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the swan princess
*ೃ༄ ❀ུ۪ ❁ུ۪ ━━
( if i could break the spell,
i'd run to him today! )
bbc merlin 2008-2012

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*ೃ༄ for reading:
times new roman
dark mode , size:
second smallest

【 summary 】

DESTINY was a troublesome thing.

It dealt the hand of everyone, cursed the end of many and blessed the life of a few.

Odette felt as though destiny chained her hands upon iron floors with no way of climbing the stone walls to freedom above. Some spend hours, days and years trying to understand their fate▬crawled at the cobblestone, drew blood from a dagger and broke their nails to their beds trying to force their own way in the world. Odette was different from them. She accepted there was no change from the bottom for her▬she had nowhere to climb, and nowhere to fall. Her destiny will always be to stay where she had started:

An orphan, found with nothing as a babe crying in the night outside the servants entrance into the castle kitchens, Odette had no history, she had no future▬she had no fortune, no home, no lineage, not even the freedom of a commoner. She might be the daughter of a servant, maybe a babe cast away in fear of being a Changeling, or even a child born out of wedlock ... none of which gave her anything. She was merely less than a shadow, less than a footprint on the castle grounds, less than a smudge on the stone walls.

It was her fate to forever be a spec of dust brushed from the tabletops, a forgotten crumb left upon a plate by someone more important than her; not even worth the breath of her name upon anyone's lips.

And in all of her seventeen years of life, she has come to accept that.

She never let it take away her smile. She never once let her worn nails and aching knees from days spent scrubbing the floors of lords and ladies take away her bright spirit. Odette was a light within the dark▬eyes bright with a simple breath of life that strived for nothing more, and nothin less ... she was happy with what she had, what she was given, and all that she had been blessed with no matter her broken beginning and her cracked existence.

Yet, that is the strange thing about destiny ... the greatest fates are thrown onto those who never ask ... and Odette's is something far more.

For there was one who knew her name; always. One person in the castle that had known it from the moment she was four years old and she would trip him down the grand staircases. There were many names they gave her: they called her girl ... maid ... 'Odette' with little thought, with orders and more orders▬favours and questions of: can you clean this for me? But he didn't. He never did.

Prince Arthur had seen Odette from the very first time they met. He saw her determination, her stubbornness, her undying loyalty, her wisdom and her courage. From children to the distant, broken friendship they were now, he always knew Odette's name like the whisper of the comforting wind each sunrise; giving him light and hope, showing him the right pathway he needed when he had nothing else.

He found her like a swan in a sea of ducklings▬beautiful when others forgot her like the dust behind the curtains. And he knew he would feel it, would always find her, would always search for her ... for far longer than forever ...

If he could only ever learn just how to let her know▬

Or deep down, realise the truth himself.

That no matter what, it had always been Odette.

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introducing...

phoebe dynevor

*ೃ༄ ODETTE MASON ▬
( enfp, pisces, 4w5 )

【 ▬▬or is beauty all that matters to you?

well ... what else is there?▬▬】

bradley james

*ೃ༄ ARTHUR PENDRAGON ▬
( estp, leo, 3w2 )

with...

colin morgan

*ೃ༄ MERLIN WYLLT ▬
( infp, gemini, 9w1 )

【 ▬▬no. there must be another arthur because this one is an idiot 】

luke pasqualino

*ೃ༄ RONYN VECENTIA ▬
( entp, virgo, 9w8 )

【 ▬▬ i think the book should be called: how to offend odette in five syllables or less ... historically, i think he's been really great at that... 】

bruna marquezine

*ೃ༄ ADELYNN VECENTIA ▬
( isfp, aries, 5w6 )

【 ▬▬ brother, i believe your room is on the south side of the house 】

and...

angel coulby

*ೃ༄ GUINEVERE SMITH ▬
( isfj, libra, 2w1 )

katie mcgrath

*ೃ༄ MORGANA LE FAY ▬
( enfj, taurus, 2w3 )

alongside ...

santiago cabrera as lancelot du lac
sean teale as bedivere bedrydant
eion macken as gwaine cuchulainn
tom hopper as percival galles
rupert young as leon gaunnes
adetomiwa edun as elyan smith
anthony head as uther pendragon
richard wilson as gaius wyllt
asa butterfield/alexander vlahos as mordred
the voice of john hurt as the great dragon

(cues merlin theme song for the casting lol)

cover and gif banners/gif aesthetics by my girl -swrites
actual queen ily if u steal her stuff i will personally hunt u down-
the other mood boards (the shit ones) done by me

disclaimer▬I do not own merlin bbc, I do not own the arthurian legends, I do not own the swan princess. if I did, then arthur and gwen would be living their lives on a farm with merlin toiling the fields.

I do, however, own this interpretation of merlin, the arthurian legends and the swan princess, so please do not steal because I put a lot of effort, research and time into my fics▬especially historical ones because I'm nothing if not a historical, arthurian nerd.

but even then, I shall disclaim that this is a fantasy-based medieval world with magic, which means not everything is historically accurate or accurate to the original tales of arthur and merlin. if it was, well ... let's just say it would be very dark lol.

warnings!

age gaps - medieval times? different social norms. lol, i promise no underage romance. but like there's a four year age gap between odette and arthur. so she is 17 in the first part (merlin's age he's like 16-17). look, I'll try to explain the ages throughout the book as they grow, but it's confusing, lol.

dark themes, dark magic, medieval fantasy and violence, religious presence, sexual innuendoes, mentions of domestic violence

platonic!merthur - this is a warning cos if I get some merthur assholes who find it okay to put down gwen or even odette then I will come at you. merlin and arthur are definitley bisexual, it's truth, but can we have some respect for other people's ships thanks? especially when my husbands have straight relationships in this book.

i personally always saw merlin and arthur as a very younger brother/older brother dynamic. the writers did put innuendos in on purpose, and made it canon that they wrote the last episode as if it was a love story between two men and it was beautiful, I admit that I was crying my little heart out. but that's how I saw it, and that's how I'm writing it.

so, that said, i do not condone any racial or brutally mean comments about my girl guinevere. nor any hatred to someone who doesn't ship arthur and merlin romantically. nor do I condone any homophobic comments either. can we all please just be respectful and mature, thank you.

lets hope i actually finish this merlin fic this time, i-

I LITERALLY HAVE ZERO TIME AND TOO MANY BOOKS MOST OF WHICH ARE IN DESPERATE NEED OF PUBLISHING CHAPTERS SOMEONE STOP ME RIGHT NOW-

redoing the graphics to get ready for act two like-