1x12 – Her Father's Daughter (Part 2)

Arthur hadn't led a patrol so pointless since he'd had to scour the kingdom for Mordred after breaking him out of gaol himself.

Oh, to be sure, this time he actually wanted to find his quarry. Of course he wanted to find Morgana. How else could he strangle her for running off in a snit and sending the whole kingdom into an uproar over her 'kidnapping'? There was an actual evil sorcerer heading a violent rebellion out there, running around plotting treason and murder and threatening innocent handmaidens. But was Arthur looking for him? No, Arthur was looking for a cracked old druid harbouring shopkeepers and a lady he didn't believe for a second had been taken against her will.

So when a dark blot appeared amid the clouds, diving lower and lower until the flying carpet was almost brushing the treetops, Arthur felt no relief to see Morgana safe and whole, nor anger at Emrys for starting this whole fiasco. The only thing he felt was annoyance at the farce he just knew they were all about to go through again.

"It is I – Dragoon the Great!" Emrys boomed in a voice that would sound menacing if he were anyone else or the situation any less absurd. "Here to taunt you with what you seek most – the Lady Morgana!"

Dear god, was that hackneyed. Isn't he going to go to the slightest effort to act believable?

"Let me go, you fiend!" Morgana begged, eyes glittering with tears.

"NEEEEEEEEEEEEVER!" Emrys cried.

That's a no, then.

To Arthur's disbelief, his men actually seemed to fall for the hammy acting.

"Let her go, you villain!" one of the new recruits cried, and notched an arrow.

Arthur grabbed the bow before the idiot could go through with it. "Do you want her to fall and break her neck?" he hissed. Louder, he called to the other idiots also reaching for their bows, "Hold fire!"

But Arthur's attempts to not upset the hovering piece of fabric were in vain, for just then a strong gust ripped through the forest, shaking the enchanted rug like a maid airing out the sheets.

"Noooooo! Not wind!" Emrys wailed. "Curses - my one weakness!"

The carpet billowed, throwing Emerys sprawled to the front and Morgana to the far right - and then off the carpet altogether.

Arthur's heart leaped to his throat and he darted forwards, arms reaching out as though he could catch her… but the wind carried her down in a gentle, lazy drift, so that when she landed in his arms there was almost no drag to her fall.

"Alas! I am defeated!" Emrys cried, pushing himself upright on the now perfectly still carpet and peering over the edge. He shook his fist at them. "Curse you, brave knights of Camelot, rescuers of damsels in distress!"

"Damsels in distress," Arthur echoed, incredulous.

"I am a damsel, and I was in distress," said a perfectly calm Morgana with a smirk. Arthur was solely tempted to dump her on the ground.

Up above the trees, Emrys was still being melodramatic. "Foiled again! I have no choice but to retreat!"

Arthur felt an eyebrow twitch. "Or you could turn us all into toads and just re-kidnap her right now," he called up to the sky. "What's stopping you?"

"That's – " Emrys faltered. "I'm a busy man; I've no time for that. I must be off – good day!"

And the rug zoomed up into the clouds, and out of sight.

"Shall we go after him, my lord?" the new recruit was practically bouncing with eagerness, and Arthur resisted the urge to sigh. This entire encounter had proved he desperately needed to train them some more.

"Do you have a pair of wings to follow him on?" he asked testily.

"Er, no, my lord."

"Then how in the blazing hells do you expect to be able to catch him!" Turning to the other knights, Arthur said tersely. "Well, somebody fetch the Lady Morgana a horse. We've a long ride back to the city."

# / # / # / #

The night of Morgana's return was a long affair of an impromptu feast Uther threw to celebrate her 'rescue'. She did not return to her chambers until long after the sun had gone down, and was met with no one to help her undress. Wondering vaguely where Gwen was, for she had not yet seen her, Morgana struggled into her nightgown herself and took the three spoonfuls of sleeping draught. This time her sleep was as peaceful as Gaius had promised, and she woke with no awful dreams seared into her mind.

