Your Good and Fertile Mind (Merlin)

[delgaserasca.livejournal.com]

Title: Your Good and Fertile Mind
Author: delgaserasca @ tja_rama
Fandom: Merlin
Spoilers: jumps through 1x13, Morte d'Arthur
Summary: gen, pg; the fierce roar of coming terror throws her from her sleep. Morgana tries to make sense of senseless things.
Notes: Title from Marty McConnell's Instructions for a Body.

The fierce roar of coming terror throws her from sleep, and though she does not understand what it means, she would swear that she hears Merlin's name.

Candles in the room extinguish with a flourish as her windows fly open, the ever-present rain spilling frigidly onto the stone floor. For a moment Morgana dares not move, until at last the cold spurs her into stilted action. Against the storm she pushes the windows close again; her chemise is damp with perspiration and rain, and her feet curl instinctively against the cold of the floor.

The fire is long burnt out; the windows shudder against the wind. Morgana's pulse races in time with the rain against the glass. Now, she decides; she must find Merlin now. She must find him and make him explain himself to her, make him listen. She must know what he knows.

With little to guide her she steps out into the castle's shadows and wind her way to where she knows Merlin must be. There is no light but she does not falter. Her feet take her forward by instinct alone.

The voice is terrible, still echoing in her mind. Merlin, she thinks again, and, what is this?





It was her father who had said what you do not know cannot hurt you but Morgana knows more than anyone should care to and it hurts her in ways she cannot fathom.

When she wakes she does not question it; knows only that she must stop Arthur, must press him back from his journey. Somewhere in the kingdom is the beast that will cut him down and Morgana knows, as clear as the lines on her palms and the air in the sky that this bears ill for all. In her mind's eye, still sharper than the reality before her, she sees the beast rise and Arthur fall; she sees Merlin, cradling his prince; she sees danger pulsing in all spheres and she cannot let him go, cannot let Arthur face this inevitable curse.

Thus does she fall into the court, half-dressed and half-mad. Thus does she plead with him, warm-blooded and mournful. It is the sudden break of kindness in his face that makes her desperate for air; desperate to be heard. Please, Arthur, I have seen terrible things—

It's Merlin who leads her gently but firmly back up the stone steps, back into the comfortless hold of the castle walls. My lady, he implores, my lady, I will make sure he is safe, but Morgana struggles, no, no, I will not let you go, fights against his hold, will not go to Gaius or back to bed. She knows the world is not as it seems and that Arthur is journeying to certain death, and wishes – not for the first time – that she were a man whose word was his bond.

Arthur rides out soon after, tall and proud on his steed. When he returns he will not be upright, but it is too late now, she thinks, to undo what is to be done. She mourns him as he passes the gates; watches the party as they ride past the boundary until they are mere colours in the distance, no clearer to her now than the remnants of the dreams that make her muscles ache with fear.





She cannot eat.

She cannot eat, she cannot drink, she dares not sleep again until Arthur wakes, and even that is two days hence with Merlin long gone from the castle and this sudden downpour of rain.

Gwen hovers at her side, thrice dismissed and thrice returned, though the intervals between her going and coming have extended. Morgana sends her to Arthur, bids her return with good news or no news at all, then settles by the window to watch the weather. Gwen's next visit brings the evening meal; thereafter she takes it back, the wine stale and the chicken cold. If she could feel anything but this fractious terror then Morgana would be moved to sweetness by her maid's concern, but she is caught between what she knows about the world and what has yet to come.

There is something to the air, copper-bright and sour to taste. She cannot place it but she thinks, perhaps this is magic; perhaps this is what Uther guards against, a world filled with sharp, unseen vertices.

She dares not sleep and yet she must. Night falls, and brings with it no respite.





She almost doesn't see Merlin as he makes his way to Arthur's chambers. She pauses, suddenly wary and unsure. He is soaked to the skin from the rain, and she wonders where he has been that there had been no shelter to keep him dry. Something of her must shift against the stone because he looks up as his hand falls on the door, surprised but silent.

They lock eyes momentarily.

What Merlin sees when he looks at her, this she cannot attest, but for a moment he mistakes her for someone else and startles. Morgana, too, flinches at the flash of ugliness across his features before he recognises her. There is a change in him, a frisson of challenge before he softens questioningly. She can sense his trepidation, even at twelve paces or more.

Morgana sees in him a deep weariness and something resembling fear. He nods at her, carefully, slowly, and then presses quietly into Arthur's rooms, leaving her alone, then, in Camelot's dark halls, a witness to something unnameable. The voice echoes in her ears.

The air is sour, copper-bright. Her mood shifts like the wind against the window panes and she knows – suddenly, sharply – that she cannot speak with him; that to give herself to Merlin would be a mistake.

She turns, resolve broken, and retreats to her chambers. There is no comfort to be found here.





Please, Merlin, you must prepare, she says, she begs, this is only the beginning.

He pays her no heed and she despairs.



end.