A/N; I've been dying to write a chaptered Merlin fic for a while and I finally stumbled onto an idea which I like enough to have a go at. This is my first fanfic here, though certainly not my first, and I really hope you like. It's a little bit of an experiment in style for me because of the way it's written and the fact that I've never written a story purely in present tense before.
As an important note, this does not take place in any particular time frame – I haven't watched any of the episodes since they originally aired and don't feel confident enough in my knowledge to base it anywhere specific, so I've just stolen bits and pieces from canon and made the rest up totally!
For this fic please bear in mind that Morgana's magic and Seer abilities haven't manifested yet. Just try to go with it!
Please enjoy!
Chapter One - Mystère
The boy sits under the tree, legs crossed, sadness clouding his soft, young features. He is alone only in the physical sense as it is clear that in all the hours he has been sitting there his mind has been deeply troubled and it still concerning him strongly.
The tree is perched alone on a grassy hillock; the ground sloped at a lazy angle, just across the way from a little village of no action or consequence. It is just a village, with a number of dishevelled houses, a blacksmith, a hundred inhabitants give or take – nothing much. It is where the boy hails from, but it is hardly where he is welcome.
Despite taking to the tree over half a day ago, no-one has come to take the boy home or approached him. Especially not the haggard, sour-faced, old Shepard and his flock who wandered by just before the midday sun took hold of the sky.
He has not moved once.
It is the middle of autumn, evidenced each leaf on the tree above the boy has turned a burnish gold or copper, waiting blithely for a light breeze to turn and shiver them off the branches and tumble them to the ground. The sky is not quite blue, the clouds are beginning to gather and it seems as if the slight chill of the oncoming evening is turning into a seasonal shower.
If it was not for the trickle of dark emotion passing through his face, the boy could easily fool any passer by into thinking that he had stopped breathing, if he so chose to.
Save his enormous propensity to simply sit and wait and inhuman skill of unyielding consideration he is an unremarkable boy. His nose is not broad, nor is it slim. His flesh obscuring his cheekbones as his years are not quite advanced enough to transition into the sharp definition manhood. His hair is messy with sweat and fallen leaves, half-slicked back accidentally from the boy running his hand through it occasionally.
His clothes are rough and threadbare in some places, barely held together and straining to keep themselves upon the boy's oddly angular frame. In other places fitting so perfectly that they seem finely tailored to his shape.
But his eyes are dark with peculiar wisdom, one that does not befit his face or boyish physique. Indeed, his eyes look ancient in his face, but somehow remain unmistakably his. Worn and tired, equally bright and restless, an unusual mix of contradictions and whatever the cause of this sinister intelligence is, it is Old.
All of a sudden, the boy stands, his eyes flashing with caution however there is no immediate danger to be seen anywhere around. The boy, now that he is on his feet, takes a defensive stance, perched on his toes, prepared to run should he need to.
Nothing moves for a long minute or so until the boy, judging his foe and choosing to test it, decides to take a single sidestep. His eyes widen near imperceptibly, and he steps back with a snap, his expression clearly displaying that he has made a bad mistake. He pauses for another moment, rocks backwards and forwards on his toes, stare following an invisible foe as it paces listlessly backwards and forwards in front of him, still invisible.
But the boy can see it.
The enemy takes a deep shuddering breath that only the boy can hear. So the boy takes a deep breath too, steels himself for the inevitable onslaught and runs as fast as his cramped legs would carry him.
The tree spontaneously combusts behind him, but the boy knows that he has no time to admire the flames which lick at the leaves and scorch the wood, he has to escape. Sprinting faster than he ever had before, he heads away from the village, unwilling to put any others in the mortal peril that he himself is in now.
He passes an abandoned cart, half-heartedly notices it is filled with rotting, putrid fruits, and is unsurprised that not two seconds later it catches a fierce, fast-burning fire. Fruit explodes into the air and the boy hears it splatter to ground even over the cracking roar of the dry wood burning behind him. Almost as if it had been propelled towards him.
The thing chasing him keeps missing. Scorching the landscape with flame and fury, it constantly worries at his feet and the boy knows that if he doesn't keep moving he'll die within seconds like a witch at execution. But he's tiring and his throat is burning from swallowing too much air in a hurry.
He can feel the flames licking at his skin every time something else bursts into fire but he cannot be entirely sure whether it's his imagination or not.
