Unfolding
(Malice in Wonderland)
Summary; There are legends, and then there are facts. Only, after awhile, that line begins to blur.
Pairings; MerlinArthurMorgana
Disclaimer; I do not now nor have I ever owned MERLIN.
[One]
There's an unjust king, a deceased queen, and a dejected prince. There's also poetry in there, somewhere, like a fairytale that has no proper beginning for once upon a time and no end in sight for happily ever after. So instead the king fixes his cracking crown with pride and the prince scrambles around to find something called perfection while they wait for something they cannot name. The queen doesn't do much of anything. Their kingdom shines its tainted light and fights its needless wars and life, for some, goes on.
[Two]
"I'm sorry, do I know you?" A man named Arthur, a king, stands before an empty thrown. A room once filled to the brim with life, with opinions of right and wrong, is barren except for him and the woman beside him. She seems like something from a storybook, a child's tale, with her glowing eyes and unmarred skin. A Snow White incarnate. "No, I suppose not." She laughs and her image flickers, sinister and telling, a story to beware the dark and what lurks within it. "You would have, though."
[Three]
Two men sat by a fireside, the flames throwing shadows across their faces. Their shoulders brushed, one, two, three touches playfully exchanged with indulgence. "You'll be King." He resembles night, the man who speaks. Ebony hair stark on his pale skin, eyelashes soot black with each blink and irises of a stormy sky. Merlin is the name dubbed to him by his mother, and while the history books will forget her strength and her character they will not forget that name. The man beside him laughs, teasing and loving and happy. "I always knew you weren't particularly bright, Merlin, but I never knew you to be the type to point out the obvious." While the words are harsh the intent is fond. That man resembles day. Hair a flaxen gold against sun kissed skin, eyelashes pale as they swoop down to cover cloudless sky blue irises. His name is Arthur, as penned by the court of Camelot. "Yes, but Arthur. You'll be king." The smile Merlin gives Arthur is excited and eager, like a small child awaiting Yuletide, and Arthur's eyes soften. "I suppose I will."
[Four]
"How much do you know about her?" The night sky is dotted with stars. Clouds pass by slowly, both revealing and hiding away beautiful sights with each inching movement. The moon itself is only a crescent, easily hidden away by the clouds, and does little to light the forest. "Only what she'll allow." Some animals prowl through the woods while others hide away for sleep, or survival, or both. The forest, so used to mankind greedily snatching away at its trees and treading along its paths, is undisturbed by the three people awaiting daylight in its shelter. "And what she won't allow?" One is a woman, sleeping by a doused fire. Her hair cascades like a black waterfall around her and her limbs splay out by her sides, fingers twining into the skirts of her dress. Her brow is creased and lips pressed in a firm line as, in her dreams, she balances on a knife's edge. The second is a man, standing tall and proud. His armour shines dully and his golden hair is matted down to his forehead with drying sweat. The third is another man, slouched almost protectively into himself. His clothes make him out to be a peasant, yet the look in his eyes claim to be from power and knowledge. Morgana, Arthur, Merlin. In the forest they are nothing but, none of societies' monarchs reaching them in the night. Arthur glances at Morgana warily, and sees a stranger. Merlin looks at her with something almost, but not quite, fond and sees her as someone like him. "What she won't allow is to be accepted. I'm sure I've done worse."
[Five]
They say it began in a single room. A Great Hall, vast and echoing in its emptiness. A woman, filled with righteous fury curdled, sitting on its cold floors. A man, innocence stripped, standing as still as a statue before her. There would have been a solution, but things unsaid, as every storyteller knows, will be the end of humanity. So she had sat, words catching in her throat. He had stood, guilt a heavy weight on his chest. Then, a teller would claim, he had turned to her. His expression would be one of a tragedy, both the ones written before his time and the ones long after. "Water?" He had asked, hand outstretched with a skin of water held in his fingers. His smile had been small and wavering as he offered it. The woman would gaze up at him and love him, in that very instant. And, in the hope of widening his smile, if only by an inch, she had accepted with a smile of her own. They say it began in a single room.