'I want to kill something.'

The whisper does not disturb the silence of the moors. It would barely be audible to a human, in fact.

The cambion shakes his head, realising he is lying to himself - inadvertently, this time. Still, honesty is a better policy than most he has tried. It certainly can't hurt.

'I need to kill someone,' he says, in a harsher whisper, almost a growl. His chest is heaving as he takes deep, unnecessary breaths. It's his human half at work, he knows, a reflex he has not shed yet.

It is still useful, after all. Growing among humans meant imitating their mannerisms, lest he draw bothersome attention. Few, if any of them, are close to a threat to him, but he despises nosy fools.

Like his cousins. That sanctimonious feathered bastard and his pet maggot, forcing him to face the truth of his deeds.

The one they will one day call Merlin rises to his feet. The grass under him smokes and blackens at the touch of the hellfire inside him and the proximity of the dark ichor that flows alongside his blood.

He cannot hate the Halfbreed Halfkin, he knows. Oh, he can, in a literal sense, but he shouldn't. It is not a matter of capability, but of morality, something he has only ever observed from a distance so far.

He will have to study it more. Perhaps he should do that, instead of killing a beast or a person. He can't believe he is even thinking like this, but...

Merlin laughs to himself, feeling none of the usual sadism that usually causes and accompanies the sound, or the rarer genuine pleasure that sometimes does the same.

He is supposed to redeem himself. He knows his cousins would help him if he asked, but that would be pointless. He must better himself, for all he does not think he could teach a dog to bark without using his powers.

* * *

He barely glimpses the woman before she steals his soul with a glance and a smile.

Not literally, though he would not hesitate to give her his spirit, in exchange for the assurance it would please her. His mind, his power, his life, anything. Anything.

Merlin has known lust before, countless times. How could he not? Asmodeus used to be one of his closest uncles, though the Prince of Lust has distanced himself from the cambion since Merlin has become a bleeding heart, in the demon's own words.

It is not merely lust that fills him when he first glimpses the Lady of the Lake, though there is plenty of that. It is on this night that Merlin learns it feels much better when intertwined with love. There is none of that endless, foul hunger he used to feel when aroused in the past. He feels...sated.

What draws him to her is her kindness. She can move between the lakes of what is not yet called Britain without casting any spell. It is her birthright as a daughter of Tellus, sired without a father and let loose on the world as an elemental.

She uses this to alleviate her loneliness. People are attracted and frightened by her in equal measure, between her appearance and her aura. When humans gather enough courage to come forth to her, they most often ask to have the lakes she inhabits filled with fish, a request she answers, smiling meaninglessly. It is not hard for her to do, so she does.

On other occasions, mortals ask for her hand, but she refuses, always refuses. She does not desire a spouse who looks at her with awe or fear, nor one whose heart is only set aflame by her body - for those who come to court her cannot seem to look past that.

She tells herself they are a young species, still learning, still growing.

There are some who seek her for less wholesome purposes, to kill her because she is different, or strange, or so they can eat her corpse and gain her powers. These people, she avoids, hiding under the waters.

Nimue is tall, almost as tall as him, and he's a head taller than most men, even discounting his horns. She is not muscled like he is from battle and the indulgence of demonic urges, and he finds he likes that. He would rather she not exert herself when he can. Her body is white as marble and soft with curves, and - though he knows it is shallow - he is glad she will always be in the flower of womanhood.

Nimue swims to the edge of the lake, propping her elbows up on the rocky shore, not because she cannot move faster, but because she wants him to take in the sight of her.

He does, cheeks glowing black with inner hellflame as he grins down at her, taking a knee on the gravel. Her eyes, entirely a deep blue, twinkle with amusement as she looks up at him, a teasing smile playing across her lips. They are white too, he notes. Is her blood as pale as her flesh?

They do not speak at first, for it is not yet time. Nimue's arcane senses move back down his timeline, and a choked sob escapes her throat as she learns what a monster he used to be. Her milky hand closes around his scarred, clawed one, as she lives through the moments that made him decide to turn his life around.

He lifts her hand to his lips, kissing her knuckles. 'I understand if you are appalled...' he almost calls her his lady, but it is too early for that, if it will ever happen. 'Viviane,' he finishes.

She shakes her head. Her hair, dark as a moonless night and reaching down to her slim waist, moves like waves, and he knows she could destroy him however she wanted right now, entranced as he is. He'd probably thank her.

'I am not,' she replies in a small voice, lips barely seeming to move. 'I understand. I used to be cruel, too.'

'You, cruel?'

'Do not mock, princeling.' She frowns prettily, retracting her hand. 'Do you know how many I watched drown or freeze to death without so much as blinking?'

'Mockery was not my intent, but, if I might ask, what changed?'

She looks aside, brushing a few dark locks out of her eyes. 'A sister of mine used to act much the same in her forests. I am not sure you have walked her lands. She lives on the mainland, to the east, and calls herself the mother of all the woods in that realm. She is as old as them.'

'Ah.' He cups her chin, tracing her lips with a thumb. 'Just like how you are as old as this land's first lake?'

'Exactly.' She nods. 'This sister of mine used to be merely aloof when a child died in her forests. Then, she started eating them. Her heart was not in it last we spoke - it is the result of people believing the woods devour those weak or careless, you understand -, but I somehow doubt they started thinking that way of her domain for no reason. She did something, I'm sure, and now they see monsters in every shadow.'

'And you wish not to be like her.'

'Yes. I do not desire an eternity as bleak as hers is shaping up to be.'

Family. They never let you be yourself, do they? Even when they don't do anything directly.

'Well,' he says, 'I do not know about others, but I, for one, wouldn't mind being devoured by you.'

Her laugh is rich and throaty, rather than crystalline like he expected. He thinks he likes it more this way.

'Are you as old as the first lake that formed after this island split from the continent? Pr when the landmass itself formed?'

She lifts her chin, voice sweetly mocking. 'Wouldn't you like to know?'

He would. Oh, he would gladly forget all the lore he has killed for if it meant understanding her for an instant. In the millennia that have passed since the Fall of Atlantis, she is the first woman not to abandon him upon learning about his past. Fortunately, they are both unique, as far as the other is concerned, so he needn't feel less than enough.

