Gwaine knocked on Morgana's motel room at exactly midnight. He was punctual; she'd give him that. She'd spent all afternoon trying to decide whether she should tell him about Morgause but then decided against it; she figured he'd just think she'd been in on it from the very beginning. Her first instinct had been to call Merlin. But he wouldn't believe her. So, she'd forbidden herself from reaching for her phone. She'd practically been sitting on her hands while she'd waited for Gwaine to show up. She pulled the door open he nodded at her, "Let's go, Princess."
She followed him to the parking lot where he stopped in front of a car. It was a pretty nice car but cars didn't really impress her that much. He caught her looking at it and smirked, "Nice, huh?"
She shrugged, "It's a car."
"This," he said over the roof of the car, "Is not just a car, this is a thing of ornate beauty."
She rolled her eyes and got into the car, settling into the leather seats, at least they were comfortable, "We could have just walked."
"You want to go to the middle of nowhere to find a dragon, fine. But we're driving."
He turned on the engine and the stereo came on blasting a Bruce Springsteen song. Oh dear god. She was really wishing for a nice midnight stroll. He put the car into gear and took off so fast she had to put her hand out to grasp the dashboard. This was it; this was how he was going to get his revenge. Death by car. She glared at him and he smirked as changed gears, "Relax. I won't crash and if I do you'll be fine, you're immortal, right?"
She just continued to glare at him. "I tried calling Merlin to ask him how to summon Kilgharrah." She didn't know why she was telling him that but it was better than blurting out the information about Morgause.
"How did that go?"
"About how you'd expect, he told me to go to hell."
He chuckled, "Good for him."
They stayed in silence for the rest of the trip and she stared out the window. He came to an abrupt stop in the middle of nowhere, fields everywhere; she braced herself on the dashboard and door handle so she wouldn't go flying. She opened the door and hurried out of the car, she wasn't so sure she wanted to get back into that thing. Gwaine rested his arms on the car roof and raised his brows at her, "Middle of nowhere. Now what?"
She shrugged, "Now, we try to get that damn dragon to come."
She walked to a small fence separating a field from the road, climbed over it and walked into the sprawling landscape. She heard Gwaine's footsteps behind her and vaguely remembered something someone told her about never turning your back on your enemy. She shook the thought off and come to a stop in the middle of the field. She sucked all the air into her lungs that she could and then released them in an air-piercing scream as she screamed Kilgharrah's name. She saw Gwaine covering his ears with his hands out of the corner of her eye. She stopped screaming and stared up at the sky.
"That's your grand plan? Just scream up at the sky?"
"Yeah. Have you got a better one?"
"Not really. Go on, then, scream away."
She screamed again. And again. And again. She added a few curses into the mix along with Kilgharrah's name. Then, just when she was going to give up she decided to scream Merlin's name and see if that had any effect.
The last syllable of Merlin's name had just left her lips when she heard the telltale signs of a dragon's wings flapping and getting closer. Both her and Gwaine took a step back as an angry Kilgharrah landed before them. He glared at Morgana – or as much as a dragon could glare – "Witch! How dare you summon me!"
"We need to talk." She stated trying to hide the fear she felt at being before him without Merlin to order him into complacency.
"You and I have nothing to talk about," he made a move as if to fly off again but she stepped forward.
"You owe me! You made Merlin believe I betrayed him. I haven't"
Kilgharrah settled back on his haunches and laughed, "You haven't yet but you will. And at the same time you already have and don't even know it."
She felt Gwaine watching intently, felt him inch closer, "Stop talking in riddles!"
"Once again you are a vessel. The one you call your sister is not immortal and yet she is. She is powerful but she does not contain the power the maintain spell like this one."
Morgana knew it was Morgause but Kilgharrah was still talking in cryptic circles. "What do you mean? Talk plainly. Spell it out for us." Gwaine spoke up when he saw Morgana was still trying to process what he was talking about.
Kilgharrah turned his gaze onto Gwaine, "Knight! You've aligned yourself with the witch, that will not end well for you."
"Let me worry about myself. Explain."
"The Lady Morgana is being used as a vessel for the spell. Or rather Morgause is using their familial bond to access Morgana's power and use it herself."
Morgana took a step back. It wasn't true. But it made so much sense. Feeling unsteady she sat down on the cold, wet grass. Gwaine looked down at her then back at Kilgharrah as Kilgharrah continued to speak.
"This is not the first time this has happened. Merlin had to poison the witch to stop Camelot from falling."
Merlin poisoning her, it was because of Morgause, it was because she'd used her. She shook her head. It couldn't be.
"You said Morgause isn't immortal yet she is, what does that mean?" Gwaine demanded. Morgana was suddenly grateful he was there, she seemed to be losing focus, and losing ability to function as all this new information changed the things she'd always believed to be true.
"As she accesses Morgana's power, she also accesses her immortality and takes it on herself as Morgana's immortality is linked to her magic, as is Merlin's."
Merlin. That brought her back to herself for a moment and she looked up at Kilgharrah, "How do we stop it?"
"The vessel has to die."
"Me."
"Yes, witch, you. If you die, the spell will be broken, Arthur will finally rise and Morgause will die as she was never meant to live this long, she should have died long ago."
"But I'm immortal."
"That," Kilgharrah said as he started to prepare to fly away, "is a problem you will have to figure out for yourself."
She stared after him as he flew away, the sound of his flapping wings getting further and further away until she could no longer hear them.
"Right then," Gwaine said as he put his hands under her arms and hauled her up, "Up you go."
He started to walk back to the car but she stood rooted to the spot, "It is because of me." She stated.
He stopped and turned back to her, "Yeah. You really didn't know?"
She shook her head, feeling light headed and disorientated and just wrong, "No. I didn't know."
He looked at her and for just a moment something in his eyes softened just the tiniest bit, then he turned and walked to the car leaving her to follow. He offered her his hand to help her climb back over the fence. She got into the car and tried to think of a solution to this problem. One thing was clear: she had to die or Merlin would. She turned to Gwaine just as he was putting the key into the ignition, "What if we could find a way to turn me mortal?"
His brows flew up, surprised wasn't even the right word to describe the expression on Gwaine's face, "And why would you do that?"
"To break the spell. If I die it will be broken. But to die I'd have to be mortal."
She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world and to here it was. But he was still eying her with suspicion.
"Why, Morgana, would you be willing to do that?"
She shrugged and leveled him with a determined look, "I can't let Merlin get killed."
Gwaine smirked, "Aww, have you developed warm and fuzzy feelings for our resident warlock?" he joked, clearly finding himself hilarious.
She blinked and looked away. She heard him swear under his breath, he grabbed her chin in his hand and turned her back to face him, "Morgana," he said slowly like he couldn't believe what he was about to say, "Are you in love with Merlin?"
She didn't say anything, just gave him the tiniest smallest nod. He dropped his hand from her chin, "Well. Shit."