(no subject)

[bannion_sight]

As the crimson blaze fades, Kim Ford finds herself standing in the place of her dreaming.

There is no lake of glass here now, nor island rising from still waters, but the soft music of gentle waves yet whispers with the wind through green, green grass here on Glastonbury Tor, which in an earlier time had been called Avalon and whose shores had sheltered a fallen warrior and dying king.

Before the Warstone's light dies utterly she turns, raising her hand toward Stonehenge, so far away. Kim reaches out with the power as she has done before, gathering the other four in and sending them through the crossing, borne on the last wild red light back to Fionavar without her.

And then the ring goes dark on her finger, and the only light on this windy height is that of the thin crescent moon and bright sparks of stars in the night above.

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[most-generous.livejournal.com]

The woman who called him is young, and mortal, and capable of crying for what she must do in the Light's name. She may learn, someday, to close her heart against emotion in the service of the cold white flame. In the meantime...

In the meantime, Arthur (most generous lord of the Island of Britain) gathers the girl up into his arms and lets her cry on his shoulder.

[bannion_sight]

She weeps, held in his strong embrace, and in her grief is yet able to find comfort in the Warrior's compassion.

Eventually, as her tears slow, he steps back. Kim wipes her eyes, and as she does she notes wearily that the ring on her finger has blazed to life once more.

She ignores it for the moment, and looks steadily at him.

"Do you forgive me?"

She has no right to ask, none whatsoever. She knows it, and it doesn't matter.

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

"I have nothing to forgive you for," says Arthur.

I killed the children, Arthur thinks, and then, Never. I never did. But Kim summoned him by the name Childslayer. Arthur remembers giving the order, hearing the messengers come back from Orkney and Cornwall and Rheged to report the job done. Arthur remembers wanting to give the order, imagining what would happen if he had. He cannot evade his guilt or his responsibility, and he certainly cannot blame the woman facing him.

With one part of his memory, Arthur remembers the strictures of his curse. "Are they there yet, the two of them?"

[bannion_sight]

Kim stares at him, thinking, I should have known. I should have realized -- I knew it, I should have, it was there to be seen.

There are two parts to the curse, after all, two things for which expiation is always, always to be made.

For the children and for love.

She swallows, hard.

"... I don't know."

[most-generous.livejournal.com]

"They always are," Arthur answers, and for a moment, before he covers it over, the ache in his voice is audible. Because I had the children killed.

Is it so? He remembers one proud and golden Guinevere, and he remembers another, quieter, darker. He remembers a Lancelot he loved, and another he hardly spoke to.

He also remembers a riddle, a triad, recited by the fireside in all his lives: Three great queens of Arthur: Gwenhwyfar, and Gwenhwyfar, and Gwenhwyfar.

They were both my wife. I loved them both. They both betrayed me.

One will be there, with the third, because I had the children killed.

[bannion_sight]

Her throat has tightened around a hard aching knot, stopping her speech. It doesn't matter, Kim thinks. There's no answer she could give anyway, not to a statement such as that.

Silently, she reaches out with her left hand, taking hold of his-- and then with her last ounce of strength at the end of this all-too-long night, she raises her right hand once more, lifting the ring with its blood-red stone high into the air.

And as she does, the Baelrath blazes alight around them, painting the world in wild crimson fire as Kim Ford crosses between the worlds with Arthur Pendragon, the Warrior Condemned, returning at last to Fionavar--

--and to war.