((Dec 2nd))

There was snowflakes in her dreams. She skipped the paths of Hyde Park alone, weaving through the dancing white falling around her. Suddenly she wasn't on the path, though. And she knew she should be. She hadn't turned the wrong way, she was certain. She felt like she was being watched, but there was no one there. She wanted to call out and ask who was there, but she found herself unable to do so. She moved across the snowy grounds now - searching through barren trees mixed with bright evergreens that didn't seem to be collecting the snow that was falling.

But she couldn't find what she was looking for. It was cold, dreadfully cold. But she couldn't recall a time in the past year when she'd felt warm. Always there was the cold. The snow swirled again, and for a moment she thought she saw figures through it's haze. She tried to follow, but it was hard to see. The snow swirled around her again. She reached out to capture a snowflake. It glistened in her hands like glass; in the distance she thought she could here a faint chime, and then...



Edwina awoke with a shout, pausing when she recognized her room at Mrs Wilcox's manorhouse.

"Miss Boyd?" The door opened, admitted her maid. A nervous young woman who was always flitting about. "Is everything alright?"

Edwina shook her head. "No, I mean...yes, it was just a dream. I'm fine."

The woman seemed uncertain, but nodded. "Do you need anything? Perhaps a warm drink?"

Edwina shivered, but shook her head. "No. No thank-you. I'm fine."

"As you say, Miss Boyd. A goodnight then."

"Yes, goodnight." Edwina nodded. She tried to lay back down, but sleep wouldn't come. The sun was not yet rising when she slipped out of the house.


Her feet took her to Hyde Park, and she wasn't surprised. Snow covered the ground in glittering white, though the paths had been swept clear. She shivered in the cold, walking the paths slowly. She didn't know where she was going, or why she was here, but she kept walking anyway. Unlike in her dreams there was snow on the trees - both barren and evergreen. She hesitated on a curve of the path, looking out across the grounds of the park. Watching. Waiting.

It was quiet. So quiet that at first the snow could almost be heard...or at least it was easy to imagine you could hear the snow falling! The silence muffled everything like a thick blanket over the senses. The only sound was of the soft voice singing high and light as the snowflakes themselves. Of course that singing had been there all along!

And the winter was so spare and spartan in its beauty...until of course the line of the trees and the while were broken by the willowy young body dancing between the flakes. As if they all danced together, the snow and the lithe young girl, and they were playfellows in a music hall. But of course she had been there the whole time!

And a moment later it was clear that it was her voice that was singing...flowing like a clear winter spring of unbelievable purity from her red lips into the still winter air...and that orchestra of chimes with her? Why it was easy enough to believe that that was simply the snowflakes themselves, chiming in with little voices like bells as they swirled around her. Her little feet were bare (which was only sensible) and they hardly made a dent on the snow (which was only right) and they moved with quick little steps as her body bent and spun and her little hands moved through the air as if she were drawing shapes into it.

And it all made perfect sense, somehow. Even though it didn't. Even though a part of her knew that snowflakes don't make music, and people didn't go dancing barefoot in the snow. Somehow it seemed right. Like half-awakening from a dream. When one can't quite seperate where the dream ends and reality begins. And everything makes sense then, even when it shouldn't. And how could she really concentrate on such things when that voice was singing such a lovely song?

She watched, too entranced at first to move as the girl and the snow danced together to the music they made. Slowly she found herself swaying to it, caught by the tune that seemed to call to her. She wasn't sure when she moved off the path, following through the snow. It was cold, but cold was familiar by now. She had to catch up to the willowy figure. Surely she was supposed to. Because she'd been waiting for her, hadn't she? Even though a moment before she'd had no idea why she was there or what she was looking for. She didn't understand it, but that seemed secondary somehow. She'd been waiting, and the girl was here, and the music was ever-so-lovely. And what else could possibly matter?

The dance was still soft and sweet but there were small rises in the music that said it might be coming to a crescendo. Every now and then the girl went up onto her toes and lifted up her white arms and spun gracefully around. And the music rose up with her! And then fell again, but every time it became a little more intense. Her hair was very long and very dark but terribly tangled as if it was never brushed at all! Her little feet were wound with ribbons that twined around her legs until they tied around her pretty knees and there were ribbons around her hands too, and they all swirled around her and so did the snow.

As Edwina came near the girl let her dark head fall back and stuck out her little red tongue to catch a snowflake on it. But instead of swallowing the flake she seemed to suck on it as if it were a sweet. She turned the and her eyes met the other girls'. They were dark though as if they had been carved out of little back shiney stones. Of course what could be more natural?

Edwina stopped moving as the music began to reach its climax, her heart seeming to jump at every crescendo. She watched as the other girl caught the snowflake on her tongue. For a moment she almost wondered why it didn't melt away quickly, and things began to seem muddled in her mind - as if something wasn't quite right. Then those dark stone eyes met hers, and those worries seemed to disappate like the fog.

No, no that was natural. Snowflakes didn't alway melt right away. One could catch one. She'd caught one herself once - hadn't she? She was certain she had. And it had been as beautiful as spun glass in her hand. The memory was hazy, but there.

She opened her mouth to ask the other girl about it, but only closed her lips again a moment later as the question fled from her mind. There were other questions too. Like who the other girl was, and if they'd met before. But the moment she thought of them, they didn't seem important anymore. And she didn't want to interrupt the song anyway.

