A/N: Like most of my favorite oneshots, this one came to me and bit me and held on. When I wiggled away, protesting that I need sleep, it replied, "Oh, you want to just get about your life? How very adorable."
He found her out in the grass, her pale bare feet planted into the green ground and her arms spread wide like a trees. She was looking up, her green eyes somehow both clear and glazed. She was completely still out there in the night, except for her lips. Her lips were twitching.
She reminded him of a sacrifice, standing out in a field, waiting for a monster to come eat her and be appeased.
That scared him. She was scaring him.
He came closer, his blue eyes trained carefully on her white face and black waves as his own feet slid softly through the grass. It was the middle of the night, and cold. He crossed his arms and shivered slightly—and if he was chilly, he thought, how must she feel?
She heard him coming, of course. He wasn't trying to hide it. And yet he still felt caught in the act when those far-seeing eyes slid to meet his through the night air, and he feared she would send him away like a child.
She did not look angry to see him. "Hello, Merlin," she said, and looked back out at the stars in the sky.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked her, trying to be stern and not at all worried.
"Breathing," she answered. "And seeing." She didn't look at peace. Her voice was low and calm, but her face trembled, and she looked conflicted.
"Must you do that here, in the middle of the night?" He tried to make this funny, so that she would laugh and leave her spot, come back to herself. She didn't even look at him. So, he sighed and resigned himself.
"I had dreams again," she told him in a voice like crystal: clear, smooth, and cold. "More dreams." Slowly, slowly, she took one foot up from the ground and twisted it around the other, allowing herself to turn. She spun delicately and deliberately, like a dancer trying to move through water and not air. And she must have decided she liked it, because she did it again.
There was a bit of wind. It chilled his bones, but she didn't seem to mind. Her hair was pulled at and across her face.
She smiled a little while she turned silently, and he watched her, lest she swayed and fell. But then she had to stop again, and the torn look returned.
"I hate Gwen," she confided to him.
"Do you?" he said gently, stepping forward.
"I hate her," she said again, as though to convince herself. "More than I hate you. The pretty little blacksmith's daughter. She just smiles and all the boys fall at her feet. She doesn't know what it's like to look in the mirror and see the line between her brows because her stomach is turning in anxiety that isn't passing. She doesn't understand feeling like you're evil because you exist, feeling like you only reap misery and like your hurting people by loving them, but fearing to ask for help. Because existing doesn't get punished by death. Not for sweet Gwen! She never has to worry! She's a servant, busy hands, busy hearts… All the men want to protect her. From what?"
He could understand wanting to protect. That's what he wanted to do right now. But the only enemy was inside of her.
"She doesn't need to be protected! I did! I had to try my best, and she just smiles… And what does she get? A king. She marries a king. And I get nothing, just slapped down."
He looked at the moon. He'd heard when it was full people went a little crazy, but a glowing half moon met his eyes. He wished she'd stop saying these things.
Her voice was no stronger. Still quiet and clear as a bell, but now passionate and hurt. "Of course they love her. She can go about making them all happy. She doesn't have any worries. She doesn't worry about food or hate or existence… Or dreams." She paused. "That's why I hate her. Because she doesn't have to worry about dreams. Real dreams: the future, the past, the present. Warnings. Destiny. Things you can't escape."
Maybe he shouldn't let her go on. But he couldn't seem to speak. There was a single tear that trickled from her eye, still turned to the sky, and shone its way down her ashen cheek, disappearing into shadow. It mesmerized him.
She looked almost amused as she added, "Things that go bump in the night. Evil. Like me."
"You aren't evil." She ignored him.
"I do, though," she said. "I do dream. All these dreams, and no one thinks they're real. But they are. So real. Past, present, future. Oh, Merlin!" She looked straight at him. "I can see our destiny! I see it when I look inside myself, when I close myself off from the outside by shutting my eyes. It's bright. It's so bright, Merlin, like a shooting star, but it's short. It's so, so short." She gave a ripped little laugh, and that scared him worse. It was too loud and brittle. He didn't like that laugh.
