Author's Note: This is a gender!swap AU, so Artio is in fact female!Arthur and Morcant is male!Morgana. Enjoy. :)

xxx

For the first ten years of her life, Artio didn't think it mattered much that she was a girl and not the boy heir Camelot required. Her father – when he deigned to pay her any attention at all – treated her just like a son, making sure that she was trained in the arts of war and chivalry. And Artio loved every aspect of her life. She loved trudging out into the courtyard in the early hours of the morning in her battered training clothes with her practice sword in hand. She loved the tired ache it left in her muscles, and the way the knights always treated her with affection, ruffling her hair and calling her their "little lass".

It didn't matter to her that the other girls at court called her ugly and mannish and unfeminine. In fact she took all their slander as a compliment. Who'd want to be a boring, silly girl after all? Her greatest dream was to one day become a knight just like the ones she'd seen all her childhood. She wanted to wear armour and be loved and respected. She wanted to protect the land she loved. It didn't matter to her if no man would want to marry her someday, because she'd be able to take care of herself. Whenever she mentioned her ambitions the knights would go very quiet and sad-eyed, but that did not perturb her. If they thought her to weak – if they thought she couldn't do it – she'd prove them wrong. Every day Artio worked harder and harder. She collected cuts and bruises like souvenirs, and visited the physician so often that his workroom began to feel like a second home.

Then everything changed.

Morcant arrived in Camelot.

Morcant was older than Artio. Even then he was beautiful, all ivory skin and curling jet hair and those eyes: grey-green and so cool, it was as if they could see right through you. Artio was fascinated by him, but she did not like him very much. He was too withdrawn, and he was not at all impressed by Artio's offer of a sparring match. And her father liked him too much. It began to seem as if he preferred Morcant's company to Artio's, always listening intently to anything Morcant said while ignoring every word Artio uttered.

She did not like it. She did not like it at all.

And then it came to pass, like some horrible nightmare: Uther's order that her sparring sessions were to be replaced by lessons in comportment. That she was going to learn how to be a lady. The knights avoided her. Even her maids refused to meet her eyes. And for a long time she lay in bed and wept and hated, hated, hated. And then there was nothing but the hate.

She skipped her lessons one morning and went to find Morcant. He was in the practice yard with the knights, sparring. Like she should have been. Like she would have been if he hadn't turned up at court and ruined everything. Morcant didn't even notice her until she was almost upon him, her ungainly skirts catching beneath his foot as she swung her weight against his.

"This is all your fault!" Artio raged, swinging her fist blindly. Morcant dodged with ease, staring at her with unsurprised eyes. "You convinced my father to do this to me. You made him treat me like this!"

When the knights finally moved to intervene Morcant shouted, "STOP!" and damn them, they obeyed. He gripped her wrist, and then the other. He pulled her close. So close that she could see the individual lashes around his eyes, the veins in the whites. "I didn't ask to come here," he whispered, his voice low and intense. "I didn't ask for my father to die. Don't blame, Artio. It isn't my fault you're a girl."

"I'm not a girl!" she shrieked, thinking I'm not like those other girls, I'm not some silly creature made for marrying off to some boring man, I'm not I'm not I'm not.

"Have you looked in the mirror lately?" snapped Morcant, throwing her away from him "Artio, you are a girl. Uther was going to come to his senses eventually and end all – this." He gestured at her torn dress with an expression of disgust. "I'm glad he has," he announced, his face white with annoyance. "I'm glad he's making you grow up."

Artio stared at him. He was only two years older than her, but it felt like a century. She tried to imagine a future where she could never hold a sword; where she had to sit and chatter and primp herself like all the other girls at court. The thought made her feel sick. She couldn't even bring herself to try to hit him again.

"I hate you," whispered Artio.

"Oh, you're so grown up," said Morcant, rolling his eyes – and if there was a flash of hurt in his face then Artio didn't care, she didn't care. She turned on her heel and stormed out of the courtyard, hot tears pricking at her eyes.

