Hello everyone. Today's chapter has turned out to be rather huge. So, enjoy and please tell me what you think.


Chapter 28

Merlin

Merlin and Alina walked back to Gaius' chambers together to tell Morgana that her room was all checked and safe.

What do we do? Merlin asked.

He got a lot of confused feelings from her, but no straight answer.

'Alina?' he asked out loud.

The point is, Merlin, that I do not really know what to do anymore. We're at a crossroads here and I honestly do not know which path to choose. Or rather, I think I do know, but I'm not sure that I have the strength to do it. If I do, all of legend may change.

But that is what you are here for, Merlin pointed out.

I know, I know. But I thought that I would be able to change only minor details, not something that is so huge as this.

Morgana's magic is such a big issue to legend? He found he had a little difficulty believing that.

You have no idea, she muttered.

They arrived at Gaius' chambers, but were stopped from entering when they heard talking. Alina laid a finger against her lips, signalling him to remain silent.

'What I don't understand, Morgana, is how the fire started in the first place?' he could hear Gaius say.

'It all happened so quickly.' Morgana still sounded a bit shaken. 'It was terrifying!'

'It's all right,' Gaius said. 'You're safe now.'

Merlin peeked around the corner to see Morgana sit at his chair at the table, Gaius hovering over her like a worried mother trying to calm down her child after it had a nightmare. Morgana's shoulders were hunched. She looked like she wanted to close herself off from the world, lock herself away in a safe place, where nothing like this would ever happen to her again.

'You're the only person I've ever told about my dreams,' Morgana said in a soft voice. 'I know I can trust you, Gaius.'

'Yes, of course you can,' Gaius agreed.

'It was me,' the king's ward confessed. 'I set the room alight. I started the fire!' She sounded terrified. So scared, so vulnerable. Merlin wanted to run in and hold her, comfort her. Only Alina's hold on his arm prevented him from doing something rash.

What do you think you're doing? she mentally shouted at him.

I… I don't know.

She growled. Guess there was some truth in all that Mergana pairing, she muttered.

In what?

She coloured bright red. Ignore that, she ordered. Spending time with Arthur surely did not rub off well on her manners. You weren't supposed to hear.

'I don't understand,' Gaius said, but he sounded like he did understand. 'Did you knock a candle over?' Merlin suspected that his father figure had a fairly good idea of what had really happened, but for some reason he still wanted to keep it from Morgana. As if there was something he could keep from her. By the looks of it, she already knew what was going on.

Morgana shook her head fiercely. 'No, that's not what happened. I did it… just by looking at it and the flames suddenly leapt higher.'

'It could have been a gust of wind,' Gaius insisted.

Morgana was not going to let go of her theory, however. 'It wasn't. It was me. It was magic!'

Some part of Merlin could not help but rejoice at this. Without his permission a wide grin crept onto his face.

What are you doing? Alina asked suspiciously.

She's like us! he almost cried out loud. Don't you think that's a good thing? He had trouble understanding why Alina was not just as enthusiastic as he was.

Ask me again when all this is over and hopefully I'll be able to answer your question, she thought back at him. There was a nervous, scared edge to her voice.

Merlin could tell that she was keeping something from him. You can tell me, you know.

In this case, I am not sure I can.

'My child…,' Gaius started.

'I am not a child!' Morgana cut him off, angry.

'Last night was an accident. It had nothing to do with you. How could it have? You must trust me,' the old physician spoke sternly, cutting off any further protests from his favourite patient.

Alina chose that moment to knock on the door, a little harder than would have been necessary, to give them a fair warning, and then walked in.

'Morning, Gaius, Morgana,' she greeted. 'Gaius, Merlin said I could have breakfast with you?'

'Of course, Alina,' he replied. 'Come in.'

Merlin and Alina got themselves a chair.

'Are you okay, Morgana?' Alina asked friendly. 'You had quite the shock last night.'

Morgana nodded, still trembling a little. 'I'm fine.'

Alina smiled back at her. 'So glad to hear that. Your room is all cleaned up, checked and found safe. Someone will come tomorrow to repair the window.'

