A/N: Originally written as a drabble on Tumblr.
No real plot, but hopefully y'all like.
Ghosts That Bleed
by Shu of the Wind
The sidhe have a trick for whisking the haunted away.
It's the middle of the night on Midsummer's Eve when Morgana hears the voice whispering in her ear, and the little blue glow promises her everything — Uther dead, Arthur gone, and a crown on her head. Everything Morgause promises her as she nurses Morgana back to health, but the poison Merlin fed her still burns in her sometimes, making everything wavy. The little blue glow swears it can fix that. The little blue glow swears it can fix everything.
The little blue glow lies.
She leaves Morgause and Cenred and all of them, and it's not like it is in the stories, where a day in the sidhe realm means hundreds of years have passed in the human world. We can't do that to those with magic, Fephera hisses, and bites her ear when she asks again. A day for her is a day for them, and she watches as days spiral away into weeks and months and the world is trampled under the feet of the gods.
Fephara teaches her Sight. Fephara teaches her control. And something in Morgana snaps and reforms. To See and not to manipulate. To listen and not to change. Her magic burns in her throat but she only lets it whisper. In the Seeing pools of the sidhe she Sees what will happen to her if she continues down the path urged by the kernel of pain inside her chest, and she turns away from it. She hates, but in private. Her hate, her loathing, her jealousy, her fear and her sadness, all are controlled. They do not control her.
She watches Camelot in the icy Seeing pool. Watches Morgause ride against Uther in revenge for a missing Morgana. Watches Merlin and his desperate rush to keep Arthur safe. She watches as Merlin reveals his magic to the prince that's cost him so much, and watches as the prince's father casts him away while the prince cries out betrayer, liar, deceiver, and as she watches Merlin in the dungeons she feels the knob of poison in her lungs swell and burn.
When he escapes, because of course he escapes, she keeps watching him. He doesn't go to the druids, doesn't release the dragon. He simply runs. He vanishes into the dust and the muck of the world and when she finds him again, it's changed him. His eyes are sharper and colder, like chipped ice instead of warm waves. And Morgana turns to Fephara and says, now it is time.
Fephara bites her ear again, but this time, she doesn't stop Morgana from doing exactly what she wants.
She finds him in the Valley of the Fallen Kings. She came here once before with Uther, but that was a different time, and she was a different Morgana. He's crouched over his fire, and when she slips out of the gloom he does nothing, simply looks at her. Then he laughs, and says, I killed you too, didn't I?
Morgana says nothing, because she's supposed to say nothing. To See and not to change. The words leak out of him like blood from broken skin. You don't know how many I've killed, Morgana. You don't know.
The fire leaps up for her as she steps forward and in it she can see their faces. So few, but their images so strong. Men and women and girls and boys. Will from Ealdor. A snarling black cat the size of a horse, and a girl laying broken on the ground. People this shattered, cutting, powerful little mad boy can't help but remember. She sees Arthur in the fire as well, but there is no death there, only fear and a sword, and when she looks up at Merlin again she sees the scar circling his neck and remembers. They tried to hang you, didn't they?
Ropes can't catch merlins, he says, and she steps forward and reaches out to him.
Morgana feels the magic before it touches her, but she doesn't move her arm, and the blade slices through flesh and muscle and bone as her hand hits the ground. She doesn't scream. She's felt this pain before, touching the Seeing pools. The only difference is that this time it's real, and there's blood everywhere, and she simply looks at Merlin and sees his eyes flicker.
Ghosts don't bleed. She tells him, and she throws the charm in his face, sidhe magic, and the only thing in the world strong enough to knock out a mad wizard sends him to the ground, unconscious.
She keeps him then. She uses magic to lift him into the cave, and she builds her life around him, waiting for things to change the way her visions say they will. And when night falls and the sidhe magic is stronger, she whispers things in his ears, and tries to undo the kinks in his magic that have driven his mind away, the twists of pain and guilt and fear and hate that have driven him onto his own knife's edge.
When he opens his eyes again, they're haunted, like hers, and her wrist is healed over with scars. She traces his face with her remaining five fingers, and Fephara on her shoulder bites her earlobe, but she stays the way some sidhe stay.
We are the shadows. She tells him. That is our path. I have Seen it. We will save them all. Make it what it was.
And he looks at her, his gaze still sharper, harder, colder than it was before, but he reaches forward and touches her wrist, and when he pulls away she has a new hand, made of wood and stone and magic. She clenches it into a fist and looks at him in wonderment, and Merlin's smile is thin and awkward and more than a little wary, but true.
So have I.