#ygraine

[cloudyaang]

i love how gay the pendragon family is. arthur and morgana were both gay for their servants, ygraine and nimueh were definitely lovers at some point and even uther had his toxic old man yaoi thing with gaius.

[frogmerthur]

[thebookluvrr1816]

“If love were a thing, it would be the sinew of a hand stretched in anticipation of grasping. See, my hands, they reach for you. My heart is a hand reaching.” - Hannah Kent, Devotion

2x08 // 4x06

[koffeinkaos]

Au where Uther dies and Ygraine raises Arthur, Balinor and Hunith live on the Ambrosius estate along with Vivienne who they offered to live with them after Gorlois died. So Merlin and Morgana grow up together and are best friends until one day a letter from the queen arrives, saying she knows about Uther and Vivienne's affair and that she wants Arthur to meet his sister and speak to Vivienne about it since she has a feeling Uther didn’t wait for consent before taking what he wanted. Vivienne reluctantly agrees.

Morgana is nervous to go and meet the prince who apparently is her brother so Merlin offers to come with her and when they arrive they find Arthur to be arrogant and annoying but when Morgana gets to know him better she understands its only his way of protecting himself and she then tries to get Merlin to like him as well. It's not long before she and Arthur's best friend Leon team up to play matchmaker

[justaz]

balinor giving merlin the ambrosius sigil and merlin carrying it around with him for years. merlin and arthur sitting around a campfire, both believing fullheartedly that they’ll be dead by morning bc like hell are they going to allow the other to sacrifice themself to close the veil. arthur giving merlin the du bois sigil as a parting gift and ensuring that merlin will be taken care of after his death. merlin biting the bullet and handing over the ambrosius family sigil in exchange. luckily, arthur doesn’t recognize the ambrosius sigil for what it is - a dragonlord lineage. BUT now he thinks merlin has noble blood and is wondering when tf he figured that out, if he ever met his father, and why he never told arthur.

[haloud]

nimueh/ygraine for @morgwenmicrofic prompt cage, 986 words

Ygraine worked for four years to get the kitchen just right. Oh, alright—so the oven had come with the cottage, a tidy brown-brick black-iron thing, but the rest was all her. She split the wood and sanded it and shaped it into cabinets. The family got a vote on what color they were painted, so long as it wasn’t red, and though the battle was fierce in the end they settled on yellow, the color of her hair and of the evening sun when it came through the kitchen window. The windows had been papered when they moved in, but one day Nimueh had come home from one of her work trips with cloth-wrapped packets, each containing a perfect pane of glass; and Ygraine had fit them into frames, with just a little magic to make it perfect. Then Ygraine took down the plain shutters and carved them up with vines and flowers and painted those a charming green that stood out nicely against the whitewashed walls.

In her kitchen—where she’d also made the table, with arms that thickened and strengthened day by day, and where she had made the chairs as well, though they’d turned out horribly enough she’d eventually relented and let Nimueh talk to the old carpenter in the village, to much rejoicing—Ygraine spent her days brewing potions of her own: perfumes and paints and dyes, frivolous things that pleased the village women in their hearts but not their wallets, often enough that Ygraine gave them away for free. She had spent so long fearing to be a frivolous thing, after all the trouble she’d caused. But whenever she voiced that fear, Nimueh just looked at her, tucked a curl gone frizzy from hours over a hot cauldron behind her ear, and shook her head.

The sun was setting, and Ygraine banked the fire and stoppered her last vial. Finished for the day, she removed her apron and hung it on the peg she herself had driven into the wall. Sleeves rolled up, hair tucked beneath a scarf—the blue one embroidered with little white waves that Nimueh had brought her home from Tintagel last year—she set out dinner for three, bread and ham and the last of the blackcurrant preserves, which she’d been keeping on the highest shelf. Blackcurrant was Nimueh’s favorite, so it would be a terrible tragedy if greedy little paws helped themselves before she came home.