"Good morning, my lady," a sweet, if more subdued than usual, voice greeted her.

"Good morning, Gwen," Morgana returned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and blinking against the morning light. She rose from bed and turned towards her changing screen, where Gwen was laying out her morning things. "I didn't see you yesterday. How have you been?"

"As well as I can be," Gwen's back was to Morgana, as she fluffed out Morgana's day gown. Then, out of nowhere, she blurted out in a breathless, trembling voice, "Tauren came to me two days ago."

Morgana's eyes widened at the admittance.

Gwen continued in that same uneven tone. "Something about a stone he left at my place. I'm to return it to him by midnight tonight or he'll kill me, only I looked and there's nothing like that at my house. I spent all yesterday searching, and asking friends if they'd seen anything like it. You wouldn't have, would you?"

Morgana hesitated. It wasn't like Gwen to be too busy to attend Morgana's homecoming – she must be quite worried. Morgana could ease those worries, she had only to walk to her box and take out the stone. But somehow she didn't think Gwen would agree to what she had in mind for meeting Tauren.

"Morgana?" Gwen queried, turning to face her.

"Sorry, just thinking," Morgana made her decision. "I'm afraid I don't recall anything like that."

Gwen cast her face down, patting at a non-existent wrinkle in Morgana's day gown. "Is that so."

Guilt twisted at Morgana, and she heard herself saying, "Have you alerted the guard to Tauren's threat? I'm sure they can catch him before he gets to you."

Gwen nodded, still not looking up. "I told Arthur everything. He's taken care of it for me."

Surprise flickered through Morgana – since when were Gwen and Arthur so close? – quickly eclipsed by dismay. With the guards on alert, meeting Tauren became much riskier.

All through the day Morgana was gnawed by indecision over whether to go through with her plan or not. She could always 'find' the stone, and spare Gwen the worry. Then she wouldn't have to meet with a sorcerer that night, at a time and place Arthur and his knights were expecting him. But every time she thought this, every time she started towards her box, her chafed wrists would burn. If she did this, she'd never hear Tauren out, never find out if there was any common ground they could reach where the kingdom itself would be unharmed, but not so Uther.

Because Uther had to die. He was past the point of any redemption – he'd even turned on her, for nothing more than speaking against his tyranny. She could not let his oppression continue… but neither could she risk setting up another Vortigern in his place. To do so would be to spit in the face of all her parents had fought for. She'd have to feel Tauren out, and if he seemed to be the sort to set himself up as the next sorcerer king she'd simply not follow up on her offer of inside help. But if he seemed decent enough, if he wasn't a power-hungry madman… this could be the perfect chance to enact vengeance on Uther, once and for all.

Arthur would be a better king than him, anyways. Fairer and more merciful, if a bit less decisive and rather less experienced … but surely he would grow into that, soon enough?

She could worry about Arthur as king when Arthur was king. First, she had to kill Uther.

Driven by such thoughts, she dismissed Gwen after dinner, claiming a headache and desire to retire early. She waited until the sun was dipping below the horizon, before crawling out from under her covers still dressed. She silently fetched her darkest night cloak, and hid a dagger in its sleeve (just in case worst came to worst). Then she pulled on her sturdiest boots, and checked herself once more to be sure she hadn't forgotten anything. Satisfied, she turned to her small ornamental box, and reached inside. Only soft velvet met her fingers.

The stone was gone.

"Are you looking for something, my lady?"

Morgana whirled around. Gwen stood in the servant's entrance with her hands properly clasped behind her back. It was too dark to make out her expression. As though conscious of this, Gwen struck a flint and lit the torch on the bracket nearest her, bathing the long passage behind her in flickering orange. Something in her other hand glinted in the light.

Gwen took a step forward, holding up that hand. "If it's the stone, I've got it right here."

Morgana stared at the gleaming stone, her thoughts rather like a mine cart that had sped along its tracks into a gaping hole. She felt oddly betrayed. "What about Tauren?"

