The Exile, Two Spoilers

Last weekend I sat around writing and posting to my blog. I wrote a couple Exile spoilers per reader request.

I

Guinevere studied the clip. A sun carved from bronze, it's rays lucisous black curves. When she’d worn it the gleaming black had seemed to emanate from her hair as if it were not simply an adornment, but somehow a part of her. This one from Matilde was not identical to the one Arthur had given her, yet it was similar enough to stir anger, confusion, that same sense of bereftness that she had felt the morning she left Camelot, and other feelings that Gwen did not want to examine. 

She remembered Synove’s shocked face. Seeing the barrette in the other woman’s hair had been like seeing Synove on Arthur’s arm. She let her fingertips slide over the metal, savoring the gentle warmth that seemed to be a part of it.

Gwen took a deep breath and turned to Ylsa who sat on her bed reading. 

"I think its time I speak with Matilde."

               ______________________________________________________________

II

Merlin studied the sign above the door, a sleeping angel. This must be the place. He lifted the heavy knocker and let it drop. It wasn’t long before he heard a muffled shout and then the little door window opened. A pair wide dark eyes in a dark face peaked out at him. 

"Who is it?"

"My name is Merlin. The Mistress of the house, Ms. Alfonsa is expecting me. Are you she?"

The window closed and a moment later he heard locks turning. 

"I’m Ylsa."

The door opened and he could see that the speaker was a petite woman with a crown of cloudy dark hair.

Exile Teaser: Midwife Ylsa's First Patient

       "It was a strange sort of second childhood that Lainey, Lucian, and I shared that summer.  Lucian had responsibilities of course, but not so very many. I only had two mothers in my care then and neither of them needed lots of my time. Lainey and her needs were my chief responsibility." Ylsa paused here a moment smiling. "It may have been my job to heal what the pox had done to her womb, but it became my pleasure. She was so easy to care for, wilting only for lack of a little nurturing, a little kindness, and a little compassion. I took her under my wing like a lost little sister come home."

         "We taught her to play chess, indulged her interest in history,and passed many an afternoon fishing. She was an able fisherman and always she gave her catch to to villagers that did not have time to spend sitting at the side of a pond."

         "We became friends and I started to disbelieve my aunt and everything I knew about my family's abhorrent behavior."

---

        "I told them they need to wait a full year after the onset of menses this was they had her married in a short three months." 

 "Why, pray tell, Ylsa would we rush the girl into marriage when she could marry just as easily at sixteen as she could at thirteen?" Her father looked at her with annoyance. "De Beaunes are many things, but we are neither foolish nor wasteful." Her father shook his head and looked back at the scrolls on his desk as if the matter were wholly dismissed.

         "What you say is full of sense and wisdom, but it happens often enough. People want money, titles, land connections. Sometimes they just want more of the things they already have."

         He looked up with a sigh and pushed back from his desk.

         "Ylsa, my daughter," he got up then and went to her. "I know you. I've know you and loved from the first day of your infancy."

         He squeezed her shoulders, his expression soft.

         "I remember the first life you saved. A broken winged bird that you healed and cared for until he was strong enough to fly away on his own. And I remember how worried you were, how upset that some hunter might take him as game." He smiled now. "And do you remember what I did?"

         "Yes," she felt an upward tug on the corners of her mouth. "You went to grandma and convinced her to issue a ban on hunting quail for the next ten years."

         "I protected you and the things you loved then. Do you think I would do any less now?"

         "No," Ylsa felt some stirring of guilt at having suspected him.

         "I can control many things, but humans are not birds." He put an arm around her and pressed her close.

         "No, but he was poached."

         "I know sweetheart, but you can still take care of your friend," he kissed her on the forehead then. "You are strong, a woman grown, I have never seen a talent like yours Lainey Dublois is in good hands."

         "Thanks dad."

---

         "Lord Dublois has given orders to save the life of the child over the life of the mother."

         Lainey's face turned deathly, pale, and Ylsa sat up still and straight before turning a cold eye on the other midwife.

          "This is my lying-in room and my patient. I make the decisions about whose life shall be protected. Now if you can respect that you can remain. If not you can go."

         The woman nodded slowly.

         "It is indeed your room Mistress. I am with you."

         "Good."

         Ylsa turned back to her patient with a smile.

         "Rest now my dear, I am going to take care of you."

---

         "We have some time before the contractions begin again. Take this time to rest yourself."

         "I get a break?" Lainey asked that question eyes bright with hope and relief.

         "Yes," Ylsa stroked her friend's hair back from her forehead. "There are shifts, in the labor."

One of Ylsa's assitstants brought her a steaming mug with a sharp, pungent smell.

   "Here now, drink this," Ylsa handed the mug to Lainey and the girl wrinkled her nose.

       "It is strong, but it will invigorate you. Drink it down."

Lainey nodded and did as she was told. In short order color flushed her cheeks.         

"So what happens now?"

       "Each woman is different sometimes there is no distinguishable pause in labor. But if there is then the baby- in most cases, comes quickly when the labor starts again," Ylsa explained.

        Lainey paled and Ylsa bit her bottom lip at her clumsy words.

         "Will all of you please excuse us I need to have some confidence with Ylsa."

