Gwynevere ♕ Geula Sinclair (vivatregina) wrote in mythologs, @ 2012-04-02 19:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | !event #017, elaine of corbenic, gwynevere |
[closed/complete]
Characters: Elaine of Corbenic (thegrailmaiden) & Gwynevere (vivatregina)
Date/Time:
Location: Random hiking mountain in the state of New York!
Rating: PG
Warnings: Arthurian women. Seriously, Arthurian women. Also, mentions of Bear Grylls shenanigans.
Summary: When Elaine and Gwynevere touch each other, their mutual ire sends them both up and away. Having had to work together to survive all the horrors the wilderness threw them, the two encounter a hiking trail and make their way down. It isn't quite friendship, but it could be.
It had been a terrible past few days. Not that Gwynevere was unused to camping conditions, no. But being forced to camp in a terrain she did not know, without the proper equipment to be doing so? Even that was beyond the most experienced's expertise. (Barring, perhaps, Bear Grylls. But he drank his own urine, so Gwynevere didn't think he counted.)
Everything that could have possibly gone wrong had gone wrong. The most shallow of which included Gwynevere's having been transported in five-and-a-half inch pumps (heels she'd quickly gotten around to dismantling. The shoes looked horrible as flats, but what could a girl do?). The more pressing of which included mountain bears, mountain lions, snakes, wasps... And undeniably the biggest elephant in the room (mountain): Elaine of Corbenic.
Gwynevere bore the woman no ill will or anger (or so she told herself) because she did not have the right to be angry. She had been determined to be as solicitous and gentle with Lancelot's wife as possible, as much as the situation allowed. Still, Gwynevere could not deny that being around a less experienced camper made things more difficult. Especially one so prone to squealing and squeaking. This was penance, Gwynevere decided, and she hoped to God she was doing a good job of it. After all, Elaine was really not so bad a person, even as trying as the circumstances were. Under other terms, they might even have become good friends.
Or who knows? Gwynevere thought as they trudged down an impossibly steep hiking trail. (An indication that, yes, there was a way out, and yes, they would eventually encounter someone who could help.) Maybe, after this, we can have a little less hatred between us. Just a little.
Bear Grylls horrified Elaine on occasion. Still, the man knew how to survive and she was grateful for having caught an episode here and there for sake of knowledge. But there would be no rats cooked over a fire or urine for Elaine, oh no. She wanted to live with herself after surviving.
And she was doing just that, marching alongside a woman she could barely tolerate on the best of days. Her words had been short and to the point, something she knew wasn't nice but she was only human and still bitter. At the very least she hadn't eyeballed any rocks and the back of Gwynevere's skull. See? She could be good (minus the squeaking and squealing but that was just hereditary, Elaine claimed).
After all they had already tolerated, Elaine had grown quieter, more pensive of everything. As far as she knew, Gwynevere hadn't eyeballed any rocks and they were still together when the woman could have left her behind. Elaine had watched the other woman ruin her shoes for sake of being able to walk, a sign of some sense. Her own shoes, though not ideal, were comfortable enough and meant to keep her on her feet already in her flower shop.
It was during that descent that, finally, Elaine broke the silence, finding that her normally chatty nature needed to. "I dream of kicking Lancelot and Arthur in the nads." Originally, it was going to be 'I hate hiking' but it seemed her mouth came up with something else.
Gwynevere suppressed the hysterical urge to giggle. "After all that's happened, I think they'd run to each other for comfort," she almost said. But that was rude, and while to an extent Gwynevere firmly believed her husband and her (his, now, his) lover deserved it, she had her limitations.
She wanted to ask "Because of Zurvan?". That, however, might have been pressing the boundaries of Gwynevere and Elaine's new and unsteady non-hostile relationship too far. After a considerable pause, Gwynevere decided on, "They're the kind of men that can tear a woman's patience apart, true. But I hope they find happiness with each other." Another pause. "Or with whomever they choose."
"Tear apart patience? I thought Arthur had a shred of more sense! Lancelot..." Elaine halted after his name but, with typical stubbornness, pushed past her reservations and moved onward. "Lancelot's always been trouble in his own way. I'm not even going to pretend that his choices in the past were saintly in any way. He did good, I know. He was a good man but..." None of them had made very good choices. That was left unsaid, something unnecessary as they both knew it.
After a second of simply being mulish, she sighed and punted out of her way a small branch. "If they are happy, good for them. But it's not a betrayal I'm forgetting just yet. I will. But not yet."
How Polyxena was handling it, she didn't know. She should inquire but had no idea if the other woman would view her as well as she once had.
Gwynevere hesitated, but she knew what Elaine meant. She had been in love with Arthur, after all, and he had so easily forgotten her. (And she could not forget the betrayal she'd felt seeing Elaine with Lancelot, seeing Elaine bearing him a child. Gwynevere would have traded all her beauty and riches for a sweet son, would have given the world to have even a shred of fertility.)
After carefully maneuvering herself over a few rocks and pushing aside her worries about the looseness of the ground's top layer, she took up her turn in conversation. "You're right in that. Our world... It didn't help us make the right decisions until it was too late."
She tried to remember what Elibel, her sole confidante, had told her when she grieved over her barrenness, over her husband's death. Gwynevere was usually better at comforting, but what words could she give a woman as proud as herself? "Cleansing the wound is always painful. But it must be done. Better to be angry now than to let the anger fester into resentment."
