Improbable Fiction

Arthurian Fic - "Foreign Languages"

2009-08-16T07:50:16Z

Title: Foreign Languages
Fandom: Arthurian Legend
Characters: Sagramore, Bedwyr, references to sundy others
Word Count: 1,904 wds.
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: For Soujin.

The pain. The pain is worse than any he’s ever known – worse than falling off his horse as a child, worse than getting beaten by the Saxons when he first arrived in Britain, worse than –

Shouting in the distance in a language he cannot understand. Not his own, and not that of Arthur’s court. And a cry, and loud wail that starts in sorrow and ends in rage. More shouts them, of men in fear for their very souls, each cutting short in mid-work until there is silence again.

He had a fit once when he was with Mordred. One moment he felt the rough, sword-calloused hand in his and was looking into the dark eyes that sparkled with the light and fury of the North Sea. Then it was dark, and the hand was beneath his head, and the muffled voice was calling his name over and over through the thick wall of black. A song had drifted over him, wrapping around him and pulling him back from the black and into concerned sea-storm eyes. He remembers that moment now as he listens through the same black wall for more shouts – for his name, or anyone’s name, for a language he can understand. He tries to call, but even to words that rise to his own lips are foreign.

And then the pain, and then the darkness.

Banners lay crumpled beneath the bodies of the men who once carried them. There is no standard that is not stained now with blood. Those who still walk ignore them, ignore the bodies that cover the ground more fully than a snowstorm ever could. One man walks among his dead companions and gathers the token they carried from their wives and sweethearts so he might return them. One man, really no more than a boy, whispers the Latin prayers for the dead and the Gaelic incantations against evil in almost a single breath.

And one man trudges back from the water, soaked in the blood of his brother, his cousin, his dearest friend, his king, and all their enemies beside. His eyes scan the ground and see the faces of the men who even the night before had drunk ale and gambled on the bones with him.

And the one of them who lies as though dead, but still breathes.

*******

There is a voice floating above him, a soft tenor lullabye in a language he does not know. It seems to come closer, lower to him, surround him, until Sagramore realizes that he had been asleep, and now is awake. The sound is another person, somewhere in the room. With all the strength he can will himself, Sagramore opens his eyes.

He is in a crude hut, the wall above his head formed by a solid stone, perhaps the side of a cliff. The planking of the other walls is solid wood, but there is mud daubed in the crevasses in the way of the forest dwelling folk. Somehow the low wooden bed beneath him is padded; his fingertips brush a silky film and make out straw beneath.

Blinking, Sagramore tries to take a deep breath, but his chest is tight. The last fog of darkness clearing, he realizes his ribs are bound tightly. The ache begins to wash over him in a dull throb; not so much a pain as merely a presence in his body. Gingerly, he turns his head to see the rest of the room.

A table and chair, a trunk that looks far to ornately carved to belong in a place like this, bundles of herbs, sacks of grain and ale-barrels, a small fire in the corner, and a man. The man sits in a second chair by the doorway of the hut, the skins pulled back to let in the light and air. His back is to Sagramore, and even so the sunlight is too bright for Sagramore to make him out, so instead he listens to the man’s son. Now he can tell that the man’s voice is rough and the melody falters, as with someone who is unused to song. The words are still foreign, but as the last vestiges of sleep pass away, he begins to remember a song, someone singing through the dark.

Mordred? But even as the faint word escapes, he knows the figure is too tall, too broad-shouldered to be Mordred. The song is wrong too - not one of the sea-songs sung in Mordred’s clear high voice, something in a rougher tone, something of the forest.

But now it stops, and the man turns. Sagramore can’t see his face, not until he stands and pulls the skins back over the door and carries the chair back to the table. He pick the chair up with one hand and tuck it under his arm, and when he turns Sagramore can see why. And then he recognizes the man.

Bedwyr? Without thinking, Sagramore starts to sit up, but a sudden, violent pain shoots through him. He cries out, and in an instant Bedwyr’s hand is under his head, easing him back against the padded bed, speaking to him softly in the language of the song. Welsh, he thinks through the pain, Bedwyr is a Welshman. But why does he not use English, or Latin even, something I can understand. And then, as before, the darkness.

*******

He trades the weight of his armor for the weight of the man and begins to walk - away from the battle, away from the destruction, away from every reminder of how they tried to change the world and failed. He stops as he passes the remains of a camp, makes a sling of a banner and fills it with food and drink to tie against his chest as he walks. The press against his chest, the body against his back reminds him of another time and place, a life before this one. That life ended in blood also, ended with him covered in blood, with a body against his back and another on his chest, walking away from the ruins to bury a past and build a future. He will go now where he went then. He walks, out of another nightmare and into the trees that speak in the language of his birth.

*******

Sagramore can sit up now. He leans against a cushion and lifts his arms again to scrape the knife along his jaw. The hair falls into the bowl of warm water on his lap. He has spent all morning trying to shave himself, but has so stop often. His arms are heavy, hard to hold up, but they no longer hurt when he puts them down, just throb. He refuses to let Bedwyr help when he already has to do everything else.

His broken ribs are almost healed, and the gash in his side is now holding together without the help of stitches. He saw the stitches only once; Bedwyr usually changed his bandages when he was asleep. Or perhaps it wasn’t Bedwyr – the stitches had looked too neat and clean for a one-handed soldier. He didn’t ask, and one day he woke up and they were gone.

Bedwyr and Sagramore do not talk. Bedwyr sings snatches of songs, always in Welsh. Once, Sagramore thought he heard two voices outside the hut, Bedwyr and someone else, but it could have been the trees. The trees talk more than the men do. Sagramore for his part does not need to talk, not yet. He remembers enough without asking questions.

He thinks he talks in his sleep though, in Hungarian. He has dreams about his mother, yelling at her, trying to make her understand about the companions and the Matter and the boy with sea-storm eyes who loved him and betrayed him without ever stopping loving him. He wakes up and the words still hang in the air, so he knows that sometimes he must say them out loud.

One day he looks down and realizes that the silky material that makes the straw into a mattress for him is a knight’s standard. He shifts as much as he can manage to see the design on the azure field – the sight of keys, argent, startles him. The standard is Cai’s. There are dark stains on the blue fabric, and Sagramore realizes they must be blood, his blood and others, maybe even Cai’s own.

He wishes he could weep, but there are no tears.

*******

He wishes he could weep, but there are no tears.

*******

It starts when Sagramore finds he can finally get up out of bed and walk around. He looks Bedwyr in the eye and says, in English, that it isn’t right that Bedwyr is doing all the work and has sleeping on the dirt floor all this time. So, there are two options – either he will take half the work, or Bedwyr will take half the bed. Bedwyr replies, in English, that Sagramore is not well enough to do anything but fuss like a mother hen and that he should sit down before he falls over. That night, Bedwyr crawls in next to him under the rough-woven blanket, and they fall asleep. No one sleeps on the floor again.

*******

It was not like Mordred,
It was not like Mairghread,

nothing would ever be that again,
nothing would ever be that again,

but the language of loss
but the language of loss

and the language of love
but the language of…

were not so different.
were the same to everyone.

*******

“…Un, dou, tri pheth sy'n anodd i mi,
Yw cyfri'r ser pan fo hi'n rhewi,
A doti'n llaw i dwtsh a'r lleard,
A deall meddwl f'annwyl gariad.”

Somewhere in the back of Sagramore’s mind the memory stirs. The faint tenor drifts into the hut from the forest, as faint as it was when it first hovered over the injured man a long time before, a lifetime before.

He leaves the hut and follows the voice through the trees, half-wondering if he is only hearing the trees themselves again, speaking to each other. He finds he is climbing up the hill which make up the stone side of the hut. The trees get thinner the higher he climbs, and the song pulls him nearer. When the trees break, he sees that it is not a hill, but a cliff - one side falls away to the forest and the hut below, the other reaches over the sea. He had not realized they were so close to the sea all this time.

At the very edge of the cliff, is a great pile of stones, a cairn. Bedwyr sits on top with his face turned out to the sea. Sagramore stays at the edge of the trees and listens to the broken melody that the wind carries to him. He closes his eyes.

The song stops, and when Sagramore opens his eye he sees that Bedwyr is looking at him. He goes slowly to the pile of stones but does not touch them. Bedwyr turns away and starts to speak, in English now, I’m terrible, I know, I’m sorry, it’s an old song that she used to sing to our-

Sagramore stops him – Később; értem. And Bedwyr just replies diolch yn fawr.

*******

…and the language of love
…but the language of…

were not so different.
were the same to everyone.

Secondary note: For those of your curious, this is the song Bedwyr is singing. The complete lyrics and an English traslation are on the side.

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"Falling Out of History"

2008-12-28T01:14:42Z

Title: Falling Out of History
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Percy
Rating: PG
Words: 703
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: So they chose the lesser of two evils, and together they rewrote history.
Notes/Warnings: I started this ages ago and finally finished it. Sorry it's so depressing. I'll write something happy next.

Had the world not ended, they probably never would have been as they were. But the world had ended, and they were all that was left of a time that would be forgotten for what it was. So they chose the lesser of two evils, and together they rewrote history.

They stayed in the hut in the woods. Every day they could feel the forest around them growing smaller and smaller as magic was lost from the world. It made them work harder, longer, faster, trying to get it all down before all the magic was called back to other realms and they were left unprotected to face what was left of the world they’d once known.

Bedivere lay on a rug in front of the fire with parchments, pen, and ink. His writing was sloppy, uneven from the shifting paper that he could quite hold down with the stump of his missing hand. He had wanted Percy to be the scribe, but Percy said no, he was better at keeping the little hut together, at least for as long as they had it as a haven. So every day they gathered firewood and harvested vegetables from the small garden, and every night they continued to rewrite the lives of everyone they’d ever known. The forest was feeling especially small tonight, and Bedivere’s writing was more furious than ever.

“What do we say about Lancelot?” he asked Percy. “They’ll never accept that he was just a self-righteous arse who cared only for himself.”

Percy thought for a moment. “Say that he loved the queen more than anything,” he said finally. “It’s easier to accept what he did if they think it was for love. And it’s not completely a lie, it’s just not quite the truth.”

Bedivere wrote a few lines. “And he killed Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth in self-defense, because they were defending the honor of the king after the queen was rescued.”

“That’ll do. Nobody can fault any side for that.”

“How did we get to this, eh? Lance becomes the misunderstood hero. The king is blindly overtrusting. Morgan le Fay is a wicked schemer and Mordred is a born-and-bred villain. I’m wise, you’re innocent…it’s all lies. We can’t tell them this. This isn’t-wasn’t-how it was.”

Percy sat down beside him and looked at the inkstained papers scattered around. “We have to tell them something they’ll understand, or they’ll just forget everything.”

“But is it really better for them to remember a lie than forget the truth?”

Percy kissed him-something less than a lover’s kiss, but more than a brother’s. “Whose truth? How do you know we’re not writing the truth and remembering lies? Write it, and let everyone decide for themselves.”

So they wrote, and they ate and slept, and talked of those who were already gone, and sometimes in the dark they held each other and did not speak at all for fear the other would vanish like everything else which the world so quickly forgot. Around them, the magic diminished, and the forest grew smaller, until one day they awoke and it was gone. Percy stared out the window, seeing nothing but fields where once there had been thick trees. Behind him, the scratching of the quill stopped.

“It’s done,” said Bedivere, and the knights faced one another. With the magic gone, Percy could see the lines in the older man’s skin, and the thinning of his hair, and the scars that covered his face and hand. Bedivere could see the grey creeping into the younger man’s red hair, and the dark circles under his eyes. They were no longer who they had once been.

“I’m going back to Wales,” said Bedivere.

Percy nodded and reached out for the parchments. “I’ll take these North. There may still be some enchantment left there.”

Bedivere sighed. “Clarissant will keep the old ways; give it to her. She will know what to do. We are finished.”

They left the little house and embraced, and when the turned to look back they saw the hut too was gone. With only a parting kiss as a goodbye, they walked away. They had rewritten history together, but even they could not write the future.

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"Losing My Religion"

2008-12-26T22:48:34Z

Title: Losing My Religion
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Sagramore
Rating: PG-13
Words: 454
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Maybe it is real anger, but perhaps it's something else.
Notes/Warnings: Implied nudity/sex, lots of Welsh swearing.

Rarely was Bedivere ever angry, truly angry, no matter how cruel or harsh his words might get. However, Sagramore could see no hint of mercy or laughter hidden in the other man’s eyes now as they stared at each other across the room. The look was animal, enraged.

“You half-breed twll tin,” he said in a slow growl that was far wore than a shout. However he sat and did not move, not toward the mess of clothes on the floor at his feet, not toward the swords lying by the door. He just stared, his fury boiling in the gaze he fixed on Sagramore’s face.

Sagramore leaned against the wall, he arms crossed, his face set in a casual expression. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you-” he started.

“No, you were trying to console yourself over that shinach you can’t stop mooning over and I happened to be there.” All traces of Bedivere’s well-affected courtly accent were gone, overtaken by the wild Welsh burr he strove so carefully to hide in company.

“That’s hardly fair, Bedwyr-”

“Don’t call me that!” he spat. The violence of the words made Sagramore reach reflexively for the sword at his side, which of course, was not there. Clenching and unclenching his fist instead, Sagramore exhaled slowly.

“This had nothing to do with pity or consolation, yours or mine. I like variety.”

“Tired of the sea salt, thought you’d try something more rustic?” said Bedivere bitterly.

“At least admit you enjoyed it?” asked Sagramore.

“Cer i grafu,” replied Bedivere.

Had there been a trace of anything but anger in Bedivere’s eyes, Sagramore would have laughed. Instead, he relaxed as best he could and sank back more against the wall. “Last night you thought it was a good idea.”