        The other women in the room looked to Ylsa for direction.

         "Lainey?"

         "Just a short confidence, Ylsa, please?"

         "Very well."

         When all of the other woman had cleared the lying in room Ylsa settled on the edge of the bed.

         "Ylsa," Lainey took her hand. "You are my very dear friend, you have been a better friend to me than any I have ever had. So I ask you this as a friend."

         Here the other woman paused and Ylsa waited for the request.

         "I want you to save my child's life. I am too young to give birth in safety. I know this, we both know it. Save my child's life at any cost."

         Ylsa stared at the girl unable to form words.

         "If the child does not survive I shall have to do it all again, and then I shall be sent to a midwife who will follow my father's orders regardless, or I won't be able to do it all again and shall be set aside in shame and to live out my years in some dusty convent or castle."

         "You don't want to live?" Ylsa finally formed that question.

         "No. Not if my son does not live."

________________________________________________________________

"You have to understand, Lainey was my first patient as independent midwife," Ylsa said.

         

         

             

Right Now....

I am working on an Arthur chapter. He's finally remembered that Morgana invaded right before the Elfstroke.

Exile Teaser: The Question on Arthur's Mind

So I've got this Guinevere and Arthur, fanfic, The Exile. I've been writing it on and off for a while, but its been some time since its last update. Today I have a little teaser for you. Merlin wasn't perfect and it didn't treat Arwen well in the end, but I loved them.

       ____________________________________________________________

Upcoming moment in The Exile, Arthur wants to know if Guinevere is alive:
 
...The surface of the liquid was still, placid, black almost to the point of being unseen, it reflected not even light. Arthur could not, but stare at it, trying to understand a thing that he could see, but reflected no light. The heady warm scent of the incense his aunt had set to burning at the start of this puffed over him and he remembered her instructions "think of your question".

        Guinevere, was she alive? Was she well? Would he yet see her again?  This had been with him since Sarah Goode jumped to her death, the feeling that Guinevere was not, as her brother insisted dead. The placid surface rippled, in the darkness there was light, a shape took form. Guinevere! His heart began to pound.

She wore an expression he had never seen before.

Arthur had observed his love in joy, in anger, in sadness, in the more subtle sorrow, in grief, in relief. He could recall with ease the way joy had mixed with dumbfounded disbelief when he'd asked her to marry him, or the languid, satiated expression he'd been allowed to observe on more than one occasion, or even the sleeping innocence he'd observed that chaste night she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder.

What he had never seen on her face was the cool rage he observed now, a murderous expression he had never believed Guinevere could wear….

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself

A couple years ago I joined tumblr to promote a fanfic I was writing, -still am writing. At the time I had no idea what I was getting into, but I learned a lot, and I found a community that I loved. One of the things that really struck me was the way WOC spoke about their lives and experiences. The things black women (being a black woman myself) in particular spoke about really struck me. Some resonated deeply and some experiences common to many black women were alien.

Some of these that were alien were an upbringing that teaches us to loathe aspects of our blackness like kinky hair or dark-skin, or being raised with the phrase "you have to work twice as hard to get half as much". Mind you I was never ignorant of any of these things, its impossible to be ignorant of these things, but they were not part of my upbring, these ideas did not shape my worldview.

Over the past two years while I was writing fic, fangirling, developing friendships, and building my social justice vocabulary I also spent time really thinking about the choices my parents made for myself and my sisters.

I started to realize that my parents raised me to be free or at least as free as any black woman in the west could be. This is what I mean.

All black people have had this experience. A black person, in a public space behaving in a way that you don't aprove, but more importantly fear white or other non-blacks don't approve. We fear that the non-blacks present will judge both ourselves and the offending black person the same, and so rush to render a loud and critical judgmeent of the other black person for white approval or perhaps we just sit annoyed wishing the other black person would have more self-control. This is what blogs like ratchetmess are about shaming black people, but also poor people into respectable behavior.

I remember having an experience like this when I was ten or perhaps twelve years old. I don't remember the precise situation. I just remember being angered, annoyed, and disgusted mainly, because white people were present. What I remember with the most clarity though is a conversation I had with my mother where she explained to me that I was not responsible for how the black race appeared to whites, I did not have to save or elevate the black race, and that I and other African-Americans should just be ourselves.

Racist whites were going to be racist in spite of how we lived and behaved so we might as well be ourselves,enjoy our lives, and accept each other.

 I didn't understand this at twelve, I still cringed inside, and I doubted what my mother said, but I loved my mother very much so anything she told me to do I would at least try to do.

 I didn't understand that she was teaching me a personal type of freedom that cannot be given to you nor stolen from you. A freedom that you either chose to give up or sacrifice to keep, a freedom that only you can contol. I am still learning my mother's lessons today.

Now this blog won't actually be free of serious weighty issues. If you live long enough the social problems of the world will always affect you. This world is a world of suffering and none of us escapes unscathed. But its important to understand the trials that are yours and the trials that are not.

Its not for me to shape myself into something white people or anybody else finds respectable. I've no interest in working twice as hard in hopes of getting half as much. I can't elevate the race I'm just one person.

What I can and will be is myself and I accept any of the challenges and sacrifices that come with that, because they always do.

Being carefree is serious.