A/N: Wrote this because a line popped into my head and I just decided to run with it. I haven't even watched all of Season One; I just know things end badly for Arthur and Morgana. And yet I'm still plagued with an incessant need to write fics for them. So, here. Enjoy, I suppose. :)
She takes him by surprise while he is riding through the forest. He has already dismounted when she appears, cloaked and smirking. Immediately, Arthur's hand flies to his sword, but not in time. Morgana's eyes flash golden and it flies out of his grasp before he can fully unsheathe it, its fall muffled by the moss carpet.
"Morgana," Arthur acknowledges with false bravado, painfully aware of his mortality. He curses himself for being so stupid. Why hadn't he at least taken Merlin with him when he decided to go on a ride to clear his head? It was a blind, blundering move for a king.
"Arthur," Morgana says in turn, dipping her head the slightest. She is studying him in a way that makes his skin crawl, as if he is a fly and Morgana is a spider.
"Well?" Arthur says evenly, spreading his hands wide. "What are you waiting for? You've got me. Go ahead, kill me."
And suddenly they are ten years old again, circling each other in a field and he is taunting her: "Go ahead, hit me." Morgana had, then, Arthur remembers, charging at him with her dark tresses flying behind her and a shriek of outrage.
The Morgana in front of him is calmer now, but there is still that barely contained anger seething below her skin. Arthur can see it in her eyes. There's something else there, too. Maybe it's pity, or spite. He honestly can't tell much with Morgana anymore, ever since she left.
The fact that she turned on him still stings, like the red handprint of a slap that remains long after the actual impact. She was his closest friend and confidante for so long. He remembers them comforting each other with words and sometimes tender gestures, and maybe he felt so at ease with her because she was (unknowingly) his half-sister—although Arthur isn't convinced that had anything to do with how he felt about Morgana.
But some things run deeper than blood, like the magic simmering in Morgana's veins that Arthur can't understand. He knows he'd try, if she'd only let him. If she'd only come back again. He knows she won't, though, and that knowledge pricks his heart. Arthur is a knight, one of the finest, but he has yet to find a sword that cuts deeper than betrayal.
"Well?" Arthur demands, because Morgana is still standing there and looking at him with those sad, sad eyes, but she has no right to be sad, not when she left him and her home behind, Arthur thinks angrily.
Morgana laughs, cold and mocking. It is not the same way she used to laugh, not the way she laughed when he kissed her when they were fifteen and breathless under the summer sky, that kiss that they never talked about but bubbles up in his mind now, of all times.
"Oh, Arthur," Morgana mocks. "So ignorant. I won't kill you now—there'd be no glory in that. No, I'll cut you down in front of your kingdom after I take your bloody throne."
"I think you're just scared," Arthur goads, and maybe it's not smart but he swears he will disarm Morgana somehow, rile her up like he used to and get away with it. He knows he's playing a dangerous game, but he's been playing with Morgana ever since he was little and maybe he can get the upperhand.
"You think I'm scared?" Morgana balks, and there's the slightest rise in her voice.
"I do," Arthur says, jutting out his chin and shuffling ever so slightly, his sword gleaming on the forest bed at the corner of his eye. "I don't think you have it in you to kill me."
Morgana laughs dryly again. "I loved you, you know," she murmurs out of nowhere.
Arthur freezes, blood cold. Liar, he wants to yell. Morgana's up to her tricks again, playing with his mind (playing with his heart). This time, she's not going to win. This time, he won't let her.
He wants to say something charming or witty before he dives for his sword and tries to kill her or at least fight a way out of this clearing, but he can't call anything to mind. All he can hear is Morgana's past tense: loved. "Loved" because she doesn't love him anymore, not like that, not when he's her half-brother and her enemy and it's wrong and not allowed and all those other things and damn the consequences, he thinks, irrational with fear over what he's about to do, why can't there be a happy ending?
The next few moments happen in a flash. Arthur has slowly inched to his sword, and finally he breaks for it. The moment he lunges, Morgana's eyes gleam gold and Arthur soars backward, smacking against a tree trunk. He slumps forward, the back of his head throbbing painfully.
Somehow he ends up on his back, staring blearily upwards with Morgana's face swimming in his vision, her eyes back to their usual green and filled with something akin to regret. He doesn't know if he's dreaming or not. Morgana moves as if to touch him, but he flinches away and she withdraws her hand so quickly Arthur isn't sure it ever left her sleeves in the first place.
"You're right. I can't kill you—not just yet, and you know why? Because I still love you, foolish or not. I'm a fool, aren't I, Arthur? I used to think you were an idiot, but maybe I'm the biggest fool of all," she whispers sadly, and that's when Arthur knows he's dreaming—because the real Morgana loved him, but she doesn't love him anymore (otherwise why would there be such a big mess?). He's glad that the dream-Morgana doesn't specify how she loves him: like a brother or like a lover, because then it's open for him to interpret.
He doesn't know which one he wants to be.