LAS challenge 4 voting
LAS Challenge Four Voting
- Participants, remember to take part in the voting.
- Read each entry to vote.
- Vote for your three favourite pieces, and please be sure to include feedback for each one. The fic you vote for in the first spot should be the piece you felt was best in accordance to the voting guidelines below. Vote 2 & 3 and the reasoning for each is entirely up to your discretion.
- First place voting should be based around quality only: Was the prompt met? Does characterization ring true? How is the spelling, grammar and punctuation? Did the piece hold you attention?
- With a view to being able to give each participant some feedback, reviews of the other stories are very much encouraged. If you liked the story, or noticed room for improvement, please let the author know!
- Use the form in the textbox below to vote. In "general comments", include any feedback for the other stories by indicating the number, followed by your review. A sample vote form is in the comments.
- Participants: do not vote for your own fic, or tell others to vote for it.
First pick: #
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Additional comments:
The prompt was: "warrior queens." Participants had to keep the focus on Gwen and Tom's relationship, it had to include the phrase "look at me" and could be set either in the Merlin time period or in an AU.
Voting closes Wednesday, March 10 at 12:00 pm PST. Results and challenge four will be posted sometime on Wednesday.
#1. Dreaming For Her, G
“Tell me the story of Hippolyta, dad.”
Tom sighed and pulled the covers tighter around his daughter. “But I’ve told you that one too many time, Gwennie. Why not another-”
“No. I want that one.” A ten year old Gwen stared petulantly from beneath her black curls, with eyes so completely her mother’s that Tom didn’t have it in him to deny her.
“Okay,” Tom smiled and she snuggled deeper into the warmth of her blankets. “It starts with a tribe, a kingdom far far away in the depths of the jungles called Amazon. This kingdom was much the same as any other, my dear. There were royalty and servants, bakers and merchants, just like here in Camelot.”
“Not everything was the same though, was it dad...”
“No, no, you’re quite right,” he smirked and tweaked her nose. “There was one major difference. In Amazon there were no men. Every citizen was a woman, from the maids to the blacksmiths, and their Queen was a girl named Hippolyta.
“Now, Hippolyta was as beautiful as she was fierce. She governed her Kingdom with love and respect, and she defended her subjects against all enemies. So, when the King of a neighboring Kingdom decided to invade, it stands to reason that Hippolyta gathered her army and led them into battle.”
“An army of girls, right?”
“An army of girls. Who else would fight for them, with no men to rely on and no sons to train as soldiers? The King was not worried about the impending battle. He thought that girls were to weak and demure to fight, and that not one of them could handle a sword-”
An undignified snort interrupted Tom, as Gwen rolled her eyes at the very thought. Truly a smith’s daughter, thought Tom, proudly. “And so the King did not send all his armies, but just a few men, thinking that the girls would surrender as soon as they saw an armed soldier.
“But that was not the case. Queen Hippolyta led her subjects into war, annihilating the few legions of the King, and putting off any future attacks. They fought bravely and proudly, putting everything they believed in into every stroke of their weapon. The word soon spread, that the Amazons and their warrior Queen were a force to be reckoned with, just as strong as any man, and just as passionate in defending their lands.”
Tom looked down on his child, her brow furrowed as it was whenever he caught her in mid thought. The weight of the world already on her tiny shoulders, Gwen had taken up the role of the woman quickly after Eleanor’s death- a harsh toll on them both. It was only as she slept, when he saw her dreaming that he realized how young she really was.
“I like that idea,” she yawned and pressed closer to the pillow.
“Of a Kingdom of women?” He laughed “I fear I would not be let in...”
“No, silly.” Gwen giggled through her sleepiness. “Of fighting- of being allowed to fight. Daft idea...”
“Hey!” Tom pulled the covers from over her head and flicked her hair from her eyes, “Look at me, Guinevere. You have every right to stand up for what you believe in. Every right. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“Mhmmm...” Gwen heard though semi conscious her father’s words and let them resonate through her mind as she slept. She dreamt of jungles and love and warrior Queens, all bound together with notes of her father’s own voice.
It wasn’t until ten years later, when his smiles were memories and his stories were mementos, that Gwen fully appreciated his words. Standing on the brinks of her Kingdom, husband and King at her side, Guinevere wondered if her father had seen this all along.
#2. All The Victory She Needs, PG
"Sure, an' you've an eye on you like a hawk, child," says the old teamster when she asks about the piles of stones she can see at the edge of the forest. "I don't know about those. Leftover from the times of the old Romans no doubt."