'It would certainly be interesting to learn,' he answers.

She begins slowly moving away from him, then swimming laps around the small lake as she continues to speak. She's teasing him again, he knows. It would amuse her if he stumbled over his words because he was focused on her thighs or behind.

He does not give her the satisfaction. He will have all the time in the world to be distracted later, if he plays his cards right.

'Why does it matter to you?' she asks, now floating on her back, wet hair surrounding her head like an inky halo. 'My age, I mean.'

'I would say it doesn't,' he says, 'if I wanted to lie. The truth is, I like older women.'

She is staring at the stars when she speaks again. 'Indeed? How old?'

'Older than me, at least.'

By the time they start making love - he is under her, Nimue grasping his horns to steady herself, and it is glorious -, he thinks it doesn't really matter how old she is. She certainly has the experience, anyway.

Viviane slaps his shoulder when he says this, making him laugh raucously. 'Pig,' she mutters, trying to scowl but unable to hide her fondness.

'How did you learn all this, anyway? Didn't you say you refuse whoever tries to court you?'

She just smiles, turning away from him with a smirk on her face and a spring in her step, hands clasped behind her. He has to blink twice before he trusts himself not to sound stupid when he opens his mouth, and even longer before he manages to look higher than her rear and full, swaying hips.

'Another mystery, eh?' he grumbles. 'Damn woman.'

Nimue does not look at him when she retorts. 'Maybe I learned from luring smitten fools like you into my lair and having my way with them.'

He scoffs. 'I only wish I could die in your hands, darling.'

'Did you mean at my hands?'

'I know what I said.'

Out of curiosity, he scries his future after they stop. It is hours past noon, though that is impossible to tell from his Lady's cave under the lake, and they are both thankful for their endless stamina. His mind is clear as he peers into the future.

Sadly, there is little to no chance of him dying with his head crushed between Nimue's legs.

'Goddamnit,' Merlin mumbles, dispelling the magic.

* * *

Nimue is speeding through the air, in the form of moisture quickened beyond natural limits by her powers, while a kingdom burns. King Ban lays dying, his lifeblood spattering the dust, just as his realm turns to ashes at the hands of his enemy, Claudas.

Ban and his wife, Elaine, are close to a lake when the King falls, only stopped from cracking his head on the ground by his woman's arms. But Elaine is not strong enough to bear the weight of both her armoured husband and her son, not when grief weighs heavy upon her heart as well.

Lancelot is squealing, hot tears running freely down his cheeks as he clings to his mother. She thought to tie him to her, binding him in place with her own torn clothes, thankfully. Otherwise, he would be fatherless by now, for Elaine could not have stopped her husband's fall with one arm.

The Lady of the Lake smiles sorrowfully at the dying couple. Elaine's wounds are not as grave as Ban's, but they are more numerous. She has only ignored them so far thanks to her need to save her family, but her strength will soon leave her. She will become unable to move and die in a few days, weakened by the hardships of which Lancelot's premature birth was only the first.

The least she can do is save the boy, and make sure his mother knows he is safe. His destiny aside, she cannot simply let him die, alone in the arms of his mother's corpse.

Nimue easily takes the infant from his mother's arms, whispering soothingly, though she knows not whether it's for Elaine's sake, Lancelot's or her own.

Elaine raises disbelieving eyes at the elemental. She is in the autumn of her life, her grey hair turning to white. 'Can you not help us, milady?' the Queen rasps, almost reproachfully.

Viviane shakes her head. 'I am sorry, my dear.' She wished she could, but that is not how the course of the world is to be shaped. 'But fret not. You will be reunited soon, never to be parted again. And your soon will grow up to be a hero! He will never lack for anything.'

Such as enemies, hatred, rage...but Nimue's mind is not on the dark futures she has seen. She wants to do things right.

The Queen's eyes flutter closed as the bone-deep weariness makes itself known. 'Keep him alive,' she urges. 'Whatever happens, keep him alive.'

Nimue vows she will. The child, at first bedazzled by her aura, somehow knows he will never see his mother again, one way or another, for he begins to shriek, eyes welling with bitter tears.

'Hush, darling.' Nimue rocks him, walking into the lake, back to Lancelot's parents. 'I might not be your mother, but I will do my best for you.'

* * *

'It is not only likely to work, it is fated to!' Merlin exclaims, hands tracing the patchwork of maps and manuscripts he has plastered over the walls of this mansion's living rooms, too. He does it whenever she changes houses and he visits a new one, she swears.

It was funny at first, but now, it is just irritating. She has told him as much, to his devastation. Right before they went to bed one night, in fact.

'Do you want to sleep alone, then?' he asked miserably, looking far too ready to cry for someone with eyes of fire.

She rolled her eyes at the question. 'Of course not, silly. No stupid disagreement is going to keep us apart. But could you at least not enchant them so heavily? They're a pain to remove.'

He hugged her as if terrified she was going to leave him, the sweet fool, and she returned the embrace.

Nimue has one hand supporting Lancelot's head and the other under his bottom. The boy is strong, stronger than any mundane baby already, but she'll be damned if she's less than careful with him. Her water dress only covers half her chest at the moment, as she is nursing Lancelot, who clumsily holds onto her with chubby arms.

'You certainly seem to think so,' she says softly, so as not to disturb her son.

He looks at her, eyebrows scrunched together, eyes never moving below her chin. Her figure seems to become invisible to him when she's acting motherly. Nimue finds it somewhat funny.

'I know so,' he says, hands on his hips. 'I've already begun to take measures.'

'Ah, yes. The cuckold method.' It would be bad enough if Uther had simply admitted Merlin had disguised him as Gorlois when he married his rival's widow, but Igraine spent her second marriage in blissful ignorance.

Now they are both dead, and her lover has recently entered their son's dream in the guise of God, to spur him towards seizing the kingship centred around the sword in the stone.

Sometimes, their scheming leaves her tasting ashes.

'Look - Uther's son is going to save the Britons. Who the mother is doesn't ma-' his mouth closes as he notices her expression. 'I mean, his son is going to save the Britons whoever his mother is.'

