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Now listen, friends, a tale I weave,
of hearts that hope and hearts that grieve.
For love, though sweet as summer’s wine,
may lift the brave or break the kind.
Through courtly halls and banners’ fold,
the lady’s truth is softly told;
her name was sung through Camelot,
where fate and favor shaped their lot.
Athwynn she was, both fair and wise,
with steady dreams and star-bright eyes.
She served her queen with loyal hand,
the truest heart in all the land.
Yet not in counsel’s hall alone
her worth was weighed, her gift was known;
for she was keeper, chosen bright,
of the hallowed Mirror of the Sight.
By that glass were fortunes read—
the hearts of men, the paths they tread.
And oft the queen, in dusk or storm,
would seek Athwynn’s gentle form,
to ask what shadows yet might fall,
and what light lingered after all.
Upon her table, wrapped in white,
there lay the mirror, old as night.
Its silver thorns in coiling grace,
bore mother-pearl about its face.
It shifted like a breathing sky,
blue into rose, then green gone by.
The light within refused to rest;
each hue a thought, half-formed, half-blessed.
Among the vines, the sapphires gleamed,
deep and calm as twilight dreamed.
But here and there, a ruby burned,
a drop of blood where dawn returned.
And crowning all, the pasque flower shone,
a bloom of silver, pale and lone.
The mark of pain that time refines,
the wisdom patience leaves behind.
She kept one vow for the mirror,
she’d not seek her future clearer.
For whispered once in hall or dream,
was warning soft as candle’s gleam
that those who gaze too oft within
may lose where they themselves begin.
So still she kept her vision true,
and let the world reveal its hue.
When knights rode forth through dust and flame,
and banners cracked in war’s dread name,
she lingered by the garden’s brim,
where moonlight crowned the roses in.
There came a knight by vow and chance,
whose voice could stir the stillest trance.
She saw his fate within her glass,
yet loved him still, though doomed to pass.
Then came the call that none could stay;
the trumpets burned the dawn away.
From hill to plain the banners flew,
and every heart was split in two.
The queen stood still upon the height,
her ladies pale in waning light;
and through the hush, from sky to lea,
fate turned its wheel invisibly.
The day grew long, the light grew thin,
and doubt took root where faith had been.
The wind sighed low through towered stone,
and whispered fears she called her own.
Her heart, a bird in gilded cage,
beat soft against its bars of age.
She paced the floor from wall to wall,
the dusk’s red fingers brushed the hall.
“He rides for honor, not for me,”
she breathed, though none might hear or see.
Yet still within, her thoughts would twine;
a vow unspoken, half divine.
The mirror slept upon the stand,
its light like mist beneath her hand.
She swore to keep its rule unbent,
but faltered with her heart’s intent.
“For his sake only shall I see—
not mine, but what his fate might be.”
Thus reasoned she, though deep inside,
her hope and fear could never hide.
The last light bled along the sill,
and every breath grew sharp and still.
Her trembling hand reached for the white—
the shroud that veiled the Mirror’s sight.
She braced her heart and raised the glass,
and through its depths the visions passed.
She sought his face the glass within,
and saw her knight through battle’s din.
His armor shone, his gaze was flame,
and softly, once, he spoke her name.
Her knight stood locked in brutal strife,
each breath a wager paid with life.
She reached toward him through swirling light,
her voice a tremor sharp with fright,
“What must I do to shift this thread?
Name what may change the doom ahead.”
Within the glass her likeness grew,
lady in robes of silver-blue,
a thorned crown cold upon her hair,
her beauty bright, her heart in snare.
Then sunlight spilled as soft as balm,
and every shadow whispered calm.
Her mirrored hands, with trembling grace,
unbound the crown from off her face.
The mirror’s heart was split in twain,
its crack a gleam, a silver vein.
On one side stood the lady high,
adorned and proud beneath the sky;
the other showed a woman green,
with eyes as clear as springtime’s sheen.
Upon her brow a circlet lay,
the pasque in bloom, alive and gay.
She drew a breath, her pulse alight,
for in that glass she tasted might—
a crown that bent the world to will,
a voice the storm itself grew still.
Yet in her chest another call,
a gentler thread that bound her thrall:
the love she held, the life unplanned,
a simple vow, a mortal hand.
The mirror hummed with siren gleam,
offering fate as though a dream;
to seize the crown was but a breath,
a step that danced with life and death.
She felt its pull, both sweet and grim,
the weight that pressed on soul and limb.
“Is glory worth the heart I keep?”
she whispered near the vision’s deep.
She lingered by the mirror’s gleam,
caught in the drift of half-formed dream.
Two futures tugged her heart in twain
the crown’s still weight, love’s sweeter chain.
The lady robed in silver light
stood stern within the parted sight;
the spring-born maid of gentle air
looked back with quiet, longing care.
Between them swayed her trembling heart,
not knowing yet which road would part.
The mirrored world hummed soft and low,
a river tempted yet to flow.
She touched the glass; it shivered thin,
as though it wanted her to begin.
One vision showed her knight undone,
the other glimmered like a sun.
Not promise, no, nor certain grace,
but something freer taking place.
She sensed a shift she could not name,
a loosened thread, a different claim.
The crown within the glass shone cold,
yet called her still to remain bold;
the blossom gleamed with gentler art,
and tugged the thorns from round her heart.
She stepped away to break the spell,
to choose the life she knew lived well;
yet in her pause, the mirror slid
so slight a slip no will forbid.
It fell like time unspooling fast,
a breath, a gasp, and then it passed.
The silver burst in splintered rain,
a thousand truths released from pain.
And on the floor, through shards like dew,
the pasque flower shone, unbroken, true,
a silent bloom in moonlit grace,
the lone thing saved from shattered fate.
She knelt amid the scattered gleam,
her breath caught tight, her thoughts a stream.
Pale moonlight struck each silver shard,
a fallen sky across the yard.
Her hands, unsteady, found the flower,
the lone thing spared from magic’s power.
She pressed it close against her breast
and fled to where the queen found rest.
Through corridors of hushed despair
she moved like wind through candle air.
At last she reached the chamber bright
where Guinevere kept vigil’s light.
The queen looked up, the bloom between
Athwynn bowed low before her queen.
“My lady… all the Sight is gone.
The glass is broke. The tie undone.”
She held the pasque in trembling hand,
a ghost of what she once could command.
“I feared for him, my heart betrayed.
I sought his path… and thus it frayed.”
Guinevere rose with quiet grace
and cupped the bloom in soft embrace.
“To love,” she said, “is mortal truth;
no heart withstands it, age nor youth.”
“We leaned too long on woven light,
and trusted visions over sight.
The mirror’s fall, though sorrow-spun,
has left us wiser than the sun.”
She placed the bloom on Athwynn’s palm,
a silver weight, both cool and calm.
“Take heart,” she said, “your choice was free;
and freedom is true prophecy.”