“Last night I was so drunk I didn’t know the difference between you and the Virgin Mother.”

“Then pretend it was her, not me.”

“Sacreligious cachgi.”

“Says the one who thinks all religion is a farce.”

“Religion is. God isn’t, whoever he, or she, or they, might be.”

“Maybe it was this.”

The look in Bedivere’s eyes changed. No longer anger, it was something Sagramore had never seen before, and somehow he got the impression it was something he should be far more afraid of than the anger it had replaced.

“Yours maybe. Not mine,” he said very quietly.

Slowly, Sagramore moved past the other man and gathered his clothes from the mess on the floor. He dressed silently, picking up his sword last. He opened the door halfway and started to go when the voice behind him spoke again.

“No. Stay.”

As Sagramore quietly shut the door again, the bells of the distant church began to toll for mass.

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"The Good That Won't Come Out"

2008-10-03T04:15:04Z

Title: The Good That Won't Come Out
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Heliabel
Rating: PG (I'm a pansy...)
Words: 1027
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: He laughed at their naiveté, and he envied their innocence.
Notes/Warnings: It doesn't feel right to me, trying to put these two together, but it kind of works. What do you say?

She looked like her brother, with red-gold hair like autumn leaves and flushed cheeks and rich earth under her nails. She laughed often and smiled always, and made herself inseparable from her brother and Lancelot’s son, forming a strange trio of almost-knights. They called her Heliabel-like a heliotrope, a plant that turns its face to the sun. She was like her brother in that too; they were both children of the sun, of light. Of good.

There was nothing good about him, not anymore. He had long ago traded being good for being right, or being wise, or just being alive. And he had known long ago that he would never see the Grail. He laughed as he watched them all gradually arrive in Camelot-Bors the Elder’s sons, Lot’s sons, Lancelot’s son, Pellinor’s son-these children who believed that they would find that which had been denied to their elders. He laughed at their naiveté, knowing that one by one they would follow him, and their fathers, and sell their goodness for survival and then they too would never see the Grail.

He laughed at their naiveté, and he envied their innocence.

There was supposed to be a tournament in honour of someone or something, and the sooner it could be mounted the better. Hence, he found himself volunteering to withdraw his own name from the competition to serve as judge. When you had already lived through wars, a joust was a mockery. So he stood in the empty lists. A large stack of wooden placards lay on the ground, each one bearing a brightly colored coat of arms. He was pulling out those of the men who had entered, and pairing them together to make the first round. He supposed the job was really beneath him, but it was far preferable to listening to the children they now called knights profess their prowess in the Great Hall.

She came into the lists with a basket on her arm, stopping to look at the placards. She nudged one of them with her foot. “That’s Percy’s,” she said, beaming. “Which’n belongs to you?”

He pointed to one which had been thrown aside carelessly. She studied it for a moment, then said brightly, “I know that one-you’re Sir Bedwyr! Percy’s told me about you. Speaking which, I’d better get this off to him.” And off she went.

It startled him that she called him by his Welsh name, not Bedivere as most everyone else did. Pellinor’s son still called him by both names, just as he himself was sometimes still Peredur; and of course Morgause’s son knew the old ways better than many men twice his age, and called him by his old name. The only other woman who had ever called him Bedwyr was long dead though-another part of the good he no longer had.

The next thought was immediately put out of his mind. No.

He saw her often. The curse of a court during times of peace is that you can never miss anyone, for everyone is there. They do not speak. She laughed and shone and glowed with sunlight as she traipsed though the gardens and fields with her brother and Lancelot’s son in tow. He kept to himself with his drink and Kay’s logic for company.

As everyone continued to get restless, a picnic was proposed of such epic festivity that the whole court would be involved. Grudgingly, he accepted the invitation. Had it come from any mouth but the Queen’s, he would have said no, even the King he could have refused, but he could not refuse the Queen. So he went, nestling himself in the shade of a grove of trees to watch the others run about the sunlit meadow in the distance.

“Who’re you hiding from?” she asked as she plopped herself next to him. Her bright hair seemed to pull the sunlight into the grove with her.

“No one,” he replied.

“Then what’re you doin’ all the way over here? There’s lots a fun going on down by the stream-Galahad’s trying to find me a bouquet of waterflowers, an’ Percy and Gaheris and Gareth are swimmin’. You should come with us.”

“I’m not much of a swimmer anymore, and I couldn’t pick a good bunch of flowers even when I had two hands.”

“You’re just makin’ excuses.” He didn’t look at her as she leaned in close to him. “Somethin’s botherin’ you. You’re as bad as Percy, tryin’ to hide it even when everybody knows it.”

“It’s nothing anyone else needs to be bothered with. Especially not all of you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sighed. “None of you have seen or known things like I have. I’m old enough to have fathered every one of you-very well might have, some of you whose mothers I’ve met. You’re all still fools, young and innocent. You believe that someday you can find the Grail, and slay the monsters, and rescue the helpless. I don’t believe in a Grail anymore, I leave the helpless to die, and I’ve become one of the monsters. I’ve got no good left in me. You all should not be corrupting yourselves with that.”

They both sat still, listening to the far distant sounds of splashing and laughter. After a time, she spoke. “You’re wrong. It’s not good you’re thinkin’ of. The good never leaves a person, even if it hides and you think it did. We’re not more good, just more…happy.”

The sunlight and the shadows merged together in a blur of warmth. Although it was June, her hair covered the ground like a carpet of autumn leaves. He got dirt under his fingernails, dirt that he would probably never be able to get out, nor want to. They were close, so close, their lips almost touching, his curls brushing her forehead when he stopped, frozen. No.

She ran back into the meadow, shouting merrily to Lancelot’s son who was trudging through the water toward the bank with an armful of waterflowers. The sunlight shone on her; it belonged to her, and she to it.

But now he followed, his face turned to the long-forgotten sun.

Soujin Birthday Fic!

2008-06-04T20:55:30Z

Title: Untitled.
Fandom: Arthurian Legend (Catechism-'verse)
Characters: Mordred, Bedivere, Zara
Word Count: 2,649 wds.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: An untitled (and incredibly late) birthday fic for Miss Soujin! ^___^ I borrowed her fantastic Catechism canon, because the idea ate my brain, but I promise I'll put all the characters back in their rightful boxes when I'm done.

When Mordred got home he went through the mail on the table. Mostly bills, a couple of Gareth’s catalogues, and a postcard addressed to him. It was one of those cheesy, touristy postcards with a scenic shot of the ocean and a green cliff full of sheep. Emblazoned across the bottom of the picture was “Croeso i Cymru!” which even Mordred’s rudimentary memory of the language could parse out as “Welcome to Wales!” He flipped it over to read the back. It was covered in a rough but familiar handwriting:

Letting our friends know we’ve moved.
And by friends, I mean you and Kay, since you two are the only ones’ve found us.
Come out and visit sometime, bring the family.
Florida’s not that far from Pennsylvania; least, not as far as Wales is.

It was followed by an address. The card was signed in red ink, a horizontal line with three parallel lines coming down from it, like a sideways E. A red gonfanon. Mordred rolled his eyes and stashed the postcard in the drawer with his passport.

*******

Mordred had the shade his eyes with his hand as he emerged from the Miami-Dade Airport. Damn sunshine, he thought. Hoisting his black duffle in his other hand he scanned the circle of cars waiting to pick-up passengers.

His eyes finally came to rest on a blindingly red Ferrari, top down. The curly-haired man leaning against it had his arms crossed, hiding his hands. Sunglasses hid his eyes and a Bluetooth was clipped to his ear, just like almost every other man in the airport. However, the smirk slowly creeping onto the man’s face was unmistakeable. Mordred made his way over.

“Subtle,” he said, indicating the car.

“Always,” said Bedivere. He took the duffle and tossed it into the back seat. “Just you?”

“Gaheris might fly down in a week or so to join us. I came as soon as school let out for the summer, before they could rope me into a summer lecture series.” Mordred slid into the passenger’s seat as Bedivere started the car. They sped off with a roar.

“So tell me, how does a suicidal drunkard from Wales afford an oceanside house and a Ferrari in Miami?” asked Mordred.

“Ancient Welsh secret known as the stock market,” replied Bedivere. “After a few crashes and cashes, I decided I should do something with my profits. I never really saw myself as a sheep farmer, even back in the day.”

“And your girlfriend?”

“Said she’d move to Miami when I sobered up.”

Mordred snorted. “You’re kidding me.”

Bedivere zipped in and out of the surrounding traffic. “You want to see my damn AA badge? After thirty days we moved, and I’ve barely touched the stuff since.”

“Barely?”

Bedivere ignored him. “I bought a club downtown, and she’s got a boutique full of overpriced handkerchiefs that the tourists like to wear as dresses. Seems to be working well enough. And the house is perfect.”

*******

Almost as soon as they pulled up in front of the house, Bedivere’s cell phone rang. He pulled halfway up the drive, honked, and clicked the button of his headset. “Buddy Dryden speaking,” he said. As he listened to the caller, Mordred watched the house. Shortly, Bedivere’s girlfriend appeared. She was still as skinny and scowly as Mordred remembered from the day they’d met in Wales. Now her hair was twisted into a knot on the back of her head though, and her oversized black sweater and blue jeans looked new. She came down the driveway and leaned in Bedivere’s door, eyes darting back any forth between them.

“Right, sure. Just wait there.” Bedivere clicked the headset again. “I have to run over to the club. Love, you can get Mordred settled in, right?”

“Fine, but don’t be late for dinner.” she said. Bedivere gave her a quick kiss, and Mordred climbed out and grabbed his bag from the backseat just barely before Bedivere sped backward down the driveway and zipped off.

“Nice to see he hasn’t changed,” commented Mordred. “It’s Laura, isn’t it?”

She glared at him. “C’mon inside. There’s iced tea if y’re thirsty.” Without another word, she returned to the house. Mordred followed.

Inside she grabbed his duffle without a word and chucked it unceremoniously into a doorway which he presumed was the guest room. Past that was a bathroom, then a large room full of dress forms and shelves of fabric, before reaching the large kitchen and den. Huge glass doors led to a deck which looked over the ocean, a strange facsimile of the Welsh cliffs.

Laura poured him a tall glass of tea, full of ice. “Sit.” He took a barstool at the counter. She stood on the other side, resting her chin in her hands as she leaned on the counter.

“So,” he said after a long drink. “Bedwyr seems to have adapted pretty well. How do you like Miami?”

“Damn hot,” she said. “An’ the people are stupider than he is after too many drinks.”

“You could always have stayed in Wales,” Mordred offered.

The look she gave him could have lit a fire. “I said they ‘re stupid. I ‘ent.”

*******

The club, called Firedrake, had just opened in time for the summer run. Bedivere took Mordred on a tour in the morning, before the place opened. Mordred noted the logo, Bedivere’s red gonfanon modified into a fiery dragon, and rolled his eyes. At least someone had maintained a sense of humor across the ages. Bedivere spent most of the days dealing with business in the mysterious upstairs offices the public didn’t know about. Mordred visited during business hours the first couple of nights, sitting in the VIP loft with Bedivere above the dance floor, laughing and swapping insults.

As the week wore on, Mordred spent more of his time back at the house, with Laura. It was much quieter sitting in the sewing room with only the hum of Laura’s sewing machine and the clinking of ice in his glass. Some afternoons they would hop in Laura’s car, a much more sedate black Maxima, and drive over to the boutique with a new load of tops and dresses.

By the end of the week, Laura’s glares had softened to cold gazes around Mordred. He first noticed it on the day Gaheris called.

“I told them you’d be here by now. I thought you were coming.” he said as he walked up and down the hall.

“Look, Mordred, I just can’t.” Gaheris’ voice sounded small and far away through the phone pressed to his ear. “Amy broke her arm, so she’s stuck here all summer. I can’t leave.”

“Oh lord. You know, one of these days her parents are going to report you as a child molester or something.”

“Mordred!”

“Alright, stay then, and make sure your heart doesn’t bleed on the couch. You know how Clar gets about that. I’ll say hi to Bedwyr for you. Call if you change your mind.”

As he hung up, he noticed the redhead leaning against the doorway of the sewing room, listening to him. “You brother?” she asked.

“Yeah. Apparently he’s not coming after all. Sorry.”

“You staying?” she asked. It was then that he noticed the softening in her eyes, and that her lips weren’t pressed together as tightly as usual. He leaned against the wall next to her. She was slouched down so far that he could look her in the eye.

“I’m surprised you aren’t trying to throw me out. Last time we met, you tried to throw me out of the country; I imagine a house is significantly easier.”

“Not much point now,” she says. “He’s happier now than he was then.”

“And you?”

There was a flash of a different look then, and their lips met. Hesitantly, then boldly, violently, arms wrapping around each other. A sudden flash came then, of a different time, and Mordred pulled away from her.

“Laura-”

“’S not Laura,” she said. “Zara.”

Mordred took a step backward, putting an arm’s length between them. “I’m not hooking up with my friend’s girl.”

She shrugged. “He’s a cheating lying drunk. Ent gonna matter to him.”

“It matters to me,” said Mordred firmly, and walked away.

*******

After that, Mordred spent most of his days out exploring the city. He rented a car. Miami was a nice town, if you didn’t mind having your view of the scenery obscured by the view of the vacationers and their too-small swimsuits. It was hot, sticky, and pulsing. It was starting to remind Mordred to much of a long ago time, another place with the same heavy pulse in the hot air as men fell around each other, sticky with blood.

*******

When he got back to the house ate one night, he was surprised to see that Bedivere was standing out on the deck, leaning his arms against the rail overlooking the ocean. As soon as he slid the door open, he caught the scent of beer mingled with the salt air.

“I thought you said you didn’t drink anymore,” he said as he stood behind the other man.