The king's ward stood up. 'I should be going back to dress.'

'Of course,' Alina replied. 'I'll see you later. I promised you to train with you, remember?'

Merlin could see that this was exactly the right way to help Morgana get over this. Most of the sadness left her eyes and this time she really smiled. 'I'd like that. In an hour?'

'That's fine. I'll come for you.'

'Thank you, Alina.'

Merlin gave his friend a slice of bread before addressing Gaius. 'I was helping clean up Morgana's chambers earlier,' he said, studying Gaius' face closely.

If he had hoped for a sign of that meaning something, he was disappointed. 'Hmm?'

'The window was blown out in the courtyard below,' he went on.

Still no more than a 'hmm.'

'That's odd, isn't it?' he pressed. He did not want to tell his mentor that Alina and he had overheard him talking to Morgana. It would be better if Gaius himself told them what he believed. 'If lightning had struck, like Arthur said, you would say that the glass would have fallen inside the window.'

Alina had this amused little smile on her face. This is not going to work, she told him, chewing a mouthful of bread. You'll have to go for the more direct approach.

'It was magic,' Merlin said when Gaius again did not reply. He pretended to stare very hard at the potion he was preparing. 'You know it was.'

That's a very direct approach, Alina commented.

You told me to…

'More importantly, so does she,' Merlin said to Gaius.

Finally some reaction. 'Morgana knows nothing for certain.'

'You're wrong, Gaius,' Alina spoke up. Merlin was extremely glad to have someone backing him up. 'She does know. This is another big event in the time where I come from. Ignoring this is not a good idea, believe me.'

'You should talk to her,' Merlin said. 'Tell her that her powers are not something to be afraid of.'

'I can't,' Gaius said, turning away.

Merlin felt very frustrated. 'Maybe I can talk to her,' Merlin suggested.

'No!' Gaius and Alina said in the same decisive voice at exactly the same time.

'Why not?' Merlin demanded. 'I understand what she is going through!'

'You can't reveal your secret, to anyone!' Gaius told him.

He knew that, but certainly it would not be necessary to keep his secret from someone who was like him? He hadn't kept it from Alina. Well, not that there was much secret to keep, since she already knew it before he even got the chance to tell her, but still… And Morgana did not deserve to go through this alone, with no one to talk to, no one to believe her. He so badly wanted to tell her that she was not alone, that she was special and that he would be overjoyed to have her join him and Alina. The three of them, helping each other and Arthur, like some kind of brotherhood, although two of the three members were actually women.

'I agree with Gaius on this one,' Alina spoke up. 'You can't tell Morgana.'

'You can't leave Morgana to face this on her own!' Merlin burst out. He could not believe how his friend could do that to anyone, let alone someone she considered a close friend.

He had a whole lot more to say to her, but she raised her hand. He fell silent. 'I wasn't saying that,' she replied calmly. 'Just because you can't tell her, doesn't mean that I can't.'

It took both Gaius and him a few seconds to process what she had said and then he started to smile widely at her. He should have known she would never have let her friends down. 'You would do that?'

She nodded. 'Of course I would.'

'Do you have a death wish, Alina?' Gaius burst out.

'I have not.'

'You can't do this!' his mentor protested. 'If Uther found out…'

'He hasn't found out till now,' she pointed out. 'It's unlikely he will ever see the truth. Besides, what would you have me do?'

'Leave this to me,' Gaius replied immediately.

She frowned. 'That's the worst idea I've heard in ages. Remember that I know about a lot of things that are about to happen. Ignoring her powers is no longer an option. In the legend Merlin decided to send her to the druids, which is the second worst idea I could possibly imagine.'

'Why?' Merlin asked. It sounded like a good plan.

'Try to imagine Uther's reaction at finding his ward missing, gone off to see a bunch of people Uther would execute as soon as he could get his hands on them?'

She had a point there, so he nodded.

'Well, I agree with you that Merlin should not tell anyone about his magic, not even Morgana, which leaves only me to talk to her. Trust me, we'll be in an awful mess if we don't deal with this correctly.'

'Legend says we'll be in an awful mess?' Merlin asked.

'Yes.'