She considers the stones, moss-covered, time-worn, imagines the towering structures above them: forts and castles punching up into the pearly grey sky. "Father?"
Beside her, her father stirs from the silence that's surrounded him like a shroud. "Gwennie?"
"Tell me about the Romans."
All last winter and spring, there were stories told by firelight when Gwen settled down for bed. While the evening sifted down around them, her mother would spin lambs' wool as soft as downy clouds while her father would spin tales as wondrous and amazing as magic itself.
There've been no stories since the summer's end.
Gwen wants to hear stories again. She wants to listen to her father's voice, rough and hoarse from the smoky forge, tender with a love that's too big for even his hefty frame, whimsical with the dreams Gwen's always seen in his eyes.
"Once, long ago, before the five kingdoms were formed - or even dreamed of - the land was full of tribes and clans. We were a different people then, smaller villages and family groups, collected together by blood and relationships, not by the lord we served. We spread through this land and mined it, called it our own until the Romans came."
"Where did they come from?"
"From a city and a land far away - far south, on the side of a glittering sea that stretches as far away as Israel - the holy land where Christ once walked. They built a mighty empire and conquered all manner of people. We were just one more place for them to conquer."
"They built the roads." She overheard someone saying it once; she can't remember who.
"And many forts and walls to provide their soldiers with protection."
She watches the Roman ruins go by as the cart trundles along the road and thinks about soldiers invading her village - angry men with swords and bows, bringing death and destruction with their coming.
"Didn't anyone fight them?"
Her father smiles at her indignation. "One did, for a little while at least. A queen, too - of the Iceni, who used to live up in the east of Mercia, near the sea."
"Tell me about her."
"They say she was clever and cunning, with red hair down to her waist and a fierce thirst for blood."
"And she drove the Romans back?"
She sees the shadow cross her father's face, hears the caution in his voice as he admits, "For a while. Rome was an empire of soldiers, remember, and the Britons just people defending their own."
"So they didn't drive the Romans out after all?"
Her father sighs a little, and his fingers brush over the curling wisps that have escaped her kerchief. "My bloodthirsty Gwen. Sometimes resistance is just as important as victory."
She frowns at the road ahead of them, the dusty ribbon of it skirting the forests that lead into Camelot town. "I'd rather win."
Warm lips kiss the crown of her head and his laughter - the first in a long time - rings over the cart taking them and their possessions to a new life. "I'd hate to be an army up against you, my Gwen."
--
They called the farmers in from the fields, sent riders out as far as they could to spread the word. A forester's son was sent out four days ago, hoping to slip past the Frankish forces and get a message through to Arthur: Camelot will hold fast. And so will you.
"M'Lady Guinevere?" She's not a lady - not really. But with the Frankish army coming up from the south, and the unexpected death of the Lord Protector from an unfortunate chicken bone, Gwen's the one they've learned to look to. "The foresters are signalling the outrider columns."
Camelot has taken in the peoples who fled north, their stores becoming scarce beneath the mouths to feed. Still, among them, there are those who will fight with a sword in hand or a pocketful of slingshot. There are those who will fletch arrows, sharpen knives, design siege engines. There are those who will prepare the people for war with food and meat, grain and straw bedding.
The story of the burned towns of South Hampton and Salisbury will not be the story of Camelot; Gwen promises herself that.
"Signal the first watch and for the defenders to take position," she says, and bites back the reminder that the guard captain need not bow to her.
Instead, she thinks of the Iceni queen and her war; she thinks of the towns and people despoiled by invading army while the armies of Albion turn Mercia's grain-plains into a bloody mud; she thinks of her father, long dead and buried, who first told her of a queen who defied an empire.
Guinevere intends to defy the Franks.
She'd rather win, of course. But resistance here is all the victory she needs.
#3. Kandake, PG
Four
Gwen grew up hearing tales of Albion’s warrior queens. Their names ran through her bones to her marrow - Boudicca and Cordelia and Gwendolen of Cornwall. There were other names too, Bellona and Minerva the goddesses her grandmother had brought with her from Rome; the powerful queen Amanirenas and the other kandakes who had ruled the kingdom of Kush, where her granddad had been born. As a child she had loved them, those fierce, furious women. As a woman she sometimes thought she would crumple under their weight.
Thirteen
She watched as the blade sliced through the air. She’d lived in Camelot for long enough to recognise the skill present in the dance of blade and body. She stayed, hidden in the shadows, watching. In later years she couldn’t quite remember what had happened next. She must have coughed, or stepped forward too heavily, because her dad turned and dropped the sword. She picked it up and held it out to him.