Bedivere snorted but didn’t turn. “I said barely. Every so often I make an exception, and tonight would be one of those nights. There’s more in the cooler.”

Mordred opened the cooler and pulled out a bottle. He opened it, and took a quick swallow. Bedivere took another long gulp from his before speaking again.

“I told you how I met her, didn’t I?”

“Somebody did,” replied Mordred. “Double suicide turns into true love at the edge of an oceanside cliff. Charming.”

Bedivere still didn’t turn. “You know how I died? The first time? Alone in a hovel by the sea, a hermit, whose name no one knew and whose deeds no one remembered. Ever since I haven’t been able to get away from the sea. I’ve tried, but my blood starts to boil and it won’t rest ‘til I go back. Maybe it’s my penance, for not finishing my job like I was supposed to, or not doing more to stop the inevitable. Next time I die, it’ll be in the sea, and again the time after that, and again, and again, and again.”

Mordred walked up and leaned his back again the rail next to Bedivere, half facing him. “Now that sounds like you, Bedwyr. Drunk and babbling about only the gods know what.”

Bedivere gave a hearty laugh and looked at him. “Like the old days, eh? Me pretending I’m twenty years younger, you pretending you’re twenty years wiser, both of us knowing we’re damned but trying not to see it.”

Their kiss was sloppy and tasted of beer and sea salt. It was the kind Bedivere would give anyone if he was drunk enough, and yet it wasn’t, not quite. Mordred looked at him as he pulled away, but Bedivere turned back out to the sea as it it hadn’t happened.

*******

Mordred emerged from his room still in plaid pajama pants and a white tee-shirt. Running his hand through his tousled hair, he went to the kitchen to poke around in the fridge for the orange juice. When he turned to set it on the counter, he was startled by the presence of Laura-Zara-on the other side of the counter. Her eyes were back to smoldering again, they way they had the first time he’d met her.

“Juice?” he asked as he retrieved a glass from the cupboard.

“So y’ can’t get with your friend’s girl, but you can take him away from her, that’s how it is?” she asked.

“What the hell are you talking about woman?” He shoved the juice back into the fridge and came around the counter with his glass. “I’m not taking anyone in this house anywhere.”

“I saw you last night. With him.”

“With-oh for the love of-”

She flew at him. He planted himself as he did when he wrestled with his brothers, using his weight against her height. The glass was knocked from his hand and shattered on the tile floor as she threw herself into him. He grappled to shove her away while she clawed at anything she could reach. They were both shouting now, in languages neither of them knew they knew and which the other couldn’t understand.

Suddenly she flew backwards away from him, something wrapped around her waist. It took Mordred a moment to realize it was Bedivere’s left arm, bare and ending at the wrist in that strange way that no one could ever get used to. He was still in a wifebeater and boxers, his eyes red with hangover. He was taller and stronger than both of them, so he restrained her with ease even as she fought him. His other arm wrapped around her shoulders, pinioning her against hid body as he whispered in her ear. Mordred took off down the hall, grabbing his clothes off the foot of his bed before disappearing out the front door.

He drove around Miami for several hours in the rental car, not really looking at anything or going anywhere in particular. He stopped for breakfast at some little place that wasn’t too crowded, then got back in the car and kept driving.

It was about four in the afternoon when he pulled back into the driveway of the house. Bedivere was sitting on the porch steps, watching him as he got out of the car and came up the steps.

“You appease your harpy yet?” asked Mordred.

“She doesn’t understand,” replied Bedivere.

“What is there to understand?”

“We found each other. You have your brothers and Clar. Percy has Helen and Lance’s idiot-boy. I have Kay and I’ll find Lucan too, eventually. She never found any of hers. They’re probably out there, somewhere, but she hasn’t found them yet. Maybe they’re not even looking for her. I’m all she’s got.”

“She got a bum deal.”

Bedivere looked up at him, something that only ever happened when he sat and Mordred stood. “So you’ll be leaving then?”

“Soon as I pack my bag.”

Bedivere pointed to a black duffle sitting on the end of the porch. Mordred picked it up and left without another word.

*******

It was mid-October. One of the biochemistry professors at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine had taken a sabbatical for the semester, so the school asked Mike Wilkinson to takes his class. He was always one of the favorite guest lecturers of the students, and sure enough when his name was announced the class filled up in a matter of days. They had given him his own office with his name on the door. Well, thought Mordred, with Mike’s name on the door. He never really could think of himself and Mike as the same person.

He was headed across the campus to his office, admiring the changing leaves and cursing the cold October air, when one of the other professors stopped him to say there was a woman waiting for him in his office. Mordred furrowed his brow as he walked. Clar normally just called his cell phone if something was urgent enough for her to interrupt him, so…

Standing in his office was Laura. She looked even skinnier than usual, if that was possible, and she watched him with a mixture of accusation and pain.

“Where is he?” she asked, angry but quiet.

“Where’s who?”

“He left.” Her voice was cold, blunt. “Didn’t take his clothes or his damn car, didn’t say anything. Woke up one morning he was gone. Didn’t even look like he finally jumped. He just…disappeared.”

It took a long, awkward pause before he gently put his arms around her and pulled her head against his shoulder. “He does that sometimes,” he said. “Don’t worry though. We’ll give him hell when he comes back.”

Fanfic100-Dracula, Prompt #073.-"Light"

2008-05-09T00:49:55Z

Title: Alright
Fandom: Dracula: General Novel
Characters: Mina Harker, Jonathan Harker, Quincey Harker
Prompt: 073. Light
Word Count: 469 wds.
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: LDT here. My slightly tardy fic in honor of 6 May (Jonathan Harker's Arrival at Count Dracula's Castle Day).

The cry woke Mina immediately. Her thoughts flew first to her son, sleeping in the nursery next to her room. Without pause she grabbed the robe from the end of her bed and threw it on as she all but ran to the next room.

Moonlight shone brightly through the window, but she lit a candle nonetheless. Seven month old Quincey’s bright eyes peered back at her in the flickering light, alert and curious. He was silent, following his mother with his eyes as she crossed the room to his bassinet. Mina scooped the baby up and cradled him in her arms.

The night was surprisingly warm for May, almost stiflingly so. She went to open the window a crack, no so much that Quincy would catch a chill, but enough that the air could move. The world seemed hesitant, and deathly still. She paced the room, humming bits and snatched of old tunes she didn’t even know she knew.

She heard the cry again, this time more distant than it had been at first. Quincey blinked silently at his mother as she froze in her pacing. She listened, waiting, and it came again, louder and more pained. Gently she kissed her son’s forehead and laid him back down.

Candle in hand, she crept down to the far end of the hall. The door there was open, allowing a soft glow to spill into the hallway. She came to the edge of the light and stopped, listening to the quiet whimpers she could now hear. She blew out her candle and let the darkness hide her. The heat, the light, the sound-it was oppressive. She wanted run back to her own room, with the window wide open and the light shut out with drapes, and the silence. Instead, she peered around the doorframe.

Jonathan’s sleeping form trembled in his bed. The sheets were kicked onto the floor and he clenched his pillow tightly over his head. Candles burned brightly on the nightstand, the bureau, and the windowsill in front of the tightly locked window. He curled convulsively, unintelligible sounds and words bursting from under the pillow along with his cries.

Mina crept in and sat gently on the edge of the bed. When she placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder, he started violently, reflexively swinging the pillow at her. She caught it as he sat up, his terror-stricken face slowly relaxing.

“You were having a nightmare,” she said quietly. She reached out and touched the white hair at his temples. He took a few deep breaths as she tucked his pillows and blankets back into order around him. “Everything’s alright,” she said, “go back to sleep.”

As she stepped back into the darkness of the hall, Jonathan whispered “Nothing’s alright.” Mina felt a chill down her spine.

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"In Her Eyes"

2008-02-27T03:31:45Z

Title: In Her Eyes
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Morgause
Rating: Light R
Words: 519
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: The eyes are the window to the soul...and everything else.
Notes/Warnings: Sex, blood, and this was vaguely influenced by this lovely fic by Lady Soujin.

Their flesh was hot to the touch; their breath was dragon’s fire. She insisted on leaving candles burning whenever they met, allowing them to devour each other with sight, smell, touch, taste, and finally the sounds which the tapestries on her walls helped to muffle from her children. Sometimes they made it all the way to her bed, but more often they didn’t waste the time and just pulled each other to the floor before the fire.

Bedivere rolled onto his back and stared up at the stars, visible though her open ceiling. He chuckled softly. She rolled herself on top of him, straddling his waist and leaning her arms on his chest. Their eyes met, his green and twinkling, hers dark and full of flame.

“What are you laughing at now?” she asked, her tone dripping with seduction.

“Only that all these years you’ve shuddered at the thought of your now grown children walking in on us, yet you have not the slighted compunction about making love to me full sight of all the gods,” he replied. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her.

She laughed too, a dark tone. “My dear Bedwyr, I am quite used to dealing with the anger and favor of the gods. My children are quite another matter.”

“So it would seem, Morgause. How many do you have again? Two, three dozen?”

“Six.”

“Right, six. And nine fathers between them, right?”

“Behave yourself. You might easily be one of them, after all.”

“I’m sure.” Without warning, Bedivere sat up, catching Morgause around the waist with his arm to keep her from falling. She grabbed his shoulders to keep her balance, driving her nails hard enough to draw blood. He hissed. “Now I know where your son learned that from.”

A spark of anger flashed across her eyes. “You’ve had one of my sons?” she asked coldly.

“Why?” he asked, feeling her tense. “Would it matter if I had?”

This time she drove her nails into his cheek and she slapped him, leaving three bright scratches down his cheek. She stood and crossed the room for the red silk robe she’d discarded earlier in their games.

“Not very becoming for a woman like you to be jealous of one lover’s attentions,” asked Bedivere cheekily as he went to the water basin to wash his face, “especially when you’ve got so many others to choose from.”

“Which son?” she asked again. Bedivere turned and looked at her. She was hot again, her anger now outblazing her sex and consuming the one emotion she more repressed: concern. He could see the witchcraft in her eyes and almost feel the curses she was ready to unleash on him. It was all he needed to know the answer to the one question which had always haunted him, ever since he first entered her bed.

“Not Gaheris,” he said. Even Morgause couldn’t hide the brief relief which flickered across her face. Bedivere nodded and lowered his voice. “Best be careful though. I suspect he’s inherited more than just my eyes.”

A scalding meeting of lips, and he was gone.

Fanfic100-Dracula, Prompt #008.-"Weeks"

2008-01-03T06:38:00Z

Title: The Seven Deadly Sins
Fandom: Dracula: General Novel
Characters: Jack Seward, various and sundry OCs
Prompt: 008. Weeks
Word Count: 2,754 wds.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: LDT here. Jack Seward's university days were a study in the Seven Deadly Sins.

Monday:
It was the week of final examinations for the winter term, and the student’s flats fairly hummed with the dread of failing and the excitement of Christmas holidays so close. In the courtyard outside the surgical theater, the only empty building on the grounds, boys threw snowballs at each other and jibbed about final marks. Everywhere else was silent as a tomb as the nervous young men steadied their hands and scribbled furiously at exams.

In one room the tension was visible as yet another student snapped the nib of his pen. The broken tip skittered across the floor all the way to the steps which led from the floor of the lecture hall through the rows of seats and to the doors. Professor Christiansen cast a sharp look over his glasses. “Herr Thomasson, is there a problem?” he asked gruffly.

“N-no, sir,” stuttered Thomasson. As soon as the professor looked away, someone in a row further back skillfully tossed a fresh nib to the unfortunate fellow. Professor Christisansen was widely considered both the hardest and most hated professor in the entire Gemeentelijke Universiteit van Amsterdam, and the students who had been unfortunate enough to suffer under his instruction before were well prepared for themselves and their unknowing classmates.

Ninteen year old Seward sat in the back, concentrating as best he could manage on the essay he was supposed to be writing. Despite his efforts, he was still distracted by the constant movement below him in the front row. That was where Christiansen’s favorites always sat. It was a great privilege to be one of the favorites, one of the “chosen ones”, and it took an inordinate amount of boot-licking and brown-nosing to become one. Still, he couldn’t help wondering if it was all worth it. After all, once you were “chosen”, you could get away with anything.

A loud ping startled everyone in the room. Most of the students looked around for the source of the noise, while poor Thomasson shrank down as far as he could in his seat. Snickers came from the front row as one of the boys, a sturdy fellow named Smythe, hopped over the desk and walked over to the shelf of glass specimine jars and picked up something small and silver. “Lose something, Thomasson?” he asked, provoking full laughter from the rest of his cohorts in the front row.

Thomasson looked as pale as Seward usually got when attending autopsies. Smythe flicked the broken nib at Thomasson’s chest with surprising accuracy before hopping back into his seat. Everyone uncomfortably returned to their tests; even Thomasson managed to get his bearings enough to continue after another unknown comrade took pity and slipped another nib to him.

Smythe and his cohorts left after only half an hour. Seward had no doubt that they would have the highest marks, regardless of what they had written. Everyone else would struggle for another hour or more to pass, while the lucky few had only to write their names in an exam book and would be given best marks. It was almost enough to make you wish you could be one of them.

Tuesday:
The dining hall was the warmest place Seward could find to pass the three hours until his next examination. He staked out a corner away from the windows and settled at a table with his books and a package from his mother which needed opening. He started with the package.

Tea, which he hardly ever drank anymore, finding coffee and beer far more suited to the university life. Chocolates, which had probably been meant as someone else’s Christmas gift until his notoriously fickle mother changed her mind. A tin of shortbread and a box of sweet biscuits, probably the same. Rasperry jam for the biscuts, never mind that he hated the stuff. Hard peppermint candy, which would at least be useful to settle his stomach in the surgical theater. Kippers, which he hated almost as much as raspberry jam. Fruitcake…of course, she always gave out fruitcake, though no one ever ate that. At the bottom was a letter whiching him the Merriest of Christmasses and obsequiously lamenting the fact that he wasn’t coming home to London for the holiday and wouldn’t he reconsider?