'And you're going to change it?' He had to try hard to keep himself from smiling too widely. She was really going to do it!

'I thought that if that's what I'm going to do anyway, I might as well do it thoroughly,' she shrugged. 'And maybe, just maybe, it will create a better future for all of us.' How I wish… Merlin heard her think. The force of that thought made him realise how badly she wanted this to work out.

'You can do this,' he told her. If anyone can do it, it's you.

Let's hope you're right.

Alina

She must be out of her mind. What was she thinking anyway? Did she truly believe that just because she had so much knowledge that she could change something that was so important in the legend? How arrogant she was!

But this was also the only way that she knew had any chance of not ending up in Morgana's downfall and therefore alone she had to try. She wouldn't lose Morgana as a friend.

She knocked on Morgana's door.

'Come in,' she heard her friend reply.

Alina went in and closed the door behind her. Morgana was sitting on her bed, already dressed in her training outfit, but not preparing to come outside. Alina could see that she had been crying, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

'Oh, Morgana!' she sighed. 'You've been crying, haven't you?'

'I'm fine,' she said in a voice that belied her words.

'I don't believe that for a second,' Alina said, walking over to sit next to her. 'You should have talked to someone. It's not fair to let you go through this nightmare all by yourself.'

'It was an accident,' Morgana said half-heartedly.

Alina shook her head. 'You don't believe that.'

'What other explanation could there possibly be?'

'Would it help if I said Merlin and I overheard your conversation with Gaius?'

She looked at her, horror-struck. 'I didn't know what I was talking about!'

Morgana's first impulse was to deny it, as would have been her own. She understood perfectly. But the lie was too obvious to miss, even if she hadn't known anything about this.

'You did,' she disagreed. 'You know it was magic that happened last night. And before you start denying or shouting at me, I'm not going to report all this to Uther. Calm down, Morgana. It's okay to admit it. I know.'

'You know?' Morgana echoed.

She nodded. 'Last night, when I was trying to calm you, your eyes flashed gold and the jar on the table exploded,' she explained.

'And you didn't tell Uther?' the king's ward asked in a disbelieving voice.

'You're my friend, Morgana. Do you honestly believe that I would be capable of doing that to you?'

'When it comes to magic…,' Morgana started hesitantly.

'I approach the subject a little different from Uther,' she told her.

'Why?'

She took a deep breath. 'Well, how to explain this?' she wondered aloud. 'Let me see.' She glanced around Morgana's room and she saw that one of Morgana's dresses had fallen on the ground. So she held out her hand, muttered the spell and the dress started to float back to the chair on which it had lain.

Her concentration broke when Morgana cried out. The dress fell back to the floor.

'Darn!' she growled. 'Moving objects like this has never been my strong point,' she added apologetically.

Morgana looked at her with a combination of wonder, admiration and surprise. Thank the heavens that she was not scared.

'You are like me,' she managed to say.

Alina nodded. 'Hence my approach to magic differs from Uther's. I just wanted to let you know that I'm there for you whenever you need me.'

'You practise magic right under his nose!'

'That's the idea. Well, most of the time it's necessary to keep Arthur's butt out of trouble.'

She appeared to be thinking very hard. 'Cornelius Sigan…?'

'Was defeated by magic, yes,' she confirmed. 'As was some stupid questing beast and an evil witch who wanted to get Arthur killed some time ago.' She was not going to take the credit for doing all those amazing things, but at the same time she wanted to let Morgana know that there was a way to use magic to help Camelot.

'You don't think magic is evil, then?'

'If I believed that, what would I be thinking about myself then?' she asked, raising an eyebrow.

A shocked little laugh escaped Morgana as it hit her what all this meant. 'I'm not alone.'

'You're not,' she agreed. 'Merlin wanted me to let you know that he's there for you as well.'

'How are you so sure that he won't tell Uther?'

'He's been keeping my secret, too. In fact, he's been helping me with saving Arthur's royal backside more than once. Besides, he's your friend. He could never do that to someone he cares about.' Cares a bit too much about, perhaps.

Morgana broke into sobs suddenly, from relief, Alina guessed. So she just held her closely and let her cry. She clearly needed it, so she gave her time.