'You're such a wordsmith,' Nimue says in a saccharine voice.

'Right,' Merlin turns back to his carefully laid out plans (in spirit if not arrangement), wringing his hands. He has noticed Viviane is looking at him the way she does when she thinks her husband in all but name is acting like a fool. He's accustomed to the look.

'Now, I must go, beloved. Kay and Ector are good souls, but they will be unable to teach Arthur all he must know, if he is to rule well. He needs my guidance as well.'

Nimue would joke about his rearing needing a woman's hand as well, but that just reminds her of Morgan, and her eyes darken like a sea in a storm. Such a damned mess. Making Gorlois think the witch was his daughter had been difficult enough after getting him drunk and convincing him he and Igraine had conceived her while he was in his cups - Igraine remembered her husband being sober, drunk on love if anything. It took some effort on Nimue's part, but Gorlois had remained skeptical, despite the various identities she assumed in his court.

It would have been too much to pull it off with a second child, but, perhaps thankfully, he'd died before he could notice anything unusual.

Nimue balances her son, now snoring slightly, on one hip as she walks to her cambion's side. 'Keep him from his sister,' she says in his ear, before kissing his cheek. Nodding absently, Merlin departs in a flash of arcane light.

* * *

"This is all going to end in tears," Merlin told her after Arthur married Guinevere, against his advice. "But then, the lad never listens when he should. It's as if he thinks being a stubborn moron does not matter, as long as you stand by your principles."

"My," Nimue said drolly during dinner. "I wonder who he takes after."

The cambion nodded with a thunderous scowl. "So do I! Clearly, he's been spending time around some mule of an idiot, I just don't know who yet. But I'll find out, mark my words..."

She smiled fondly at him, shaking her head. It was difficult, sometimes, to tell when Merlin was being oblivious or just pretending to for her amusement. Usually, he loathed demeaning himself or looking bad in any way, but he was more than glad to to do anything it took to make her laugh. It was...flattering.

Their Arthur (Merlin may have been his adopted grandfather, essentially, but she'd tried to be more than an advisor and dispenser of artefacts over the years) had married out of political reasons. Without needing to be nudged, he'd determined their growing kingdom needed more manpower well before he met his Ginny and fell in love with her.

It was a tepid sort of love, Arthur's. He was kind and gentle, affectionate, more than able to do his duty as a husband, but camaraderie came much easier to his heart than romance, and lust almost never did by itself. All in all, their new Queen was amazingly patient with her King.

Nimue remembers that night as she makes her way to Guinevere's side. The girl - a grown woman, actually, but Viviane can't help but see that lean, widely-grinning who married Merlin's boy; she thought she could change him through love, the poor thing - is brooding, not that she lets it stop her from running Camelot. Her mood doesn't slow down her handling of the capital's affairs; if anything, it makes her end tasks faster, as if to vent her spite.

Arthur is away on another campaign, cutting a swathe through armies with the sword she forged. Excalibur was no mere chunk of sharpened steel. It was, quite literally, the instrument of victory. It had moved through the ages as everything from a sceptre to a speech, the means by which those who knew right makes might succeeded.

That Arthur had shattered its first sword incarnation in combat did not matter. It had found itself in a new but similar form, unbreakable, just as it found itself in its creator's arms.

"I doubt I could make something like this," Merlin told her after she forged the first sword, which he soon placed in the stone destined for it after. "I'm still surprised you've made it so it ignores antimagic. I didn't know your elemental powers were that great."

"If you helped me improve them, I could better myself instead of having to make tool," she suggested unsubtly.

Merlin refused, like always. "It would serve no purpose, Nimue. If I do what you ask, you'll be able to enhance your power endlessly. One stray thought, with that much might at your fingertips but beyond your control, and you could destroy everything you care for."

"Then teach me!" she asked for the thousandth time. "How am I supposed to handle a power I don't have?"

"Do not worry: I'll fight for you. Your artifice made Logres a realm of peace and plenty. The least I can do is be your champion."

"That is not an answer," she said bitterly. "Brushing me aside because you don't trust me is unlike you."

Merlin looked at her, more sad than hurt. "Nim, believe me, I beg you. If it was safe for me to teach you the power you crave, I would. But I haven't, and for how many thousand years have we known each other? You can't honestly believe I want to keep you down." He walked closer to her, speaking softly, trying to make a joke of it. "Come on. You can't say you don't enjoy the thought of me fighting in your name."

She accepted his hug, despite everything, burying her face into his neck. "That's not the point, idiot," she muttered. Of course he'd rather give her life than let her suffer. She knew. But she didn't need his sacrifice. She needed his wisdom.

Nimue buried her frustrations, feeling Guinevere's pressing against her mind. The Queen is sitting at a desk in one of Arthur's many rooms, where those he delegates to - his grasp of logistics and statesmanship is workmanlike, which is why he surrounds himself with the best in the realm - often put the affairs of the realm in order, while the King keeps it safe and expands its borders.

Guinevere gives no sign of noticing her friend standing behind and above her, but the elemental knows her Queen is aware of her. 'How's it going, Your Highness?' she asks in a small voice. 'Working hard, or hardly working?'

Guinevere makes an unladylike noise, continuing to write. She is holding a pen in either hand, future inventions brought to the present by Merlin. According to herself, Guinevere had thought she was right-handed before her husband had started delegating to her, but necessity had revealed she was ambidextrous.

'You know you don't need to call me that, Nim,' Guinevere says. 'Not in private.'

The Lady smiles, kissing the top of her Queen's head. 'As you wish, Ginny.'

'Sit down, sit down.' Guinevere gestures at the guest seat. 'You know, half the time, I want to kiss Merlin for getting these, much easier to use than quills. The rest of the time, I want to throttle him for making sure I have no excuse not to work.'

She's joking, despite the acid tone. Guinevere enjoys being the capital's steward, making sure the plenty provided to the people does not result in chaos.

