Author's Note: Hello! This is my first Merlin fanfic. I hope you like it! I am irresistibly drawn to the idea of Merlin/Morgana, due to the poem "Masks" by Shel Silverstein. Anyways, read and review! Enjoy!

Her hair wound up above her in delicate, weightless ringlets, undulating gently in the wind. She felt a strange sense of peace, as if the numbing cold had relaxed her mind, and all this bloodshed was simply one of those dreams. Idly wondering if she'd wake up soon, she tried to turn her head, but she found she could not lift it. Her neck strained and she wanted to see what was left of the people around her, but her head just fell back onto the damp, hard earth. She wasn't wearing her cape and snow was collecting on her dress, shrouding her in a gauzy haze, as if she were covered in sea foam and spider webs.

Dead men lay all around her, the horrific aftermath of ferocity and belief; it meant just another loss or another victory in a long-running war. IT seemed to take up all of her days. Her eyelids felt heavy, so she indulged them enough to blink for a moment. She closed her eyes and saw light fields and an entire spectrum of important objects and faces. She wanted to sleep, wanted to fall into a few of these faces and just dawdle here, letting herself be buried underneath the snow. But she had to move, had to keep warm; she was injured and her magic wouldn't perform if she froze to death.

There was a hole in her middle, and on the side of her left leg. She knew this because blood came out of both and stained the snow a deep, gruesome red. By the time she could sit up and walk away from these ruins, it would be pink, like a baby's cheeks. It would take a while to repair herself enough even for that, she thought, but she was just so drowsy that she couldn't manage to lift her hands to heal her wounds.

The deep ache of the fight – her flesh wounds and the energy it had taken to use so much magic – left her completely deflated, and she let out a shallow breath. She felt her eyelids droop again, but this time it was not her will. The sky was a white-grey mess of storm clouds, vultures, and smoke, as it had been in her visions. So this is the place, she thought, remembering the villages nearby and the people she'd met here. This is the place I've come to die.

She dug her fingers into the cold ground, feeling the snow give way underneath her nails and the hard, frozen earth halt them. She was lying half-curled onto her side and half on her back, her legs to the side and her face pointed towards the heavens. She could feel the blood in her veins slowly running cold. Her body would become one with this ground, she imagined coldly. Soon small flowers and the weeds that strangled them would be growing through her rib cage, their roots wrapping around her spine.

Of course she was angry. She'd been angry for a long time, but this particular anger was fueled by the fact that she hadn't planned to die today. She wanted to thrash and scream and claim her revenge, but all she could do was stare up at the pale sky, with her shallow breaths and bottled rage. She could feel her hands becoming dry and hard, certain that if she looked, her fingers would look like the gray, twisted talons of a dead chicken.

She didn't look.

Instead, she waited for the clouds to take her, with their pouring rains and their rolling thunder. She was not afraid of a little bad weather. Closing her eyes, she let herself go, waiting for death to come and claim her so that she would not suffer as much as she should. She knew how death and destiny worked: hand in hand.

The war on magic had taken a toll on her. Even the marrow in her bones felt drained of energy, like it had used all its lifeblood for mere furtherance. Now she lay dying, her breath coming slower and slower as she felt her heartbeat lag, away from the adrenaline and the burn of magic and her lust for vengeance.

The darkness came to cover her with its veil, just as she knew it would. There was no shining light, not for her, but she didn't resent it. If it was the only result of fulfilling her own wishes, so be it. She was a simple creature of complex origin, and the pretense of doom didn't faze her as it should. Her eyes were wide open but all she saw was blackness; no stars, no moon, just an empty nothing.

She would wear this pitch darkness like a cloak made of the finest velvet. It felt jagged, however, but it was to be expected.

Then something scraped underneath her like two shovels as hot as branding irons, and suddenly she was floating, as if the night had given her the wings of the vultures above and she hadn't learned how to operate them just yet. She felt as though she had landed in a shallow pond and begun to float right in the middle, swaying and shifting slightly.

The shovels she now recognized to be hands, one clutched at her left knee and another on her side, gently but firmly, and she felt as if she had been rudely awoken. This gave her the energy to peek out from under the veil of blackness and gaze up at the reaper who'd plucked her from the ground.

His cheekbones were sharp, his face pale and gaunt; his eyes looked haunted, far away. He was looking at her as he carried her through the country and all its hills. She halfway understood what it was that he represented: a guide to chaperone her to her rightful place on the other side, so that she couldn't wander or sneak away. It was a just precaution, but as she pushed the dark veil up further, she recognized the clouded sky with a sort of disappointment.

