This woman scares me. She killed him! He came back form the war, the was waged in her name and honour and laid his heart out to her. He asked her to marry him, and loved her dearly - I could see it in his eyes. He looked at her like Marla from the kitchens looks at that horrendous stable boy of hers. And she drowned him. I understand her not wanting her father, the King, knowing about her… proclivities, and to turn down a noble knight of her father’s court would be foolish. Moreso, an insult, after he fought for her in this war. Still to kill him is... She’d not be the first woman to enter her marital bed impure. It’d only need some cock’s blood and discretion to fake the evidence. And now, visiting his watery grave everyday?! This macabre practice of her’s shakes me to my core. He’d die for her, fighting a war started by her- who on Mindu tries to sleep with a foreign man, a neighbouring king, and then whines when he rejects her? He was fool to call the princess a whore, in the middle of her father’s hall, no less, but still. Sometimes I think the only reason she drags me along is to remind me. Scare me to silence. Gain some perverse joy form my terror too, perhaps. But most importantly, to let me know that this could become my grave too, one day. I can no longer tell in my hands tremble from the winter’s cold, or mine own fear.

“ Let’s go back to to your chambers, my princess. It wouldn’t be wise to risk catching a cold in this weather.”

With a speculative last glance at the lake, the princess turns to leave, towards the castle. I glance once more at the watery depths. Woe, thy name is love. Death, thy angel, pretty. Arthur, thy grave a lake.

~fin~

A little spin/fanfic on Arthurian legend, but i guess all Arthurian legend we know today is fanfic/ vids of the oh Arthurian legend, so idk. At first I wanted to go with either Gwenyvere or Morgana, but in Le mort d’Arthur Morgana is his aunt, and while Gwen is indeed an acolyte for the destruction of Camelot (in Le mort that is) because of her affair with Lancelot, I decided against giving the princess a name. If if it was a prince I’d go with Mordred, but it kind of destroys the premise of “visible purity on the matrimonial bed”. I think I like imagining her name’s Niniane/Nimue and thus putting in perspective that her giving Arthur the sword/ bestowing him with the promise to fulfil a quest she sets, and kind of a mirroring of how she was killed at his court bu Ser Balin, but idk. Any criticism, ideas or advice are welcome, please!