Merlin fic: to open again (Morgana)
Title: to open again
Author: quietdecember
Characters: Morgana (Agravaine, peripheral Arthur, Merlin)
Spoilers: 4x13
Notes:
post 4x13, handwaving Agravaine's immediate death because that spell didn't kill anyone the first thousand times
I've only watched two or three full episodes from the season so there may be some errors. This is loosely based on Louise Glück's 'Snowdrops' (extract + graphic here)
Summary: She remembers white wings overhead, clings to what they portend.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
---Philip Larkin
She breathes soft and slow for a long while. The pain ebbs in and out, makes her wince and gasp when she tries to sit upright so she lies very still, waiting. Soon the sunlight slips away and Morgana closes her eyes to the darkness. She dreams very clearly, more clearly than ever before: Gwen and Arthur seated side by side, smiling and shining until she wakes shivering and wet with dew, blood pounding in her ears.
One day, she thinks- the promise unspoken. Her eyes drift shut, she remembers white wings overhead, clings to what they portend.
It is a long walk made longer by her unsteady gait, often pausing to breathe shallow and dry, hands clenching against bark or stone. She somehow expects to see her home (such as it is) burnt out and razed, but all is quiet and still and exactly as she left it. It rankles to return, but she has long since learned to soothe such disappointments.
She enters. Her eyes fall on the bed where a figure lies half cloaked in shadow, chest rising and falling. Agravaine. Morgana steps forward again across the threshhold, recognition making all her limbs heavy and numb again. She moves towards the bedside. He is very still and quiet, breathing raggedly damp with blood and sweat. He turns his head towards her footfalls almost immediatly eyes locking with hers.
"Morgana," it is hardly even speech, his voice gone hoarse and breathless. She moves stiffly, silently to his side. Morgana has seen better men slip away, going silent and rigid and unmoving as stone. This death is nothing, it means so little.
"My Lady," he tries again "Emrys, the boy..."
Her body goes ice cold, she leans forward and grasps his chin forcing it upwards. He hisses with pain but meets her gaze steadily, with that same look in his eyes, all awe and fear and devotion that makes her skin crawl.
"Arthur's serving boy...Merlin"
It chokes her, for one instant it steals her breath and her strength. She releases his chin, flinches back. She exhales a single syllable of laughter; it echos mad and half wild against the walls. Her skin burns with the knowlege, with the heat of humiliation and hate twisted together.
"-All this time, " he is speaking again, voice all but gone, little more than a final rattle but he is still watching her, head resting limply turned to one side.
He watches her and she feels a pang of something so old and lost, something she has not felt since the axe, the pyre and Uther's eyes. She cannnot put a name on it: pity, guilt, disgust-they all seem the same thing now.
It lingers for a moment when Agravaine breathes his last, going motionless and cold. It stays even when she stands and moves to the window quietly.
Merlin, the very thought makes her hands shake with something deep and dangerous. It would destroy Arthur, she muses distantly but her skin does not prickle with possibility as it should. She tries for a moment, imagines Arthur broken, Camelot destroyed and feels very tired.
There are hours of daylight remaining, enough to move Agravaine, enough to plan and plot once again against Camelot. But Morgana does not move from the window where sunlight shines through, pale and comfortless but there nonetheless.
She stares out into the trees, all green and gold and living. Tries to gather her anger, let it protect her from being left, betrayed again and again and again.
She stands there for a moment longer, thinking and watching the trees move and sway gently. The light is not yet gone when she turns to begin anew.
end.
Author: quietdecember
Characters: Morgana (Agravaine, peripheral Arthur, Merlin)
Spoilers: 4x13
Notes:
post 4x13, handwaving Agravaine's immediate death because that spell didn't kill anyone the first thousand times
I've only watched two or three full episodes from the season so there may be some errors. This is loosely based on Louise Glück's 'Snowdrops' (extract + graphic here)
Summary: She remembers white wings overhead, clings to what they portend.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
---Philip Larkin
She breathes soft and slow for a long while. The pain ebbs in and out, makes her wince and gasp when she tries to sit upright so she lies very still, waiting. Soon the sunlight slips away and Morgana closes her eyes to the darkness. She dreams very clearly, more clearly than ever before: Gwen and Arthur seated side by side, smiling and shining until she wakes shivering and wet with dew, blood pounding in her ears.
One day, she thinks- the promise unspoken. Her eyes drift shut, she remembers white wings overhead, clings to what they portend.
It is a long walk made longer by her unsteady gait, often pausing to breathe shallow and dry, hands clenching against bark or stone. She somehow expects to see her home (such as it is) burnt out and razed, but all is quiet and still and exactly as she left it. It rankles to return, but she has long since learned to soothe such disappointments.
She enters. Her eyes fall on the bed where a figure lies half cloaked in shadow, chest rising and falling. Agravaine. Morgana steps forward again across the threshhold, recognition making all her limbs heavy and numb again. She moves towards the bedside. He is very still and quiet, breathing raggedly damp with blood and sweat. He turns his head towards her footfalls almost immediatly eyes locking with hers.
"Morgana," it is hardly even speech, his voice gone hoarse and breathless. She moves stiffly, silently to his side. Morgana has seen better men slip away, going silent and rigid and unmoving as stone. This death is nothing, it means so little.
"My Lady," he tries again "Emrys, the boy..."
Her body goes ice cold, she leans forward and grasps his chin forcing it upwards. He hisses with pain but meets her gaze steadily, with that same look in his eyes, all awe and fear and devotion that makes her skin crawl.
"Arthur's serving boy...Merlin"
It chokes her, for one instant it steals her breath and her strength. She releases his chin, flinches back. She exhales a single syllable of laughter; it echos mad and half wild against the walls. Her skin burns with the knowlege, with the heat of humiliation and hate twisted together.
"-All this time, " he is speaking again, voice all but gone, little more than a final rattle but he is still watching her, head resting limply turned to one side.
He watches her and she feels a pang of something so old and lost, something she has not felt since the axe, the pyre and Uther's eyes. She cannnot put a name on it: pity, guilt, disgust-they all seem the same thing now.
It lingers for a moment when Agravaine breathes his last, going motionless and cold. It stays even when she stands and moves to the window quietly.
Merlin, the very thought makes her hands shake with something deep and dangerous. It would destroy Arthur, she muses distantly but her skin does not prickle with possibility as it should. She tries for a moment, imagines Arthur broken, Camelot destroyed and feels very tired.
There are hours of daylight remaining, enough to move Agravaine, enough to plan and plot once again against Camelot. But Morgana does not move from the window where sunlight shines through, pale and comfortless but there nonetheless.
She stares out into the trees, all green and gold and living. Tries to gather her anger, let it protect her from being left, betrayed again and again and again.
She stands there for a moment longer, thinking and watching the trees move and sway gently. The light is not yet gone when she turns to begin anew.
end.