"Arthur will take care of him," Gwen said, with none of the distress she'd shown that morning.

Anger at the deception rose within her. "So that at least was true, then?"

Gwen's eyes flashed. "Everything I said was true – which is more than can be said for you!" Before Morgana could bite back against this accusation, Gwen continued heatedly, "Tauren did come to me, and I did tell Arthur, and I did spend all yesterday searching and asking friends if they'd seen anything. Of course you'd skipped off with people who'd actually broken out of gaol because of actual fear of execution, so I couldn't exactly ask you! Even when you came back you were so busy reassuring all your equals over the worries you'd caused them that I knew I'd be getting no private audience anytime soon. So I thought I'd just have a quick look around as I readied your chambers for your arrival – not that I actually expected to find anything, because surely you would have said something to me if you had! Imagine my surprise when I'm just absently polishing and I notice that that box you hate and never use has fingerprints on it! Imagine my hurt and confusion what I find a glowing pulsating rock inside! And then imagine, if you so please my lady, my feelings when I give you the perfect opportunity to come clean and explain the next morning, and instead you lie to my face!"

Gwen's chest was heaving, she seemed breathless and perhaps a little taken aback at her own tirade. But that was nothing to Morgana's shock; twelve years she'd known Gwen, and she'd scarcely heard a cross word from her in all that time. She'd never imagined Gwen capable of such vehemence.

"It wasn't like that," Morgana said, indignant at the injustice of Gwen's assumptions. "I just didn't want a repeat of the last time the guards found a magical object in your house."

"And you didn't think to tell me you'd found it?"

Morgana paused. She actually hadn't. It had simply not occurred to her to. Puzzled, she groped for a reason why that was. She lit upon one that fueled her righteous anger. "I was trying to protect you!"

"Morgana, I am a grown woman. I do not need protection from the contents of my own house. I have spent the last two days confused and afraid, and you could have prevented all that if you'd just talked to me like an equal."

"I do talk you like an equal!"

"Do you? Then why did you say nothing say when you found it? Why did you lie to me when I told you Tauren's threat? Why did you dismiss me early tonight because of a headache and then try to sneak out near dark, dressed to travel through woodland, with the rock you took from my house? Is that how things would transpire between equals?"

Morgana was silent. Thinking back on it from Gwen's perspective, her actions were certainly puzzling, and she struggled to think of a defense. She'd just wanted to protect Gwen… but that didn't really preclude talking to her, did it?

Why, then, hadn't it occurred to her to?

"You've been treating me like a child to be kept in the dark, or like some kind of adorable little pet to be coddled. I'm neither of those; I'm your friend, aren't I?"

"Of course you are!"

"Then talk to me like a friend: why did you lie to me?"

So Gwen wanted honesty, did she? She was a big girl and could handle the truth, could she? Well, then, let's see her do so.

"Because maybe Tauren isn't so wrong after all!"

Gwen's eyes widened. "What?"

"Haven't you thought about it? Tauren wants Uther dead, and I wouldn't blame you if you felt the same."

"If Uther died I'd feel nothing. He means nothing to me."

"But if you met with Tauren, and he gave you a chance for revenge…"

"Tauren," Gwen said in a low, dangerous voice, "all but killed my father. He used him for his experiment, then abandoned him to the guards. I want nothing to do with him."

"But Uther actually did kill your father," Morgana cried, frustrated. "Don't you want revenge on him!"

"I don't want revenge on either of them!" Gwen snapped. "What would that accomplish? I'd be a murderer, and for what? Their deaths won't bring my father back. I'd have dragged myself down to their level, and for nothing."

"So you're just going to forgive Uther, after all he did to you?" Morgana couldn't understand it. Her own hatred of Uther was so smoldering that when he'd embraced her upon her return she thought she'd choke on it. How could Gwen be so unaffected?

"I don't need to forgive him – I told you, he means nothing to me. He's just a sad little man too suspicious to see the goodness in people. He's too pathetic to hate, and he'll always bring himself more misery than anyone else could. The one who hates him, the one who can't forgive him, is you."

