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rivendellroseUnbeta'd, embarrassingly self-indulgent, and probably a bit pretentious, particularly given the subject matter. I have committed Merlin-fic. I should probably feel somewhat less pleased with myself about this, but oh well.
Title: Frozen
Characters: Morgana, Gwen, and Uther
Pairing: Morgana/Uther
Summary: Morgana has trouble sleeping, and finds that someone else in Camelot is awake, too.
Author's Note: This is probably a first draft - I'm hoping to fine-tune it a bit, or maybe just give up and rewrite the whole thing, but I'm feeling impatient right now and want to post it anyway. So there. :P At the moment, this is pretty much me figuring out what I think of the characters... but I'm having fun while I'm doing it.
Freezing rain fell outside the stone walls of Camelot’s halls, and, inside them, Morgana felt as though the same ice was settling on her limbs. Her breath puffed like smoke in front of her, and her hands burned with the cold even when she buried them in the fur of her heaviest cloak. It had been colder than this at her old family home in Ireland, she remembered, but perhaps the relative warmth of Camelot’s climate had softened her in the years since she’d come to Camelot. It certainly had not made her less prey than she had been as a child to the prowling, anxious feeling that made her feel as though the walls of her rooms were closing in on her, the curtains twining around her neck, the draperies clinging at her feet like greedy vines. They would choke her, if they could, they would--
They are fabric. Cloth. Only threads of linen and wool woven tightly together. She lifted the drape in her hand, forcing herself to rub her hand on its weave, to see and feel with her eyes and hands, not her mind. These things can neither move nor think. They will not strangle you.
The stone walls of the hall will not crush you. You will not disappear. You will not fade.
She blamed the dreams.
Gaius did what he could to help her, of course, and he was a better physician than any her own family’s court had housed. He gave her draughts for peaceful sleep, deep sleep from which he hoped she would rise remembering nothing. But as time passed the strength of each succeeding potion weakened, or perhaps the dreams strengthened to fight them. The visions reutrned, more frightening than ever, and with them came this feeling of freezing, of burning, of her body being made of glass that would shatter from the heat building within her, breaking her apart into a million pieces strewn all over the floor.
“Warm milk,” Gwen offered when she arrived after the evening’s chores, holding out a warm mug. “And here’s a vial from Gaius. He said it would help you sleep, and you should take it immediately before you go to bed.”
Morgana drank the milk while Gwen combed her hair a hundred strokes, and tried not to feel that the tugging was pulling at her veins instead of the hair on her head.
“Old Corey in the stables says it will freeze tonight,” Gwen said lightly as she braided Morgana’s hair. Gwen was a good friend - she always knew when to let a silence linger, and when it needed to be filled. “All that rain will turn to snow, and the world will be white. I love when it snows, it makes everything so pretty.”
“It will be hard on the men, when they ride on patrol tomorrow, if there is ice on the ground,” Morgana pointed out, and then cursed to herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to turn everything into something bad. It’s only this weather. I think it’s gotten into my head.”
“Wasn’t it this cold in Ireland?” Gwen asked.
“And worse, almost every winter,” Morgana agreed. “But... I suppose I was younger, then, and I didn’t notice so much. Or maybe it feels different, far away from home.”
“I can’t imagine it. Being so far away from home, I mean.” Gwen tied off Morgana’s braid with a scrap of ribbon, and then rested her hands on her friend’s shoulders, lost in thought. “I’ve lived in Camelot all my life - I can’t imagine being away from it. Away from you, and Merlin, and my father... Sorry,” she mumbled sudden. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”
“My father died a long time ago, Gwen. It’s all right.” Morgana reached up and patted the other girl’s hand. “He was old. I was his last child, and my mother died when I was a baby. I was lucky that I had time to know him, at least. I don’t even remember my mother.”
“I can’t imagine it,” Gwen repeated, shaking her head. Her thick braid brushed Morgana’s shoulder as she did.
“It’s not so bad,” Morgana told her, forcing light into her voice. “After all, I would never have met all of you here, if I hadn’t had to come live here, and I like all of you very much.”
“Even Arthur?” Gwen teased.
“Hmm, him I could do without.” Morgana smiled. “But you and Merlin and Gaius and the rest - I’m happy to know all of you. Camelot is a much busier place than my father’s keep was. My brothers were always out and about on some campaign or other, and my father was not much for socializing. After he died, all the warmth went out of the place. My brothers were right to send me here, after that.” She shivered. “If people think I’m a bit wild here and now, just imagine what I would have been like after a few years of no company but servants and the occasional rowdy war party of brothers dropping in.”
“How did it happen?” Gwen asked softly.
They’d never talked about this before - Gwen hated to talk about anything sad, particularly about people dying, but Morgana wondered if perhaps the illness her father had fallen under earlier in the year was making her think. “He was very old, Gwen,” she told her friend gently. “My brothers are all several years older than me - I don’t think my parents thought my mother could conceive again, at her age, but she lived long enough to give birth to me, and after that a serving woman nursed me. My father refused to marry again.” She smild. “They didn’t marry for love, but Father used to say they found it later, anyway.”
“That’s sweet,” Gwen offered, a smile evident in her voice.
“And rare,” Morgana agreed. “We should all be so lucky. Although I don’t suppose you have much to worry about, do you? Your Lancelot will be back someday...”
“Don’t tease, Morgana. Anyway, you weren’t finished with your story.”
“Do you really want to know?”
Gwen nodded, and rested her chin on top of Morgana’s head. Morgana sighed. “All right. Well... it was summer. My brothers were away fighting with an ally of ours to the north - I don’t remember exactly what was at issue, but they’d been gone for weeks, and all the men of our household with them. I came down to supper, and my father wasn’t at table. I thought he’d gotten worse and gone to bed, so I went into his rooms to ask him if he needed anything, and I found him on the floor. He was cold. He’d died some hours before, while I was... working on my embroidery or something silly like that, I suppose. It must have happened quickly - I would have heard, I think, if he’d cried out.”
“Then what?”
“Then... I called some of the peasants out of the field, and they carried him to the church.”
“And did your brothers come home?”
“I sent a messenger. It took some time to find them.”
“And you were alone all that time, until they came back? Oh, Morgana...”
Morgana took a deep breath and let it out in a puff of white air against the cold. “I wasn’t alone. The household servants were there, and the peasants out in the fields, and a few guards. It was fine. I told you, the keep was never as busy as Camelot to begin with. I was used to not having a lot of people around.”
“But.. you didn’t have anyone to talk to!”
“Well, I just talked about it to you, didn’t I?”
“Morgana!”
