Hi, everybody... first, let me come out waving my white flag for not updating Tribulation in... *gulp* two months. Gah, sorry about that. I am very ashamed, very ashamed.
Anyway, I needed to write this after I saw 5.1, what with Morgana being betrayed by everyone and their uncle. And THEN I watched Servant of Two Masters and almost cried at the end, where Agravaine finds Morgana in the forest, and his face looks so sad and I got all these feels and and and - it just needed to happen. I may have fudged around his age a little; let's say he's maybe ten years older than Morgana here.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from BBC.
Agravaine stood soundlessly before the door to Morgana's hut, knowing full well that she had heard him arrive and was expecting him inside any second. He should knock. He had entered before without announcing himself and had been greeted with an ugly show of coldness. This may be a filthy shack fit for no more than an ill-treated dog, but it was where she lived and she clearly expected it to be treated as if it where her private chambers, where no one was welcome unless she granted it. And Agravaine desperately wanted to keep her happy.
He remembered a time when that was not so difficult. Both he and Morgana had been younger, happier; when the darkness of the world had not yet shown itself to them fully, leaving their hopes and dreams to show their faces without fear of being savaged. He had been a strong-headed young man who detested court, the boorish, hard-headed man his older sister had chosen to marry, and later on he had equally disliked the foolish, disrespectful boy that had killed her with his very birth. Arthur was much like his father, but without the wisdom of age that had tempered Uther's impulsive fire. Dreaded were his visits to the court, the mindless chatter, the stiff smiles that were never actually meant but had to be delivered out of a respect that Agravaine had never held for these people in the first place… until he met Morgana.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, unquestionably, and that may have been what caught his eye at first glance. But what snared his heart was everything she was. She was witty and charming, learned and independent, well-spoken and certainly well-practiced in the arts of eluding someone if she wanted to. She'd agreed to one dance with him, danced it flawlessly, and after that made it a point to flirt with everyone in the room and avoid eye contact with him. She was, in essence, intoxicating. Had the younger version of himself had any of the sense he had now, he might have given up right then and saved himself a lot of trouble. But something about her would not let him, and he made it a point to attempt conversation with her whenever he could. He'd only succeeded when he found her alone in the garden – ironically, the only time he hadn't been searching for her. Startled and perhaps mildly excited, he asked what she was doing, walking about in the grounds alone when the guests were all inside. She smiled and told him in a mock-conspiratorial tone, "Oh, I have no intention of leaving the party early. I am merely trying to shake a particularly annoying young man."
He had at first thought that she had meant him, but he shook that off quickly. She was speaking to him, wasn't she? "Well," he replied lightly, "If you are ever in need of someone to escort you past him, my arm is at your disposal." She looked at him as if she would smile demurely and keep walking by, but she spoke suddenly, as if caught up in the fun of sharing a secret. She placed her fingers lightly on his coated arm and grinned a little fox-like smirk. "Lead the way, my hero." His heart swelling with pride, he'd felt like a hero, and even more so when he realized the one she was trying to avoid was none other than Arthur. Perhaps it was wrong to take such delight in befuddling a teenage boy, but Agravaine had enjoyed the feeling nonetheless.
After that, he had made it a point to visit Camelot more often. In his longest avoidance travels (too long to measure by years), he had missed meeting perhaps the most interesting young woman he had ever had the pleasure of speaking to, and he never intended to let such a thing happen again. He wanted to get to know her, to show her that he was worth getting to know, too. She obliged him in the beginning, listening, flattering, nodding politely. But she began to let herself slip, the hard and careful mask she crafted for herself melted a little more and a little more until it clung to her face like a little lace, easily seen through and only barely there. Her smiles became real and her responses genuine. She began to speak herself, and the conversation was no longer one-sided. It was then Agravaine knew that he loved her, the dark fox that had once eluded him with such grace.
And he loved her still.
