Author’s Note: The following vignettes are inspired by the 1998 Merlin miniseries starring Sam Neill.
~
Morgan le Fay had for hours been sealed within the cell of her mind and body; a casing that from its core felt mutilated and torn beyond healing. She, a lithe form composed of bones, skin and thick, clotting blood, was extracting from her wounds and womb another living being such as herself.
She wept against her wishes, and could feel and see the life-force that had once flowed through her veins now pooled around her lower body, coarsely sticking to her hips and thighs. As vapers of steam the midwife’s words penetrated her mind but were ignored for the most part or soon lost.
For how much longer, she wondered, would she continue. How much more could her body withstand before it finally succumbed to a death brought on by new life. She’d endured the pain of labor for hours, witnessing through a window the moon in its eclipse make way for a scarlet sun.
In her bed of soiled sheets, her confidence was siphoned from her along with her blood, and she began to see a black crape sky of stars awaiting her. A coal map folded many times over, unfolded and pricked with pins. Behind it a lamp held by a figure great and unseen passed as if time, igniting constellations.
Frik was beside Morgan, holding her hand, but it hardly seemed to matter. Pain was foremost on her mind. Torment and the desire for its end.
The room was suddenly lit as though by a strike of lightning as Queen Mab came into being, materializing at a distance from Morgan’s feet. Her majestic figure was hunched to closely view matters of interest; her sapphire cloak grasped tightly by glinting hands crossed at her waist. Her eyes narrowed as she looked to the distance, unseeingly. “It’s time,” she uttered.
In a matter of seconds the midwife, who was unaware of any supernatural attendance, announced that she had seen the child; that it was coming.
Persevering, Morgan gathered her strength and will, fighting until she could hear the baby’s cries as it left her body. With the child finally free, she collapsed back into the bed, breathing heavily. Her eyes closed, and she saw trails of blue and gold dusts amid the black expanse. She laughed breathlessly.
“It’s a boy,” the midwife announced, her tone betraying her preference for the sex to which the infant belonged. Morgan was acutely aware of the child’s gender. She’d known it since he had initially been conceived in thought. A maple key cast into the soil of her mind when the visiting gnome had been a stranger to her. Yet, something in her rejoiced upon hearing the reality of the situation.
Her child now lived outside of dreams.
Sweeping downwards, his hair adhering to the perspiration on her face, Frik bent to kiss Morgan’s forehead and cheek. As she raised out from under the cold, ice-like surface of her weakened self, she realized with a sudden wave of shock that she could no longer hear her son.
She discovered as she moved why he had grown silent; Queen Mab had collected him into her arms and was cradling him so closely, and with such relevance, it was as though she herself had just given birth to him. From her eyes there radiated a warmth, and admiration Morgan was unused to seeing associated with the goddess, and she was for a moment stunned into silence.
“He’s beautiful,” Morgan heard Mab say in awe, her voice barely above a whisper.
With one hand supporting the baby’s head and another at his back, Queen Mab raised the boy to the air. “This child’s name is to be Mordred. He will reign as king and restore the Old Ways.” The words were the same as an oath to the earth; the elements, the future. As though in their being said aloud the predictions would with certainty come to fruition. Mab’s coal shadowed eyes were heavily lidded as she regarded the child, revealing that the mistress of magic had herself become enchanted.
“May I have him?” Morgan asked, after some length. She extended her hands, reaching out for the swaddled, silent infant. “My son.”
Mab inhaled sharply, the spell of suspension broken. With features returned to their normal cast, Mab slowly moved to Morgan’s side. Her skirt and cloak rustled with her steps. Her heels clicked against the stone floor.
Queen Mab reluctantly placed the newborn in his mother’s arms, caressing his temple as she eased away. Morgan noticed Mab’s gaze lower as she observed the child; a faint smile spread across her lips. “Raise him well, Morgan le Fay. Do as you have sworn: Instill in him the wisdom of the Old Ways.” She stepped back, folding her arms. “I will be back soon, to visit Mordred.”
With another flash of light, the Queen was gone. In her wake, Morgan brought the baby close, embracing him. She looked to his sweet, tired face and found the beauty that had the same as possessed Mab.
***
The floorboards protested beneath Nimue’s bare feet as she came nearer the exit of her room. Through the door, she could hear the merged voices of the brothers in prayer. Her open window allowed inside the sounds of newly woken birds, waves lapping against the shore of the island, insects and the autumn wind.
Avalon Abbey filled Nimue with serenity and peace. A drowsy sense of being and fulfillment. In it she felt closer to God.
In the absence of comfort provided by the man she loved, she was granted the love of another. Her love for God surpassed that of mortal endearment, that of the flesh and heart. This was a love that never faded. One that was giving and beautiful. Even while knowing such love, she at times felt wanting for what most took for granted. A face free of scars; a life lived with a husband.
Nimue knew Merlin would marry her as she was, her face and body covered with cloth and ruin, and he would move her to the cabin in the forest where he’d been raised. Free from the eyes of strangers, he promised, free from their whispers, but she knew it was all a dream. He was always being taken from her. They would never be alone, not while Merlin had his protege to raise and an enemy in Queen Mab.
For now, Nimue was content to dwell in the abbey, drifting through life. Each day spent in patterns of prayers, the tending of the garden and its herbs; speaking with the sisters and brothers she knew as family. She usually spent evenings alone, eating by herself; reading or viewing the world outside her window.
