Awakenings

[This post is from Cameron’s point of view.]

“Are you about to tell me that the forges of Avalon were magic?” Cameron guessed, watching as Neve’s smile began to bloom more fully. Something tugged at the back of his brain—something about Avalon itself, something he thought he knew but couldn’t quite remember, though not from lack of trying.

“Not just the forges, Cam,” she whispered, still smiling. “Avalon was magic—is, I suppose. Maybe it survived.”

“You think it’s possible?”

She shrugged slightly, staring at nothing for a moment as she rested her head against his chest. “Maybe. I haven’t been there for centuries, not since my father ordered us all to leave. It’s a long time for a place to survive without really being tended. I don’t know. Phelan might. Hell, he might have been there since then.”

“What was it like?” Cameron asked, trying to picture a place he’d only heard stories about, never actually seen. “I mean, there are a thousand stories about it but I have no idea which ones are true—what’s real.”

“Mm.” Neve sighed softly, glancing down toward Anne for a second. Their daughter was asleep, tiny mouth open in an ‘o.’ She smiled, differently this time, one of love and pride and oddly enough, relief. “Where to start. Well, it was tucked into the hills by a lake fed by a river with a waterfall. We were so high up, the mists would hide the way up to the village but we could see for miles even though no one who didn’t know the way could find us. The people—some of them were like me and then there were others who weren’t, were just normal people, and some that came from pairings of normal people and the Aes Dana, like the pairings that produced Brighíd and Cíar’s mother. It was peaceful there and yet somehow—somehow there was a fire to that place that I can’t adequately describe.”

“How long were you there?” Cameron asked softly.

“On and off for a long time,” she said softly, closing her eyes again. “It was the one place I was allowed to come back to, that Father didn’t stop me from coming to even when he told us we had to forget this world. He let me come back.” She opened her eyes, brow furrowing as she glanced up toward him. “You know, until now, I never wondered why.”

Cameron shrugged slightly, frowning. “Does it matter?”

“I don’t know,” Never said softly. “I really don’t know. Maybe. He was a lot of things but at the same time, he always had a reason for what he did—or didn’t do.”

[This post is from Cameron’s point of view.]

“Really?” he asked, brow furrowing slightly. There was a light in her eyes that he’d seen only rarely, one that made his heart soar. “Magic how?”

“Well, the metal, for one,” she said softly. She settled in, body relaxing even as his arm tightened more securely around her shoulders. In her arms, Anne yawned, eyelids drooping. It wouldn’t be long before their daughter was asleep, though Artorius didn’t seem to be ready to join his twin in dreamland anytime soon. “There’s something special about it, beyond the surface and the tale behind how it was found.”

“Noble sons and daughters of the Aes Dana finding the ore in a pond,” Cameron said, resting his cheek against Neve’s hair as she looked down, adjusting Anne’s swaddle as the infant drifted closer to sleep. “Because the story of the metal that made the sword needs to be more special than that?”

Neve nudged him, laughing at the humor in his tone. “Stop, I’m serious. It’s said that a thousand smiths couldn’t melt that stuff down, and they were ordered to try. They couldn’t do it, though men and women from far and wide tried. It wasn’t until the forges at Avalon were built that we discovered how to do it.”

“What was so special about it?” he asked, his tone tempered now, less teasing. He could still feel a hum of excitement, his heart beating a little faster than it had been before. His thoughts raced—a thousand smiths? Was it hyperbole, a storyteller’s device, or could it have been true? Though his modern mind screamed that he should doubt that it ever could have been true, his gut said something far different.

He believed that not only could it have been true, but it probably was.

But then why were they able to smelt the metal at Avalon, but not anywhere else?

The ghost of a smile curving Neve’s lips told him he’d soon find out.

[This post is from Cameron’s point of view.]

Neve closed her eyes and sighed softly, then glanced up toward him with a faint smile. “What about a story about the sword?” she asked, her voice quiet, almost curious.

A slight chill crept down his spine and his stomach did a little somersault at the suggestion. He met her gaze with a slightly furrowed brow. “What kind of story?”

She thought about it for a moment, then her smile grew by a fraction. “What about how it was made?”

His breath caught and he smiled back at her. “I think that would be an excellent story,” Cameron whispered, leaning his head against hers. Neve grinned back and nodded slightly.

“Okay. So, the sword—it wasn’t made for him.” Her voice was quiet, the cadence changing slightly, shifting toward the tones of a long-experienced bard. Even that sent a chill down his spine, excitement setting his nerves jangling. His arm tightened slightly around her.

“It wasn’t?”

She shook her head slightly. “No. It was just made. We didn’t know who would hold it, we just knew that it needed to be made—the forging needed to happen. Metal that beautiful needed to be forged into something beautiful.” A wistful smile curved her lips. “The story goes that my mother and her brothers and sisters found the stone while they were swimming one day. The river had changed somehow—there was a new pool to one side of it that was strange and hadn’t been there before. There had been a storm without rain a few nights before and so when they went to see the pool they thought perhaps something had happened in that storm to create the new pool and I suppose they were right. They found the stone there at the bottom, shining in the water like silver.”

“But it wasn’t silver,” Cameron said softly, half in awe. “It was something else.”

Neve nodded, smiling. “Something magical—even to us. Even after all these years, I still stare in wonder at that blade, Cam, and I had a hand in its forging. It truly is a fated blade, a real magic sword, though not in any of the ways people seem to think.”

