And I'm ready to suffer, and I'm ready to hope (Gwen & Morgana | Part 1)
Title: And I'm ready to suffer, and I'm ready to hope
Part: 1/3
Pairing: Gwen & Morgana
Word Count: 2,000
Summary: Gwen begins again in Ealdor. Morgana follows her. (A sequel to And I am done with my graceless heart.)
Author's Note: I was still curious about what might happen to the girls after that first story, so here, let's find out. :) (WHO NEEDETH CANON?)
Part I
Morgana
Gwen leaves, and you begin to wander from yourself.
It seems Agravaine is forever at your door. It bothers you now as it didn’t before. The man was never by any means your ideal companion, but his eagerness to serve you had a certain pitiful charm. You sometimes used to muse over just how far he might go to please you. Would he chop off a finger? It seemed fitting enough, since you had him so wrapped around yours.
An arm, perhaps?
You’ve always been ambitious.
Until now. Now, he comes bearing Camelot’s secrets, and you might as well be underwater, for all his words mean to you. You stare at his face, counting the lines around his eyes, not minding his voice at all. Here he is, you think. Your one companion. The only person in the world who would rather have you alive than dead.
It was so much easier to bear when you knew for certain it was the truth.
“Milady?”
You try to look as if you haven’t been caught. You sit up taller, like the queen he so worships.
“You seem … distracted,” he ventures. “Ever since-….”
He trails off. Not that brave.
“Ever since?” you prompt sharply.
“Ever since we apprehended Arthur’s servant girl.”
That ‘we’ burrows into you, a squirming hateful thing. “You know very well what her name is.”
He chuckles. “Is it really worth knowing?”
You would like very much to slam him to the wall with nothing but your rage. The sound of his skull cracking against stone would be immeasurably sweet.
He reads this in your look. He may have stars in his eyes for you, but he isn’t entirely foolish, and knows you are to be feared. After all, everyone who’s ever made the mistake to love you has suffered.
“Guinevere,” he mumbles, chastened.
You like that less. Him speaking her name.
“Tell me, Agravaine,” you say, putting on your finest disdain, “did you come here to discuss servant girls? How touched I am, to know you value my time so highly.”
He doesn’t take the hint, for once. He looks serious, disapproving even; you see a flash of the stern father in his face, and want to smash it out. “What became of her?”
“I got rid of her, of course.” He will take it to mean that you killed her.
He does, without even a moment’s dismay. Perhaps he doesn’t know how you loved her once. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if he did. He certainly wouldn’t believe you capable of it now. “Arthur will not be pleased to hear that.”
“Arthur threw her to the big cruel world like scraps to the dogs. He’s forfeited his right to be displeased.”
“Just because he forsook the girl doesn’t mean he won’t avenge her. He will loathe you now like never before.” The firelight seems to spell your doom out on his face. “Kill you, if he can.”
“Let him try,” you say. Agravaine smirks, thinking it a threat. Really, you are only tired, so tired. You would let him try. Maybe you’d even let him win.
Gwen
Merlin’s mother welcomes you kindly, even though you don’t offer much explanation. You tell her only that you wished to see the world beyond Camelot; she can see the hints of heartbreak in you, no doubt, but she is kind enough never to remark upon them. She offers you a hot meal and Merlin’s old bed. The villagers are good people; they seem to remember you from years before, when you fought to defend Ealdor at Arthur’s side.
You want to work, more than anything, and fortunately, there’s no shortage of help to give. There is a little bit of everything that always needs to be done, from cooking to helping build a new chicken coop to minding the gardens to minding the children.
That’s what you’re doing on the afternoon that the past comes back to haunt you. You’ve volunteered to do a bit of mending for Hunith’s next door neighbors, and to teach the youngest girl of the house, Alice, how to sew.
The girl is newly seven (and already shows more prowess with a needle than Morgana did at twelve), and chatters merrily to you about every aspect of Ealdor life. When she exhausts the subject, she turns to your life, a too-sudden switch you’re not ready for. “You know King Arthur?”
“Very well,” you say, smiling a little. It seems the proper retaliation against the sudden pain.
“Is he handsome?”
“Yes,” you say, and think of him as he was: golden and good and maddening. A boy who listened to you, instead of a man who branded you a whore and stood stony-faced as you cried your heart out. “Though just between you and me, he does make some very funny faces.”
Alice giggles, pleased at the idea. “What about the lady Morgana?”
You jab yourself in the finger. A tiny bead of blood rises up. “What about her?”
“You knew her as well. You must have. People talk sometimes about it, that she was here when you all came to save us. And secretly, she just wanted to kill us all the while, and eat our hearts!”
“That’s not true,” you say, more sharply than you should to a child.
“It’s not?” Alice says, her face clearly daring you to prove it.