'You're really not going to betray me?'

'Of course not.'

'You're going to help me?'

'What do you think?'

Morgana finally smiled for real, a smile that reached her eyes. 'Well, I think we should get to training, then,' she said.

The two women smiled at each other and Alina felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had made another move to change the legend. The future looked very bright. Legend was truly going to change… for the better.


She went down to the dragon later that day. She was of the opinion that he should be informed of what she had done, even though he might not be too amused by it. He needed to know anyway. And besides, maybe in this twisted form of legend it wouldn't been Morgana's destiny at all to become an evil witch. But since she was not the expert on prophecies and destinies around here, she would need to go to the one who was.

The guards were all too easily distracted. All it took this time was some playing with the light of the torches. The guards seemed to think the place was haunted and did not know how fast they could get out of there. Alina smirked. Sometimes Camelot's guards were absolutely beyond stupid, far beyond.

'Hello?' she called out once she was in the dragon's den.

The dragon flew to his rock immediately. She started to get used to this, so now she wasn't startled anymore. It still wasn't a nice experience to be faced with a very large dragon all of a sudden, though. She had a feeling he enjoyed this a little too much.

'What is it you want from me this time, young sorceress?' he asked in a gentle voice.

'I'm here about the Lady Morgana,' she explained.

'The witch,' the dragon agreed.

'That's not really sounding nice, don't you think?' she asked. 'But it is true that I came here to inform you that her magic is finally developing.'

'It would be better if the witch never knew the full extent of her powers,' the enormous beast said immediately.

'Ugh, that is exactly what you said in the legend I know. Besides, I disagree.'

The dragon's head moved closer to hers. This made her feel slightly uncomfortable. Even though she knew he would not hurt her, she could not help but notice that his mouth alone was at least thrice her entire size, if not more. 'She cannot be trusted.'

'Why, because some prophecy says so?'

'The ancient prophecies speak of an alliance of Mordred and Morgana, united in evil.'

'Yes, I've heard that before,' she said impatiently. So far he had told her nothing new. She heard all this before, although not in the same episode, she had to give him that. 'And I'm not here to hear things I already know. I've come to hear if maybe in this strange form of legend Morgana is not destined for evil.'

'If you already know, young sorceress, than why have you come here?'

I believe I just said that. 'Is there a prophecy that says that Morgana is not destined for evil?' she repeated. 'Or if she is, that this destiny can be prevented from coming true.'

He moved a little closer still. 'Only if she dies, Alina.'

She backed away, disgusted. 'You are out of your mind!' she told him. 'Do you honestly think I'll even consider something that bad?'

'It is the only way.'

She shook her head fiercely. 'No, you're wrong. You're most definitely wrong there! I've told her about my magic and she took it really well. I've prevented her from turning bad!'

'NO!' the dragon bellowed. 'NO!' He reared up.

'And you can stop acting like that,' she snapped, her temper getting the better of her. 'It's not like it's the end of the world. Believe me, I know this legend by heart and this was the best solution to the problem of Morgana's magic.'

'You know nothing, young sorceress!' the beast hissed.

'No, you're wrong,' she said in a cold voice. 'You may hold the knowledge of the past and of the ancient prophecies, but I hold the knowledge of the future that will be if I do not prevent it from happening. And I will prevent it, make no mistake about that!'

The dragon looked at her with an expression that was almost shock. 'You would cast my advice aside, young sorceress?'

She nodded. 'Yes, I would. And I think you know why. You were the one who kept rambling on how I was supposed to change legend. It's hardly fair that you now blame me for doing exactly that.'

That took him by surprise. 'The ancient prophecies only state that you were meant to marry Arthur, young sorceress. Nothing else.'

She had a feeling she did not like this prophecies at all. Of one thing she was sure, she would not make the same mistake the dragon did: she would not become a prisoner of prophecy and destiny. She would make her own decisions.

'Then you had better look at them again,' she replied icily. 'For even if there is not a word about this in it, I'm going to do it anyway. You just watch me.'

Before he could react to that, she had turned her back on him and left the cave.


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