“Oh, hush.” Morgana sighed. “All right, I know what you mean. Yes, I was alone. And I was afraid, and it was awful, but... it’s not as though I think about it a lot, Gwen. That was years ago. Camelot is my home, now, as much as the keep ever was, and... and I’m not alone anymore. It’s fine, really.”
And I dreamed it all before it happened, anyway, she remembered with a chill that was like watching frost form patterns on Camelot’s bubbly, watery glass windows. I dreamed that my father left me alone, and that my brothers were far away and covered in blood, and they didn’t hear me when I screamed that he was dead. And then I dreamed that they sent me away to live somewhere else. And they did. Knowing before it happened made it all seem so easy, she thought - she couldn’t fight it, there was no doubt or fear, no concern that she should have done something different. Even though she’d been a small girl of only twelve, she’d known that she could have done nothing to prevent her father dying there, because in her mind, even as her brothers rode away weeks before, it had already happened.
“You should drink that potion and go to bed,” Gwen said gently, “before the warmth of the milk you had goes away.”
“You’re right.” Morgana stood and hugged her friend, and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, Gwen - your father is young and strong, and the sickness he had before was a magical one, and it’s now long gone.” He’ll be with you a while yet, she only just stopped herself from saying. The words felt like ice on her tongue, and she was glad that Gwen only smiled and kissed her cheek in return before closing the door behind her.
As soon as the other girl was gone, Morgana took off her outer dress quickly and blew out the candles all but one, watching the smoke mingle with the mist from her breath. She curled up under her blankets, pulling her heavy cloak over the bed on top of them, and held the heavy mug between her hands... and hesitated.
She remembered past nights, when she could feel the warmth of Gaius’ potion spreading tendrils through her belly, moving through her, slowing her, stilling her body and her mind. And with a sudden clarity she thought, The cure is as dangerous as the ill, this time. Drinking herbs every night to dull my mind... why? Wrapping myself in a veil, cooling my veins until I feel nothing, muffling myself until I hear nothing, see nothing...
No.
With a rush, she threw off the blankets and pulled on her fur cloak over her thin under-tunic. She slipped her feet into slippers, and then... froze. Where to go? The decision to go, to move, not to wait in the darkness while complacency and dullness overtook her, that had been the easy part. This next was more confusing, and much more dangerous. Follow Gwen? No, that Morgana dismissed easily. Gwen had borne enough of her burden for the night, and it wasn’t sweet acceptance and sisterly love that her heart ached for. No... Seek out Gaius, then? Scholarly conversation appealed to her many days, and Gaius had been indulgent, willing to give her books to read and a clever mind to discuss them with, both things that Morgana knew many would not praise him for granting to a girl. But no. He would worry, especially if he knew that she was rebelling against his sleeping draught. She could still drink it. The weight of the warm milk she’d already had still pulled at her limbs, making her think longingly of bed, of drinking the sweet herbs from the vial and shutting her eyes, insensible to pain and bad thoughts...
No, no, no. Stay awake! Run, flee, find something, anything to wake the mind and body!
Morgana had heard stories, back home, of shepherds or beggars on cold nights, who wandered too far from shelter and were found the next morning, frozen alive in postures of peace. Freezing was like sleep, people said. The body simply grew tired, and succumbed to it with grace and comfort.
Not for me, Morgana told herself fiercely, and tucked her last burning candle in a lantern and pushed out the door before she could have another second thought. She hurried through the dark halls, one turn after another, focusing only on moving, moving, moving, until suddenly--
“Morgana?”
She nearly ran into him. Uther. His crown had been cast off, and his eyes, heavy with sleep, grew wide and worried as he took in her disheveled appearance, her obvious rush, the wildness in her eyes. She could see him become afraid for her.
“Morgana, what’s happened?” he asked sternly.
“Nothing! Nothing, I... Nothing. I couldn’t sleep, and I...” What? Went for a run? Morgana searched her mind desperately for a reasonable explanation, but the truth slipped out of her lips before she could find the words she was looking for. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
Uther frowned. “I’ll find someone to call Gwenevere back--”
“No, please. It’s fine. I’ll just... I’ll--”
“Morgana.” Uther stopped her with his fingers cupping her chin. “Breathe. And then tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know! I--”
“Shhhh. Breathe first.” Uther touched her shoulder lightly, and then turned her, leading her back into his chamber and taking a flagon from a small table by the side of his bed. He held it out to her.
“What is it?” she asked suspiciously. “No more herbs, I can’t--”
“Only a bit of whiskey,” he said with a soft smile. “Drink it. It’s cold tonight; the liquor will put a fire in your belly to warm you, and calm you so we can talk.”
She took a small sip, and then handed it back to him. He took a sip as well, and set it back on the table. “There. Do you think you can talk now without the words tripping over each other?”
“I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
Uther only waited, watching her.
Without knowing why, Morgana’s mind cast back to her earlier conversation with Gwen. “When my brothers brought me here... did they tell you how my father died?”
“Of course.” Uther nodded. “I was sorry to hear it, and moreso that you had found him yourself, and been alone after. You were very young to go through such a thing. It happens, of course, but it was very unfortunate.”
This was better, Morgana realized - Uther did not feel pity for her in the same way that Gwen did. He did not see it as a horrifying, terrible event, but rather as another of life’s daily tragedies, all familiar to a leader and to a man of combat. “And did they tell you that I didn’t cry?” she continued. “That I wouldn’t wail and tear my clothes like the other women, even though he was my own father and I loved him better than any of them?”
Uther nodded again.
“Did you think me heartless, then?” Morgana asked in a rush. “Gwen would have, if I’d told her that. She would have sobbed, if it had been her - nothing would have consoled her. But I felt... it was like my heart was frozen over. And I feel that now, I feel... These horrible dreams I have. Gaius told you about them, I know he has. The dreams make me feel like that again, as if I’m freezing up and trying to bury myself away from some great pain that I see coming.”
“You are not heartless.” Uther turned away from her, looking out the window. “If anything, Morgana, you feel too keenly. You know that all the times you and I have fought, it’s been because I ask you, for your own benefit, to look the other way from someone’s pain, and you refuse.”
“Why do you ask it of me, then?” Morgana asked bitterly. “If you know I can’t--”
“Because I know the world is hard, Morgana. Harder than even you know, and unlike your friend you have seen some of it. I would keep that hardness from hurting you any more, if I can.”