Making sure to soften your tones, you continue, “For one thing, she eats proper food, not hearts. For another, she was very different then. She wanted to defend the village just as much as any of us.”
“Well, that’s what she wanted you to think,” Alice reasons, very practically.
There is no way to explain what Morgana meant to you - what the memory of her still means. (What she still means, sitting alone in that dark hell of a hovel, falling apart without any hope of ever being put back together again.) You decide it’s wisest not to try. “No. No, she was not a liar.”
“Then what happened?”
If only you could tidy it into a sentence.
“A lot of very bad things happened to her,” you say at last, thinking of Morgana’s face and voice (too hard, breaking underneath) as the pair of you worked in the garden and she spelled out the sins Camelot has committed against her. “And …”
“And?”
You take a breath. “And those bad things broke her.”
“Hmm,” Alice says, clearly unsympathetic. “Has she ever tried to kill you?”
You decide not to answer that one quite truthfully. But you do give her a piece of the truth: “She saved me, the last time I saw her.”
“Saved you?” Alice frowns, good and perplexed now. “Are you sure it was her?”
“Yes,” you say. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Morgana
You have not touched the bracelet since Gwen left. It remains on the table, mocking you; you’ve gone to war with yourself, and do not know how to win. You barely sleep. You wake up crying, the visions an exhausting jumbled mess that means nothing. Your heart pounds like it’s trying to fly out of your chest. To escape you - you, the worst prison any heart could have.
Gwen
Your sleep is sound and dreamless, once you fall into it; it’s the falling part that’s the problem. Guilt prods at you from all angles, keeping you awake. You don’t want to remember Arthur as he was at the last - shouting at you, shaking your shoulders. You know now, very well, that you were not to blame, but God, it felt impossible to believe in anything besides your guilt as you stood with him in the near-dark, watching your life end as the love ebbed from his face. The guilt lingers even now that you know it has no business haunting you.
Then there is the thing you should feel guilty for: Agravaine. You know he is a traitor now, and still, you walked away from Camelot instead of returning to tell Arthur. (Arthur, who has already suffered so many betrayals.) You reason that perhaps your time with Morgana will soften her resolve against the kingdom, in spite of what she said. But there is no guarantee of that, and you know it.
You share all your meals with Hunith, you chat with her by the fire and sleep under her roof, and all the while you leave a traitor in her son’s midst. And yet you think of all the men you left behind - Elyan, doing nothing; Merlin, silent as he watched you go. You were his first friend in Camelot, long before Arthur deigned to like him.
Morgana wanders into your thoughts in moments like these. You are beginning to understand, like you never have before, just what pulled her away all those years ago. It is easy to be loyal when you’re loved for it.
When you’re despised for something you didn’t do, or couldn’t help, loyalty to those who hate you feels curiously like betraying yourself.
You fall asleep wishing you had never left her, wondering (in spite of yourself) if she misses you. You think she might. The wind outside and the faint creaks of the cottage walls are almost like shy footsteps. You know they are only night sounds, but wish - just for a moment - that they were her instead.
+
Hunith shakes you awake in the morning. Her face is solemn and tear-streaked, and you know at once that something has gone terribly wrong.
“You must come,” she says numbly. “It’s Alice.”
You put on a shawl and follow her to the next cottage. A number of villagers have already gathered inside. Not a single one of them speaks. The silence digs right into your bones.
Alice sits upright in a chair, her posture very good. She stares with vague, soulless interest around the room. There is nothing of the spark that makes her Alice in her eyes.
“She won’t say anything,” says her father, his voice thick with pain. “She won’t talk, and doesn’t seem to know us. It must be - it can only be-”
“Magic,” says her mother, in a flat dying tone.
You remember the footsteps you blamed on the wind and the walls last night. You, who have faced magic countless times and should know better. Fresh new guilt settles into you.
Morgana
You dream of Gwen: Gwen braiding your hair; Gwen crying as Arthur yells; Gwen talking to a little girl, assuring her that you do not eat hearts; and then, it goes horribly wrong-
Gwen standing in a green field, blank-eyed and still, breathing but soulless. Hollowed out. Come out, come out, Emrys, says some dark thing with her voice.
You do not wake up crying this time.
“No,” you say instead, feeling younger and more awake than you have in years.
You don’t know what it is, this thing that has emptied her, but you know that you’ll be damned if this nightmare comes true. Emrys has taken enough. Whatever enemies he has angered, they cannot have Gwen. You will kill them first, and him too, to make sure. Between Arthur and you, Gwen has suffered enough. If anyone in this miserable world deserves peace, it’s her. You will play the white knight this time, never mind your black heart.
You leave a note on your table for Agravaine - I have important business to see to. - and set off for Ealdor before the sun has even risen in the sky.