The boy vaults a small stretch of stream with one leap, wondering for mere seconds if the water could stop this creature of fire. It is proved false hope as the stream itself turns black and orange with an inferno several meters high. The boy looks back, not to admire the sight but to confirm that he is indeed having his way back to the village cut off. Not that he was planning to head back, of course.
Sweat sticks his hair even closer to his head and stains his shirt several shades darker. It is partly due to the fires erupting around him, now with greater urgency than ever before, but mostly due to the physical exertion of outrunning whatever was chasing him though he is not sure if he has made it this far through sheer speed and youthful determinism or if he is being toyed with by the beast behind him.
The boy trips as his beaten, worn down shoe gives up the ghost and snaps at the feeble seams. A deafening roar of triumph blasts from behind him as he hauls himself to his feet but it does not echo in the vast, empty farm land that he has found himself in. On his feet, prepared to break into another run he feels any hope that may have remained trickle away as the dead land and leftover crops spout pillars of incandescent heat and an inescapable ring forms around him.
The boy wipes a despairing wrist across his eyes and forehead, exhausted and desperate to find some kind of out. But there is none and the heat is vigorous and all-encompassing, and getting closer, tearing up the landscape behind it and rendering the fallow land useless.
Whipping his head around, futilely searching for the source of the inferno, the boy becomes even more aware that he is going to die. He does not know why this thing is after him, but the beast or the shadow has him trapped and he is finished. He cries as he crouches down, clutching his hands around his knees knowing that these final moments are all he has to make peace with the world.
When the halo of fire is only two or three feet away in every direction, it halts and a howl hits the air again, fulminating painfully in the boy's ears speaking of Hell and terror.
Then the fire surges forwards and the boy begins to burn.
Sweat lists down her face in her fevered state and a weak scream tries to tear itself from her throat as the Lady Morgana tumbles out of bed, hair chaotic from thrashing and tossing around in her sleep. Unable to distinguish truth from dream she starts to batter her hands at her skin, convinced that a fire is burning through her.
"Just a dream. Nothing more than a dream." Morgana says out loud, voice thick and heavy with sleep, not yet sounding like it should, but even she's not convinced by her words.
It's the dead of an August night and there is still some uncomfortable heat latent in the night air as the season starts to shift into autumn. Morgana tries for a moment to tell herself that it is simply a nightmare brought on by the plaguing warmth of the kingdom in the expiring days of summer, that the smell of acrid burning which is filling her nose is because of her overactive imagination.
Only, something about these assertions just doesn't feel right in her mind.
"Just a dream." She says again because she doesn't want to have to think about the possible repercussions that could arise if it's not.
The light sheets are tangled around her feet and she nearly falls again when she starts to pick herself up from the floor. Morgana doesn't think that she screamed loud enough for anyone to come running and she doesn't want to bother anyone with a dream so she untangles herself and lays the sheet back over the bed. She knows that she doesn't want to sleep anymore.
Instead she moves over to the window, the prickling heat on her skin unrelenting. The moon is only a little visible from this angle but the sight of it goes some way to calming Morgana's tumultuous spirit as she can tell that's its waning and morning will come soon.
The nightmares have been bad before, at some times they have been both gruesome and effectively striking the Fear of God into her heart, but never before has Morgana felt so omniscient whilst dreaming. It was almost as if she was the boy experiencing and a hopeless outsider witnessing at the same time.
Morgana had endured nightmares all her life, requiring tinctures and potions to settle her mind and force her into sleep at times when they threw themselves upon her but recently…
Recently the dreams had taken a sinister turn, becoming miserable, sometimes brutal but always culminating in the death of that singular boy - an unremarkable boy that seemed to be the main player in all these dreams and always the doomed party in the end. He had died every night for the past month, in a number of different ways none of which Morgana wished to see again and yet was subjected to once more, usually not more than a week later.
There was nothing even a little bit familiar about that boy, not even a slight tickle in the back of Morgana's mind. He isn't one of the children from Camelot, she had long stared at them to make absolute sure of that fact and she is fully sure now that he couldn't be one of them.
She hasn't told anyone of these dreams because she just can't be sure if they're definitely dreams or something… else. She cannot even find it in herself to vaguely hint at the content to Gwen or Merlin or Gaius.
Morgana sighs to herself. 'There's no point in thinking on this now,' she thinks, pushes away from the window and seats herself on her bed once again. 'Sleep Morgana, get some more sleep. You'll feel better in the morning.'