"Mm…mm." Her mouth tried to form words, but her tongue was thick and she was so unbearably numb from the cold; her fingers would snap off from frostbite at any point now, she was sure. "Mmur."

Merlin raised his eyebrows and hushed her, his voice a harsh whisper. "Shh, Morgana," he told her, his voice sounding almost as distant as his eyes. "No point in talking." His eyes were aglow with the kind of magic she had always wondered might rise in him, but now wasn't the time for amusement.

"I'm dying," she told him with difficulty, as if he couldn't already guess. His face showed no emotion, no reaction to her words, so she demanded, "Leave me alone."

He shook his head, staring at a distant point ahead. She was too weak to turn and look. "Death isn't a private thing," he said quietly. "You wouldn't really be alone, either. These men are dying as well. If you wish to be alone for your death, now's not the time for it."

His arms, once wiry, held her as if she were nothing. She wondered if it was magic that helped his strength, or if he'd made himself strong in the gap between when they'd lived together in Camelot and now. Everything back then had been so fickle; she was almost embarrassed to recall it.

A strange warmth seemed to come from him, or perhaps she was so cold that he seemed feverishly warm. She wanted to roll herself all the way into that warmth, to seal herself within it and never leave. This bitter cold had tried to kill her, and she wasn't out of its clutches just yet. Seeing Merlin had reminded her why she'd even taken part in such hostilities that day, and why a hundred men had tried to kill her. A few had succeeded, she thought, feeling her wounds jostle with every step Merlin took.

I was supposed to die on that field, she knew but could not say. The warmth made the blood thrum in her fingertips and she felt goosebumps all over, as if her body was readjusting slowly but surely back to normal, as if she weren't fatally wounded.

If Merlin was taking her away from her death, it meant he would dress her wounds and even use magic to heal her. She knew this, and she knew that he would have a reason for such behavior, which meant he wanted something from her.

She did not want to go with him, but he had molded her to him the moment he'd picked her up out of the carnage and given her the shelter of his body heat. It felt horribly personal, as if he'd undressed and hugged her. She didn't like the feeling at all; it made the parts of herself that she'd closed off behind iron walls itch.

"You're different," she said weakly, and realized that she'd stopped keeping track of the time spent since Arthur had died; since Merlin had stabbed her with Excalibur. She tried to swallow, but her muscles had forgotten how to function.

Confusion swarmed like bees in her head and she attempted to push herself out of Merlin's hold; he only tightened his grip around her, unbothered by the fact that she was a dangerous witch. He was walking uphill, not even breaking a sweat as he carried her – the bony, lanky Merlin of the past had clearly come into his own, Morgana realized, and she imagined that this was perhaps set upon by the death of his best friend.

Sympathy wasn't her greatest virtue, not after he had poisoned her and she'd made it her life's goal to kill Arthur. Oddly enough, watching Merlin's hardened face was a truly painful thing, and she remembered the days of old, when she, he, Arthur, and Gwen had been close friends. It had taken a great amount of time and magic to heal herself after he'd tried to kill her, and these days she walked the faded earth, side to side over a jagged edge.

Seeing Merlin again after so long and so much revived the bitter memories she'd locked away: Morgause and Mordred and the Druids, her visions, nightmares, and Uther. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pushed the thoughts away, as she had learned to do over the years. Snow was still drifting through the air, chilling her face and giving Merlin's inky hair an icy halo. His eyes still burned with magic, and she realized he was angry, too.

Of course he was livid; she'd plotted Arthur's demise and forced Merlin to harm so many people, including herself. Maybe, even, he was angry that she was alive. How long had he known? Surely not for months after he watched his best friend die. His mind had probably, like hers, fallen to pieces.

As if reading her thoughts, Merlin glanced down at her and said, "I tried to heal him. I used every bit of myself to try and save him. He was my friend, my king. I loved him as all his knights did. But…I couldn't help him."

"And what of Mordred? Did you mourn him as well?" she asked, recalling the boy she'd watched grow into a man. She missed him fiercely, but he had been just another price to pay for what she wanted.

Pausing his steps for a moment, Merlin stared down at her again, his eyes now a grayish blue against the whiteness of the sky. His gaze was heavy, and his face was honest as he said, "I mourned every friend I lost that day."

The implication was clear and Morgana turned her face away, feeling childish as soon as she did so. A lump, to her surprise, formed in her throat, but she bit it back as Merlin resumed walking; he was seemingly satisfied that he'd affected her.