The soft chiming of bells seemed to rise and fall as the strange girl let her hands drop. Even that though seemed like part of the dance. Slowly her feet moved over the damp earth toward her new companion and something sparkled in her eyes. What fun!

The ribbons around her arms fluttered in the slight breeze that picked up and they almost looked like they wanted to reach out and wrap Edwina up. Just to bring her into the dance of course! The dancer's feet came closer and closer and now her hands were reaching out too and there was a strange smile on her pretty red lips. Her eyes sparkled but didn't give anything away.

Edwina blinked for a moment, swaying slightly as the music filled her mind. She tried to catch one of the ribbons that flowed past, but missed. She found herself giggling over it as the girl came closer, and she reached out to take one of the offered hands - letting herself be drawn into the dance.

The music seemed to wrap around her, engulf all her senses. A slightly dazed smile lit her features as whatever part of her still nagging about the cold, and the snow, and things not being quite right was silenced by the song. Because everything was right. Because she'd been waiting for this, for what seemed like ever so long now. The cold that wouldn't go away, and the strange longing that disturbed her deep in the night. And the dreams full of ice and snow. It all led to this. She let go of her companion's hand to twirl to the beat, her skirts and coat swirling around her.

King Arthur and the "roots of troubles"

The traditional treatment of women in the Arthurian saga is interesting to note in its severity. Guinevere is an adulteress, Morgan Le Fay is a witch, Morgause is an incestuous schemer, and the Lady of the Lake is the leader of a terrible, backward pagan religion. This is, of course, the treatment that has been handed down to us from the medieval writers who gave us the Christian infusion that spawned the story of the Holy Grail. ffxi gil

　　But if we go back to the historical writers！！the writers who were treating Arthur as a historical character, not a target for pious retribution or moral sermonizing; we find that women do, more or less, have quite an important role to play in the overall health and well-being of Arthur the King.

　　Inherent in this last statement is this feature of earlier stories: Arthur's story did not end badly. In the earliest of stories about Arthur the King, he wasn't even the Once and Future King. He was a great warrior and won many great victories. He was a great king who had a great queen, and they both ruled a great kingdom.

　　 maple story mesos,Arthur's queen didn't even have a name in the earliest of stories. She was simply the queen. But she didn't, as so many modern stories tell us, have a part in the downfall of the kingdom. Even Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the happier parts of his story, has Arthur and Ganhumara (his name for the queen) holding court in a great castle in a great city called the City of the Legions. (Geoffrey later gives Guinevere a bad name, but she is all that glitters when the story opens.)

　　Also showered with the light of good in earlier stories is Morgan Le Fay. In the earliest of the Cornwall stories, Morgan is the Queen of Lyonesse, where Arthur is taken after his final battle. Morgan is the leader of a group of healers, all women, who will undoubtedly heal Arthur. It is perhaps out of this part of the story that William of Malmesbury crafted his vision that Arthur would come again. (William, you will remember, is the first one to mention that Arthur's grave has not been found; even though he says nothing more, he gives a strong hint that the Once and Future King part of the legend has begun.) wow gold

　　The Lady of the Lake as well fares rather better in the older stories. She it was who gave Arthur his first sword. She it is who is guardian of the old ways, the ways from which comes much of the magic of the original Arthurian stories. The Christian writers wanted to make Arthur a Christian king, and they didn't want any other religions getting in the way of this. Naturally, they made the Lady of the Lake a questionable character solely because of her "religious" ways.

　　The question then becomes one of why. Why do the women come off so bad in medieval stories? What happened to make the writers change their image of people who were so vital to the story? The answer probably lies in the spiritual realm and its resulting scriptures. The same writers who were reading the Bible and discovering that Eve was responsible for all the world's problems probably thought that they should blame Guinevere for all of Arthur's problems. Why did Arthur have a bastard son in the first place? wow gold, Because the scheming Morgause tricked him into it. Why did Morgan Le Fay hate Arthur so? Because she was jealous of the magic wielded by Merlin, Arthur's advisor. Why was the Lady of the Lake suddenly to be reviled, not revered? Because she was the head of a religion that medieval writers didn't understand or want to understand. The teachings of the Bible were such that one religion was possible (in the minds of these writers); anything else was unacceptable. (It must be said here that Arthur, Lancelot, and all the rest of the male characters take quite a beating at the hands of the medievalists as well. The whole story becomes a morality play from which only Galahad, the purse and chaste, emerges unscathed. Arthur and Lancelot, the perfect king and the perfect knight, are undone by their shared imperfect morality.)

　　ffxi gil, The result is that in the modern tales, women are still pretty much blamed for Arthur's troubles. Arthur's dallying with Morgause has come to be seen as something akin to the Adam and Eve story. Lancelot's love for the queen has come to be seen as equal in its devastation to the queen's own adulterous actions (that is to say, it's the woman's fault). Morgan Le Fay is reviled as a witch who wants nothing more than to ruin the kingdom of the wonderful Arthur. And the Lady of the Lake recedes ever further into the background. (Some traditions hold that she is Nimue, whose claim to "fame" is that she enchants Merlin into submission and takes him from Arthur when Arthur needs him most.)

　　If you want to role-play in Arthur's world, you'd better choose a male character. At least people will feel sorry for you. aion gold