ETCHINGS IN SILVER
The room was just how she'd left it: the curtains were drawn, allowing the light of the afternoon to seep into the emptiness, seeking out every inch of shadow and bathing it all in a rich, amber glow. It was so open and alive, as if every item; every strip of fabric was a living, breathing extension of her body.
For a moment, Arthur almost forgot that she was gone.
He was sitting on her bed when Merlin found him, his weight creasing the soft, lilac coverlet, putting an end to the quiet perfection the room had commanded before he'd entered her chamber.
"Sire," Merlin started, but he got no further than that. There was nothing he could say that Arthur would choose to acknowledge, or even really hear.
The king was in a world entirely of his own creation. Not even his closest companion could reach him there.
Arthur…
His name, whispered like a benediction, falling from her lips as sumptuously graceful as a flower petal leaping from its stalk to the ground, was the last thing he'd heard her say. It was spoken in such a way that he still wasn't sure whether she meant it as a blessing or a curse. For his own piece of mind, he would sooner believe it was the latter, but for reasons even he couldn't fathom to explain, he'd chosen faith instead of actuality – faith in her character, and in her sense of being.
Arthur knew he was wrong; knew it in the same way Merlin knew there was nothing he could do for his king until he wished for the assistance himself, yet it made little difference to the state of his thoughts.
He missed her, and being here, with her memory soaking into his skin, was only managing to magnify his longing.
It wasn't something he would ever admit – to anyone, little own to himself – but everybody knew the extent of his feelings, just like everybody had known the extent of hers, the moment she'd bowed her head, defiantly contemptuous in her submission to his might.
She'd left the locket behind.
Arthur's eyes caught the edge of it, glinting like a beacon in the sunlight, its silver chain wrapped conspicuously around a curled sheet of parchment. He was drawn to it, and it was for this reason alone that he didn't move to touch it. She knew that it was something the king would not miss, even half-hidden amongst the organised clutter that remained.
The locket had been a gift; a token Arthur had given her many years earlier. It was somewhat fitting that he should find it here, now; draped delicately over the top of the polished mahogany dresser, as if she'd simply taken it off to bathe.
But she hadn't. She'd left it behind, as a cruel reminder of how things had once been. And she wasn't coming back for it.
Arthur closed his eyes, breathed deep and ragged. He could still see her face in his mind, clear as day, like she was standing right in front of him. He could see the whites of her eyes, shining eerily back at him; her pupils, dark and smouldering in their menace; and her lips, twisted beyond their natural elegance, thin and ugly and unforgiving.
He didn't want to remember her like that, but the image wouldn't leave him no matter how hard he tried to force it. It was yet another reminder that the woman he'd known, that he'd once loved, was lost to him – really lost.
She wasn't coming back.
Morgana wasn't coming back.
The king bit back a hysterical laugh, instead throwing his head back in a gesture of one, and gripped at his hair as if it was a lifeline quickly fading into the nothingness of his grief.
Merlin shuffled uncomfortably from the doorway.
"Sire," he began again, and Arthur's head snapped back up to level height.
"Leave me," he told his servant.
It wasn't a demand, nor was it spoken with particular force or brevity. Ordinarily, Merlin wouldn't obey a command so devoid of feeling, but the manservant had been blessed with enough intuition to know when sense and reason had been tossed out the window.
He left his king with a low bow. The click of the door as it was closed echoed around the room. The hollow sound reminded Arthur of emptiness, and all of a sudden, those belongings that Morgana had left behind appeared to him as little more than frigid, invisible pieces of matter.
Arthur wanted to smash each and every one of them for their mocking silence.
He picked up a vase full of days old posies from next to the bed and flung the solid porcelain across the cold abyss. He didn't flinch as it shattered into the wall of stone opposite him, and actually smiled at the bell-like tinkle that followed as thousands of tiny shards rained down from the point of impact. They looked like snow flakes as they fell. A few of the fragments came to rest on the locket. Arthur was tempted to brush them off; they marred the loveliness of the surface. He managed to hold back the temptation.
There was a knock at the door. Arthur fought down a snarl of frustration as a soft, shaking voice wheezed through the crack where the wood met the stone frame surrounding it.
"Is everything alright, m' Lord?"
The door opened a fraction. A hazel eye appeared, shrouded in what was most definitely a frown.
Arthur waved the nameless servant away.
"I'm fine. Leave me," he ordered, his voice gruff from the strain of holding back his anger at being disturbed.
The hollow echo returned, more pronounced this time. Arthur scrunched his face up tight. His eyes were squeezed shut by the excess lines and wrinkles that were formed, holding in the traitorous tear that had threatened to spill over the edges.
It had been two days. It felt like a lifetime.
He stood abruptly, his feet hitting the deck and falling straight into a violent pacing, back and forth between the bed frame and the doorway. Just two days ago, Morgana had been standing in this very room, as unwaveringly insolent and beautiful as ever.
It was hard to believe how much had changed in two days.
Arthur paused mid-step, his boots slamming hard and loud against the stone of the floor. His eyes immediately sought out the locket, still taunting him as it glinted ominously in the dying light of the afternoon.
"No," he said aloud.