They fell into silence again, and not long after, Merlin arrived at a small cabin, much like her old hovel. It had a grey exterior and vines crawled up its sides. Merlin shifted her in his arms to open the door, revealing a large round room on the inside. There was what she expected to be a bedroom behind another door, as well as about three closets placed in a triangle around the room. It was cluttered, as expected of Merlin, with baubles and jars of herbs that were related to potions and spells.

"Mattress," he ordered quietly, and the door to the bedroom opened gently as what could only be his mattress came floating out, landing on a bench to his left. Walking over, he laid Morgana down and turned to grab items that she couldn't see; when he turned back and leaned over her, she raised a hand to shove him away, but he brushed it aside as if it were merely an insect that had flown too close to him.

His fingers pried away the shredded side of her dress and she pushed at his hands, scowling. "I don't need your help," she hissed. He pulled a chair out of thin air, or so it seemed, and sat next to the makeshift bed.

"Yes, I can tell by the way you were lying in the freezing cold in a pool of your own blood, resigned to die," he said sardonically, giving a magnificent eye roll. "Quit moving." He took her hands and laid them by her head, and spoke two short words to bind them there.

Huffing a sigh, she watched as his cold fingers peeled away the scraps of her dress that had dried against the blood. The sensitive area made her jerk a little, but she didn't complain any further and he didn't apologize, as he would have done years ago. He produced a bucket of water and dabbed at the wound with a cloth. "It's deep," he murmured, "but it will heal." Tracing his finger along the cut, his eyes glowed orange as he wove the deepest parts of it closed until it was no longer baneful. The pain remained, and she realized that he hadn't healed the wound all the way.

He bandaged her side, using a little magic to seal the gauze to her skin – she noticed with wonderment how effortlessly he switched from using his physician's skills to using magic. He then went to work on the side of her leg, brazenly pushing up her skirts and half-healing the sliced flesh there as well, despite her squirming from the exposure. After wrapping her leg with another bandage, he sat back and stared at her, his eyes blank.

Morgana shifted under his gaze, uncomfortable in this entire setting; his home, his plucking her out of the war-torn field of some village whose name she didn't care for. She could still hear the soldiers yelling if she imagined hard enough.

"You stabbed me through," she said quietly. "You left me to die there, in those woods." Her fever seemed to disappear with her impending death; she felt better, although still weak.

"I remember," came his slow reply.

She tilted her head and threw his stare back at him. "Tell me, then, why you've done this for me now."

There was a long pause, and she heard crows cawing outside. This place, if she guessed correctly, wasn't too far from where he'd found her. Her eyes found the tall window carved to the left of the front door; the whiteness of the sky was pushed by the sun's rays through the window, making the glassware on his tables glitter.

"Were you watching me?" she asked offhandedly.

Merlin simply stared at her. He recognized her dismissive tone; it was inherited from her father, Uther. How she had hated the Pendragons, and even more when she learned she was one of them. How she had hated Merlin for siding with them over her, choosing the people responsible for the war on magic over a High Priestess. Merlin remembered so clearly the look on her face as she'd glared at him, speechless and flushed with frustration and anger. She would never understand the bond he shared with Arthur, which seemed to be so much more than simply his destiny having been to protect the king.

"No," he told her. "I didn't watch. I was…away. I came back and heard screaming." His head dipped forward slightly, in what she assumed was mourning. He'd probably known some of the villagers.

"Pick your head up," she commanded harshly. "They chose to stand against the freedom of magic."

Merlin shook his head slowly, knowing that he couldn't make her understand. "If I had been there, not a hair on any of their heads would've been harmed," he murmured.

"I fought those who fought me."

"You're a monster," he said, and finally his voice showed emotion. Tremulous and deep, it conveyed all the hatred and guilt that he'd built up inside himself over time. Morgana relished it, wanted to prolong it so she could bask in his agony.

Smirking up at him, she said, "You and I are the same, Merlin. We both wear masks, but mine doesn't hide who I truly am."

He shook his head again, his eyes narrowing and his mouth twisting into a disgusted grimace. "Do not pretend to know me," he snapped. "I wished you dead years ago and I wish you dead now. The only reason you're here now is because I allowed it."

Morgana raised her eyebrows, almost surprised. "You've changed, I see," she began. "What do you plan to do with me?" Her eyes glinted coyly, and in an instant he was transported back several years, having witnessed expressions of hers like this countless times before.