“Put that in the smithy for me, Gwen,” Tom said as he walked back to the house.
“But, dad, don’t you want to practice some more?” Gwen knew she was asking as much for herself as for him. She wanted to see more of that stranger who could wield a sword like one of Uther’s knights.
“Practice? I was just messing around, Gwen, just foolishness.” He seemed angry but she couldn’t understand why, any more than she could just let it go.
“It didn’t look foolish.”
"Such things aren’t for me, Gwen. Look at me. Now go and put it away.” He didn’t shout but his words were punctuated by the full stop of the door slamming shut.
By the time Gwen returned, swordless, Tom was himself again. He’d set the table and she knew it for an apology.
She never again saw him touch a blade with anything but a blacksmith’s hands.
Nineteen
She had to leave the body, eventually. She knew it was just cold flesh now but she still felt like a traitor as she kissed her father’s cheek for the last time. At home she sat on her bed and wept. Eventually all her tears were gone and only her ghosts remained. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t fight this, not even for you.”
Thirty Four
She’d come back for the battle, of course. They’d all known, somehow, even before the first body fell, blood soaking into the ground, that this would be the last, desperate, stand. Despite everything that had happened, she could no more have stayed away than she could have stopped breathing. The armour weighed her down and made every movement awkward. She almost tripped as she bent down to grasp the sword. She felt her arm tense to bear its weight as she lifted it. On the battlefield she could see the living striding over the lake of the dead; still fighting, still sinking down to join the cooling bodies of their fellows.
With Excalibur in her hand she could lead them, rally what was left of Albion’s strength. She'd fought before, she'd even killed before. But Albion’s hope lay dying on the ground next to Albion’s bane. There was nothing she could do for either of them. There was nowhere she could lead Albion to but more death. She turned, hand still clasped around the sword that had been her father’s before it had been anyone else’s. She walked through the last of the day and through the gloaming light into pure night before she reached the lake.
She had worried that she would falter in the end, cling to the sword like a child to a well loved toy but she did not. She drew her arm back and threw the sword in without a pause. It sank, the water embracing it like a long lost friend. However she was remembered now, it wouldn’t be as one of those brilliant, bloodstained warriors who marauded though her childhood memories.
Gwen walked towards the edge of the lake and looked down, the moon enough illumination for her to see her own face looking back up at her. She removed her armour, the coat of arms that had been so carefully etched into the metal now covered with mud and blood. She stripped and immersed herself in the lake, washing away the last of the queen. When she emerged she was just a woman.
She didn’t look back as she walked towards the rising sun.
#4. Birthday Presents, G
"Gwen. Gwenny." Tom said, trying to get his daughter's attention. He held a small camera in his hand and was watching his little girl twirl about their garden in the tiara and pink dress her Grandmother had given her for her birthday. Her smile lit up the otherwise grey April morning. "Gwen, love, look at me. Look at the camera." She held still from her twirling long enough that he got a simple shot of her, curls blowing the in breeze and caught in the tiara.
--
"And now for your present from Daddy!"
Gwen smiled. She'd already received Grandma's present that morning. She was still wearing it, in fact, but Tom had wanted to surprise her with his present tonight. "Is it a pony?" Gwen said, a mischievous glint in her eye as she looked at the package Tom held in his hands. "That doesn't look like a pony to me."
Tom pretended to sputter. "Well, if you don't want this. I can always take it back."
"No, no. I want it." Gwen said reaching across the table dragging her pink, filmy sleeve in the cake. "Ooops." She said, and wiped at it with a napkin until the stain was mostly gone. That was his little Gwen, always making sure everything was neat and just so. Even when she was a princess. When the sleeve was clean to her liking, she tore into the present, ripping the wrapping paper apart. She stopped when she got to the box, and then opened it slowly, savoring the surprise. "Oh, my gosh!" She squeeled as she reached in and took out a Gwen-sized sword. She jumped up from the table and ran over to Tom, first pretended to stab him, and then wrapping him in her arms, the biggest hug a tiny girl could give.
Tom looked back up at his mother who smiled at Gwen with tight lips. He knew the disappointment was not for Gwen, but for him. Not raising a daughter alone the right way. She had known about the sword, a left over prop from his latest round of weapon making for Camelot Studios, and had told him that no little girl would want that as a present. He was fairly certain that was why Gwen had gotten the princess dress and tiara this morning. But Gwen was running around the house, trying to figure out if she should knight Gaspar, their basset hound, or make him her stead. "Now I really need a pony." She called out as she ran down the hallway to her bedroom, Gaspar at her heels, his claws clicking on the hardwood floor.