"Of course I hate him! He killed your father, and threw me in the dungeons for confronting him over it! How can I forgive that!"

An odd expression crossed Gwen's face. "So which can't you forgive?"

"Pardon?"

"Which can't you forgive – what he did to my father, or what he did to you?"

Morgana opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew that the former offence was by far the greater sin, and yet… and yet if she were entirely honest…

"I can't see that the two are separable," she justified.

"So then you were contemplating treason before Uther gaoled you?"

Morgana couldn't answer. She'd been furious when Tom died; she'd wanted to hurt Uther, and stormed into his council chambers with full intention to give him a tongue lashing to flay even his hardened heart… but it had been in the cold dank cell of the dungeons that the fevered desire to see him dead had festered.

After a long moment, Gwen spoke again.

"I think the reason you hate him is because he means something to you. He's the closest thing to a father you've known these last thirteen years, and then he went and threw you in the dungeons anyway, as if that didn't matter to him the way it does to you. I think that's really what you can't forgive him for – but is it worth killing him over?"

All her former reasons for why Uther must die came to mind… but they seemed paler now, weaker. They'd lost the weight a righteous cause had given them. To kill Uther because he had murdered an innocent man was justice. To do the same because he'd thrown her in the dungeons was petty and vindictive.

"He's a tyrant," Morgana argued, but even to her own ears it sounded like an excuse. "He's killed so many people. He deserves it. And Arthur would be a much better king."

"My father was not the first to die at his word," Gwen allowed. "I came near enough to it myself. But as far as I recall, you haven't been harbouring these thoughts since the plague. There are reasons you haven't tried to kill him before now, and they're just as true now you're angry with him as they were before. As for Arthur…"

Gwen took a deep breath. "Arthur's been amazing these last few days. He's stood by me in everything, making sure I escape blame by association and ready to listen when I need someone to listen and keep quiet when I just need someone to be there. He's out there risking his life to arrest Tauren, right now, to keep me, a servant, safe. I'm sure he will be a much better king than Uther. But are you seriously suggesting helping a rebel gang leader murder his father and then force a kingdom threatened by emboldened rebels upon him in his grief, assuming they don't just destroy it too! How could you do that to him!"

"I wouldn't let it come to that," Morgana denied. "I don't want Camelot destroyed, I just want Uther -"

"Losing your father," Gwen interrupted, choked voice now threatening more than shouting, "is a pain that cannot be captured in words. Surely you remember."

Morgana swallowed. She did.

"You cannot make Arthur feel this as well." It was neither question nor demand, but rather an iron-hard fact.

There was no way Morgana could look Gwen in the eye and say otherwise. Not when Gwen looked so close to tears as it was.

"I'm sorry," Morgana said, because dead fathers was the absolute last thing she'd wanted to bring up around Gwen, and she was ashamed of causing more distress to a friend going through a terrible time.

Gwen deflated, the righteous anger that had squared her shoulders fading. She clasped her hands and look down, again small and delicate, the sweet maid Morgana knew rather than the strange creature confronting her with steel composure that would be envied among queens.

"I am too," Gwen said in nearly a whisper, wiping at her eyes with her sleeve. Then she looked down at the stone in her hand and frowned as though seeing it for the first time. "Now, what do we do with this?"

# / # / # / #

They spent the night discussing it. Morgana still wanted more than anything to grab the stone and run straight to Tauren but, even if she hadn't decided to honor Gwen's wishes, whatever chance she had of finding the criminal before Arthur had long since been lost.

So Morgana didn't mention her true desire, instead contenting herself with tossing around options to hide this coveted magical object where no one could find it. The vaults of Camelot were considered at length, and eventually discarded. It was the first place anyone who knew where Tauren had lost the stone would look, and Morgana remembered far too many break-ins to the 'impenetrable' vaults for comfort.

