A/N: Thank you to everyone reading, and to those who have put this story on their favorites or alert list! An extra thank you to TobiasBoon for the review!

This chapter is a bit shorter than most, but it seemed the best place to cut it off.

Chapter 26: A Daughter's Grief

Morgana arrived in Camelot before her father's body did. Hunith stood with Uther and the two boys as the carriage rolled into the courtyard. Merlin clutched a small bouquet of flowers. Hunith had had a long talk with him to prepare him for Morgana's arrival. She had wanted him to understand that Morgana might not be up to being "like a sister" when she arrived, that they needed to give her the space to grieve and adjust. It was a difficult concept for a child so young, but she thought Merlin understood. He had insisted on picking flowers for Morgana this morning, hoping they might make her feel a bit better (though he had assured Hunith he understood that the flowers wouldn't make her sadness go away.)

As Hunith watched, the driver of the carriage jumped down and walked around to open the door. It had only been a few weeks ago that Gorlois had stepped from that same carriage.

A woman exited the carriage first, helped down by the driver. Hunith knew she must have been one of the members of Gorlois' household staff, perhaps the one who had been charged with caring for Morgana while he was away.

A moment later, Hunith could see Morgana herself in the door of the carriage. As she accepted the footman's offered hand and stepped down, Hunith remembered the cheerful way she'd jumped from the carriage on her last visit.

The child who walked toward them now, shepherded along by the older woman, seemed somehow smaller than that bright, confident girl. Hunith's heart broke for her.

Morgana reached the steps and walked up them slowly. She stopped in front of Uther, and Hunith could see there were deep shadows under her eyes. She wondered how long it had been since Morgana had gotten a good night's sleep.

At a nudge from her companion, Morgana gave Uther a small curtsy.

"Morgana," Hunith could hear the suppressed emotion in Uther's voice. He reached out, as if to put a hand on her shoulder, then seemed to think better of it, "I am sorry you are coming to us under these circumstances."

Morgana didn't answer at first. She seemed to be looking just past Uther, rather than at him. Her companion nudged her again.

"Thank you, Sire," Morgana's voice came out flat.

She looked away from Uther, and gave Hunith a curtsy as well, "My lady."

Hunith reached out and took one of Morgana's hands in her own. Morgana seemed startled, but she didn't pull away. In fact, after a moment, Hunith felt the girl's hand tighten on hers, and she squeezed Morgana's hand in return.

"I am so sorry about your father," Hunith told her, not bothering to keep her own sadness out of her voice, "He was a wonderful man."

Morgana's shoulders hitched, and Hunith heard her take a deep breath. "Thank you, my lady," she answered, her voice not quite as flat as it had been before.

"I picked these for you, Morgana," Merlin stepped forward and held out his bouquet of flowers.

Morgana stared at him for a moment, then reached out and took the flowers. For the first time, the tiniest hint of a smile touched her lips, "Thanks, Merlin."

Silence fell for a moment, then Uther cleared his throat. "A room has been prepared for you," he told Morgana, "if there is anything you need, you only have to ask."

They made their way into the castle, and a servant stepped forward to lead Morgana to her room.

The other four stood and watched as she followed the servant silently down the hallway, her companion close behind her.

Morgana lay on her bed in her room. She had sent her governess away, telling her she wanted to be alone. Servants had brought in her suitcases, but Morgana hadn't touched them. They sat stacked neatly at the foot of the bed.

Everything was all wrong, had been all wrong since her father went off to the Mercian border. No, if Morgana was honest with herself, it had started before that. It had started the day her father had rushed off to Camelot to meet with the king. He had been back just in time to kiss her good night that night. His face had been set with worry, but when she'd asked him what was wrong, he'd told her not to worry about it and that they'd talk in the morning.

That night, Morgana had had the worst nightmare of her life. She had dreamed she was on a battlefield, surrounded by men fighting for their lives, the red cloaks of Camelot clashing with the blue of a foreign army. Everything around her had been noise and chaos.

Then she had seen her father, battling fiercely against not one, but two enemy soldiers. The rest of the battlefield, all of the other soldiers, had seemed to recede, until all Morgana could see was her father and his two opponents. And then it had happened. As her father parried the strike of one soldier, the other had come up on his other side. There was a flash of steel, and Morgana's father had gone down. As he groaned and struggled to rise, both opponents had loomed over him, their swords raised high, then flashing down as one.

