Worse Than Death

One Last Chance

Note: Trigger warnings due to sensitive topic mentions.

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            Arthur couldn’t help a moment of bitterness as he looked at his right arm in disgust. Morgause had led him to a section of the ruins across from Mystery and clamped a wall shackle around his right wrist, then walked away. Apparently he was so helpless he only needed one chain.

            He could make her out in the space in between. There was a great stone slab raised from the ground, like some sort of ornate table. She had laid Excalibur on the slab, grinning down at the sword like a child with a new toy. She’d been staring at it for a solid half hour, and Arthur sat down, the length of the chain allowing him just enough leeway to do so. He didn’t dare raise his eyes farther to look at Mystery, he felt the Kitsune’s eyes boring into him accusingly.

            Morgan LeFay hovered a few feet to the side of the table, attention fixed on her sister, saying nothing.

            Finally, Morgause broke the silence. “So. Sister. What say you now? Hundreds of years of living from descendant to descendant, and now perhaps I’ve found the key to eternal life. Perhaps I don’t even need this womb. She sealed herself away from all but his legitimate descendants,” she spat the word, “And now she is mine by his own hand.”

            “She refused even Arthur in his last moments.” Morgan reminded her softly. “And neither of us knows why. What makes you think she will give you what she did not give him?”

            “Because she is mine!” Morgause wrapped her hand around the hilt, stroking the length of the blade. “And whatever is mine does what I command without question, or suffers for it."

            Morgan closed her eyes, letting out a long, deep sigh. Morgause whirled on her, shouting, “Don’t give me that! As if I don’t have enough power! As if I can’t bend her to my will! Excalibur is mine, and she will do my bidding! If I don’t have the power now, I will continue to gather it! She will give me her powers and blessings if I have to wrest them from her!”

            Morgan did not respond, and Morgause’s laughter took on a bitter, shrill pitch. “What, what? No more words? No long lecture? No telling me there’s another way, a better path? No telling me, ‘Oh Morgause, Arthur didn’t know, he couldn’t have. Not our precious baby brother, he can do no wrong!’” She swung the sword, and Morgan jerked back, showing the first flash of fear that Arthur had seen. “Of course he didn’t know, but he knew what he was asking of me. You know why I was there!” She spat. “I was being obedient! I was being exactly what Father told me, a good wife!”

            “King Lot?” Arthur nearly swallowed his tongue as the words slipped out, and Morgause whirled on him, sword pointed perfectly at his throat.

            “The worm speaks, he has questions.” Her eyes narrowed. “Speak your questions then, worm.”

            “That night.” His eyes fixed on the point of the sword. “King Lot was in the dungeons, right? Why-y were you there?"

            A sneer twisted her mouth. “I was there to beg the King for my husband’s life. He was no romantic lover, but he was no monster either. Have you any concept of hell, Arthur son of Uther? Hell is being born female in the middle ages, and I landed in a lesser hell than many of my peers. Without him, I would have nothing and be at the mercy of whatever man came to claim Lot’s possessions. So what do I do? I come to the King. I come to beg him for just my husband’s life and by extension my own. And what am I asked?” The tip of the sword dug into his neck just slightly. “Tell me. What was I asked?”