Chapter Nine
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Morgana's heart was still beating after ascending the stairs back to the West Wing where here chambers lay, her only companion her resounding footsteps in the torch-lit hallways. Her previous encounter with Merlin kept replaying in her mind. She could no longer lie to herself – though it wasn't as though her previous attempts at fooling herself had been all that successful, either. Presently, she allowed her feelings for the servant boy to wash over her, revitalizing her entire body and making her feel reborn – she felt better than she remembered feeling in a long time. With honesty came peace and relief.
The silly smile on her face only faded as she neared her chambers and a bad premonition suddenly, inexplicably washed over her. Someone was in her room, she knew, she felt it in her bones. Though whether the visitor was unwelcome or the encounter was going to be highly painful, she did not yet know. Her senses weren't that sharply tuned.
When she asked the guards stationed in front of her chambers, the two men simply shook their heads, insisting in utter unison that they hadn't seen a soul, then exchanging derisive glances when they thought she wasn't looking.
She then put her hand on the knob, and could suddenly discern – from what, she didn't know, she never did when these feelings washed over her – that it was the right step to take. But she never relied solely on emotions to make decisions. She had many a time had a bad premonition regarding certain issues, and more often than not, her seemingly illogical and paranoid feelings turned out to have been right. For safety's sake, she ordered the guards to shadow her.
What she found inside, however, was nothing like she had expected.
When she entered her chambers, an intruder there she did find: a tall, handsome intruder, with his back hunched – the symbol of defeat –, his face forlorn, twirling a lone, sad rose in his hands, careful to avoid the thorns. For a fleeting moment Morgana had the impression that she was the rose, but she quickly dismissed the thought, as the notion struck her silly.
The guards were just as surprised as her to find the sun of the mighty Uther waiting for his Queen with a token of truce. They were instantly reminded of the age-old adage that no matter how high a rank a man attains, his wife will always be your wife, and to reconcile one will always have to humble themselves. In that moment, they were reminded of themselves in their most vulnerable moments – when they knew they had done wrong and were bearing their weaknesses by coming to seek forgiveness. Somehow, they had thought that Kings were above such things given their station. But apparently relationships were much the same no matter the social milieu one came from.
Morgana dismissed them with a wave of the hand.
"My King," she said softly, full of reverence, as the guards shut the doors behind her, closing out the light of the torches penetrating the room from the hallway, and letting the rays of the moon illuminate her face.
Arthur finally lifted his head and his eyes met her own.
Morgana was clutching the fabric of cloth that covered her heart which had started to beat even more erratically than before, when she had left Merlin's chambers and was still consumed by thoughts of him. Suddenly, she could barely recall the servant boy, or if she had ever had any feelings for him.
She was moved despite everything, despite herself, despite all that she felt or thought she felt. She was moved especially by his humility, to have swallowed his pride to make right with his beloved. The rose, she thought, was also a nice gesture. How on earth, though, did he manage to acquire flowers at this time of night? Servants, she thought to herself ruefully, could apparently never catch a break.
For the briefest moment, Arthur's expression mirrored everything she felt, but the expression of joy and relief and love flitted through his face faster than the last breath of a candle died out.
"Morgana," he replied noncommittally, his voice hoarse and low, giving her a nod of acknowledgement. His blue eyes – normally so vivid and joyful – were devoid of any warmth.
Her heart skipped a beat. She didn't understand what was happening. But Arthur quickly got to the chase.
"Where were you?" he asked, his eyes sparkling with hurt. Morgana's chest constricted at the sight of him – she wished she could approach him, envelop him in her arms, and hug his head to her chest to make all his worst fears disappear. To let him hear her heart, beating for him, and just for him in that moment, so that he might believe his ears, even if he didn't trust to see clearly with his eyes anymore. "I've been waiting for you for half an hour." He said, his tone piercing, accusatory.
