Color flickers at the edge of her vision.
"You didn't think it'd actually work… did you?"
She is frozen, head bowed in the dusty light.
He tries again, red-and-blue waves lapping against her spine.
"Milady?"
She looks up wildly, darting her eyes around the black little cabin. She doesn't know how much time has passed since her hand in the palace came riding in, to tell her what she already knew.
"He's gone, milady. It's just me."
Her tiny smile is hidden by the curls of her hair. She already knew that; only one person ran those words together like that for her, like it was a name and not a title. She just needed to make sure they were alone.
"T-touch me." She whispers. Her shoulders are shaking and she doesn't know why.
Sky blue regret hovers over her shoulder when she darts a peek.
"I can't. You're untouchable now, remember?"
Something like amber there, too.
She nods bravely, doesn't want to show how much that hurts. Gingerly she falls back onto hard pillows, and relishes in the sound of him doing the same. She is not alone in this.
Her voice breaks when it spills out from her.
"No… I didn't think it would work at all." Her laugh rattles with lack of use. "They foil all my attempts, usually. I-I-I don't know what to do with victory."
Warm red thrums closer to her, caresses her body ever so slightly. It's just enough to make her walls tremble.
"I didn't think I'd actually kill him."
And now he's gone.
She felt it.
And he's left her completely, just like everyone else.
("There's nothing else keeping me here.")
Her hands quake with her sister's blood, and now with her father's. If they have their way, they'll kill her brother and her other sister, too. They'll blot the whole world out for her. She can't trust them anymore.
(something is twitching)
She screws up her eyes, as she always does when these thoughts come; tries to will them away.
Has too.
Her sister wouldn't like them.
Making Camelot pay was all the thought she needed.
…Right?
(something is squirming)
She wants to scream, or cry; anything to get away from this pain, this guilt. They're her colors; blues and greens and shine, oh the shine… all the things her sister locked away tightly, to keep from distracting her.
Making Camelot pay was all the thought she needed.
"That's not you thinking that."
His blue spreads over her, like a drop of paint in an inkwell. Her breath hitches.
"It isn't, milady. Some part of you knows that."
Pink; lips, sliding over her ear.
"That part of you… needs me to speak for her."
She shuts her eyes. No, no… her sister wouldn't like…
Her sister…
("…and you will have only one thought in your mind, my dear…")
"I-it will never be over, will it?" She sobbed. "He's finally gone, and… it's still all I think about."
There is only silence over her shoulder.
Only the dark.
("…destroy Camelot!")
She's screaming.
Just like back then.
Her traitorous hands tear at her hair,
the back of her neck,
the knobs of her spine,
(sssomething tightensss)
She can't do this, she'll never finish her duty, she'll never make her happy-
(tighter, in the wet, and the dark)
She can't trust her hands, she doesn't want to be this!
(wet)
(TIGHT)
(CHOKING)
"I love you."
(…loosens…)
(breath comes)
"Shhh, that's right, you're alright…." He rocks her gently in his arms, arms of red and white, that never touch and never hurt. He'll never hurt her.
She's coming back down.
"I-I love you too…"
She can trust these hands.
They're large and strong; rough callouses, tempered by graceful digits. They're not white, now that she's thinking clearer… most people would call them pale, but she knows what pale looks like and he isn't it.
"The word you're looking for is peach." He says huskily, with a shade of mock offense. "I get plenty of sun, you know."
A sooty laugh, as she twists to face him. Her eyes wince at the light, at the smile. She's ready for this.
"Not that you'd know it, to look at you." Her voice trembles with a weak challenge. His smile widens, and then fades, and ghostly fingers move to hover, tenderly, over a wild lock of her hair.
He looks sad.
"You should get some sun too, milady."
She hates it when he's sad.
"You miss it so much."
(tense)
She only chortles impishly, and plays at pushing him off without actually touching.
"But it's been so rude to me!"
(watch)
His face is like springwater.
"Well, heaven forbid!"
They are smiling, and it hurts.
Because she only gets this when she breaks, doesn't she? When the weight of (something) is too much, and what her hands have stolen from her hits home. He comes and says everything she ever wanted from him, her beacon, her port in her storm.
She forgives him, and he forgives her.
And she knows she'll lose him in all the blacks and all the whites again, the second she turns away.
And she'll hate him.
(glare)
"…You're not real, are you?"
She doesn't hide the tears anymore.
"I'm real for you." The smile, oh the smile… "And I'll stay for you, milady."
Peach caresses the air over her lips.
"My lady."
She sniffles, and snuggles closer to him. Bathes in their colors.
She can't touch them.
Yet.
sss
The last vestiges of Morgana give up for the night, and the something can rest.
It knows, in the way that animals do, that's it's time is almost up.
That it can't hold her for much longer.
But, like all animals, it is as slave to its instinct, as she is to it.
The Fomorroh curls deeper around her spine, and continues Morgause's work.
sss
And a very big thanks to 4x06, for finally giving us a canon way to explain Morgana turning into a completely different person.
Way to go, writers. It only took you 21 episodes.
(special no-prize to season four as a whole, for killing my passion for the show entirely)
(keep on running from good storytelling, guys, you don't need those viewers anyway)
(}:d)