In the end they sacrificed greater security for greater obscurity, reasoning that lesser defenses were actually greater protection if nobody thought to try to get through them. And so the next morning Morgana grit her teeth and approached Uther for permission to visit her childhood home of Tintagel with her maid, ostensibly to recuperate from the terrible ordeal of being kidnapped by a sorcerer.

She just hadn't expected him to insist on coming along.

All the way to her father's grave, which they were to visit first at the king's request, the anger simmering under her best blank face only grew. Her father had been dead so long now that she rarely thought about him, but she hadn't forgotten him, nor the pain of losing him… nor the last visit she'd made to this grave.

Kneeling at her father's grave with Uther at her side and wrists still raw from the shackles, old grudges stirred beneath thirteen years' worth of trappings.

But apparently Uther's recollections were going down a slightly different lane.

"Your father was the greatest man I've ever known," he said quietly, and placed a hand on her shoulders.

Morgana tensed, but more than discomfort, she felt confused. Although her father and Uther had been best friends, Uther almost never spoke of Gorlois. Their friendship had been in youth, in years of mutual exile and the reclamation of Camelot. They'd grown up and apart long before she'd come along.

She knew of their friendship from stories, but had never seen it in person.

So why did Uther have this sudden need to see her father's grave, to talk about the best friend he never spoke of?

"He stood for everything this kingdom represents," Uther continued. "Truth, justice, valour. A hundred times he saved my life on the battlefield. His courage and his honour were without equal."

Then Morgana watched as the king knelt before her father's grave… as he lowered himself, into the very dirt, and bowed his head. "When Gorlois died, I lost the truest friend I ever had. For he was as fearless in questioning my judgment as he was in defending my kingdom. That's the mark of a true friend."

Morgana swallowed. She didn't want to hear this anymore than she had wanted to hear Uther's last speech at this grave. She didn't want to hear of a friendship she had never witnessed, of the loyal knight her father had been to his king.

Loyal enough to die for his king.

"I know how he respected you, my lord," she made herself say, trying to push down the bitter mess that had had years to simmer and rot in the deepest parts of her heart. It wasn't working. "But I don't share these memories. I only know I loved him, and he was taken from me."

The wind howled through the silence that followed. If she listened carefully, she could hear on it the cries of gulls and the meeting of waves upon rocks in a spray of white. The air had the faintest taste of salt.

All things that used to mark home, yet came upon her now as foreign, half-remembered sensations.

Likewise, her father had faded to memory. What shade of brown had his eyes been? Had he had laugh lines around his eyes, or dimples in his cheeks? Which arm had that one long scar been on, again?

The answers eluded her, and would continue to do so. With every passing year, his face became harder to recall, however she fought to do so.

"When he died, and I took you into my care, you fought me from the beginning. Your will is as strong as my own. You challenge me as a friend must. As your father did in his time."

Morgana had not known this, having only ever seen her father and king together twice. Though this explained where she got it from, it was little comfort.

If Uther valued friends who challenged him, then why punish them? Why ignore their advice - why blow up at them when called out his atrocities – why –

"Why clap me in irons, then," she bit out.

Uther looked weary, and his eyes flickered to her wrists with something that … no, she must just be projecting that. There was no way it was…"I know I'm not an easy man. My temper blinds me sometimes. There are things that I regret –"

"Like Gwen's father?" Morgana couldn't stop herself from biting out.

"Yes." Morgana looked at Uther. Of all his surprises today, this was the greatest.

He looked back at her, and for the first time she noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the haggard cast to his face. Uther took a deep breath, and, as though the words were being wretched from somewhere deep and painful within, said,

"I should have listened to you."

Impossible.

Uther never admitted to being wrong. Even with Valiant, even when he so obviously had been and it had nearly cost him his son, he'd never admitted to a mistake.

And yet, raw on Uther's face now was nothing but guilt and remorse… perhaps even a bit of shame.

