fanfiction: so darkness i became (merlin, pg)
Sometimes in her sleep she can hear singing, wild and deep, like water and stone. Morgana, S2.
Alternate title: Jo is deeply, deeply pissed off at the Merlin writers for their treatment of Morgana (girl in anguish is denied answers by the only people who know what's happening to her for stupid selfish reasons and they are (and by extension we are supposed to be) horrified and morally outraged when she turns violently against them? okay then) and passive-agressively exorcises her feelings through strange vignettes.
So Darkness I Became
She’s a star-lit girl, all bright-glowing and hot with the light of promise.
Every morning she drapes herself over in responsibility and tradition, and tries to put the light out.
She is afraid because she does not know what it means.
-
There is always light where she is. Strange light, light seeping under doors like a flood, light fluttering out of handkerchiefs and jars when she opens them. She learns to ignore it. She’s learnt to ignore everything that might make her too bright, might make her glare out of the world in which she is safe, transform her into a thing alien and threatening. At night, when there is no-one to know, she holds the memory of light close. It is bright on her tongue, like citrus.
-
Sometimes in her sleep she can hear singing, wild and deep, like water and stone.
-
Gwen is putting out the candles. Morgana sits up in bed, watching her, her nerves too harsh and ragged for sleep. Gwen turns to her, a question on her mouth, when the light of one of the candles she has missed flutters softly away from its wick and clings, suddenly, to Morgana’s hand, two feet away.
“Oh,” says Gwen sensibly. “I thought it might be something like that.”
Morgana stares at the little flame in her palm - it does not burn her - and is bone-achingly glad that someone else thinks it is beautiful.
-
She makes Gwen a crown of little lights.
-
Still she is always afraid. She hates being afraid: fear is a thing that leeches control from one’s body. She likes to know what she is doing. She likes to know her own future, or know how to get there. (Sometimes she sees into the future, but they are always the wrong futures, ones she does not need, futures that belong to other people and tell her nothing about herself. Am I good, she asks the night, am I worthy, am I loved? The futures tell her: someone is in danger. Something is coming. Tell them. Someone needs to be saved.
-And I?
-When am I to be saved?
There is a never an answer.
The futures tell her: nothing good can survive.
She knows what she must do.)
-
Once there was singing in her sleep, water and stone, calling her name: oh, come, for you belong; oh, come, add your voice, your hands, your heart.
Then, for a very long time, there was only the sound of burning, burning, burning: but at least the flames were a light.
Now, nightly, she dreams of nothing.
-
There will come a day, a hidden part of herself kneeling in the ashes knows, when all of the light will come out of the hushed places, and in that day no-one will know how to put her out.
She lights herself a match.
Alternate title: Jo is deeply, deeply pissed off at the Merlin writers for their treatment of Morgana (girl in anguish is denied answers by the only people who know what's happening to her for stupid selfish reasons and they are (and by extension we are supposed to be) horrified and morally outraged when she turns violently against them? okay then) and passive-agressively exorcises her feelings through strange vignettes.
So Darkness I Became
She’s a star-lit girl, all bright-glowing and hot with the light of promise.
Every morning she drapes herself over in responsibility and tradition, and tries to put the light out.
She is afraid because she does not know what it means.
-
There is always light where she is. Strange light, light seeping under doors like a flood, light fluttering out of handkerchiefs and jars when she opens them. She learns to ignore it. She’s learnt to ignore everything that might make her too bright, might make her glare out of the world in which she is safe, transform her into a thing alien and threatening. At night, when there is no-one to know, she holds the memory of light close. It is bright on her tongue, like citrus.
-
Sometimes in her sleep she can hear singing, wild and deep, like water and stone.
-
Gwen is putting out the candles. Morgana sits up in bed, watching her, her nerves too harsh and ragged for sleep. Gwen turns to her, a question on her mouth, when the light of one of the candles she has missed flutters softly away from its wick and clings, suddenly, to Morgana’s hand, two feet away.
“Oh,” says Gwen sensibly. “I thought it might be something like that.”
Morgana stares at the little flame in her palm - it does not burn her - and is bone-achingly glad that someone else thinks it is beautiful.
-
She makes Gwen a crown of little lights.
-
Still she is always afraid. She hates being afraid: fear is a thing that leeches control from one’s body. She likes to know what she is doing. She likes to know her own future, or know how to get there. (Sometimes she sees into the future, but they are always the wrong futures, ones she does not need, futures that belong to other people and tell her nothing about herself. Am I good, she asks the night, am I worthy, am I loved? The futures tell her: someone is in danger. Something is coming. Tell them. Someone needs to be saved.
-And I?
-When am I to be saved?
There is a never an answer.
The futures tell her: nothing good can survive.
She knows what she must do.)
-
Once there was singing in her sleep, water and stone, calling her name: oh, come, for you belong; oh, come, add your voice, your hands, your heart.
Then, for a very long time, there was only the sound of burning, burning, burning: but at least the flames were a light.
Now, nightly, she dreams of nothing.
-
There will come a day, a hidden part of herself kneeling in the ashes knows, when all of the light will come out of the hushed places, and in that day no-one will know how to put her out.
She lights herself a match.