20 Years of Merlin celebrational story.
January challenge: Family
"I love you… as a son." A disturbingly cheerful note rose to her voice.
I am your son, he thought bitterly.
How desperate she was. How he loathed her.
"I have turned my back to you and forget about you."
"You can't." Her exasperated laugh haunted him.
She stood where the shards to his precious table and ideals lay.
"Merlin! Merlin! Don't forget me, Merlin."
"It is too late. You have nothing left, Mab, no followers, no power. Goodbye."
She composed herself, barely. "I am still your queen."
"You are nothing to me."
"Wrong." He felt her smirk against his shoulder. The ghost of her had approached him. A kiss pressed there, purple, glittering, he did not look. "You are half fae, you are half me. "
"You are glistening dust now, nothing more. The mask of your existence is all grey and faded."
"Merlin, Merlin, how I have waited for you, pushed you, to reach this point."
"Your final defeat."
"Triumph." She whispered, an echo of earlier words. How hopeless yet strangely kind her voice had turned to caress the shell of his ear. "Bring the darkness back to my eyes, the cold stone of my heart, I know you have it and treasured it all this time, return substance to my appearance by your devotion. Turn, kneel. You alone can do this." A breathless whisper, almost too fragile to exist. "Embrace me as your queen."
"Perhaps once this could have worked, Mab, when I was young and I would have adored you. I am not like Mordred for you to dote upon." It disgusted him how she had corrupted an already damaged young man. He had to remind himself of this, not let the image leave his thoughts.
"Mordred was not you." She laughed, a ring to her voice, she was gaining life from him, even though he did not turn, he gave her something still and this angered him.
"I would not have you young and foolish. You have loved now, you have grown wise and stubborn and just and I hate you as much as I love you. If you help me, return the Old Ways, return me to the people, make me as good as you know I can be, if you guide me I can change. Make me better then. Show me. You are ready to rule together."
"We are family."
"You admit it?"
"It is a fact."
He was cloaked in the mist of her ruin.
"It does not matter. Magick muddles the blood." She commented offhandedly, or attempting to.
"There is a word for what you are suggesting, mother."
She would not let his scorn get in the way of her fine challenge of him. He never could resist a challenge. It is how she always drew him back into their game.
She brushed aside her faded skirts, somehow the scent of ancient dust and forgotten midnight forests filled his nostrils and her magic hungry for him. "Show me. Kneel."
This was how Merlin restored the Old Ways, in the end. Hope you like it.