fic: trick of the light
Title: Trick Of The Light
Rating: G
Pairing: Morgana/Arthur
Summary: Morgana, and the dream of Camelot.
A/N: Future!fic written for the herchampion 'Queen Morgana' challenge.
Trick Of The Light
“This isn’t real, none of this,” Morgana says (believes, screams). The walls crumble, the nightmare marches closer, and no-one has seen Merlin since he escaped the dungeons. He’s gone to join the rebels and their rebel queen (her beloved friend, the traitor) according to city gossip.
Magic is free again in Albion and Morgana sleeps and dreams and searches for a way through the inferno it has wrought. Too late, she understands all of Uther’s fears as one battle of fire and brimstone bleeds into the next. And still she will fight on, because now she understands how to inspire loyalty, and terror.
She is a queen, a Seer and a sorceress. She holds Albion together and Albion hates her for it.
-
“You’re too young,” she insists whenever Mordred asks when he’ll learn to fight (“But I want to ride beside you, mother,” he says, “I want to see the battles.”) He huffs and protests and argues, but eventually he is quiet, silenced by the shadows in her eyes.
Arthur is not so easy to convince. “You coddle him,” he tells her. “By his age, I was already a match for any common soldier.”
“He’s not like you,” she says. “He hasn’t your constitution.” It’s a lie, but Arthur lets it go (there will be a time when he will not - there’s only so far her enchantments can blind him).
“But you’ll teach me soon, won’t you, Father?” says Mordred. “Teach me to fight as well as you.” And Arthur laughs and promises he will, next birthday, always next birthday, and Mordred turns to Morgana and makes her promise too, because one day he’s going to be king and he’ll have to know how to defend the kingdom, won’t he?
(His gaze is steady and so much older than his childish voice.)
Of course he will, Morgana tells him, smiling (not thinking, not remembering) and for a moment they’re enough of a family to sustain Morgana for a little while longer.
-
When Morgana sleeps she sees the result of Mordred’s prowess with the sword. Steel clashes against steel and bone and flesh. Blood runs thick and dark, staining summer green hills. Arthur’s face is not so very old and his eyes are clear and steady as he draw his sword to face her full-grown son (he is hers, not the druids’, not anymore, and still he will not listen.)
She wakes. Her hands claw at the bed and sweat soaks her nightdress. Her mouth is dry as dust. The faces of her dead son and her dead husband look out, pale and haggard, from her nightmares. The stench of rotting corpses circles around them. She reaches out for Arthur, but his side of the bed is cold.
Morgana splashes water on her face, puts on her cloak and strides out of her rooms. Barefoot, she hurries down cold stone stairs to the courtyard. The city is silent. She runs to the stable, saddles her horse and rides out to the lake.
The water waits for her, still and cool. Tonight she does not swim, but sits on the rocky shore. Her bare feet slide into the water and barely cause a ripple. Here, there is still sense. Here, she can listen to the old voices of earth and stone whisper their broken prophecies and let herself hate freely.
The stars flicker as though they are illusion. The moon shines. There’s no wind, no sound at all save her own laughter. The ground trembles beneath her. Her eyes turn gold and power shrieks through her veins.
She will not scream.
-
Each morning she returns to the Royal Court, to Arthur and the dream she has given him to live, to Mordred and his quiet, serious eyes.
And each night Albion drifts away from her, a piece at a time.
Rating: G
Pairing: Morgana/Arthur
Summary: Morgana, and the dream of Camelot.
A/N: Future!fic written for the herchampion 'Queen Morgana' challenge.
Trick Of The Light
“This isn’t real, none of this,” Morgana says (believes, screams). The walls crumble, the nightmare marches closer, and no-one has seen Merlin since he escaped the dungeons. He’s gone to join the rebels and their rebel queen (her beloved friend, the traitor) according to city gossip.
Magic is free again in Albion and Morgana sleeps and dreams and searches for a way through the inferno it has wrought. Too late, she understands all of Uther’s fears as one battle of fire and brimstone bleeds into the next. And still she will fight on, because now she understands how to inspire loyalty, and terror.
She is a queen, a Seer and a sorceress. She holds Albion together and Albion hates her for it.
-
“You’re too young,” she insists whenever Mordred asks when he’ll learn to fight (“But I want to ride beside you, mother,” he says, “I want to see the battles.”) He huffs and protests and argues, but eventually he is quiet, silenced by the shadows in her eyes.
Arthur is not so easy to convince. “You coddle him,” he tells her. “By his age, I was already a match for any common soldier.”
“He’s not like you,” she says. “He hasn’t your constitution.” It’s a lie, but Arthur lets it go (there will be a time when he will not - there’s only so far her enchantments can blind him).
“But you’ll teach me soon, won’t you, Father?” says Mordred. “Teach me to fight as well as you.” And Arthur laughs and promises he will, next birthday, always next birthday, and Mordred turns to Morgana and makes her promise too, because one day he’s going to be king and he’ll have to know how to defend the kingdom, won’t he?
(His gaze is steady and so much older than his childish voice.)
Of course he will, Morgana tells him, smiling (not thinking, not remembering) and for a moment they’re enough of a family to sustain Morgana for a little while longer.
-
When Morgana sleeps she sees the result of Mordred’s prowess with the sword. Steel clashes against steel and bone and flesh. Blood runs thick and dark, staining summer green hills. Arthur’s face is not so very old and his eyes are clear and steady as he draw his sword to face her full-grown son (he is hers, not the druids’, not anymore, and still he will not listen.)
She wakes. Her hands claw at the bed and sweat soaks her nightdress. Her mouth is dry as dust. The faces of her dead son and her dead husband look out, pale and haggard, from her nightmares. The stench of rotting corpses circles around them. She reaches out for Arthur, but his side of the bed is cold.
Morgana splashes water on her face, puts on her cloak and strides out of her rooms. Barefoot, she hurries down cold stone stairs to the courtyard. The city is silent. She runs to the stable, saddles her horse and rides out to the lake.
The water waits for her, still and cool. Tonight she does not swim, but sits on the rocky shore. Her bare feet slide into the water and barely cause a ripple. Here, there is still sense. Here, she can listen to the old voices of earth and stone whisper their broken prophecies and let herself hate freely.
The stars flicker as though they are illusion. The moon shines. There’s no wind, no sound at all save her own laughter. The ground trembles beneath her. Her eyes turn gold and power shrieks through her veins.
She will not scream.
-
Each morning she returns to the Royal Court, to Arthur and the dream she has given him to live, to Mordred and his quiet, serious eyes.
And each night Albion drifts away from her, a piece at a time.