A Memory to Light the Dark (Gwen/Morgana)
Title: A Memory to Light the Dark
Fandom: Merlin
Characters/Pairings: Gwen/Morgana
Rating: PG-13 (references to current abuse and a fragile state of mind)
Word Count: 2,366
Summary: Morgana escapes into her mind to block out the horrors of her captivity. She finds something there that she had forgotten entirely - her last remaining good memory.
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, this is purely for entertainment purposes.
Sometimes, Morgana tries to remember the last time that she was truly happy. It makes her laugh that she never can quite conjure up a suitable memory. Oh there were good times with Morgause, to be sure, but never true unadulterated happiness. Her soul was far too damaged for that by then, even she had known that. So she would have to search farther back in the stacks of shelves where she kept her most precious memories - both pleasant and foul - in little glass bottles. She wondered if everything that had happened over the past few years might not have jolted and smashed the bottles with the best memories, letting them escape in exhaled breaths and evaporate into the air. If that were true, many must have gone that way of late - what with all the beatings and the taunting and…
No. She would not think on that. Better go back to searching the shelves instead. There must be one memory left that she would not mind revisiting. One that had not bolted.
Along the dark and dusty rows she wandered, skimming her fingers over the hard, splintered wood - searching. Flashes of things she would rather forget - but knows that she must not - flittered through her mind as she went.
She sees her old governess with a letter clutched in her wrinkled hands, about to destroy her entire world with the news of her father’s death.
Then there’s Arthur - proud and stupid at twelve - pushing her in the mud and kicking it up into her face for the affront of beating him at swordplay.
Next there is Morgause, her saviour, lying broken and twisted on the stone floor - blood flowering around her head in a halo.
Then there is Uther, a man not fit to be her father, denying her as his daughter.
A vision comes next, of Arthur leaning in to kiss his…
She cuts that one off before it can get any further. Despite what everyone seems to think, she does have some control left, if only of her mind. And she does not want to see that again.
On the thousandth row, on the bottom far right shelf, she sees something shimmering. It’s a good one. The others are all grey and dull.
Hitching up her dress, she peers down at the dusty little thing - a memory long forgotten. A memory in hiding. Cautiously, she reaches out for it, taking it by the thin neck rising from the round and swollen bottom. Taking in a musty breath, she blows off the dust, sending it up into the air to make herself cough. Holding it at arm’s length, she gazes into the swirling milky substance inside, trying to make out what memory it holds. It is a futile endeavour. She knows this is only a façade. There isn’t even a bottle at all. Or an endless room full of shelves. Staring at in this form can tell her nothing. But there is a memory. She has it in her hands.
With one quick look into the darkness around her - watching for the things that prowl about in there, inside her mind, hunting her - she pulled out the stopper and drank.
The instant it touches her tongue, she is pulled violently from the confines of her own mind and into that of another Morgana. The one they had called a Lady.
She opens her eyes, seeing not her dark and wretched prison but a lake on a summer’s day -midsummer’s day and Calwynia Lake, the one where the merfolk lived in her mother’s stories.
“I cannot see them,” someone declares lightly beside her. It is a steady and kind feminine voice that she knows very well. Or at least she did.
When she looks, she sees Gwen standing on the edge of the lake in a lilac dress - her hair having been pinned up hours before is now falling down in a few wispy ringlets around her face. She is smiling, her cheeks flushed and full. Her eyes are cast down into the still and clear water, searching for something that she does not believe was there. Still, she looks happy. Carefree.
“Are you sure?” asks the Lady in whose mind Morgana resides. The body she has no control over stepps closer to Gwen, slipping an arm around her waist on the pretence of steadying her to lean further over the water.
A soft exhalation gave away Gwen’s smile. “Quite sure, my Lady. Maybe they only reveal themselves to noble eyes.”
So the smile was teasing then. She could tell by her tone.
The Lady Morgana snorts in a way that just manages to remain ladylike, and turns her face into Gwen’s neck. “Nonsense. You are the noblest soul that has ever lived. And besides, the merfolk do not hold with the artificial constructs of men.”
Gwen laughs, but not unkindly. “The ‘artificial constructs of men’? This is why the King declared you overeducated at the age of eleven. What does it mean, anyway?”
“That class is not real. It is not inherent in nature. Men created it so that they could have power and others could not. Class does not determine the true worth of an individual person, just the worth that those in power assign to them. In essence, we are all born equal and it is only the dictations of men that make us otherwise.”
“Oh,” Gwen responds, pretending to understand. She thinks that Morgana is trying to say that it does not matter that they are a Lady and her maid - they are equal really, inside their hearts and souls. Gwen lets herself believe it, just for the afternoon. Then she will have to go back to her small, under furnished house and face reality. Morgana knows that, even though the woman whose mind she is in does not.
“I still can’t see them,” Gwen laughs after a moment, weary of such deep conversation. Today was to be a day of gaiety and escapism, not social commentary.
“Maybe,” Morgana whispers against the warm shell of her ear, “you should take a closer look.”
Feeling it objectively this time, Morgana knows that Gwen has tensed against her even before she has finished her sentence. She knows what is coming. She intended upon it. It makes Morgana muse on how clever she was, as they fall into the lake. Not the learned sort of clever that she herself was back then. The other sort. The natural sort where she seems to perceive things others do not. Shame it does her no good in the long run. Still, it shows that she had a point by the lake - class really is just something invented.
The water is crystal clear - too clear, she must be remembering it wrong… or maybe there were merfolk in that lake - and she holds her breath to see Gwen’s skirts billowing in a breeze of bubbles. Her slim legs are kicking lazily. When the Lady lifts her eyes from the rose petals of Gwen’s dress, Morgana sees that Gwen is watching her too - an adoring smile upon her face.