Morgana had woken with a scream that had brought her father running. Gorlois was used to her nightmares by now- Morgana had had them for almost as long as she could remember- and he had sat on her bed and held her until her trembling subsided. He had asked her if she wanted to tell him about her dream, but Morgana had shaken her head and burrowed closer into his side. To speak of the terrible images would have been to relive them, and she was doing her best to banish them from her memory. Her father was right there by her side, safe and alive, and that was all that mattered.

Morgana had fallen back asleep feeling comforted. And then the next morning, over breakfast, her father had told her that he was going to fight at the Mercian border. Instantly, every detail of Morgana's dream had come flooding back to her, and she had felt a terror and foreboding like she had never known before.

She had begged her father not to go, pleaded, cried, even physically clung to him like a girl half her age. But none of it had done any good. Her father had given her a hug and told her that he had to go, that it was his duty. He had promised that when he came back, he would take her out riding. Morgana had cried harder. She had tried to tell him about her dream, but by that point, she had been so upset, she wasn't sure he had even understood her words. He had reassured her that it was normal to have nightmares. It was probably because she had sensed something was wrong from the way he had rushed off to Camelot, he had told her.

And then he had left. The dread that had hung over Morgana in the days following her father's departure had been relentless, no matter how much she had tried to convince herself that her dream had just been a dream. And then the messenger had come, and the moment Morgana spotted him riding up to the gate from her bedroom window, she had known why he was there.

She'd done something childish then, hidden in her room and ignored the servants who knocked on her door to try to call her out. They'd given up eventually, and a few minutes later, she had watched from her window as the messenger rode away.

There'd been another knock on her door then, and she'd ignored that one too. But someone must have dug up a spare key, because a moment later, the door opened and Morgana's governess had stepped in. She was a stern woman, and Morgana had strafed under her strictness when she was younger and had been under her care full time. Now that Morgana was older, the governess only came when Gorlois was away. Morgana had tried to convince her father she was old enough to do without a governess then too, but Gorlois had only smiled and told her he needed to know she was being taken care of when he was away from her.

Morgana was sure the governess was about to scold her for being rude and ignoring a guest, but the woman's usually stern face was pale, and she'd looked near tears as she met Morgana's eyes.

Morgana didn't remember the exact words the governess had said. It didn't matter. She had known what was coming from the moment she had seen the messenger. She did remember wailing like a toddler, and the governess wrapping her arms around her. Morgana had pushed her away. The only arms she had wanted around her right then were her father's, and he would never hug her again. She had run blindly from the room, not knowing where she was going, only knowing that she had to get out, as if by escaping the room, she could also flee from the reality of her father's death.

She had ended up in the stables. She'd stumbled into the stall that housed her own mare- a gift from her father- and had cried into the horse's neck until she had no tears left. Then, exhausted, she had curled up in the straw on the stable floor and fallen asleep.

When she had woken, her governess had been there, sitting quietly by her side. Morning light had been streaming through the windows, and Morgana wondered if the governess had been there all night.

She'd apologized for pushing her the night before. At any other time, the governess would have given her a full lecture on how unbecoming of a lady her behavior had been. But in that moment, she had simply helped Morgana to her feet and said, "Let's get you some breakfast." Morgana had followed her back to the house, a heavy numb feeling settling over her.

Now, laying on a bed in Uther's castle, in a room that was not her own, Morgana felt the same numbness filling her. She and her father had always stayed in the same guest quarters whenever they visited Camelot, Gorlois in the main room, and Morgana in what would have been a servant's antechamber, but had been set up as an additional guest room instead.

But the room she was in now wasn't set up for a guest, because Morgana wasn't a guest in the castle this time. This room had been set up to be hers permanently. She hated the thought. She didn't want to stay here in the castle. She wanted to go home. She wanted everything to go back to the way it had been before. She wanted her father back.

She hadn't cried for him since that first night. She felt like she ought too, had even tried to will herself to a few times, but the tears wouldn't come. She wondered what was wrong with her. Was she a terrible daughter, to not be a sobbing mess right now?

She rolled over onto her side, and her eyes fell on the little bouquet of flowers that Merlin had given her, sitting in a vase on top of the chest of drawers- which was empty and waiting for her to unpack her clothes into it. But she didn't want to think about that. She focused again on the flowers instead. They were bright and chaotic- much like Merlin himself. The colors clashed magnificently and the haphazard bouquet seemed out of place in the neatness of the room. For some reason, that made Morgana like the flowers more. Maybe because she felt out of place in the room too, felt out of place in the world without her father.

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