not to push them away from me, for they had been in my dream, which somehow felt prophetic. Me, soaring over a city on dragonback as it burned to ash and rubble, and my father, laying dead in a field, surrounded by the bodies of faceless nights.

“It’s alright, Finn,” I soothed them. “‘Twas just a nightmare. I think Mother has told me one too many bedtime stories.”

Mother did love her stories. She told me how the stones ran red with the blood of her people as Uther’s army cut them down. How he’d beheaded her father to take her mother as his bride. I didn’t know how much of her stories were things she’d seen first hand, and how much was told to her in letters from my grandmother. She told everything with the conviction of one who had seen it herself. I had no reason to doubt her; I trusted Mother, because I loved her and knew she loved me. She would never lie to me — I could hear the truth ringing in her voice.

It was time to get out of bed now. Sir Accolon was a fair mentor, but he still expected me to be prompt and on-time for my squirely duties and my training. Finneas, too, had training this morning, and reluctantly crawled out of bed. They were like a furnace, and I sorely missed their heat on this cold spring morning. There was work to be done, however, as Sir Accolon prepared for the upcoming tourney to held this summer.

“Quit lazing about,” Finneas teased, preparing to fly out my window. Soon they wouldn’t be able to fit through it — they were nearly the size of a horse now. “I’ll see you this afternoon for the obstacle course?”

I smiled weakly. It was no secret that I was far less enthusiastic about my training than Finneas. It wasn’t, after all, something I had chosen for myself. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

My first duty was cleaning Sir Accolon’s armor. Maintaining and cleaning armor was an important part of being a knight, and according to Sir Accolon, it built character and taught squires diligence, perseverance, and some third thing that I forgot. Probably about the value of hard work. Personally, I thought it was good for endurance and leaving me sore the next day.

I tossed Sir Accolon’s chainmail in a barrel of sand and gave it a good roll around the courtyard. It was tempting to roll it down the hill and let gravity do the work for me, but I knew I’d only have to roll it back up the hill later, wherein gravity would become my enemy. Still, the temptation was inviting. Chainmail clean, I moved on to his plate armor, scrubbing with sand and vinegar, then rubbing oil and polish to protect against rust. My arms were sore, even if it was easier to do this than it had been last year.

Sir Accolon enter as I finished my work. “Very good, Mordred. Thank you. I always know my equipment is in good hands with you. Why don’t you take a break for lunch? Then we’ll warm up while we wait for Finneas.”

I sighed. “Alright.”

At least this was one of my light days, with no tutors in the morning or magic lessons in the evening. Sometimes I felt like Mother was using every waking moment preparing me to be queen. Sometimes I wished I wasn’t my father’s daughter, but it was useless thinking as much. What else would I do? It wasn’t like I had something else lined up for my life.

Mother insisted that I would be a good queen, that I would restore justice. I wanted to do that, badly so. If I was a good queen, then everything I had been through, that Mother had been through, that Grandmother had been through, meant something. Then I thought of Nicol, the boy I had scarred. He would be here for the tourney, reminding me of my indiscretion. I shuddered involuntarily. I was a Le Fay, it was true, but I was also a Pendragon. Who was to say I wouldn’t be as awful as my grandfather?

I never voiced these feelings to Mother, or even Finneas. Mother knew what was best for the family, and I didn’t want her to think I didn’t trust her. And what if Finneas believed me and thought I was a monster? Everyone else certainly did. I could feel the way the other squires looked at me. I knew that Mother had conceived me out of wedlock, and worse, with her own half-brother. I knew that both of those things were wrong, but hardly anyone knew the latter and the former, well… There was nuance, wasn’t there. My mother had been unhappy in her marriage to Lord Lot. He was old enough to be her father, he had been friends with the man who killed her father and raped her mother, and she hadn’t wed him by choice. She was only eighteen years of age, and my father barely sixteen. They had never met before. They had found each other, frightened and alone and angry, pacing the halls the night before Father’s coronation. Sometimes I thought about if Gareth and I had never known about one another, if we had met much later, might we have repeated their mistake? I wasn’t something I liked to imagine, but the thought haunted me.

I decided not to find Gareth for lunch today, and instead took my midday meal alone in my room.

There was a soft knock on the door. Reluctantly, I allowed entry, and Mother entered. I had never been able to hide my feelings from her, and she brushed my hair, the same sandy blonde as hers and Father’s, from my eyes. “My sweet girl, what’s wrong?”