--
Tom smoothed the blankets over Gwen as he tucked her in. He'd made her get in her jimjams, telling her she had to keep her princess dress special, but he had allowed her to put her tiara and sword by her pillow with her dolls and stuffed animals.
"How was my princess' day?" Tom asked kissing her on the forehead.
Gwen was still wide awake, the excitement of the day still jittering through her as she kicked her feet under the covers. "I'm not a princess." Gwen said. "I decided I was a queen."
"My mistake, your highness." Tom said.
Gwen giggled. "Princesses don't get to have swords because princesses are kids. But I'm ten now and I have a sword, so I'm a queen."
"A warrior queen?"
"Er," Gwen said, considering. "Yeah. A warrior queen, and I go around and-" She stopped and then her eyes grew wide. "And I rescue princes! And I fight evil people, like bullies."
"Sounds like you're going to be busy. And busy queens need their sleep."
She looked reluctant. Obviously, she wanted to stay up, run around the house with her sword and Gaspar until she collapsed. "Good night love." He said to stem any complaints before they started.
"Goodnight, Dad." She said.
Later, when he peeked his head in her doorway on his way to bed, she was curled up asleep one hand on the hilt of the sword he'd given her.
#5. Lessons, PG
His voice is low when he speaks, trembling with barely contained anger. He was angry a lot these days.
“Why did you speak?”
His hands work methodically, wrapping the length of cloth, folding and layering, over and over. He focuses on the task to compose himself; to stop himself from breaking, from shouting.
He is met with silence. She sits completely still, eyes fixed downwards on her hands.
“Look at me.”
She does not look. Nor does she speak. But she hasn’t had very much to say these days. Although, apparently, he thinks, she speaks only when it is inappropriate to do so.
Deciding that his wrapping is sufficient, he tugs and tears the old cloth, ripping it roughly apart. She jumps at the harsh motion, winces at the sound. Shudders at the pain...
He snaps, “Answer me!”
“I just wanted to know why!” she cries, “Master Geoffrey said that-”
“You know perfectly well what this could have cost us, Guinevere! You could have lost your position at the castle!”
“But-!”
“I was told you were nearly taken to the king! You should be grateful that your lady stepped in on time!”
“I am, but dad-”
“Why-” he roars, his voice, a foreign sound to his own ears, “-did you speak?”
“Master Geoffrey said that a lady could not be both a queen and a warrior, and I wanted to know why not!” her words stumble out quickly.
Tom almost laughs at the absurdity. And in the silence that follows this revelation, he notices her appearance for the first time that evening: she sits at the very corner of the bed, thin legs dangling off the edge, curled toes barely brushing the floor. Her braids are coming undone, and powdered white dust from the castle walls contrast on her dark locks and skin. She holds her hands carefully suspended over her lap, the salve still wet and seeping through the bandages. Her eyes refuse to look at him, but they appear both as wide and confused, and as tired and weary as his.
She looks little. She is little, he thinks, she has not yet seen eight harvests. But she was a clever girl, and had learned her letters through her lady’s lessons in less than a week. She eagerly studied scrolls and maps, reciting names of distant lands, even as she scrubbed at the floor under the kingdom’s tapestries. She was his Eleanor in every way…and it scared him more than he liked to admit that she, too, might learn to dream.
And yet for all her cleverness, she would jeopardize their stability over such a silly, pointless challenge thrown at her master. She was a child.
She breaks the silence, timidly: “do you think a lady can be both queen and a warrior, daddy?”
He does not miss the childish curiosity in her voice, wonder mixed with a little disbelief. But tonight was a night for learning lessons, not for stories, or fairy tales. She needed to grow up. He was still angry...
“No.” says Tom, “And I do not think you should be troubling yourself with such questions. You are a maid now, Gwen, a common servant to nobility. Look at me," he says again, forcing her now to hold his gaze, imploring her to understand, "your duty at the castle...it is the most important thing, Gwen. No matter what they are telling you, no matter what they are doing," his voice trembles again, he was so angry... "It was your mother's work once, would you so carelessly lose it?"
She winces again, and looks away.
"You should be grateful for having a chance to attend your lady’s lessons at all, and should know better than to speak up, or to challenge the master. You have no right to ask such things, and if you wish your hands saved from the cane, you would do well to remember your place!”
At the finality of his tone, she crawls into bed silently, pressing into the wall, curling into herself; shrinking, even littler. He lies down behind her, one of his large hands automatically reaching to curl around her bony ankle. Had she not had the skin on her palms punished raw tonight, she would have complained of her aching legs, whined of the misery of climbing the many castle stairs.