Morgana sat dumbstruck as Uther pour out more of the heart she'd accused him of not having,

"You've been a blessing to me, Morgana. You are the daughter I never had. Your counsel is invaluable, as is your friendship and your love. Without you, I cannot hope to be the king this land deserves. When that sorcerer took you from me, and I feared I'd never see you again… that my last words to you would be of anger and cruelty…"

Uther closed his eyes, as though in unspeakable pain, and shivered. Actually shivered, despite the midday heat.

"Please forgive me, Morgana," he whispered, the sound almost lost to the wind.

Something twisted in Morgana's gut. Forgive him? How could she? After all he'd done – did he really think a single apology could wipe it all away - !

But looking at the bent, wretched man kneeling before her father's grave, honoring a best friend he'd lost perhaps even before the man's death, at the side of her, the unexpected daughter he'd never really known how to deal with, begging for forgiveness for mistakes made in fear and anger…

She couldn't stay angry. She couldn't forgive him, but she couldn't hold onto that burning, all-consuming anger that would see him in a grave like this one.

"My lord," she started, and had no idea how to continue.

But something in her voice must have changed, because Uther looked up at her in hope. He peered into her face for a moment, and then reached out and drew her into a hug.

This time, she didn't feel disgusted by it.

# \ # \ # \ #

It was near midnight before Uther went to bed. Morgana knew, because she'd assigned Gwen the task of preparing the guest room of Tintagel for him, and Gwen only came to her quarters then to say she'd been dismissed.

They waited together a half hour or so, just to be safe, then lit a lantern and tiptoed down the stairs from Morgana's old bedroom, all the way down to Tintagel's vaults.

It took a long time of trying out various keys before Gwen found the right one. They crept through the door, which despite their most careful efforts they could not stop from creaking, and to the great chest in the middle that held Morgana's dowry. Taking the tiny personal key that Morgana usually kept locked in a trick bottom to her third favorite jewelry box, Morgana opened the chest.

Gwen withdrew a tiny pouch from her pocket. Through the coarse linen, a pulsating glow could be seen. She dropped the plain pouch atop all the jewels and velvets and silks that would be Morgana's when she married, and they hastily closed the lid.

Now that it was all over and hidden, it seemed a little anti-climactic. After that long journey, Morgana had almost expected it be a little more difficult to see their task through.

"Well, now there's one more reason to hope Uther never tries to engage me and Arthur," she tried to joke, but it came out a little forced. "Imagine what he'd make of my dowry."

Gwen tried to laugh, but it also sounded forced. Morgana didn't blame her; it was a fairly lame joke. Gwen only kept it up for a moment, before asking, as though she couldn't help herself, "Is that likely?"

"Hm?" Morgana questioned, a bit lost.

"You and Arthur… you know, together," Gwen clarified uncomfortably.

Morgana blinked. What a strange thing to focus on. "Well, no, if that was Uther's plan he'd have tried to set us up by now. Besides, he wants Arthur to marry some foreign princess to strengthen Camelot's alliances. Princess Elena of Gawant is the current favorite, I believe."

"Oh," Gwen said in a small, dispirited voice.

Morgana wasn't quite sure what to make of this. For years now, Gwen had been the number one supporter of the supposed lovely couple she and Arthur made, anytime they couldn't be bothered to find partners for a feast and just went together. Morgana had always suspected though that it wasn't so much that Gwen thought she and Arthur would be good together, as it was that she liked the sound of "Queen Morgana". Was she disappointed that some foreign princess would take what she thought of as Morgana's rightful place?

It was a puzzle that followed Morgana to bed, into the realm of the heavy sleep of Gaius' draught, where little crowns reigned from the sky above the castle courtyard while Gwen caught them with a lasso and dressed Morgana in them one after another, Arthur laughing in the background.

No, Morgana was saying, this one doesn't match my shoes. Try that silver-and-sapphire one over there, and Gwen was obediently leaping towards said crown with her lasso…

But then Gwen vanished.