He blinked hard, a brief gesture to bring him out of the past. He was still standing before Morgana's door, his hand ready to knock. He did so too lightly, a stutter of a strike that didn't disturb even the forest air. Flustered, he pushed his hair back with his gloved hand and rested one forearm against the doorframe. There came occasional times when he was overwhelmed by the memories, of what he used to be, what she used to be, and in those times he could not make himself breathe enough into his lungs.
She had loved the gardens in the courtyard. She loved to sit there and talk, or even just sit alone and listen to the sounds there. There was a stone bench there, hardly wide enough for two, but they had made it work. It was still there, he thought, but he never returned to that place now that he had to face the daily drone of Camelot alone. She used to be so bright, so fierce in what she believed in. She still was. Oh, she could be fierce now. But to someone who knew her well, Agravaine doubted that she really believed in what she was doing now. It was as if she had been set on a path by someone other than herself, and she was now too far along to look for any other way. He would never say this to her, of course, and she might not think Agravaine to have enough insight to see it, but it was there. It was there, and it seemed to be devouring what was left of the sweet memories he tried to hold to.
It had not been magic to change her this way. He remembered when she first learned she had the terrible affliction, and terrible it was to be cursed with magic at Uther's court. Agravaine himself had little quarrel with magic; it was not magic that corrupted and devastated, it was the worthless humans who thought such a powerful thing was theirs to abuse. Morgana had been innocent, frightened, and vulnerable, and that had been taken advantage of. Everyone around her had manipulated her to their own gain, and she had been left a broken casing, ready to be molded by the first one who would.
And it hadn't been Agravaine. He hadn't been there. I wasn't there.
When he first started to notice Morgana changing – becoming flighty, irritable, irrational – his first instinct was to step back, and he did. Far, far away. She needed space. She was going through a phase. She didn't need him. Perhaps she hadn't, but whenever he looked back, he could not help but wonder what may have been had he been man enough to stay around. For nearly a year he lurked in his work abroad, and there he stayed until he received word Morgana was missing.
He had rushed back, he had cursed the world, cursed all of them, and he cursed himself. It was in no way his fault, and yet it was. Had he told her how he felt? He was sure not, and his chances might have been taken away from him, just as she had been.
Of the year she was gone little remained in his memory. Maybe he had blocked it out. Maybe he had drunk too much too many times. Maybe he did remember, but hadn't called it up in so long that he had forgotten how. Whatever the case, he vividly remembered seeing her again for the first time; the first time she had shown him her magic.
He had caught her sneaking out of the castle, and, finally, after months of trying to get her to talk to him and months of her being waspishly short of temper, she flared out. She spoke all right – she also set something on fire. After a frantic few seconds of stomping and a bit of panic on Morgana's part, she had reached over and taken his arm, gentle on the surface but with a firm grip that hadn't ever been there before.
"You tell my secret, you condemn me to death." And she had whirled around, cape slithering around her ankles, and she hadn't looked back.
He had never told that secret. Even when he sensed her changing, drifting away, becoming something she wasn't, her secret was his secret. Perhaps that was why, even after he had disappeared back into the recesses of his life for many, many years, he was the one that she had come to asking for help and allegiance. He had of course agreed without hesitation. He had been more than dissatisfied with the current monarchy of Camelot, and more than that, he believed in her, not merely in the cause that she was devoted to, but just her and everything she had been and could be again some day. He had also hoped, somewhere in the corner of his mind where such painful things thrived, that she still felt some remaining spark of what they had before, which, in his mind, had never fully died. Maybe it hadn't still.
But he was not a fool, or not a complete one, anyway. He knew that she manipulated him easily and effortlessly, and he gave in anyway. He only yearned for her happiness, and maybe if her power goals were achieved she would begin to think about herself and her own well-being again. Whatever she might say, she was not happy, and the destruction of Camelot's royal family would most likely leave her with a void she could had no idea what to do with. Agravaine was not so arrogant that he believed he was the only one who could fill her up, but… he would be wherever she went, and maybe she would one day see what he did.
He lifted his head, took a deep breath, and raised his hand to knock upon her door, nostalgic thoughts put aside once again. Right now she needed a loyal confidant, and he would be whatever she needed.