'I have to keep convincing Arthur I'm not keeping anyone down.' Guinevere's green eyes flick up when she answers Viviane's unspoken question. 'He wants the wizard to bring everything from the future here, because we can't give Logres anything less than the best.' She runs a hand through her braided, golden hair. 'As I have told him, "and damn the consequences" us not a solution. The stream of time would get muddled if we tried that, not to mention the bafflement. What would a peasant know to do with any of the contraptions there aren't tasks for yet?'

Nimue has to agree. With her and her lover providing everything from victuals to homes and good weather, Logres might be the most prosperous land in the world. But they cannot rush devices from fifteen centuries or more into production, just so the Logrese have new distractions.

Arthur has a good heart, and a good mind for warfare, but generosity can be damaging, sometimes. They have enough time to implement all the changes he dreams of. Merlin predicts that in one, two thousand years, the whole world will either appeal to become part of Logres or fall apart tryinng to deny its people's desire to do so, and the remnants would adhere to Camelot's banner anyway.

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All they have to do is establish the Arthurian method as something viable, desirable. And for that, they need force of arms to pacify Britain, put an end to its countless warlords and monsters, not to mention the foreigners who keep swooping in to take advantage of the chaos expected from this time of changes.

Arthur has already established an inner circle, a group of men chosen by him for their kindness, piety and prowess in battle. They sit at a round table during gatherings, to show no one is above his peers. Guinevere finds it faintly ridiculous. Everyone defers to Arthur most of the time, anyway.

'He once told me,' the Queen says, looking the Lady of the Lake in the eyes while her left hand sketches a house made entirely of what looks like stone. She thinks she has found a replacement for Roman concrete, which will free up the kingdom's mages from having to act as firefighters in case of a city-wide blaze. Currently, almost every commoner lives in a wooden home.

The Queen's other hand is drawing a sewer system, a smaller, village-spanning replica of Camelot's half-finished one. Nimue does not have physiological needs, but she understand enough to pity humans without plumbing, which is how most of the peasantry lives.

She would like to remove their worries with a wave of her hand, but she knows where such paths lead. The Lady does not desire a population of worshipful, slavishly-devoted thralls. It would stunt their spirit, smother it in the crib, and both Merlin and Tellus have expressed their dismay at such a potential fate.

Nimue sits in lady for a time, letting Guinevere use her as a sounding board. She has planned new projects since they last spoke, and has also pondered how best to introduce some of the finished inventions, as well as the wizard's future marvels.

Guinevere has devised a network of bridges and gates movable through the power of steam, for example, an idea she had while perusing Camelot's archives of Roman lore, when she found a mention of a steam-driven engine that was never put to serious work.

'I know I whinge much,' the Queen says at one point, spinning a pen between her fingers while gazing through the window. 'But all the work is good for my heart. It keeps my mind clear.'

Beneath is one of the courtyards most often used for sparring by the Knights of the Round Table, and Viviane does not miss the younger woman's smile at the sight of her Lancelot.

There is more fondness, in that smile, than there should be for her adopted son, Viviane thinks. Guinevere has developed a habit of complaining about her marriage to the Knight who most often serves as her champion, who awkwardly but dutifully listens every time.

Nimue smiles sadly as she reaches across the desk, stroking her friend's cheek. 'Ginny, you know he cares. That he cannot show it properly does not mean he doesn't love.'

'It certainly makes him oafish, though,' the Queen replies, leaning back in her chair. 'You know he what he would be without us? Without you two working wonders and me playing castellan and the Knights helping hunt down menaces? Just another mud-spattered warlord.'

'True enough,' the Lady of the Lake replies. 'But drawing Excalibur was meant to show he was worthy of kingship, not perfect. Of course he needs aids. This is as it should be. Merlin and I raised a man who would lift those beneath him up, notba god-emperor in the making.'

'I am baffled you raised a man this cold when you love each other so much.'

'Oh, my girl...I wish we could share our joy with you, but not all people are the same. Arthur is a man of brotherhood, not romance. I am glad he treats you well, at least.'

'Someone has to be, I suppose,' Guinevere says.

Viviane does not like where this discussion is heading. Might as well nip this on the bud. 'Your Highness,' she says, voice inhumanly flat, 'I understand you are very grateful for my son's friendship. It is good for a woman like you to have a brother from another mother, whom she can share her frustrations with. I am sure it gives you time to think how best to get closer to your husband.'

'Are you threatening me?' Guinevere asks in a voice as blunt as the insinuation that she and the Knight of the Lake remain friends.

Nimue glimpses a glimmer of fear in those emerald eyes, and her insides twist at the sight. 'Of course not,' she promises. 'I don't want you to be scared of me, just as I don't want you to tear your marriage apart.'

Guinevere smirks coldly. 'Are you saying that if Merlin treated you as if you were a chore, you'd just grit your teeth behind a smile.'

'No-'

'No, of course not. Because you could end your entanglement, if you wanted. I suppose the powers weren't enough of a luxury.'

Viviane swallows the first retort that leaps to her lips. Entanglement...?

She begins to speak again, but the Queen has risen from the desk and opened the window, to begin speaking with her knight.

Nimue rises as well, frowning. If Lancelot becomes half as mouthy as his royal friend, he'll soon start telling Arthur how he's failing as a husband. And then...

* * *

Merlin's vision is swimming as his eyes keep trying to rebuild themselves, while his arcane sense is so painfully sharp it hurts.

The thing that scarred him, the monster beyond creation, was not some great beast, by the standards of its home. It was more like a boar, digging up whatever interested it, only to flinch when it discovered the macrocosm had defenders that wouldn't let it be torn apart out of curiosity.

He would heal faster if he focused his magic and demonic powers on his wounds, but the mindset for that keeps slipping out of his grasp, so he lets his passive regeneration work. He'll look like his skin was grafted onto him in pieces for a while, but that's alright.

He was never sought for his looks, even before he adopted thebappearance of a sagely old men with a long beard. His Lady finds it ridiculous, and has told him, in no uncertain terms, that they're never going to do anything while he looks like this.

That is not a problem. The only reason he does not always wear his actual visage, clean-shaven, with shoulder-length white hair tipped with all colours, eyes of white flame and goat-like horns the colour of a bruise, is because every fanatic in the kingdom would come after him in a scatterbrained attempt to end the hellspawn in their midst. Knowledge of his past deeds would only compound the issue; his origin is vile enough.

