Author:
asya_anaTitle: His oak-coloured hair
Rating: G
Pairing/s: Implied Morgana/Arthur
Character/s: Morgana, references to Mordred and Arthur
Summary: Morgana returns to the spot in the woods where she’d buried a lock of Mordred’s hair after giving birth to him.
Warnings: Implied incest
Word Count: 285
Prompt: Devotion
The fine tendrils of the lock of hair matched her own dark mane, no trace of his father’s sunny yellow. Her knees were cramped only a little as she knelt on the muddy earth behind the very hovel where she’d birthed him, alone and scared and so young. Now the dilapidated dwelling served as an overlarge marker for this secret treasure, the place in the wilderness to which she’d always return regardless of what distant land her exile drove her. With tender hands she rewrapped the lock of hair and returned the package to its rusted box, the elegantly interwoven tendrils gracing the lid betraying its origins as a princess’s possession despite the dirt and grime that crusted it now. That she, the mother of a future king, should bury these royal keepsakes in the base anonymity of the forest while other men, draped in linen and silk, strode castle halls in boots of fine leather, inflamed her enough that the scant light in the woods seemed almost to withdraw in fear. Once she had refilled the hole with dirt and covered the mound with leaves so that it was indistinguishable from the surrounding earth, she rose to her feet, the past replaying itself in her mind. A few moments clutching the baby in her arms had been all she’d been permitted before it had been whisked away, and then years later, on a cold and airless morning, the boy had run into her arms, and she’d seen that baby-fine hair grow in an instant to become thick tresses the colour of oak when you peeled away the bark to reveal the fragrant wood inside. One day he would come back and restore them all.