merlin ficlet: oh my my [uther/morgana, t]
oh my my. merlin, t, 530 words.
Five things which are true for Uther and Morgana.
if we let our love off of its leash
do you fear like i fear how fierce it would be?
oh my my, by ani difranco.
1. Uther does not think about her that way.
2. (This is not true. He thinks about her that way all the time; at the banquet table sitting next to her, in the throne room sitting next to her, at a tournament sitting next to her, leaning over thoughtlessly to touch her arm with some comment or another like she is his wife, his queen. He thinks about her that way every time she smiles at him, every time she glares at him, every time she tilts her head up to speak with him and he breathes in her perfume off the inky gloss of her waving hair. He thinks about her that way and then he hates himself for it, calls himself a weak, foolish old man, and then he is determined to never look at her as anything other than his troublesome, charming young ward, the woman he has raised to adulthood alongside his own son, the girl who is as good as his own child, his own flesh-and-blood.
He always fails, of course.)
3. She will admit that she does think about him that way, at least to herself, if never aloud. Morgana has a great deal of time to herself, these days, trapped in her own head; too much time, so long as she is confessing things to herself. But then, she is allowed to think whatever she wants, she tells herself defiantly as she stares at the moon from beyond the hazy weave of the drapery that envelopes her bed, this much is still her own, even if she is being stupid and wrong; and at this point, her feelings for him are so tangled up and confused with hate and fear that she doesn't know if the hot flush rising up to her cheeks when she daydreams (of him drawing her hair away from her neck and pressing his mouth to the hollow of her throat, of her nails digging into his back, of his kiss turning into a bite) is from anger or want.
4. When they sit down for dinner together, they are alone. Arthur is out on patrol, and their guests from the kingdom of Cornwall have just recently returned home. It is an awkward affair; their words stumble over one another and they lapse into stilted silences and they stare at their dishes and then they smile up at each other falsely from time to time, all in a desperate attempt to behave like everything is normal and happy.
5. Their attendants are certain that they've fought again, that Morgana has been up to some scheme or gotten in some pet and Uther is trying to play peacemaker.
i. They are wrong.
ii. He is thinking of the long white bend of her throat, the plump redness of her mouth, the gentle curve of her hip under purple-and-blue silks; and she is thinking of his gloved hands round her neck, his body pressing hers against the hard stone wall, his knee parting her legs.