Part II
Part: 1/3
Pairing: Gwen & Morgana
Word Count: 2,000
Summary: Gwen begins again in Ealdor. Morgana follows her. (A sequel to And I am done with my graceless heart.)
Author's Note: I was still curious about what might happen to the girls after that first story, so here, let's find out. :) (WHO NEEDETH CANON?)
Part I
Morgana
Gwen leaves, and you begin to wander from yourself.
It seems Agravaine is forever at your door. It bothers you now as it didn’t before. The man was never by any means your ideal companion, but his eagerness to serve you had a certain pitiful charm. You sometimes used to muse over just how far he might go to please you. Would he chop off a finger? It seemed fitting enough, since you had him so wrapped around yours.
An arm, perhaps?
You’ve always been ambitious.
Until now. Now, he comes bearing Camelot’s secrets, and you might as well be underwater, for all his words mean to you. You stare at his face, counting the lines around his eyes, not minding his voice at all. Here he is, you think. Your one companion. The only person in the world who would rather have you alive than dead.
It was so much easier to bear when you knew for certain it was the truth.
“Milady?”
You try to look as if you haven’t been caught. You sit up taller, like the queen he so worships.
“You seem … distracted,” he ventures. “Ever since-….”
He trails off. Not that brave.
“Ever since?” you prompt sharply.
“Ever since we apprehended Arthur’s servant girl.”
That ‘we’ burrows into you, a squirming hateful thing. “You know very well what her name is.”
He chuckles. “Is it really worth knowing?”
You would like very much to slam him to the wall with nothing but your rage. The sound of his skull cracking against stone would be immeasurably sweet.
He reads this in your look. He may have stars in his eyes for you, but he isn’t entirely foolish, and knows you are to be feared. After all, everyone who’s ever made the mistake to love you has suffered.
“Guinevere,” he mumbles, chastened.
You like that less. Him speaking her name.
“Tell me, Agravaine,” you say, putting on your finest disdain, “did you come here to discuss servant girls? How touched I am, to know you value my time so highly.”
He doesn’t take the hint, for once. He looks serious, disapproving even; you see a flash of the stern father in his face, and want to smash it out. “What became of her?”
“I got rid of her, of course.” He will take it to mean that you killed her.
He does, without even a moment’s dismay. Perhaps he doesn’t know how you loved her once. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter if he did. He certainly wouldn’t believe you capable of it now. “Arthur will not be pleased to hear that.”
“Arthur threw her to the big cruel world like scraps to the dogs. He’s forfeited his right to be displeased.”
“Just because he forsook the girl doesn’t mean he won’t avenge her. He will loathe you now like never before.” The firelight seems to spell your doom out on his face. “Kill you, if he can.”
“Let him try,” you say. Agravaine smirks, thinking it a threat. Really, you are only tired, so tired. You would let him try. Maybe you’d even let him win.
Gwen
Merlin’s mother welcomes you kindly, even though you don’t offer much explanation. You tell her only that you wished to see the world beyond Camelot; she can see the hints of heartbreak in you, no doubt, but she is kind enough never to remark upon them. She offers you a hot meal and Merlin’s old bed. The villagers are good people; they seem to remember you from years before, when you fought to defend Ealdor at Arthur’s side.
You want to work, more than anything, and fortunately, there’s no shortage of help to give. There is a little bit of everything that always needs to be done, from cooking to helping build a new chicken coop to minding the gardens to minding the children.
That’s what you’re doing on the afternoon that the past comes back to haunt you. You’ve volunteered to do a bit of mending for Hunith’s next door neighbors, and to teach the youngest girl of the house, Alice, how to sew.
The girl is newly seven (and already shows more prowess with a needle than Morgana did at twelve), and chatters merrily to you about every aspect of Ealdor life. When she exhausts the subject, she turns to your life, a too-sudden switch you’re not ready for. “You know King Arthur?”
“Very well,” you say, smiling a little. It seems the proper retaliation against the sudden pain.
“Is he handsome?”
“Yes,” you say, and think of him as he was: golden and good and maddening. A boy who listened to you, instead of a man who branded you a whore and stood stony-faced as you cried your heart out. “Though just between you and me, he does make some very funny faces.”
Alice giggles, pleased at the idea. “What about the lady Morgana?”
You jab yourself in the finger. A tiny bead of blood rises up. “What about her?”
“You knew her as well. You must have. People talk sometimes about it, that she was here when you all came to save us. And secretly, she just wanted to kill us all the while, and eat our hearts!”
“That’s not true,” you say, more sharply than you should to a child.
“It’s not?” Alice says, her face clearly daring you to prove it.
