Home, a merlin fanfic

This was almost exclusively written while I toed the line between awake and asleep, so that might provide some context as to why it turned out as it did.

Also, it started out differently and then sort of wandered aimlessly through metaphors and similes until it had picked up enough to call itself a story. I still don't know what it is or what I was trying to accomplish (if anything), but here it is regardless.

Morgana wakes to a knowledge that she's done this before: she's lived and loved, and just as surely as she will again, she has died. It's not a sensation she can place, not one she can name. She'd be hard-pressed to even say why she knows what she knows. It is just a truth that fills her up. The sudden epiphany settles at the base of her spine, a weight like stones, like lead. But it doesn't weigh her down.

Instead, it's as though clarity has finally found her. She knows her purpose like she knows her name. As though there's never been any doubt. It makes her want to cry; this is the first moment of many where she cannot deny that she is destined for greater things. She has the power to do whatever she chooses with her life; she always has, just never knew it before. Not like she does now.

(This is one of the lives where she fights, with her entire being, to exist with no limitations. She'll manage it, only barely, but she'll have done it on her own. There is no power sweeter than one she brought about by herself. No knowledge greater than that which she has learned on her own.)

The first life is fraught with sorrow, and maybe that's why she never truly remembers it. Maybe it's the reason that the further away she gets, the less she understands about her purpose; the more she belongs to herself. Destiny used to be such a magnificent thing, looming over every action; the cause behind every effect. Maybe its finally let her go.

What's more likely, however, is that nothing is constant. Everything changes, given time, even destinies as great and unflinching as hers. So maybe that's it: maybe her purpose has evolved into something else entirely, and instead of being doomed to repeat herself over and over, she's finally being given a chance to branch out, break free.

During lives where Morgana believes in fate, where she learns everything something like destiny can mean, she'd say it comes down to what you do. Destiny isn't carved in stone, and you have the power to fight back.

Inevitability sounds like a trite concept and she scoffs at it, because no matter how true it may be, who needs a life that's supposedly governed by the stars when you can draw your own constellations? Using metaphors like embellishments, like she shouldn't but likely always will, she says the same things she always does.

And, instead of Morgana changing to fit destiny's whims, destiny bends to meet Morgana halfway.

She plays around with her purpose, like a cat plays with string: idly, when no one is watching, but when prompted she goes wild. Some lives she spends travelling, never stopping, meeting so many people but knowing so few. In these lives, she lives for herself and no one else, and she's free.

There are nights where she's lonely, where the silence is too pronounced and she'll think, is this what I want, truly? Nights where the darkness is too dark, where the spaces around her seem to stretch out indefinitely and all she can do is curl up and dream.

But then there are nights when the jungle rain is a soothing balm, pattering over dry earth and lost resolutions, and everything feels right. No chains, no expectations, no lies. Just her, and nature. It feels as though it should, like this is what she was meant for. It feels an awful lot like home.

When she has Gwen, well, those lives are dangerous. Those are the lives that test her mettle, like a game of tug-of-war between her and the world, winner takes all. They are the lives where happiness dances through her fingertips until she's desperate for it, desperate for the taste of air in her lungs; like she's been drowning in her despair.

Gwen is like sunshine after rain, grass after winter, rain after drought. She soothes, takes everything wrong that Morgana feels, and rights it. Morgana would chase her to the ends of the Earth, would do impossible things to see her smile.

Together, they are cataclysmic; they are a force unlike any other. Prophecies speak of how they will stop time, how they will tilt the world upon its access. Tales are woven in the dark corners of the Earth, telling of a queen and the woman at her side, of their strength of will; iron and stone and everything that never gives, never breaks. Things that take years to crumble.

It never matters which side they are on, whether they would see the world flourish or burn. What matters is that their destiny is a raw force, something they twist and mold yet cannot escape. They play with it like fire, hot metal at a forge that is malleable, ready to change; there is unlimited potential at their fingertips. They will raze the Earth, bring humanity to its knees; they will save the world, make life mean something again.