"Sleep," Merlin said sharply, before she could draw up more frozen memories. He reached out and quickly touched his hand to her forehead; her eyes closed and her entire weight seemed to slacken as her grip on consciousness was jolted away. Her head lolled to the side and a soft sigh escaped her lips, so Merlin withdrew his arm and leaned back in the chair, rubbing his upper lip with the side of his finger as he stared at Morgana.

She was thinner, as he was thicker. The spooling, spiraling tendrils of her hair had grown long and wild. He feared the coming storm, as he knew Morgana's advantageous nature would find the holes in his scheme and use them against him. She was a walking riddle, with her venom and her spells, and he could only dread her presence.

Morgana was fitful in her sleep, as she had always been. Merlin stayed in the room, watching carefully as his tables rattled. That was all that happened, though; he'd put anti-spells on his candles and windows so that she wouldn't affect them. She twitched, the whispers of her dreams cascading through his home like a violent wind. Hours passed and he simply watched her, idly stroking his lip and content to do nothing else with his night – he'd worked enough lately.

How wickedly poetic it was, that she hadn't died. He'd failed to kill her time and time again, but in the end, she'd gotten what she'd wanted. How cruel it was, that destiny had played them like musical instruments instead of massive sources of power and craving.

"I've ridden myself of fate," he murmured to himself, as he had many times in the past. "I no longer follow its path." Over the years, he'd allowed the darkness inside himself to grow, almost to the point of consuming him. He'd felt the resonance of the kind of magic Morgana held dear pouring through his veins, singing, dancing, and stealing pieces of his soul.

He was not the Merlin he once was. Now, he fed the darkness his bitter emotions, and it fed off of him, and at the right moment he knew it would try to devour him. He was ready; he could control it. He could control anything and anyone. Arthur had kept steady the morality in Merlin, just as Arthur had with Mordred, but the power of magic had overridden that of the king as as soon as Arthur had disappeared.

Morgana mumbled something that sounded like a curse. Glancing at her, Merlin watched her arms fidget around and her face darken. "Quiet," he ordered, and all was silent. Yes, he could control whatever he wished. Even Morgana, he suspected, although he knew she would fight him. The last High Priestess, come home to him at last. He smirked.

Imagining that every piece of her magic was scrambling to heal her body, Merlin stood over her once more, this time in fascination. He ran his middle and third fingers along her brow bone, remembering how he'd done this once back then, before everything had turned sour. She had been sleeping in her chambers and he'd gone to watch her in her nightmares, expecting to hear simple murmuring but instead watching candles flicker and curtains billow.

She was powerful, yes, but not as powerful as he. He relished in this fact. Everyone, now, knew that he had magic. He could make anyone do anything, and he delighted in that knowledge. It made his blood boil, set his teeth on edge, and made his mood soar. He remembered running through the woods, wild and free and limitless. He remembered the wind singing through the trees, his hair floating upward in the wind. He remembered the perfect blue of the midday sky and how it looked so like the color of Arthur's eyes... Pendragon eyes.

It wasn't just Morgana who had come home, he realized. No, he'd returned as well, as if he'd been called by some otherworldly force. In a way he had, because he knew from the depth of his being that fate had brought him and Morgana back together, for better or for worse. While he controlled his destiny, fate would lead him into many snares. He blinked at the prospect, then moved to light a few candles.

Hours passed as he sat in thought. He didn't sleep much anymore; waking up was that much harder to do when his dreams included visions of the past and the future. Mostly, he simply didn't care to relive the bygones that had colored him in darkness, nor did he care to guess at what would come. He had done enough of that when he first arrived in Camelot, and he had nothing to show for it.

Not yet, anyway.

"Wake up," he said softly, watching as Morgana stirred. Her eyes opened and found his, blue meeting blue, and her face, having looked akin to a child's or an angel's whilst sleeping, hardened into her half-crazed mask, framed by her wild, dark brown tresses. He remembered Gaius at one point saying she could be Merlin's sister, because her features were colored the same. Her hair, maybe, but he realized with a twinge that her eyes only reminded him of Arthur's.

"I do have plans for us," Merlin said, his eyes lingering on Morgana's full lips, pale and held in disgust. He wondered what lies her lips had told, what secrets she had kept in her absence from him. "I believe we were fated to meet again."

"I've lost my faith in fate," Morgana snapped, eyes flaring.

He gave a heavy sigh, staring back at her with a contemptuous expression reminiscent of years past. "We can bring Arthur back," he ventured.