They surface then, when the moment of held gazes is finally broken. Gasping, both of them. And giggling. Morgana does not remember ever giggling. Then again, she has not remembered this either. It is tucked away on the bottom shelf, covered in dust and forgotten.
For an indeterminable period of time, they play at splashing each other, circling, giggling. Morgana starts to forget where she really is and becomes this other her who is hopelessly in love and happier than she will ever be again.
On the bank, they giggle some more and strip off their heavy overdresses to ward off the cold - sneaking glimpses of each other out of the corners of their eyes. Morgana can feel the Lady’s heart thundering.
“We should get back,” she suggests in tone that begs to be contradicted. She is unbuttoning the top buttons of her shift to get the wet material off her neck, so it is plain that she is not yet ready to leave. She could not risk being seen on the forest paths attired so scandalously. Morgana screams for the Lady to look up, giggling to herself. She is remembering this now. Gwen is about to appear right in front of her - of them.
“Or we could stay a while,” Gwen proposes, challenging Morgana’s judgement uncharacteristically, her blush belying her nerves. Their eyes meet and they laugh. They both know that neither of them wants to leave.
Morgana can feel the Lady biting her lip anxiously.
“We could… Erm… We could…” those bitten lips babble. She had begun the sentence hoping that it would finish itself. It doesn’t. She cannot say what she wants.
Gwen nodded, biting her own lip and smiling. She understands regardless of Morgana’s inability to say it. “We could,” she agreed.
Giggling, the Lady steps back for no reason other than it is something to do. Morgana gasps as she stumbles on a tree root and they go tumbling backwards. She braces herself for the blow that does not come.
Gwen reaches out and catches her. And now they are standing very close. And they are giggling again.
It is Gwen who moves this time, stepping forward with her Lady’s arm still in her grasp. Morgana can feel the tree at their back as she is gently pressed against it and she realises that their giggles have suddenly stopped.
She definitely remembers this now. It is the first time they-
And now Gwen is kissing her, her lips cold from the lake and slippery wet. Neither of them have done it before and it is a bit… inelegant. They do not know when to breathe or how to get their lips to move together just so. They will perfect it - at least Morgana thinks they do. It does not really matter that their technique is not perfect this first time. It is perfection just the same. Gwen is bold and parts her lips, provoking a mirrored movement from her shocked Lady. Morgana feels Gwen’s tongue shyly touch the Lady’s lips and slip inside. She feels the body around her shiver with startled delight and, after an achingly long few seconds, she is reciprocating - chasing Gwen’s tongue back into its own mysterious home and making her own discoveries there.
The Lady’s arm is still bent in between them and Morgana realises that her fingers are a hair’s width from the underside of Gwen’s breasts. The realisation startles the Lady - who seems to have at that moment noticed the same thing - and she pulls her arm away and down to Gwen’s waist, curling around her like it did on the edge of the lake. Gwen smiles against her lips and the kiss turns more playful and less unsure. Encouraged, young, naïve Morgana holds Gwen to her with both arms, her hands finding the concave curve of Gwen’s elegant back. The older Morgana slowly remembers what the rest of Gwen’s curves feel like under her palms. She remembers the soft yet firm flesh of her breasts and buttocks; her pliant and slightly rounded stomach; her muscled shoulders, legs and upper arms; the long, taut stem of her neck; the flowing curve of her spine. This Morgana will not learn of those things for a while yet. They are young now and too timid to let passion into their kiss lest it carry them too far. Eventually though, on Gwen’s birthday a year down the line, she will ask the Lady she loves to share everything with her. And though they will be as shy on that day as they are kissing today, Morgana knows if not entirely remembers that it will be wonderful.
When they brake apart from that first kiss, she feels her lip being bitten again by the Lady and there is some more giggling. Gwen reaches out to take her hand and they try to meet each other’s eyes without blushing.
That is where the memory fades, dissolving into the blackness of the stacks. Pulling a gasp from her as it leaves, the memory flows out of her mouth and spirals back into its bottle. She stoppers it hurriedly. She does not want to risk forgetting it. Not this memory. Her last good one. Her first kiss.
With more care than she has shown anything since Morgause died, Morgana places the little shimmering bottle back down on the bottom shelf, before snatching it up again. On the shelf it could easily go the way of the others. Instead, she gets to her feet, cradling the bottle, and makes her way over to a gilded chest that she has never noticed before.
On the chest’s lid is some sort of coat of arms - a hammer and anvil, with a spray of wildflowers bursting up from a struck blade like they are sparks. She remembers vaguely having drawn it herself years before - remembering one memory seems to be unlocking flickers of others - when Gwen had been upset and Morgana had been in possession of a new inkpot and quill. They had been eleven and fourteen, she and Gwen, and Gwen’s brother had just left home. They had pretended to both be knights that day and that coat of arms had been fixed to Gwen’s makeshift shield.
“Keep it safe for me. Just this one,” she whispers into the cushiony darkness of the chest, before closing it and sealing the dream inside, somehow believing that she is entrusting the memory to Gwen, hoping that her mind was stable enough to hold it without letting it shatter. She knows that the whole mess that was her mind could come crashing down and this memory would be safe inside its impenetrable chest - inside Gwen. Nothing could touch it. Gwen wouldn’t let it.
Bending down, Morgana kisses the dark polished wood and presses her cheek against it. Sorrowfully, she gets up and turns her back on it, walking away into the darker darkness, feeling her body solidify and her wounds burn with pain. She could visit it again, but for now she needed to face reality - everyone needed to, every once in a while.