Chapter Text
She was intoxicating. Arthur could feel it in the buzzing beneath his skin whenever she was near. He was tingling, when she approached, and every chance he got he was checking that his cheeks didn't show even a hint of the glorious rosiness hers did.
Her scream — shrill and piercing — had rung out through the trees and turned his blood to ice. It was a matter of moments, Merlin's presence over his shoulder providing warmth enough to allow his heart to pump again, before he was sprinting towards her. The bandits should not have been so close to her, should never have had a chance to lay a hand on her, of that he was utterly certain. That was the first time he saw her, golden and resplendent, and from first glance he was frozen to the spot.
Her eyes were worse than her scream: glacial, inescapable.
The longer he stayed beside her, the more drunk he got. Any heat his body generated — shivering atop his bed that night, staring listlessly at the ceiling — quickly evaporated from his skin, taken captive by the cool night air. He could almost feel her heartbeat on the other side of the wall, could not stand the thought of the impassive structure between them.
Of course, his intentions were completely honourable, as he had told Merlin. That was the truth, of course, hence why he was still in his bed. The tightness with which he held himself there, employing every inch of his will, had nothing to do with that.
It was a millennia long, his silent lie there.
His stillness was rewarded when her voice came floating through the bricks, echoing through the minuscule gaps between them and soaring into the high stony ceiling, as haunting as the moon overhead. A chill came over him as her voice did, though he made no move to cover himself, no effort to warm himself at all. She was singing. It was beautiful.
Her song lilted gently through the air, rising tentatively and sinking back down, until it petered out into the ambience settled on either side of the sound. The whole world seemed a captive audience to her sorrows, the night only starting up again when she was well done. She must have fallen asleep, so it was suitable for Arthur to sleep too.
He woke before the following dawn, attempting to shake his frozen limbs back into some sort of usable state as the sun rose and lit his room. He was grateful for its warmth, especially when Merlin arrived, adding to that gentle heat until he lost his resemblance to a block of ice and became a man once more.
He went riding with her that day. Her hair mimicked the colour of sunlight, as it flowed behind her, cold and radiant golden thread that coiled further and further around him as she led him onwards. He didn't notice when the sun stopped warming him, didn't notice when they'd been under shade for over an hour, didn't notice the forest grow darker, and didn't mind the cool breeze that came with it. The spray from the river only added to the goosebumps slowly forming on his arms, that popped up sharply when the arrow came whizzing close — too close. He had no thoughts beside the ice in his veins, the fury that overcame him and melted all the softness he was growing for her, that was falling on him like snow.
He was going to kill that guard.
Or— what? He would…
She had to be kept safe. None of her words could deter him from returning her to the safety of the castle's thick stone walls that day, none of the strange energy he felt radiating out from the staff when he tried to pick it up either.
He tried not to think about the wolf snarling within him, the foreign images of blood on white, the need to sink his teeth in until the carcass went cold.
He didn't shiver that night. She didn't sing.
Arthur couldn't feel the sunlight the next morning. He didn't stick around for Merlin's heat to thaw him out, but simply smiled like he knew how to and followed her out into the forest. He was in his coat, she was in her dress. There was nothing else between them. They rode far from the castle.
Out there, alone with her, she spoke in words he didn't understand: strings as strange as they were wonderful. He barely had time to falter before her, barely had time to become confused (the silk surface of the water rising over his face).
She was wonderful, wonderful.
He could barely feel her when she touched (his chest bereft of her hand), her hand softly alighting on his arm (her push rendering him paralysed), alone in the forest with her (ice spreading to his soul).
His Sophia, his and his always.
(Sinking; already dead beneath her final command.)
He didn't remember much after that.