"I-I was down in Gaius's chambers," she stammered, looking like a deer in the headlights, completely taken aback by the question. Her eyes twinkled with fear. "I w-went to get sleeping draught,"
"So? Where is it?" Arthur asked, pinning the stem rose in his hand particularly hard, almost viciously, although still exercising great care to avoid the thorns. Morgana suddenly felt throttled at the same time as the rose was being man-handled. She knew where this was going, and she feared she might not have a way to prevent Arthur from arriving to the worst of conclusions.
"I – It took too long to make, so I eventually left," she replied.
Arthur nodded, but his face was pained and his eyes full of disbelief. She once again wished to simply go up to him and hug his head to her heart, so he could hear it beating for him, so he might believe his ears if not his eyes.
"Uh-huh," Arthur replied, his voice dripping with disbelief. What she hated most of all was the unmistakable hurt in his eyes. She had never wanted to make him feel that way!
"Arthur," she said softly, trying to take a step closer to him, to close the distance between them, but he straightened up and tensed so much Morgana stopped short. His apparent revulsion felt like a slap in the face. "Arthur, what are you thinking?" she asked, her chest constricting.
The accusations pained her more than a thousand arrows. It was all she could do to stop tears from forming in her eyes. She was afraid such a show of emotion would be tantamount to an admission of guilt in his eyes, temporarily clouded by jealousy and insecurity, two emotions which he had always felt in relation to her for as long as they had known each other. It seemed like they weren't going to go away anytime soon, and were currently poisoning their relationship in its purest of state – the beginning.
"Well, what the hell do you think I'm thinking?" he snapped angrily. Then he looked away, shaking his head, and his eyes glistened with something that looked like tears. They were both fighting the emotions they had grown up believing – due to their fathers' teachings – were wrong, and made them weak. "I have an argument with my wife, then after thinking it through I climb up to her chambers to surprise her with a rose as a token of reconciliation, only to find her gone! What did you need in the middle of the night!? What could you possibly need!?"
I have given you everything – the unsaid words lingered in the air, were apparent in his expression and in every movement he made. The unspoken accusation of her lack of gratitude poisoned the atmosphere of the room.
"Sleeping draught," Morgana replied, no longer able to contain her anger. "I told you!"
"Well, what for?"
"What do people usually need sleeping draught for, Arthur? I was having nightmares! Have been for quite some time now. Gaius and Merlin didn't have any on stock, though, and it took ages to make so I left! I'm sorry, Arthur, but we had a fight, I had another nightmare, and I just couldn't –"
"What's this story about nightmares, Morgana!?" Arthur demanded. "You never told me about any nightmares."
"I didn't want to burden you!" It was the truth, but Morgana was painfully aware of how much it sounded like a lie right now. Then she switched to an offensive stance, recognizing that kind words weren't going to get her anywhere this time; she had to stand up for herself. "Come on, Arthur," she said scornfully, snorting, "You can't possibly think I'd cheat on you with either Gaius or Merlin! One's an old man and the other's a bloody servant. Honestly, do you think I have no taste?" How silly that a lie sounded much more believable than the truth.
She could see Arthur was convinced that she would never stoop 'low' enough to entertain the thought of a servant as a romantic interest. However, Arthur stubbornly clung to the possibility of her infidelity.
"All I know," he said, standing up and throwing the rose on her bed, "is that you say went to the other end of the Castle for sleeping draught, came back with none, but were gone from bed when I got here and didn't return for a good half of an hour. For all I know, you could have been in bed with one of the knights. Or anyone, really."
"Honestly, Arthur, you're being overdramatic –" Morgana couldn't believe what she was hearing. A knight!? Yes, clearly, another noble was just what she needed after a string of failed romances with them, she thought with a mental eye roll.
"Don't tell me," he yelled, turning back to her, spit flowing from his mouth, eyes bloodshot with either anger or the effort not to cry, or both, "what to think! I'm tired of you and Father constantly telling me what to say and think and do. This is what I think. Don't like it, don't act like this again."
"Arthur," Morgana said, stepping closer to him, unafraid and angry, "Do you hear yourself? You're ridiculous."
As though convinced by her cool collectedness, Arthur began to doubt himself. He looked like a mess, his hair disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, his forehead glistening with beads of sweat.
