Disclaimer: I own nothing; for fun, not profit; etc. Drumming Song, from which I took the title and a line, is by Florence + the Machine. (Forgive me.)
Spoilers/Setting: Nothing general past series two.
Notes: Halloween-time = time to break into my Arthurian stash and play with Morgan(a). I do so miss her on this show.
("Do you know, Arthur, I dreamt of your death nightly long before we were enemies," she tells him once when they can hardly remember a time when they weren't enemies. They are brother and sister, too, they know; but they've never spoken of it, and never will.
He's too surprised to answer, and unable to bring himself to unravel the implications of everything that statement holds.
No; he's silent, and Morgana accepts it quietly, allowing it to pound, pound, pound in her own mind. This is not penance.)
...
There are days Morgana nearly gives into the belief that she can't do this anymore, and she fantasizes, just a hairsbreadth away from acting on her sudden and urgent need to seek out Arthur and confess everything to him. It is always these times that she remembers the look on his face when he'd caught her with Mordred in the shed, and she wonders if she twisted it during that moment, if she has twisted it since. I can believe that you would do this,it had said, but also Why did you not come to me when I could have helped you?
Gwen's touch is making her frantic these days, as if with each touch it were possible for her to determine Morgana's nature: a brush of Gwen's fingers against her cheek, magic; Gwen's cheek against her hair, magic; Gwen's mind against her mind, magic.
It is always his death. Sometimes he is young, and sometimes he is much older. Sometimes she dreams creatures that cannot possibly exist. Sometimes she dreams herself with him, holding him, opposing him. Her heart is like ice at these times, and it takes a timeless stretch of screaming for it to pour from her mouth and purge itself from her soul before she can feel it begin to beat again with a terrible and reluctant shudder, before she does not feel death pressing against her.
But then, sometimes she dreams of herself, and her head pounds though her heart does not, her chest still and cavernous. These nights she doesn't wake until morning breaks through her window. These days she cannot look anyone in the eye for fear of what she might see.
But there he is at the end of a hall, or across Uther's dining table at breakfast, or training on the castle lawns; and her heart pounds out of time with her thoughts, and she fights to concentrate on the feel of Gwen's tender brush against her temple, against her mind. Anything would be better than this.
He notices: "Is it just the magnificence of my existence that you've finally recognized that disturbs you so in my presence, Morgana?"
She is too exhausted to be anything but touched by his concern: "Just concerned about the ability of your swollen head to fit through the doorways."
She could say, There's a drumming noise inside my head that starts when you're around.
Already suspicious, he could ask, Why? rather than What?
Already resolved, she would not tell him.