Making sure to soften your tones, you continue, “For one thing, she eats proper food, not hearts. For another, she was very different then. She wanted to defend the village just as much as any of us.”
“Well, that’s what she wanted you to think,” Alice reasons, very practically.
There is no way to explain what Morgana meant to you - what the memory of her still means. (What she still means, sitting alone in that dark hell of a hovel, falling apart without any hope of ever being put back together again.) You decide it’s wisest not to try. “No. No, she was not a liar.”
“Then what happened?”
If only you could tidy it into a sentence.
“A lot of very bad things happened to her,” you say at last, thinking of Morgana’s face and voice (too hard, breaking underneath) as the pair of you worked in the garden and she spelled out the sins Camelot has committed against her. “And …”
“And?”
You take a breath. “And those bad things broke her.”
“Hmm,” Alice says, clearly unsympathetic. “Has she ever tried to kill you?”
You decide not to answer that one quite truthfully. But you do give her a piece of the truth: “She saved me, the last time I saw her.”
“Saved you?” Alice frowns, good and perplexed now. “Are you sure it was her?”
“Yes,” you say. “Yes, I’m sure.”
Morgana
You have not touched the bracelet since Gwen left. It remains on the table, mocking you; you’ve gone to war with yourself, and do not know how to win. You barely sleep. You wake up crying, the visions an exhausting jumbled mess that means nothing. Your heart pounds like it’s trying to fly out of your chest. To escape you - you, the worst prison any heart could have.
Gwen
Your sleep is sound and dreamless, once you fall into it; it’s the falling part that’s the problem. Guilt prods at you from all angles, keeping you awake. You don’t want to remember Arthur as he was at the last - shouting at you, shaking your shoulders. You know now, very well, that you were not to blame, but God, it felt impossible to believe in anything besides your guilt as you stood with him in the near-dark, watching your life end as the love ebbed from his face. The guilt lingers even now that you know it has no business haunting you.
Then there is the thing you should feel guilty for: Agravaine. You know he is a traitor now, and still, you walked away from Camelot instead of returning to tell Arthur. (Arthur, who has already suffered so many betrayals.) You reason that perhaps your time with Morgana will soften her resolve against the kingdom, in spite of what she said. But there is no guarantee of that, and you know it.
You share all your meals with Hunith, you chat with her by the fire and sleep under her roof, and all the while you leave a traitor in her son’s midst. And yet you think of all the men you left behind - Elyan, doing nothing; Merlin, silent as he watched you go. You were his first friend in Camelot, long before Arthur deigned to like him.
Morgana wanders into your thoughts in moments like these. You are beginning to understand, like you never have before, just what pulled her away all those years ago. It is easy to be loyal when you’re loved for it.
When you’re despised for something you didn’t do, or couldn’t help, loyalty to those who hate you feels curiously like betraying yourself.
You fall asleep wishing you had never left her, wondering (in spite of yourself) if she misses you. You think she might. The wind outside and the faint creaks of the cottage walls are almost like shy footsteps. You know they are only night sounds, but wish - just for a moment - that they were her instead.
+
Hunith shakes you awake in the morning. Her face is solemn and tear-streaked, and you know at once that something has gone terribly wrong.
“You must come,” she says numbly. “It’s Alice.”
You put on a shawl and follow her to the next cottage. A number of villagers have already gathered inside. Not a single one of them speaks. The silence digs right into your bones.
Alice sits upright in a chair, her posture very good. She stares with vague, soulless interest around the room. There is nothing of the spark that makes her Alice in her eyes.
“She won’t say anything,” says her father, his voice thick with pain. “She won’t talk, and doesn’t seem to know us. It must be - it can only be-”
“Magic,” says her mother, in a flat dying tone.
You remember the footsteps you blamed on the wind and the walls last night. You, who have faced magic countless times and should know better. Fresh new guilt settles into you.
Morgana
You dream of Gwen: Gwen braiding your hair; Gwen crying as Arthur yells; Gwen talking to a little girl, assuring her that you do not eat hearts; and then, it goes horribly wrong-
Gwen standing in a green field, blank-eyed and still, breathing but soulless. Hollowed out. Come out, come out, Emrys, says some dark thing with her voice.
You do not wake up crying this time.
“No,” you say instead, feeling younger and more awake than you have in years.
You don’t know what it is, this thing that has emptied her, but you know that you’ll be damned if this nightmare comes true. Emrys has taken enough. Whatever enemies he has angered, they cannot have Gwen. You will kill them first, and him too, to make sure. Between Arthur and you, Gwen has suffered enough. If anyone in this miserable world deserves peace, it’s her. You will play the white knight this time, never mind your black heart.
You leave a note on your table for Agravaine - I have important business to see to. - and set off for Ealdor before the sun has even risen in the sky.
Part II