For day 28 of @mechtober2022. I’ve been thinking a lot about Gawain and Mordred’s relationship and how it makes me feel so much I want to tear my face off so this is a scene from when they were kids. This is another one where Mordred is referred to with she/her pronouns and the name Morgause simply because he hasn’t had any gender revelations yet. Mordred is about seven here and Gawain is about thirteen.
Summary: A young Mordred’s preference for peace gets him into some trouble. Gawain is there for him in the aftermath.
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Privacy doesn’t exist in a place where the walls are made of fabric and even the leaders have to share their living space.
So when Morgause storms into the tent she shares with the eight other members of her family to find almost everyone sitting down for the evening meal together, there isn’t anything she can do to hide the tears streaming down her face or the deep purpling bruises around her eye. She doesn't even have her dust mask or goggles with her to cover it up. Only Guinevere isn't around and that's because Gwen was the one who pulled the other kid off of Morgause to begin with. She'll catch up soon enough.
“Morg—”Arthur starts.
“No,” she bites out.
She throws herself into her bedroll. It’s too hot for the blankets—it’s always too hot for them—but it’s the only protection she has from the outside world so she pulls them over her head. There’s some shuffling, some whispering. Her own erratic breathing blocks out the sound enough that she can’t make out full sentences. She hopes they’re talking about going somewhere else for awhile; giving her some space. But then Gwen’s voice joins the group and Morgause knows she’s telling them all what happened. They’ll never leave her alone now.
"Oh, peacemaker," she hears from Gawain’s stupid voice, suddenly right next to her bed. "You gotta fight back."
“I don't think that's helpful,” Gareth whispers.
The bedroll shifts with the weight of someone sitting beside her. She turns her back to whoever it is.
“Will you come out, Morgause?” Arthur asks.
“No.”
“At least let us look at your eye.”
“No.”
Arthur puts a hand on her shoulder. He doesn't move the blanket or force her to face him—just lets it rest there. "You know you can talk to me."
Morgause nods, then realizes he can't see her nod when she's hiding like this and says, "I know. I just wanna be alone right now."
"Alright," Arthur sighs, but gets up. More whispering, more shuffling.
The pillow pressed against her face stings and brings more tears flowing, soaking the fabric, making it that much more uncomfortable. In spite of the pain, she presses in harder. It's better than facing her family.
“Peacemaker,” Gawain tugs at the blanket.
Morgause holds tighter.
“Let me in, peacemaker.”
“Go away, Gawain,” she grits her teeth with the effort of keeping herself covered. But Gawain is older and so much stronger because he fights everyone and Morgause, who doesn’t fight anyone, is being pulled right along with the blanket.
“You’re gonna rip it!” she shouts.
Gawain is unmoved, “Then let me in.”
He gives one last good tug. The blanket doesn’t tear after all, even if it is ripped clean out of her hands and off of her body. He grins down at her. Morgause hates that stupid I’m always right grin of his.
“Hello, peacemaker.”
“Stop calling me that.”
That gives Gawain pause. Stop calling Morgause ‘peacemaker’? They’ve all been calling Morgause ‘peacemaker’ since before Morgause had an actual name and she’s never had a problem with it before. Most times, she seems proud of it. His grin curdles into a frown. Gawain looks behind him. Arthur, Ygraine, Lancelot, and Guinevere are huddled by the tent entrance. They glance at Morgause a couple of times, but it doesn’t seem like they're listening to what’s going on over here anymore. Agravaine, Ghaeris, and Gareth are listening, but aren’t any help. They just watch him, waiting for him to find an answer to Morgause’s problem. He looks at her again. He hadn’t noticed it when she first came into the tent, but her lip is split and mud is caked into her hair. Anger shoots through Gawain’s heart.
That’s his sister. That’s Arthur’s daughter. He’s going to find the jerk that did this and—
A shaky sob forcing its way out of Morgause’s throat brings his thoughts back to the tent.
“Scoot over,” Gawain seethes.
Mercifully, Morgause doesn’t argue. She makes room for him on the bed so he climbs in next to her and pulls the blanket over them both. Once they’re shut away from the rest of the tent, Morgause clings to him—clings and cries.
He hugs her. He doesn’t know what else to do. All he knows is that some jerk said something stupid and Morgause tried to stand up to him with her words and then that asshole stood up with his fists and hurt his sister and he wants to hurt that stupid kid. He thinks about the adults and their stories about killing the bandits who try to raid their camp; he thinks about how Arthur killed the Lady of the Lake years ago so that he could control the water and protect his people. Gawain is only thirteen years old, but he thinks he would kill to protect his people, too.
