"He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." Aesychlus

Prologue

The sword had come to his hand with a ringing familiarity. It reverberated with ancient strength as it slid from the stone; he remembered well the sparking magic and how Arthur had felt the thrum of it's power echo through him as he raised it high. In the morning sun, Excalibur in his hand, he felt destiny rush upon him. It was a moment etched in gold.

Excalibur was his sword.

Sometimes, Arthur believed he had never known a time without a sword at his side. It was his most essential weapon as a knight. He had been training with one since the time he could walk. His father had doted on the weapons he gave his only son. As a boy, Arthur had learned to appreciate the finesse of a blade; to appreciate the essence of a knight's weapon, the care in it's forging and it's tempering. The royal forge of Camelot had produced other blades with balance and weight just as fine as Excalibur. But it was still somehow different. Never had Arthur moved with a weapon as this one moved with him. It was alive in his hand, responding almost with him, a part of him, a living blur of finest steel and speed. He had given his heart to the sword in the moment it became his. It sang under his hand. It was his in a way no other blade had ever been.

One night, not long after they reclaimed Camelot, Arthur had seen Guinevere looking at it, with a an unfathomable expression, when she thought no one was looking. Her fingers were longing to touch the blade but each time she stopped herself. She was a blacksmith's daughter, and clever at the forge herself, so he had wondered at her careful inspection and strange reticence. She avoided looking at it again, and the pained contemplation in her eyes afterwards had silenced his questions.

By some implicit agreement since that day, only Arthur or Merlin had handled the sword. There was no discussion, it simply happened that way, and Arthur had known that it was better so. And despite Guinevere's strange reaction, Arthur grew to love the weapon more and more with each use.

He kept it by him and used it, because had fallen in love with the blade. No squire had ever loved his first sword as much as Arthur loved Excalibur. He even admitted he was a bit besotted with it, in fact. Arthur confessed this last secret, for Merlin's ears alone, one night, when they both had too much to drink. He told his friend that Excalibur seemed as if it had been made for him, that it was somehow, a part of him. HIs servant had only smiled in his unfathomable way. He loved the surge of strength and confidence when he used it in battle and it filled him with that same concentration and will as the morning he drew it forth from the stone. It's legend was great among the people of Camelot, and among his enemies as well. But the bond with his sword was deeper than than the legend that had grown up around it.

When his doubts began to attack him in weary, unrelenting nightmares, Arthur would take up Excalibur and go out into the moonlight. He would immerse himself in the golden morning of Excalibur. In that eternal moment, the strength of his people had buoyed him. The loyalty of his knights had erased the betrayal of those he loved. Morgana and Agravaine faded into shadows of mutiny, ghosts more kindly remembered for whom they once had been. Not for what they became and the nightmare they perpetrated.

But if his memories offered comfort, there were nights when Excalibur seemed to sing under the starlight. It hummed with power, and warmed to his hand under the wild moonlight of summer and the heartfelt silence of cold and snow. It was magic and it sang to him, and flowed through him as they fought together, blade and king. It was magic, and it brought him comfort, when the weight of his kingship sat heavy on his soul. He admitted this only to his deepest self on the most solitary of moments. And it raised a fear so deep, he could not bear to face it. Magic.

Excalibur was his sword.

Never could he imagine fighting with any blade but Excalibur at his side. But he knew there would come a day, when he would not be able to look away from the essential nature of the blade that he carried. It was a day he dreaded.