When Morgana has Gwen at her side, what destiny wants falls away. They have the power to move clouds into whichever shapes they wish, part seas and level mountains if they felt so inclined. Destiny is something they cannot avoid completely, since during these lives it is their destiny to find in each other everything they do. But whatever sway destiny holds over them doesn't matter.

What matters is the feel of Gwen's hand in hers, the feel of her lips against Morgana's skin. What matters is the memory of never needing again, of being full up with elation and ready to take on anything.

What matters is that the half which makes her whole is Gwen, and Gwen isn't going anywhere.

Except for those lives when she does, but those are dark and dreary and filled with so much pain that destiny tries to correct for it, to fix the cosmic unbalance that settles into place when Morgana screams.

Merlin is the one who makes her remember, makes her yearn for a way to fix the past. To change that which has already been written. To erase what is permanent and cannot be undone.

The memories come unbidden, flowing between them as quick and unstoppable as water after a dam burst. They touch and something sparks, like an electrical current that flips long forgotten switches; dark memories are suddenly cast into the light, and Morgana sees battlefields and death, can remember betrayal so deep it became her blood. The sudden rush makes her dizzy, makes her want to cry because there's so much confusion, and pain, and hatred; there's this wrongness that she can't right because it's ancient, because it's too late to matter anymore, and-

She can't take it.

Merlin always picks up her pieces, like he dropped her and she shattered all around him. He systematically puts her back together, gluing the shards in place with truths and apologies and long forgotten oaths. He swears to her that destiny isn't law, that fate is not the be-all end-all of the universe. Promises leave his lips and press into her skin, keeping her together. Sorrow drowns his eyes in tears he doesn't shed, and he kisses the grief off her face, brushes the years from her hair with gentle fingers.

When she's stopped trembling, when she's no longer on the verge of shaking loose, he'll bundle her into his arms and they'll sit. They'll just sit and exist and remember, and he'll remind her that they all have things to apologize for. She'll smile against his throat, thread her fingers through his, and sleep.

He is the best friend she will ever have.

(Together, they remember eternities. They remember rights and wrongs and how even in the darkest hour, there is always a sliver of light. They become aware of the purpose that clings to them like skin, the destiny that follows them like a shadow. They touch hands and feet and remember to forget, because everything and all the universe is too much in one head; too much even shared between two.)

Arthur.

Arthur is the dark inside Morgana's soul; the light within her heart. He is the calm before a storm, the eye of a hurricane, the aftermath of destruction. There is no life Morgana lives where she does not meet Arthur. There is no tale to be told where they are not connected.

Sometimes, he is her neighbor: either they rarely speak and pass by each other in acquaintanceship, or they talk so much they qualify as friends. Sometimes he's just her friend, and they share shots of rum and inside jokes, and shoot conspiratorial glances across whatever room they're in.

There are times where he is her coworker, or her competition; her subordinate or her boss.

Sometimes he's her best friend; her best friend's boyfriend; her girlfriend's ex.

Sometimes, he's the man Merlin leaves her for.

And sometimes, when destiny decides that they've waited long enough, Arthur is her brother. They stay up late and tell stories, shout at each other from different rooms; they fight about everything, and nothing, and anything in between. They grow apart, and reconnect, and they hate and love with everything they have.

They are given the opportunity to redo what circumstance ruined, what too many lies and not enough chances saw fit to destroy before it was able to grow. It doesn't always work out—sometimes life gets in the way—but it's never as bad as the first life.

(Then again, nothing much is ever as bad as the first.)

They tend to be a paradox: Morgana shows her brother the world, or she does her damnedest to keep him away from it. Arthur pretends he doesn't care, or he tries to pretend that he does. There is honesty, and lies, laughter and tears. Somehow, it works. It feels like home.

Maybe because it is.

Sometimes, Morgana kisses Merlin like she's suffocating, like he's the only source of water left and she's parched. Merlin kisses back like he's falling apart and she's the net between him and a bottomless chasm. They cling and touch and burn up the futures between them, two souls battling for control.