But she knows she's lying to herself. Even if she doesn't dream again, she'll still feel terrible in the morning.
The morning arrives sooner than Morgana had dared to hope it might.
The day looks promising as the sun rises amongst the clouds, not giving the people too much heat or sunlight and allowing a cool breeze to filter in through the halls as Morgana wanders around the castle with Guinevere, or Gwen, in attendance.
When she woke up she was determined not to let the dream rule her consciousness and decided the best way to do that was to have company. Thus Morgana relieved Gwen of the days' chores and responsibilities without a second thought and asked her to accompany her on a walk.
"Morgana," says Gwen from beside her as they near the exit to the gardens. Between them they decided to enjoy the last remnants of the summer in amongst the flowers. "are you sure you're alright?"
Morgana smiles softly, trying to be comforting but more than aware that Gwen can likely see straight through it and into her troubles. "I'm fine Gwen, you needn't ask every time there's a break in conversation."
The handmaid blushes, always shy when her motherly instincts are brought to attention. "It's just… you seem tired and… did you have a nightmare last night?"
"Yes." She answers simply, opening the door, taking advantage of a passing noble to cease talk on the subject. A curtsey and polite 'hello' and then the two women were in the garden. Morgana opens her arms to the sun as if it might embrace and sighs happily into the air.
Gwen comes to stand next to her and Morgana is not going to let her continue the previous strain of conversation. She's tired of thinking about it and would rather just have some fun, and so she claps a heavy hand on Gwen's shoulder and yells "Catch me!" before sprinting off to hide behind a rose bush leaving a surprised Gwen in her wake.
When she comes to her senses Morgana has ensconced herself behind a rough statue which might have been in the shape woman at some point in its life but now it's hard to determine. Gwen looks left and right, a smile creeps onto her face and Morgana congratulates herself for successfully distracting the other woman.
Morgana is surprisingly adept at hiding. It takes nearly an hour for Gwen to finally catch up to her after she's moved hiding places more times than she has fingers and when Morgana knows she's been discovered she takes great delight in making Gwen chase her across the fields rather than going silently like a good sport.
"I learnt how to hide when I was small," she tells Gwen when asked after they have collapsed onto a grassy bank just beyond the limit of the gardens, when you're not quite out of the castle and Camelot but not quite inside. "Usually it was from Arthur. Sometimes from the maids. I turned it into my private sport when I discovered that girls aren't allowed to joust."
She laughs when Gwen does even though she thinks her statement was rather innocuous and not particularly funny.
The sun is high and Morgana feels a little uncomfortable in her slightly too heavy dress, she expresses as much to Gwen.
"Maybe we should go back to the castle."
Morgana shakes her head. "I don't want to waste the day, I like not being needed and I'm sure you do too."
From the silence in return to her utterance Morgana knows that she is right and Gwen was glad to receive a day where she didn't have to do anything for anyone.
"It's strange," muses Gwen in a subdued tone. "It's strange how it's still so warm in Camelot. I mean, it's nearly autumn and a great deal of the leaves still haven't showed signs of falling."
Despite herself Morgana finds herself having little flashes of a boy sitting under a gold-crowned tree with fallen leaves in his hair. She nearly groans in frustration at having remembered after having so happily forgotten but she doesn't want to draw any questions out of Gwen.
"Yes," she agrees simply, playing with the grass underneath her fingertips. "It is unusual, but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. After all, they're only leaves."
Gwen hums and doesn't say anymore on the subject and they sit in comfortable silence.
"Do you ever wonder," Morgana starts with trepidation, unsure of whether she should obey her instincts and ask the question she realises she's about to. "if dreams mean something?"
"Like prophesy?" Gwen replies with a raised eyebrow. Morgana shakes her head and clarifies her point; that she merely meant that dreams could be symbolic or representative of the person they occur to. "I've never considered it. I suppose so… why not? So many things are possible and people are such a mystery, I don't imagine it's impossible for dreams to be trying to tell us something. Though, if that's so, I'm worried about what my dreams are trying to tell me."
Morgana looks inquiringly at her maid and is delighted when she blushes.
"Whatever do you mean by that?"
"Nothing," she replies, almost too quickly, averting her eyes to the ground. "Nothing."
"I'll believe you for now." And the handmaiden looks relieved, unaware that Morgana is putting away the information to be used at a later date.
"Do you believe in prophesy Morgana?"