Not everyone is as understanding as Arthur. Ohh, Arthur...

The bitch got him. No matter how often he and Viviane were sure they'd killed her, the witch returned, to continue their war in the shadows of Logres, whispering poison into the ears of weak mortals.

The damnedest thing is, Merlin knows she's not being resurrected by any of his kin below she has deals with. He knows how to read them, from his time in the Court of Pride. After his father tried to turn him into a breeding stud, draining his powers and will dry while using him to build armies of inbred slaves.

The cambion grimaces, clawed hands pressing onto the cold, spiralling scar over his heart. La Fey took a page from the old monster's book, perhaps not even unknowingly.

Merlin can see the shape of the plan: dispose of the Queen, hiding Guinevere from the kingdom for a while, while taking her place. While he is clashing with nameless monsters and Nimue pursues a quest of her own, she makes her way to the King and his campaigning Knights.

He suspects nothing, she comes to his bedside while he is recovering, and one thing leads to another. Merlin cannot scry what the incestuous rapist plans with her monstrous child, but he knows it will be vile.

He would love nothing more than to rip Morgan's unborn freak out through her cunt, beat her half to death with it and throttle her with her flayed womb. But he knows that would not be the end of her, somehow.

Arthur was more angry than shaken when they spoke, though also disgusted at himself. Merlin isn't sure whether he should be relieved or concerned.

The wizard also used the occasion to remind his son in all but blood that he was a married man, that he should get closer to his wife, who has been weeping angrily at how she was subdued and how her husband was violated.

Arthur is not a subtle man, so Merlin made sure to remind him to watch out for dubious people around his wife, such as her champion.

"Don't be ridiculous, old man," the King told him, furiously sharpening Excalibur as if the sword needed it. "They're just friends. It's plain as day to me, at least, even if everyone else is seeing things. I am glad Lance is there to lift her spirits when I am not."

That would sound like an innuendo from anyone else's mouth, but Merlin is well aware his protege is too dense for wordplay of that sort. He manages to hold his tongue, though, much as he wants to comment.

"Furthermore, Ginny and I might have married out of convenience, but we love each other, and know we love each other. She is a dutiful woman, and I know her: even if she was unhappy with our life, she would not put her whims before her duty to Logres. Why, nowadays she often taken on administrative tasks before I even offer!"

There was pride in Arthur's eyes, and much warmth in his smile, at the mention of his faithful, dutiful wife. Groaning, and glad his wounds let him pass it off as pain, Merlin turned, facing the wall of the cave, one of his many lairs.

"I'm too hurt for that dung," Merlin lied. "Get out."

"I will, but some friendly advice, Mer." Arthur leaned forward on the chair as if about to dispense some heretofore unknown wisdom. Merlin rolls his eyes, wanting to smack him upside the head like he used to when Arthur was young and stupid, not merely stupid. "I see you do not understand women, especially those of other men. I know this is hard to hear, for you are a prideful man with a paramour of millennia, but it is the truth. Be careful the Lady of the Lake does not grow weary of your oafishness and abandon you for another man."

Merlin turned onto his stomach, though he wanted to glare in disbelief at Arthur, and grunted. Getting the message, Arthur left.

This is how Nimue found her cambion, lying on his stomach on a ledge of stone protruding from the rough cave wall. Recognising her presence, Merlin turns around and sits up with a pained smile, for her sake more than that of his optimism. It hardly needs help with how often it's mostly dead.

His Lady is cradling a child in her, and he is reminded of Ban's boy. But though this infant is also fair-skinned and blue-eyed, his hair is blonde. A shade almost as pale as his skin, as if his head is crowned with platinum.

He is beautiful. He is newly-born. And he is more aware of the world than almost any child Merlin has ever seen; only three looked at the world for the first time with such eyes: his King, that mad witch's bastard born of incest, glimpsed in a vision...and the father of the boy in his lover's arms.

This knowledge comes to him unbidden. It is not retrocognition, merely his arcane sense informing him, as if alarmed and rushing to alert him of a threat.

A deep, deep rage fills Merlin's heart, like the hellfire that follows it. 'Don't tell, me,' he rasps, dark ichor dripping down his pale lips. He has assumed his cambion aspect, for her pleasure, though he has kept his sagely glamour over it, to avoid scaring the boy, and the flames in his sockets are crackling. 'Don't tell me he went and sired a child upon her.'

'He is not Guinevere's,' Nimue replied quietly, before explaining, She sits down next to him, wiping his bloodied mouth with a sleeve made of cool water as clear as crystal, all while holding the angelic-looking infant with the other. He is not silent, but awake. Most children would be shrieking at the sight of Merlin's demonic features, but despite seeing clear through his disguise, the baby is smiling thinly.

He looks content. As peaceful as if he were in a cradle, rather than in the presence of an elemental and her cambion paramour. Merlin knows the boy is aware of what he is, though he does not have the words for it, or indeed any in his mind, and that he is not scared. For some reason, this pleases the wizard, though he knows he should feel sorrow. He can feel the hand of destiny resting heavily on one of the boy's little shoulder's, and God's on the other.

Nimue tells him of how her adopted son was violated, just like Arthur was. Not manhandled by a she-monster who forced herself on him, but taken without his true knowledge or consent, in any case.

It was the Fisher King, Pelles, who set up the whole mess. He knew Lancelot and his daughter, a woman named Elaine, just like the Knight's mother, would have a child who would grow up to be the greatest knight in the world, the discoverer of the Holy Grail. The two had known of this prophecy, but they hadn't thought the old cripple would be this reckless. Perhaps, without Morgan striking at their backs from the darkness beyond the kingdom's borders and that within its citizens' souls, and all their other duties, they would have noticed and acted.

The Fisher King had known Lancelot would only sleep with the woman he loves (that the indiscretion he and Guinevere are indulging in has reached such proportions that he thinks they love each other is enough to darken Merlin's visage), so he sought out an enchantress named Brusen, who crafted a ring that would allow his daughter to appear as Guinevere.