"Stay with me, Arthur," Morgana said, naked in her vulnerability. "Please. I need you." Her eyes implored him to remain by her side. But he refused to believe a second of it.
"Like hell you do!" Arthur snapped. "I don't believe you."
"I can see that," Morgana replied, trying not to let anger get the better of her. She wanted to hurt him as much as he was hurting her, with his accusations and yelling, but knew she would only ever get anywhere if she got him to calm down. "What the hell have I done to deserve such mistrust?"
"You haven't done anything," he said, "And that's the problem. I still don't believe you love me. You probably still had a lover when you accepted my proposal." The accusation came so out of the blue that suddenly Morgana couldn't conceal her shock. Arthur snorted derisively, shaking his head as he looked away, the tears much more discernible in his eyes this time.
"Don't be ridiculous, Arthur!" Morgana snapped, losing all remnants of patience. "Ever since I have been your wife, all I've done was further your glory! I came up with the plan to announce your engagement after winning the melee, I planned the wedding, I –"
"I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP TO RULE!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, but it was difficult to tell whom he was trying to convince.
Appalled, Morgana took a step back. He sounded like a roaring lion. But lions were nothing without lionesses.
"Clearly, as you have so kindly pointed out to me yesterday," she said, her eyes narrowing to slits, her voice like venom, "neither your father nor I think so."
Arthur seemed like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. After spluttering for a moment or so, he said, in an attempt to return the emotional blow, "You know what, Agravaine was right about you. I didn't want to listen to him at first, because I loved you. But now I can clearly tell that you're not trustworthy!"
"I'm not trustworthy!?" Morgana interjected, appalled, but Arthur proceeded, ignoring her protests altogether.
"You only married me for my title, didn't you? You only married me for the possibility of reclaiming your own throne, or God knows why it is you do the things you did, but if there weren't something in it for you, you wouldn't –"
"I MARRIED YOU," she screamed, "BECAUSE YOUR FATHER BEGGED ME TO! Begged me, telling me you still had feelings for me, you still loved me, and because he thought you weren't a good fit for the throne! Admit it, Arthur – just look at the way you're acting now, so irrational, so emotional –"
"SHUT UP!" He screamed. He was besides himself with anger, though it seemed as though it was really anger towards himself; as though he were only projecting it onto her to feel better about himself. Morgana pitied and loved him and hated him at the same time. All she wanted to do, despite everything, was go up to him and make all his fears disappear. Take away the pain and make him whole again. To let him know, let him feel, just how much she loved him, without pride or self-interest.
His heart of gold, for which she had thought him a fool in their youth, was what had in their adulthood won her over. She was no longer solely interested in glory and material possessions – for in time, she had realized the greatest fortune of all was to love and be loved in return. Without complexities or pride. And Arthur, despite the act he put on to guard his fragile heart, was perhaps the most honest person Morgana had ever met.
After all she had been through, after all the rotten but successful men she had met, this quality was the only one which could ever win her over again.
"I'm not going to listen to you again," he said, but he still stood there, waiting to hear her response.
"Who's poisoning your mind, Arthur? Who the hell is telling you these things?"
"Is it really that hard to believe that I have thoughts independent of what others tell me? All Agravaine – who I know you're blaming for all this now – is strengthen me in my preexisting revolves. I had doubts about you, about my father, and your bonne foie when guiding me through my kingship. You don't want to help me rule, you want to rule through me! Both of you!"
"Cause kings rule with their minds, not their swords, or their hearts," Morgana snapped. The insinuation was clear: Arthur only ruled with the former two. "If life were only so simple as that good people lived good lives and became successful. The world doesn't work that way! You should know that by now. Because if the world worked that, my father wouldn't have reigned for as long and as successfully as he did. And neither would have your father,"
"Are we insulting each other's parents now? The way your father treated you – your entire family – especially your mother – it's an insult to insinuate he was in any way like my father. He turned on his own family, for God's sake!"