It wasn't comfort exactly, more agreeing with Elaine's sentiments than trying to soften them. Gwynevere hoped those were the right words to say. In the end, she was always led back to this. Picking the appropriate words and sentiments, and praying that she'd hit jackpot. Oftentimes, that was a resounding 'yes!', but unlike the others, this was a situation she had never been trained for.
A son but his sweetness Elaine would argue. Even his conception was more business than pleasure. Galahad was meant to be and she had a duty to see him be born. It was a most miserable reason to conceive a child but they all had had duties. Hers had been this. And Galahad, that child she saw sent away from her when he was so young, also knew what duty was.
Every time he said 'Mother' to her, a part of her felt cold. But she would never press him to do anything than what he felt was right. She was his mother if just in title. But never would she be the mother he deserved.
"Cleansing the wound?" She grasped the meaning but it was an interesting way to go about it. "And what if, one day, there are too many to see cleaned, Gwynevere?" No, there was no title offered in sincerity yet but neither did she throw it as an insult. Chalk it up to her feet aching or perhaps something a bit kinder. "Do you succumb to the numerous wounds then? Or futilely cleanse despite knowing better?"
"There were many wounds." The loss of her father's warmth, the sunshine of his kingdom. Waking every morning to find that the sickness had not claimed her, that a child did not reside in her womb. Maleagant's, along with countless others', cruel grip on her body. Watching the horizon from whichever prison she'd been thrown in for Arthur's horse and only ever finding Lancelot's, until the latter's slowly became the only one she wanted to see. "And I am ashamed to say that in the beginning I succumbed."
Gwynevere would have closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel the tide of pain that washed over her, but she kept her features serene and composed. This was what she lived to do. "But when it was too late I tried to cleanse. If not before the eyes of my King, then the eyes of God." She would have said sentimental things, like how her hands had memorized every ridge of Arthur's tomb, like how painful it had been to send Lancelot away. But she was Queen first and woman second. Such weaknesses had no place.
"I can't say it was entirely futile. The Lord calls all to repent, and He forgives all sinners so long as they have paid their due and seen their wrongs. I will work for that, no matter how many lives it takes." She smiled wryly. "And, if in the end, it is not enough, I will welcome Hell gladly."
Ashamed. Elaine so frequently struggled with shame, so dead-set on reasoning out things even while acknowledging how wrong they had been. Her drugging of Lancelot, a necessity. The second time had been for herself but she had even explained that away, hadn't she?
Perhaps it had been God's work to keep Lancelot always far from her, to take him away when called for and never to return. Even now, she could confess affection for him (love, oh yes) but reflection back on what she had done said they couldn't be that way. Elaine knew his heart lead him back to Gwynevere, knew that if that wasn't a sign than nothing else could be. No matter what she had done, she couldn't keep him.
...so how could she damn Gwynevere so severely when her own heart asked her to commit terrible deeds? She paused in place, needing the break and, even more, a moment to speak while looking at Gwynevere opposed to the path.
"I can imagine a few people who would usher you into the mouth of Hell," she admitted. "But Arthur wouldn't."
Gwynevere returned her gaze, and this time, there was some warmth breaking through the composed facade. Whether this was the warmth of affection or the warmth of pain, she could not say. "Because Arthur is a good man. A fool, sometimes, but a good man. And I did not deserve him; I know that."
After glancing down, she gathered all her strength and continued, "I did not deserve Lancelot either. I know how wrong that was now. I do not ask for forgiveness, and if anyone where to usher me into Hell I would be the first to put on my walking shoes and get going. I was wrong, always wrong. We both know that, and if there is any way --" What words could she use to encompass how much she wanted to give? "-- anything I could offer... I would not withhold it from you or from anyone in Camelot."
"No more than I deserved Lancelot. He was forgiving and we both make an effort for our son, for ourselves even, but the story says enough, doesn't it?" She swallowed, wishing there was something to lessen the pain and the acknowledgement of that statement. "But at least he loved you, Gwynevere. To always return to you, no matter what. It would not have been the same with me, I believe. A man can love many but to love someone as he did you? That's a love that can only be for one.
"I still hate you some days," she added more softly. "And I'm aware it's not right. But I don't wish you ill as I did when we met in December. But if anyone's been trying to fix the wrongs to be fair, I suppose it has been you. So, beside Arthur, I could live with you not going to Hell."
But that love isn't mine now, she wanted to say. How could he have lost his feelings for me so quickly? Lost them to my husband of all people? The one he had been so angry at for sending me to burn. But these words were so ugly and ungrateful. Words that would only put Gwynevere's penance so many miles backwards.
"Thank you, Elaine," replied Gwynevere, voice equally as soft. "I am glad that things are looking up. And so grateful that --"
But her words were interrupted by a sudden whistle. Gwynevere turned, catching sight of a man in hiking gear, leading a trail of men and women in floral outfits and impractical sunglasses. Tourists and their guide, she surmised quickly, turning back to Elaine with a smile, breathing out with no lack of relief, "We're going to be okay."
"Yes." And though relief was in her voice as well, she was staring a bit too obviously at the arrivals. Oh good lord, those floral patterns. Elaine wasn't a woman who lived and breathed high fashion but even she had to wince over that. But her companion's words rang so truth.
And perhaps for more than their current situation. A funny thought, that. Elaine was not that warm toward the other but there was a door opened, a start to something more. Given time and some nurturing...perhaps she might even convince the once-queen of Camelot to say she wanted to kick the once king and the best knight in the balls.
Wouldn't that be something to hear?