“I just wanted to know if Morgana could still fight when she’s queen,” she mumbles her simple logic.
Don't, Gwen, Tom wants to say, breathing deep, his chest rumbling. She’s already half slipped into sleep, and he’s drained from being angry, he was so angry, all the time. Don't dream, don't give them reasons to hurt you.
But no more is said between them that night.
#6. Stories, PG
Gwen hopped up into bed, pulling her blankets around her to shield herself from the cold. Her father settled beside her, smelling of motor oil and sweat. He thumbed open the folder of worn pages - pieces of old books, photocopies of encyclopedia entries, and a few newer ones - printed out at the library on the new, public printers.
When Gwen was a little smaller she'd wondered what it all meant, this cobbled together map of history and fiction. Her father'd sighed and caressed the pages with calloused hands. "Your mother started it," he said, eyes far away. The edges of his lips twitched, like he wasn't sure whether to smile or speak, and Gwen snuggled down at his side. He looked down at her upturned, curious face and pushed the curls out of her eyes. "She loved the brave women, the warrior queens. 'Course, you knew that, eh Gwen?"
Sometimes he read of the Valkyries of the Scandinavian people, winged victories. Sometimes he read of the Amazons, who cut one breast from their chests in order that they might draw their bows perfectly. Sometimes he read of Boudicca or Amelia Earhart or Eowyn of Rohan but most often he read of Guenivere.
Guenivere didn't look like Gwen. She was blonde or maybe red-headed, and pale, and tall, with graceful wrists and a long, thin nose. Equine, the books said, which Tom translated as "sort of horseish" but Gwen would always think of as perfect. Guenivere didn't act like her, either - she was gracious and eloquent and stood her ground, and Gwen was just a small thing, a mouse, with a clumsy tongue and perpetually pink cheeks.
Yet as she closed her eyes against the stories she sank into the one in her head, the one in her dreams, where it was her that the golden prince sought and the Wizard was young and dark and Lancelot's lips were sweet. And there was magic, yes, and danger, yes, but in her dreams Gwen was a lion, not a mouse, and she breathed in the smoke of the war and went to join battle.
"Some say dreams are what will be," Tom says in his slow way, sipping bunt coffee from his worn tine mug, "And some say they're what already was." He shrugged. "I say, who cares? All I know is, none of it comes from anything outside of yerself. So whoever you are in there..." He tapped the side of her head. "That's a bit of you, that's your real self, as sure as the self that's sittin' here."
She licked her lips, chasing her smile with her tongue, and nodded. "Thank you," she said, and he took her hand in his.
#7. I Was A Daughter, PG
Gwen sits at the table, fidgeting with her skirt. Her father shouldn't be so late -
The door opens to reveal a grinning Tom, sweat dripping down his forehead and covered in dirt.
'Dad!' She rushes to him and hugs him tight. 'Why are you so late? I thought something had happened.'
Tom puffs out his cheeks with exhaustion and exhilaration, but his grin only widens as he pulls out something from his back. 'This, Gwen,' he says, 'this happened.'
Gwen takes it from him, and pushes away the cloth. Wrapped inside is a sword. She looks up at her father with a quizzical gaze.
'It's the best sword I've ever made,' he tells her, eyes still glinting with excitement, 'the very best. Hold it; you'll see.'
She gingerly takes the sword out from the cloth, and holds it up in the air. Her father is right; it's by far the best sword she's ever held. She turns it around in her hands, and the candlelight dances off the hilt as she marvels at the balance.
Her father looks at her expectantly, and she smiles. 'You're right - it is the best. What are you going to do with it?'
'Why, Gwen,' he replies, chuckling, 'I'm not going to be doing anything with that - I'm keeping it safe.' He takes it from her hands and wraps it in the cloth, and gently places it under his bed.
He winks at her as he straightens up. 'It's good enough for a king.'
*
The ground is hard as Gwen kneels in front of the small stone marking her mother's resting place - once, she would have come here with her father; he too is gone, now ashes scattered in the same field. She closes her eyes - they are nothing but fading memories, now, and her heart aches to know that.
*
'Daddy!' Gwen calls playfully as she skips into the house. 'Daddy!'
Her father is standing at the window, lost in his thoughts. 'Hmm?'
'I was playing kings and queens with Ambrose and Linesse,' Gwen tells him eagerly - she is not yet old enough to know that she will spend the rest of her life serving them. 'Ambrose said I would make a very nice queen, but Linesse told me that I would be a good warrior queen, for I am the blacksmiths' daughter!' She dances around the table, for a while, before noticing the lack of attention. 'Look at me, Daddy,' she tells him, 'what sort of queen would I be?'