Brusen gave Lancelot wine and Elaine the ring, and the addled Knight thought he was making love to his King's wife on the night the boy in Nimue's arms was conceived. Upon recovering, he would have cut her down, if not for her revealing she was bearing their son.

'I am taking him to a great aunt of his,' Viviane says. 'He will be raised in a nunnery, and his soul will be kept pure before he pursues knighthood.'

'Poor little mouse,' Merlin whispers, stroking the boy's short, flaxen hair. 'Having Lancelot as a father and a rapist as a mother?'

'She will say she was helping the prophecy along.'

The cambion scoffs. 'The prophecy we hoped to make true in two, three decades? We would have had time to knock some sense back into Lancelot's head and acquaint him with Pelles' girl, if only the lame bastard wasn't so brash. But there's nothing to do now. He will be the knight who was promised to the world, and...'

* * *

Galahad is tracing the rim of the cauldron he didn't know he was seeking, until scarce moments ago, with a finger. In hindsight, it seems obvious. He knows the lands haven't always been Christian from the beginning. Bedivere's youth as a heathen warrior is proof enough. But even with that fact in mind, and his knowledge of metaphysics, it seems hard to reconcile this symbol of pagan abundance with the Grail he thought he was searching for.

They are not truly different, he knows, any more than water and ice are. They are not even truly separate. But his mind views creation through a Christian lens, and such bemusement is expected when expectations clash against reality.

The Cauldron of Annwn is a worldly thing, and that strange, melancholic pity that often fills Galahad's heart stirs to life. He is glad that people have eaten well in the past, surviving and thriving as they partook of this endless vessel of feasts, but...that, all that seems so petty, when weighed against the considerations of the spirit, and the otherworldly joys and sorrows. A small part of him feels sorry that there once lived people whose horizon of joy could be filled by victuals alone, and that such people still exist. The majority of Logres' population only enjoys life in the kingdom because of the amenities. They do not think, for example, how grand it is for Arthur to accept the virtuous into fold, whatever their past beliefs.

Galahad understands that. He pities ignorance, too. He thinks a harsher knight might feel disgust instead, but truly, that emotion is as alien to him as anger, or hatred. He has never really been able to understand them in the abstract, much less feel them,. He knows that makes him less than a whole man. Perhaps a part of him was stunted during his upbringing. If yes, Galahad is grateful, for it helped sharpen the rest of him into the weapon God needs to cut the world's evil to the quick.

'I am the blade of His sword,' Galahad whispers, crossing himself while making a fist over the cross carved into his breastplate with his other hand. He remade his armour himself, having to decline the advances of a maiden to do so. Mordred informed him, some weeks later and with no small amount of cruel satisfaction, that the girl took her life after bein snubbed by her living fairytale knight.

Galahad wonders whether it might be proper to feel grief, rather than simply grieve through remembrance. Sadness has always been a hollow feeling to him, as empty as anything but faith. In any case, he hopes the girl found her way to the Kingdom of God. Once this quest is done, he will find a way to contact her and make amends.

The thought brings neither anticipation nor dread, for these are matters of men, and Galahad was born to be a legend, even in his own lifetime. It is good, he decides, that he cannot yearn for baser things. He believes it would only sadden him.

His life is good, and he knows it could be even better. His fairy grandmother, as he calls her with no small amount of fondness and a rare, bright smile (he can still feel joy, thank God), who has visited him in his dreams since his boyhood at the houses of worship, has promised him he can also feel love.

Galahad loves Nimue, and has told her as much the handful of times they've met. He loves the old cambion she has entwined her eternity with, and the other Knights, and God. But he knows that, warm as such love feels, it is a tepid thing compared with what some woman might awaken in him some day.

Galahad rises to his feet, no longer squatting before the Grail that isn't. This...is the culmination of his young life. He is not a grown man, in any sense, and he will never be, in many ways. He will never be scared, or angry, or hateful, as other men can be, something they take for granted even as they give their heroes hearts of marble.

He does not begrudge them that. Mankind needs heroes, or else its mind rebels at the uncaring callousness of the cosmos. They need exemplars to look up to and feel safe around, and Galahad was born to be just that. He is for men what Excalibur is for swords, and if all it takes to protect humanity is to lose his, it is a price he will gladly pay.

Briefly, Galahad tries to imagine the lass that might ensnare him in the future. He hopes he will not bore her to death with his piety.

Are the other Knights even close to the area? They are certainly not close to the goal, as he found the Grail, and he has always been well ahead of them besides. He bested his father in a duel during their first meeting, at fifteen, and no one but Gawain at noon could match Lancelot in swordplay. Arthur and his enchanted panoply, or Melion with his wolfish power, did not count.

Arthur himself had called Galahad the greatest knight after he pulled a sword from a stone in a mirror of Excalibur's first unsheathing. He sat on the Siege Perilous and survived, the first and last Knight to do so. Just because the Round Table set out at the same time, it does not mean their chances were equal. Galahad knew from the beginning that, in terms of martial prowess and endurance in the face of temptation, he was the best of them.

Should he be proud? He can only pity his fellow Knights for not having yet achieved his level of mastery. Would his father feel different?

The Knight of the Lake, now. That is a man. Humanity distilled, its noblest qualities and vilest flaws combined. He is not a faithful man, in terms of his vows - for he enables the Queen to cheat on the King, something Galahad would have revealed if he hadn't known things had to proceed at their own pace, lest his hand be forced and end up red with his father's blood - or his affection, for he betrayed Guinevere like she betrayed her husband, when he left to live with Galahad's mother for years, whiling away the days on an island under a false name.

The Queen is not going to forgive Lancelot, in any sense of the word. Her hypocrisy and jealousness are some of the few things that surpass her sense of entitlement. And yet, she is going to call upon him, in a voice shrill with fear, when things will come to a head.

Galahad looks up, eyes narrowed. His steed, bound to a tree in Corbenic's courtyard more out of of habit than necessity, is grazing on a small patch of gras, and Galahad is happy the horse can enjoy the simple pleasures of his existence. Yet, when the chamber is filled by a light with no source, which soon spreads across the castle, Galahad knows his steed does not remain calm because he is content.