“You would dull me to it,” Morgana accused around the lump that had suddenly grown in her throat. “You, and Gaius, and even Gwen, you would all have me close my eyes and ignore the world around me. Feel nothing, see nothing, dream nothing. You would like that very much, wouldn’t you? Then you can... marry me off where you will, or keep me in waiting until the day Arthur needs a queen because he’s put off every woman who’s ever known him. Don’t lie, Uther - I’ve seen enough of the world to know that’s how it works. You’ll lay me like a betting piece in the hands of whoever it will benefit you to have an alliance with.”
Uther turned back to her suddenly, and she was surprised to see a smile tugging at his lips.
“Well, I’m glad it amuses you to think of me being sold off to whoever pays the highest price!”
He turned his head down and laughed softly. “That’s not it, Morgana. You’ve misunderstood me. I wasn’t laughing that you would think that, only that I’ve worried too much, it seems, about keeping other thoughts hidden from you.”
“What do you mean? Arthur doesn’t want me, so--”
“No. And Arthur’s choice is his own, so long as he chooses wisely,” Uther agreed. “There are plenty of young noblewomen who would have him, I think. Once he settles down enough to think of the choice, he’ll have no shortage of options - there’s certainly no need to force you into that spot.”
“What, then?” Morgana noticed that her heart had begun to pound a bit too quickly. “What are you talking about?”
But he didn’t answer the question right away. Instead, he looked away again and took another slow sip of whiskey from the flagon on the table. “Your eldest brother was my best friend, you know, as a young man. He was only a few years older than me.”
“I remember him talking about you,” Morgana agreed, puzzled as to where Uther could be headed with this. “He told me stories about the two of you on the ride here, to Camelot. He said...” She paused, hearing the words again in her mind as clearly as if her brother stood beside her just then. “He said,” she repeated softly, “that you were a kind man, though life had hardened you, and that you were a good man, though the world around you often was bad.” She hadn’t considered those words as anything but comfort, when her brother said them, and had seen in them only an attempt to excuse the decision that made him leave his youngest sister with a man who, to her, was a stranger. Now, she wondered at them, and the strength of her sudden certainty about the meaning they hid. “He said I would grow to know all of that about you myself, in time, and that I could trust you. He said that you would never hurt me, and that I would do well here in Camelot.”
“About the rest, it is not my place to say, but he was right about that last, at least.” Uther crossed the room toward her, although he stayed a careful distance away, she noticed. “You have done well here. And I... would like you not to leave.”
“He meant me to marry you,” Morgana breathed, stunned. “You, not Arthur. Not some other lord. You.”
“I should assure you now that there was no formal agreement between us.” Uther’s voice was oddly hushed, now. “The choice is yours. The dowry your brothers gave to my keeping for you is yours whether or not you choose to stay here. But yes. I would ask you to consider staying here, with me, permanently.” He let out a puff of breath suddenly, as though it was a great relief to say all of that. “I’m sorry,” he added brusquely. “I realize this is abrupt. I’ve thought of speaking to you about it for some time now, and... the moment was never right, until now.”
She closed her eyes, thinking carefully over the long years she had spent at Camelot, and watching misunderstanding melt away like morning frost that covered the brilliant colors of spring. Uther had always been kind to her, exactly as her brother had promised. He had at times perhaps been harsh in his rebukes, but he was the same with all those he was close with - he yelled at Arthur, raged against Gaius, scolded her... but he also asked her opinion on important matters, she realized. When he was upset with Arthur, or unsure of what to do with him, he talked to her. He listened to what she said... at least as much as he listened to anyone, she thought with a smile. In these, and in myriad other subtle ways that she had never paid much attention to, accepting them as her due rather than as the surprising show of trust that they were, he treated her as an equal. Perhaps even as his partner.
“I thought you didn’t want to marry again,” she said softly.
“I didn’t.”
“Arthur’s mother...”
“Died a few years before you came to Camelot. A plague,” he said shortly. “It was only by Gaius’ skill that Arthur and the rest of the court survived.”
“I know. I mean, my brother told me. But... did you love her?”
Uther tilted his head, considering her thoughtfully. “I did,” he answered in his slow, calm voice. “I loved her, and I mourned her. I thought I would not love again. When your brother first suggested that I might marry you, I felt sure he was teasing me - making a joke at my expense, because I was younger than him, and because I was then newly burdened with the full care of a rambunctious young son you’ve since come to know.” He gave a wry smile. “In short, I thought nothing of his idea at the time, or for many years hence. I don’t want you to think this is something I’ve plotted, the reason I took you in. Only lately...” Uther trailed off and shrugged. “An old man’s foolishness, no doubt.”
But his eyes still held hers, and he didn’t look to her as though he was thinking of anything foolish.
“You need not decide now,” he continued suddenly, in a brisk tone that she recognized as his public voice - curt, courteous but unfeeling, and she saw it now with sudden clarity as Uther the man covering himself with the cloak of Uther the king. “You must be tired, and I’ve kept you late from your bed. Gaius would be upset to know that you were not sleeping. If you’d like, I could send a servant to wake him for a potion...?”
“I have one.”
Uther frowned. “But you still couldn’t sleep?”
Morgana felt her heart clench. “I haven’t drunk it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want to shut myself off from the world. I don’t want to cover myself in blankets and potions and become insensible to the world. I want to be awake. I want to be alive. I want...”
What did she want? Morgana remembered her earlier words, the ones that had begun this whole conversation, and felt her cheeks blush bright as she realized what Uther must have thought she meant, turning up in front of his chambers late at night, wearing only a cloak over her undertunic and saying that she didn’t want to be alone. No wonder he had invited her in. No wonder that they had come to the topic of marriage, and he had been so amused to discover how she’d misunderstood his intentions.
No wonder that he had stayed so far away from her since they began to talk of all of this. Up to that moment, she had entirely forgotten that she was almost completely undressed.
“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking, when I...”
Be careful, her mind warned her suddenly. What will you say? Will you tell him that you didn’t know whose rooms you were running toward? Will you tell him you thought nothing of him until he appeared there in the hall? Is that better than to let him think that you came to him willing, wanting to know what he would do with you, and trusted him to be fair and honorable?
“You must be very tired,” she finished smoothly, “and I am keeping you awake.”
Uther smiled. “You’re not the only person in Camelot who sometimes has difficulty sleeping, Morgana. I was awake before I heard you in the hall.”
This is a moment of choice, Morgana thought with the clarity of one of her dreams. This is a turning. Choose one way, choose the other... either will change everything, and cannot be undone once you’ve made the choice. It was strange, though. Although she had never seen this moment coming, she didn’t feel the fear and icy loss of control that she felt when she’d discovered her father’s body, or when she dreamed of a woman come to Camelot to kill Arthur. Well, Morgana... you wanted to live. You wanted not to freeze with knowledge of the future, or to cover yourself with a veil of uncaring and hide from what the world has to offer you. That means you have to choose. You can’t leave this one up to fate.