And Morgause is one of his most important people.
He’s holding her too tightly. His grip leaves no room to move; it leaves very little room to breathe. Morgause can tell he’s angry. She can’t tell if he’s angry at her for not fighting back or if he’s just angry at the one who hit her. Probably, he’s angry about both things. Maybe a little angry that he wasn’t there to hit the kid for her.
Secretly, she also wishes Gawain had been there to fight the kid for her. She doesn't even know the guy's name—he's just the jerk son of a family traveling with them until they reach the next town. It'd serve him right if he got beat up by Gawain.
It'd serve him right if he got beat up by anyone. But no—Morgause is stupid peacemaker. Peacemaker, who lets herself get beat up and is too weak to do anything about it 'cept cry to her older brother.
She doesn’t like fighting—not doing it, not seeing other people do it. None of this has changed that. But right now, everything hurts. She can’t breathe from crying, her head hurts because of her eye, and she thinks if she tried to eat anything or talk too much her lip would hurt, too. Right now, she hates being peacemaker and wishes she could be something else—anything else. A fighter, like everyone’s always saying she should be. A knight, like in the stories Arthur reads to her before bed. Knights in those stories always seem to get up fine after a fight, even when they lose. No knight she’s ever heard about has to cry under the covers ‘cause some older kid punched ‘em in the face.
But then, fighting in the real world ain’t like fighting in stories. In the real world, even the people who get up after a fight might still get hurt ‘cause of the stupid rust. Morgause remembers a few months back, how a man shot at Arthur. The bullet had only scratched him and Arthur shot the man right back and that man hadn’t been so lucky—Arthur’s bullet hit him straight through the heart. But her dad was stubborn and didn’t make sure to clean the wound properly since it was so small and they’d been away from home so Ygraine couldn’t take care of it, neither. It's just a scratch, Morgause, ain't nothin' to worry about, he’d said and Morgause believed him. 'Cept it was big enough that rust and grime got into it the way it gets into everything on the Station and for the next week he’d been so so sick and she thought—
“Why didn’t you fight back?” Gawain asks.
Morgause shrugs.
Gawain wipes the tears from her face with the sleeve of his shirt. He takes care to gentle himself around the bruised eye. More tears fall to take the old ones’ places, but slower now.
“Why didn’t you come get me?”
She shrugs again. "Gwen was there."
“I don’t understand you, peacemaker.” The nickname is an accident. Force of habit and nothing more. Morgause is hurting enough already, he’s not trying to make it worse.
But she doesn't push him away or bristle at his slip. She just holds him tighter and cries into his chest.
Comic appreciation post (yeah another), this time for Loki Agent of Asgard. Gotta love some wholesome pop culture and trickster gods. Also shoutout to the genderfluid god/dess and heartthrob femme Loki. I would sell my soul for her.
Summary: It had been a spur of the moment decision to invite the Pendragons over—a decision Mordred’s trying hard not to regret.
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"We ain't gonna disappear if you look away." Arthur sips his tea—a gift from Lancelot—and stares at Mordred through the steam. His voice is casual, his shoulders relaxed. He looks like he hadn't caught Mordred staring, save the slight upward pull of the corner of his mouth.
Mordred forces his eyes to his own mug. The tea smells of flowers. He does not drink it. Relearning life in the light has been a slow process. He's still not used to others really seeing him, even after two years in Camelot.
"Not much for tea?" Guinevere asks. She runs a finger along the rim. One foot is propped up on her chair, knee tucked under her chin. She's smiling, too.
For a moment, Mordred is lost in a memory—Guinevere, finished with her morning exercises, coming to sit across from him at the breakfast table, one foot on the chair, knee tucked under her chin like so; Arthur next to Mordred, Excalibur in pieces before him, carefully and painstakingly cleaning each component before putting it all back again; Lancelot on his other side, one arm slung casually across the back of Mordred’s chair, quiet, reassuring; and Mordred himself as a child, leaning over the table to better watch the process of reconstructing Excalibur, nearly knocking over and spilling the tea Lance set down in front of him.
The strum of Dinadan's guitar pulls Mordred back to the present.
