setting: post-2x08-The Sins of the Father

disclaimer: fic•tion [fíksh'n]: literary works of imagination

TRÝWÞ

/tryːθ/ = truth

He doesn't know what draws him back there.

Whether it is his subconscious mind realising his father was spouting nothing but lies to save his life, or whether it had something, everything, to do with her.

Morgause.

Sure words were never spoken; his father had skilfully told him what he needed to hear. Morgause was an enchantress, she was lying, he loved his mother and his son enough to let no harm ever come to them. Deep down he'd known better; he knew his father's hatred of magic could potentially lead him to disown his own son were he ever to align himself with it.

"I am indebted to you, Merlin," he says, even though he knows that what he tells Merlin is anything but the truth. But Merlin had helped him, had saved his soul from a far worse fate; he feels like he owes his servant, yet again. "I had become confused. It is once again clear to me that those who practise magic are evil and dangerous. And that is thanks to you."

Merlin was the one who had spoken to him clearly, pleaded with him, showing him that he could never bear the burden of patricide. That is the only reason he'd stood down. How could he ever be the great king everyone believed he would be one day, if he had his own father's blood on his hands? He'd wanted to though; he'd wanted to drive that sword right through his father's chest, make him bleed for his mother's death, suffer for the countless of lives he had taken to ease his own guilt.

He knows what he tells Merlin, but nothing is clear anymore. He still is confused and no longer knows what to believe. Maybe that is what makes him go, drives him to stalk out of the castle late at night, without Merlin, and follow the path back to her. He needs to know the truth that seems to elude him around every corner, the truth that has so long been denied to him. Part of him knows Morgause is not to be trusted, another untameable part of him realises there must have been something true about her words. He needs some tiny inkling of them to be true.

"Arthur Pendragon," she speaks his name with great care, the echo of her voice reverberating against the stone-cold ruins around them. She stands atop a winding rock stairs, looking down at him inquisitively. "To what do I owe the renewed pleasure?" Morgause asks; the sword in her hand doesn't pass him by unnoticed. He doesn't blame her; he can't blame her, not for feeling the need to defend herself.

"Why did you come to Camelot?" he asks strongly, jaw clenched tight in anger. They were questions Merlin had heeded him to ask, but he'd been too preoccupied with the thought of seeing his mother. Still, he must ask them of her now. "Why did you challenge me?" he adds.

"To bring Uther to his knees," Morgause answers, and straightens her shoulders in defiance. He ascends the stairs, climbing two steps before his line of vision meets hers. Her eyes force him into a compliance he doesn't understand, but penetrates him like a web-cotton haze; he's pinned in place on the spot.

"So my father was right. You lied," he sneers, the hatred in him coiling around his heart like a tight fist, about to mangle it into something unrecognisable. His grip tightens around the hilt of his sword, ready to lash out, act out on something dark and primal that his mother's words – spoken by her but conducted by Morgause – had awakened in him.

"Only truth was spoken here," her voice remains as calm as ever, and he envies her for it. How can he trust her? How can he put her words before his father's? Before Merlin's? He had never seen his mother, how could he believe in the image of her now burned into his mind? How could he believe it were truly her arms that had held him?

"Out of the mouth of an apparition!" he shouts, the sight of his mother coming back to his mind so strongly that tears spring to his eyes instantly. Would she have told him to mistrust his own father? Would she have put that doubt in his mind, despite what his father did or didn't do? "An illusion!" But he'd held her in his arms, the tears in her eyes as real as his own, her skin as real as the wind on his face. "How am I to know what is true?"

"Have I given you any reason to mistrust me?" Morgause looks at him, and raises an eyebrow questioningly. His head reels as he searches for an answer, an explanation, anything to believe his father above her. He doesn't know where to place his anger justly, or where to put the blame. But no, she hasn't given him a single reason to distrust her. Other than...

"You're a sorceress," he spits, and conquers two more steps, another four steps away from her. He draws his sword slowly, the blade shrieking metallically as he unsheathes it. Morgause doesn't move, nor does she blink.

"Yes, I am." She looks deep into his eyes, her eyes seeming to darken as she focuses more closely on his face. He figures she's trying to read him, but he'll have none of that. "I have never denied that, nor have you asked me." Truth. "The image of your mother was real. Everything she told you came from her. Not me."

"So you just used her for your own benefits." He takes in a shuddery breath and feels it shake his entire body. He remembers his mother's final words to him. Do not let this knowledge change you. How could he not? How can he not feel anger? How could he not place the blame? But where to put it? Does he hold his father responsible, or Nimueh, the sorceress that created him?

"Yes," Morgause answers, and a frown curls between her eyebrows. Perhaps she's noticing his distress, or maybe it's something else entirely. One thing is sure: she sees through him like few others do.

