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Chapter Text
The icy chill of winter bites mercilessly at them through the questionable warmth of a single threadbare cloak, the only one they can afford. They’re both shivering, teeth chattering uncontrollably, and the people crowded around them aren’t much better. Foolishness is, perhaps, contagious. Not one of them needs to be exposing themselves to this awful weather.
With the arrogance of youth, he knows beyond all doubt that with only a word he could persuade his aunt to carry him back into their comfortable little hovel. Within minutes they could be warming themselves by a modest fire and entertaining each other with little stories and ditties as they have every other day these past few months. However.
It’s strange—and it makes no sense at all—but he knows what is to come will be worth holding out for. Concerns for the ache in his limbs and numbness of his ears and the terrible cold he’ll almost surely suffer later are irrelevant, petty indulgences. He’s better than that—must be better than that.
Something deep inside him is stirring, strange images whispering across his vision. When he closes his stinging eyes, he can almost glimpse flashes of armour and glittering goblets and hair like spun gold. For a moment, the anxious buzzing of the waiting townsfolk lining the streets becomes a chaotic symphony of clashing swords and deep, resonating laughter that shakes him down to his core. He’s seen things before, heard things before, but not like this. Never like this.
Though he doesn’t know why, he has no choice but to stay.
It seems like hours before they come, but come they do, just as the messenger promised. “Look, poppet,” his aunt says, her own tremulous excitement bubbling as the cheers start erupting around them, piercing through the shrieking wind. “They’re here. His Majesty has arrived at last!” And Myrddin opens his eyes, straining to see through the crowd, momentarily forgetting his discomfort (and the worrisome fact that he had lost all feeling in his feet some time ago) when at last everything becomes clear.
“All hail, King Arthur!” the people chant in honour of their new king. “Long live the King!”
All Myrddin can do is stare.
His first thought when he sees him is: he looks exactly the same. This makes absolutely no sense, of course, because this is Arthur’s first tour of his lands as king and Misty Valley has never had much need for a hero-prince. Myrddin has never seen him before in his life.
Still, the thought sticks.
He studies the king with blue eyes, tinged yellow—and the man is beautiful. From atop his noble white steed, King Arthur looks every bit as courtly and proud one might expect: armoured in shimmering gold and crowned in jewels, the light dancing over the well-polished planes of metal in ethereal delight. The sun—it loves him, worships him. With gracious smiles the king accepts his people’s adoration and pledges of devotion. With a wave of his hand he promises a brighter future. He looks something more than human. Godly, divine.
But his eyes are dark.
“Auntie?” Myrddin questions, tugging insistently on her sleeve—though his eyes never once stray from the king. “What is wrong with him?”
“Wrong with him?” His aunt heaves him higher, balancing him carefully against her hip. “Whatever do you mean?”
Myrddin purses his lips, wondering how anyone could fail to see it—that aching emptiness, the loneliness. But, then, he’s always been a little more observant than is entirely natural. There’s a reason the other villagers warn their children away from him. “He’s unhappy,” he replies. “I’ve never seen anyone so sad.” His chest throbs in sympathy, as if the pain were his own. Maybe it is. He knows something of what it means to be alone.
“It is difficult for any son to lose a father.”
He nods pensively, but is not quite satisfied. That’s part of it, yes, but there’s more to the story. The languid black mottling those expressive orbs speak of old wounds, unhealed and unrelenting. Their new young king has lost someone, yes—but years ago. Now the wound festers—with yearning, with regret.
When the king passes them by, that tragic gaze meets Myrddin’s directly. Suddenly the darkness is gone and his eyes are so blue—blue like nothing of this earth, but then the man’s attention slips onward, ever onward, and the darkness is back—black, black, so black.
Myrddin rests his head on his aunt’s shoulder and knows he’ll see that shocking blue again someday.
He isn’t cold anymore.