His grandfather and his uncle Eliazarr (his mother is dead, and Galahad cannot muster much emotion for this faceless woman he has only ever heard about, who had the gall to scold Guinevere for scolding Lancelot's unfaithfulness, thus driving him into madness) led him to the room of the Grail, but the vessel is only here because he is. Galahad is the key to its lock, or perhaps it is the other way around.

The young Knight's gauntleted hands grasp the rim of the enchanted cauldron and begin to squeeze, as if he is trying to force the vessel into a new shape. It is true enough, in a way. The crimson light bathing the grounds is enough of a sign of what is coming.

Finally, with a hideous groan, the black iron becomes burnished gold, and the cauldron a drinking vessel. The blood of Christ fills it to the brim, freshly-spilled for eternity, and Galahad smiles, content. Now, all there is left is to take it to Sarras, and fulfill his destiny.

* * *

Percival and Bors, his companions in body, if not in spirit - for they would have found the Grail together otherwise, and, though good men, they are not the flawless Knights the vessel was waiting for, nearly all traces of humanity purged from their souls - look upon Galahad with mounting disbelief as he converses with divinity itself, and asks to die at the time of his choosing.

He knows his purpose. He knows he must step further beyond humanity to protect it. So, when, on the way back to Camelot, Joseph of Arimathea appears before him, the rapture fills him with such bliss, he asks to die. Under the eyes of his fellow Knights, angels appear to bear him to the beyond, and there, he is remade, for Galahad, the man, is dead. Only the Perfect Knight remains.

At first, Galahad thinks he is blessed by the Lord, but that is the wrong direction to look at things from. He comes to understand himself, and faith is the core of his being. Of course faithcraft would seem to be in play.

When Galahad's attention returns to the world, it is during the Battle of Camlann. Everything that could go wrong did. The realm, already shaken by the truth of Mordred's conception, begins fraying when Guinevere and Lancelot's affair comes to the light, and the Knight of the Lake kills every brother-in-arms who tries to avenge his King's honour. The two escape, while Arthur, with a heavy heart, rallies his armies to march against them and their supporters.

At the same time, Mordred and his mother are marshalling their forces too. Worse, Nimue, finally driven beyond patience by Merlin's refusals to teach her, has bound him with unbreakable chains, and now rushes to aid her kingdom even as her heart tears herself apart.

Galahad knows there is little the cambion could accomplish if he was in the fullness of his power, for Viviane has learned to push her magic and elemental powers beyond any limit but her imagination and desire. Yet, it will not be enough. Morgan's witchcraft is just as powerful, and she has access to darker forces besides.

Galahad does not march to war alongside the Round Table, for his battle lies elsewhere. In a realm between realms, he comes face to face with the numberless hordes Morgan is attempting to summon. She has promised the turncoats scattered across Logres that they will tear down their King, and in this, she was honest. But she did not tell them they would be the fuel for the flame she would cast at Arthur, the brother who took what she thought was hers through ability, rather than by being the firstborn.

So many betrayed betrayers dead, burning with the agony of their folly. The smoke of their funeral pyres tore open the veil between worlds, and Hell reached through, laughter booming from gaping maws.

Every horned, cloven-hooved beast from man's nightmare is here, and more, of shapes less familiar and undreamed off, slither, crawl and fly at the side of their more humanlike brethren. The Princes of Hell lead their armies, for this is a chance to snuff out the light of the world, and at their sides come Azazel, chained by the Archangel Raphael yet present in every way that matters, and Abaddon, rising from the abyss with a howl.

There is an infinity of demons stretching out before him, and the cruelty of this legion of fiends is as boundless as their ranks. Yet this is not the only danger.

Behind him, Galahad senses the banes of knighthood. One is a towering butcher, clad in blood-drenched plate and wielding a wicked cleaver of a blade. He is the anger that bubbles under so many facades of aloofness, the desire to slaughter indiscriminately when one's honour is challenged. He has claimed many knights, on all sides of the civil war.

The other appears as a tall, voluptuous woman. Her smooth, flawless skin is the colour of ash, and she wears darkness like Nimue wears water. Under a mane of raven hair and eyes like bottomless pools of inky blackness, she bears a full-lipped, amused smile. Her hands are hidden behind her back in a girlish gesture as she sways in place. She is to chivalry what Belial is to hope: why not abandon this oath or sidestep that rule, when it is clearly holding you back from doing your duty? She is indulgence and treachery, and she has touched the minds of many a man in the fractured country.

Galahad prepares to face the fiends at his front and the monsters at his back, but he is not alone. A laugh like wind through the leaves fills his mind evn as it somehow makes itself heard over the din of the endless battlefield, and Galahad allows himself a smile.

Behind him, the Green Knight grins widely behind his helmet, as serene as he was when Gawain lopped off his head. He idly twirls his axe with one hand, then the other, as he faces the monsters he has never had faces to put to, until now.

'Two against infinity,' Bertilak says. 'I pity the fools.'

Galahad does not. He has other things to pity, and will have more yet to brood over, forever.

* * *

The war is ended, and nothing will be the same again. Galahad never sees hair or hide of the Green Knight in his travel, nor does he hear of him. He hopes the strange man has found peace, if he even can. He, though he knows he could not partake in the war upon Earth even as he fought so it could be waged at all, does not think he will ever achieve harmony. Not any joyful variation, at least.

Bedivere, who bore Excalibur back to the Lady of the Lake even as Arthur's dying body was taken to Avalon, has grown half-mad with hatred. He does not merely crave vengeance, he needs it, or, Galahad is sure, he will tear himself apart in rage.

He wants to slaughter Lancelot and Guinevere, but Galahad does not, cannot let him. The banes, returned as spectres and imps of the perverse, urge him to go along with the older Knight, revenge themselves upon the murderers of their dream. He does not listen, nor can he feel the flaws they represent out of his own accord, any more than a boulder might.

Bedivere, after seeing that pleading with Galahad is pointless, sets out to bring the traitors to justice, as he sees it. But the Perfect Knight is there to stop him at every turn, much to his uncomprehending outrage. Guinevere becomes an abbess, vowing to never see Lancelot again as long as he lives, and the Knight of the Lake retires to a monastery, there to try and atone alongside eight of his brethren, such as Ector.

