Disclaimer: I own nothing, for fun, not profit; etc. Title is (sort of) gacked from Vienna Teng's The Tower.
Setting/Spoilers: Future!fic, spoilers through The Fires of Idirsholas and in speculation based on what traditionally happens to Merlin and evil!Morgana.
Notes: Since I warned you about the speculation spoilers, I'll further explain myself here. The characters of Morgan le Fay and the Lady of the Lake often blend in Arthurian literature, and both of them are traditionally Merlin's students in the way of magic and enchantments (before, of course, Merlin knows of their devious ways.) In the romances where Morgan le Fay is unapologetically antagonistic toward Arthur and Camelot, she traditionally acts against them through Merlin, who is imprisoned by her just after he is convinced to reveal all the secrets of his magic to her. However, if you're saying, But I thought the Vivienne/Lady of the Lake did that, you're also right. Just depends on who the villaness of choice is in the particular romance. I'm going with Morgana here because I think it's a nice echo of what Merlin did to her; and also because we've seen both a Vivian and a "Lady of the Lake" and I was disappointed by both.
"Some people are born to be queen," Gwen had once said of a young Morgana, watching her mistress with amused eyes and her then perpetually happy countenance. It was something Merlin stilled loved in Gwen, that happiness – never carefree, but always resilient in the face of everything she endured; and it was something that had always been in contrast to Morgana.
"It isn't at all interesting how it was assumed I would be queen," Morgana had told him. "It would have been logical to marry Arthur."
"But since when have you been about logic?" Merlin asked, wryly.
Morgana returned a like smile. "Yes. Indeed."
He never told anyone of how he met with her, infrequently and at odd intervals never of his own planning, always startling upon her in the woods or road or garden like the awkward servant boy he had once been, cowering in the presence of a beautiful and dark lady who seemed to emanate more power than he could conjure. Though they both knew the latter part was false, that Merlin could easily overpower Morgana should he choose to, they continued the pretense, and something about it felt normal, at least.
She never confronted him about the past. Why did you never tell me? she might have asked about his powers, or Why did you never help me? she might have asked about her own. It was the last he had asked himself daily, and one question he could never answer. He chosen against her knowingly and unknowingly; had helped her when he should not have, and denied her when he should have aided her; and this had always, always been the case. Had he chosen differently by her just once…
He wondered.
(He could still feel her desperate fingers clawing at his traitorous arms, trying to hold her still even as he tried to give her some measure of comfort in her dying.
"You are a good friend, Merlin," she had told him, all soft smiles and trust; and he would never forget how ill the words had made him feel, would never stop feeling it when he thought on her or looked on her.)
She never confronted him about the present. Why do you help me now, she might have asked, grinning her slow smile, sharp as a knife and wielded lazily in his presence. Why, when I am your enemy?
Because I owe you at least this much, he would tell her, the one question to which he can give a ready answer, tripping on the edge of his tongue each time he speaks with his desire for recompense, for forgiveness.
Because this is the only place I know where to begin, he would tell her; and gods help me if you are my enemy.
But Morgana, purveyor of the future and keeper of its secrets, would play her cards close to her chest and twist the knife of her smile into something a little more ironic, and carefully guard her silence.
And he never confronted her about the future, because he could not bear to hear her answer.
oOo
Oh, but if he could, Morgana could show him –
burning praying screaming pleading bleeding dying burning burning burning
- and Morgana could tell him how she still woke at night, frantic and screaming-pleading-praying herself, slapping at her arms that did not burn, reaching for bodies that were not there and did not bleed, and clutching her chest futilely for her soul that seemed somehow a little more dead.
She could.
Merlin doesn't ask her because he has no desire to know; but oh, she could laugh, she could cry – neither does she.
oOo
"Some people are born to be queen," Merlin whispered again, watching the way power swirled around her in brilliant swaths of light and shadow, her face enraptured at it all, eyes bright and hair dark and always magnificent in her distorted nobility.
This too was a prophecy; and he hated his words from the moment they left his mouth. She smiled at them, though.
"I was once told that the future was of my making," Morgana told him.
"And you were of my making," he stated flatly, completing her corollary. It was not anything he had not already considered for himself, perpetually wondering if only, if only, if only.
He wondered how much of him was someone else's making, how much he had taken the concept of destiny for granted, even as he protested their ends. It had never bothered him to have been fated to protect Arthur even from the day he'd met him, despite all the trials that had followed that acceptance. What had bothered him, though, was the idea that there were people he could not help, people he was specifically warned against helping; and his easy acceptance of destiny had always been at odds with this. Morgana had once been as beautiful in her gowns as she'd been in the way she'd wielded her caring nature; but for all of that, she'd always differed from him in this, robbed of any sense of greater justice or good by her visions.
("Do you not see, Merlin?" she'd said, close to tears the first time they'd met this way. "What I see is not yet, but will be. For all of any of our intents, any of our actions, we are wasted creatures."
Her eyes had hardened since, and they had never spoken of it again.)
He wondered what Arthur would say to see her as she was now. He wondered what Gwen would say. This foreign woman before him was so far removed from herself as she had been, as they had known her, as they missed her still; and the difference frightened him.
"We are all of us of someone else's making," Morgana said, her green eyes icy and distant. "Accountability for the future lies with all of us, and none of us."
"That's an awful lot of responsibility to throw on some poor unsuspecting servant," he tried to tease her.
She turned her burning gaze on him then, and he once again became the boy he evoked in the presence of a lady who could very easily be queen of anything she wished, dwarfed by her dignity and darkness, and mystified by all in her he would never be able to comprehend, when with a few words and soothing understanding he might have long ago.
(She will imprison him with his own magic years yet into the future, and look at him in much the same way. "We are wasted creatures, both of us," she will say again to him, but he will be unable to reply, and Arthur will fall.)
"Believe that I won't make the mistake of underestimating you again, Merlin," Morgana told him seriously, attracting fireflies absentmindedly to her open palm; and the side of her face closest to him glowed in their small light.
Merlin shivered in the cool night air, and did not disbelieve her.