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| [ Concerning The Wine Which Was Spilt At The Feast Of St Ignatius, And How Arthur Came To Spend A Night In The Wood, And Of The Gift Of The Richest Mantle That Ever Was Seen In That Court] by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) saffronhouseArthur/Guinevere, Arthur/Lancelot. This is a lovely bit of telling, and I really like the Morgan and Arthur relationship in this. The majesty of her presence was like drowning in the ocean. She roared down upon him, nothing like the fat, gentle lions paraded for St. Ignatius day. She was as vast as the sky, an army no battlements would deter, every harm from which a knight's armor could not protect him. Damascus steel. Winter cold. The betrayal of a friend. It was no surprise, but Arthur was overwhelmed all the same.
His sword dropped. "Mercy, Lady." He fell to his knees and covered his head. "Mercy."
The weight on his heart and on his mind increased for appalling, unbearable moments. He was drowning under the wild, salty waves. Then she stepped out of the forest into the moonlit glade and said, "Oh, get up, Arthur. You've been away from the woods too long if you're afraid of me."
Arthur reached for Excalibur and sheathed it as he rose. He could not bring himself to look directly at Morgan yet, so he gazed over her shoulder as he spoke. An owl larger than a lady's lapdog sat on a branch, its huge round eyes blinking slowly in the moonlight. "You know, I thought you were probably around somewhere."
She gave a snort of laughter, but then said with some gentleness, "I'm always around, brother." She moved towards him, walking unhurriedly across the glade. Arthur was still watching the owl instead of Morgan. Then she was gone from his peripheral vision. His breath caught, but he forced himself to blink as slowly as the owl before he turned his head to look for her. | |
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| [ The French Book] by saffronhouseArthur/Morgan, Arthur/Gawain, Arthur/Percival, Arthur/Launcelot. This is atmospheric and authentic. Beautifully written. The Christmas after Arthur removed to Camelot with all his knights and lords and noblemen-at-arms, Mordred was but five, and that was the year the Green Knight came to Arthur's court with a challenge for the king. Sir Gawain, ever jealous for his lord's honor, did accept the challenge in Arthur's stead. He swung a dolorous stroke, but great was the Court's dismay when the green man simply plucked up his own severed head by the hair and solemnly adjured Gawain to come to the Green Chapel in a year's time to receive a return blow.
During the doleful year that followed Arthur and Gawain were never parted, and oft one or the other had tears in his eyes for grief over the coming Christmastide, when Gawain would bare his own fair throat to the Green Knight's axe.
The whole Court and all its estates had sore woe when Gawain left to find the Green Chapel and his own death, but to the wonder of all he returned after the New Year, though many observed he was a different knight now, and he was as melancholy as a once-prideful man who now carried a great shame, and it was said that he never came more to the king's bedchamber. | |
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