He crumpled the letter and threw it back into the now empty box. If he was lucky his father might have a moment of weakness and send him a generous five quid, but that was unlikely. He cleared a spot on amid the parcels for his anatomy text and opened it to the charts he was supposed to study. After a moment’s consideration, he also opened the box of chocolates. No reason not to, anyway.

Two and three-quarter hours later found him staring blankly at the same charts, dipping the last biscuit in the raspberry jam. The chocolate box, shortbread tin, and kipper tin, all now empty, and joined the crumpled letter in the bottom of the large box. Now he swept the biscuit box and the jam jar in as well and halfheartedly munched the last biscuit.

“Seward, hurry up,” called a voice from across the room. Seward glanced up and saw Flanders, one of his classmates, heading for the door. “C’mon, Seward, or you’re going to be late, and you know how Professor Neubecker is about punctuality.”

“Be right along,” Seward said, waving Flanders on. With a groan, he opened the bag of peppermints, popped two into his mouth, and slipped the rest into his waistcoat pocket. Well, at least those would be helpful.

Wednesday:
“Ho, Jack. Did you hear? Professor Van Helsing’s looking to pick a new underling to be his personal assistant, probably one of the med students going for Ph.D. They say he’s announcing at the end of the week when marks are posted.”

“Of course I heard,” Seward snapped at his roommate. “Contrary to the belief of Smythe and his cohorts, I am actually fairly intelligent, competent, and aware of my surroundings. Now, Tony, is that all you came to pester me with, or did you need something?”

Anthony Bradwin took a step back and crossed his arms. “Bloody hell, Jack, I just thought you’d want to know. And if you’ll recall, I also live here, and happen to have come by to get my hat and coat before heading to the pub.”

Seward picked up his spectacles from the desk and put them on to get a better look at the athletically built blond whirlwind now hunting for a hat amid the mess of their shared room. “Don’t you have more final exams today,” he asked pointedly.

Bradwin looked up with a grin. “’Course I do. Why else would I be dashing off for a drink before six in the evening? Then again, with the mood you’ve been in this week-”

“Do you realize how heard I’ve worked to get that position with Professor Van Helsing?” said Seward. “Yes, I knew about that, I’ve known since the beginning of the year, and I’ve done everything within my power to see that I get it. Why do you think I’ve spent every spare minute assisting in the surgery, which you know I hate, or studying the books he’s written, or doing all this bloody extra-curricular work?”

Bradwin, now with hat and coat in hand, looked carefully at his gangly, disheveled roommate’s determined face. “Cor, Jack, I didn’t realize you wanted it like that.”

Seward peered over his spectacles. “You have no idea how badly I want this, Tony. I would…I will do anything to get it.”

“Take it easy, mate. You’re being too serious about this. If this chance falls through there’ll always be more.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned,” replied Seward. “This is the one I want, and this is the one I’ll get, no matter what.” He turned his back to Bradwin and bent over the work on his desk again. “You might do well to consider something like this, instead of running off to the pub every chance you get.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, at least until I’ve got a beer to help me forget it,” Bradwin shot back cheekily. He slipped on his coat and popped his hat on. “Well, Tony,” he muttered to himself as he left to room, “‘thou are not for the fashion of these times, where none will sweat but for promotion.’”

Thursday:
Seward held could feel the snow wrapped in his handkerchief beginning to melt and run down his arm as he held the bundle to the side of his face. He was used to the scenario, a familiar one which had unfortunately chased him all through his schooling. Finally the door opened and Professor Neubecker, dean of the medical faculty, entered. He sat behind his desk and faced Seward, folding his hands and pressing his two forefingers to his lips.

“The last day of examinations, and I find that two of my students have gotten into a fistfight on the grounds of the university. Not a good way to end the term, ja? You would care to explain?”

“I’m sorry, sir-”

“I imagine you are, with your jaw swollen like a plum. But I would rather know what started this fight. It doe not seem like you, Herr Seward, to be in a fight.”

Seward sighed. He was fourteen and giving his story to his father again. “Smythe and I go back as old enemies. He knows all about my family, the good and the sordid, and he likes to make sure I don’t forget that he knows. Today he just…he insulted my family name one too many times and I got fed up with it. I openly admit to throwing the first punch, and I’ll take whatever restriction or…suspension…you place me on.”

Professor Neubecker listened intently. “So you were, would you call it, defending your family honor, ja?”

“I’m not from a family of saints, Professor, and I’ll be the first to admit that,” said Seward, “but that doesn’t mean he’s got any right to assume he’s any better than I am.”

“Nor does it give you the right to assume you are better than he,” admonished Professor Neubecker gently. “Now, go take care of that lump and see you behave over your holiday.”

Seward thanked him and headed calmly for his flat. However his eyes were still blazing as a single thought burned in his mind to comfort him. “But I am better,” he whispered under his breath.

Friday:
His father sent him a Christmas letter indeed, three pages of nothing but berating him on behalf of six generations of Sewards who had proudly served Queen and Country as bankers, not filling their heads with foolish notions of medicine and working with the insane. There were, after all, “people” for that sort of thing.

Seward crumpled the papers in his fist and punched it into the wall, recoiling quickly as his knuckles were still bruised from the fight the day before. Grimacing with pain, he crossed over to the fire and threw the papers in, watching his father’s immaculately perfect handwriting char and curl into ash. Not even so much as a “Merry Christmas”, much less any money, though Seward had hardly expected the latter. This was his father, after all.

His father: a perfect specimen of the stingy, obstinate, pompous and overbearing, self-righteous monstrosity commonly known as the proper Victorian gentleman. Seward would sooner have slit his throat with his own scalpel than turn into that, as his father wanted him to. A lot of good for nothing pigs was what the lot of them were. He seethed with the thought of it, almost slamming his fist into the wall again, but catching himself just in time.

He hated them all, but he hated his father the most. Art, his friend Arthur Holmwood, always said that he shouldn’t say something like that about his own father, but there really was no other way for him to say how he felt about the man whose name he carried. He hated his mother too, for being a flighty, self-absorbed fool who didn’t have the sense or the inclination to even attempt to understand how the real world worked.

He didn’t want to be a banker, not if it meant being like that, and if the only way to get around it was to make himself a doctor through work, charity, and begging, then so be it. And he would never marry a woman like that, even if it meant not marrying at all. The world had enough arrogant bastards and empty-headed bitches as it was, and he refused to perpetuate the cycle.

He wouldn’t reply to the letter, not even to tell them he was now studying under Professor Van Helsing. He’d let them wonder, let them think he was dead even. He’d much prefer that.

Saturday:
The pub was thick with smoke and noise and bodies, all growing thicker as it got later. Bradwin laughed raucously at a drunken joke which probably didn’t warrant the applause it got. Seward, sitting at the foot of the table, knocked back another beer and scanned the room.

His eye caught on the girl in a revealing green dress in the near corner, a pretty redhead much younger than most of the girls of her profession who frequented this particular pub. He looked her over until she turned and met his eyes, then beckoned her over with a finger. She slipped past other tables and other patrons until she reached him, then seated herself on the corner of the table right next to him.

“Haven’t seen you here before,” he said. “And I know I’d remember if I had.”

She smiled, her eyes twinkling. “I just arrived from Paris yesterday. They tell me the pay is better here in Amsterdam. The men too.”

Seward slipped his hand under her skirt and rested it on her thigh. “Would you like to find out if what they say is true?”

“Right here?” she asked coyly.

“Or upstairs, if you’d like,” he said, lightly rubbing her leg. “Although the boys might enjoy the show, I seem to recall that a bed is more comfortable than a bar table.”

Cheers for good luck and comments about comparative manhood followed them up the stairs and trailed off behind the closed door of the room. As soon as girl slipped her dress off, Seward reached around behind her with one hand and began to unlace her corset without hesitation. She wrapped her arms around his neck and looked at him. “You seem rather skilled at this, for looking so young.”

“I’m studying to be a doctor,” he replied. “Bedside manner is everything.”

Even she could help laughing at his drunken joke. “Very well, Monsieur le Doctor, would you care to examine me then?”

“Of course. And what should I call you? For my records, of course.”

She leaned in close so her lips brushed his ear. “How about Madeline, since it is my name.”

He chuckled. “Good. I’m Jack.” She pulled back and pulled him to the bed. He followed.

Sunday:
“Jack. C’mon, mate, time to get up.” Bradwin sat with a thud on the edge of his sleeping roommate’s bed and spoke to the blankets pulled over his head. “Jack, look, I know you had a late night, and I can’t blame you. I probably would have had more than one go at her too if I’d gotten to her first. But it is past noon, so you had better get up.”

Seward groaned and stirred under his blankets but made no sign of getting up. Bradwin stood and grabbed the blackest, whipping them off his sleeping friend with a flourish. Seward, still dressed in the clothes he’d worn to the pub, groaned again and pulled his pillow over his head. When he did, Bradwin’s grin faded. Two fresh puncture marks were clear in the crook of Seward’s right elbow. He had heard the talk about his roommate, but he’d always dismissed it as jealous attempts to smear Seward’s excellent reputation.

“Jack,” he said, more quietly.

Seward moved the pillow and half opened his eyes, enough for Bradwin to confirm his worst fears.

“Fine then,” said Bradwin, trying to shrug off the sinking in his stomach as he made for the door. “Sleep the day away. See if I bring you back any leftovers from lunch, and I’m going down to the square too. That’s what you get for cavorting with Morpheus.”

Fanfic100-Dracula, Prompt #085.-"She"

2008-01-03T06:31:44Z

Title: Miss Westenra
Fandom: Dracula: General Novel
Characters: Lucy Westenra, Mrs. Westenra, Arthur Holmwood, Jack Seward
Prompt: 085. She
Word Count: 1,377 wds.
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: LDT here. A snapshot of Lucy, her mother, and the way things were before.

“Lucy, darling, would you please stop fussing with your dress? It is the height of the season and if every eye is going to be on you, as it should be, I want it to be because you are stunning, not because you fiddle with your clothes like a schoolgirl. The way you carry on it will be a wonder if people say anything else about you over breakfast gossip tomorrow.” Mrs. Westenra peered intently into the mirror and pinned her hair into place, occasionally shooting glances at the reflection of her daughter sitting behind her.

Lucy sighed and let the frill of her sleeve fall to its rightful place. “Mother, the fact that you are even considering what people will say-”

“You would do well to consider it more,” Mrs. Westenra cut her daughter off sharply. “Nearly twenty and without a single proposal of marriage yet; I really don’t understand it a bit. You are without a single doubt the prettiest girl out to society this season, and one of the wealthiest, and you have all the appropriate charms-well, other than that nasty habit of being too forward, especially with the gentlemen. It’s that Miss Murray girl you went to school with being such a dreadful influence on you.”

“For heaven’s sake, Mother! It’s not Mina’s fault at all if I don’t care to be church mouse when a gentleman speaks to me, and it’s not her fault I haven’t had a proposal either so don’t try and blame her for that too.”

Mrs. Westenra clutched her hand to her heart and turned to face her daughter with a look of shock. “Lucy! If your father were here to hear the way you speak to your poor mother-”

“Well he isn’t!” shouted Lucy. Without waiting for a response, she tore out of her mother’s boudoir and down the hall to her own room. She slammed the door hard and locked it. She regretted it when she realized that her mother would just give her another lecture on being childish. Her father had never called her childish, even when she had been. Disregarding her gown and makeup, she threw herself onto her bed and buried her face in a pillow to staunch her tears.

Lucy had been just fourteen when her father had died. It was his dreadful sleepwalking that had been the cause of it. He’d wandered out of the house and all the way to the park in nothing but his nightshirt, and by the time he’d awakened and gotten himself back home, he’d caught a chill. Chill turned to fever, and within a fortnight Lucy had been called home from school to be at her father’s deathbed.

“Learn a lesson from you old father: sleep in a coat and slippers, eh?” he’d said in a hoarse whisper, attempting a laugh. She sat on the edge of his bed and held his hand in both of hers. “Whatever you say, Papa,” she said.

He looked up at her from the pillows with the same blue eyes she’d inherited from him. “Oh, my angel, I’m so sorry.

“Hush now, Papa. You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Promise me you won’t let your mother bother you terribly. She can be a bit of a nag, but she does mean the best for you.”

“Papa-”

He smiled feebly and closed his eyes. “You’ll break hearts when you’re old enough my dear. Promise me that for all the other men in your life, you’ll every so often spare a thought for your poor fool father.”

She felt him squeeze her hands, just a very little. She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I promise, Papa.”

By midnight the priest had come, and before sunrise the next morning Mr. Westenra breathed his last. Lucy never went to visit her father’s grave, but she did remember her promise and think of him, perhaps more often than he’d meant for her to.

Not a week after her father had passed, Lucy had been awakened with a start by a shriek and nearly tripped down the stairs. She had been sleepwalking, as her father had always done, and the sight of it sent her mother into a fit of nerves which lasted days. Every since then Lucy had walked in her sleep. Every time it happened her mother grew more agitated by it, and became more protective, but worst of all acted more like nothing was ever wrong.

Her sobbing had given way to these thoughts, but now even those were interrupted by a solid knock on the door. “Miss Westenra,” said the maid’s voice, “your mother says that you’re to come downstairs at once before you are late.”

“Tell her I’ll be down presently,” replied Lucy with resignation. She sat up and glanced at herself in the mirror of her vanity table. Her blue gown was rumpled and her rouge smudged, but she no longer particularly cared. It was all a lot of nonsense anyway. She dipped her handkerchief in the wash basin and cleaned her face of the remaining makeup.