Her face betrayed no emotion except for a slight amount of disgust. Standing up and turning away from her, he explained, "I have had visions of the future. A very distant future. I intend to change it."

"Do you believe that just because you act enlightened, I'll help you?" Morgana countered, shifting her weight from one elbow to the other.

She saw Merlin turn, and then he was right in front of her, sitting on the bed and almost on top of her. His eyes burned orange and hers widened in surprise, but she frowned in defiance. She would not be scared by him.

"You'll help me," he told her simply, as though he'd foreseen that, too. "You don't have a choice."

Morgana snorted, holding his glare before breaking her gaze away and fixating on the window. "I am not afraid of you," she said, shaking her head. "You can't make me abandon my mind and help you. You're not capable of such power."

Merlin was silent, and when she looked back at him, his whole face had hardened, grown dark and sinister in a matter of seconds. Morgana's eyes widened again as he leaned over her, grasping her knee and sliding his hand up her thigh towards her side, pressing his thumb through the bandage and deep into the cut that he'd half-healed only hours before. She yelped in discomfort.

Feeling his finger penetrate her skin and rip through all that had healed, tears came to her eyes as she gave a pathetic cry; her blood rushed up around his hand and she cried out another time, then again, whimpering and squirming uncomfortably in an attempt to get away. "Merlin," she gasped, her hand rising to pull his away. She pushed weakly at his elbow.

Grabbing her hand with his other hand, he squeezed it tightly and pulled it towards his chest, dipping his head down so that their noses were almost touching and she could feel his breath on her lips. Their eyes were level now, and he held her gaze with such cold eyes, colored like a dark fire. He dug his thumb harder into her side, twisting until his nail hit bone and a scream ripped out of her throat, transforming into a wail before it once again became a whimper. "You don't know what I'm capable of," he said in a steady voice with a dangerous undertone – something darker than what he was showing. She stared up at him in shock, gasping for breath, and saw that his expression was a mixture of glee, apathy, and malice.

Then the orange in his eyes faded away into the same old blue that she remembered. He blinked, then after a moment let go of her hand before pulling his thumb out of her. It was covered in fresh blood and healed skin was caught underneath the fingernail; he stared blankly as she moved to clutch at her wound, her own crimson-colored filling pouring through her fingers like jelly out of the pastries that the castle cooks used to make.

Merlin reached to fix what he'd done, but she hissed and wriggled away from him, batting his bloody hands away with hers. Her skirt was caught under his legs and made it difficult for her to put distance between them, so he grabbed at her arms, finally catching one. "Morgana," he said, his low, ragged tone making her quiet. He pressed the palm of his hand against the weeping cut and she moaned, tears welling in her eyes and one spilling down her cheek.

He felt her body knit itself back together, up until the veins were healed, and then he stopped. He grabbed another bandage and threw away the old one, listening to her keening all the while.

Merlin sat back, staring blankly at the blood caked underneath his nails. Morgana panted like a frightened animal on the bed, watching him with wary, feral eyes. Control had gotten the slip on him again, he thought. This was happening more and more often. Times like these… they didn't frighten him in the way that they should, but he always regretted them. Even though this was Morgana, who had murdered his friends, he felt guilty. Perhaps it was because he worried that one day, his harnessed power would hurt the wrong person and there would be no one to blame but himself.

Morgana had known worse pain than this; she'd been stabbed so many times. But that didn't mean there was less pain, or that her body had become more tolerant of intrusion.

Merlin didn't speak. He was a creature of magic, and sometimes magic turned impulsive. She should know that better than anyone. He wasn't sorry, not after all she'd done. So no, he didn't apologize and wasn't going to. Instead, he repeated in his soft voice, "You don't know what I'm capable of."

Morgana felt his words vibrate in her bones, as if he'd pressed his lips directly to her flesh and sent his words into her, breathing them into her pores and letting them slip through her bloodstream. She felt the echo of everything that had changed him over the past years, everything that had marred him and made him something other than the old Merlin, but more than a man.

Bitterly, without scrubbing the tears off of her face, she said, "We could've been kings and queens. All of us." Guinevere, Arthur, Merlin, and herself. Maybe even Mordred and Lancelot, Morgause.

Merlin's eyes filled with nostalgia, and it swam deep into him as he nodded slowly. "Three of us were," he told her, as if she didn't remember. "And always…there was a Pendragon on the throne."

