Several months passed before Ginny recovered entirely, infinite weeks of feverish dreams, memories, and visions she could not tell apart.
She was told, when she started to stir back to life, looking for Arthur and finding Arwen and Aunt Ealasaid at her bedside, that he had never left her in the first weeks after the battle, not until they sent Myrddin to Avalon for Morgaine. Only once his sister assured him that Ginny would heal, he yielded to the pleas of his Companions who made him follow them on their victorious journey around the country, finally freed from the Saxons. The people demanded to see their King Arthur, wanted to hear from his lips that their queen would heal, and that from now on, they would live in peace.
Ginny nodded her understanding when she first heard the news, still too weak to speak, happy that he had not been injured. A few days later she managed to ask her Aunt for her Sword and laid it in the bed at her side, her hand hardly leaving its hilt, absorbing, breathing in the visions, the glimpses of the future it continued offering to her in her sleep.
As the time passed, first dragging, then speeding towards the day when her Aunt said that Arthur would return home, the dreams cleared enough for Ginny to distinguish the two most important, which kept replaying in her mind every night. They were, she believed, prophetic visions of two possible futures for her and Arthur and their kingdom. Avalon was forcing her to make a decision...
Was she strong enough to part with the Excalibur, now that she did not not need it any longer, as she had promised, and deserve the happy, peaceful life at Arthur's side, without her Sword? Her heart ached at the thought of parting with the magical blade; it had become, somehow, a part of her being... But the other vision showed her what would happen if she broke her promise to Avalon and decided to keep the Sword in this world against their will... It wasn't a pleasant sight...
The Excalibur had served its purpose, it had helped them banish the Saxons, unite the Kingdom of Britain, and bring peace. It didn't belong to her any longer. She must deliver it back to the High Priestess of Avalon, she resolved.
In the end, it was more difficult to persuade Arthur that they needed to return the Sword than to part with it herself. He had come to depend on it as much as she had. It was the Excalibur that had driven the Saxons away from the isles after all. How could he give it away? To him, it was a... a sacred relic...
However, once Ginny was long healed and finally even Arthur deemed her fit enough to walk down the Camelot's hill to the shore of Lake, he agreed-- somewhat reluctantly-- that it was time to keep their promise, and return it. It was months after the battle at Mount Badon, peace and summer reigned over their realm, but Arthur shivered as he recalled the vision Ginny had told him about-- about what would happen if they kept the Sword.
Yet, as they stopped by the long reeds growing in the shallows of the Lake, and he wrapped his arm around Ginny's waist, pulling her close to him, he tried to reason with her. "Do we really have to throw it in the Lake? Are you sure we can't keep it? We would look after it well for them... What do the priestesses of Avalon need the Sword for, anyway?"
She looked up at him, shaking her head. Her visions and nightmares spoke clearly, reminding her night after night of her promise to return it to Avalon after the last battle.
The battle and the decades long war against the Saxons was over for so long now that Arthur's Companions were getting restless, bored of sitting around their castle in peace.
It was time.
Should they not give the Sword back, it would only cause another war-- there were many kings who would want to fight them for it. Of course, Ginny knew that peace would not last forever, but by sending the Excalibur back to Avalon, she would keep it as long as they lived, maybe longer... That was what the Lady of Avalon had promised her.
"There might be another war..." Arthur spoke again, his voice soft, breaking; he wasn't really sure what he wanted to say. It was just... that he couldn't throw the magical Sword away, like a thing without any value...
"Peace can't last forever," Ginny agreed, her mind conjuring up an image from her dream, of strange, otherworldly warriors in dragon ships, landing on the northern shores of their kingdom. "But if we return it, there might be no other war in our lifetime..."
"With its help, we might win many battles..." Arthur whispered dreamily, taking the Excalibur from her, his blue eyes caressing it fondly. "And then, even people thousands of years hence, would remember us..."
"No, Arthur, my love. We must live for today, and not for some future glory we won't be here to witness," she said, cupping his face in the palms of her hands, making him look down at her.
"We could keep it for our heir..." he whispered, changing his tactics, his free hand coming to rest protectively on her belly.
Ginny giggled-- she hadn't told him yet that she suspected she might be with child, but, as always, nothing escaped him.
However, forcing her lips to stop smiling, she repeated sternly, "No, Arthur. Should the Excalibur want to come to our child, it shall find its way. We gave our promise to Lady Nimue. To Morgaine. To Avalon. We must return it. Go on. Throw it away. Now."
Sighing deeply, unhappily, he finally obeyed.
Raising the Excalibur above his head, he threw it towards the cool, turquoise waters of the Lake. It turned in the air a few times, end over end, scattering the warm sunshine, making it look as if diamonds rained on the ancient blade from the cloudless summer sky.
And then, the moment it touched the water's surface in an eerie silence, without the slightest splash, it vanished as if pulled under the water by an invisible hand.
"Let us go home," Arthur said after a long while filled with perfect silence, making them feel as if the world around them stopped.
He kissed her deeply, lifting her in his arms and making her squeal and giggle, then set off up the hill.
"So, when were you going to tell me that you were with child?" he asked, as if nothing happened, as if they had never had a magical Sword in their possession, as if they had not thrown it into the Lake moments ago...
"Soon," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck contentedly.
The Holy Grail, undoubtedly following the Excalibur back to Avalon, vanished from Camelot's chapel the same night.
It didn't take long for the first bored Knights of Arthur's Company, those who did not plan to marry and settle down like their beloved King Arthur, to propose to travel the world in search of it, to bring it back to their King and his Queen.
Arthur and Ginny, after trying to convince them unsuccessfully that they would never find it, let them go, there was no point in keeping the adventurous men at court in the times of peace, against their will.
The only ones who never left them-- Garreth and Lancelot-- attended Lord Myrddin and Countess Ealasaid's wedding the following winter, not long before Ginny gave birth to healthy twins.
A girl, Elisabeth, who once would find her way to Avalon and her aunt Morgaine-- rumoured to have become the new High Priestess-- as her mother hoped.
And a boy, Galahad, whose father's most secret dreams were about his finding the Holy Grail, and the Excalibur, and being remembered by the people living thousands of years hence...
❀✿𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕰𝖓𝖉✿❀
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