Tonight. The crystal pendant tucked beneath Ygraine’s dress glowed warm. Nimueh was close, and she was thinking of her.

Ygraine was idling by the window, watching the road and daydreaming with the pendant tucked inside her fist, when the front door banged open.

“Mummy!” Arthur shouted, flinging himself at her legs. She was accustomed enough to this form of attack to brace her weight before he tackled her, so she barely even swayed; though he was growing heavier all the while, and taller too. His head already reached above her hip, and though he had to tip all the way back to look at her, he wouldn’t have to for long. She ruffled his downy yellow hair and smiled at him, because it was impossible to do anything else.

“What did you find today?” she asked. He brought her something home from every one of his ‘adventures’ tromping through the woods: flowers and feathers, sticks and stones. Today, he held up in his little fist three perfectly-formed blue-gray feathers, likely come from some poor molting hawk, and he beamed as she examined them.

“And I made a new friend!” said Arthur once he’d finished babbling all about the birds which had been gorging on berrybushes, so busy and happy they hadn’t even flown away when he came upon them.

Ygraine hesitated only a heartbeat before asking, “You did?”

She kept her voice sweet and even so as not to frighten him. Her nightmares came and went, predictable as the tides, and she suspected they always would. Red-cloaked soldiers storming her little cottage, killing her love, stealing away her baby back to the man who thought he owned them all. Careful and serious, every time the nightmare came, Nimueh would walk with her around the warded perimeter of their home, explaining every stitch of the spellwork and how it kept them safe. Base knowledge of their security would never truly banish fear, and Nimueh knew this as well as anyone, but Ygraine appreciated it all the same.

A new friend in their forest...Ygraine stroked Arthur’s hair again, trying not to panic.

“Yes! He said he was from the village, but I’ve never seen him. Which he said was ‘cause I was so loud I scared everyone away. But I told him I hadn’t even scared off the birds.”

Ygraine’s shoulders lowered a little. “And is your new friend the same age as you?”

“No way, he’s a baby. Like a whole year younger,” Arthur said casually, pulling away from Ygraine’s legs and walking over to his bed, where he crouched and retrieved his treasure-box beneath it, to give his new feathers a good place. “He could only go out with his mum! She wanted berries too, so the birds flew away.” He pulled a face, showing very clearly what he thought of adults and their priorities.

Ygraine relaxed entirely. They really ought to go to the village more often, especially as Arthur grew older and would be needing friends his own age. The village was, of course, outside their wards. But Ygraine had not fled one cage only to build another for herself.

The crystal around her neck flared hot in an instant, then went dormant. Outside, distant as robin-song, someone came whistling down the path.

“Mummy!” Arthur shouted again. The door banged as he left the way he came, running to meet Nimueh on her way home.

Ygraine leaned back against her cabinets and waited, heart full to bursting.

[limbel]

FIRSTFRUITS | 2.6k | for @morgwenmicrofic 'truth potion'

Oh, no. Ygraine swivels on the creaking stool. "Um— Nim?" For a few breaths, she sits perfectly still, save for the guilty wringing of her hands. No response from Nimueh. It's not uncommon for her friend not to hear the first time around. Not that she does it on purpose, of course — it's just that when she tends to that foul-smelling slop of hers, her entire world narrows to it: the horizon described by her pot and her herbs and all her funny-looking decanters. But this is good, Ygraine decides. This gives her enough time to determine if the issue at hand is serious enough to demand Nimueh's undivided attention, or if she could get away with pretending nothing's happened, and that she hasn't stuck her nose where it doesn't belong. No, she scolds herself, don't be childish. This is serious. With a deep breath she smooths her palms over her gown. "Nimueh," she announces, "I think I messed up."

or, a conversation on scarves, poisoned meat, life, and death

>> read the rest on ao3

[nonbinary-merwen]

nimueh/vivienne/ygraine for @morgwenmicrofic prompt: "you promised"