fic: to haunt the place where passions reign (Merlin)
Title: to haunt the place where passions reign
Character: Morgana
Pairing: hints of Arthur/Morgana
Rating: PG (for mentions of battle)
Disclaimer: I own nothing, neither the characters nor the poems from which my titles are taken.
Author’s Note: Dialogue is best left to gnimaerd, so, for now, I’m not even going to try.
I. Deep in our hidden heart/ festers the dull remembrance of a change
When Morgana is seven, her mother dies. The castle is in mourning; every day Morgana’s nurse has to wrestle her into a dark dress and tug her black hair into demure plaits. Morgana hates every minute of it - hates the servants who burst into tears every time they see her, hates the gentle pats she receives on the head from fat, smelly old men, hates how her father refuses to see her in the days leading up to the funeral.
Her nurse tells her she is an evil child, because she does not cry or miss her mother. But what is there to miss? A woman, more child at times than Morgana herself, who took greater interest in parties and banquets than she did in her child’s growth? Who brushed her daughter’s kisses aside, preferring the kisses of simpering courtiers? Who ignored her child, her husband, her responsibilities, caring only for herself and her own pleasure?
No, there is nothing for her to miss.
II. I worshipped dead men for their strength, forgetting I was strong
There is a great battle a fortnight before Morgana’s eleventh birthday. The invaders come from the sea, boat after boat filling the channel, until it seems like no more could come, for surely there aren’t more boats than this in the entire world?
Morgana can see it all from the castle - safe and protected by not just her father’s army, but King Uther’s. She can see everything, but she cannot understand what is going on. There are too many men, too many different tunics on the plains before the beach. She cannot tell which belongs to her father anymore.
The boats land and the fighting begins. The clash of swords carries up from the plains and the air as it comes off the ocean is thick with the scent of blood. She watches as long as she can, until her nurse finds her and physically drags her away from her lookout. She is cosseted away for the rest of the day, in a room without windows, where she can hear nothing of the outside world. Nurse says this is so that she does not worry herself, but she is more worried now, sitting here, knowing nothing, than she was hours before when she watched the destruction unfold below her.
Finally, as night falls, a knight comes to the room.
“It is done.” He says, and even though his voice is shaking, though his face and tunic are streaked with blood, Morgana knows that they have won, that the castle will stand, that the invaders have been rebuffed. She sinks to her knees then, relieved and exhausted, wanting nothing more than to rest, knowing that her world will exist for another day.
“My lady,” the knight is still standing in the room, still pale and shaking. Morgana watches him, confused why he is still here, why he has not returned to the hall, to his comrades and her father. “Your father, milady, is dead.”
Her world comes crashing down.
III. all this bowery bliss to beautify/ the paradise of some unsung romance
Camelot is not as she had imagined it would be.
Her father had always told her wonderful tales of Camelot. According to him, no hillside could be greener, no stream clearer, no bird more melodious than those in Camelot. She had always begged him to take her on his next trip, to show her this magical land. He had always laughed and, brushing one of her black tendrils off her face, had promised she would see it one day, that she would grow to love it and call it her home.
She had not understood his words until, in one of his stories, he told her of Arthur. Then she had understood, even as young as she was.
“This is not how it was meant to be.” King Uther mutters, almost to himself, as their horses plod steadily through the forest. Once the forest ends, Camelot will lie before them Uther says.
The trees begin to thin and Morgana physically tenses, waiting for her first glimpse of the castle that is to be her new home.
It looks exactly as her father had described it , though she had never more than half believed his praise, and it takes her breath away. Uther smiles on her, though she barely notices, all her attention focused on the fortress ahead of her. It looks like any other castle and yet…and yet…
She thinks she will like her new home.
IV. When the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light
She is a pawn in a game played by others.
She knew, even as a girl of eleven, that Uther took her as his ward not merely out of love for her father or concern for her well-being, but because of that lands were hers by right. As long as Morgana lives under his protection, Uther rules her father’s lands. They are hers in name alone, but all the same, they will decide her fate.
She knows what kind of husband she will one day have. Fat and old, greedy and twisted - the kind of man who makes deals with Uther, who will pledge his armies and resources in exchange for a bride whose greatest attraction is a valuable seaport and ore-filled hills. Uther might give her some choice in the matter - but what kind of choice is it when one’s only options are a husband with boils or a husband with no teeth?
Morgana knows the kind of husband she would like, but knows just as well that she can never have him. He knows too, has known as long as she, which is why they have fought each other for years, rebelling against the attraction that draws them towards one another, trying desperately to hate one another, knowing all the while how closely love and hate are intertwined.
They are both of them pawns.
V. For so the night will more than pay/ the hopeless longing of the day
Sometimes at night when she cannot sleep, Morgana will grab her heaviest cloak and tip toe out of her bedroom, so as not to wake Gwen. As dear as her maid is to her, she is not the companion Morgana seeks on these nights.
More often than not, Arthur will already be standing at the ramparts when she arrives. He looks different in the moonlight: older, more weary, wiser.
At night, they speak differently to one another. There is more warmth, more honesty in their words, perhaps because there is no one there to witness them, to read significance into every glance, ever touch, every smile.
It is their secret ritual. They meet at the North ramparts and quietly, without ceremony, Arthur will offer her his arm, she will take it and they will walk. Hour and hours they have spent like this, arm in arm, walking the castle walls, sometimes just watching the movements of the few souls still awake in the dead of night, but mostly talking.
They talk of Camelot, of what it means, of what they imagine it could be. Morgana dreams of more physicians to tend to the poor and of better education for those who seek it out. Arthur yearns for agricultural reforms, to modernize farming practices and introduce more efficient ways of distributing the yield. They both dream of the return of magic to the Kingdom, knowing that the evil Uther raves against is far outweighed by the good they remember from their childhood, when magic was, if not more understood, then at least more widely tolerated than it is today.
It is Morgana who usually tires first, leaning more heavily against Arthur as the night wears on, letting him guide her as her eyelids droop. She rarely remembers the trip back to her room, is usually only aware of her surroundings when Arthur draws himself away from her, sometime pressing a kiss to her forehead, sometimes just smiling at her before he turns and strides off, heading not towards his rooms but back outside. Morgana does not know how to describe her feelings in these moments after he leaves. She wraps her arms around her slim frame, hugging the last of his warmth to her, and rather than feeling alone standing in the empty corridor, she feels complete in a way she has never encountered during the daylight hours.
In the morning, they toss barbs at one another across crowded rooms, but at night, alone, they walk arm in arm and rule a Camelot that exists only in their dreams.