Hopes Expired

The Black Knight does not eat or sleep or breathe; he knows not life or warmth or mercy.

Arthur watches him. He sees failure. He sees inadequacy, a rising star burnt out. He sees Owain and Pellinor and Morgana’s favour red against the white sand, fluttering earthbound against the dust, the vibrancy of its hue dulled against the crimson life leaking away into nothing. The Black Knight’s stillness speaks to him of disappointed dreams and frustrated hopes.

Uther watches him. He sees Igraine behind that shuttered visor; he sees Nemesis. The two are one and the same. He sees the reaper, empty shell grinning up at him, Arthur cold and dead and never alive in the palm of his armoured hand. He sees a hunter, a hellhound unleashed to stalk him through the long corridors of his guilt. He watches the Black Knight and the monolithic face of his own grief stares back.

Nimueh watches him. She sees completion. She sees transformation. She sees injustice and justice both, twin faces twisted and rotten with years of festering decay. She sees the gaping void of past and present stretching forward step by step to devour the future, the manifestation of absences that should never have been. She has raised these aching bones, old grievances, chill from their tomb, and now she watches over them. Igraine she sees, but not Tristan; never Tristan.

Alone in the cold and the dark the Black Knight stands.