"No, I can't say I do." Though a little voice inside her says that it's probably more likely than she likes to think.
"Oh, and Merlin? Do try not to drop anything this time."
Merlin rolls his eyes and offers a sarcastic "Yes, my liege" in reply. Arthur smirks and leaves the room and his manservant to polishing armour that Merlin is sure doesn't even belong to the prince.
Even so, an order's an order and despite feeling an overwhelming desire to snap his fingers, say a few words and revel in the extraordinary efficiency of magic, he knows that there's no substitute for hard work. And that Gaius would likely notice that he's back from doing his chores for Arthur awfully early.
Resigning himself to having to dish out a liberal helping of elbow grease, Merlin rolls up his sleeves, picks up the rag and starts polishing.
His cause certainly isn't helped by the fact that his recent sleeping patterns had been generously disturbed and no matter how much sleep he managed to snatch, without fail, he woke up almost as exhausted as when he went to bed.
His arms already hurt and he had barely received a fists' size worth of shine for his efforts. Merlin is absolutely sick of doing chores for everyone and saving people's lives without a hint of thanks.
After a short while of polishing and brooding Merlin sits back and grumbles to himself, aware that he is stewing in self-pity. It's probably because he can't sleep.
Though it isn't as if he doesn't sleep. No, he just keeps waking up whenever he tries and he's not sure why. He doesn't dream as far as he knows but he wakes up in the dead of night with his heart racing. And it's not as if he's not tired before night time, even before his strange sleeping patterns it was not uncommon for Merlin to be almost dead on his feet before he returned to his quarters.
He mentioned this ongoing trouble to Gaius once or twice and was given a potion to calm his shredded nerves and send him to dreamland and for most of the night it worked, until excruciatingly early morning broke and Merlin found himself wide awake with a strange voice ringing in his head.
No matter what he tried, Merlin still couldn't sleep solidly through a night. After a month he realised that he would just have to wait it out.
'If this armour is indeed Arthur's' he thinks to himself as he switches his rag into his other hand 'he's been partying in the stables'. With a long-suffering huff Merlin starts another flurry of scrubbing and polishing.
The door opens behind him.
"Oh! Hello Merlin," calls a voice from the doorway, Merlin knows immediately that it is Morgana standing behind him. "is Arthur around her anywhere?"
Merlin turns to her.
"He's off hunting. Clearly didn't want me around. He should be back by dinner time, unless it's urgent?"
Morgana shakes her head and Merlin notices something in the swing of her hair that ruins her otherwise perfect appearance.
"Milady, you have some grass in your hair."
He tries not to laugh as Morgana frowns and hastily picks up her hair, brings it to her face and brushes it through with her fingers.
"Gone?" she asks him, though she is still inspecting the end herself.
Merlin shifts the rag he is holding from one hand to the other. "Yes milady."
"You can call me Morgana, you know Merlin," she says, putting down her hair, satisfied by and trusting in Merlin's response. "I consider you my friend."
Merlin is struck dumb for a moment, unsure how to respond. When he thinks he's found the words he opens his mouth but a strange form of English he's sure no-one's ever heard before comes out of his mouth instead of his anticipated reply.
Morgana takes it in her stride, used to tongue-tied men.
"Is that appropriate?" is all he eventually manages to ask. Morgana takes a few steps into the room and lays a hand on Merlin's elbow and he swiftly becomes aware of his filthy hands.
"You've been there for me just as Gwen has. When the nightmares get too much I know I can talk to you. With all you've done for me, I find it hard to believe that I can't even get you to say my name in return."
"How have you been?" Merlin can't stop himself asking. "Have you had any nightmares recently."
Morgana pauses for a moment, as if she's trying to remember which Merlin takes as a good sign – if she can't remember having them.
"Nothing causing too much stress."
Inexplicably Merlin feels a tingling crackle of magic where her hand lies on his arm, fingers barely brushing the skin on his arm where his sleeves have rolled up.
"Are you sure?"
"You sound like Gwen." Morgana says in a teasing tone, her hand slipping from his arm and taking that pleasant prickle of magic with it. "And you still haven't said my name."
"Alright, are you sure Morgana?" and then he feels a silly rush of pride and self-satisfaction that Morgana, Lady Morgana, deems him, a servant, worthy of addressing her in such a casual way.
"Fine, thank you."
Her smile is wide and genuine and Merlin can't help but reply with a toothy grin which is altogether far less perfect in comparison.