Chapter 24: A/N I DO NOT OWN MERLIN. The link to see how I imagined the jewellery Morgana gives Cassie is images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcQMiWY2QHjKD8QA6SRnXukQ3s1mQ-exgBMHxg&usqp=CAU
Arthur escorted the three women to the throne room. 'Reminds me of when Father had me bring her in to question her himself. Just without the knight' he thought to himself.
After seeing Cassie walk out with green skin and a pale orange dress, he had fallen over with peals of laughter only to have her slap him upside the head, rather hard to be honest. He had to admit, though, the girl had grown on him like Morgana had all those years ago. For some reason, he didn't see her as a peasant or servant. He didn't even see her as Gaius' apprentice. She felt more like nobility than some of the Lords and Ladies of the Court. She felt like family, though he really would never admit that to anyone.
It was all Cassie could do to hide her fear. An audience with the King! After Owaine had found out one of her dirty little secrets! She wished it weren't true. That Owaine hadn't told him, she wished that he'd want to speak to her. But remembering just how much the people of Camelot feared magic made her want to turn around and run away. But if there's one thing her brother's had taught her it's that she shouldn't run away. It was a hard lesson, obviously.
She had run away from her city. Her duty, her people. Whatever was left of them, anyway.
She had run away from Owaine when he found out, though that didn't work out as she'd run right into his brother's arms.
And now, she realized she had a choice. Run or stay. Plead her case to the magic hating tyrant, or run away and never see her friends-no her family again. Leave them thinking her a coward, or misguided-because they would never see her as strong. Not as a witch.
If ever she was grateful for her sisters' lessons on acting, it was now. She hid her fear well. Disguising it as nervousness over seeing the King with green skin and a dress that clashed horribly with it.
They finally made it to the throne room, where the guard announced their presence- barely holding their composure. It was eerily empty, the only people there were Gaius, Owaine, Leon and the King himself.
"My Lord," Cassie greeted with a deep curtsy as Morgana and Arthur went to take their places beside Uther, who was suppressing laughter the same as the other occupants of the room.
"It seems we have figured out who had Arthur walking around for a week, pink." Uther said, letting out an aristocratic chuckle.
"I felt it was a good welcome, Sire. Some levity after spending a few days in the woods, fraught with fear and worry." Morgana explained.
"Yes, well. It has certainly brought some levity to others, Morgana. Cassie. I wanted to personally thank you. For saving my Ward's life. Lady Morgana means much to me, and you put her life before your own."
"It was nothing, my Lord. I would have done the same for anyone." Cassie replied modestly, relief flooding her.
"Nonsense. From what Sirs Leon and Owaine tell me, you behaved with great courage. You saved her life, a debt must be repaid!"
"H-honestly, Your Majesty, you don't have to." Cassie stammered out, still reeling from not being sentenced to death.
"No, absolutely. This merits something quite special!"
"Well…" she trailed off.
"You shall be rewarded with your own chambers! The room next to Gaius' has been empty for decades, but it has been aired out. It is now yours. I realize you have patients in the lower towns, and they are welcome to go to you for treatment." Uther said with a note of finality.
"My lord, I thank you for your generosity" Cassie said, bowing as she recognised the dismissal from the throne room with Gaius, Leon and Owaine.
"I'm sorry, Cassie, but you look hilarious." Gaius said when they were down the hall.
"Yeah, they got back at me for some pranks I made." Cassie explained.
"I don't remember Lady Morgana getting pranked." Owaine said, confused.
"I changed all her belongings from their place." she said, avoiding his eyes, avoiding the hurt.
They made small talk on their way to the physician's chambers to help Cassie collect her meager belongings and move them to the girl's new chamber. It took the four of them one trip to move everything she owned, Owaine carrying the easier belongings due to his ankle. Gwen, Morgana, and Arthur went to help situate Cassie after Uther had dismissed the two royals, and found she had already moved everything, so they settled on giving her the presents for her impromptu house warming. Gwen had given Cassie an ornate jewellery box her father had made as a thank you. Arthur gave her a new dagger to replace the one she had used to kill the bandit, with a hilt inlaid in opal. Morgana gave her a set of earrings and matching necklace of rubies inlaid in a gold setting. Leon gave her a deep blue velvet cloak.
"If I knew saving you would have gotten me so many presents, I would have done it much earlier!" Cassie joked, trying not to let the tears fall down her face. But when Gaius gave her his gift, the tears came freely. He had given her her own medical bag, a beautiful satchel big enough to hold all her medical supplies with a bronze clasp in the form of a fleur de lis.
"Gaius….This is beautiful, but I cannot accept it. It must have cost you a fortune!" Cassie said with watery eyes.
"It cost me nothing, dear. It was given to me many years ago. Now it's yours." he replied with a fatherly smile, to which Cassie just squealed and enveloped the old man in a bear hug.
"Thank you. All of you. Everything is beautiful. I don't know how to thank you."
