Mordred had gone back and forth between the secret camp where he resided with Morgana and her son Mabon and Camelot all his life. Often he would go without telling anyone where it was he was headed because he knew they would never understand his reasons for going in the first place. It was his secret obsession.

That was his curiosity over Eiliwedd, the Lady Royal of Camelot and daughter of the man he was apparently destined to kill one day. Little Linnet, the 'Idol of the Isles' as the people knew her as a child. He had watched her since she was a babe lying in her cradle, and secretly watched her grow up from afar.

One day when she was thirteen, Linnet dropped her family pendant – the mark of the Pendragon – while walking in the street. That was the first day that Mordred had ever spoken to Linnet. He knew he shouldn't have but curiosity over what it would be like to... touch her shoulder just once compelled him to reach out and grab her attention to return the lost treasure.

He remembered how she had turned and smiled. Everyone said that she was edgy and tricky to deal with like her father had been at her age... but he saw nothing but nobility and kindness in her expression.

"You dropped this, your highness."

He had held out the pendant for her and she gasped at the sight of it, immediately reaching out to take it.

"Oh my God! Thank you."

Her hand had brushed against his as she took back the pendant. She had barely stayed more than a few seconds after that, smiling gratefully at him and blinking her beautifully framed brown-eyes as she turned to leave. He had even caught the scent of her fine blonde hair flicked back as she ran to catch up with her younger companion.

He knew that his curiosity was poisonous.

That said his interest in Linnet hadn't been perverted, at least he didn't think so. At thirteen he did not find her remotely attractive as a woman. She was still thin and undeveloped but for tiny signs that puberty had kicked in just the previous year. Her tomboyish style added more to her lack of femininity even when she was forced to wear a dress.

Her longish blonde locks hung in fine, wavy masses which knotted together. As he walked away Mordred imagined Queen Guinevere pulling a brush through her teenage daughter's hair and scolding her for not brushing it properly.

Yes, he had thought her beautiful – in the same way a work of art was beautiful or a unicorn was beautiful. Eiliwedd Pendragon was at that point just a pretty thing but she was not attractive. Even pretty things could be struck down if need be... although Mordred admitted that his perception of her might change when she came of age, when she reached the age of objectification.

So he made a vow.

He would not return to Camelot until the day she came of age. Even as he walked away Mordred wondered how he would fight off the curiosity to watch her as he had since she was tiny. Yet he had crossed the line in speaking to her today. He had made a move towards existing in her world, something which he had vowed never to do the first day he ever saw her as a baby.

I will never let the daughter of a man I hate control me!

Mordred realised now that he was so determined to see the prophecy didn't come true, that by obsessing over Linnet and watching her he was making it come true. So, he decided to cut all ties from this day until the day she was no longer a child.

It was not a child, after all, who would 'bewitch the mind of the cold and cruel Mordred' to the point of obsession, he thought.