Lance is not at the table now. He's still stood at Mordred's gun rack, examining each and every piece Mordred's collected since he got to Camelot. Lamorak is with him, telling the stories he knows about their origins. Some are run of the mill, nothing special. But there's more among 'em that are rarer, diamonds in the rough that the average gunslinger might not give a second thought, 'cept that Mordred was taught almost from birth how to spot a quality firearm and how to restore what needed restoring. And then there's more still with no roughness about 'em at all—fine pieces that'd get more than a couple gallons of water easy if Mordred were inclined to sell. He ain't. If he can't shoot well enough to impress the Pendragons, he can at least collect well enough for it.
He forces himself to sip the tea, to not choke on the taste of home.
Arthur taps one finger against the table to bring Mordred's attention back.
"Were your parents collectors?" Arthur asks.
"We moved around too much," Mordred shrugs. He feels comfortable saying that much. Most Wastelander families lived the same way. Then, because he feels the irresistible need for recognition, he decides to test the waters and adds:
"We couldn't carry a collection with us, but my father had one antique he never parted with." Relic is the word Arthur had always used when Mordred was growing up. It's on the tip of his tongue, too, but he bites it back. Not many things can be rightly described as relics s'far as Mordred is aware. Unless he fully commits to revealing himself, it's best he minds his words.
Arthur leans back in his seat, head tipped toward the ceiling. One hand falls to his side, brushing over Excalibur.
Mordred wonders what he's thinking about. Is he remembering his promise that they'd figure out the proper technique for making Excalibur's bullets so one day, down the line, it could be passed from father to child without worry its ammo would run dry long beforehand? Is he remembering coming home from the flooded sector, only letting go of his hard won prize for the first time since he'd laid hands on it to clutch his newborn to his chest?
Mordred sips his tea.
"What happened to it? The antique." Arthur speaks to the ceiling. His tone is inscrutable.
Maybe Arthur is thinking about sitting around a table with his family, Excalibur laid out in pieces, and watching his kid attempt to put it back together from memory alone.
Mordred had been so determined to prove he didn't need his parents to hold his hand all the time—that he could be as good at building as Gawain was at brawling and Gareth was at shooting and Agravaine was at complaining.
"Still with him, I'd guess. Wherever he is." He keeps his eyes fixed on the tea. He hopes the truth isn't written on his face. He hopes it is and his parents will confront him with it; that they'll force him to reveal everything so they can either reject or accept him instead of whatever it is Mordred’s got them doing now.
Lancelot, Dinadan, and Lamorak make their way to the table. Mordred breathes easier with Lamorak and Dinadan around. He made the right choice asking them to be here for this, rather than ask Gawain or Agravaine. He knows his brothers will give him an earful for hanging around people they hate, but they’ll have to deal with it. Less pressure from two people with whom he's got no familial relationship. Neither of them give a shit about Mordred coming clean to his parents 'cept as far as they care that Mordred is happy with his decisions.
And they're decent enough not to publicly question him when it's clear he isn't.
"And you still don't want help finding him?" Lance takes the seat to Arthur's right.
Mordred holds the mug tighter. The heat stings his fingertips. He shakes his head. "No."
Do you need help finding your kid? and I already know where he is; he's sitting right in front of me and if he wants me in his life, he can find me and I'm not ready for him to know the truth all run though his mind. ‘Course he can't say any of it; wouldn't do any good.
The Pendragons share a look that Mordred ignores, even though they're open enough with it he wonders if they want him to say something. Not for the first time, Mordred wonders if they all really do know the truth and they're—himself included—just too stubborn to be the first to acknowledge it. Dread and hope fill him in equal measure at that thought.
"Well," Arthur starts, holding Mordred's gaze. "You ever change your mind, you know where to find us."
Mordred nods and finds himself unwilling to look away until Lance cuts in—
"Come off it, Art. The kid said no." He nudges his shoulder against Arthur's; to Mordred he nods, deferential. "You’re packing some impressive heat, for a man who hates using it. You ever need someone to help fix ‘em up or test ‘em, you just holler.”
There's some part of Mordred that knows exactly what Dinadan is going to say before Mordred even sees the look on his face. It's the sort of corny joke Dinadan would never pass up when the opportunity arises, but Mordred's head is still so stuck on memories and emotion he can't react fast enough to stop Dinadan from drawling,
"If you think that's impressive, you should see what else he's packing."
Beside Mordred, Lamorak is unashamedly cracking up. “I think he’s been waiting to use that one for a while.”
Across the table, Gwen’s got tea coming out of her nose and Lance looks half a second from joining Lamorak. Arthur’s got his mug held up to his face again, looking very much like he’s trying and failing to play the calm and collected sheriff. It’s—nice. And despite the mortification worrying at the back of his mind, when Mordred meets Arthur’s gaze through the steam this time, he feels something he hasn’t felt in years.