Morgana took a deep breath. "I said neither were as pure of heart as you. And that is why they stayed kings. That's it. I didn't say they were the same or what my father did was – you know what, never mind. I'm done. I'm done trying to reason with you. If you still have doubts about my intentions towards you," Arthur nodded, both to confirm what she was saying and to prompt her to proceed – it felt like a stab in the back, "then you're the greatest fool I have ever met. And I'm an even greater fool than you are, for thinking that our relationship could be different this time. That you wouldn't be jealous of me and always trying to second-guess my intentions because you can't take it that somebody's better than you!" She was crying now, and so was he, realizing what he had done, what they had both done, what they had always done to each other. Their love, she thought, was a carnival of sins: of pride, of lust, of envy, of wrath, with little else in between. The moments of peace and happiness were wonderful, perhaps better than anything she had ever experienced. But were they worth so much pain? To alternate between heaven and hell constantly, was it a livable fate? Or was a life of constant, ordinary love better than this whirlwind of emotions? She knew the answer. It was obvious.
And she was married to the wrong man. So why couldn't she let him go?
She saw it in his eyes that he loved her. So ferociously, so passionately, so fiercely. But were his feelings of inadequacy more powerful than his love?
Would her thirst for vengeance overturn her fidelity towards him? After all, was a man who treated her like this deserving of her commitment and devotion to him? She still couldn't believe that this was the gratitude she received for her devotion to his kingship.
And no, she didn't think he was fit to be king. But all she had ever wanted was to help him maintain his power and further his glory, as opposed to Agravaine whose motives she wasn't so certain were pure. She had never wanted his kingdom. She had only ever wanted hers. But she was sure, even if she didn't have tangible proof that he would believe, that his uncle Agravaine was after the only thing he ever truly held dear.
How similar they were, caring about one thing only: their thrones and their countries.
They both needed someone else to love, she thought, her mind clouded by rage and bitterness and scorn. But they were already married to each other.
"I love you," Arthur said.
She knew. She loved him too.
"But that's not enough," she said. "It never was."
Compatibility and love, sadly, didn't always come hand in hand.
And because he realized he was on the verge of pushing her away for good, he apologized again. Somewhere deep down he must have known that without her she was doomed. Or perhaps he just couldn't bear the thought of having to live without her. Either way, he begged for forgiveness – all the while reminding her of her own role in their untimely demise.
When he leaned into kiss him, she kissed him back with twice the fervor. And when he put her hands on him, and searched her eyes for reciprocity of his love, for any sign of will or want concerning their union, she nodded impatiently, wanting to feel his skin on hers, to experience the raw passion of their attraction, the sensual pleasure of their love.
She wanted him, she longed for him, as he did for her, and even though they were poison for each other, their love for each other overruled their rational senses. And while he undoubtedly he thought this was love – she saw it in the way he looked at her, how he kept searching for love in her eyes only to find a veil that hid all she truly felt – but she had known many a men and knew what real love was like. Due to his lack of experience, he still thought that what they had was the be-all-end-all of romantic relationships.
And she had been the greatest fool to think they could possibly have changed enough to be compatible. But she loved him, she loved him, she loved him, and when he lay his head on her chest, and she caressed his head, she knew she could never leave him, because he needed her, and she did not have the heart to destroy the add to his sufferings, and she didn't want to hurt him further because she loved him irrevocably. She knew her betrayal would be the final drop in the proverbial cup, the last straw, the thing that finally broke him. She didn't want to do that to any man. Especially not one that loved her so, with a heart as pure as it was complex.
He fell asleep to her caressing his head.
She couldn't help but wonder – what was all his love and goodness worth without strength and self-confidence?
On the contrary, was success worth anything without love?
She had only questions, and no answers. She listened in utter silence, clearing her mind of all clutter, of all memories and desperate thoughts, waiting with bated breath for an answer from the God above.
But as always, the only response was utter silence.
She let her love be the light guiding her way.
She fell asleep hugging him, not wanting to let go.
A/N: Well, Morgana's torn. And while Arthur is being a huge manchild it's because he's always felt inferior to her, even though before her arrival he had thought himself to be the next best thing since sliced bread. He also really loves her, he just has difficulties showing his emotions but he tries. Thoughts?