"Nonsense! If anything, this is us thanking you, Cassie. You did save Morgana's life. And who can forget, you saved Sir Owaine's life as well." Arthur said. "Well. We'll leave you to get settled then. Good night, Cassie." he said, nodding in farewell from where he stood near the doorway, arms crossed.
"Have a good night, Cassie." Leon said softly, giving her a peck on the cheek, to which Cassie had to fight back a blush.
"Bye Cassie!" Morgana and Gwen said happily at the same time, going over to hug their best friend in a tight embrace.
"Adiós, Casiopea." Gaius said softly with a smile as he embraced the girl again. "If you need anything, I'm just next door."
"I know, Gaius. Sleep well." Cassie bade softly as he left the room. All that was left was Owaine and Cassie.
"Can we talk now." he asked tentatively, looking at her with indecipherable eyes.
"Yes." Cassie whispered back, tears forming in her eyes once more. But these were not happy tears. They were tears of loss, of self-hate, and of unrequited love.
Cassie cleared her throat awkwardly and toed the floor nervously.
"Why?" Owaine asked, noticing just how quickly the mood had changed.
"Why what?" Cassie scoffed out disbelieving.
"Why did you learn magic?" Owaine whispered, not wanting to answer, but not being able to forget about it.
"Why do you care? You'll just turn me in. Sign my death sentence." Cassie said moodily.
"No! I would never do that, Cassie. I-I think of you too highly to betray you like that." Owaine said. 'I think I might love you too much to do that.' he thought, not being able to bring himself to say it.
"It doesn't matter. I'd tell you I won't use it again, but I think too highly of you to betray you like that." Cassie spat his words back in his face.
"Cass." Owaine whispered sadly, "I just want to help you. Please." he said portraying as much sincerity as he felt.
"Owaine, we're not working out. Okay? You and I, we-" Cassie started, but couldn't finish, no matter how hard she tried. She just couldn't say those two words, she couldn't say 'we're over.'
Realizing this was going nowhere, he started over, asking what he had decided on that morning.
"What was Reccopolis' stance on magic?"
"Tolerant. It was rare enough very few people actually possessed it." Cassie answered, trying to find the courage to break it off with him. Whatever 'it' was.
"Those who did," she continued, "only used it for healing and...growing food, what's it called!" she cried exasperatedly, hating that she couldn't remember the word.
"Farming?" Owaine offered.
"Yes! Farming. They healed and they farmed. Of course there were the few that let their insecurities and their hatred rule them. But even if they hadn't any magic, they would have acted the same."
"So, you wanted to learn because you wanted to heal?" Owaine asked, genuinely wanting to know the reasons.
"No."
"You wanted to farm then?" he asked with a furrowed brow.
"No."
Then why?!" he cried out. "Why learn?"
"I had to. I had no choice but to." Cassie answered veraciously.
"Did someone force you to?" Owaine asked, his worry warring with confusion and disgust. Cassie could only see the disgust.
"My mother didn't force me to, if that's what you're getting at." she replied darkly, not liking at all where this was going.
"So why?" he asked, getting annoyed at her answers.
"I have to use it, I had to learn, because it was too unpredictable when I didn't know how to control it!" she practically snarled.
"What do you mean 'unpredictable' before you learned?"
"I mean what I say, Owaine. I had little control over it when it first manifested. I did nothing to learn and it got the better of me. So, I had to learn, otherwise the consequences would not have been very nice." Cassie said.
"So, you didn't seek it out?" he asked, confused. All his life he'd been told magic users were evil, greedy people who learned it, who wanted more power so they could control others. Hold something over them and get what they wanted without working at it. And now, here she is saying it manifested itself! That she didn't want it.
"No. I didn't seek to learn it." Cassie said harshly.
"So how? How do you have magic? How is it possible?"
"When I was three, my family discovered I had magic. They said that one day, I wanted my toys, but they were too far up and the only one around was my sister who was nine and she couldn't reach it either, so my eyes glowed, and the toy floated down to me." Cassie started explaining after a deep breath.
"When she told my mother and brother, they wanted no fabulous tales, she was known for spinning the story the way she wanted and making fantastical tales of it. But when they saw me do magic with their own eyes, they were astonished."
"You've had magic since you were three?" Owaine asked.
He looked like he was going to be sick.
'All those druids, all those women and children Uther told us were evil. That they had to be eradicated because of their corrupt souls. All those innocent lives we've taken. I've taken.' he thought despondent.
He leaned against the wall and lowered himself to the floor, sitting with his knees bent to his chest. He let the tears fall freely, not caring that it was unmanly to cry. Especially in front of a woman.
Cassie didn't know what to say. What to do. She couldn't possibly guess what was going on in his head.