They torch atmospheres, dry up lakes and streams and spread rain over deserts where there is none, where the thirst is so deep nothing could quench it for long.

There is a love between them that speaks in whispers like wind, like the rustling of leaves and of babbling brooks. Magic flows from their fingers, embeds itself into the soil and the trees; life that flourishes with every breath and every whisper. They are the old souls of nature; the sun and the moon, winter and summer, spring and fall. They are the cycle of life and death, of birth and decay.

But, they are not enough. There must be balance in all things, and while they are destined to love with their whole being, they are not destined to love each other in any way but how they love themselves.

Balance must be kept, and they are too much magic. Alone and together, they are only half. They are meant to find that which rights the scale, tips the world back into balance. And they will. They always will.

These are the lives where everything falls into place; where every wrong that ever was simply ceases to be. Morgana and Merlin, and eventually Gwen and Arthur, forge a bond that is as inescapable as the tides. They are night and dawn, dusk and day.

They are alkaline and acid. They are wind and rain, fire and soil. North, south; east, west.

They are the past and the present, are unlimited futures and unimaginable potential. They are the stars in alignment; the taste of the word destiny on the tip of a tongue.

They are hope.

Home, Morgana finds, is an abstract concept. Home is a state of mind, she'll say, because being at home is not dependent on where you are or who you are with; not always. It's different for everyone. It's different in every life she lives.

Home isn't a cliche, isn't where the heart is. Home is what is made of it, where it's felt as acutely as the temperature outside, as the sun baked streets and shaded alleyways.

Home is home, and it's simple as that.

There are lifetimes where Morgana denies it all, casts things like destiny and soul mates and true callings aside, and she soars. There are no consequences, no karmic repercussions for anything she does. Free, unfettered, unadulterated. Happy. She answers to no one, meets no expectations, lives entirely and unashamedly for herself.

She meets Merlin and makes him dance in the darkness with her, makes him shut out the voices of history that remind him of what's at stake. They laugh and fall into pure joy, floating with the weight of nothing around their ankles. He is her right wing, her left arm, her everything that means anything; she is his heart and his gut, his anything that means everything. Together, they ignore destiny and the thousand futures that lay glittering ahead; the hundreds of lives that topple like dominoes behind them.

It is their reprieve, their quiet break from the weight of countless worlds upon their shoulders. In these lives they do as they do and influence nothing, for there is nothing to influence. They exist, and that is that.

They never remember these lives, but that never matters.

Destiny is solid, but Morgana passes through it as though it were fog. She cannot see her destination, but that's not enough to stop her. She will pick a path and follow it, no matter the twists and turns along the way. Figuring it out is half the journey, anyways.

Her lives are different, even those that repeat themselves. They are as snowflakes, no two exactly alike. She dreams of lives like the one she's living, memories that she can't remember. That she won't remember, because it is not her time. When she wakes, the images flittering through her mind will slowly vanish, just as they will vanish completely as time wears on.

Fate walks hand in hand with time; without the passing of minutes, years, centuries, there is nothing. There is a stagnant moment that neither bends nor breaks; it just is, and it is unchanging. The laws of nature dictate that everything must change; even steel weathers over time. Nothing is permanent, not even destiny.

Nothing will last forever. Not even Morgana.

When Morgana wakes to dawns that stain the sky pink, to mornings where the air is full of promise, she knows. This life will be worth remembering.

There is not a life that passes where this knowledge does not find its home in Morgana's heart.

There is not a life she lives that is not important.

Morgana has a notion that holds to her like smoke, like the haze of darkness encroaching upon her door. It follows her from life to life, something she never forgets but never quite remembers. It is the idea that the universe is one big game of chess, with pawns and rooks; kings, queens, knights and strategies. Where every piece matters no matter how small the role, because there is a greater point to it all.

What she can never determine, though, is whether she is the piece, or the player.

She supposes it doesn't truly matter.

(Some mysteries are worth keeping, after all.)