"I should strike you down where you stand," he speaks between clenched teeth, feeling the weight around his heart press down harder, and more fiercely than before. He's quick to overpower another few steps, until something stops him abruptly.

A coy smile spreads across Morgause's lips.

Her eyes remain dark and vigilant, not leaving him, never releasing their hold on him. "Could you truly, Arthur Pendragon?" The colour in her eyes flares to a golden-brown for the briefest of moments, and he feels something inside of him snap. He doesn't know if it's the proof of her sorcery, or if she's just enchanted him as his father had feared, but he feels his sword slip from his hand, the metal scraping harshly against the stone steps as it tumbles down.

The world stops spinning around him.

A calm spreads through him, perhaps the same kind he had envied her for minutes ago.

Morgause blinks, and casts down her eyes. It takes him aback for the slightest of moments; he blinks himself, taking a breath, and stares down at the ground. He hears the brief rustle of her dress against the bundles of baby's breath on the ground, and then the tapping of her shoes on the cold stone. He takes another breath, and looks up, Morgause walking away from him.

He knows he doesn't have to follow her, nor does he believe she expects him to. But he can't help himself; he's drawn to her like a moth to flames. Another few moments pass, where only the sound of a soft breeze shaking the ruins accompanies his shallow breathing. Then, his eyes follow the path of evergreen ivy up the steps, up the walls, and his feet carry him towards her.

"How did you know I would wish for my mother?" he asks, defeated, but grateful that his mind is clear of any doubt, of any lies. Of any potential buried truths that he would one day discover and make him wish he had killed his father.

"I didn't." Morgause turns, and stares at him curiously. He can't be sure – because he doesn't know her nor her emotions – but she looks concerned for his wellbeing. "Nor did I know what she would tell you." He has to believe her. If the doorway to the afterlife can indeed only be opened once, he is the only one to have spoken to his mother since she died. "There is something about you, Arthur Pendragon." He finds it curious how she always uses his full name when speaking to him, never just his first name. "Wherever you go, magic follows. I find it curious."

"My father..." he starts, but doesn't know what he means to say. He was born from magic; the very thing he was taught to mistrust, everything he's been fighting his entire life.

"One day your father's reign will end. And you will be king." She walks over to him slowly, and halts mere inches away from him, carefully placing her hand over his heart. He shouldn't feel it through his armour, but he does. "I had hoped to convince you not all magic is evil before your heart grows as decisive as your father's."

Sure words. Clear words of the liking his father had never granted him. But it was still his father they were talking about. The only parent he has left; a guide, a teacher, a mentor. Even if his father were to fall, he's not ready to be king. And he knows for a fact, whether Uther Pendragon dies at his hand, or at the hand of another, he'd feel grief of the likes he's known only once before: when he found out his mother's true fate.

"You hate him so that you would have me kill him?" he asks still. She would have stood by and watched the son kill the father? He looks down into her eyes, but she averts his gaze when she answers.

"He sentenced me to death before I was even born," Morgause continues to speak serenely, calm, even though he can see her eyes burning at the mention of her past. He cannot imagine how she must feel. "If it weren't for Gaius and his oath to my mother I would not be alive today."

He doesn't want to believe her words; he doesn't want them to gain power over his heart and make him believe what deep down he knows to be true. He knows what his father is capable off, and what lengths he would go through to hunt down all those who practise magic. He has seen it with his own eyes.

He doesn't want to believe her.

But he finds truth where his father had denied it to him, he finds verisimilitude between words once spoken by Merlin, and words now spoken by Morgause. Merlin had tried to save his soul, Morgause was helping him protect it now.

"I'm sorry," the words slip from his mouth involuntarily, but truly, he feels sorry for her. Maybe he's to blame as well, because he's never questioned his father's attitude towards magic before this day. He's caused so much pain himself, in the name of a cause he can no longer believe in.

"You should not have come here." She doesn't acknowledge his apology, just draws in a confident breath and straightens her shoulders, looking up at him, eyes fiercer than he has seen them so far. She probably doesn't need to be reminded of her past, least of all by him. The spawn of a man she hates more than anything in this world.

He knows he should not be here, nor should he feel such a strong urge to stay; he has duties no matter what kind of king his father is. If he ever wishes to be king himself, a different one than his father, he'll have to return to Camelot and learn to live with the idea that he was born from magic, and his father had kept it from him all this time.

"You have your answers," Morgause adds. "I trust you will use this knowledge wisely. A great destiny awaits you, Arthur," she says, looking up into his eyes again. He's stunned into silence at the sound of his name, even though she has spoken it previously. "The future of magic rests in your hands now," she adds, and moves away from him once again.

Truth? He doesn't know. But at least some part of him, strong and reinvigorated, is willing to find out.

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