Tom gives a small smile, and scoops up his daughter in his arms. 'A beautiful one, Gwen,' he says, and presses a kiss to her forehead, making Gwen giggle.
Gwen nestles against her father's warm chest, and the two stand still in their cottage - content, for a moment. Then she hears her father sigh, and Gwen looks up at him with large, worried, eyes. 'Is Mummy still poorly?' she asks tentatively.
Tom nods, and Gwen cuddles closer to him. 'I wish I were a real warrior queen,' she says quietly, 'then I could fight the thing that's making her sick.'
She doesn't notice the tears in her father's eyes as he gently whispers back to her: 'You're a good girl, Gwen. You're such a good girl.'
*
But she is not alone anymore. Behind her are her husband and her friend, each bowing their heads in respect. The latter gently rests a hand on her shoulder and gives her a comforting smile; Gwen smiles back.
Her king unsheathes his sword and hands it to her. She hadn't seen it in a long time - the last time was long before she was made queen; before she had even imagined herself as one.
The sword - Excalibur, Arthur had told her - is exactly as she remembers. It may be a weapon of magic now, and yes, holding it makes her feel light, somehow - but it is still of her father's making, the very same one he'd shown her that night. She closes her eyes as she holds it up in the air and turns the hilt in her hands - she can almost feel her father with her.
#8. Queens, G
He surfaces, from underneath the hazy surface of muddled dreams, heart thumping from his recent heartache and throat tight and sore with unshed tears. It takes him a moment to realize why he woke from the dream of having his dear wife in his arms - but only a moment. His daughter is curled in bed beside him, a little ball of curly hair and white nightdress.
And she’s crying.
“Gwen-girl,” he murmurs. He sits up, draws her into his lap. She still shakes, her ragdoll clutched to her heaving chest. He rubs circles in her back, awkward - his wife used to do this. Not he.
“Had a bad dream,” she snuffles, wiping her snotty nose with the back of her hand.
He brushes away the stray strands of hair that’s come undone from her two messy plaits - plaits that she did herself, now that she has no mother to do them for her. He tries not to think on that too much. All the what ifs, no mores, and no longers cannot be good for him. For the both of them.
“What was it about?”
“Dunno. Monsters. They were trying to eat me.” She whimpers again. “I was scared, Father. You weren’t there.”
He closes his eyes, holds her tight. Tighter. And one day I really won’t be, will I?
“Let me tell you a story,” he says, haltingly . . . for his wife was the storyteller. And now he must be. There’s no ifs, no possibilities. It simply is, now. “It is about a Warrior Queen. She beat back her foes using her wits and her sword, and all who bowed before her loved her, and worshipped her. She was beautiful, and she was wise, and she was fearsome. That was enough for her people to love her. But, my dear, she was loved most of all, because she was tough.”
“Tough,” she repeats, although it’s not a question - but an affirmation, spoken by a hesitant tongue still blurred with weeping.
“Yes, tough,” he says. He budges her up on his lap, so that he can see her face properly. “Look at me, love.”
She looks, eyes wide, her gaze curious. Her face still glistens with her tears, but her lip does not tremble . . . and in the glow of the moonlight, the curves and gentle slopes of her cheeks and eyelashes are outlined in silver, an ethereal picture of elegance and refinement in this little blacksmith’s cottage. There she is, he thinks, and does not know if he means his daughter, or his wife.
“But she was loved most of all, not because of her bravery, not because of her beauty. It was because she kept her back straight. She looked things in the eye - even as her troubles came at her from all sides. She always took a step forward, no matter the burden upon her shoulders. Because she had to. And that was what made her Gwyneth, the Warrior Queen.”
“That’s Mother’s name,” she says, her tiny voice a whisper of awe.
“Yes,” Tom says. He pats her back and kisses her brow. “She was named after her. And you, my Guinevere, are named after your mother.”
#9. Untitled, G
The beast was truly hideous. Huge, with more eyes than Gwen could count, and twisted, dark-stained horns. Its thick fur was matted and stinking, and its fangs were longer than Gwen’s entire body. It roared - a heartstopping, headcracking scream, that would make a lesser man (or maiden) flee in terror.
But Gwen felt no fear. Because she was, in fact, fearless. Fearless was her middle name. She was so fearless it’s frankly awe-inspiring. She was brave and loyal and true, a Hero with a capital ‘H’, and this foul denizen of darkness was doomed the moment it messed with Polly.
