The Resurrected
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Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
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The daughter of Uther Pendragon stared out onto the courtyard through the pouring rain, the weather seemed to mock her sullen disposition. Her hands were drenched in her own tears rather than the blood of her bastard father, the source of her despair. He'd betrayed her in every sense one could be betrayed. A monster, he was, in sheep's skin. The mere thought of the man caused her fingers to ball into involuntary fists, her fingernails nearly causing her palms to bleed from the deep indentions she's made. She sat in the lowly windowsill of the west tower, her knees pulled up against her trembling chest. She had used her current location as an escape as child. She'd hide away in the very place she sat now after a row with Arthur, with Uther, when she missed her parents, when she was scared for no reason at all. She looked far from the strong, vengeful and powerful young woman she'd become since then. Yes, Morgana appeared just as that same frightened, lonely child she'd fought so long to rid herself of. Her fresh, shimmering nightgown barely did justice in its attempts to warm her small, freezing frame. There was no use, her very heart was frozen solid. She shivered from the cold, or from her intense sobs. She couldn't decide, nor did she want to.
Wrapping her arms snugly around her torso, Morgana released a quiet sigh. What had she become? She was just as angry and bitter as the man she despised all others. She was no better than him, and she knew it. There was a time not all that long ago when her own reflection didn't disgust her, when she didn't suffer a constant pain in her chest, like a knife stabbed into her once beating heart. Uther didn't deliver the fatal stab to her heart, however. No, that wound was thanks to her other mortal enemy. The blade in her chest belonged to Merlin. He'd killed her the day he'd laced her water with hemlock whether her physical being remained or not. What was left of the kind and gentle Morgana was no more. She was dead.
She couldn't think about Merlin. She refused because Morgana knew that he was the only one who had the power to warm her icy heart, to reopen her scars. He was the only one in Camelot more powerful than herself, and he didn't need to use magic because his power over her stemmed from a much stronger force. His power could be derived from love, something she had never had the ability to master, and in all likelihood never would. A loud sob abruptly caused her body to quiver again. If only Morgause could see her dear sister now, weeping like a coward. Tears were for those of feeble mind, certainly not for Morgana Le Fay, Morgause had taught her that.
Morgana wiped away her salty demons with her sleeve, though her efforts were futile as the clear steady steams returned before she could return her hand to her lap. She began fiddling with her bracelet, a token from the House of Gorlois, a token that was now nothing but a lie. Gorlois was not her true father, she knew this now though she wished she didn't. He showed her more love in her first decade of life than her father by blood could do in a lifetime. Suddenly, a wave of emotion overtook her as she ripped the unique piece of jewelery and threw it with all her might towards the open doorway.
"Hello?" an all too familiar voice called from the corridor.
Morgana instantly took to her feet, sniffing away her sobs and failing once again to hide the evidence of her sorrows. She straightened her skirts to make it seem as if she's just been on a midnight stroll. Merlin tentatively crept into the room she occupied, her secret room.
"What are you doing here?" she sneered, the nastiness in her voice was almost involuntary now.
Merlin appeared quite displeased that Morgana was the person he came upon, quite displeased indeed. He frowned, gripping her discarded bracelet in her hand.
"I heard someone crying," he replied coolly, stepping forward to display his unwavering courage.
"Well, you were obviously mistaken," she snapped. "I'm the only one here."
"I know," he replied, coming dangerously close to condescending her. "Listen, I wouldn't have come within a hundred yards of this place if I knew you were the source of the weeping I heard. Believe me."
Her invisible wound began to bleed.
"I wasn't crying," she insisted, her hands balled into fists once again.
"Of course not," said Merlin, nodding his head in a sort of defensive motion. "Sorrow is a human emotion."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You claim to have all the answers," he seethed, harshly forcing her bracelet back into her palm. "I'm quite confident you can figure it out."
"How dare you?" she hissed, sliding the silver band back onto her wrist.
"How dare I?" he snapped uncharacteristically, though not that out of character recently. "How dare you, Morgana? How dare you betray Uther when he loves you so–"
"Love?" she scoffed. "Uther is my true father, but he would rather deny me as his daughter than sully his sterling reputation to the people of Camelot. Yes, he certainly loves me."
"If you'd seen how distraught he was when he thought you were going to die, if you'd only seen," said Merlin insistently, shaking his head. "He was so desperate to save your life that he sought out magic, the very thing he despises above all else."