“Perhaps...” Morgana faltered for a moment, and then gathered her dignity around herself and began again with a steadier voice and even a bit of a smile. “Perhaps we should keep each other company, then. It’s winter, after all, and the nights are long and lonely, now.”
She hadn’t seen Uther smile so brightly as he did then since Arthur was a very small boy. It made him look younger, less tired... and, she had to admit, oddly, compellingly attractive. It was the smile of a young man who’d been given a fine compliment or a rich gift, unexpected. He held out his hand to her, and she took it, and was grateful for the heat of it and the solid feel of calluses on strong fingers.
“What shall we do to keep ourselves occupied, then?” Uther asked.
Morgana laughed softly. She wasn’t so innocent that she didn’t know what couples did on a cold winter night - her father’s keep had been small, for one thing, with only one central hall where all the household slept except her parents, tucked away in another small room all their own, and a curious young girl couldn’t help but notice things on long nights when she was bored. But it was charming, to her mind, that Uther pretended not to think of that.
“Chess, perhaps?” she teased.
Uther laughed softly.
“Or... I could read to you,” she murmured. “Gaius loans me books, and some of them have very interesting stories...”
“Hmph. I don’t know that I like the thought of Gaius giving books like that to my ward.”
“Well, that means you should hear them, doesn’t it?” Morgana suggested. “After all, you can’t judge whether he did wrong to give them to me without knowing what they have in them. Besides, to be fair, I don’t think he’d read them in a very long time... if he knew what he’d handed me he probably would have turned as red as a beet-root and insisted that I never take a book from his library again.”
“That bad, hmm? Perhaps you’re right that I should look into these books...”
Uther’s expression just then was one of such devilish amusement that Morgana burst out laughing, despite all her efforts to keep a straight face.
“Or perhaps we should just stay here. I wouldn’t want to frighten poor old Gaius, waking him up in the middle of the night. After the plague, and your illness...” Uther trailed off, and touched Morgana’s jaw softly with the tip of one finger. “I was so worried for you, then, Morgana. I nearly lost you.”
Impulsively, Morgana turned her head and kissed the tip of his finger. It must, she thought afterward, have been the right thing to do, because no sooner had she done it but Uther tilted her head up with his hand and kissed her gently but firmly on the mouth. His hand slid to cup the back of her head as he did, and Morgana felt warmth flutter through the whole of her body at his touch. This was right, she thought, not because it was destiny, but because they both chose it, free-willed and unexpected.
“I want to stay, Uther,” she said when they’d parted, and he gave her a look so worried and searching that she knew he was doubting his decision.
“Stay?”
“Here. Here, in this room, now, but also here in Camelot. I don’t want to leave, ever.”
“Then you will not.” Uther took her hands in his and lifted them to his lips, kissing her fingers. “You will never leave Camelot unless it is your choice, I swear to you. As long as I live...”
Morgana felt a rush of fear - premonition, she thought, and shuddered - and quickly stilled his lips with a fingertip. “Shhh. No promises like that, no talk of death. Please.” He nodded, and she took a slow breath, steadying herself. “But... tonight?”
It was his turn to pull away, then, and she saw the cloak of responsibility and duty fall back over his face. “I would not have you make this decision rashly, Morgana. You’re young, you’re of a good family - you have all the world before you. If you want to wait, or... or to change your mind entirely, to decide otherwise, before we...” He trailed off and shook his head. “I would not begrudge you that. Think carefully, now, before you decide.”
Morgana thought. She thought of going back to her room warmed by their kiss, taking the potion Gaius had given her and falling into a deep, unnatural sleep. She thought of waking, and wondering whether this, too, had been one of her strange dreams - for not all of them came true, and some were only vivid and strange, and not all of them were bad. She thought of waking to Gwen’s light-hearted chatter, and of what she would say to her friend the next time the other girl teased her about how she was getting old, and oughtn’t she be picking a suitor soon? She thought of telling Gwen, and wondered what sort of reaction her friend would have, and then immediately dismissed that thought. Not yet. Not just yet.
She thought, too, of staying. She thought of things she had seen, and heard of from girls around Camelot, and of things she had read in books Gaius hadn’t meant to give her. And she decided.
“I’ll stay tonight, if you don’t mind,” she announced, as calmly as she could.
“And tomorrow morning?” Uther asked. His voice was just slightly hoarse, she noticed, amused.
“What about it? I’ll wake early and slip back to my rooms. If I’m lucky, I’ll get there before Gwen does. If I don’t, or if I meet anyone on the way, I’ll tell them I slept well for once, woke early, and went for a walk while the castle was quiet. No one will doubt it - they all know I do strange things like that sometimes.”
Uther laughed. “You are a strange, fey creature, aren’t you?”
“You don’t approve?” she teased.
He sighed and shook his head. “It’s part of what fascinates me about you. You let no one tell you how to live your life, not even me. I appreciate that.”
“Arthur might argue with that...”
“I appreciate it in you,” Uther repeated in a soft growl. “My son would do well to remember that he will be king someday, and needs to learn responsibility.”
“And I don’t.” Morgana felt a slight pang. Arthur was doing better, now, but she remembered when he was younger and careless, even cruel, how she had thought many times that it was unfair that he would rule Camelot while she would only ever be someone’s wife. At best she might be a close second-in-command, and at worst a pretty ornament, tossed aside as soon as beauty and pride had faded.
“No.” Uther brushed his fingers along her cheek and down her neck, following the touch with his gaze, and then looked up and met her eyes solemnly. “You already know. I remember when you came here, I thought that you were already too old in your heart, that you’d seen too much for someone as young as you were. That hasn’t changed. You’ve long understood the world as Arthur is only now beginning to.”
Morgana swallowed. She was intensely, almost awkwardly aware, just then, of how close they stood - in the cold of the room, she could feel the heat from Uther’s body like the sun on a cold day, and smell the leather of his overtunic, the sweet tang of metal from the chain and bits of armour he wore even inside the castle, the slightest scent of the whiskey they had both drunk earlier... “Uther,” she murmured softly.
“Hmm?”
“Can we not talk about Arthur any more tonight?”
Uther’s solemn expression broke out into surprised laughter. “Yes. Yes, I can easily agree to that.”
“Good.”
Title: Frozen
Characters: Morgana, Gwen, and Uther
Pairing: Morgana/Uther
Summary: Morgana has trouble sleeping, and finds that someone else in Camelot is awake, too.