When the former Queen receives word of her once champion coming to visit her, she prays to die, and does, keeping her oath. Lancelot inters her body alongside her husband's, though Galahad knows Bedivere will never acknowledge that. The Knight of the Lake does not live much longer after, and it takes Galahad a long time to deter Bedivere from desecrating his grave.

There are yet quests to set out on, monsters to hunt and slay. In remembrance of the Round Table, an order of Paladins rises, after a few centuries, and Galahad's heart soars to see their deeds.

And then, of course, he realises what he is, and what creation is. He is the first, but he will not be the last. He witnesses a tormented son being brought back from the bring of despair by love, before not only saving all there is, but bettering it. This is the core of Pendragon's dream, and he could not be prouder.

* * *

Merlin reclines in his seat, seeing nothing above but thick black stone, with darker flames crackling beyond it. The deal he struck to bring Mordred back stranded him in Hell, and, after carving out his domain in his closest uncle's circle, he has lost the ability to astrally project into the mundane universe. His love must visit him herself, in person or in spirit.

He notices he is scowling when the Serpent seizes the tips of his mouth and quite literally turns his frown upside down, pouting childishly at the resulting glare.

'Come on, nephew,' Lucifer purrs in a voice that, if he were in his female aspect, Merlin would call coquettish. 'What is not to your liking? You've broken every wretch who tried to break you, and you beloved can grace you with her presence any time.' Lucifer rests an elbow on his throne's armrest as he wraps his other arm around his nephew's shoulder. 'I am not some mad old fool, to keep you apart. It would serve no purpose. I've fallen deeper in love with worse women, so it's not like I don't know how it feels.'

Merlin sighs, but does not otherwise react.

'If it helps, I've also fallen deeper in love with worse men. Not in this aspect, mind.'

'Why would that help?!' Merlin barks. 'Dammit, uncle. If I wanted my ears to bleed, I'd just listen to the rest of the family.' He turns to look at the Prince of Hell. 'Don't try to be charming with me. You might be glib, but I haven't forgotten you would love nothing more than for every human to suffer forever.'

'Yes, and?'

The wizard shakes his head. 'I might have a visitor soon. Viviane, most likely. I do not want you to repulse her with your nonsense. And I expect you will not remain around us once we resume reconciling.'

'I mean, unless you like being watched.'

Lucifer would not blink at the deadpan stare he receives, even if he had eyelids at the moment. 'What? It's an honest concern. There's nothing wrong with a little narcissism.' The Devil hides his smile behind one hand. 'Unless you have confidence issues, of course.'

'I merely hate deviants spying upon us in private moments.'

'God, so do I. Can't even be a voyeur these days without stumbling upon a pack of those.'

Ignoring the last comment, Merlin turns his gaze back to the ceiling. 'I do not have any issues with my confidence, uncle. I trust her, and I've never loved her more deeply.' HIs voice drops. 'Did you know, she expected me to force myself upon her after I was freed?'

Lucifer's gaze darkens, smile fading. 'You, raping Nimue? I can't even imagine you considering that.'

'Of course not. I told her she was being silly and to get into the damn bed, we'd talk there. But she expected it as a sort of retaliation, if you'll believe it. You know, since she thought little of my body when she bound it.'

'That is silly. I am glad you managed to put things in order; truly, I am. I've seen enough lies and intrigue and manipulation that honest love is a breath of fresh air. And, well, you did remain at her beck and call even when she left you a powerless prisoner for fifteen centuries. That's a statement, if I've ever seen one.'

Merlin buries his face into his hands. 'Don't start again...'

'Now, nephew, you're old enough to know there's nothing wrong with enjoying being chained up by your woman. And surely you're not going to pretend all the times you wrestled after the Fall of Camelot were you venting your frustrations.'

'Of damn course not!' the cambion snaps. 'If I ever find myself making love to Viviane for my own sake, I'll have my head checked.' Merlin stands up, beginning to walk towards what passes for the border of Hell. 'Now leave me be, uncle.'

'So moody...what, do you need me to carve up someone you hate?'

'You indulge me so much,' the half-demon says drily.

Lucifer lounges in his seat, shrugging with his hands spread. 'You rid my Court of a brother far too eager to make our family tree resemble the Olympians'. I've got Asmodeus and his cronies for that already. I'd have fed him to them myself, but why tear my family apart when I can make it do the job in my place? You are very obliging when you're angry, by the way.'

'So I have been told...' Merlin mutters, leaving the Circle behind.

At the edge of the Pit, he meets the man he has come to think of as his adopted grandson.

'Galahad? Why are you here?'

The Perfect Knight smiles at Merlin, placing his hands upon his shoulders. 'You were hoping for the Lady, I know. I believe you will be flattered to learn she is spending day and night looking for a way to undo the binding holding you here.'

'Getting rid of Mordred is as good a motivation as any,' Merlin says neutrally.

Galahad chuckles. 'You can see it that way, but I would advise you not to imply she hates him more than she loves you in her presence. Not even she can look radiant while hearing such insinuations.'

Merlin nods. 'You didn't come here for that, though. I'd be concerned if you started taking trips just to make me feel better.'

'Everyone would be. You are very easy to hate, Ambrosius,' Galahad says, smile never faltering. 'You are also right. My grandmother's experiments are proceeding as we speak, but I am not here to tell you what she would during pillow talk. You remember Morgania?'

Merlin's jaws stiffens. La Fey's mockery of a nation. Carved out of the aether by her will alone, populated by her creations, and...isolated. A queendom of people who lacked for nothing, ruled by a goddess-queen who enjoyed worship she did not even need to demand. Merlin knows Morgan has always been a solipsist - as far as he's concerned, the queendom is almost certainly far worse than it appears to scrying attempts, and in any case, Morgan must only be keeping herself for attempting macrocosmic conquest because she knows there are too many powers to oppose her -, so for anything to change in her fiefdom without him noticing is strange. She usually can't help but announce everything she is doing.

'What of it?' the wizard finally asks.

'It might be because Mordred is walking the world once more, but his mother's realm has opened its gates, and waiting to see who will enter, and why.'