Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of Heaven,
Blossom the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline
"Heavens above, Merlin, stop twitching!" Arthur's breath hisses hot in his ear and Merlin very nearly screams, dropping the unusual flower he'd been examining. "The objective is to kill the deer, not frighten it off! Be subtle!" Arthur clicks his crossbow in a threatening manner and brushes against Merlin's shoulder in a way that's just this side of unfriendly as he moves in for the kill.
Merlin picks up the flower and does his best not to breathe, resigned. He has a feeling who'll be privileged enough to lug the two-hundred-pound animal back to Camelot today. Unassisted.
Arthur darts agilely through the bushes, hair glinting dully in whatever sunlight dares breach the branches above, moving out of Merlin's sight. His triumphant shout when he fells the deer leaves something to be desired in the subtlety department, Merlin thinks fondly.
"Am I allowed to twitch now?" he grunts. Stupid animal will be food for a week, and it's accordingly heavy. Lean, though; bound to be stringy.
"Twitch if you must," Arthur begrudges, sounding for all the world like a long-suffering martyr. Merlin thinks that the irony would be delicious if the deer were rather more so.
"What's that?" Arthur snickers delightedly, distracted, snatching away Merlin's hard-won prize. "Good God, a flower? You're such a girl, sometimes, Merlin, it really astounds me." His eyes flicker to Merlin's face and then back to the blossom clutched in his own sweaty palm. "It's--"
"Beautiful, I know. I've never seen its kind before--so blue. It's quite special, really." Merlin can just hear Arthur's eyeballs rolling back into his head at that. He considers going with It matches your eyes, but for that Arthur would laugh at him or hit him or possibly do something else entirely, and all things considered, he'd rather not risk it.
Arthur twirls the stem cautiously between his thumb and index finger as he walks, the flower almost comically fragile in his callused hand. Merlin senses wheels turning in Arthur's brain and decides to help them along.
"Give it to Morgana," he suggests brightly, almost tripping over an inconveniently-placed root as he struggles to keep up with Arthur's all-too-purposeful stride. Girls like flowers and things, he thinks, observantly.
"Morgana!" Merlin can't see his face and so he can't tell whether the horror in his voice is real or manufactured. Arthur quickly shoves the flower behind his back at Merlin, as though repulsed. "Her! No. No . . . you take it." Merlin's arms are rather occupied at the moment by the mass of fur and flesh slung over his shoulders and so he has no choice but to take the stem between his teeth--it's harder than it looks. He prays, fervently, that Arthur doesn't turn around. "You take it . . . and give it to that girl. You know, Morgana's maidservant. What's-her-name . . . Gwyneth."
Merlin doesn't have to see his face to know that he's pretending, and not very adeptly, not to remember her name. "Girls like flowers . . . and things," Arthur rationalizes, and Merlin nearly spits it out.
Arthur spends the rest of the journey home re-enacting a particularly bloody duel in extraordinarily vivid detail, as though anxious to negate that flicker of sentimentality, and Merlin spends it making appropriately awed noises whenever Arthur's narrative involves a significant pause, and meanwhile feeling badly for Morgana, happy for Gwen, and not really sure about how he's supposed to feel for himself.
Arthur didn't tell him to give Gwen the prince's regards with his flower, but he does it anyway, and her delighted smile makes it all worthwhile.
Even the deer.
Morgana slowly lowers herself into the bath, wincing as cold water meets warm skin.
"Ahh, Gwen! Ohhh--you might've warned me that today I'd be bathing in ice." She can feel rather than see Gwen's tolerant smile at her back, and she leans in her direction, relaxing against the metal ridge of the tub as practiced fingers run through her long hair, teasing out the snags, smoothing away the frizz.
"The water's no colder than usual, Lady Morgana. Perhaps you're just a bit flushed?" Amusement laces thick through Gwen's voice, and Morgana finds herself in a perplexing position, caught between chagrin and hilarity and fear of discovery. She settles for a tiny non-committal hmph and relaxes even further into the water as Gwen's hands make their way up to her scalp, massaging her skull as she undoes the braids lining her figurative crown. God, do Gwen's fingers feel good.
She feels the other girl shift behind her. "There's no harm in it, milady. Anyone could see the way he was favoring you at the feast." Morgana hums uncomfortably. Gwen's tone is warm, but it strikes her as slightly patronizing, like a proud mother hen. "We've all hoped for it. And oh, you'll make such a lovely queen--"
The words pound, and Morgana jerks away, thin, fine fingers sliding shocked from her now snag-free hair, submerging herself completely in the water. Gwen's confused apology registers only hazily, as if from a great distance, through a fragile cocoon of silence as the liquid engulfs her. Her eyes close and her fingernails dig into her palms as she registers last night's vision becoming reality.
She breathes out. Doesn't breathe in. And comes up with a splash, shaking out her hair like a wet dog and laughing.
Gwen, gentle unsuspecting Gwen, smiles at her softly, quietly, like she's afraid sudden movements will make her start up again. Morgana looks down, remembering herself, inexplicably guilty.