Author's Note: This is probably a first draft - I'm hoping to fine-tune it a bit, or maybe just give up and rewrite the whole thing, but I'm feeling impatient right now and want to post it anyway. So there. :P At the moment, this is pretty much me figuring out what I think of the characters... but I'm having fun while I'm doing it.
Freezing rain fell outside the stone walls of Camelot’s halls, and, inside them, Morgana felt as though the same ice was settling on her limbs. Her breath puffed like smoke in front of her, and her hands burned with the cold even when she buried them in the fur of her heaviest cloak. It had been colder than this at her old family home in Ireland, she remembered, but perhaps the relative warmth of Camelot’s climate had softened her in the years since she’d come to Camelot. It certainly had not made her less prey than she had been as a child to the prowling, anxious feeling that made her feel as though the walls of her rooms were closing in on her, the curtains twining around her neck, the draperies clinging at her feet like greedy vines. They would choke her, if they could, they would--
They are fabric. Cloth. Only threads of linen and wool woven tightly together. She lifted the drape in her hand, forcing herself to rub her hand on its weave, to see and feel with her eyes and hands, not her mind. These things can neither move nor think. They will not strangle you.
The stone walls of the hall will not crush you. You will not disappear. You will not fade.
She blamed the dreams.
Gaius did what he could to help her, of course, and he was a better physician than any her own family’s court had housed. He gave her draughts for peaceful sleep, deep sleep from which he hoped she would rise remembering nothing. But as time passed the strength of each succeeding potion weakened, or perhaps the dreams strengthened to fight them. The visions reutrned, more frightening than ever, and with them came this feeling of freezing, of burning, of her body being made of glass that would shatter from the heat building within her, breaking her apart into a million pieces strewn all over the floor.
“Warm milk,” Gwen offered when she arrived after the evening’s chores, holding out a warm mug. “And here’s a vial from Gaius. He said it would help you sleep, and you should take it immediately before you go to bed.”
Morgana drank the milk while Gwen combed her hair a hundred strokes, and tried not to feel that the tugging was pulling at her veins instead of the hair on her head.
“Old Corey in the stables says it will freeze tonight,” Gwen said lightly as she braided Morgana’s hair. Gwen was a good friend - she always knew when to let a silence linger, and when it needed to be filled. “All that rain will turn to snow, and the world will be white. I love when it snows, it makes everything so pretty.”
“It will be hard on the men, when they ride on patrol tomorrow, if there is ice on the ground,” Morgana pointed out, and then cursed to herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to turn everything into something bad. It’s only this weather. I think it’s gotten into my head.”
“Wasn’t it this cold in Ireland?” Gwen asked.
“And worse, almost every winter,” Morgana agreed. “But... I suppose I was younger, then, and I didn’t notice so much. Or maybe it feels different, far away from home.”
“I can’t imagine it. Being so far away from home, I mean.” Gwen tied off Morgana’s braid with a scrap of ribbon, and then rested her hands on her friend’s shoulders, lost in thought. “I’ve lived in Camelot all my life - I can’t imagine being away from it. Away from you, and Merlin, and my father... Sorry,” she mumbled sudden. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”
“My father died a long time ago, Gwen. It’s all right.” Morgana reached up and patted the other girl’s hand. “He was old. I was his last child, and my mother died when I was a baby. I was lucky that I had time to know him, at least. I don’t even remember my mother.”
“I can’t imagine it,” Gwen repeated, shaking her head. Her thick braid brushed Morgana’s shoulder as she did.
“It’s not so bad,” Morgana told her, forcing light into her voice. “After all, I would never have met all of you here, if I hadn’t had to come live here, and I like all of you very much.”
“Even Arthur?” Gwen teased.
“Hmm, him I could do without.” Morgana smiled. “But you and Merlin and Gaius and the rest - I’m happy to know all of you. Camelot is a much busier place than my father’s keep was. My brothers were always out and about on some campaign or other, and my father was not much for socializing. After he died, all the warmth went out of the place. My brothers were right to send me here, after that.” She shivered. “If people think I’m a bit wild here and now, just imagine what I would have been like after a few years of no company but servants and the occasional rowdy war party of brothers dropping in.”
“How did it happen?” Gwen asked softly.
They’d never talked about this before - Gwen hated to talk about anything sad, particularly about people dying, but Morgana wondered if perhaps the illness her father had fallen under earlier in the year was making her think. “He was very old, Gwen,” she told her friend gently. “My brothers are all several years older than me - I don’t think my parents thought my mother could conceive again, at her age, but she lived long enough to give birth to me, and after that a serving woman nursed me. My father refused to marry again.” She smild. “They didn’t marry for love, but Father used to say they found it later, anyway.”
“That’s sweet,” Gwen offered, a smile evident in her voice.
“And rare,” Morgana agreed. “We should all be so lucky. Although I don’t suppose you have much to worry about, do you? Your Lancelot will be back someday...”
“Don’t tease, Morgana. Anyway, you weren’t finished with your story.”
“Do you really want to know?”
Gwen nodded, and rested her chin on top of Morgana’s head. Morgana sighed. “All right. Well... it was summer. My brothers were away fighting with an ally of ours to the north - I don’t remember exactly what was at issue, but they’d been gone for weeks, and all the men of our household with them. I came down to supper, and my father wasn’t at table. I thought he’d gotten worse and gone to bed, so I went into his rooms to ask him if he needed anything, and I found him on the floor. He was cold. He’d died some hours before, while I was... working on my embroidery or something silly like that, I suppose. It must have happened quickly - I would have heard, I think, if he’d cried out.”
“Then what?”
“Then... I called some of the peasants out of the field, and they carried him to the church.”
“And did your brothers come home?”
“I sent a messenger. It took some time to find them.”
“And you were alone all that time, until they came back? Oh, Morgana...”
Morgana took a deep breath and let it out in a puff of white air against the cold. “I wasn’t alone. The household servants were there, and the peasants out in the fields, and a few guards. It was fine. I told you, the keep was never as busy as Camelot to begin with. I was used to not having a lot of people around.”
“But.. you didn’t have anyone to talk to!”
“Well, I just talked about it to you, didn’t I?”
“Morgana!”
“Oh, hush.” Morgana sighed. “All right, I know what you mean. Yes, I was alone. And I was afraid, and it was awful, but... it’s not as though I think about it a lot, Gwen. That was years ago. Camelot is my home, now, as much as the keep ever was, and... and I’m not alone anymore. It’s fine, really.”