“Fear not, fair maiden!” She swung her sword, a flash of bright steel, and tossed her head in a clearly reassuring manner.
The fair maiden didn’t seem to react. Which - to be fair - is difficult when you’re made of scrap linen and straw. But Gwen was pretty sure her little button eyes looked distinctly Reassured.
With that encouragement, she struck.
Like a wolf. Like a dragon.
“Ouch, Gwen, no, that’s too hard!”
She pulled back immediately, abashed. The tip of her sword dipped forlornly into the dirt, just two bits of wood, nailed together. Her father, all vestiges of horrible growling beastie gone, rubbed his forearm. It was an angry red, and already the beginnings of a nasty bruise were beginning to blossom.
“Sorry, Pa! Sorry!” She patted him awkwardly, hopefully, on the hip. It was Are you okay? and I’m sorry I’m sorry and I’m not in trouble, am I? all rolled into one.
“That’s alright, sweet.” He ran a hand through her hair as the edges of a rueful smile played over his lips. “Just be a bit careful, yeah? You don’t know your own strength.” The smile - until then only lurking - spread full-bodied over his broad and friendly face. “My little warrior. My little warrior princess.”
“I’m not little, I’m a big girl. And I’m a queen.”
He laughed and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Well, your Majesty. In that case, I think it’s time I showed you something.”
- - -
It was beautiful - finer than any of the blades he usually made, which were strong, serviceable weapons for the most part. This was slender, with long tapering curves and delicate inlay in the hilt. A delicate ‘G’ was engraved into the base of the blade.
Gwen was entranced.
“Is that… mine?”
“One day.”
She was trying to be good, but there’s only so much she could take. She reached for it tentatively, and Tom gently raised it out of her reach.
“Now, Guinevere, this isn’t for play. This is… this is real. And I want you to have it, when you’re ready.”
Her voice was hushed, reverent, as her gaze swept hungrily over the fine blade. “But when? How will I know when I’m ready?”
He smiled, a little sadly. “When you are grown-up, you will know.”
- - -
The harsh scrape of the wheels of the death-cart rings in Gwen’s ears, like the sound would always be there, never leave her. She’s kneeling next to her bed, the long cloth wrapped bundle resting across her knees.
She doesn’t need to open it.
There’s nothing but tiredness in her when she wraps her hand around the hard place where the hilt is. Grief has already cracked her open and bled her dry. She’s thinking now, of what comes next. Like, she needs to sort through his clothes - give them away. Someone else will have to run the forge now. She’ll need to rethink food, how much to buy for one instead of two. And she needs to talk to Merlin.
The weight in her lap feels like childhood dreams, like legacies and love.
Her fingers tighten. Always. Always your warrior queen.
I know now.
#10. The Is The, G
She's got her hair tied back when she comes to him, dark curls held back from her face with a plain strip of fabric. Her clothing is simple, worn leather breeches and a white shirt that hangs on her frame. She's smaller than he remembers.
She sits down next to him and he would expect her to cry, to put her arms around him, to say how much she missed him, but there's something different about her now. Not just that she's older (though she is, soft lines around her mouth and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes), but she's . . . majestic, somehow, almost regal in a way he can't describe.
"So this is death?" She asks and she doesn't sound like the little girl he left behind, but then she rests her head against his shoulder and he can feel her shaking.
"Gwen," he says and puts an arm around her, pulling her close to him, "my little girl."
"You wouldn't believe what happened to me," she says against his shoulder. "I was queen."
"Queen?" He exclaims in the same voice he used when she was little and she'd describe the worlds she imagined, where her mother was still alive and they lived in the country with a gaggle of animals and always enough food.
"No, really," she laughs. "Really, I was. Me. I married -- Arthur married me. I was queen."
"You married Arthur?" He knows he sounds disbelieving, but he always thought his little girl was too good (not to mention too common) for the prince.
She laughs again. "I know," she mutters into his shirt. "But after you -- well, he's better than when you knew him. He loved me. And well, look at me. I don't look like I had a particularly difficult life, do I?"
He makes a noncommittal noise and she turns to look up at him and smiles and she looks like his daughter again, like the little girl he used to rock to sleep.
"So you were queen," he starts. "You were queen and now you're . . ." He doesn't want to say it; she's too young, still, to be dead.
"It's not all jewels and banquets," she says and looks down again. "I -- there was a war." She stops for a minute. "Well, there've been a couple wars, but this one was the worst. We weren't sure if we could win. I'm still not sure if we're going to win."
"And you fought? In the war? Isn't the queen supposed to stay out of battle?"
