Rating: PG-13.
Characters: Morgana Pendragon, Uther Pendragon, Arthur Pendragon, Gwen, Merlin.
Pairing: subtle Gwen/Morgana
Word count: 1046.
Summary: You say, 'I wanted you to be proud of me'; I always wanted that myself.




In another world, Morgana feels her father's death.

It is a distant, sharp pain that begins in her stomach and spreads (like wine, like poison) through her veins.

In another world, she wears a cape of velvet green and he is wearing red. She is earth that day and he is fire and he holds her on a windy hill.

In this world she is made of fire and Uther will soon indeed be Earth.

She feels sick, dizzy with the experience that she cannot explain. There is so little to feel these days and too much to plan.

She chooses the most accurate name she can attribute to it and names it sadness.

In another world she grieves.

At this world, she has no such luxury.

*

She is fourteen and wearing lilac, or was it silver? The memories are not so sharp, these days. She cannot remember colors when everything is so dark.

But she is fourteen, that she is certain of. Arthur is somewhere with his knights and so she and the king are alone at dinner.

It is far too silent and she breaks it with a question she had wanted to ask for many years and had not until now.

"How did you meet my father?"

She expects the king to avoid her question, to send her off to her chambers or to go to one of his ordeals. Instead he sets down his goblet of wine and says, "let me tell you."

*

She is twelve and Arthur is ten and they are having an adventure in the castle's gardens.

He is nothing but a boy of gold hair and nice eyes but she finds that enjoys his company all the same. He is much more fun than the girls Uther tried to make her play with.

They climb a tree and pick the fruit and then just sit on the grass in the sun.

"Do you miss him?" he asks and she smiles. Their tutor would have scolded him that it is not a princely question but she finds that she loves that he had not been entirely spoiled by the court yet. He is honest and so is she.

"I shall always miss him."

He is quiet for a long minute.

"I think I shall always miss her too. I never knew her."

Her voice turns quiet, as if she's telling him a secret the world does not wish him to know. "It is alright to miss those we did not know. I miss mine, too."

Arthur is silent and she reaches to him, entwining her fingers in his among the flowers she had picked.

*

It is only many years later that Morgana will understand she misses them all still. Those she had known, those she had not known

And those she wishes she had never met.

*

In another world, Morgana stayed in Camelot and found that she could find peace there.

She wore red to Arthur's and Gwen's wedding, she laced flowers in Gwen's hair and pressed her lips to her cheek calling her 'sister'.

Gwen would still come to do her hair and Morgana joked that she is the only lady in the world to be attended by a queen.

Magic was free at last and Gwen said, but you are a queen and we attend each other. Turn around and let me finish that braid, Queen of the Isle of the Blessed.


In this world, Morgana wishes to force Camelot to give her the peace she never found there. There is only room for one queen in Camelot and no room for childish dreams.

In this world, the only sister she had is long dead by her hands.

There is no room in her for love, she had relinquished all of the affection she had to these people.

She cries Gwen's name after a nightmare still, reaching for arms that are not there.

She wants to cry, you traitorous girl, I loved you well before them all.

*

She smirks at Arthur's uncle and says, poison is a curious thing. You may chase it from your blood and yet some of it will always be there.

Betrayal and madness work the same way.

*

Love works like that, too.

It is the final lesson she had learned from this world and it comes, like all lessons do, much too late.

Merlin's eyes are more blue than the lake.

He had not aged a day, she had not either.

"My destiny and doom," she drawls with a smile.

"It has to be you," he says and sounds as old as the man she had feared for so many years.

A funny thing, she thinks. She spend all these years feeling so much older than herself and now she feels too young.

Arthur's weight is not a burden and she washes the blood from his face.

"They tell a story, brother," she begins and all at once she is twelve and he is ten and she had entered his chambers at an ungodly hour for a story and company, "of a king of was and shalt be again. Such misfortune for this kingdom that it is merely you."

He actually smiles at this and her heart is both light and heavy. The pieces fit together and she abandons her thoughts of other worlds and focuses on this one. His eyes are still wonderfully blue and she wonders if he too, is suddenly ten and huddled with her by the fire as she tells a story.

She thinks of Gwen; humors a thought of going back to look upon her again.

Arthur sighs and she runs her fingers through his hair.

"You're back home then, my lady," he drawls.

"Both of us are, Arthur, you and I both," far too late, she thinks, far too late.

"Finish your story so I may rest."

She kisses his forehead, "one chapter of it is done; but one day, as a new one will open, the king shall rise again and bring glory and salvation to this land."

She remembers, all of the sudden, Camelot's gardens and how she entwined their fingers between the flowers.

Their fingers entwine over his Excalibur and the day is drawing to an end.

~*~