"I'm sorry, Guinevere, my dear." The full name falls rich from her lips, that last portentous syllable rolling through her, and she feels the hysteria mounting. "It's just--the thought--Arthur and I--" Her giggles increase in both quantity and volume. Arthur. Pendragon! As if. (If only, whisper Guinevere's eyes.)
Gwen's fingers are in her hair again, hopelessly stuck in the impenetrably soggy mass, and Morgana really is sorry. "Oh, I only thought--you don't have to be queen, unless you want to, of course--" The words trip quick off Gwen's tongue. "I suppose Merlin and I were both wrong, then!" She mirrors Morgana, giggling, nervously.
"Merlin," Morgana murmurs. Her lips sting.
"Yes!" Gwen seizes on that and runs with it, relieved, thinking perhaps that she's finally settled on a safe topic of conversation. "Silly of us, but we like talking about things like that, in our free time, when we're not working, of course not when we're working. But you know, who's got eyes for whom, silly fancies. We mean no harm . . Merlin especially. He'd never hurt a flea. Lovely boy, really." She takes a deep breath, and sighs it out contentedly, offering her lady a bar of soap.
Morgana looks at Gwen for a long moment, hysteria gone, channeled into something else entirely.
After a long moment she assents--"Lovely, yes"--and watches Gwen's gratified grin grow. Something tight in her chest expands, and bursts.
She takes the soap, and scrubs away.
Lancelot returns in two years' time in a blaze of Arthur-engineered pomp and glory, all a-flush with energy and purpose and everything else that Gwen's life lacks. He dances with her at the obligatory feast, his gentle hands just right there at her waist, and with many other women as well, but Morgana, a strange gleam in her eye, tells her that he definitely favored her, and who is Gwen to question her best friend?
Uther knights Lancelot, has a woman executed for alleged sorcery the next day, and promptly falls ill within a week's time, apparently with indigestion (poison, everyone says, but that no one can prove).
Gwen stands in the hallway outside Morgana's room until she emerges, peaked and red around the eyes, like she hasn't slept in days and days, (I knew it, she whispers and Gwen doesn't ask her what she means) and she wraps her arm tight around her lady's waist and holds her until the shaking stops.
Twelve hours of silence and they almost think that time has stopped, that they'll never get out of this strangely dull and soundless storm, but just then Arthur comes dashing down the hallway like the devil's chasing him, hand at his sword, Merlin hot on his heels, and the bell is ringing, ringing, clanging, clanging, so deep, singing, death, the end, this is the end. This is the beginning.
Morgana won't stop shivering.
What did you do--Gwen's voice trembles, and Morgana looks so cold.I did only what had to be done.
For you.
For him.
She cries the next day, into Merlin's shoulder at the state funeral, not for the old king but for the new, all tragic belligerent stoicism at the throne, Morgana pensive at his side (she looks so old in the torchlight). Arthur doesn't look at her, not once.
Gwen is so very weary of weeping, but somehow she cannot stop.
Merlin's long chin presses sharp into her hair as he rubs soothing concentric circles into her back, and for once she doesn't have to wonder who he is wishing for.
She catches sight of Lancelot clasping Arthur's shoulder after the ceremony, offering a few kind words of sympathy, she imagines (it's what she'd do in his place), and Arthur's face spasms and re-sets in the instant before he remembers who he is. He nods convulsively, blue eyes so bright and darting everywhere but at the other man, and Lancelot, she can see, understands.
Her heart swells, watching them, and Merlin's hand tightens suddenly around hers. It is good, she thinks sadly, for the king to have a friend.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No, thanks."
"I'm worried about you, we all are--"
"Don't be."
"Arthur, Uther died--"
"Exactly!" His fist slams down hard on the table.
They all leave him after that.
Even Merlin. He supposes that things will have to be different, now that he is king.
Which leaves him with only one remaining safe haven.
Gwen's surprised to see him, that much is clear. The candlelight makes it difficult to see her clearly, but there's a flower in her hair, blue, delicate, and he can tell that she's been weeping, not because of the tear tracks lining her face but because of the thickness in her voice.
"But--I'm a servant--and you're the prince--"
"King now, so we can do what we like." Finally. His forehead nearly rests against hers, his breathing shallow, agitated, and her palm presses lightly to his cheek, then darts off the skin as if she's been burned, as if she's not entirely certain he's really there.
"Have you been drinking?" she whispers, incredulous, her breath mingling with his in the confined space. "Sire--" she quickly amends, but he moves his finger to her lips in censure. He can't believe she's still calling him that.
"Sober, I swear it." He can't fault her for thinking that--he probably does appear rather manic. But surely she understands. She has to understand.
"Then I believe you. But why . . ." her voice trails off into the darkness, sweet and dusky and shy. It's even harder to breathe now, that voice curling into his chest with the air in thin ribbons of heat.
"You know why." He can't say it so he looks it, I didn't, I couldn't stop her, and when her eyes melt, fervent, knowing, forgiving, that's when the long-held-back sob finally makes it out of his chest.
His hand slides up beneath her bodice and he groans against her mouth. She sighs into his. The moonlight takes them both.
The clock strikes twelve, but the spell doesn't break, and Arthur hopes that it's a good omen.