She grimaced, her hand still placed delicately over her side in case he attacked her again. "I am not a Pendragon. I was never allowed to be. You remember."

Merlin sighed, his eyes seeming to search for something in the room. "You're more like your father than you know," he said simply, to which she sat up against the wall, glaring at him but wary now, as if anything she might say may turn him into… whatever that was, again.

"I'm neither stupid nor arrogant, and I'm far from being a tyrant," she snapped, smoothing her skirts and trying to pay as little attention to him as possible. Her heart leapt within her chest, and she didn't want to call it fright, but it was fright. She'd thought she'd seen Merlin at his worst when he'd stabbed her through.

"You're rash, unfeeling, hateful, and monstrous," Merlin retorted. He stood up swiftly, causing Morgana to flinch. "You're also very brave," he added quietly. "Try to sleep, Morgana, you'll need your rest." His voice was strained as he walked towards his bedroom door.

Morgana glowered for several hours after that, watching the candles he'd lit while she was asleep flicker and spit. She tried to put them out so many times but found she couldn't, and wondered what kind of magic he'd used to make her so weak, not even considering that the fault might be her own.

She didn't bother trying to get up; her leg seemed to be getting sorer with every waking minute. Turning over and over until she found a comfortable position in which she didn't rest on her left side, she wondered what Merlin was using as a mattress to sleep on, or if he was sleeping at all. She didn't dare call out to him, not like children who shared a room would've, like restless friends whispering in the middle of the night. He'd probably left the room to be rid of her. He probably had a spare mattress. She didn't know, she didn't care.

Sleep came only when she became horribly bored, when it seemed like the distant, distant future of which Merlin had spoken had arrived. Her eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings as she tried to stay awake, but they became heavier and heavier like a skirt in water.

In her dream, she stood on a raised platform made of wood. Arthur stood to her right. He wore a red velvet cape, and his blonde hair floated gently in the breeze. He stared ahead, his eyes dark and distant. His cheekbones seemed sharper than before, and he stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his feet planted, waiting for something.

Following his gaze, Morgana noticed a crowd of people gathered around the dais, their faces nonexistent. Hatred – for him, for her – swarmed around the crowd like a plague, and Morgana glanced at Arthur out of the corner of her eye. He remained still.

Past the crowd, a small procession trudged closer and closer, and she recognized a few of Arthur's knights – Gwaine, Lancelot, and Mordred. Mordred and Gwaine held a man by the arms as he stumbled to keep up with them, head down and clothes dirty. The knights' faces mimicked Arthur's stoicism.

Morgana looked over the familiar citadel of Camelot, then glanced at the castle, which was further down the road. As she studied its architecture, Morgana saw movement in one of the windows and squinted at a dark figure; in the shadows stood Guinevere.

Frowning at the sense that something was amiss, Morgana remained quiet, looking back to the procession. The prisoner was shouting but his voice was distorted, and she could barely make out what he was saying. "Kill the wretches! Every last one!"

Uther.

Everything went still for a moment as she closed her eyes, a feeling of dread pooling within her. When she reopened her eyes, she felt colder, harder, as if the sight of him had strengthened her resolve. She watched the knights reach the stairs to the platform with her chin raised proudly, but she wondered why Arthur didn't protest this treatment of his father.

She turned her head and saw a noose hanging not five feet away from her; knew it was Uther's fate before he was thrust in front of it, in front of her. He gazed at her coldly before spitting at her feet, but she just held his eyes with contempt.

You're more like your father than you know. The words felt whispered against her ear like a lover's sigh, and she almost turned her head to see if anyone was actually there. Before she could look, she felt Arthur's hand on her shoulder and his chest close to her back. Quietly, he said, "Morgana. There's something I should tell you."

"What is it?" she murmured, not looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on Uther, who suddenly threw his head back and gave a hideous cry as the noose was positioned around his neck by Gwaine. The knights let go of Uther's arms and he flailed madly, driven to desperation by his looming execution.

The executioner, wearing a black frock with a hood that covered his face completely, placed his hands on the lever. Morgana felt Mordred's gaze bore into her, and she locked eyes with him. She heard his voice in her mind: Be still, you're home. She cocked her head to the side, puzzled.

Without warning, the lever was pulled, and Morgana's head snapped towards Uther's body as it jerked about helplessly. Swallowing hard, she stared up at the hangman – a crow perched on his shoulder, digging its talons into him so harshly that his cape was torn and she could see his bloody skin underneath.