She went on, "Our destiny hasn't even really begun yet, and I can see the end of it! How can I be happy when I know what happens? It's tragic, and short, and so I can't even enjoy it when it happens. I know what's going to happen. I hate the dreams; I shouldn't know. Do you want to know? Do you want me to tell you?"
He nodded swiftly. She should get it out. "If it makes you feel better," he said, twisting his bony hands together, "please tell me. The dreams might go away."
"They won't. They're as much a part of me as magic is of you, Merlin. You don't want to know. You shouldn't."
"Please tell me." He brushed his black hair back.
"I know Albion will burn like a sun and then burn itself up. I know which of us will die young. Mordred. Gwaine. Lancelot. I know who will be trapped, stuck, floating in existence—you. Me. But not together. I know who will die and be promised a glorious return. Arthur. Oh, Arthur, the reason for it all, but a masterpiece prized above superior ones! We win the world, but he rules it. And he is promised a return! And I know which of us will live to be old, to look back on the loss of the rest of us and mourn. Gwen."
She fell silent for so long. He wanted to tell her it wasn't so bad. That everyone died. But she couldn't think he was making light of this.
And then she spoke again, "But that won't last forever. Life doesn't. It'll pass. Even for the trapped, we'll move on and die as much as we can. And they'll talk about us for centuries. But the worst part—we'll do it again. And again! And again!" Suddenly there was the emotion she lacked. Her hands flew down to her sides, but her head stayed up in the moonlight, and he didn't know what to do. "Rebirth, maybe. I don't know. A different world, maybe. I don't know if it's the same universe, even, the same bodies or names or kind of breathing. But we'll do it again. We'll play out our destiny again, and it won't let us go, and it won't stop…" A sob choked her for a second. Two more tears slid down her face. "And that's what I see, Merlin. Merlin, it wouldn't be so bad if only I didn't know! I hate my dreams!"
And then it was over.
She buckled beneath her own grief and weight and her body crumpled to the soft grass. There she sat, curled around her knees, and sobbed.
He waited a few seconds, before realizing the spell was gone and he could approach. His feet had almost grown landlocked, and he stumbled clumsily over to her, falling on his own knees next to her. He gently put a white hand on hers, rubbing gently to let her know he was here.
"You were just dream-talking again," he told her soothingly. "It's okay."
She looked up at him with teary eyes. "Really?"
"It was the nightmares again," he assured her. "It's not real, Morgan. Please, come to bed, honey. You know you always feel better in the morning. We'll talk to the therapist again, okay?"
She sucked in a breath. "M-Martin?"
"That's right, honey," he said, giving her a hug. "It's not your dream world any longer."
Morgan looked shaken. "It felt so real… again."
"It always does. Come to bed, Morgan." He stood and helped his wife to her feet, holding her close in her white nightdress. "Those things never happened. You just have nightmares, remember?"
She nodded, dropping her head into his shoulder. "I'm awake now, Martin," she assured him. "I remember. I'm sorry, I scared you again."
"It's fine."
He'd known when he married his wife that she had nightmares, and sometimes woke up thinking they were real. She told him that she was always fine by morning though; it was just the darkness that seemed to do something to her. He hadn't known how bad it was. And in truth, it did scare him. Every time. There was something terrifying about your wife thinking she was a woman named Morgana, that your name was Merlin, and that destiny was going to make them die and be reborn. He didn't like seeing his proud, strong wife so breakable, like an already picked flower.
But the doctors said she was not insane. There was nothing wrong except lack of sleep and nightmares so real she thought she was a different person.
He held onto him, shuddering, as he led her back into their house from their backyard, him in sweatpants and her in a nightdress. They were a stark white couple against the backdrop of the night. He'd never liked the dark, to make it worse. Unlike Morgan, he preferred the light.
They went inside and shut the door, cutting themselves off from the outside for tonight.
And when they left, the moon that had been around for centuries, half lit tonight, seemed to sigh—the light side of it because its warlock left it, and the shadowed side because its mistress had gone away.
It seemed to wait.
But the young couple did not come back out that night.
A/N: So, people get it and everything? Everyone understands? Am I being confusing again? What did you think—I beg you to let me know!