Lady Morgana's Request

Arthur couldn't live with himself if he said nothing as followed his father through the courtyard corridors; so he started to approach the subject carefully – it would take him nowhere except, maybe, the dungeons to point out that Uther was about to murder a perfectly innocent child.

"Perhaps imprisonment is a more suitable punishment for the boy. I mean, he's so young."

"It would allow him to grow more powerful, more dangerous, until he strikes against us" argued his father, still walking.

"We don't know he's going to strike against us" rationalized Arthur. "He's yet to do anything."

That was the closest he'd come from pointing out how wrong it was.

"It's enough that his people conspire to overthrow me" Arthur couldn't remember a single instance in which the druids had moved against Camelot, but it seemed that for Uther it was the same. "This is harsh, but necessary. I take no pleasure in killing the boy."

This was an unexpected comment, never before the King had voiced any sort of problem with executing someone who he suspected that had magical problems, even if he had stood by his previous assessment. Maybe it was time to take another route; a more personal one.

"Well, then spare him for Morgana's sake. She's clearly grown attached to the boy, and if you execute him, I fear she will never forgive you."

Everything she had done, and the darkness that lurked around her when she defied Uther on the council chamber – Arthur wasn't a fool, he knew Morgana could become an terrible enemy just as she was a fierce friend.

But Uther seemed to think very little about it – he stopped dead and turned, approaching his son as if he was ready to attack him as he had done earlier to his ward.

"I do not seek her forgiveness!" he hissed, angrily. "She has betrayed me!"

"Yet you are sparing her"

Arthur couldn't even know what made him speak like that to his father – maybe it was the way that even after treason, Morgana was better handled than he usually was; or maybe it was how clearly he could see that there was no fairness in the King's justice.

"She has the promise I made her father to thank for that" was Uther's cold reply. "The boy enjoys no such privilege. He will be executed at dawn, is that clear?"

There was nothing more that he could say; his father wouldn't budge from his position and it seemed that if he pressed the matter further it would only harm not only the boy, but also Morgana.

Arthur walked away with a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't even say when was the last time he had thought that Uther's decisions weren't the right ones – not when it came to ruling the kingdom. To find out that his father was capable of such measures and that he was far from being the ruler Arthur had always thought him to be was a bitter substitute for breakfast.

The terrible feeling of inadequacy didn't leave him all day long. He went through the usual motions of the day, but his mind was far away, wondering just how much he would like things to be different; how he could make Camelot a better and safer place without going against his father. Arthur had no wish to quarrel with Uther; he loved his father too much, but he was no longer blind to the man's many faults.

He was just partially surprise to find Morgana in his chambers when he arrived to it near sunset.

"Make yourself at home" he said, not without a hint of irony. He had no illusions about what had brought her over, and little did he want to think further on the matters that had already pestered him all day.

"You can't let your father execute the boy" she announced.

"You're lucky he's not executing you" Arthur replied, angrily, as he hung his coat on the back of the chair, but she seemed unmoved by the risk she was in. He walked closer, all his annoyance with her coming back to the surface as he untied his scabbard. "Are you telling me he really was behind the screen when I came to search your chambers?"

Morgana gave him a small nod, and kept on moving, trying to clear his head. If he were honest with himself, he didn't think he would have denounced it if he had been alone and found that Morgana was caring for him.

The fact that she hadn't trusted him enough to be honest, but chose to make a fool out of him (no, she had been right, he had made a fool of himself) hurt too. Morgana was the one person he could be true and honest with, that cared very little about his position in court and was ready to be honest with him – for better or for worse. Although part of him hated how she did it, he knew it was the one thing that had kept him grounded during the last years.

Maybe the reason he had grown fond of Merlin was that he acted around him the same way Morgana did, always hoping for the best in him. Of course, he and Merlin couldn't really be friends, nor he and Morgana, there was too much that – no, they couldn't be truly friends. Still, it was the closest thing he had to 'friends'.

It made him feel empty to think that she didn't feel the same way about him.

"I know you believe your father's wrong to execute him."

"What I believe doesn't matter" he stressed out, as he picked up his cup. "My father's made up his mind. He won't be talked out of it – I tried."

He expected her to acknowledge what he had done for her sake, but Morgana hardly ever acted as one would expect her to – instead, she stood up from the chair, incensed.

"Then the time for talking is over!"

There it was again, the darkness and the passion, her belief on what was right and fair. He admired her courage, but he feared her lack of constrain.

"Whatever you're thinking, it's not going to happen" he warned her, walking towards the window. He couldn't face her not when she was being braver than he would ever be.

"We have to get the boy back to his people" she said, and Arthur was shocked at the implications.

"No! Forget it"

"I can't believe you'd let an innocent child die!"

There it was – she was doing it again, hoping for the best on him when there was little. Morgana's expectations of him were even more crushing than his father's, for they embodied exactly what he believed to be right but didn't have the courage to do.

"It's too late! He's been caught." Arthur hoped she'd see sense and stop pushing it. "I have no choice" he apologized.

"And is this how you will rule when you are King? You're not like your father."

Of course, this was not the kind of thing Arthur wanted to be seen as his action and his rule. No, he would do thing differently. He'd never execute innocents – he'd never… How could he be the king he hoped to be if he stood by and allowed this to happen? And yet, how could his rule be effective if he was ready to defy his liege like this? How could he expect the others not to do the same when it came to him? No. There could be no double standard. He looked into her eyes as he spoke.

"I will not betray him."

Arthur hoped she knew how much he meant with it, but he no longer thought it would be the case: Morgana was hell bent on saving this child.

"If I know you at all, you won't stand by and let this happen" her voice was soft now, no longer demanding, and it broke him in two. What should he do, when his loyalty, his duty stood in one path and his conscience and his honor where in the opposite direction? She must have felt it, maybe on the tension of his back turned to her for the went on, her voice pleading. "Please. If you won't do this for the boy, then do it for me."

He couldn't fight a smile – this was an impossible woman, as she moved and touched his arm lightly.

And he could never deny her anything, especially not when she was pleading for something he knew in his heart that was the right thing to do. He loved her – as a sister, as a friend, as the woman he hoped that would someday be his Queen.

He turned to her, slowly, and looked into her eyes.

"Tell me what you're planning."