Sir Gwaine knelt in front of her, staring up at her as if she were the sun. Grasping her skirt like a child, he said, "You're home." Grabbing her skirts, she pulled them out of his clutches and moved to the other side of Arthur, who still stood straight as a statue, looking sternly ahead just as before.

Morgana couldn't help but continue to eye the hangman, his familiar shoulders and the way he hung his head, eschewing eye contact. She couldn't see his face, but she knew him the instant he said, "Next."

Uther's body was cut free from the noose by Sir Lancelot, and it went flopping onto the ground underneath a square hole cut in the platform. The knight placed the noose around his own neck. Merlin swiftly executed Lancelot, without so much as a falter, then called for the next person.

Mordred stepped forward, looking solemn, and Morgana's entire body jerked forward with a mother's love, and she shrieked, "No! You can't!" into dead silence, and the clouds overhead grew darker as all eyes – the eyes of the crowd, the remaining knights, and even the eyes of Arthur – turned to her.

Before she knew it, Mordred was strutting towards her with a look of anger on his face. Grabbing her roughly by the shoulders, he ignored Arthur's disgruntled sigh as he shoved Morgana towards the rope, forcefully pulling her head back. She stared at Merlin with wide eyes as the noose slid down around her head. When their eyes met, he said, "I felt you every day. I felt you every time you moved."

A swirl of frustration and confusion overtook her. "I see," her lips said. Her hands, which she held clasped behind her back, began to shake. "And what of the others?"

"All gone," he said with a shrug, resting his hands conversationally on top of the lever. "There's only you and I, now."

She nodded, tears prickling in her eyes. Mordred untangled his fingers from her hair and she gazed valiantly out at the crowd. Everything was silent except for her heart, which beat steadily in her ears.

Looking to Arthur, she saw that he had resumed his previous stance, still staring straight ahead.

Merlin followed her gaze. "The once and future king," he intoned. Morgana's trailed over the king's hardened face, and finally, his blue eyes met hers.

Oceans. She felt oceans surround the three of them, as heavy as Guinevere's gaze resting on her from the window. Mordred's fingers combed through her hair, as if to tame her and make her human again. She tried to twist away, but the sensation of heavy water forced her to remain stock still, and she stared into the square hole, seeing Uther's lifeless gaze reflect back at her. She wondered what her mother looked like.

Merlin pulled the lever and she felt herself falling, weightless and infinite, into a dark pit. The pit turned into a deep blue tunnel, a light at the end. She splashed into freezing water.

Then Merlin's hands were clutching at her, trying to wrap around her, grab hold of her. She thrashed in the water and he finally caught her, deftly pulling her up and out. Holding her by the arms as she coughed water into his lap, he chuckled and said, "Don't you know how to swim?"

She raised her head and saw that they were in a valley; the water behind her was a lake. They sat under a tree on the bank of the lake and he leaned against it, staring at her with a bemused look on his face. The tunnel seemed like a silly notion and she dismissed it as such, wiping her hands on Merlin's chest as he cupped her face in his hands.

It was autumn and leaves blew around them as easily as snow, catching in their hair and sticking to her wet body. She undid the strings of her bodice and pulled her saturated dress off, laying it next to them and shivering in her underthings. They were white and translucent from being wet, and she stared at Merlin as he undid the strings of his cape, opening it for her to take shelter from the breeze.

She climbed onto his lap and he closed the cloak around her, holding her in his arms as she stared at the sky. Closing her eyes and turning to face him as she leaned against his chest, she sighed contently into his collar bone as he adjusted his arms around her back. She hadn't felt the touch of another person for a long time. He wasn't wearing much underneath the cloak, which was odd, but then again, Merlin was always odd.

"Morgana." His voice was gentle and quiet, and his body heat surrounded her, warming the places where their bodies touched before seeping into the rest of her. She was still breathing heavily from almost drowning, and his hands rubbed up and down her back, trying to heat her up. His fingers traced her spine as he pet her hair, staring across the lake as if searching for something.

Warmth pooled in her stomach, seeping down her abdomen and between her legs. Morgana made an uncomfortable noise and shifted in Merlin's arms, only to feel a jab of pain in her side, like a cramp. Merlin noticed, tearing his cloak away from her to reveal her injury. It had followed her here, and it bled heavily.

Pressing her hands to her side and whispering, she waited for her magic to help, but found it was missing from her. Shocked and nervous, she raised her head to stare at him, frantically trying to save herself. "Merlin," she stammered at one point, but he simply stared back at her. Removing her hands from her wound, she grabbed his shoulders – now clad only in a simple white shirt – and shook him frantically.

