in the naked light I saw | teenhood | for cywyllog

[cadcamlan]

He understands where he's going. It's not reassuring, but it's good to know that there's a purpose to his suffering; that his fate is sealed for a purpose, if not exactly as he had wanted it to be. At least knowing made it easier to bear the visions. Made it easier to take control of his mind in the day like Cywyllog had said he could.

Things can go back to normal. He can enjoy this last bit of childhood with someone who won't leave him for knowing his fate. They can relax away from curses and back into stone-skipping, into fort-building.

So he searches the shores for her. He skirts the woods. He wants to laugh with her today, to squeeze her hand and poke her ribs and tug her hair because everything was under control.

She'd be there, right?

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[cywyllog]

She doesn't want to believe it. She won't.

"What if I don't want it to be the truth?"

[cadcamlan]

He can't help being slightly taken aback. His fingers unclench from her skirt, entire body shifting away from her a hair on his heels.

He's used to feeling rejected by everyone else, but she and her sisters had always felt like the exception. There's something entirely nervous about the way he watches her face.

"...why shouldn't you? There's-- an answer to the destruction of the High King."

[cywyllog]

"I don't care about the High King. I care about you." And... well, there might be a few tears streaming down her cheeks now.

"I don't want war and I don't want you in it."

[cadcamlan]

He's not equipped to deal with the sudden surge in his heart her words bring. He's not properly trained what to do when tears spring to a princess' eyes. It sets him off-kilter all over again.

"...but there will be. Not-- now, not soon, but-- there's got to be. Your father won't stand for this forever; half the Britons are inclined to murmur against Arthur already." Tentatively, he leans closer again, not moving to touch. "And when there is, Cywyllog, no fate could keep me from taking up arms on the side of our people. That-- my life will be taken in exchange for taking Arthur's... At least we'll know mine is not wasted in vain. That-- there's a purpose to it."

[cywyllog]

"You're going to die?" Somehow, she'd missed that particular point. There's little else to do at this point but throw her arms around him in a hug. "You can't. It's not fair!"

[cadcamlan]

For all he hadn't been taught particularly well what to do with girls who turned into women, particularly ones a person cared about deeply, and for all the tears and jolts of her emotions were still throwing him off slightly, and as little as he had lived a life full of positive physical contact...

...hugging her came completely naturally. She felt right being pulled in close, cwtched tight against himself with his own face buried slightly against her shoulder. "Not for years yet, Cywyllog. We've-- we've got time. Right... right now."

[cywyllog]

She wasn't even thinking of propriety when she did it; it simply needed to be done. and now that it's happened, she feels oddly safe, calm, as though nothing can harm her.

She leans her head against his. "A few months, yes. We have that."

[cadcamlan]

"Please don't leave." Maybe it's childish to murmur against her shoulder, but it's what bubbles to his lips. "It's not-- enough."

Even visiting her over the space of the years they had left wouldn't be enough. Not when this sort of proximity felt so much more reassuring than anything else in the world.

[cywyllog]

She runs a hand soothingly over his hair.

"I have to. I can't tell my father this and... he wouldn't believe me anyway. You'd just get into trouble."

[cadcamlan]

"What would he believe, then?" There had to be something. She took his word, but surely he could get some other form of proof if it wasn't enough.

[cywyllog]

She sighs against his shoulder, hands clasping at the small of his back. "Other than your visions, what is there? He'd want something tangible."

[cadcamlan]

"Myrddin spoke to me. In my dream. And--" She won't be pleased. He hesitates to finish the thought. The old ways are revered and also feared, are held at an arm's length by so many. "...and I went to the woods."

To seek a lesser enchanter. To ask about curses and fates and speak with the guardians of the old religions that understood magic.

[cywyllog]

"Mordred..." There's a slight chastening in her tone, but mostly there's resignation. His options hadn't been great and she can't really blame him for what he'd done.

"Can they be trusted? What if they're playing some game with you?"

[cadcamlan]

"Then the fate I choose is still to live in pursuit of bringing that man to his knees." Some things, after all, were irrevocably true. Arthur had ruined his life. He was alone without her, without a purpose such as living long enough to reach Camlann.

[cywyllog]

She sits back, taking his face in her hands. "No. No, you can't do that. There's no need for you to fight when you can live."

[cadcamlan]

"And there's need for you to leave me when you could stay?" It's an imperfect metaphor, but he's clinging to it as he lifts his hands to catch her wrists, hold her hands in place. "You'll accept that fate and tell me to reject mine?"

[cywyllog]

"Yes. If I don't go then my father has breached his agreement with Lot. That could start a war in and of itself." Not that she truly thinks herself quite that important and it's likely a bit of an overstatement, but it could happen. "You leaving Arthur be changes nothing."

[cadcamlan]

There's something bitter in his laugh as he shakes his head, forces himself to pull her hands from his face. "If I'm the opponent to slay him, Cywyllog, and I leave him be, who knows how long we'll live under tyranny? What he'll enact because he was not brought to his knees?"

[cywyllog]

She lets him go, unhappily. "Why you? Why does it have to be you?"

[cadcamlan]

"Even if-- it isn't what the gods want from me--" And he absolutely believed it was. He absolutely craved, in his first youthful fit of knowledge, to be part of this glorious end to the story. "--how can I not throw my lot on this side? With your father and those who will stand against the High King? I'm only-- here at all for the fact he destroyed the home into which I was born, took a father and mother from me before I had been a single day alive."

[cywyllog]

Her hands twitch, aching to reach out and hug him again. "I wish you wouldn't. Can we not simply live our lives without all this complication?"

[cadcamlan]

The bitterness bled into his smile a moment before he simply let his shoulders slump in something like exhaustion.

"Not while you're a princess and I'm-- me." Whatever he was. Whoever he was. "I should think that simple would be... deciding never to see each other again."

And he hated that idea.

[cywyllog]

It wouldn't be simple at all and yet she thinks she understands what he means. That doesn't make it any easier to hear. "Do you-- Would that be best?"

[cadcamlan]

"It wouldn't." He knows that. He knows that as deeply as he knows that the explanation of his fate is absolutely the only one that could be possible. "It wouldn't-- be living, to never see you again."

[cywyllog]

She's so relieved to hear him say that she can't help but smile ever so briefly. Then she does reach for his hands again.

"Then what do we do?"