As did the rain of crowns…

And Arthur…

And the courtyard…

She was alone…

She was alone, bodiless and incorporeal, there but not, in the middle of the woods. A beast came – an awful, horrible beast with the head of a snake and the body of a leapord – snarling, rearing towards it's target with great claws –

It's target turned –

And it was –

"ARTHUR!" she screamed, and bolted up in bed.

"My lady?" came a confused call from the serving girl's room next to hers, as Morgana struggled against her tangled sheets. Gwen emerged from the dividing screen still half-dressed and with hair that had been braided for sleeping but clearly hadn't been slept on – apparently Morgana hadn't been out for very long. "My lady, is something wrong?"

Morgana, meanwhile, had freed herself from the sheets and was halfway out the door, heart hammering in her ears. "Gwen, get my horse! We must be off at once!"

"Morgana?" Gwen questioned, more confused than before. "What happened?"

"There's no time – we need to warn Arthur! He's been attacked, or he will be and – oh my god – we'll never get there in time - !"

"What's all this commotion?" came a drowsy call from down the hall, as footsteps rang out the stone corridor separating her room from the guest room.

Gwen looked from Morgana to the door, wide-eyed and alarmed. "It's nothing, my lord!" she called too quickly, her unnatural high-pitch contradicting her. "Lady Morgana just had a nightmare, is all!"

Morgana's door opened, and Uther stepped in bleary eyed and blinking even against the dim lighting of the candle Morgana always kept in her bedchambers. He squinted at her. "Morgana, is this true?"

Morgana felt like she was drowning. She couldn't do this, not with Uther here, she couldn't tell them – couldn't let on that her dreams were anything more than dreams –

The strange woman stood above Arthur, smiling, as he sank deeper and deeper into the water…

"… I pulled him out of a lake after Sophia nearly drowned him."

A rugged man in dark garb twisted Gwen's arm behind her back, slapping a hand over her mouth to smother her scream.

"… he's threatening to kill the blacksmith's daughter..."

Morgana swallowed. Could she afford not to do this, when there was every chance this dream would soon bear an uncanny resemblance to events to unfold?

Sometimes you need to do what you think is right, and damn the consequences, her own words came back to her, mocking in how easy they had been to say to Arthur, and how hard to follow through on herself.

She took a deep breath, but her voice came out tight, breathy. Like it was struggling to draw air through the noose she was hanging around her own neck. "Arthur's in danger. We need to go back. At once."

"You know this?" Uther frowned. "How?"

"How doesn't matter. I know it."

Uther looked her up and down, taking in her nightdress, her tousled hair, the cold sweat on her face. His expression softened, and he said almost gently, "It was a dream, Morgana."

Her heart plummeted. She couldn't breathe – she couldn't do this – but she had to, she had to convince him, or Arthur would – would - "It wasn't a dream," she managed to get past her constricted throat. A fuzzy, buzzing feeling in her head was making it hard to think.

"Take your potion and go back to sleep," Uther said kindly, "We'll talk to Gaius when we get back, see if he can get you something a bit str-"

"It's not Gaius," she said, through the ringing in her head. "It's me."

Uther frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Morgana shook her head. She couldn't say it to him – she could barely think it to herself…

"We can't wait until morning," she said, because that was all that mattered. All Uther need know. "Arthur needs us, now. We may still be able to save him. I'm going, with or without you."

Morgana strode from the room without waiting for a response, a silent Gwen trailing in her wake. She wasted no time on gathering her few travelling possessions – they could always be sent to her later – but rather went straight for the horses. Gwen saddled them while she dressed in a spare stall.

When she emerged, there were three horses waiting by the gate. Uther, already mounted, looked at her.

He didn't believe her, she could tell. He thought it was all in her head, that she was being hysterical over nothing. But he saw that it upset her, that she believed it, and for that he was willing to forsake a night of sleep and undertake a hard ride in the dark. Just to ease her mind.

A warmth Morgana hadn't felt in a long, long time suffused her.

Uther waited for her as Gwen helped her up, and then turned his mount. "Let's be off, then."

