A/N: This chapter is a bit short just as the previous chapter was. In the future they'll get longer, but the main purpose of these first few chapters is just to establish Morgana's character and they don't need to be especially long to do that.

Qoheleth: I appreciate your comment and made some changes to the story as a result of it. Honestly, that part of the story was tasteless anyways and the story will be better off with it changed.

Flower of Life

Morgana was sitting in a chair in the Orphanage Head's office, only half-listening as the man said comforting words to her as if several minutes before she hadn't murdered a child. Although, he didn't know that, she supposed, and the red eyes she had from crying probably didn't scream murderer. Her eyes drifted down to the placard on his desk.

'William Everett, huh?' It was a good enough name she supposed, though she was honestly surprised she didn't know it before. Her eyes drifted back up to the man's face. If she had to guess, the man was probably in his late thirties or early forties. 'He has a kind face… It suits him, I think.'

The man stepped around his desk and laid a hand on her shoulder. He kneeled down, saying something or another to her, but she was too busy locked in her own self-hatred filled mind to listen to him.

She barely noticed as she was guided to her room.

~FoL~

Morgana stared at the ceiling above her rather mediocre bed as she stewed in her own thoughts. She hadn't been blamed for Johnny White's death. It was hard to believe she could just… get away with murder like that, accidental or no.

Following the 'accident' she had been moved into her own room within the orphanage. She wasn't really told why, but she was probably told when she was brought into the orphanage head's office. From what she could tell they probably wanted to either give her space after what she'd 'witnessed' or they considered her dangerous to the other residents of the orphanage. She was hoping and leaning towards the first one, but she did deserve the second one if that was the case at least. It could be a mix of both to some degree as well, she supposed.

Regardless, she would have to be more careful with her mind magic practice in the future now that she'd confirmed it. She'd realized what went wrong with her use of legilimency on Johnny, she had been far too forceful in an attempt to make sure she succeeded in her goal. She really should have known from the beginning, mind magic rather obviously shouldn't be used so roughly. The mind was a delicate instrument and rather than just entering his mind, she had torn through it with all the grace of a sledgehammer through butter, breaking countless no doubt important connections within the boy's mind. Consequently, Johnny had lost most brain function and collapsed on the spot. Had he lived, she had no doubt he would either be entirely non-functional or would have to spend years rebuilding the connections in his mind from the ground up, including essential skills like talking or even just moving.

Honestly, death was probably preferable to an existence like that. She certainly hadn't enjoyed the uselessness of her second set of baby years, and the experience would likely have been somewhat similar. She closed her eyes and sighed, she would need to find a more suitable person to practice on, and she would need to be far more careful.

~FoL~

It was weeks later that she found a suitable target for her practice of Legilimency. Well, suitable for her standards, anyways. She found her target during her least favorite time of the week: Sunday Service at her local church, which she'd finally paid enough attention to learn was a protestant church.

'God, I fucking hate church.' She glared balefully from her place on one of the church pews up at the middle-aged Father- sorry, 'Pastor' at the head of the room. She was going to lose her mind, going to fucking church every week. It had taken a lifetime for her to break the conditioning the church had put her through in her first life, and she'd still felt guilty about some of her more 'sinful' inclinations from time to time in the weeks leading up to her death. Or rebirth, she supposed. Hey, that kinda made her a little like Jesus, didn't it? Dying and being reborn, having special powers, though she supposed she lacked the great moral virtues he was supposed to have had. She smiled to herself at the rather ridiculous comparison, before her eyes drifted back to the Pastor at the front of the room. 'Actually… He'll do.'

She looked into Pastor Peterson's eyes from across the church and quietly willed her mind to connect with his. 'legilimens.'

~FoL~

Pastor Peterson was a piece of shit. Every week, she would look into his eyes and his mind. Every week, she grew more familiar with his failings and his justifications. His secrets, large and small. For months this went on, as Morgana grew nearly more familiar with the man's mind than she was with her own. She knew about his weakness for wine and the failings of his faith. The man claimed to be a devout member of the Protestant faith, and yet every week after service he would wait not far from St. Elimine's orphanage for young Ms. Pierce so that he could cheat on his wife with her. It was funny actually, the man had only developed his interest in the young woman after Morgana herself had accidentally permanently turned the woman's hair brown. Apparently he agreed with her that it had in fact made the woman more pretty. So yes, Pastor Richard Peterson was a bit of a piece of shit and had some secrets to hide. Don't we all?

Frankly, she had expected worse. Sure, he was cheating on his wife and that was bad, but the man treated her well when he was with her, and outside of his near weekly sins he was the very picture of the ideal protestant pastor. The man made donations out of his own pocket to the church, and a decent portion of donations to the church went to help pay for the orphanage she lived in. Honestly, she couldn't help but feel bad at this point that her first few invasions of his mind had caused him some memory issues. She would have to see about fixing the parts of his mind she had accidentally frayed sometime in the future. The man had some relationship problems, but she certainly didn't see that as making him worthy of a permanent brain injury.

At this point, however, she felt comfortable beginning to practice on other minds. She was skilled enough now that she could be sure she wouldn't damage someone's mind unless she intended to. For once in her life, she really meant it when she said, "Thank you, pastor."

~FoL~

The first few children in the orphanage she shamelessly practiced legilimency on had rather boring minds. The same web-like construct she'd come to associate with the human mind. A different pattern every time, but not in any meaningful way beyond showing some individuality. She learned about some bullying in the orphanage she didn't know about before and learned what the general impression of her was among the other orphans, but that was about it. Honestly, the only information of use she'd gotten from them was actually fairly useless. She wasn't creepy or scary, after all, and it didn't really matter if some random orphans thought so.

It wasn't until the fourth orphan she had decided to practice on that she learned or noticed anything interesting. She was an older girl of about thirteen or so that she remembered being vaguely sad or angry most of the time, nothing unusual for an orphan, but her mind on the other hand was rather fascinating. Within the web of the girl's mind there were several areas where there were memories partially or entirely separated from the others, the connections frayed for some reason she couldn't immediately discern. Interesting, let's see what this is all about…

A few minutes later she was knocking on William Everett's office door. "Enter," the familiar deep, calming voice of the Orphanage's Head called from within after a few seconds. Morgana entered and locked eyes with the kind-looking man as he opened his mouth to say something to her. 'LEGILIMENS!' She stared coldly into William's eyes as she tore the man's previously healthy mind to ribbons. He collapsed bonelessly onto his desk, a puppet with his strings cut just like Johnny White several months before.

She left and closed the door behind her, leaving to return to her room. It was late, nearly time for bed, and as a consequence there wasn't anyone around to see her leave the office. The workers that were left were busy gathering the other children, specifically the younger ones to herd them into bed. William Everett likely wouldn't be found drooling on his desk until morning, and there would be no way to link it to her. After all, Johnny had died before anyone else had seen such symptoms.

This time, as she laid down on her bed, she smiled.