"Magic isn't evil, Owaine. Think of it as a tool for survival. Hunting isn't evil, it's necessary to live, to eat. But I'm sure the animals think differently. They are afraid of humans because all we do is kill their kin. Some men learn to fight to protect their family. Others learn magic for the same reason. Kings and Princes learn the art of war, art of combat to protect their people. Or they learn it to invade and conquer lands. It's not whether you have magic that makes you bad, it's what you do with it. How you choose to wield it." Cassie said softly.
"How do you choose to wield it, Cassie? I've been taught all my life that magic corrupts and controls. How?" Owaine muttered defeatedly.
"It has the potential to corrupt. But so does any other type of power. Men with power over women, over children turn into brutes. You've seen kings get power hungry and turn into despots. Generals, statesmen, councilmen, Lords. Why would it be any different for a sorcerer?" Cassie said, walking over to him and kneeling in front of him, hands on his knees.
"Tiberus said of Caligula before Caligula became emperor that he was a viper. A snake to the Roman people. And he was proven right. Caligula's insatiable lust and depravity led to his downfall. It was his hunger for power, his lust and his extravagance that corrupted him long before he became Emperor. And he did not have magic. He was just insane, unhinged."
"Sorcerers are no different. It's the heart of the one who wields the power that decides, Owaine. Someone with a pure heart, an innocent soul, could have all the power in the world and only use it to help others." Cassie finished, looking at him with soft, doting eyes.
"Cassie. I-I." Owaine stopped, overcome by emotions.
"Shh." Cassie whispered, not letting him talk. "You don't have to."
"But I do." he said, looking at her tearfully. "I've killed so many. I thought what I was doing was right. I thought I was saving them."
"You were following orders. You don't have to apologize to me, Owaine." she said softly, not looking away from him.
"What are the consequences? If you don't use magic."
"I get sick."
"What do you mean?" Owaine asked,
"When I was six, my magic got away from me. We were playing in the square and then it decided to lift one of the council members to the top of a tree nearby. He was furious, and after he got down, he marched to the palace and I overheard him say to another council member that something had to be done about me. That I had to be sent away, disinherited for practicing magic. Magic isn't part of the Catholic religion. It's a pagan religion." Cassie began slowly.
"I was so afraid of losing my family that I forced it down. Whenever it reached out and wanted to play I'd ignore it. Sometimes I would repel it forcefully. It worked, for a while. But then it started to show up in nightmares." she said anxiously.
"This one time, I had a nightmare so bad the magic seeped out of me and set the curtains on fire. I was terrified of it. And my magic responded in kind, it was terrified of me. Every day I could feel it receding, just curling in on itself in fear, but that just made me more afraid. And then one day, several months later, I woke up and it felt like it was gone. And I was left empty, bereft. Cold. I didn't want to get out of bed, I didn't want to eat, and when my mother noticed she realized that I had a fever. But I didn't feel hot. The physician tried everything, but no remedy he had worked. And one day, a passing healer looked in on me and within the minute said what my problem was. I wouldn't use my magic. I forced it down and locked it up and it was making me sick. She said that I had to use it, I couldn't keep it down, and I shouldn't let it build up. Edurne, that was her name, offered to stay and help me learn how to control it. My mother thanked her, saying it was what was best for me. And I obediently learned. I had to." Cassie shrugged as if it was no big deal.
"Eventually, I stopped being afraid of it. Started to recognize it as a part of me. Now, magic is as much a part of me as my blood. I suppose it always was." Cassie finished gingerly.
"If you had grown up here, in Camelot, King Uther would have had you drowned, killed. And the knights would have done so. Without question. He ordered, we did. I honestly thought that I was doing it to help them. To release them from the darkness." he choked out.
"Owaine, stop it. Stop thinking like this. You'll only become bitter. You can't change what's already been done. But you can forgive yourself. Please." Cassie pleaded looking deep into the haunted eyes of the man she loved.
"You speak of your magic as if it's a friend, like it has its own personality." Owaine observed after a few minutes of just looking into each other's eyes.
"I was three, my siblings didn't really play with me, they had their own friends and pastimes. I was largely alone, so I entertained myself. My magic was my friend for years. It reacted to my emotions and it was always there for me." Cassie explained with a shrug of her shoulders.
"I still remember how it felt before I knew how to direct it, the warm prickling feeling beneath my skin before it left me. I used to love making colored bubbles (a la sing sweet nightingale in cinderella!) and images in the fire dance. My favorite was making the candles float. My brothers hated it! They feared something would catch fire, but I loved seeing the flames dance in the air." Cassie said with a nostalgic smile, moving to sit beside Owaine.
"Can you show me?" Owaine asked, curiosity blazing in his eyes.
"Sure. flēotaþ, heofoncandelum" Cassie smiled, her eyes turning to gold for a moment before returning to their normal blue. Owaine looked in wonder as the candles that had been lit earlier in the evening danced around in the air, floating around the room in pairs to a waltz.
Post chapter A/N The spell says float candles. Hope you liked it! I was kinda just typing, seeing where it would take me. Hopefully it's not too bad?! You've already read, all that's left is review, good or bad, i'll take it!