Hi again! Here's the new chapter, with some important aspects for the future plot of the story! So I hope you like it!

I do not own Merlin.

The full moon shone on the magnificent, starry, night loom when Morgana lay restless with numerous nightmares hovering over her mind, joining her dreams being uninvited. However, for once Morgana did not dream of visions of the future, at least not evidently, but of events of the past. Events that had occurred that same night. And all those dreams had a single focus of attention: Merlin.

It was at the height of these nightmares that she was awakened by her own scream. She was on a bed next to which lay her maid and friend Gwen. However, she was not sleeping or lying, but looking towards her with a candle in hand whose light allowed to discern the worried face of her friend.

"Morgana? Is everything going well?" she asked.

"Yes... Alright," she replied, putting a hand to her head, where a sharp pain flooded it.

"More nightmares, aren't they?"

"I'm afraid so, yes."

"Do you want me to...?"

"No need, Gwen, thank you very much. I'll go for a walk if you don't mind. The fresh night air has always been good for me."

With that said, Morgana sat up and got up with a faint moan from the bed and, putting on a jacket, headed outside. She sat on a bench on the porch of the house and let her thoughts follow the course they wanted.

Looking at that rural setting at night, Morgana felt strangely nostalgic. Something she did not consider possible for the mere fact that she had never lived in the countryside, always in the Royal Court, in big cities. However, that feeling seemed to remind her of the beauty of a place she had never lived in.

Morgana took a deep breath, smelling delightedly the cool night breeze, and expelled the air with genuine pleasure.

Ealdor. Finally.

What fond memories that place inspired her. That time she visited Ealdor for the first time, to help Merlin fight for his people. It seemed that it had been a long time ago, at a time when her conception of Merlin was very different from now.

She was thinking about all that when she saw a light coming from the side of the house in which certain silhouettes and shadows were perceived. Cautiously, she headed there, hearing voices from a conversation and noticing that the source of the light came from the room of Merlin's mother, Hunith. The silhouettes that were projected by the light were none other than Merlin's and his mother's.

Strangely, Morgana sneaked her ear under the window so she could hear better what they were saying.

"...forgive me, mother." heard Merlin's voice whispering. "I just don't understand why you didn't tell me. After all this time..."

"I understand, honey," Hunith's sweet and kind voice was heard, "but you must understand that I did all this to protect you. To reopen the events from the past meant to open unnecessarily an already healed wound."

"But it's not about past events, mother, we're talking about what he is. And especially for what it may mean for me."

"What do you mean?"

After a brief period of silence, in which Merlin seemed to weigh his words, he finally answered:

"This is something that has been worrying me these days. It turns out there's something... inside me... who seems to have awakened after hearing his existence."

"What exactly?"

Merlin seemed to avoid the question and head in another direction in the conversation.

"What do you know about him, mother? How did you meet him for the first time?"

A silence in which the mother seemed somewhat dazed by that sudden question flooded the room.

"I met him in Camelot," she replied slowly, "when I settled there temporarily to study Sanitary Magic.

"In Camelot? What was he doing there?"

"At that time he was King Uther's advisor, at the same time that he was Gaius' most loyal apprentice. At first, what attracted me was his bravery and ingenuity. Then..., well, certain things happened."

"What kind of things?" Morgana heard Merlin's voice growing impatient, noticing a tone of need and desire in his voice.

"Let's say that... he changed."

"As a result of what?"

"I'm not sure. Certain... political dilemmas with Uther, it seems to me. Something between the two was not right; that anyone could notice just by taking a look at both, but I was not sure what could be happening exactly."

"It's alright, I understand," Merlin replied, after which a brief silence got in the way of the conversation.

As he continued, Merlin muttered even quieter something that, to say from the tone of voice, was something that troubled him.

"Those changes he underwent ... what exactly did it involve?" Merlin asked.

"At first sight, he seemed to suffer great suffering, which was accentuated when some of his attacks arrived, as he mentioned it. He always alluded to a subject who controlled him. Something inside him that drove him to behave in certain ways."

"Did he ever tell you what he meant by that subject?"

A tense silence hung over the room as Morgana glimpsed faintly through the window a face full of sorrow and doubt highlighting Hunith's deep worries.

"He never commented exactly what it was... I doubt very much that he ever knew... But apart from mentioning him as "he", as he always did, one night I overheard him talking alone in his room. It seemed to be heading for some kind of spirit, shadow or monster... which he realized he could not fight. Well, he himself claimed to realize that he was really himself... In his last days before leaving, he said that he had believed that what talked to him at night, what forced him to do things he did not want... the origin of his powers... was an external subject that controlled him, independent of his being. Nevertheless, he assured that took him time to realize that it was really himself the one who made all those things. And from then on, he seemed to accept what he claimed was "his true nature," whether he liked it or not, whether he had deserved it or not, whether he had chosen it or not…"

Morgana's heart seemed to tear as she heard Merlin's faint sobs, thin silver pearls streaking across his face. His mother hugged him tenderly and whispered words of consolation.

"The worst thing about all this, mother," Merlin spoke between little sobs, "is that I feel more and more identified with it. And I don't know what that must mean. It terrifies me… And I just don't know what to do…"

And hearing that, Morgana ran out of the window, heading anywhere. Any place other than the one where the cruel truth lay. She didn't know exactly why, but she was crying. She cried because of what she had heard. A truth that seemed to succumb to Merlin like a sea to the lost sailors. The sea of destiny whose inexorable, ruthless, inescapable force directed Merlin at will, with a whim similar to that of a child playing with a puppet with his name.

And it was precisely that notion of Fate and the link it seemed to have with her that she wept vehemently for.

Since she couldn't do anything about it.

This is becoming interesting, don't you think? The arrival of Merlin Emrys is near! Beware!

See you next time.

LegolasHV