The land in the distance of Avalon held little promise.
News of the outside world was met with apprehension. Nimue longed to hear word regarding King Arthur and Camelot, as they were tied to Merlin. But at the same time, she feared the possible discovery of another obstruction set in their path.
Sometimes a new soul in need of healing would arrive at the abbey, and she would watch the sisters as they mended the ill. She offered aid when it was needed, and often sat by the person’s side in prayer. They could not ask her name, much less comprehend a story were she to tell one, but she brought wet rags to their temples. She held their hands and whispered to them hymns and prayers that God would hear if they did not.
When they came to wake, Nimue would ask the sisters of their progress but not linger as before. She couldn’t bear the judgment of those who did not know her. Unlike Nimue, the patients would leave the abbey after they were healed, and she would never see them again through any means other than memory.
She found that her memory was now forced to serve her in conjuring the images of all of her loved ones. The war between Vortigern and Uther had taken her father’s life, and in a sense it had taken Merlin’s as well.
They had all, in their way, taken with their descent ties to her being. But the person she held most responsible was another woman.
The same woman who created the source of much of her happiness.
***
Queen Mab passed through the halls of Pendragon Castle. She was to the King’s eyes a procession of shadows, though her presence was unmistakable.
She crept through the darkness to him, a hand ghosting over his back, and he discovered that the air near him was frigid.
A man of strength and determination, Vortigern could not help but feel his resolve weaken, his knees give with the thought of his surrender.
As he turned to face Mab she faded, leaving him to question if he’d been dreaming.
***
Vortigern began to await Mab’s return as evening descended, having imagined her slow progression of the moonlit hall throughout the day. He would move from one candlelit room to another, choosing to walk in darkness when it came time to enter his room.
Weeks passed before she reappeared.
***
Mab would send herself to her palace in the Land of Magic after leaving Vortigern. The king’s blue eyes were last to disappear from her vision as she faded from his home and into her own.
The faerie queen in a warrior’s armor displayed to the king a strength she did not feel the need to show others, just as she gave him the gift of her weakness shelled in metal cuirass. The armor she wore always beneath the skin was now a visible exoskeleton.
Mab saw in Vortigern shards of the same broken mirror that made up a part of herself. Placed in his eye would she not appear? She did not believe she could say the same for herself, for out of her no speck of discarded glass would reveal to the world his face.
She came to him to invite the thoughts that as drops of rain beaded the web connecting them. To perceive them culminating in him, and to take into her palm the solution of that anticipation; making it solid as a shard of quartz. She would then scryer the images that were performed in the theater of his mind and her own. The follies of mortals and elements. The commingling of flesh and dreams.
***
Guinevere knew early on that her fate would be decided for her by others. As a young girl she, like all of her sex and nobility, could the same as foresee her future but not silence the wish for more than it held. Her father would arrange her marriage, and she would be made to comply with his wishes.
Marry for advancement, for power. For the betterment of one’s family. Be content with the life you are blessed with and the union you make as many have in their hearts a great desire for that which you dismiss.
***
When it came time to marry, Guinevere did not find herself in as desolate a situation as she had imagined. For Arthur was a kind and handsome man. His company and conversation enjoyable.
Their life together was chiefly without worry; an amiable friendship that could at times feel as though it had blossomed into something more. She was content, for the most part, aside from an awareness of another side present within the King. Another door made open, through which Arthur was weighted with sadness and regret. In this room of shadow and torment Arthur existed as a shrouded being, begging God and his son for mercy.
When he emerged, it was as his former self, though he remained fixated on redemption. From what heinous sin need he repent, she wondered. She would with subtlety ask him as such, though he never shared with Guinevere the travesties of his past.
She wished that he would feel as though he could trust his wife as no other, save God. But she was, as in other matters, cast aside in favor of a man.
Arthur’s confidant and closest friend was his former tutor, the wizard Merlin. All matters of importance were discussed with him and the circle of Arthur’s closest and most trusted friends; the Knights of the Round Table.
As time progressed, she learned to live within herself; she could escape through such means.
***
The King knew her standing; that she would rather he stay in Camelot and abandon the seemingly impossible quest for the Holy Grail. As king, his land and people required his leadership: his authority and wisdom. She needed him. To proceed on his quest was in her eyes, not only a fool’s errand, but rather arrogant of Arthur, despite his good intentions. But he would not listen to reason.
When Merlin brought to Camelot the King’s champion, Guinevere experienced a rush of exhilaration in seeing him, as if the dreams of her maidenhood hadn’t been lost to her; in Lancelot they could reawaken.
And they did.
Everything in her awoke from the harsh and heavy stagnation through which she’d aimlessly been wading, and she was set on dry land. She recognized passion where before it had only been gestures, movements; all was fire to her now. Fire and whispers in the night. Meetings behind secret doors. Lancelot and Guinevere called to one another wordlessly, as if linked by unknown means.
Guinevere never knew such unrestrained happiness. The days were balmy, and she was almost perpetually at peace.
A shadow pursued her, though, casting all around him a cloud of darkness. As wind across a field, as ripples in water so did he move. The shadow attempted to spread his oblivion to the heights of which she’d risen, but he couldn’t touch her.
She wouldn’t let him. As the sweep of his dark fingers reached for her, she swatted at their claws or disregarded them.
What she had committed was a sin. She knew it. He needn’t inform her. She’d committed it over and over again. But she had finally attained her happiness, after so many years of waiting. No one would take it from her.