“I’m just thinking. I’m alright.” I tried to smile at her, but she just gave me a look that both fond and reproachful.

“Darling, you know better than to try and fool your mother.” Her hand, gentle and soft except for the small callous on her middle finger, remained on my cheek, and I leaned into it.

“I’m nervous about the tourney,” I admitted. “It’s my first one.”

Mother smiled, and lowered her voice, as if to tell me a secret. “I’m nervous, too.”

My eyes widened. Mother was never nervous. She was strong and confident, and she never doubted if she was doing the right thing.

She laughed at my shock. “Yes, Mordred, even I get nervous sometimes. I haven’t hosted such a large event in some time, and I fear I am a little out of practice. And…”

“And what, Mama?” I pressed when she trailed off.

“I fear your father may go behind my back and seek to turn you against me. He is a weak man, Mordred, and he obeys Merlin’s bidding.” Her face darkened at the thought of the court wizard. “Merlin wants you destroyed. Never forget that.”

I swallowed. Merlin had aided Uther in the fall of the Le Fays, and counseled my father against awarding Mother any reparations. I didn’t understand why he hated us, but I had always been a little scared of him. He was like a bogeyman, but he was flash and blood.

Mother’s countenance softened when she saw the fear on my face. She held me tightly. “Oh, darling. Don’t worry. I won’t let him hurt you. Not ever. But we must be careful.”

She stood up then sighed dramatically. “I'm afraid I must go attend to my duties now. I am the duchess, after all.”

I giggled at her exaggerated disappointment. For all that my mother hated her husband, she greatly enjoyed the administrative minutiae of her role. Especially planning parties.

After she left, I glanced at the sky and sighed again, far more genuinely. It was nearly time for afternoon training.

Sir Accolon was lucky I liked him, or I might not have mentioned that his blade was just a touch dull. Not enough that it would seriously affect his performance. Still, I had notice, and he had rewarded my loyalty with an early morning trip to the blacksmith, who of course hated me. I wished I could be like Mother, and draw strength from the whispers and insults, but it just made me feel small.

I was waiting for the blacksmith to finish when a boyish voice greeted me. “Good morning!”

I turned toward a boy about my age, give or take a year. He was a stranger to me, and from his sunny disposition and cheerful voice, I assumed he had no clue who I was.  Very few people had ever greeted me with kindness. Even Gareth had been wary at first, though we had quickly warmed to one another.

“Hello,” I replied cautiously, eyeing the boy. Like me, he was dressed as a squire, though his clothes were slightly disheveled, in the way only a lord’s son could be disheveled. He stood with the easy confidence of someone who was certain of his status. I disliked him immensely for it.

“You’re Mordred, right?” His smile dimmed a fraction at my response, but he took a breath and continued earnestly. “I’ve heard about you! I was hoping to meet you!”

My blood ran cold. He couldn’t mean it in any positive way, even if he pretended otherwise. No one wanted to meet me. Certainly not him. I realized that I recognized his heraldry — House Alistair, practically just one step down from Royalty. The nephew my father claimed, despite a lack of any blood ties. I am ashamed to admit that I hated him for it. “I see.”

Again, he faltered, looking confused by my coldness. “I’m Gawain, son of Sir Kay. And his squire.”

I nodded and turned away, dismissing him the way Lord Lot often did me.

He didn’t take the hint. “I heard you’re a powerful magician.”

I scoffed. My self-esteem wasn’t low enough for flattery to be effective of me.

Before he could respond, a third voice cut in. “Don’t waste your time with her, Gawain. It’s clear she thinks she’s above everyone.”

Another stranger, this one a girl. She was tall, having hit her growth spurt, and I guessed that she would be about the same age as Nimue would be now. But where Nimue had been all warmth and mischief, this girl was cold and serious, with pale blonde hair cut at chin length and icy gray-blue eyes. She wore heraldry that marked her as being in service to the king rather than that of her own house.

“Galahad!” Gawain seemed startled, then guilty.

Galahad, squire and daughter of Sir Lancelot du Lac. The only man who hated Mother and me nearly as much as Merlin did. I couldn’t hold her sharp gaze and dropped my own. I flinched at the soft, barely audible scoff from her. My cheeks flushed — I felt as if I had been judged and found wanting. Her attention moved to her fellow Camelot squire. “Gawain, are those swords sharpened yet?”

Gawain’s eyes fell on two blades that had been sitting there since I had entered the smithy. His cheeks darkened with shamed. “I, er, forgot. Sorry!”