“Lucy, what on earth?” said her mother when she reached the foot of the stairs. “Heavens, we shall simply have to be late then. Now go back upstairs with Berthe, change into a clean gown and make your face presentable.”

“I’ll go as I am or not at all,” replied Lucy. “Now let’s go, before we’re late.” Before her mother could protest again she grabbed her cloak from the butler and barreled out the door to the waiting handsom.

Neither of the women spoke a word from the time they got into the cab. When they arrived at the party, Lucy hastily clambered out. Keeping her eyes on the floor, she handed her cloak to the first servant at the door and started looking for a corner in which to hide. She had settled on slipping into a side room when a familiar figure crossed her path.

“Miss Westenra. Forgive me, but are you all right? You look rather pale.”

She looked up into a familiar pair of blue eyes and smiled. “Mr. Holmwood. I fear I had a bit of an upset earlier this evening. However, I believe the pleasure of your company would do me a world of improvement.”

Arthur Holmwood blushed slightly, but his eye still held concern. “Please, if you would allow me to find you someplace to sit, and perhaps a glass of champagne?” He offered his arm.

She slipped her hand over his and nodded. “I would be quite grateful, thank you, Mr. Holmwood.” He escorted her into the main room and steered toward a secluded corner. She had just seated herself on an empty settee when a slightly disheveled fellow she didn’t recognize approached. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to, Art,” he said to Holmwood. “It’s not very kind of you to leave a mate all alone with that sister of yours. I swear, she could talk a man’s ear off.” He stopped talking as he saw Lucy.

Holmwood motioned to her with his hand. “Jack, this is Miss Lucy Westenra I’ve told you about. I often have tea with Mrs. Westenra on Sundays. Miss Westenra, this is my dear friend since schooldays, Dr. John Seward, finally come home from the sordid depths of Amsterdam to run an asylum. I dragged him out her tonight to remind him what real society is like”

“A pleasure, Miss Westenra,” said Seward. He gave a little bow and gently lifted her hand to touch the back of his to his lips. She couldn’t help but laugh lightly. “Well, the sordid depths of Amsterdam don’t seem to have done him too much damage, Arthur.”

Holmwood grinned and clapped his friend’s shoulder. “Why don’t you sit and tell Miss Westenra all about the fascinating world of medical school while I go and hunt down some champagne?”

“Would you look at that?” said Mrs. Westenra in a low voice to the three other women who had now joined her. “Even when the girl is in such a contrary temper she’s simply surrounded by young men, all waiting on her, and still she’s nearly twenty and without a single proposal. I simply don’t see how it’s possible at all.”

Arthurian New Year Fic-"Omens"

2008-01-02T22:37:47Z

Title: Omens
Fandom: Arthurian Legend
Characters: Cai, Bedwyr, Lucan
Word Count: 459 wds.
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Happy New Year to all.

“It’s bloody freezing out here,” muttered Cai under his breath.

Bedwyr dumped a pile of sticks next to the small fire Cai had built at the crest of the hill. “That’s because it’s the middle of winter, you sod. Stop complaining and see if you can’t encourage that fire a bit more.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself, old man?” Cai threw back as Bedwyr sat.

“Firstly, because I’m used to the cold, an advantage of having grown up near the sea. Secondly, because why should I bother when I can get you to do it? Lastly, three years doesn’t make me that much older than you, so watch your tongue, boy.” He reached somewhere underneath the furs he wore and withdrew a flask. He took a hearty drink, then recapped the flask tossed it to Cai. Cai did the same, enjoying the warmth the strange brew provided. Some Welsh concoction, he suspected. He tossed the flask back to its owner, knowing full well that Bedwyr’s younger brother, the third member of their party, never drank if both the older men did.

After a few minutes Cai had the fire roaring. Bedwyr made another trip to the edge of the trees, loading sticks into the crook of his opposite arm with his one hand and loading as much wood as possible before returning. Lucan tethered the horses and pulled bread from the saddlebags for their supper, then laid on his bedroll, staring up at the sky.

“We’re getting closer, do you think?” Cai asked Bedwyr. The other knight nodded thoughtfully as he tore his bread. “The beasts don’t more so fast in the winter. We ought to catch up within the week, less I’d imagine.” They both ate, the only sounds around them the crackling of the fire and lapping of waves on the shore.

“Look,” said Lucan. The other knights looked to the sky where he pointed. Above them the stars seemed to be all in motion, pasing each other like knights in a joust.

“The stars are falling,” said Cai.

“An omen,” said Bedwyr. “It is always an omen if the stars fall on the night that the old years turns to new.”

“Not falling,” said Lucan. In the firelight Cai could see a faint smile on the younger knight’s face. “Look at them; they’re too beautiful to fall. They’re flying.”

The three men sat in silence again, looking to the skies above them. After a time, Cai laid out his bedroll next to Lucan’s and joined him. The two eventually drifted into sleep.

Bedwyr still sat long after their breathing had slowed, staring up at the stars. “Well let them fly then, boy,” he grunted. “An omen is only what you make of it after all.”

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"Mistakes We Knew We Were Making"

2007-08-24T20:06:19Z

Title: Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Mordred
Rating: PG (I mean come on...)
Words: 661
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Even in the present day, Bedi and Mordred are as snarky as ever.
Notes/Warnings: It's all about subtext with these two.

The man in the grey oxford shirt was a favorite regular in the seat at the end of the bar counter. He was as well known for his garish neckties, usually adorned with dragons, as for his missing hand. One of the infrequent visitors had recognized him as a lawyer from the district court house, but, when she’d started talking about it the annoyed glares from the rest of the favored few who practically lived there kept her from approaching him. When you were a favorite, it didn’t matter who you were or what you did, only what your drink was and how you like to pass the time. With this fellow, the barkeep poured him his usual stout ale and then left him be.

Around eleven a short dark-haired fellow all in black came in, motorcycle helmet under on arm. He plopped down near the end of the bar and ordered a beer before putting his head down on his arms.

“Long day, MacArthur?” asked the regular.

MacArthur, the man in black, looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Buddy,” he said.

“Always,” replied Buddy. “Can I buy your drink?”

“What the hell,” replied MacArthur. Buddy motioned to the barkeep to put all their drinks on his tab. Grabbing his ale, he shifted over a seat closer to the younger man. They both drank in silence for a while, before MacArthur finally spoke.

“Domestic double homicide. Fifteen year old kid just lost his dad in a car accident a month ago. He gets home from a friend’s house tonight to find his mom in bed with some frat boy. Took a baseball bat and a hunting knife to both of them. Then he realized what he’d done and called the cops, waited for them. I was the only unassigned CSI still on duty when we got the call.”

Buddy nodded understanding while MacArthur stared into his half-empty glass and fiddled with a napkin. “I saw Claire today,” the young man finally said, to change the subject. “We caught lunch at the university. She’s a Ph. D. now, and Professor of Mythologies and Medieval Studies.”

“Did she tell you how much she misses me?” asked Buddy.

“You know perfectly well my sister has never liked you, or anyone else for that matter. Besides, I thought you didn’t date witches.”

“I don’t date these psychotic new-age I’ve-seen-every-episode-of-Charmed-ever sorority girls,” corrected Buddy. “There’s nothing wrong with a classic witch who actually knows what she’s doing, as opposed to the teenager simply rebelling against her parents’ Judeo-Christian background by wearing a pentagram and muttering inaccurate Latin curses in place of swear words.”

MacArthur snorted into his glass as Buddy grinned. Once MacArthur had sufficiently regained his breath, he turned to the other man. “I do hope you’re not seriously checking out teenagers,” he said in a light tone.

“A high powered district attorney like me? Never; I wait until they’re legal before I start checking them out.”

“Aren’t you getting a little old for that?”

“You do realize that you ask me that at least once every decade and it hasn’t changed a thing, right?”

MacArthur shook his head. “I’ve got to go. I still have to file some paperwork before I can actually hit the apartment. Thanks for the drink.” He picked up his helmet and took off, leaving his empty glass and a crumpled up napkin next to it. Buddy watched him go, then pocketed the napkin and paid his tab.

An hour and a half later, MacArthur roared into his apartment complex. When he reached the third floor, he stopped outside his door at the sight of a black lacy bra hanging off the knob. Rolling his eyes, he took it and pushed the door open. “Funny,” he said to the man sprawled on his couch.

Buddy grinned. “Thought you’d like that, or at least the neighbors would. Besides, a pair of boxers with red hearts didn’t have quite the same effect.”

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"All Hail the Heartbreaker"

2007-08-19T03:58:57Z

Title: All Hail the Heartbreaker
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Elaine
Rating: R (to be safe)
Words: 662
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Even "virtuous" men have a dark side.
Notes/Warnings: Almost non-con

“He doesn’t even know you exist,” said Bedivere. “I don’t mean to be cruel, but it’s the truth. Everyone knows he only has eyes for Queen Guinevere; keeping secrets is not exactly one of his stronger points.”

As he leaned against the windowsill, the large mirror hanging on the wall opposite allowed him to see the face of the girl who sat with her back to him, weaving at a loom. She concentrated on her work, red-blond hair spilling from its knot at the nape of her neck. He could see her eyes glistening.

“Elaine,” he said, but se still refused to turn. He crossed his arms. “Elaine, you can sit there and weave until kingdom come, and it’s not going to change a damn thing.”

“What do you care?” she asked, so softly he wouldn’t have known she’d spoken if he hadn’t been watching her reflection.

“I care that I can’t figure out for the life of me what a sweet girl like you is doing wasting her time trying to catch the eye of a bloody Frenchman who’s more in love with his reflection that anything else,” he said.

“It’s none of your business anyway,” she murmured. Tears were beginning to spill onto her cheeks. “You’re always off getting drunk and tumbling the chambermaids. You don’t know anything about true chivalry.”

Elaine suddenly found herself being lifted by and arm around her waist. In one motion, Bedivere picked her up and spun her around, depositing her on the floor. Before she could speak he straddled her hips, pinning her to the ground with most of his weight.

“So I don’t know about chivalry?” he asked. “Maybe not, but I do know a few things about men, so let me share them with you. If your dear Sir Lancelot were to notice you, do you know what he’d see? A pretty conquest, to add to his list. Maybe, if you were lucky, he’d seduce you as he seduced his son’s mother-though I suppose you didn’t know about that. He’d stroke your hair and call you pretty names and eventually he’d have you on your back in his bed just like any plain whore. On the other hand, you’re a small girl, and easy enough to find alone. He might just decide to take you instead, whether you wanted him or not. Perhaps you want to know what that’s like?”

She whimpered softly, eyes closed tightly. Her hands pressed against his chest, as though she might try to push him off. After a moment of silence, the cold look in his eyes softened and he reached to brush the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes fluttered open, scared and pleading.

He stood and offered his hand to her. She sat up quickly and stared at him in bewilderment. He sighed and knelt down again to look her in the eye. “Do you really think I would do that to you, Elaine?” he asked gently. “Hell, I only wanted to scare some sense in to you, get you to listen.”

He reached out his hand again and carefully helped her up. As he turned to leave, she bit her lip, and when he reached the doorway he was stopped by a quiet, “Sir?”

He turned back to look at her. “I’ve told you, you can call me Bedivere,” he said.

“Bedivere,” she started hesitantly, “do you…is there any way I could get his attention? Anything that…” She blushed. “…That you could teach me?”

He looked up to the ceiling and shook his head. “I won’t sleep with you, Elaine,” he said.

“Neither will he,” she replied softly.

He studied her, with her hair falling loose around her shoulders and her tearstained face. She was wringing her hands, fiddling with her dress, watching him. Finally he gave a somber smile.

“I’m already going to hell, I suppose,” he said. “Meet me here after Matins, when everyone is abed. I’ll teach you whatever you want.”

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"In the Lake"

2007-08-17T21:45:06Z

Title: In the Lake
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Vivien
Rating: PG-13
Words: 469
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Things don't always go to plan, even for Ladies of Avalon.
Notes/Warnings: Implied nudity and sex.

Bedivere sat on the banks of the lake, leaning against a tree. He was dressed the part of a peasant more than a knight, with only the ornately fashioned hilt of his sword to give him away as more than a simple shepherd. He was half dozing, watching perfectly still surface of the water. When it began to ripple, he wondered if sleep and the sunlight were playing tricks on him. When a hand appeared, he knew it was something else.

The hand was followed by an arm, reaching up as though to part the water. The a head, a face, a neck, a body, and always moving closer to him, so that by the time she reached the bank, the Lady of the Lake was fully revealed. Her long gown was the same silvery blue of the lake she had appeared from, and clung to every curve of her body thanks to the water.

Bedivere looked her up and down appraisingly. “My Lady,” he said, a hint of a chuckle in his voice. “What service might I do you?”

With fluid grace she crossed close to him. Delicately she reached out and touched the hilt of his sword, leaning next to him against the tree.

“A dragon to guard your blade, set with rubies for eyes,” she murmured. “I was right then, that you are the Welshman they call Bedrydant?” Her voice was indeed like a stream, musical and flowing.

“Indeed, my Lady. Sir Bedivere Bedrydant. Again I ask: what service might I do you?”

“I have asked of you no service,” she replied.

Bedivere could hardly help but smirk. “You have chosen to reveal yourself to me; you must wish of me some service. Isn’t that how it works?” he said.

She laughed softly. “You think I have revealed myself to you? I have revealed nothing, Sir Knight.” Slowly her hands moved to her belt.

Bedivere watched with an unchanging expression as she unclasped her belt and let it fall. She loosed lacings at her neck and her back, eyes fixed on him, until her dress slipped to pool around her feet. With a nudge of her foot she cast it into the water, where it seamlessly blended with the surface before sinking out of sight.

