Takes place sometime after 3.05 The Crystal Cave.
$4$
I am not a force to be reckoned with
And you don't have a clue what you're messin' with
And you can't see to the best in me
'Cuz it's more than your heart can take
- "Bleed," by Anna Nalick
"You're bleeding."
An innocuous statement, even if it's coming from the mouth of her sworn enemy. He's funny like that. Unless he has a hand in her death, he never wants to see her hurt. Hypocrite. At least when she wants someone dead, she doesn't let anything as pathetic as guilt or fondness for a person get in her way.
One might be able to argue that she had the opportunity to kill Uther and Arthur on numerous occasions and yet never was able to seal the deal—but she puts that blame entirely on him. If he hadn't constantly gotten in her way, mucking up all her best laid plans, everyone in the whole damned court would be dead by now. She still has yet to figure out how he does it; how he, a servant, manages to find her or trap her or trick her time after time again. It's happened too many consecutive times for her to consider it coincidence or happenstance. There's something more to it than pure serendipity, but for the life of her she can't figure out what.
Her sister talks of fate and destiny frequently; while they are lovely words, spun into a beautiful tale, the concept gets under her skin. She greatly dislikes the idea of having no control over her life—that some ancient priestesses have everything charted out, know all her moves centuries before she makes any of them.
Morgause has explained on numerous occasions that fate is not quite so simple—members of the Old Religion, no matter how practiced or disciplined, cannot know all about the world. They only see bits and pieces, a small portion of a much grander picture.
She always nods understandingly at her sister's unyielding patience and love for her, but for once this isn't something she agrees with. Fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it—it's creepy.
"You're getting blood all over the floor. I'm going to have to clean that up, you know."
It disgusts her that he can act so nonchalant, like they're still friends. She likes it significantly better when he's pissed off at her for some reason or the other—attempting to kill Arthur, attempting to kill Uther, threatening to kill one of his seemingly endless friends…—because it's much more entertaining. He's much more respectable when he's angry and showing a spine than when he's all weepy and whiny.
"What do you want?" she huffs angrily, her pale green shooting daggers in his direction.
He looks confused, and not unlike a puppy. "You're bleeding. All over the floor. Didn't you hear me, my lady?"
He said those last two words purposely, putting just enough emphasis on the syllables to make a point. She has the rest of Camelot fooled, but she is no future queen to him. It's galling how much that fact has settled under her skin—she demands respect from everyone, but the disapproving tone in this one servant has her feeling like everyone is no one.
"I'd watch yourself, Merlin," she breathes, stepping closer to him and out of the darkness and shadows that cover her every night. The cloak she chose for tonight was dark, dark green, impossible to discern from the almost black sky. She's gotten away from the ostentatious bright red cloaks that she gravitated towards when she first came back to Camelot. She still craves that certain level of flair that comes with plotting the downfall of her enemies, but now she's going about it with a little more subtlety.
"That wouldn't happen to be a threat, would it, Lady Morgana?" he asks, and once more he puts that aggravating emphasis on her title and she has this vivid fantasy about strangling him to death with his own scarf.
"You know it is," she snaps, her full upper lip curling in a snarl. She steps closer again, and her face is briefly illuminated by the pale light coming from the sliver of a moon through the window. They are standing in the hallway like always, facing off once more, dark and light.
The concept of their contrasts amuses her; always has. They have similar coloring—near black hair, pale skin, light eyes. But they choose to use their features for very, very different purposes.
He's always so disgustingly friendly. To everyone—knights, moblewomen, servants, children—it doesn't matter, he's always caring and kind to everyone he speaks to. She knows that's at least part of the reason why the court looks past his clumsiness and tendency towards disaster. Any other servant would have been booted out on the spot.
Granted, the other part of it has to deal with her dear brother, Arthur. He calls Merlin an idiot and all kinds of insults on a regular basis, but she knows otherwise. After so much time—and an almost unbelievable number of near-death experiences, most of which she never even had a hand in—the only thing he sees Merlin as is an equal.
And she's not the only one that's noticed it. The knights talk, and the noblemen aren't exactly close-lipped, either—they're all fairly aware that if any one of them attempts to do any serious harm to the servant without justification, they'll be facing serious trouble with the future king.
If only they knew her true motives.
"I guess that means you won't tell me who you're trying to kill this time, will it?" he replies quietly. He's smiling, the way he used to before he had to go and ruin everything. Back then, she thought that smile was sweet, cute, innocent. He was a bumbling servant that just wanted to help his friends. Help her.
How dumb she had been back then.
"But let me guess," he continues before she can respond, grinning wider and making his eyes crinkle. "Uther? Nah, you've tried that too many times this month. Has to be stale. There's always Arthur, but that's got to be kind of old, too. How about Gaius? Or wait, Gwen? I don't think you've attempted to kill them enough times yet."
She rears back, her pride once again getting the best of her. "How dare you-"
"Says the one that's tried to murder half the nobility in Camelot," he finished before she could unleash the rest of her stuttering rage. He never loses the smile, but as they stare down at one another it turns into something bitterer, jaded to her and this battle they're eternally locked in.
Maybe it's that thought that changes her mind. Maybe it's her dear sister's opinion on destiny. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's everything. But suddenly she's dropping her livid expression, shoulders slumping just barely as she regards him with guarded curiosity as she asks, "We're going to be doing this until the end of time, aren't we?"
