Beep Beep Beep...Morgana rolled over to her other side, blindly reaching for the alarm clock she knew had to be on the sideboard somewhere, she just needed five more minutes, she hadn't slept properly since...
...OH. The funeral. It was finally here. She'd forgotten all about it. Or at least, she'd tried her hardest to. She pushed off the thick duvet that covered her thinning figure and struggled into a seated position. It was 8'o'clock, and the funeral was at 11, and she had so much to do between now and then. She had to get herself ready, physically and mentally, to say goodbye. And she had to get Mordred ready too.
Mordred, her nephew, was in one of the many guest rooms in her luxury apartment by the river Thames- she had placed him in the room nearest to hers, with the knowledge that this little boy who had been through so much might need her support in the days ahead, reminding him that her door was always open if he needed her. But the door had remained shut.
When someone has been put through hell, you expect them to change, but for her nephew the hell he experienced was considerably worse than what others might think of as their worst nightmares. This 8 year old child had been the one who found his mother, Morgause, when she, fed up with her depression and scared that this meant she couldn't look after her son properly, had electrocuted herself in the bath. Since then, this once bright, happy little boy had turned into a sombre, silent child, who seemed to trust nothing and nobody anymore, apart from the now strained bond he had with his new guardian. Morgana had been named in the will as his guardian, and despite her father Uthers insistence that he should be put in care because of his new, unsociable state, and the fact that in the first week she had looked after him, had seemed to turn into a zombie-like character that broke the hearts of everyone around him, she decided that she would do whatever it takes to hear him speak once more, to see him smile again. And, despite being incredibly wealthy, she knew it would take nothing short of a miracle to help mend his seemingly fragile heart.
But she knew that now was not the time to be thinking, she should be preparing. So she walked, almost in a trance, to the shower, where she begin methodically washing, scrubbing her stick like arms under the lukewarm water, her body not registering temperature, or much else, any more. She looked at her limbs, now so much bonier than they used to be, and knew that it wasn't like she didn't want to eat; she just didn't have to time any more, not with a child to look after. After showering, she sat down at the dressing table by the French windows that lead to the balcony before she brushed her ebony hair and carefully made up her face, careful to cover the bags under her eyes to make sure that she wasn't the one worried about today- today was supposed to be focused on her sister, and Mordred, and she wanted to keep it that way.
Quietly, she crept into her nephew's room, expecting him to be asleep, but instead found him sitting on the edge of his bed, which he had straightened to look like it had never been slept in, already wearing his black shirt and trousers. His usually unruly black mop of hair had been brushed to try and make it seem more presentable, and he was sitting with his coat and shoes ready to put on.
Morgana sighed; Mordred had had to grow up so quickly. It just wasn't right for a young boy at his age to be left so alone- alright, she had lost her mother at a similar age, yet she still had her father and Arthur, her half brother, to help her through it, but for Mordred, having lived with his mother quite far away, family connections were loose, and as for the boy's father, she had no idea who the hell he was, all of this meaning he didn't really have anyone, not any more. But that didn't matter to her, he was her nephew and she would help him, just as much as he would be helping her. She closed her eyes and exhaled a breath, before collecting herself and calling to Morgause's son- "Mordred, are you ready. It's time to go."