Bedivere looked her over again, smirk fixed in place. “Merlin will be jealous.”

When the anger flashed into her eyes, he laughed. “I am not so easily seduced, my Lady, even by those of Avalon. Of course, that is not to say I am dissuaded either.” He offered her his hand.

As she took it and sank down on top of him, he looked at her with a twinkle in his eye. “Tell me, my Lady: what service might I do you?

“All,” she whispered, and he laughed.

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"Night and Day"

2007-08-17T21:42:06Z

Title: Night and Day
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Olwen
Rating: PG-13
Words: 441
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Culhwch and Bedivere are different as day and night.
Notes/Warnings: Sex. No kidding.

There were whispers when among the other knights when he agreed to be their messenger, riding back and forth between Ysbaddaden’s home and their party to report on the completion of the tasks set out for Culhwch. The younger knights mostly wondered if it was because of his missing hand, not wanting to get involved in a fight. Cai, however, had seen him fight before, and silently wondered what he was up to.

The giant didn’t scare him. Nor did the giant find him a threat, for he had made it perfectly clear that he had no intention of marrying the giant’s daughter. Thus, he would come make his report, and then he and the giant’s daughter were mostly left to their own devices until he left again.

He was perhaps not as handsome as Culhwch, nor as young, thought Olwen. He was darker than the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy she who was doing the impossible to win her hand. But he was exciting, with his strange stories of travels to far off places and mythical beast which were not myth after all. He would talk in a low voice so that she was forced to lean into him until their heads almost touched.

They did touch elsewhere. It started once with the meeting of lips, and progressed each time he made the trip back until it was a meeting of bodies in the dark after her father was asleep. He was not what she wanted in a husband, Olwen was sure. There was too much wanderlust in his nature, and he could never be faithful to her alone. But in the dark, where he would pin her to the bed and their lovemaking would bring his name to her lips, there she would sometimes wonder if she could be content with the man more handsome and ever faithful, but safe.

The last night, he rode ahead to tell her in secret that Culhwch had completed all her father’s tasks, and before the week had ended Ysbaddaden would be dead and she would be wed. His dark eyes flashed; she tried to remember if she had ever seen Culhwch’s do the same, but she could not. As he turned to go, she took his hand.

“Bedwyr?” she whispered, more a question than anything else.

He smiled. “You will be happy with him,” he assured her in that same low voice which forced her ear almost to his lips. “I promise you that.” There, in the dark, he gave her one long last kiss goodbye.

As she watched him ride away without even looking back, she knew he was right.

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"Happens All the Time"

2007-08-17T21:36:55Z

Title: Happens All the Time
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Agravaine
Rating: PG-13
Words: 310
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Taking the concept of "Well screw you!" literally.
Notes/Warnings: Implied sex, as usual.

“You’re a bastard.”

“No, I’m an arsehole. Mordred’s a bastard. If you’re going to insult me, at least use the proper terminology.”

Agravaine, sitting on the foot of the bed, glared darkly at Bedivere. Bedivere leaned casually against the wall at the head of it, gazing back evenly at the young man over a mug of ale. As he started to take a drink, Agravaine spoke again.

“Why don’t you just leave?”

Bedivere snorted into his mug. “It’s my house, you lembo. If you want to go, fine. Nobody’s stopping you. Don’t forget your trousers on the way out. It makes the girls nervous when they find them in the bedsheets while we’re in the act.”

“Go to hell.”

“Ladies first.”

Bedivere waited, but Agravaine didn’t make a move to punch him. Or to leave, for that matter. He simply scowled even more fervently and glared at the wall. Bedivere finished off his ale and got up, picking a tunic up from the floor and chucking it at the other man. “Get dressed already,” he said.

“Why, you expecting someone else?” asked Agravaine bitterly.

Bedivere turned and looked at him. “Actually, I am. Either my brother or one of yours. We’re all supposed to be heading on our merry way to Camelot, remember?”

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m stupid.”

“Then stop acting like you are, especially when I know you’re not.”

Agravaine looked up to see Bedivere looking at him intently. Then he furrowed his brow. “Did you just say something nice to me?”

Bedivere cocked his head to the side. “Hm. I guess I’ll need to spend more time with your brothers and get that out of my system. I think Mordred said he had the weekend free-”

The pillow hit him squarely in the face. “At least some of your aim is getting better.”

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"As Lovers Go"

2007-07-20T20:54:03Z

Title: As Lovers Go
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Angelica
Rating: PG-13
Words: 347
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Bedivere is a jerk, but he always gets the girl.
Notes/Warnings: Implied sex.

“Tell me the truth,” said the shepherdess in her singsong voice. She sat up, her chemise falling off one shoulder and her hair loose and tousled.

Bedivere propped himself up on one elbow in the hay. “All right. Your lips aren’t as red as roses, only as red as cherries. Cherries aren’t nearly as romantic, so I lied a little. I beg your forgiveness, fair lady.”

Angelica tossed her blond curls and pouted. “Stop making everything a joke. I’m serious.”

“Of course you are,” replied Bedivere, trying desperately to hide his laughter at the face she was making at him. She was one of those lucky, or unlucky, girls who was pretty no matter what expression she wore.

She glared at him as best she could, which only served to make it harder for him to hide his smile. Finally he gave up and fell back laughing. She gave a frustrated squeal and hit him on the chest. “Stop that!” she ordered.

“Hey now, genethig, it’s not nice to go hitting a cripple,” he said, glancing pointedly at his missing hand. “Besides, even my brother hits harder than that, and he’s more of an edlych than you.”

She lunged at him, but he sat up and in one move rolled her onto her back and pinned her in the hay. She continued to pout.

“Just tell me the truth,” she said flippantly. “You only wanted me because I’ve bedded the king. Isn’t that right?”

Bedivere chortled and sat back, letting her sit up. “You think I’d tumble a girl just because she’d bedded a king? Hardly. I like to think I make a better lover than him anyway.” A smile and a blush confirmed his suspicions. “And besides, I don’t bed just any girl, you know.”

Angelica’s eyes sparkled in anticipation of flattery. “Really? You don’t?”

“Absolutely not,” he replied, then added with a devilish grin, “I bed just every girl.”

He caught her again as she flew at him and tossed her back into the hay, stifling his own laughter and her complaints with a kiss.

genethig - little girl
edlych - weakling

GetLaid25-Bedivere-"To Drive the Cold Winter Away"

2007-07-20T20:49:39Z

Title: To Drive the Cold Winter Away
Author: Lady Bedivere
Fandom: Arthurian
Pairing: Bedivere/Mairghread (his wife)
Rating: PG-13
Words: 397
Disclaimer: Contrary to popular belief, I do not own Sir Bedivere or any Arthurian Legends.
Summary: Bedivere's favorite way to keep warm on cold winter nights.
Notes/Warnings: Mild sex.

After the moans and grunts had reached a peak and died away, Bedivere rolled onto his back with a sigh of satisfaction. Maighread laid her head on his chest and pulled the blankets closer around them. Bedivere put his left arm around her in time to feel her shudder.

“Cold?” he asked softly.

“It’s winter,” she replied in a hushed tone, almost with a laugh.

“You were raised in the North; I assumed you’d be used to the cold.”

“You learn to deal with it, but you never get used to it,” she murmured. She nestled against him, putting a hand on his bare chest as though she would draw the warmth right out of him. He half believed she might. Fae blood was notoriously rampant in the North, and the coldest places were often where the witches dwelled.

Mairghread’s eyes were closed, but she was far from asleep. “When are you going to tell your father?” she asked, the same question which had lingered between them since they’d wedded four months prior.

“Hopefully never,” Bedivere said. He ran his left hand up her back and twisted his fingers in her hair. She found his right hand under the covers and clasped it before lifting her head to look at him. He kissed her gently. “My father’s a power-hungry fool, living his dreams of glory and grand knighthood vicariously through me. Somehow I don’t think running off to the North Country to wed and bed a faerie princess was part of that scheme.”

She laid her head back down. “I’m not a faerie princess,” she said in a whisper.

“Aye, but you might as well be, delicate as you are,” he replied, loosing his right hand to reach for a second blanket which had earlier settled onto the floor. His fingers just brushed the top of it, but couldn’t find a hold. Mairghread leaned over him to reach it, pressing against him. He kissed her shoulder gently and laid back, leaving his fingers entwined in her hair as she pulled the second blanket over them. She stayed on top of him, her breathing gradually slowing into a pattern of sleep.

When she shivered again in her sleep, he brought both his arms around her. He reveled in their shared warmth, one hand twined in her hair, the other stroking her back, until he joined her in sleep.

Fanfic100-Dracula, Prompt #022.-"Enemies"

2007-07-17T04:36:59Z

Title: With Friends Like These...
Fandom: Dracula: General Novel
Characters: Arthur Holmwood, Jack Seward
Prompt: 022. Enemies
Word Count: 1,053 wds.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: LDT here. Even the closest of friends can have secrets from each other...

“You backstabbing liar,” were the first words out of Arthur Holmwood’s mouth when Jack Seward answered the door. Jack’s mouth opened slightly as his brain raced visibly for a response. Arthur simply stood and glared. Finally Jack gave a laugh.

“Did I double book a foxing party with one of Victoria’s teas or some such? I’ve been known to do it before, after all. Still, it doesn’t seem like anything to be getting up in arms about-”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about,” said Arthur coldly. From his pocket he withdrew a small leatherbound book and shoved it into Jack’s chest. Jack grunted at the impact, still giving Arthur an amusedly puzzled look. He took the book and opened it to the page marked with one of Arthur’s calling cards. After reading only a few lines his face grew serious.

“Where did you get this?” he said in a low voice.

“It was lying on your desk in your office,” replied Arthur. “Sitting in plain sight, staring me in the face, mocking me all this time but I never knew it.”

“What were you doing in my-”

“Waiting for you, yesterday noon. I would have stayed, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it.”

“Arthur-”

“All this time we’ve been friends. All this time, since we were children, and you never told me. Couldn’t work up the nerve to tell me that not only did you propose to the woman you knew I was in love with, but you also-”

Jack moved onto the top step and slammed the front door behind him, cutting off Arthur’s rising voice. His gaze too was now cold. “My wife and daughter are inside,” he stated.

A blush of anger was growing over Arthur’s face. “You think I give a damn?” he asked. His tone was still harsh, but quieter than it had been.

“You ought to,” replied Jack, “and you ought to realize what a fool you’re being about this. It’s been over fifteen years. We’re both married, we both have children for heaven’s sake, and Lucy is still dead. What does it matter?”

“You lied to me is what matters!” shouted Arthur. “You and Quincey and Van Helsing all lied to me this whole time!”

“Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead,” retorted Seward bitterly. “And I never lied to you.”

Arthur stepped onto the top step as well, using the two inches he had on Jack to as much advantage as he could as he stared him right in the face. “Tell me what that book is, and tell me what that entry means, and then tell me to my face you never lied to me.”

Jack reached back and suddenly opened the door. It swung in only slightly, followed by a muffled squeak. “Go to your room, Phoebe,” said Jack calmly. You’re too old to still be eavesdropping.” The door swung open the rest of the way as Jack’s thirteen year old daughter retreated up the stairs. Jack motioned Arthur into the parlor, closing both the front door and the parlor door behind them.

Arthur stood in the center of the room, still red with anger. When Jack turned to face him from the door, he was equally as livid. “You want to know what this means then,” he said in an even tone, holding up the book. “You really want to hear it? I’ll tell you then. Sit down.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Fine.” Jack extended his arm and dropped the book. It fell on the floor exactly between them. “That is my only copy on my dictaphone diary which I was keeping the year that…that Miss Westenra died. I made a transcription for Mrs. Harker, and fortunately too, as the original recordings were among the articles destroyed. That particular entry and the several preceding it related to my efforts to save Miss Westenra from a then undiagnosed illness.”

“Stop with the psychoanalytical doctor’s games,” said Arthur. “Be straight with me. You gave Lucy blood.”

Jack continued to stare evenly. “Yes.”

“And Quincey. And Van Helsing.”

“Yes.”

“And you lied to me about it.”

“No,” said Jack, so sharply that it almost startled Arthur. “We decided it was better not to tell you. We decided, all of us, and we made an agreement. It was not mine to decide to tell you without them.”

“So you were all going to take your secret to the grave? You were never going to tell me that the closest I ever got to consummating my relationship with the woman I loved came only after all of you got your turn, is that it? And Mina knew?”

“Mina found out about the transfusions and our agreement when she read that transcript. She decided herself to honor our wish that you not know. She told me alone, and that was the end of it with her.”

“All this time I believed you to be my friends,” said Arthur, his voice rising again. “All this time, only to find out that every last one of you has been conspiring against me!”

“And I ask again: what does it matter now?” said Jack. “Lucy’s dead, Quincey’s dead, the Professor’s dead. You’re married, to a beautiful woman who I assumed you loved, though now I’m now so sure.”

“How dare you accuse me of not loving my wife!”

“Well you certainly are carrying on enough about a fifteen years dead woman to make a man wonder.”

The room fell silent and tense. Arthur was beginning to tremble with rage; Jack was so perfectly still it was frightening. Their eyes were locked in an intense stare. Finally Arthur spoke in a hoarse, barely controlled voice.

“I trusted you. All this time I trusted you, and you lied to me.”

Jack didn’t blink.

“Don’t forget, I loved her too.”

The thud and the slam brought Victoria rushing downstairs and Phoebe to the landing. Jack, his left hand clapped to his jaw, stepped into the doorway of the parlor just as his wife reached it.

“Heavens, what happened? Who just left? Your lip is bleeding. John…” said Victoria.

Jack shook his head and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the blood gingerly from his lip. “With friends like these,” he muttered. “Friends like these.”