[ID: A pencil and paper drawing of Ashes O’Reilly from The Mechanisms. They are standing and have a casual smile on their face. Behind them stands Cerberus, the three-headed dog from greek myth, growling viciously. /End ID]
oh, peacemaker (mechtober day 12 - favorite relationship)
I was originally going to post this for day 1 of @mechtober2022, but I lost track of time so it’s going up today for favorite relationship because, well, the relationship that exists between Arthur and Mordred and Gawain in HNOC is my favorite—even if we only got glimpses of it. I love thinking about and it kills me that we didn’t get to see more of it.
(Warning: This takes place before Mordred’s transition, so he is technically misgendered. It’s not done maliciously; it’s just that no one—including Mordred—knows any better yet. But it still happens and might be uncomfortable for some people.)
Summary: The first time Mordred can clearly remember anyone calling him “peacemaker,” he’s four years old, he still thinks he’s a girl, and he genuinely believes he can save Gawain from the consequences of his violent tendencies.
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“Oh, peacemaker,” Arthur murmurs with a smile, looking down at the child standing between him and Gawain. “You’re supposed to be with your mother.”
Morgause ignores him, raising herself on her toes, insistent that her father take the offered crown, which she made from scrap metal bits and twine. Her hands are riddled with small cuts where the jagged edges of the metal caught and pulled at her skin in her haste to finish the project—a peace offering, made on Gawain's behalf (because Gawain's head runs too hot to ever offer peace himself). At four years old Morgause should never have been playing with the camp’s scraps. But life in the wastes means there’s always a lack and sometimes that lack is in supervision or proper toys to keep the ever industrious Morgause Pendragon occupied.
Arthur bites his tongue against whatever else he might want to say, accepts the little crown, and places it on his head.
"Mommy's got a patient who's bleeding a lot so I left," Morgause admits.
"Does she know you left?"
Morgause shrugs.
Arthur sighs.
Gawain chokes on his laughter.
“Can Gawain and I go on an adventure, daddy?” Morgause asks, eyes wide. At four years old, Morgause should also not be able to manipulate her father quite as well as she does. Yet before Gawain’s very eyes, he sees the edges of Arthur’s face—usually so hardened with the responsibility of keeping their camp alive—go soft with love.
Arthur kisses her forehead.
“You may,” he says. He nudges her to Gawain, and she happily goes, grasping Gawain’s hand in hers when she reaches him.
Gawain pulls her along before Arthur can say anything to him. He can feel his uncle's eyes following them; can feel the lingering heat of Arthur’s anger, hotter, even, than the sun that beats down on them. At ten years old, Gawain knows that he should feel embarrassed about his younger sister saving him from her father’s wrath. But Morgause laughs when Gawain walks a bit too fast, forcing her to run to keep up with his longer legs and the sound fills his heart so much there’s no room for embarrassment or shame or fear over the punishment he knows is still to come.
“You were pickin' fights again, 'wain,” Morgause sing-songs. “You’re not ‘possed to fight.”
“Oh, peacemaker,” Gawain tugs on her hand. He hopes he sounds like Arthur. “Sometimes you have to fight.”
“I never have to fight.”
“I said sometimes. You’re too cute to fight.” And I would protect you from anyone who ever tried to hurt you, Gawain almost says. But he thinks she would just say that he’d only do that because he likes fighting so much, so he keeps the thought quiet.
“What adventure are we going on today?” She asks.
“First, we’re going to get bandages before rust can get into your cuts,” Gawain says. He pulls Morgause into Ygraine’s tent. He rummages through a small box he’d shoved into a shadowy corner. Morgause is always getting herself hurt because she hasn't paid enough attention, so Gawain has taken it upon himself to keep various odds and ends he thinks might help take care of her in a pinch.
She fidgets while he works. “Can we go on a treasure hunt?”
“You don’t want to find someone new to make friends with today? Who are you and what have you done with my sister?” Gawain teases.
“Can we make friends with the dragon guarding the treasure?” Morgause grins.
And Gawain—who’s certain dragons’d want to make food out of them, not friends—grins back.
“Yeah, peacemaker. Let’s make friends with the dragon.”
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(This takes place in the same universe as a brief respite and love in his own eyes, if you’re interested in more of my HNOC writings. They’re all written to stand on their own, though.)
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