#writers cube

I got tagged by the delightful @writers-cube

Rules: List ten books that have stayed with you in some way and then tag 10 people.

So literally no order at all

1. Matilda, Roald Dahl

2. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

3. Le morte d’arthur, Sir Thomas Malory

4. His Dark Materials series, Philip Pullman (no I will not pick just one I WILL FIGHT YOU)

5. Hamlet, William Shakespeare

6. Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis (and the rest of the Chronicles)

7.  On the Decay of the Art of Lying, Mark Twain

8. The Art of War, 孫子

9. Getting to Maybe, Richard Michael Fischl

10. The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff

writers-cube, why you always break my heart so exquisitely in three places at once.

Thing one, Gawain being a hot mess as a teenage diplomat. Standing in clothes that feel too big next to his father and just fumbling with this odd weight he never feels at home. Starting to actually understand why his father’s shoulders are always just a little tight when the sun starts to set. On the last day they’re abroad, scrambling into his father’s bed like he’s still a tiny boy and just stubbornly laying his head against Lot’s shoulder so he can hear the king’s heart beating strong and slow and steady as ever.

Thing two, always always Mordred and singing. Mordred being so excited to bring the songs back with him but singing absolute nonsense by the time they get home because the language won’t stick with him but the sensation of it does. He begs his older brothers to help him get the words back, but they tend to just always agree with him that yeah, that sounds close enough. Blrflrghle is probably the word for ‘noble steed,’ little buddy. Probably.

Thing three, Agravaine realizing he’s different. Agravaine seeing the way Gawain gets fretful watching their father; the way Gaheris and Gareth are naturals at making friends when they’re together but shutting down in this strange land when they’re apart; the way Mordred lights up when he gets to be slightly hidden away and focused on something gentle and harmless like music. Agravaine realizing that his mind spins on a different plane and is naturally giving him different opportunities. Agravaine starting to test himself back home as well and realizing he’s just better ‘at’ people than the rest of his brothers.

And Agravaine going to conspire with Mordred because he’s got this genuine hope in his heart that he’s gotten good enough over the years to spin his little brother back from whatever cliff he’s dragging himself toward at Camlann.

Obviously writers-cube speaks the truth. But obviously I have to cry and add my own ten cents.

I feel like this is something Morgause actually sees coming. When Mordred is a tiny tiny tiny, he’s clinging like a shadow to her side when Gawain stumbles to see her with a tiny rescued kitten in his hands. Of course he gives it straight to his mother, but then entirely instinctively he grabs for Mordred and pulls the boy into a tight hug while they discuss how to help the kitten. When Mordred is less tiny, Gaheris brings home a bird that’s injured its wing. They’re standing in the kitchens and one of the cooks suggest they ‘ease the poor thing’s suffering’ and Gaheris just explodes with objections, fingers digging suddenly crazy tight into Mordred’s shoulder. 

When Mordred is getting long and gangly, Gareth and Agravaine one day bring home a dog with a broken leg. They know they can’t keep it (they’re a cat family, of course), but they drag Mordred out to the stable with them to help patch the mutt up. It’s meant to be a question of teaching him a practical skill, but they wind up spending most of the time with their hands clutching at his hair and arms and shoulders with pure nerves.

And when Mordred picks his horse, no one understands why it makes them feel so quietly relieved, but it absolutely does.

writers-cube knows two of my greastest weaknesses: Good Dad King Lot and Orkney Boys Singing (as we know from my terrible sobbing about them singing rounds when I got asked about “Sons and Daughters”).

This is so precious. This is so painfully beautiful to my heart. 

Just picture Lot sitting with his boys around a fire after a long day of training, all of them banged up and still sort of carefully licking wounds and a little grumpy. And Mordred—Mordred who so rarely gets to be ‘good’ or ‘right’ or not just a little bit off compared to his older brothers—just slowly carefully cautiously edges forward until he’s leaning against the King’s shoulder veeeery slightly and ask in the tiniest tiny voice if they can sing something. And all the other boys try to play it cool because they’re older and they’re thinking about grown-up things and they’re terrified to disrupt the way their littlest brother’s eyes are so big.