And I dreamed it all before it happened, anyway, she remembered with a chill that was like watching frost form patterns on Camelot’s bubbly, watery glass windows. I dreamed that my father left me alone, and that my brothers were far away and covered in blood, and they didn’t hear me when I screamed that he was dead. And then I dreamed that they sent me away to live somewhere else. And they did. Knowing before it happened made it all seem so easy, she thought - she couldn’t fight it, there was no doubt or fear, no concern that she should have done something different. Even though she’d been a small girl of only twelve, she’d known that she could have done nothing to prevent her father dying there, because in her mind, even as her brothers rode away weeks before, it had already happened.
“You should drink that potion and go to bed,” Gwen said gently, “before the warmth of the milk you had goes away.”
“You’re right.” Morgana stood and hugged her friend, and kissed her cheek. “Don’t worry, Gwen - your father is young and strong, and the sickness he had before was a magical one, and it’s now long gone.” He’ll be with you a while yet, she only just stopped herself from saying. The words felt like ice on her tongue, and she was glad that Gwen only smiled and kissed her cheek in return before closing the door behind her.
As soon as the other girl was gone, Morgana took off her outer dress quickly and blew out the candles all but one, watching the smoke mingle with the mist from her breath. She curled up under her blankets, pulling her heavy cloak over the bed on top of them, and held the heavy mug between her hands... and hesitated.
She remembered past nights, when she could feel the warmth of Gaius’ potion spreading tendrils through her belly, moving through her, slowing her, stilling her body and her mind. And with a sudden clarity she thought, The cure is as dangerous as the ill, this time. Drinking herbs every night to dull my mind... why? Wrapping myself in a veil, cooling my veins until I feel nothing, muffling myself until I hear nothing, see nothing...
No.
With a rush, she threw off the blankets and pulled on her fur cloak over her thin under-tunic. She slipped her feet into slippers, and then... froze. Where to go? The decision to go, to move, not to wait in the darkness while complacency and dullness overtook her, that had been the easy part. This next was more confusing, and much more dangerous. Follow Gwen? No, that Morgana dismissed easily. Gwen had borne enough of her burden for the night, and it wasn’t sweet acceptance and sisterly love that her heart ached for. No... Seek out Gaius, then? Scholarly conversation appealed to her many days, and Gaius had been indulgent, willing to give her books to read and a clever mind to discuss them with, both things that Morgana knew many would not praise him for granting to a girl. But no. He would worry, especially if he knew that she was rebelling against his sleeping draught. She could still drink it. The weight of the warm milk she’d already had still pulled at her limbs, making her think longingly of bed, of drinking the sweet herbs from the vial and shutting her eyes, insensible to pain and bad thoughts...
No, no, no. Stay awake! Run, flee, find something, anything to wake the mind and body!
Morgana had heard stories, back home, of shepherds or beggars on cold nights, who wandered too far from shelter and were found the next morning, frozen alive in postures of peace. Freezing was like sleep, people said. The body simply grew tired, and succumbed to it with grace and comfort.
Not for me, Morgana told herself fiercely, and tucked her last burning candle in a lantern and pushed out the door before she could have another second thought. She hurried through the dark halls, one turn after another, focusing only on moving, moving, moving, until suddenly--
“Morgana?”
She nearly ran into him. Uther. His crown had been cast off, and his eyes, heavy with sleep, grew wide and worried as he took in her disheveled appearance, her obvious rush, the wildness in her eyes. She could see him become afraid for her.
“Morgana, what’s happened?” he asked sternly.
“Nothing! Nothing, I... Nothing. I couldn’t sleep, and I...” What? Went for a run? Morgana searched her mind desperately for a reasonable explanation, but the truth slipped out of her lips before she could find the words she was looking for. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
Uther frowned. “I’ll find someone to call Gwenevere back--”
“No, please. It’s fine. I’ll just... I’ll--”
“Morgana.” Uther stopped her with his fingers cupping her chin. “Breathe. And then tell me what’s wrong.”
“I don’t know! I--”
“Shhhh. Breathe first.” Uther touched her shoulder lightly, and then turned her, leading her back into his chamber and taking a flagon from a small table by the side of his bed. He held it out to her.
“What is it?” she asked suspiciously. “No more herbs, I can’t--”
“Only a bit of whiskey,” he said with a soft smile. “Drink it. It’s cold tonight; the liquor will put a fire in your belly to warm you, and calm you so we can talk.”
She took a small sip, and then handed it back to him. He took a sip as well, and set it back on the table. “There. Do you think you can talk now without the words tripping over each other?”
“I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
Uther only waited, watching her.
Without knowing why, Morgana’s mind cast back to her earlier conversation with Gwen. “When my brothers brought me here... did they tell you how my father died?”
“Of course.” Uther nodded. “I was sorry to hear it, and moreso that you had found him yourself, and been alone after. You were very young to go through such a thing. It happens, of course, but it was very unfortunate.”
This was better, Morgana realized - Uther did not feel pity for her in the same way that Gwen did. He did not see it as a horrifying, terrible event, but rather as another of life’s daily tragedies, all familiar to a leader and to a man of combat. “And did they tell you that I didn’t cry?” she continued. “That I wouldn’t wail and tear my clothes like the other women, even though he was my own father and I loved him better than any of them?”
Uther nodded again.
“Did you think me heartless, then?” Morgana asked in a rush. “Gwen would have, if I’d told her that. She would have sobbed, if it had been her - nothing would have consoled her. But I felt... it was like my heart was frozen over. And I feel that now, I feel... These horrible dreams I have. Gaius told you about them, I know he has. The dreams make me feel like that again, as if I’m freezing up and trying to bury myself away from some great pain that I see coming.”
“You are not heartless.” Uther turned away from her, looking out the window. “If anything, Morgana, you feel too keenly. You know that all the times you and I have fought, it’s been because I ask you, for your own benefit, to look the other way from someone’s pain, and you refuse.”
“Why do you ask it of me, then?” Morgana asked bitterly. “If you know I can’t--”
“Because I know the world is hard, Morgana. Harder than even you know, and unlike your friend you have seen some of it. I would keep that hardness from hurting you any more, if I can.”
“You would dull me to it,” Morgana accused around the lump that had suddenly grown in her throat. “You, and Gaius, and even Gwen, you would all have me close my eyes and ignore the world around me. Feel nothing, see nothing, dream nothing. You would like that very much, wouldn’t you? Then you can... marry me off where you will, or keep me in waiting until the day Arthur needs a queen because he’s put off every woman who’s ever known him. Don’t lie, Uther - I’ve seen enough of the world to know that’s how it works. You’ll lay me like a betting piece in the hands of whoever it will benefit you to have an alliance with.”
Uther turned back to her suddenly, and she was surprised to see a smile tugging at his lips.
