The Whumps of March 2024: "The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief." (Shakespeare, "Othello")
A series of vignettes based on Arthurian legend, collected on AO3 here.
Igraine was only married to Uther for a few years, but it was more than enough time to ruin everything. Gorlois was dead. All of her daughters were sent away in short order, as if Uther refused to let anyone else occupy her attention. Even their son, a child she wasn't even sure she could love, was taken away almost immediately after birth. And now she was the queen, a captive queen, forced to smile for courtiers while sitting next to a man whom she hated and feared.
The strange thing was, her fear was misplaced; Uther was never anything but a kindly, attentive husband. He was civil with her girls, if largely disinterested. In all things he seemed as noble and good a man as people claimed, if you ignored the fact that he had murdered her husband and destroyed her life.
She wondered, sometimes, if Uther had thought about what would become of her when he died. He had poured sweet nothings to her from his sickbed, but gave no advice or requests about how she should spend her second widowhood. His love for her had always been selfish. Did he imagine her mourning him forever, or was it the reverse, and he no longer cared what she did as long as he wasn't there to enjoy it?
She supposed it didn't matter. She would find her own way forward.
But as she prepared for her wedding day with Gansguoter, the first man whom she had loved since Gorlois died, she liked to imagine that Uther would have disapproved.