And Lot knows exactly what’s going on. And Lot doesn’t really care.

So he sweeps Mordred up properly under his arm and starts them all off with this rich powerful voice that usually barks through court but sounds so entirely warm when he’s alone with his family like this. And Gawain wonders if this is how to woo and Gaheris and Gareth wonder when their own voices started to diverge from each other and Agravaine wonders if he’s still young enough that he can get away with leaning against Mordred while they’re hidden from the world like this.

And Mordred just carries for his entire life the sensation he feels when he closes his eyes and there’s fire gentle against his cheeks and buzzing in his ears from his brother’s voices and this rumble through his body as he literaly feels Lot’s voice vibrating through his entire being and into what must be the depths of his soul.

…Agravaine doesn’t believe in walling himself in and prefers to launch guerilla attacks on his siblings, then disappear back into the undergrowth, which works great until he forgets that Mordred climbs trees better than a squirrel and has absolutely no qualms about dropping a few tons of snow on his brother’s head.

After slight technical delays, writers-cube has once again successfully destroyed my heart completely.

Because on the one hand this makes me feel better about all the snow I've been buried under for the past... who knows how long.

But on the other hand: Orkney.

Like on the one hand Gareth and Gaheris bickering and bantering and falling over themselves in a happy tangle putting together a catapult. On the one hand, Mordred being praised for being tiny and lithe rather than brawny like his brothers because he can shimmy up high and just chittering like a happy little critter all the way up the top. On the one hand Agravaine tamping snow down hard onto the top of his helmet so he can peek over the tops of snow banks. On the one hand Gawain pestering Lot to talk to him about castles and Lot getting excited that Gawain is taking an interest in this incredibly practical thi--oh, no, he's building another fortress from snow half the size of the actual castle why.

But on the other hand: Orkney. And Camlann.

…Tumblr, tell me when writers-cube messages me. Don’t make me wait a week to check my inbox and see you didn’t notify me. Rude.

Almost as rude as thIS HEADCANON YOU CRUEL HUMAN PERSON.

Ugh these boys why do they do my heart like this. Can you just imagine for the rest of their lives all of them finding shells hidden in all their things. Like just suddenly one day they shift their cloak or they shake their boot or they open an old pouch they haven’t looked through in a while and boom, all of a sudden, one of Gaheris’ shells just clatters across the floor.

Also can you imagine all the boys calling them ‘Gaheris’ shells’ for their entire lives. Like even Gawain, despite the fact he clearly knows exactly what they are. It doesn’t come up much, but all of them just instinctively call them that. 

Babies. /o\

What a nice and completely adorable headcanon you have there, writers-cube. It would be a shame if something were to

Okay but other than this being the sweetest sweet thing to ever sweet, let’s also talk about the boys. Let’s talk about how all the Orkney flock were just constantly covered in dander and constantly picking short little hairs off each other and generally walk with just this tiniest bit of a hesitant step in their own home because there are so many tails everywhere just flipping everywhere and if you step on one there’s a chain reaction wherein it sounds like some sort of demons have descended because of the yowling.

And of course also can we talk about the boys looking for their mother’s affection in this odd association when they’re young. Gawain having this soft sort of purr in his voice when he’s talking about his family. Gaheris and Gareth always stretching in this odd exaggerated fashion that borders slightly on the unnatural. Agravaine sitting with Morgause while they talk and just slowly sinking into these awkward piles of limbs and twisted spine to get his head on her lap or shoulder. And Mordred having these instinctively different reactions that he can’t explain because he sees this something in all his brothers but he chases and he snaps and he goes in for hugs too hard and he needs this constant reassurance and someone off-handedly and very affectionately calls him a little wolf-pup one day and he just bursts completely into tears because he doesn’t know what he’s right but he knows that’s wrong.

And so Morgause starts calling him ‘kitten’ when he’s having a bad day.