“Well, I’m glad it amuses you to think of me being sold off to whoever pays the highest price!”
He turned his head down and laughed softly. “That’s not it, Morgana. You’ve misunderstood me. I wasn’t laughing that you would think that, only that I’ve worried too much, it seems, about keeping other thoughts hidden from you.”
“What do you mean? Arthur doesn’t want me, so--”
“No. And Arthur’s choice is his own, so long as he chooses wisely,” Uther agreed. “There are plenty of young noblewomen who would have him, I think. Once he settles down enough to think of the choice, he’ll have no shortage of options - there’s certainly no need to force you into that spot.”
“What, then?” Morgana noticed that her heart had begun to pound a bit too quickly. “What are you talking about?”
But he didn’t answer the question right away. Instead, he looked away again and took another slow sip of whiskey from the flagon on the table. “Your eldest brother was my best friend, you know, as a young man. He was only a few years older than me.”
“I remember him talking about you,” Morgana agreed, puzzled as to where Uther could be headed with this. “He told me stories about the two of you on the ride here, to Camelot. He said...” She paused, hearing the words again in her mind as clearly as if her brother stood beside her just then. “He said,” she repeated softly, “that you were a kind man, though life had hardened you, and that you were a good man, though the world around you often was bad.” She hadn’t considered those words as anything but comfort, when her brother said them, and had seen in them only an attempt to excuse the decision that made him leave his youngest sister with a man who, to her, was a stranger. Now, she wondered at them, and the strength of her sudden certainty about the meaning they hid. “He said I would grow to know all of that about you myself, in time, and that I could trust you. He said that you would never hurt me, and that I would do well here in Camelot.”
“About the rest, it is not my place to say, but he was right about that last, at least.” Uther crossed the room toward her, although he stayed a careful distance away, she noticed. “You have done well here. And I... would like you not to leave.”
“He meant me to marry you,” Morgana breathed, stunned. “You, not Arthur. Not some other lord. You.”
“I should assure you now that there was no formal agreement between us.” Uther’s voice was oddly hushed, now. “The choice is yours. The dowry your brothers gave to my keeping for you is yours whether or not you choose to stay here. But yes. I would ask you to consider staying here, with me, permanently.” He let out a puff of breath suddenly, as though it was a great relief to say all of that. “I’m sorry,” he added brusquely. “I realize this is abrupt. I’ve thought of speaking to you about it for some time now, and... the moment was never right, until now.”
She closed her eyes, thinking carefully over the long years she had spent at Camelot, and watching misunderstanding melt away like morning frost that covered the brilliant colors of spring. Uther had always been kind to her, exactly as her brother had promised. He had at times perhaps been harsh in his rebukes, but he was the same with all those he was close with - he yelled at Arthur, raged against Gaius, scolded her... but he also asked her opinion on important matters, she realized. When he was upset with Arthur, or unsure of what to do with him, he talked to her. He listened to what she said... at least as much as he listened to anyone, she thought with a smile. In these, and in myriad other subtle ways that she had never paid much attention to, accepting them as her due rather than as the surprising show of trust that they were, he treated her as an equal. Perhaps even as his partner.
“I thought you didn’t want to marry again,” she said softly.
“I didn’t.”
“Arthur’s mother...”
“Died a few years before you came to Camelot. A plague,” he said shortly. “It was only by Gaius’ skill that Arthur and the rest of the court survived.”
“I know. I mean, my brother told me. But... did you love her?”
Uther tilted his head, considering her thoughtfully. “I did,” he answered in his slow, calm voice. “I loved her, and I mourned her. I thought I would not love again. When your brother first suggested that I might marry you, I felt sure he was teasing me - making a joke at my expense, because I was younger than him, and because I was then newly burdened with the full care of a rambunctious young son you’ve since come to know.” He gave a wry smile. “In short, I thought nothing of his idea at the time, or for many years hence. I don’t want you to think this is something I’ve plotted, the reason I took you in. Only lately...” Uther trailed off and shrugged. “An old man’s foolishness, no doubt.”
But his eyes still held hers, and he didn’t look to her as though he was thinking of anything foolish.
“You need not decide now,” he continued suddenly, in a brisk tone that she recognized as his public voice - curt, courteous but unfeeling, and she saw it now with sudden clarity as Uther the man covering himself with the cloak of Uther the king. “You must be tired, and I’ve kept you late from your bed. Gaius would be upset to know that you were not sleeping. If you’d like, I could send a servant to wake him for a potion...?”
“I have one.”
Uther frowned. “But you still couldn’t sleep?”
Morgana felt her heart clench. “I haven’t drunk it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want to shut myself off from the world. I don’t want to cover myself in blankets and potions and become insensible to the world. I want to be awake. I want to be alive. I want...”
What did she want? Morgana remembered her earlier words, the ones that had begun this whole conversation, and felt her cheeks blush bright as she realized what Uther must have thought she meant, turning up in front of his chambers late at night, wearing only a cloak over her undertunic and saying that she didn’t want to be alone. No wonder he had invited her in. No wonder that they had come to the topic of marriage, and he had been so amused to discover how she’d misunderstood his intentions.
No wonder that he had stayed so far away from her since they began to talk of all of this. Up to that moment, she had entirely forgotten that she was almost completely undressed.
“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking, when I...”
Be careful, her mind warned her suddenly. What will you say? Will you tell him that you didn’t know whose rooms you were running toward? Will you tell him you thought nothing of him until he appeared there in the hall? Is that better than to let him think that you came to him willing, wanting to know what he would do with you, and trusted him to be fair and honorable?
“You must be very tired,” she finished smoothly, “and I am keeping you awake.”
Uther smiled. “You’re not the only person in Camelot who sometimes has difficulty sleeping, Morgana. I was awake before I heard you in the hall.”
This is a moment of choice, Morgana thought with the clarity of one of her dreams. This is a turning. Choose one way, choose the other... either will change everything, and cannot be undone once you’ve made the choice. It was strange, though. Although she had never seen this moment coming, she didn’t feel the fear and icy loss of control that she felt when she’d discovered her father’s body, or when she dreamed of a woman come to Camelot to kill Arthur. Well, Morgana... you wanted to live. You wanted not to freeze with knowledge of the future, or to cover yourself with a veil of uncaring and hide from what the world has to offer you. That means you have to choose. You can’t leave this one up to fate.
“Perhaps...” Morgana faltered for a moment, and then gathered her dignity around herself and began again with a steadier voice and even a bit of a smile. “Perhaps we should keep each other company, then. It’s winter, after all, and the nights are long and lonely, now.”