Prompt Table for Getting Bedivere Laid

2007-07-08T07:18:19Z

Getting Bedivere Laid for get_laid25

01.	Agravaine Happens All the Time	310 wds.	17 Aug. 2007
02.	Angelica As Lovers Go	347 wds.	20 Jul. 2007
03.	Arthur	-- wds.	Date
04.	Clarissant	-- wds.	Date
05.	Cywyllog	-- wds.	Date
06.	Elaine All Hail the Heartbreaker	662 wds.	18 Aug. 2007
07.	Gaheris	-- wds.	Date
08.	Guinevere	-- wds.	Date
09.	Gwenhwyfach	-- wds.	Date
10.	Heliabel The Good That Won't Come Out	1,027 wds.	2 Oct. 2008
11.	Kay	-- wds.	Date
12.	Igraine	-- wds.	Date
13.	Isolde	-- wds.	Date
14.	Lynet	-- wds.	Date
15.	Lyonesse	-- wds.	Date
16.	Mairghread To Drive the Cold Winter Away	397 wds.	20 Jul. 2007
17.	Mordred Mistakes We Knew Were Making	661 wds.	24 Aug. 2007
18.	Morgan le Fay	-- wds.	Date
19.	Morgause In Her Eyes	519 wds.	26 Feb. 2008
20.	Morvydd	-- wds.	Date
21.	Olwen Night and Day	441 wds.	17 Aug. 2007
22.	Percival Falling Out of History	703 wds.	27 Dec. 2008
23.	Ragnelle	-- wds.	Date
24.	Sagramore Losing My Religion	454 wds.	26 Dec. 2008
25.	Vivien In the Lake	469 wds.	17 Aug. 2007

Fanfic100-Dracula, Prompt #023.-"Lovers"

2007-07-08T05:51:02Z

Title: Spitfire, Soother, Seductress
Fandom: Dracula: General Novel
Characters: The Vampire Brides
Prompt: 023. Lovers
Word Count: 915 wds.
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: LDT here. For assimbya, who wanted to see what I'd do with the brides.

Emalia was the eldest of them, and the others grudgingly deferred to her because of it. She didn’t care about either of her companions and would have just as well ignored them, by He had commanded that she watch over them. It was not in her gypsy blood to be bound to anyone or anything, but she had no choice. She still kept to herself as much as possible, just not so much that He would be angered, and when it came time to hunt, she saw that it was done right.

Now she crouched in the shadow on the trees, her posture catlike. Her long dark brown hair was drawn back save for one loose curl. It fell over her forehead into her eyes, but she didn’t dare move to brush it away. Her flowing dress was the color of burgundy wine, but the night was too dark to tell. She had tied the skirt up around her waist, baring her legs from the knees down, and her feet were bare. She remained motionless and watched the two figures in the clearing. In shadow, she was invisible, but the bright moonlight illuminated them as clearly as day.

Young lovers, she thought harshly, boldly defying their parent or some such nonsense. She had seen many of that kind, traveling with her people in the woods. Her people, the gypsies: she hadn’t seen any of them in years. They were smart enough to stay away from the Impaler’s Castle and the cursed monsters who lived therein. They also knew how to ward off those monsters, which always made thing difficult. What a relief, though Emalia, that these younger, foolish generations were finally beginning to ignore the superstitions of their elders. She allowed herself only the slightest of movements to flick her tongue over her lips and returned to her intent vigil.

Several yards behind her Rasa lounged on the ground, her fine blond hair spilling carelessly around her head. She was the youngest, and had lost enough fights with Emalia to grudgingly let her do things her way. Tonight, they were hunting a young man and a girl who’d met for a tryst, it seemed. Rasa could still remember a time when that girl had been her, slipping off into the woods to meet a man who’d sworn his undying devotion. More often that not by morning he’d been gone. The last time she’d met Him, and she’d not seen another morning since.

Languidly, Rasa rolled onto her side so that she could see the lovers in the clearing. She could feel the stirrings of her blood as she smoothed a hand over her deep blue dress. The man was handsome, not so handsome as He was, never, but still as good as some she’d had before. Of course, she pouted, Emalia would take him, and Ivana would take the girl, and as always, she would have to wait. It was supposed to be fair, He always said, because she was the youngest, but she hardly thought of it that way.

Ivana stood nearby, perfectly still and calm. She wore her light brown hair shorter than the others, and her dress was the rich brown of the forest earth. She did not watch the lovers; instead she watched Emalia’s crouched form, waiting for the signal. Lovers remained the same though the ages, so there was no use wondering what these two were like. Even He remained the same as he always had been, cold and distant from them all.

She would have preferred to slip in as they were, gently and quietly with little fuss. But there was too much risk, so they would do it Emalia’s way. Gentle, no, but it was more effective, and safer if someone should happen to see. Ivana turned slightly to look at Rasa, who was fantasizing as a schoolgirl would. Ah, well, she was still young, even by their standards.

The spitfire, the soother, the seductress: they were three very different women. They had been when He had chosen them, and they always would remain so. Still, none of them had the strength to serve as his consort. Emalia had the nerve to stand up to Him; Ivana knew how to make him think He was always getting His way; Rasa knew how to please and pleasure Him; no one of them was right to stand at his side. They might not have been pleased by that, but they were resigned to it.

Emalia made a low sound, the signal. In an instant they were off, three wolves bursting out of the trees toward the unsuspecting couple. Rasa burst ahead and around their prey, cutting off their escape as the other two drew upon them. Emalia went after the man, seizing him buy the leg to drag him down roughly and pin him to the ground. Ivana leapt at the girl, latching cleanly onto her throat. Rasa circled them, lapping up the spilt blood.

The next night Rasa laughed at the window as she watched villagers still scouring the woods with dogs and torches, looking for wolves, Emalia disappeared within the castle, as she often did, and Ivana waited patiently for Him to return from hunting. They would not go out again for some weeks, and he would bring them children to feed from. Certainly not Ivana’s preference, but anything was better than lovers.

The trouble with lovers, she mused, was that they always left a bitter taste.

FicAlbum-Kate the Smithee-"The Glamorous Life"

2007-07-03T22:27:20Z

Title: The Glamorous Life
Fandom: A Knight's Tale
Character: Kate the Smithee
CD & Song: A Little Night Music OBCR, "The Glamorous Life"
Rating: PG
Words: 876 wds.
Notes: Another day, another road trip...

“The Glamorous Life”

Unpack the luggage, la la la,
Pack up the luggage, la la la,
Unpack the luggage, la la la,
Hi-ho, the glamorous life!
…
Run for the carriage, la la la,
Wolf down the sandwich, la la la,
Which town is this one? la la la,
Hi-ho, the glamorous life!

“What do you mean ‘the horse can’t keep going’?” asked Chaucer in a slow, disbelieving tone.

“Sh’s thrown a shoe, sh’ canna go any farther ‘til it’s fixed,” Kate replied calmly, still examining the horse’s hoof for damage.

“We are supposed to arriving before dark so that we have time to completely set up camp and rest before everything begins tomorrow. Did you miss that part of the plan?” said Chaucer, making his exasperation as apparent as possible.

“Did y’ miss th’ part where th’ horse canna walk all that way w’out a new shoe?” Kate shot back, beginning to unharness the poor animal from the cart.

“Well, how long is it going t take to replace it?”

“Since I donna have m’ smith all set t’ go, it depends on how quickly we can find th’ shoe sh’ threw off. If we canna find it, we’ll have to set camp so I can make a new one.”

“We don’t have time to make bloody camp, woman!”

“Then find the shoe or pull the cart y’rself for the rest o’ the way.”

Roland stood up from the tree stump where he’d been sitting to watch the exchange. “C’mon Wat, you heard her. Let’s get looking.” He gave Wat, settled in on the grass with a large hunk of hardtack bread, a smack to the back of the head and began to retrace the way they’d been coming.

William hopped down from his perch on the cart. “We’ve been passing thrown shoes all along this road. How are we going to know which one we need?”

Kate rolled her eyes and finished unhitching the horse’s harness. “First, sh’s only been limping ha’ a mile, so it canna be farther off than that. Second, it’s got m’ mark on it, y’ lot o’ dafts.”

“Oh, so we’re daft then,” said Chaucer, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “And whose fault is it that horse threw the shoe, eh?”

“Are y’ saying m’ work inna good enough for y’ now? ‘Cause if that’s th’ case, I can go an’ find someone else wanting a farriess to travel with his camp.” Kate planted her hands on her hips and faced Chaucer squarely.

“Maybe I am, but you’ll still have to walk, because according to you, the horse can’t!”

“Why can’t you two just jump in the sack like everybody else to solve your differences, eh?” asked Roland over his shoulder from halfway down the road.

“Always works for me,” chimed in Wat, receiving another thwap from Roland from his efforts. Chaucer made an inarticulate expression of frustration and disgust and marched off toward the meadow to fume. Kate joined the other three men in retracinjg their steps and looking for the missing shoe.

Half an hour later, William found the fortunately still useable shoe. Within another quarter-hour, they were all back at the cart, the men waiting with bored expressions while Kate fished her tools out of a pack.

“What’s for dinner?” asked Wat, this time slipping out of reach of Roland.

“Stale bread and ale, what else?” said Roland.

“We could have eaten in the tavern, except that now we’ll have to spend all night setting up camp,” Chaucer said.

“You’re not exactly making this go any faster,” said William. “Maybe you could see if Kate needs some help.”

“Only if he wants t’ get kicked i’ the head,” said Kate around a mouthful of horseshoe nails.

Chaucer gave her a mockingly over-exaggerated bow. “Ladies first.”

“You heard him, Wat,” laughed Roland. Wat turned red and attempted to tackle the larger man to the ground, without success. William sat on the stump and put his head in his hands as the two scuffled and Chaucer paced.

After ten minutes, Kate stood and dusted her hands on her apron. “Done. Let’s go.”

“About time,” muttered Chaucer as he climbed into the back of the cart. Kate gave him a look and clambered into the driver’s seat. Will sat beside her, Roland climbed in next to Chaucer, and Wat sat on the back end. Roland rummaged through a bag to find a loaf of bread, which he split into five parts and distributed. Kate nickered softly to the horse and they continued down the road.

It was already dark with they arrived, and by the time the tent was set they were all covered in dust and sweat. Chaucer had gone off to make sure they were maked as having arrived with the registrars of the tournament. Without bothering to wash or change, the four others finished unpacking and collapsed into a puppy-like heap in the middle of the tent. They were all nearly sound asleep when Chaucer returned.

“Ah, what a glamorous life we lead, to be envied by all at distances who know not the truth of it,” he said.

“Stop musing poetic and bloody go t’ bed,” muttered a sleepy female voice from the pile.

FicAlbum-Kate the Smithee-"Now/Later/Soon"

2007-07-03T22:21:25Z

Title: Now/Later/Soon
Fandom: A Knight's Tale
Character: Kate the Smithee
CD & Song: A Little Night Music OBCR, "Now/Later/Soon"
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1,826 wds.
Notes: Because I ship Kate/Adhemar like nobody's business.

“Now/Later/Soon”

Now:
Now, there are two possibilities:
A, I could ravish her,
B, I could nap.
Say it's the ravishment, then we see the option that follows, of course:
A, the deployment of charm, or
B, the adoption of physical force.

He was at the perfect vantage point to watch her without being seen. Leaning back against the wall put him completely in shadow, and the rowdy group of knights filling up the rest of his table seemed to be the least of her interests. Actually, the only thing which seemed to be interesting her was the tankard in front of her. Every so often, her dark eyes would dart about the room, as though she knew someone was looking at her, but they always returned to staring blankly at the table. She sat alone.

As he watched intently, Harry leaned over and followed his sightline. “The farriess, Adhemar? I’d better get another pint over here for you.”

“Oh? And what is that supposed to mean?” Adhemar tore his gaze away from her and looked to his friend amusedly.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Come on, Addy. We all know about your amazing prowess in bed, but that doesn’t mean you always have to go showing us all up by staking out the hardest game in the tavern. There’s plenty of girls about if you need a quick screw; just reach out and grab one. Like this, eh?” Harry reached out for a passing girl and pulled her onto his lap amid feigned squeals of protest.

Adhemar grinned and raised an eyebrow. “So she’s a difficult one?”

“Aye,” said Harry around the kisses he was now exchanging with the girl. “Scots by the sound of her. Husband died some six months back and she took over his smith. I hear tell she put out the eye of some fellow tried to get on with her. I don’t think even you could tumble her.”

As Harry turned his full attentions to his tankard and his girl, Adhemar looked back to where she sat. “We’ll see about that now, won’t we?” his muttered quietly, amused to note that Harry didn’t notice. After a few moments, his picked up his tankard from the table. Carefully, he wove his way through the boisterous tavern until he reached the corner where she was and unceremoniously sat on the edge of her table. She shot a dark glare up at him and began to slide off the end of the bench as though she would leave. He planted his foot against the wall, stopping her.

“Hardly polite to be leaving when you haven’t even introduced yourself,” he said.

“Go learn some manners y’rself ‘fore you go tryin’ t’ teach them t’ others,” she said, her tone quiet but sharp. She leaned back against the wall and watched him. Her eyes seemed to be bright with something besides drink, something Adhemar had seen in many eyes before.

“I am Count Adhemar of Anjou, but I rather presumed you might know that. However, I don’t know you, so it seems I’m at a disadvantage,” he said, giving her his most charming smile.

“There’s a first time f’r everything,” she replied coldly. “Now, why dinna y’ go see what y’r friend o‘re there wants, hm?”

He looked over to where Harry was jibing excitedly with some of the other men and pointing his direction. Immediately his leg was shoved out of the way as she slid off the bench and headed for the door. Adhemar caught her by the arm and spun her around.

“Let go,” she said.

He pulled her hard against him and whispered in her ear, “And what if I don’t?”