He remained still. "Merlin!" she cried, but he remained frozen. Her bloody hands were staining his shirt. Deep, disconcerting red marks stood out against his pale shirt and skin, and she felt her lower lip tremble as she took in the sight of it.

A twig snapped somewhere close by, and she grabbed Merlin again as she looked around, her wound seeping blood even faster now. Pressing a hand to it, she bit her tongue hard in an attempt to drown out the pain, but her teeth came away bloody as well. All was raw.

Arthur stepped out from behind the tree, holding his sword. Resting its tip in the ground, he leaned against the hilt and stared at Morgana, his face blank as it had been before, on the platform. Images of a violet sky flashed before Morgana's eyes when she blinked, as well as yellow and orange butterflies and birds. She saw a black cavern and a deep blue sea, then red apples, and green grass that tickled her legs.

"Give me a reason," Arthur said tonelessly, his eyes not quite meeting hers. "Do you feel remorse?"

Morgana stared at him, stared at his blonde hair floating in the wind and his empty blue eyes, his pale skin and his knight's garb. Another flood of images rushed through her brain: Uther's hateful insanity, Arthur's rash arrogance, how wonderful it had been to know Morgause as a sibling.

Hours seemed to pass in mere seconds. The wind blew her hair against her lips and she still clung to Merlin, her betrayer, her rescuer. She stared at her half-brother with wild, childlike eyes, speechless and contemplating. The lake they sat next to, she realized, was the Lake of Avalon. I was drowning, she thought. They must hate me.

Turning to look over her shoulder, she saw two of Arthur's knights flanking her from a distance; Gwen's brother, Sir Elyan, watching from the trees to her left, copying Arthur's pose with a steely expression on his face. Sir Lancelot stood at the edge of the lake to her right, his sword in its sheath and a dutiful expression on his rugged face; she caught his eye and he dipped his head in a small, singular nod, as if he still respected her as much as she respected him. Morgana nodded to him in return.

She faced Arthur once again, no longer unsettled by Merlin's stillness. Taking her hand away from her side, she looked at the crimson smeared from her palm to her elbow before closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and reopening them to gaze at her brother once more; this time, her expression wasn't scared or naïve. Instead, she held her face as neutral as he did, refined and collected, as their father had dictated to them between luncheons and meetings.

"No," Morgana finally replied, the power in her own voice resonating throughout the ground, the trees, and the lake itself. His face broke and became wistful for half a second, but returned to blank immediately after. She blinked and he vanished, perhaps back into the lake from whence he'd supposedly come, or simply disappeared from her mind.

Glancing at Merlin, she raised her bloody hands and took his face in them, cupping his jaw gently as she brought his face close to hers. Staring into his eyes, she told him, "You don't need to tell me anymore, Merlin. I understand."

Then Merlin's face became reanimate, and the ghost of his peculiar grin crossed his face. His blue eyes were passionate as they searched hers.

Morgana looked at him and he grasped her hand in his, warm and calming like she'd always known him to be. He placed his hand against her stomach and all the pain was gone in an instant; she was so mesmerized in watching her skin knit itself back together between his fingers that she almost missed the dark clouds gathering overhead.

Raising her head to stare up at the blackened sky, she likened the clouds to a charcoal drawing. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, she lowered her face to see Merlin's eyes blazing a magnificent red-orange, and whimpered as he stared at her with the dark expression she'd encountered earlier.

"Open your eyes, Morgana," he told her in a deep, scathing voice – so unnatural compared to his previous lightness. "You are far from it yet."

Then she sat bolt upright on his mattress, chest heaving. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead, which made her hair stick to her skin. A cold gust of wind blew from under the front door and her head snapped towards it, her body shivering even though at some point, Merlin had covered her with a blanket.

You are far from it yet. The statement repeated over and over through her head and her thoughts scattered, traveling along each branch of what it could possibly mean, reaching zero conclusions. She clutched the sheets in her shaking fingers. Laying back down, she turned onto her uninjured side and stared at the candles once more, using every corner of her magic to try and put them out. Just like before, she couldn't, and the fire so reminded her of the colors she had seen in Merlin's eyes.

Swallowing hard, she knew that she was stuck, that it would be some time before she got herself out of this one. Exhausted and breathing heavily, she remained awake for most of the night, but when dawn came, her eyelids drifted shut once more, and for once, she didn't dream at all.