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Aiden swung from his saddle, landing near-silently on the mossy earth to give a short, circular walk around the makeshift picnic site. Seemingly satisfied that no perils lurked, he returned to the blanket, passing a hand through Mordred’s silky curls (a slight, silent appeasement) before he sat beside him with a languid kind of grace.

“You’re the current, clearest choice for heir, yes,” Aiden conceded, reaching for the indicated honey cakes. “Even if the queen were to bear a son, one could feasibly call the legitimacy into question. But if she hasn’t by now, I don’t think we should be holding our breath for a birth announcement.” He leaned back, half-laying on his side next to Mordred. “The court is not so much foolish as is it easily led. They follow the most popular opinion. Like cattle walking the same path in a pasture until it’s beaten dust. The best cure for court sickness is to stay far away from it.”

Aiden himself frequently partook of that very cure, due to garnering a dislike from Lady Morgaine, who in turn would convince her brother to send Aiden on the far-reaching journeys to keep him absent at court. Which was fine by him. He got too antsy whenever he was in one place for long.

“I’ve heard talk of a lamia down south,” he mused aloud. “I’ve never seen one myself. I’m thinking I should go just for the experience.”

“Can I go with you?” Mordred asked, using his alarm to excuse the sudden inching closer, the hand that touched to his chest much in the way that he’d seen his mother do to many a lord to create an intimacy. But he was genuinely delighted at the thought of tagging along on a real live monster hunt with his boyhood hero. 

“I’ll ask Mother if she’ll allow me,” he announced grandly, as though it were a certainty. “If not, I’ll ask Arthur. He’s quite eager for me to be a grand knight like those Round Table fools.” His eyes landed on the fullness of Aiden’s lip, lingering admiringly on the beautiful bow, the plump of his lip. “Or you.”

His shoulder curled inwards towards Aiden, as he sought to fit against him in a timid attempt. “You would look so comely, I know you would,” he whispered, his heart thundering in his chest with the delicious proximity and the permission he was granted to near his hero so. “Vanquishing monsters so expertly. How do you do it? What weapons do you employ? Do you use magic? I could help, you know.”

“No, I—” Arhur laughed in breathless exasperation at his own inability to explain himself. He was a creature unfamiliar and incapable of guile, and even less talented at saying anything intentionally misleading.

“We haven’t spent much time together lately, you and I,” he explained, stumbling  little over his own words. “We haven’t been on a hunt in months, now that you prefer the company of Sir Aiden. I only wished to— … erm, reconnect. If that’s alright with you.” He grimaced. It was more than evident Mordred had no interest in doing just that.

“Reconnect,” he echoed again, sounding less suspicious and more confused that time. “With me. Really?”

He’d long stopped clawing for his uncle’s attentions, resigned to the fact that the king, while well-meaning, didn’t understand Mordred, and perhaps didn’t care to. But some part of him was still pleased over the invitation, the small, dwindling spark of childhood that tenaciously refused to be outgrown so quickly.

“I was looking for you, actually,” Arthur replied, trying to a smile that was meant to be amiable, but strained to something more serious as he noted Mordred’s displeased expression, the entirety of it resulting in a very pinched sort of set to his mouth. “I had a mind to dine in my chambers tonight, and came to ask if you’d be interested in joining me?”

That was odd, wasn’t it? Mordred was put in mind of the times he’d had to endure a gentle lecture from his mother under the guise of dinner.

“If your father had been the devil, you’d be taller,” she remarked as an aside. “And have more natural charm, but that’s neither here nor there.” She scooped the frothing top of the concoction off the top of the liquid and tossed it into the fire, which did nothing to douse it, but did change the mixture within to something deep violet and oily smooth. “Modern culture has discolored devilry. You shouldn’t listen to court gossip and Father Agrippa, of all people.”

She leaned over, taking his chin in her small hand to til his head back. “Your father was a better man than all of them,” she informed him, landing a light pinch on his full cheek before she plucked a dark hair from his head and tossed it in the cauldron. “I did love him. And I still do. You can tell them as much, next time they try to belittle you. And if they don’t believe you, tell them you’ll call the devil to set them straight. That ought to shut them right up.”

Mordred clapped his hands gleefully, letting out a high, unattractive laugh not unlike the braying of a donkey. “Iblis-jan!” he cried, his voice cracking in excitement. “Will you let Iblis-jan tell them to stop saying awful things about you? And of him? Father Agrippa says the most awful things about him. He calls him the Deceiver of Man, and says he is the devil, but he dotes on me, and I refuse to believe any ill word against him.”

“Courting is not the same as wooing,” she corrected, laying a hand on his head to steer him out of the way of her path from the table to the cast iron cauldron over the fire. “Courting might as well be a business transaction. Oftentimes the boy has to ask the lady’s father for permission. Courting comes from the head. Wooing comes from the heart and is far more genuine. What you are doing is courting Lady Snow. Albeit poorly. That is how your uncle ended up married to the queen. Courting, due to a fortuitous match. Is that what you want?”

The fire paled and brightened as she heated it, sending the water in the pot to a boil. “You don’t need to worry about marriage right now anyway. And neither does Lady Snow. I think it’s very practical of her to deny you for now.”

He nodded again, as if in agreement, as though everything she’d said made perfect sense. Mordred ruminated further upon the subject, while watching her little cauldron put on an unusual show. “I want her to love me,” he decided, with some conviction. “Eventually. She should, anyways. It’s only right.”