"How utterly gallant of him, seeking out the practice of magic only when it is in his own best interest," said Morgana in an icy tone. "Though he'd condemn me to death if he knew what I really was, what I was truly capable of."
"You don't know that," said Merlin fiercely.
"Care to test it?" she replied swiftly.
Merlin's open mouth slowly closed, swallowing hard. She's gotten the answer she expected from him, the answer she wanted.
"I find it funny you are so determined to defend a man who sent you, yourself to the gallows more than once on false suspicions of magic, a man who is so vial his true nature is nearly unfathomable," said Morgana with some sick level of humor in her voice. "Uther Pendragon impregnated his loyalist friend, Gorlois', my Father because that's what he was no matter if I bare his blood or not, wife all the while he was away at war. Then he allowed Gorlois to raise me as his own when I was far from that. And after all that, Uther has the gall, the sheer audacity to make me a guest in what should have been my home all along."
"He is Arthur's father," said Merlin simply.
"Arthur would be better off without his oppression," she said. "He's a better man than his father, always was."
"He'd hate you if he you killed Uther, you know that," said Merlin.
"Arthur would thank me someday," she replied. "He'd have to realize I did it for him, for Camelot."
"He'd never see it that way," he said calmly. "He would never forgive you."
"I can live with that," she said.
Merlin shifted from one foot to the other, looking to the stone ground. It used to be so easy to talk to Morgana, too easy for a servant to speak to such nobility. Now everything was different. She was not the same Morgana, and he was not the same Merlin. They were strangers. Merlin took a deep breath and met her eyes again, the same eyes that had haunted his dreams every night for an entire year, the same eyes that could see into his very soul. He hated how she could remain so undeniably stunning while her insides rotted into a hideous corpse of what could have still, what should still match her external beauty.
"I wish there was something–" he began, pausing to choose his words carefully. "Something I could say, something I could do to–"
"To what, Merlin, to what exactly?" she snapped.
"To save you," he said barely above a whisper. "I wish I could bring you back to yourself, who you used to be."
"The old Morgana is dead, Merlin," she said in a tone that almost sounded sad. "Remember, you killed her?"
"You honestly believe I wanted to do what I did?" he said much louder, his voice cracking. "You think I wanted to poison you? For Christ's sake, Morgana, not a day goes by that I don't second guess my decision. You really have no idea how many nights I laid awake replaying every moment in my mind, dissecting every second in search of another way. A part of myself died along with you that day, and unlike you, the dead piece of me cannot rise from the dead. I will never forgive myself for what I did."
"That really is a lovely speech, Merlin, how long did it take you to come up with that?"
"I didn't have to come up with anything," he said. "It's the truth. I killed someone I loved, and I can never return from that."
Morgana's hand abruptly gripped her abdomen, she couldn't help it. A silent breath escaped her parted lips, a gasp of relief. Her relentless pain was instantly nonexistent, it was as if the dagger had been pulled from her heart. Her lungs suddenly filled with air, she could breathe again. Maybe it was the old Morgana, the real Morgana, gasping for breath. Could she had risen from the grave because of once simple word? Love. If anyone besides Merlin had spoken such a word she would have second guessed the truth of the sentiment in an instant. However, his words were true.
"You loved me?" she asked quietly, in a voice that had remained foreign to her for over a year.
Merlin slowly nodded, tears visible through the candlelight upon the young man's sharp cheekbones.
"Each time I see you make a threat against another life, every time I see the hatred in your eyes it's like losing you all over again," he said, his voice completely broken now. He wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I can't bare it any longer. I–"
"Merlin," she breathed, interrupting him in a gentle manner. Merlin looked up at her through his tears, hanging on her every word. Then Morgana spoke the two syllables she'd been wanted to shout at the top of her lungs for what felt like a lifetime. "Save me."
Maybe that was all it took, maybe it was simply the existence of real, honest love that has the power to bring back what had died long ago. It wasn't easy resurrecting the dead, but no one was more capable of accomplishing such an impossible task as the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth. No one was more capable to bring Morgana back from her cryptic demise than Merlin.
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A/N: Seriously, who just wants these two to either kill each other or rip each other's clothes off? The chemistry, angst, and sexual tension between Merlin and Morgana (Colin/Katie) is so intense you can almost feel it in my opinion. I know this is sort of stilted towards the end, but I think it needed to conclude in a sort of open-ended way.
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