She sighed through her nose, but somehow it felt friendlier than she’d been with me. She grabbed him firmly by the elbow and led him out of the smithy, swords in tow. “Our fathers are waiting.”

Gawain glanced back at you and called, “Bye, Mordred! See you at the feast!”

“I told you to stay away from her!” Galahad hissed under her breath.

Given that the tourney began tomorrow and the feast was tonight, Sir Accolon released me of my squire duties for the afternoon. I was enjoying my time off in the private gardens, searching for snails under rocks when I heard my name.

“Mordred?” The voice was soft and unsure and unfamiliar, but the moment I looked up, I knew who it belonged to.

His sandy blond curls, his light skin and smattering of freckles, his soft green eyes, even the curve of his brow and the shape of his mouth worked like a mirror. A vision of myself from the future. Even if I hadn’t seen an painting of him once, several years ago, even though I had never met him before that day, I would have known him.

“Father?” The word, and years of repressed hope, slipped out before I could stop it. I kept my hands at my sides, not willing to let him see me reach for him like some child. He had never reached back before.

His gaze was wary, as if he hadn’t sought me out and had merely stumbled across me by accident. I would realize later that it had not been an accident, that he had found me in seclusion. I would resent for a time that he had taken control of the situation, that I had not gotten the choice of how or where or if I met my father. Most of all, I resented that my first memory of my father was of him being afraid of me, a girl of ten, kneeling in the garden with a streak of dirt on her cheek.

“You… look just like her.” His voice was soft, almost feathery in quality. He sounded so young and unsure. I could almost believe him a boy only a little older than me, and not the king of Camelot. “I… always wondered who you grew up to be.”

Somehow that stung more than if he had forgotten about me. He had known I was out there, just a few days’ ride away, thought about her, and still stayed away. He couldn’t acknowledge me as his daughter, I understood that, better than Mother ever did. But I was also his niece and Gareth his nephew. There was effort in staying away. Mother was right — Father must hate me.

I had practiced what I would say a million times in the mirror. Angry tirades that lasted at least ten minutes, all of which had fled my mind now that he was standing in front of me. I took a few reluctant steps toward him, afraid that he would back away.

“I waited for you,” I spat, satisfied when he flinched. That was meant to hurt him, but I realized it was true as I said it. I had spent years echoing Mother’s hateful words, swearing that I never wanted to meet the man that had sired and then abandoned me, swearing that Sir Accolon was my real father. Now he was here, and I was so angry with him. If he had never come, I might never had known how much I had missed him. It wasn’t fair. “Why did it take you so long? Why even bother now?”

Against my will, my voice cracked and my eyes welled with tears.

A look of panic crossed his face before his expression turned sad. He looked like a tragic prince out of a fairytales. It did not endear me to him. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not enough, but…”

He held something out and habitually, I took it. It was a small wooden dragon, meticulously carved and painted. It was a toy any child would envy.

“I know I’ve been a poor excuse for a father, but I want to try to do right by you. Mordred…” Regret shined in his eyes, and worse, shame. “I can’t claim you as my own publicly. You understand that… it would not be received well by the kingdom.”

How could I not, when merely being a bastard holds me in contempt? If only Sir Accolon had been my father in truth. I tried to school my face into Lord Lot’s stone-faced demeanor, but my lower lip trembled and the first tear escaped, rolling down my cheek. “I hate you!”

I took off running away from him, crashing straight into my mother. She wrapped her arms around me immediately, letting me cry into her skirts. “What happened? Was it that Solomon girl again?”

“I…”

Something on my face gave me away, because her eyes tightened and she shepherded me outside, pulling chalk from her pocket and casting a spell to give us some privacy. She dusted the chalk off her hands. “There, no one should be able to hear us. Now, tell me everything.”

I sniffled, wiping my eyes. “I met… King Arthur.”

Mother froze. “What? Behind my back?”

“In the garden,” I blurted, then divulged the entire meeting to her. Mother was angry, and only grew angrier, especially when I showed her the figurine. 

"Oh, so he thinks he can buy you off with a toy?" Mother looked wholly unimpressed. "Merlin must have scared him badly this time, and now he wants to win you over with trinkets."

I had suspected as much, but it still hurt to hear the confirmation from Mother. When she noticed my face fall, she frowned. "Darling, pay no mind to that man. He's the one who has missed out on you."

If only it had felt that way.