[This post is from Cameron’s point of view.]

“A story, huh?” She cupped water in her hand, starting to rinse Anne, brow furrowing slightly in thought. Cameron smiled faintly as he watched her, settling back down to sit cross-legged again nearby, where the ground wasn’t nearly as damp from the washtub. Artorius yawned, but his eyes didn’t close—they were wide, watching his mother and his sister as he lay nestled in the crook of his father’s arm. Neve sighed softly. “I have a lot of those, Cam. What kind of story?”

“I could say surprise me.”

She snorted a laugh. “So then they’re right when they say having a husband is like having an additional child.”

He choked on his own laugh. “Right, okay. Let me think.”

Neve grinned over her shoulder at him, then finished rinsing Anne and lifted her from the water, moving her over to a waiting blanket to diaper and swaddle the infant. Cameron found himself distracted from trying to decide what sort of story he wanted to hear by the simple actions of a mother caring for her child—their child.

A sigh escaped him and Neve looked at him again, wrapping Anne in her swaddle with easy, practiced motions.

“What’s wrong?” she asked softly, moving to sit next to him, Anne safely cradled in one arm.

Cameron shook his head. “Nothing,” he whispered softly. “Just—I got distracted.”

“Oh?”

He nodded, smiling crookedly as he caught sight of the faint hint of a smile that tugged at one corner of her mouth. “Yes. You seem to do that easily.”

“For now,” she said, leaning her shoulder against his. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

“If I were to venture a guess, probably forever.”

A faint blush stole across her cheeks and she leaned in to kiss his jaw gently, resting her forehead against his temple for a moment afterwards.

“I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.

“That makes two of us.” His lips brushed hers and she smiled, leaning into him as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. It was, he reflected, the picture of a perfect summer day—he never could have dreamed for better, not before the end of everything or since.

Even if he could, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

[This post is from Cameron’s point of view.]

I have got to be the luckiest man in the world.

“You know, I never thought this would happen,” Neve said as she gently soaped Anne’s hair. “Falling in love, having children. My brothers and Phelan always said it would but I never for a heartbeat actually believed them. I always thought that if I did eventually marry and have children it would be at my father’s whim, like it was with Seamus.”

A hollow spot opened up in Cameron’s stomach and he swallowed hard. “Even that ended up working out for the best, somehow.”

“Seamus is a lot more lucky than anyone gives him credit for—even he doesn’t realize how lucky he is.” Neve glanced back over her shoulder at him, smiling sadly for a moment. “And I’m glad of it.”

“Me too,” Cameron said softly. “He deserves it. All of you do.”

Neve laughed quietly and turned her attention back to their daughter. “Maybe. It’s nice to think so, anyway. We’re not saints though, Cam—we’re just on your side. That makes us seem different, maybe. I don’t know. Sometimes, I don’t think there’s a side of the so-called angels, you know? To borrow a phrase, anyway. We our dark sides and our things that we’re not proud of—entire wars weren’t not proud of.”

“I would be surprised if you didn’t,” Cameron said softly, watching her. It was as if a weight had suddenly settled across her shoulders, one he couldn’t shift away for her. A quiet sigh escaped him and she looked back again, her brow arching.

“What is it?”

He shook his head. “What’s past is passed, Neve. You can’t change it, only go forward. So what if something went wrong a long time ago. You’re on the right side now.” He tilted his head. “Or are you doubting that, too?”

“Not for a heartbeat,” she said fervently. “No. We’re on the right side of this. And even if I wasn’t? Well. My conscience wouldn’t let me be anywhere other than here.”

“Likewise.” Cameron rocked to his knees, careful not to jostle Artorius, and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Now stop fretting. Tell me a story.” He glanced down at Artorius, then at Anne, and smiled. “Tell us a story.”

[This post is from Cameron’s point of view.]

Cam’s brow climbed higher and he sat down on the ground next to her as she knelt next to the shallow tub of soapy water for the twins’ baths. “Oh really? That sounds like an invitation.”

Neve laughed again, shaking her head. “You know full well that I’ve never exactly been one to run away from trouble.”

“Well, only the kind that would get both of us killed,” he said, shifting Artorius to one arm. His son yawned and blinked slowly, watching his mother ease his twin into the water. Anne gave a little start but didn’t cry, settling a few seconds later as Neve began to gently pour water over her with a cupped hand.

“You weren’t ready to fight half of what we faced,” she said quietly, her mirth fading for a moment. “I knew I couldn’t protect you, not alone, and I didn’t know exactly what your capabilities would be. I am very pleased to say that you surprised me more often than you didn’t, but I don’t regret running in any of the instances where we bailed the hell out before things got worse than they were.”

“Honestly, neither do I.” He reached over and squeezed her knee. Neve smiled over her shoulder at him.

“Love you, Cam.”

“Right back at you, princess.”

She stared at him for a few seconds more and then laughed again. “You…you are impossible.”

“I know. And you did, too.”

“I did,” she agreed. “I really, really did. I think it’s why I fell in love with you.”

“Is it?”

Neve thought about it for a moment, going back to bathing their daughter, then nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Then I am eternally grateful for the impossibility of my person.” Cam leaned back against one hand, watching her. There was an odd sense of peace that settled over him as they sat there together, one tiny subunit of a much larger family. As he watched her, he knew that she felt it, too—there was none of the usual tension in her shoulders, her teasing coming easy and unforced.

It made him smile.