# \ # \ # \ #

The weather was fair and the road recently maintained, so they made good progress that day. But still Morgana seemed restless, nudging her poor horse on as far ahead as she dared, practically quivering with impatience each time Uther called for a stop to rest their mounts. She chafed at each delay, refusing food as though in ignoring her own basic bodily needs she could convince Uther to willfully neglect all of theirs.

As the sun sank below the horizon, he checked his mount outside a tiny town by the river.

"We'll stop here for the night."

There was a fine art of moderating one's tone so that something was neither an order, which could be rebelled against, or a recommendation, which could be disagreed with, but rather a simple announcement of fact – fact that just so happened to coincide with one's own wishes. Fortunately, it was an art Uther had always had talent in, talent he'd refined over his years as king.

Which was probably the only reason his ward, who showed every sign of inclination to ride through the night, reluctantly checked her horse and dismounted. She handed the reigns to her maid, and followed a grudging half-step behind Uther as he made his way to the dingy, likely flea-ridden shack that was all this town provided for accommodations. But they hadn't packed any camping gear, so they had little choice but to chance the inn. Hopefully, it wouldn't result in days of dousing himself with oil and vinegar.

The bed thankfully passed his brief inspection, and Uther slept as soundly as he could in any foreign bed – old warrior's instincts did not react well to unfamiliar surroundings in a vulnerable state. Nevertheless, as he was paying for lodgings in the morning, he wasn't so drowsy as to miss the conversation of the people taking breakfast in the common room.

"- not sure I want to risk it. What with this beast out and about," a grizzly, old voice was saying.

"Beast?" a lighter, younger voice asked.

"A terrible beast was spotted just outside the Lower Town. It's said to have the head of a snake and the body of a leopard, and to make a horrible noise from deep in its belly – a barking like thirty couple hounds questing. Twelve people are already dead because of it – I don't fancy joining them, no matter how good a penny the weekend market there can fetch."

"No worries now," a third, heavy voice spoke up, to the audible surprise of the first two. There was the scrapping of a chair being moved. "Didn't you hear about the prince?"

Uther didn't outwardly react – to do so would disrupt the conversation he was now very intent on.

"No? What happened?"

"He slayed the beast, but at great cost; he was pierced by its poisonous fangs."

Uther couldn't hear anything further; a low ringing in his head drowned out all other sound. He turned on heel, heedless of the innkeeper's cry behind him that he'd forgotten his change, and strode dazedly out into the bright morning sun. Morgana and her maid, waiting outside with the horses, were listening to a grim-faced old peasant woman.

"… the kings' healer can do nothing for him. Even now he hovers at death's door." Morgana was so white she looked in danger of fainting. The old peasant put a wizened hand on her shoulder. "We can only hold vigil, and pray."

"Thank you for telling us," the maid said quietly, gripping the reigns tightly. The old peasant bowed to Morgana, and took a step back.

As Uther drew near, Morgana looked up. There was something stricken and recriminating in her face stark with fear. Her very eyes seemed to accuse him for delaying even a night, for his lack of faith in her unexplained fears.

"We ride hard," Uther announced. "If you are hungry or need to relieve yourself, do so now; we won't stop until sundown, at the market of Geldred Ridge – there, we'll change horses. Then, we ride through the night.

/**

And here it was, the only thing that went according to plan in these two chapters: the Gwen – Morgana confrontation (and subsequent road trip). Because Morgana's friendship with Gwen is way more patronising than the fandom gives it credit for, and there's no better place to call her out on it than when she's deciding what to do about Gwen's father's death without even stopping to think that maybe Gwen should have a say in the matter.

Also, we're near the end of the season and Gwen and Morgana needed their time to shine.

The little skit to drop Morgana off with the knights was written and directed by Morgana herself. For *some* reason, she found it rather easy think up stupid villain motives for stupid plans that don't really accomplish anything and actually set you back from your goals. Nice to see her channeling her inner actress for good.

Next time, the season finale!

**/