In wandering about the fanfiction sites (I read more fandoms than I write) I came across a list of requested pairings in unusual fandoms. One requested pairing was Morgan le Fay and Guinevere, King Arthur's half-sister and wife in the Arthurian legends, first told in the middle ages and still a theme today.
Searching for a hook, I looked up the meaning of the name Morgan. It is Welsh, as is Guinevere...as is Arthur, for that matter. And as a recreational medievalist, I knew that in England at the time when this is generally set, no one spoke just one language...not at court. Three or four were spoken. And so that gave me the evocative notion of the language of men and light, and the language of women and darkness. That Latin and Welsh have very few similarities assists in this.
Incidentally, if you do not know, the incestuous affair between Morgan and Arthur, which produced Mordred, is canonical. I do not have a copy lying about of any version of the legends, but I had recently been reading some of the old Irish legends. So I played a game of what if. What if this took place in a time when Christianity lay side by side with paganism? When some peoples still did things the old ways, including matrilineal inheritances? In the lands Morgan rules, it is quite possible he is accepted as high king because he slept with her, gave her a child. But in his own lands, where Christianity holds sway, his actions are a sin. The more so because she is so very much the exact opposite of Guinevere in canon. Not...evil. But passionate and sensual and earthy and very in touch with the rhythms of life and nature. Women like that are hard to forget. I don't see that Arthur could.
So he won't send her away, he won't sleep with her, and they simply watch each other, and want. And against this, Guinevere's uncertainty of her very self plays out well. The alert reader will notice that she is not given her name until very late in the story. This is deliberate. She is the queen, the lady of the castle (Domina is the Latin title for the woman of the house and used by her servants and slaves. It translates to mistress or "my lady"), her father's daughter and heir, and her husband's wife... and she longs to bear a son. She is defined by the men around her. Only at the end is she Guinevere, the white mare.
I enjoyed this, but it was a careful business of adding and subtracting words to get the right level of tension held throughout, and when I could read it after a week and see nothing to add or subtract, I called it done. I hope you enjoyed it.
-- Alexandra Lynch