She hadn’t seen Uther smile so brightly as he did then since Arthur was a very small boy. It made him look younger, less tired... and, she had to admit, oddly, compellingly attractive. It was the smile of a young man who’d been given a fine compliment or a rich gift, unexpected. He held out his hand to her, and she took it, and was grateful for the heat of it and the solid feel of calluses on strong fingers.
“What shall we do to keep ourselves occupied, then?” Uther asked.
Morgana laughed softly. She wasn’t so innocent that she didn’t know what couples did on a cold winter night - her father’s keep had been small, for one thing, with only one central hall where all the household slept except her parents, tucked away in another small room all their own, and a curious young girl couldn’t help but notice things on long nights when she was bored. But it was charming, to her mind, that Uther pretended not to think of that.
“Chess, perhaps?” she teased.
Uther laughed softly.
“Or... I could read to you,” she murmured. “Gaius loans me books, and some of them have very interesting stories...”
“Hmph. I don’t know that I like the thought of Gaius giving books like that to my ward.”
“Well, that means you should hear them, doesn’t it?” Morgana suggested. “After all, you can’t judge whether he did wrong to give them to me without knowing what they have in them. Besides, to be fair, I don’t think he’d read them in a very long time... if he knew what he’d handed me he probably would have turned as red as a beet-root and insisted that I never take a book from his library again.”
“That bad, hmm? Perhaps you’re right that I should look into these books...”
Uther’s expression just then was one of such devilish amusement that Morgana burst out laughing, despite all her efforts to keep a straight face.
“Or perhaps we should just stay here. I wouldn’t want to frighten poor old Gaius, waking him up in the middle of the night. After the plague, and your illness...” Uther trailed off, and touched Morgana’s jaw softly with the tip of one finger. “I was so worried for you, then, Morgana. I nearly lost you.”
Impulsively, Morgana turned her head and kissed the tip of his finger. It must, she thought afterward, have been the right thing to do, because no sooner had she done it but Uther tilted her head up with his hand and kissed her gently but firmly on the mouth. His hand slid to cup the back of her head as he did, and Morgana felt warmth flutter through the whole of her body at his touch. This was right, she thought, not because it was destiny, but because they both chose it, free-willed and unexpected.
“I want to stay, Uther,” she said when they’d parted, and he gave her a look so worried and searching that she knew he was doubting his decision.
“Stay?”
“Here. Here, in this room, now, but also here in Camelot. I don’t want to leave, ever.”
“Then you will not.” Uther took her hands in his and lifted them to his lips, kissing her fingers. “You will never leave Camelot unless it is your choice, I swear to you. As long as I live...”
Morgana felt a rush of fear - premonition, she thought, and shuddered - and quickly stilled his lips with a fingertip. “Shhh. No promises like that, no talk of death. Please.” He nodded, and she took a slow breath, steadying herself. “But... tonight?”
It was his turn to pull away, then, and she saw the cloak of responsibility and duty fall back over his face. “I would not have you make this decision rashly, Morgana. You’re young, you’re of a good family - you have all the world before you. If you want to wait, or... or to change your mind entirely, to decide otherwise, before we...” He trailed off and shook his head. “I would not begrudge you that. Think carefully, now, before you decide.”
Morgana thought. She thought of going back to her room warmed by their kiss, taking the potion Gaius had given her and falling into a deep, unnatural sleep. She thought of waking, and wondering whether this, too, had been one of her strange dreams - for not all of them came true, and some were only vivid and strange, and not all of them were bad. She thought of waking to Gwen’s light-hearted chatter, and of what she would say to her friend the next time the other girl teased her about how she was getting old, and oughtn’t she be picking a suitor soon? She thought of telling Gwen, and wondered what sort of reaction her friend would have, and then immediately dismissed that thought. Not yet. Not just yet.
She thought, too, of staying. She thought of things she had seen, and heard of from girls around Camelot, and of things she had read in books Gaius hadn’t meant to give her. And she decided.
“I’ll stay tonight, if you don’t mind,” she announced, as calmly as she could.
“And tomorrow morning?” Uther asked. His voice was just slightly hoarse, she noticed, amused.
“What about it? I’ll wake early and slip back to my rooms. If I’m lucky, I’ll get there before Gwen does. If I don’t, or if I meet anyone on the way, I’ll tell them I slept well for once, woke early, and went for a walk while the castle was quiet. No one will doubt it - they all know I do strange things like that sometimes.”
Uther laughed. “You are a strange, fey creature, aren’t you?”
“You don’t approve?” she teased.
He sighed and shook his head. “It’s part of what fascinates me about you. You let no one tell you how to live your life, not even me. I appreciate that.”
“Arthur might argue with that...”
“I appreciate it in you,” Uther repeated in a soft growl. “My son would do well to remember that he will be king someday, and needs to learn responsibility.”
“And I don’t.” Morgana felt a slight pang. Arthur was doing better, now, but she remembered when he was younger and careless, even cruel, how she had thought many times that it was unfair that he would rule Camelot while she would only ever be someone’s wife. At best she might be a close second-in-command, and at worst a pretty ornament, tossed aside as soon as beauty and pride had faded.
“No.” Uther brushed his fingers along her cheek and down her neck, following the touch with his gaze, and then looked up and met her eyes solemnly. “You already know. I remember when you came here, I thought that you were already too old in your heart, that you’d seen too much for someone as young as you were. That hasn’t changed. You’ve long understood the world as Arthur is only now beginning to.”
Morgana swallowed. She was intensely, almost awkwardly aware, just then, of how close they stood - in the cold of the room, she could feel the heat from Uther’s body like the sun on a cold day, and smell the leather of his overtunic, the sweet tang of metal from the chain and bits of armour he wore even inside the castle, the slightest scent of the whiskey they had both drunk earlier... “Uther,” she murmured softly.
“Hmm?”
“Can we not talk about Arthur any more tonight?”
Uther’s solemn expression broke out into surprised laughter. “Yes. Yes, I can easily agree to that.”
“Good.”
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 05:24 pm (UTC)btw, how far have you gotten? Tell me when you're at ep 12. Then I shall flail with you. =D
btw2; you should be getting my card anytime soon. Sorry it's late. =/
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Date: 2008-12-26 05:45 pm (UTC)I'm only to episode 7, so far. I've picked up a few basic spoilers about 12 (as in, I know generally what it's about), so I can't wait to get to that one!
Don't worry! I'm still behind on a few of mine, too, so don't worry a bit.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 07:50 pm (UTC)Oooh, yay!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-26 09:41 pm (UTC)...And I need some Merlin icons.