Arthur catches in one hand, an overhanded grab out of mid-air that's all rough-edged street fighter. He sheaths Excalibur with the other. When both hands are free he holds the thing between his scarred palms and looks at it, how finely made, how strangely life-like. Because it is alive, its silver weight shifting, sharp claws and rough scales prickling his skin. But it doesn't fly away, doesn't bite him, just slithers in a circle and stills again. A messenger of her power, he thinks, and he raises his head to look at her again.

"I'm not going to remember this," he tells her, but it sounds like he's speaking underwater-- and without any vowels. His dreams are always in Welsh. Why. Maybe that's where magic comes from.

He takes a step forward, then another, frost cracking beneath his feet, and his gaze falls to the severed head.

Vortigern.

Arthur frowns and moves as if to reach down to it, but the corpsehead's eyes open and from them shines a blinding flash of light, making him stagger back. Before he can recover his footing a shock of ice so brittle the very air cracks with it snaps through, freezing the ground and splitting it, dragging king and queen apart.