The king willed himself to turn away from it, to look elsewhere. His gaze fell on the bed again, on the covers that were rumpled from his weight. They were no longer perfect; now, they even appeared to have been slept in, which was far worse for his state of mind.
It wasn't right, for him to hold on to her the way he was. He needed to rectify that. Now.
Arthur flung open the door with much more force than was necessary.
"Excuse me?" he called out. "Hello?"
A serving girl appeared at his side, seemingly out of nowhere. Arthur jumped in spite of himself, and took a moment longer than usual to compose himself before relaying his instructions.
"Fetch Merlin for me," was all he told her.
She stood there, looking dumbstruck, clutching an empty chamberpot against her hip, before a glare from the king sent her scuttling off down the passageway in search of the young manservant with a shocked little squeak.
He needed his friend here now, not his manservant. Merlin would be able to do what Arthur could not.
Merlin would be able to make what Morgana had done go away.
Arthur ran a shaking hand through his sandy hair and leaned against the open door, bracing himself, for fear he'd fall in a graceless lump otherwise. What she had done to him had been worse than anything he'd ever experienced. He'd been right to do what he'd done; yet he felt guilt, of a magnitude that still surprised him.
He was a fool, he knew. She was the one who should be feeling the guilt, not him; but Arthur was almost certain that guilt was a feeling Morgana wouldn't be concerned with.
She'd felt no remorse while she'd still been within Camelot's borders, so why should she feel it, now that she was not?
Once again, Arthur's attention was drawn to the locket, and the note.
Morgana had wanted him to find it, that much was clear. Whatever was written on that parchment, she wanted Arthur to know.
In a spur of the moment decision, Arthur stalked across the distance and snatched up the silver locket. It was cool to the touch, like a pebble on the edge of a lake. He could feel every single one of the delicate etchings, the intricate pattern of roses and hearts that Arthur himself had spent days carving out with a tiny tool.
It hurt that she'd left this trinket behind. He'd made this for her, yet she'd left it, resting on the top of her dresser like a piece of rotten fruit.
He palmed the locket as he unrolled the parchment sheet, his eyes scanning the brief message, but not really reading it. It took the king three tries before the message sunk in to the fog of his mind.
Arthur wasn't surprised by what he read. It was trademark Morgana.
A knock at the door alerted the king to the arrival of the serving girl. She'd returned with the message that Merlin would come directly.
Arthur inhaled deeply, sniffing back a wave of emotion as he nodded at her to go. He was barely able to keep a lid on it all, and the very second the girl's face disappeared from the doorway, the floodgates opened, and everything Arthur hadn't been able to feel since Morgana had left began pouring out of their own accord.
He clenched the note in his steely grasp and practically growled with fury as he tossed it over his shoulder.
"Damn you, Morgana," he muttered. "Damn you to the seven hells of Albion!"
He punched the stone wall with a balled up fist, groaning as the skin of his knuckles split with the impact. He didn't feel the pain of the injury, though; only the rush of adrenaline it gave him.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs outside signalled the approach of his manservant. Arthur had the sudden desire to flee. He wasn't in control of himself, and right now, he didn't want anyone to witness it.
Not even Merlin.
He met the young man at the top of the stairs. Merlin looked shocked to see him, and was about to say as much when Arthur barked his instructions to him as he passed.
"Get rid of it," he said. "All of it."
And then the king was gone.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Merlin found the scrap of parchment scrunched into a messy ball in the centre of the bed.
He ignored it at first, stripped the bedclothes like he'd been instructed to and tossed it to the side like a used rag.
He knew it was from her. He'd seen it on the dresser, had seen the way Arthur's eyes shone grimly when he'd caught sight of it, wrapped in the chain of the silver locket that she'd worn every day until the king had banished her from Camelot.
The locket was gone, but the note remained, like an attractive young maiden beckoning him forward. Merlin knew better than to read it. It was private, something that should only be between the king and Morgana.
Then again, Arthur hadn't specifically demanded he not read it.
The manservant put down the wad of lilac bed covers that Morgana had lain on two days prior and picked up the sheet of parchment. It felt fragile, like a leaf that had been left to dry in the sun.
It crackled as he unfurled it, and Merlin looked away for a heartbeat as the words on the page were exposed to the daylight for the first time since the king had laid eyes on them. He felt like a traitor just for even thinking of reading what was written. It was so personal, and so very wrong, yet he found he couldn't help himself.
Merlin's eyes found their way back to the page like a moth to a flame. What he saw there made him wish his curiosity hadn't got the better of him. His mouth became instantly dry, his blood pulsed hotly beneath the surface of his skin, and he felt torn between putting the note back where he'd found it and disintegrating it in a ball of fire.
In the end, Merlin decided on tucking the note in one of the folds of his tunic. It wouldn't do to leave something like that just lying around for anyone to read. He didn't doubt that Arthur would feel betrayed in knowing Merlin had read what was most definitely something meant for the king alone, but it would be worse still if some miscellaneous member of the staff happened upon it.
This was what Merlin used to justify his actions later that evening, when he was back in the safety of his own private quarters, Morgana's note lying bare and open on the pillow in front of him.
"Sit tibi terra levitas, Arthur," it read.
May the earth rest lightly on you.