They call him unnatural, a creature out of place in our world of stone walls and metal swords. But if Bertilak is unnatural, then I wish to be unnatural with him. For there is more life in his bark-bound skin and vine-tangled hair than in all the lords and knights of Arthur’s court combined. - Gawain Pendragon
Journal Entry, April 10th, 1159
The Solar Solarium, Camelot
It is late, and the court’s revelry has long since faded into the quiet hum of crickets and the occasional creak of the rafters above. Yet I cannot sleep. The moonlight streams through my chamber window, illuminating the empty space beside me where he lay not hours ago. Bertilak. My Green Knight. My verdant prince.
There are days when I cannot believe he is real.
He tells me, so casually, that he was once a tree. A tree! That he sprouted in the heart of the Wilds like an ordinary sapling, that his bark cracked, his roots stretched, and, in time, magic lent him legs to walk and arms to wield. I asked him once if he remembers those early days—what it was like to be rooted in place, to drink of the earth rather than walk upon it. He smiled, that crooked, vine-covered smile of his, and said, “It was peaceful. Quiet. But lonely.”
I do not know what loneliness he speaks of. It is hard to imagine him lonely when he walks with such surety and speaks with such radiance, as though the forest itself echoes in his every word. Yet even after centuries of living, of serving the great Queen Finvarra and standing as a prince of her Seelie Court, he tells me that I am the first to truly see him for what he is. Not just a fay prince. Not just a force of nature bound in humanoid form. But someone worthy of love.
It humbles me. Terrifies me, even. For I know not what I have done to deserve his affection.
He came into my life with such purpose, such theatrics, that it would have been laughable if not for the sharp edge of his axe. When first I saw him in the great hall of Camelot, standing in his moss-covered armor with that too-bright light glinting off his bark-like skin, I thought him some phantom conjured to test my courage. And perhaps, in some ways, he was. Yet I struck him down as a knight should, and he rose again—as only something so ancient and strange could—and left me with a challenge I still feel I am trying to answer.
When I went to him that day a year later, ready to kneel and offer my neck to his axe, he laughed. He laughed like the forest in spring, with the sound of leaves rustling in the wind and birds calling at dawn. “You are brave, my golden knight,” he said, and I thought that would be my epitaph. But the blow never came.
Instead, he offered me his hand.
And now he offers me so much more: solace when my nightmares rise like ghosts; warmth when the shadows of my mind become too cold to bear; wisdom I cannot claim for myself. The court stares, of course. They always do. They whisper when he brushes my hair from my face, or when I let my hand linger on his wrist a moment too long. This is not the way of men, they say, as if they have any right to tell me what the way of men should be.
But Bertilak… Bertilak is no man, and perhaps that is why I love him. He is otherworldly, yes. Larger than life. But he is also simple in his affections, unashamed to offer them freely, openly, even here in Camelot where the nobles would sooner choke on their wine than speak plainly of love. He looks at me like I am sunlight made flesh, and yet it is he who warms me.
Even now, when I close my eyes, I can feel the weight of his hand on mine, the steadiness of his breath against my neck when he pulls me close. There is something… grounding about him. I do not know if it is his nature affinity, the way he seems to carry the forest with him wherever he goes, or if it is something deeper, something of him. When the terrors come—the visions of my own death, of Mordred’s betrayal, of Arthur’s despair—it is Bertilak who quiets them. His presence stills the storm in my mind.
But he is not without his own storms. He hides them well, but I see them in the way he flinches when autumn comes, in the way he retreats to the Wilds each winter as if fleeing some unseen predator. I know the cold weakens him, that the bark of his skin cracks and his leaves fall like those of the trees he once called kin. He will not admit it, but I suspect it frightens him—the reminder that even something as eternal as the forest must wither and sleep.
I miss him terribly during those months. The court feels emptier without his laughter, and my bed colder without his warmth. Yet I know he must go. The Wilds sustain him in a way Camelot never can. I try not to think of what might happen if he stayed—if winter’s touch proved too cruel for even him to endure.
Still, he returns to me every spring, radiant and alive, with flowers blooming at his heels and sap glistening in his amber eyes. It is the happiest season of my life, that moment when he steps through the gates of Camelot and sweeps me into his arms, heedless of the stares from courtiers and knights alike.
They call him unnatural, a creature out of place in our world of stone walls and metal swords. But if Bertilak is unnatural, then I wish to be unnatural with him. For there is more life in his bark-bound skin and vine-tangled hair than in all the lords and knights of Arthur’s court combined.
He is my Wilds. My knight. My love.
And when the time comes for the shadows to take me, I pray it will be his roots that grow around my soul, anchoring me forever in his eternal spring.
Signed Gawain Pendragon
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