She truly, honestly does not know where that thought came from. But she knew she had to ask it, damn the consequences.
For a second, she manages to shock him—an amusing side effect, if it isn't for the fact that she is equally shocked but actually knows how to school her features properly—and those ocean blue eyes of his are so wide they resemble dinner plates. But only for a second. Then he is regarding her curiously, clearly unsure what brought on her sudden change in mood but curious nonetheless.
"Provided you don't have a sudden change of heart and go back to being the Morgana I miss?" he asks carefully.
"Yes," she agrees just as slowly, "Provided you don't finally grow a backbone and realize that Uther's reign is no good for anyone in Camelot."
Merlin raises his eyebrows and tilts his head, and seeming to give the concept some thought. "Well, also provided that you don't kill me-"
"-Or you I," she adds, eyes narrowing.
"-Then I would say, yes. Most likely."
Silence settles heavily between them. She still wants to murder him, and she is fairly positive his feelings are no more warm and fuzzy than hers.
But there's something more there—something that sounds an awful lot like camaraderie, not that she'd ever admit that out loud—wrapped up in all the hatred and death threats and plotting and mayhem the two of them gravitate towards. She trusted him once, and there was a reason for it, bigger than the naiveté her sister—and her, too—brushed it off as. There's something between them, a connection, similar to what she feels between herself and Morgause except completely different.
"What are your opinions on destiny?"
She needs to stop talking, but now that this has started she's finding it impossible to stop. She steps past him, looking out the window and into the courtyard. It's dark, nearly black, and empty—not unlike her heart.
She frowns at the rather morbid thought as Merlin walks up behind softly. He's handling her breakneck change in thoughts almost remarkable well. "I'm not sure… I don't particularly like thinking I don't have control over my life, I guess."
Her frown deepens as he adds, "But, unfortunately, I've seen it been proven true too many times to not know that destiny is inescapable."
She leans heavily against the stone wall, eyes still transfixed on the scenery, and hums, "I guess there are worse do-gooders I could be stuck in an eternal battle with."
She doesn't need to look back at him to know he's staring at her in shock once more. He's really bad at hiding things from her.
"Aren't you supposed to hate me?" His tone is nothing short of bemused.
"Not tonight," she answers evenly. She doesn't know where all of this is coming from—and she never thought she would talk to Merlin about her concerns, but old habits die hard—but she knows she doesn't have the energy to keep fighting with him tonight. It's as if this conversation has taken all the fire out of her. She's smiling slightly, not a full smile, merely a gentle upturning of the lips, but she can't remember the last time she genuinely smiled about something that didn't involve malice or scorn. "Tomorrow, yes, but... not tonight."
"When you try and kill another person I love?" he asks without any anger, as if he is just checking.
"Yes," she answers simply, finally turning back to face him. They are remarkably close, but she's hardly uncomfortable—there have been too many times over the last few years when she's pulled him into the errant alcove to warrant acting ill at ease. The old traditions Uther and his ilk drilled into her about stations and propriety float throughout her mind, but she's never been one to follow rules she didn't particularly like.
"Does that mean I can help you wrap up your arm so you can stop bleeding all over the floor?"
She finally looks down at her injury, another by-product of a late night visit with Morgause. She had been in a rush to get back to Camelot, so her cloak had fallen past her shoulders and a branch had sliced into her wrist, now dripping fat drops of red-black blood onto the tiled floor.
"I can clean myself up," she replies, studying his face. Once, she had thought him cute—once she got past the ridiculous ears and the smile that took up half his face and the way his eyes crinkled into half moons when he was happy—and now she's too angry at everything to see him as much more than a nuisance. Even if she was too tired to fight him tonight, she wasn't weak enough to let him take care of her.
His expression softens, as if he wants to argue with her but knows better. "Well, then I suggest you do that before someone other than me notices."
The way he says it, she wants to smile and laugh along, but there is no place for that in their tentatively titled relationship anymore. But she manages another minute smile as she replies, "I will."
She moves away from the wall, putting her face dangerously close to his. He swallows heavily as his eyes skitter down to her mouth, and for a second she expects him to take a step back. Her proximity makes him nervous, even when he knows she's still evil.
If she was feeling up to it she would use his weakness against him, or at very least make some disparaging comment about him getting so distracted about someone he hates. But she doesn't so she holds back the smirk, and says, "Good night, Merlin."
Her casually brushing past his shoulder seems to wake him up, and his eyes continue to follow her as she continues her way down the hallway, throwing over her shoulder, "I'll be planning your death tomorrow."
She puts a little extra sway in her hips after that, because she knows he's still watching her. Even if she's not going to kill him tonight, she's still going to torture him a little.
$4$
Hmm… I don't know how I feel about this. This is only my second foray into the Merlin fandom—I'll post that first one at some point—so I'm sure there are inconsistencies galore, and I'm kind of afraid I portrayed the two of them as out of character or something. I usually need a few tries before I get comfortable with new characters.
This was mostly an attempt at me experimenting with my two favorite characters and trying to get a better handle on writing Morgana. She's such a fun, complex, totally dysfunctional character. I've found that I love writing from her point of view, and for some reason each time I keep naturally gravitating towards present tense, which is something I almost never write (I'm very traditional, third person, past tense).
Anyway, I hoped you liked reading it!