Work Text:
The baby cries and cries and cries... and cries, cries like it means to wake the dead.
- James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk (quote significantly abridged)
The baby cries very often. It is not crying now.
She sleeps in her bassinet
across the end of the room, and
Arthur breathes.
He does not know how his father could stand the sound,
could stand
to keep himself so far apart
from the wailing child
across the end of the room.
His wizard laughs, says
‘You’ve gone soft.’
The child is soft,
peace in its sleep and
Grace
upon its features, as in her name.
Grace.
His armour glints, the ring
of steel glancing off it.
His ring of gold:
their glances on it.
The horse hooves rumble beneath him,
the rumble of feet approaches.
They charge, he charges.
The horse rocks as the
bassinet does. He is
growing pudgier as
she grows.
No horse rocks
beneath him now.
She Sleeps.
His wife sleeps, his daughter sleeps,
his wizard sleeps.
His sister.
He watches with bated breath
Counts their breaths
Counts his heartbeats;
The drum beats.
The wail was different before,
The ravens do not cry the cry of the dead
Her screams seem to wake them,
at times.
Arthur’s screams seem to
wake them,
at times.
He longs for a battlefield he no longer
belongs to.
He does not wear his sword
at his side with a
baby
in the room. He does not wear his crown
on his head with a
baby
in the room. She is so soft,
he will not wear his sharps.
Merlin still keeps the worn down edges
of the sigil
he belongs to.
It was sharp once. He was sharp once.
Merlin will give her the worn down edges
of who he once was,
who she belongs to.
He mourns the day she will sharpen out.
He was sharp once. He was sword-first and
head-first and
heart-first.
His crown was sharp because
he needed to be.
Now, it simply is.
The baby sleeps so often. She is waking now.
She stirs in her bassinet
across the end of the room, and
Arthur breathes.
He does not know how her father can stand
to be apart from her
from the wailing child
across the end of the room.
He knows her king
can barely stand
to be apart from himself;
the sword stands
alone
across the end of the room.
The baby wakes, and she cries.