She didn't really hate Morcant. But oh, it was so unfair! She was a better fighter than him. She was strong and she was brave, and becoming a knight was all she lived for. I should have been born a boy, thought Artio. I should have.

But she hadn't been. Later when her rage had worn itself out, when her young limbs were achy with sadness and hurt she began to realise that her father had only treated her like a boy for so long because he had had no son and heir to hold on to, and Artio had been all he had. But now there was Morcant, who was a skilled sword-fighter and of noble blood and above all male. It would be so simple to make him the next heir. It would be so simple to marry Artio off to him like no more than some kind of object, and who cared that they hated each other?

It was Gaius who comforted her, in the end; Gaius who stroked her hair as a father would as she lay in bed and stared at the wall thinking of all the dreams she would never fulfil. "There are many ways to be brave," he told her gently. "Camelot will require you to have courage."

"I don't want to be a princess," she told him in a small voice. "Why do I have to serve Camelot like this?"

"Destiny, I suppose," he said, sounding tired and maybe a little bitter. Artio could not tell. "I know you will do your duty, my lady."

And in the years that followed, she did. She paid attention to her lessons in comportment, doing as she was told with grace and obedience. She learnt how to speak with a soft voice, and to walk with a womanly gait, and to smile and laugh whenever it was expected. She learnt not to look ungainly in dresses, and how not to grow angry at the way the court fawned over Morcant or her father's eyes passed over her, unseeing. She learnt and learnt and learnt, and tried not to notice her hands growing soft or her hair growing long, or how she had become so much like the girls she had once despised.

It wasn't so bad, really. She liked the dresses well enough. And there was some power in the way she could make men's eyes follow her across the room, and the way other women scrambled to get her favour and attention. There was no Queen in Camelot, but Artio would be, one day. She revelled in that knowledge.

On her sixteenth birthday, her betrothal to Morcant was announced. Her father had been kind enough to ask her if she would consent to it, and of course she had said yes. No other answer was expected from her. There was a party in celebration, and all through it Artio danced and flirted and gossiped with her fellow unmarried women of the court, careful to ignore Morcant's gaze upon her.

He came to her room later, when she was alone. She rolled her eyes when she saw him at the doorway, and leaned back against the wall to stop him gaining entrance, crossing her arms in a typical motion of youthful arrogance. "Oh it's you," she said. "Welcome, my betrothed! What brings you here tonight? I'm sorry I can't let you in – decorum, you know."

For a moment he was silent. He looked at her for so long that she began to feel uncomfortable, her hands tightening into loose fists.

"We won't marry if you don't want to, Artio," Morcant said, a curiously fierce expression on his face. "I promise you. I know we don't…" He stopped. Swallowed hard. "If this isn't what you want, I won't make you. Not even for Camelot."

She hadn't expected that kindness, useless as it was. Artio would do her duty. For Camelot, she would do anything. So she laughed, trying to hide her surprise and her sadness, and straightened up, flicking back her hair. "Don't be silly Morcant," she said, voice carefully modulated to sound light, careless. "I'm going to love being queen. Aren't you going to love being king?"

"Artio," he said sharply. "Be serious, just this once."

"I am," she said. "I'm going to get the most darling dresses. Father has already said I can plan the wedding however I like too. Does a spring ceremony sound good to you?"

He was looking at her as if she'd grown a second head. She supposed he still saw her as the little girl who played with swords and dirtied her clothes; not this pretty, arrogant, frivolous creature she'd become. That she'd learnt to be.

"You can't possibly be this shallow," he said, and Artio heard his disgust with relief. She turned and opened the door, stepping back inside her room. Morcant was insufferable, so intent on being serious and handsome and proper, but he had a good heart. Maybe too good a one. But she couldn't bring herself to care right then.

"Morcant," she said. "I'm a princess. What do you expect?"

Then she slammed the door shut.