“Y’re not as charming as y’ seem t’ think,” she replied in a low voice. “Y’re a brute an’ a dog, an’ it seems y’ need t’ be told so more often than y’ have been. Donna think y’re th’ first man has come after me since m’ husband passed, an’ donna think that I’ll give y’ a tumble just ‘cause y’ve hit more laddies off a horse than anyone else.” She jerked her arm out of his grip.

As they stared at each other, for a dark moment the thought crossed his mind. She saw it, she knew it. Her firmly set jaw trembled slightly, but her gaze never faltered. They both knew that she didn’t stand a chance against him.

“Go on,” he said finally, a smirk playing at his lips. “You’re not worth the effort.”

“Neither are y’,” she replied softly, then turned and pushed her way out of the building into the snowy night.

Later:
How can I wait around for later?
I’ll be ninety on my deathbed
…
Doesn’t anything begin?

She had gone straight from the tavern to her smith, intent on finishing a saddle repair before she went to sleep. Instead, she was standing over the forge fire, absentmindedly holding a metal plate in a pair of tongs and thinking. She didn’t like to think about anything other than her work. It dug up too many things that should stay buried.

It was her twenty-ninth winter, if she reckoned it correctly. She’d been married for ten of those years, bourn and buried two children, and buried a husband to boot. She’d smithed as long as she’d been wed, now longer since she was a widow and still a farriess. And despite all this, she was still waiting for something.

She always told herself that someday she’d get to it, have that something. But someday never seemed to come. Not that it mattered, when she didn’t even know what the something was. But that wasn’t what bothered her. She’d lived half her life if she was lucky, probably three-quarters, and she was still telling herself ‘later’. No husband, no children, and whatever might be left of her brothers and sisters scattered across Scotland a channel and two countries away from where she was. What was there to be waiting for anyway?

A pain shooting through her right hand jolted her out of her thoughts. With a cry she jerked her hand back from the flame and dropped the tongs she’d been holding. In one quick and not unfamiliar motion she plunged her arm into her cooling water basin up to her elbow, cursing under her breath.

“Damn, woman, y’ canna put y’rself out o’ work by being a fool. Bloody damn hell,” she said. The burn on her hand was not too bad, especially compared to some she’d had over the years, but it was still enough to make her wince when she tried moving it. She was more frustrated about the now ruined saddle plate she would have to re-hammer. A bit of rummaging in a pack was followed by another string of curses, however, when she couldn’t find any salve or bandaging material.

Cradling her injured hand gingerly, she headed across the yard and off to the area where such things were usually peddled. She doubted she could be the only person still awake, even at this hour of the night. Halfway there, she collided with someone coming from the tavern.

“Watch y’r bloody way-” she started.

“So it seems we meet again,” he replied. She looked up for the second time that night to see Adhemar. He smirked. “Perhaps we can have a second chance at introductions?”

She sighed and gave him a pointedly forced smile. “Name’s Kate. Now go y’r way or go t’ hell, aight?”

Again he stopped her as she tried to get past. This time she stood tiredly and waited. Either he’d drunk too much, or hadn’t drunk enough to be put off by her sharp tones and lack of respect for title and rank. But then, she thought, he wasn’t liable to be different from anyone else.

“What happened to your hand?” he asked. There was just enough light to see the reddish mark of the burn.

“Hurt it thrashing the last arse kept trying to get m’ on m’ back for him,” she retorted smartly.

“You should come to my camp and let my surgeon take a look at it,” he said.

“An’ then what?”

“And then I can tumble you for the rest of the night to win a bet with a friend,” he replied.

She crossed her arms and stared at him. “An’ that’s supposed t’ win m’ over?”

“You didn’t strike me as one for subtlety. Besides, it’s not as though I’m ever going to acknowledge your existence again once I’m done with you.”

“Bastard.”

“Bitch.”

Afterward, her hand neatly bandaged and her clothes scattered haphazardly around the floor of his tent, she wondered if she would have been better off taking up with someone who cared. She decided there was always time for that later.

Soon:
Soon, I promise,
Soon, I won't shy away,
Dear old—
Soon, I want to.
Soon, whatever you say.
Even now,
When you're close and we touch,
And you're kissing my brow,
I don't mind it too much.

Normally Germaine was skittish when it came to the women his employer was constantly cycling through their camp, and for the most part he kept as much distance as possible. However, even he was amused to watch the game that seemed to have evolved between the Count and the woman farrier.

Every new tournament seemed to bring new insults between them, a constant and highly public barrage of name calling, threats, and on occasion physical altercation. Yet underneath it all seemed to simply be good-natured jesting between two old friends, if either of them could have such a relationship with another human being.

Despite their continual insistence of loathing for each other, Germaine found that Kate was a frequent guest of Adhemar’s at their camp. She had developed a friendly rivalry with his personal smith, could drink Harry under the table without blinking, and sometimes talked books with Germaine. Her literacy was limited, but that fact that she could read at all was a surprise to him.

Whatever it was she did with Adhemar was confined to his tent after everyone else was sound asleep, and by morning she was usually gone, back to hammering out horseshoes and swapping curses with the other smiths. The smith said he’d once seen them embracing, and he could have sworn they kissed, as unlike both of them it sounded. Harry disbelieved the whole thing. Germaine supposed it was almost romantic, or as close as you could actually get with two people who hated each other. After a while things soured between them, and eventually they stopped acknowledging each other at all. War was imminent, and there was a new knight on the circuit tipping the odds.

Adhemar still chased other women and dominated the tournaments. Kate still fought for respect from the rest of her masculine profession. Germaine just waited and watched. Soon enough it would all come full circle. It always did.

Paliphrase ("Fight")-Arthurian-"Make It Stop"

2007-05-29T02:00:23Z

Title: Make It Stop
Author: Lady Bedivere
Claim: "Fight"
Fandom: Arthurian Legend
Pairing/Characters: Mordred, Lucan
Words: 913 wds.
Summary: But if Mordred didn't want to kill anyone, what really happened at the Battle of Camlann? Here's a new variation on one of our favorite events to twist.

The fighting had been going on for hours, maybe days. Mordred had lost all track of time, and the air was so thick with smoke and slaughter that day and night were rendered irrelevant. Three armies collided on the fields, everyone had chosen their sides, and nobody really knew why they were fighting, they just knew that they couldn’t stop. It had to stop. Make it stop, somebody had to make it stop…

Mordred made it to the edge of the woods unnoticed and ran quickly for the clearing. He wasn’t running away, he would never do that; he just needed a place to clear his head long enough to determine what to do next. Kill the damn devil who killed your brothers, said his mind, but Mordred pushed that thought aside. He didn’t have time to go after Lancelot, much as he longed to.

He reached the edge of the clearing and froze. A knight was sitting against one of the trees, his back to Mordred. Dammit, sword ready, kill him if he moves, thought Mordred. As he crept closer, he got a glimpse of the knight’s shield on the ground beside him: argent, a dragon rampant gules. “Bedwyr?”

The knight grunted and turned his head, allowing Mordred to see his face. “Sorry to disappoint you, wrong brother. Identify yourself.”

Mordred kept his hand on his sword and came into the clearing. Lucan tilted his head back against the tree. “Ah, Sir Mordred. If you’re really looking for my brother, you should be out on the field. He’s hard to miss; he’s the only one-handed man holding his own.”

“I wasn’t looking for anyone, actually. What are you doing here?”

Lucan moved the hand pressed against his side to reveal the red-brown stain seeped through his chainmail. “I believe the theory was that I’d stay here until I could stand up again, and Bedi would confuse issues further by trading shields with me.” He gave Mordred a weak smile. “If you’re going to kill me, would you mind giving me a little warning so I can put a hand on my sword first. Die with honour, even if I couldn’t give you a fight.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” said Mordred, sheathing his sword. With a sigh, he sat on the grass. “I don’t have any fight with you.”

“Wish you could have taught that logic to your sons.” Mordred glanced up at him. Lucan shrugged. “I think it was one of them that stabbed me. Looked like a variant of your arms, twin eagles.”

“That’s one or the other of them. They use the same device, probably for the same reason you and your brother keep trading.” Mordred looked at the man sitting across from him. He remembered years ago when they had teamed up to play an awful prank on Bedwyr. They’d hidden in the loft, stifling their laughter as they watched whichever girl it had been slap their unsuspecting target, and they’d run off to hide out in the old rabbit warren when he’d realized it was them.

Now Mordred had sons the age they’d been when they’d played that prank. He could see touches of grey around Lucan’s temples, which probably matched his own. They had never been friends, not really, but there was a strange kinship between them now.

Kill him, whispered the voice in the back of his head. He’s the enemy in this fight, and you never show mercy to an enemy, even if his is the brother of the damn cripple you call a friend.

“Look.” Mordred pulled himself out of his mind and saw Lucan staring up at the sky. When he looked up, he saw a large black bird overhead, flying in the direction of the battle. Lucan gave a bitter half-laugh. “The Morrigan. Apparently your aunt’s decided to join us after all. Think she’ll side for or against Arthur?”

“She’ll side with herself, just like always,” replied Mordred. “Maybe if we’re lucky she’ll get fed up with the whole mess and take out everyone at once.”

“Can’t say I’d mind if she did,” murmured Lucan. He closed his eyes and took a long deep breath. Mordred looked away. He’d seen too much death already in this fight. If this was going to be another, he didn’t want to see it. He waited, hearing the distant sounds of the battle drifting to where they sat.

After some time, he looked over to the wounded knight. Lucan stared out across the clearing, his breathing shallow but present. Mordred stood; it was time to return to the fight. As he started to walk away, Lucan closed his eyes.

“Which do you want to know, where to find Arthur, or where to find Lancelot?”

Mordred stopped. He didn’t even know why they were fighting anymore, nobody did. They only knew that it somehow had to stop…

“Arthur.”

Lucan waited a long time, long enough that he was sure that Mordred was well into the fight again. Reaching in behind his mail, he pulled out the now empty pouch of horse’s blood. He threw it onto the grass, picked up his brother’s shield, and headed through the trees. Bedwyr met him halfway out, the grim expression on Lucan’s face telling him all he needed to know. Without a word exchanged, they began to battle their way to where Arthur was, and where they knew Mordred soon would be.

Somebody had to make the fighting stop.

Random Memage!

2007-04-01T01:19:45Z

Because it's way too amusing...

If you make up titles for stories I didn't write, I will respond with details of those non-written stories.

Fanfic100-Dracula, Prompt #003.-"Ends"

2007-04-01T00:45:39Z

Title: Infernal Optimism
Fandom: Dracula: General Novel
Characters: Arthur Holmwood, Timothy Morris
Prompt: 003. Ends
Word Count: 643 wds.
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: LDT here. The third story tracing Arthur and Quincey's friendship. Follows the stories for "Beginnings" and "Middles".

Arthur stood at the top of the stairs to appraise the young man who waited in the parlor from out of sight. He was thinner than his brother, more lanky and awkward looking. His hair was closer cut and his mustache thinner, but they certainly had the same eyes. Arthur took a moment, then briskly descended the stairs and crossed to the man, hand extended in greeting.

“Mr. Morris? I’m Arthur Holmwood, Lord Godalming. Please, just call me Arthur, or Art if you like.”

The young man gave him a hearty handshake. “Timothy Morris, though I’d rather you call me Tim,” he said. His drawl was more pronounced than his brother’s had been as well. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I only wish it didn’t have to be like this.”

“As do I. Please, have a seat. Would you care for tea, or even coffee?”

Timothy shook his head and sat, leaning forward on his knees. “If it’s all the same to you, I don’t think I could stomach anything right now. I can’t help but feel like I should have been here sooner or something, not that it would have done any good.”

Arthur took his own seat and nodded. “Your brother spoke very fondly of you.”

Timothy laughed. “I’ll bet he did. Boss probably told you all sorts of stories about the scrapes he used to get me out of back on the ranch. His favorite was always the time I nearly got killed when my stallion threw me and he saved my life.” He grew quiet and looked down at the floor. “Can’t say I minded him saving me though. He was always like that. Always looking out for everybody else when he should have been looking out for himself.”

Arthur nodded. There was no need to talk about Quincey’s passing directly. Mina had written an account in her diary which, with some modifications concerning the true nature of their journey to Transylvania, Jack had written up and sent to the Morris family with heartfelt condolences from all their little band.

“How long will you be staying in England?” asked Arthur finally. Timothy shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “A while, I suppose. I’ll be wrapping up some of Quincey’s business he was working on here, settling some transactions and things. Been plenty long since I was over here anyway, thought I’d try and enjoy it a little. It’s the infernal family curse of optimism.” He grinned at Arthur, and Arthur couldn’t help but grin back.

They chatted a while longer, mostly about trivial things. It was like the first time Arthur had met Quincey, in a way: both of them talking about anything to avoid whatever they were really thinking about. Finally, however, Timothy stood.

“It’s been a real pleasure getting to know you, Art, but I’m afraid I’d better be off before Sally and Preston start wondering where I’ve gotten to.” He noted the quizzical look in Arthur’s eye. “Sally’s my wife, and Preston’s my nephew, Quincey’s boy.”

“Of course,” said Arthur. “Silly of me to forget. I do hope you’ll call again. Perhaps we could all have supper some night. You could bring your wife and nephew, and I could introduce you to the Harkers and Doctor Seward.”

Timothy offered again his broad smile that looked so much like his brother’s. “I’d sure appreciate that. You’ve got the name of my hotel, so I’m sure we can figure out something.” A few words of parting, and Arthur saw his guest to the door.

He had expected it to be harder than it was, he reflected later that evening over a glass of brandy. Quincey was missed by all, surely, but somehow Arthur didn’t feel like it was right to be sorry about it. There really was just something about that infernal Morris family optimism.