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She cannot help herself when the king's eyes open.
"You finally smiled."
"I was having the most pleasant dream," says the king, eyes unfocused, face relaxed.
She takes the king's hand in hers. The gesture is too forward, too intimate, but she was the only one there at the beginning and she's the only one there at the end. She cannot feel the king's warmth through her silver, but she senses the king's frailty. That the king would dream, at last, of peace, only now—
All those years of service, all those years of loyalty. She was there for the king's coronation, for the king's wedding, for the king's triumphs and follies and games and wars. And the only joy the king has ever known came today, on the hill, in the form of a death wound.
The king peers up at her as though through a thick fog.
"You seem pressed, Sir—"
"Sir nothing," she grinds out. It is not the time for hysterics. Not the time to unravel. Yet her will falters, her resolve giving way after its long trial. Of what could she possibly be a knight? The table is broken, the walls collapsed.
"Sweet, then," the king says, eyelids drooping. "Sweet Bedivere."
Her eyes close before the king's, slam shut to block the tears. "Rest, your Maj—"
"Saber," says the king. "That's what they called me, in my dream." The king's words come slow, soft waves of whisper rolling over the darkness of the forest. "Arthur was a lie, and Altria was never possible. But Saber..." A happy hum. "Yes, Saber I could be, for a handful of days..."
"Saber," Bedivere repeats.
Long has she known the king's truth—the same as hers—for long has she been the king's steward. It was an open secret between them, never to be acknowledged. The king's perfection did not allow for preference. The king's perfection did not allow for truth. So Arthur was Arthur, in public and in private, year after despicable year. Bedivere did not manage to never wonder, in her rare idle moments, what name Arthur might have had before the sword of selection. Altria it was, then, but Altria was an impossibility. A girl.
In her final moments, the king is not a girl. She is a woman. She is Saber.
Were this Arthur, were this Bedivere's king, were the walls standing and the table undivided, Bedivere would here ask of her liege what final tasks a steward might perform. But Saber has denied kingship as surely as Bedivere has denied knighthood. In the forest between hill and lake they are but two women, wounded and alone.
So Bedivere allows herself to tend to Saber as she never has before. She places Saber's hand in her lap, brushes her hair from her face, traces her eyebrow with an unfeeling finger. Saber sighs contentedly. Arthur never admitted to pain, but Saber is not hiding hers now. She is too far gone to feel it. In a place of mist and faery she leans back into the tree against which Bedivere has placed her. She will die here. She is dying here.
"You are so patient," Saber murmurs, just when Bedivere begins to believe she will never speak again.
Bedivere's instinct is to reject the accolade. To name her impatiences. But they slip from her grasp as she tries to conjure them. Words spoken in haste at war councils, declamations delivered to the knights of treachery, her own vows to crown and God and land given far too readily—these peel back as ancient scrolls, flaking at the edges. They are too distant to be her own memories. Even today's battle, she realizes, melts to legend in her mind, a myth whose shape she only barely recalls.
A wind swims through the sea of leaves above, allowing light to dance on Bedivere's right arm. In its silver reflection, she leans forward and presses her lips to Saber's brow. There they remain for far too long, and then Bedivere pulls back just far enough to speak.
"Perhaps we were both dreaming."
Saber hums in agreement.
Greatest king and greatest vassal. Two women denied. Fifteen hundred years of waiting, of dying, of fighting and carrying and holding and throwing and lying and—and dreaming.
"Sing me your dream." It is not Arthur's order. It is Saber's whim. Bedivere's heart hurts, heavy with the understanding that she will survive this. "Please."
"I laid you against this tree," she begins. "And you asked of me the first favor I ever refused." Again, and again—and again, and again? The king orders the sword cast into the lake. The steward tries, but cannot. It should be twice. It should be only twice. The third time, Bedivere will obey her king. The third time, the dream will end. But there is no third time. There is only an endless cycle of twos. Bedivere rides to the lake with Excalibur on her hip. Bedivere rides back to her liege with Excalibur on her hip. She is weak. She is patient. Patience means hope, and hope means madness.
"My dream was kinder," Saber says, when Bedivere finishes.
For fifteen hundred years, Bedivere returns to Arthur.
For fifteen hundred years, Saber seeks the Grail.
For fifteen hundred years, Vivian awaits her due.
For fifteen hundred years, the spirit of humanity burns Arthur as fuel, swinging the once and future king as a sword on every battlefield.
For fifteen hundred years, Arthur dies. For a handful of glorious days, Saber lives.
"In my dream," Saber continues, "I beheld the Grail. It could grant me any wish, and I wished for this." Summoning great strength, she strains against her own mortality to raise a hand to Bedivere's face. "It wasn't my first wish. How I longed to turn back time. To trample your devotion. To be Altria."
Bedivere knows. She knew, the entire time. How could she not? The king was only human, the perfection a lie.
"In my dream I despaired. In my dream, my light flickered. Then a boy not much older than Altria told me why he lived. Why he loved." Saber pauses, stroking Bedivere's cheek. "It shouldn't have mattered. One stupid boy, against all the hopes I carried. But he denied me as no one else ever had."
"I should have—"
"No." Saber's fingers move to Bedivere's lips. "That is what I realized in my dream. There is no should have. There is only what happened. And what may yet occur."
"So the future isn't set," Bedivere raves, "and you may yet—"
"Die," Saber says, and it's final. "My dream is over, sweet Bedivere. Now I want you to wake from yours."
There is no order to return Excalibur to the lake.
There is no admonishment of Bedivere's fifteen-hundred-year failure.
There is just the corpse of a dreamer in the arms of a woman with daylight yet ahead.
Saber's death isn't complete until the sword is discarded, but it's no longer a question. Bedivere does what Bedivere must do. When she turns from the lake, her silver arm rests in the shallows. The music of Avalon dances faintly in the mist.
She wanted, so badly, for her king to smile.
Walking back into the ruin of the present, Bedivere finally smiles herself.