"Supposed to?" She snuggles closer against him and she sounds so sad. "I guess so. But I wasn't going to let all those people go out and die while I sat at home. And I had more experience and training than most of them."
And that's the girl he remembers, passionate and kind, too brave for her own good, too nice, too helpful. The girl who used to cry over dead birds and mend her friend's wounds, even when she was younger than they were.
"So you were a warrior queen," he says into her hair. She smells like battle, now that he thinks about it, oiled leather and blood and dirt, sweat and metal.
She smiles again, this time looking straight ahead, looking back at a life he didn't get to see. "I suppose I was."
11. & if a ten tonne truck, G
She's a tiny seventeen-year-old explosion of colours; red cordruoy skirt over green woollen tights, home made jumper of yarn and rainbow scarf three feet too long for her and wrapped around twice. Tom watches her in the early hours as she puts the finishing touches to her placard, and tries to quash his fears.
"You will be all right," he says -- confirms -- as he sits at the table, and hovers his gloved hands over steaming tea.
Gwen looks up, bright-eyed and cheerful. "Did you sleep at all last night?"
"Between you and the landlord's letters through the box -- yeah, like a log, sweetheart."
Gwen pulls a rueful face and starts blowing over her painted words. Cocking his head to read the words, Tom has to admire the alliteration in spite of himself.
"I don't see why you can't sit through school and just wait for this to blow over," he tells her. "You don't see me haring off to big old protests, and I'm the one doing nothing."
Gwen frowns. "You're not doing nothing," she says firmly. "You're only like this because you've been left by --"
"Yeah, yeah I know. Been getting it on the union newsletters every week for the past few months, haven't I?" He gulps some tea, willing himself not to be bitter.
"But someone has to do it," she says, her words tumbling and fresh. ""Come on, Dad, it's 1984. We're fifteen years from a new millennium. If no one stands up to what they're doing, we'll all wind up forgotten in some disused mines. That's what your unions are doing, and they'll succeed, I promise."
Sometimes, in those moments when he loves her her so fiercely he thinks his breath might combust from being contained within him, he thinks she'll leave him far behind; he thinks she'll save him.
"Just, be careful," is all he says, ruffling her hair. "I don't want to have to come down and bail you out."
"Don't worry, Dad," says Gwen soothingly. "I won't beat up any policemen. Although if they touch us, it's incitement and we'll get them."
"Gwen!"
"Kidding, Dad." Gwen grins. "Anyway, I cooked up some food. Nothing very exciting, but it'll keep you till I get back." She jumps up and sticks some coins on the table. "Change from the shop, and I think the bloke with the milk will be round for his weekly." He watches her as she catches sight of herself in the mirror and takes a moment to tug her plaits with a critical eye, and can't help smiling.
"And what's that for? I thought you were trying to save the world."
"Well, yeah." She blushes. "But can't do that looking like a tramp, can I?"
Tom studies his daughter for few moments. "So who are you going with?"
"Oh, Merlin's taking the coach down with me - his mum's having kittens about it. And Leon - you remember him - went off to Bristol Uni a few years ago? He said he'll be there too. Oh, and Morgana's coming down from Oxford and meeting me at the station."
"Morgana? Isn't her father --"
"Yes, and she's still joining us. She's brilliant. A huge inspiration to everyone." Gwen's eyes start to glow, her cheeks are pink, and Tom feels his stomach flop, strangely, as his only daughter slips a little further from him. "Her speeches, Dad. And she's so passionate and knowledgeable about everything. She'll rule the country one day, just wait and see. I feel so... tiny, when I'm with her. What could I ever do?"
Tom doesn't say, he thinks he can see his own daughter leading this country, fighting her way through and guiding them, gently, into a new age. He tries to picture her: forty, at the turn of the century, working with the unions, looking after the normal folk, not just jumped-up university lads with their business suits and ties and slick-styled hair but the people who have to sit it out home, drumming fingers on the window pane and waiting, because industry is dying around them and no one cares. Then he sees her, fumbling with coat buttons as her thick gloves get in the way, and she's only a lass with dreams bigger than herself.
"Oh, come here." She turns about obligingly, and he starts doing them up for her. "Look at me. You be all the warrior you like. Do your marches and yell outside old buildings."
Gwen smiles.
"Just pass your A-levels too, right? Can't get into uni with only a catchy slogan on a bit of card."
Gwen reaches up and plants a kiss on Tom's cheek. "Love you," she says, and whirls out of the house in a flurry of colour. He waits at the table, and shuffles the change she's left. He twirls the quid on the table, and watches the queen's face flicker over shadows and light from the electric lamps.