Fic: Merlin; PG-13; Here Lies Everything
Dec. 19th, 2008 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
definewisdomTitle: Here Lies Everything
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: PG-13 for creepiness
Pairing/Characters: Morgana, Arthur, a little Gwen
Disclaimer: If I owned Merlin, then the Gwen/Arthur would not even be starting to emerge. It would only be a cover story. I don’t, it isn’t.
Warnings: Extreme creepiness, bleak, angst.
Spoilers: The Gates of Avalon sort of.
Author’s Note: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wrennette for the beta. The title is from Dr Horrible’s Sing-a-long blog if you haven’t watched it do. The whole thing just makes me think of Morgana.
Summary: Morgana dreams of a world of gold and blood red, and she walks the field of the slain.
In Morgana’s dreams she walks among the bodies of the dead and she is free.
The ground is rusty red-brown with churned mud and spilled blood, and the stark white faces of the dead remind her of little patches of the purest snow.
Somewhere, far away, a man is sobbing and she thinks it may be Arthur, but she cannot see him for the corpses around her. She lifts up her skirts slightly so that her feet can pick their way more easily between the bodies, and she watches their faces curiously as she walks on. Some are frozen in shock, others grim and fierce and not a one is smiling, and it seems a shame to her. Her feet are bare and slide into the mud, but for some reason this does not bother her.
As the sun sets on the battlefield, the whole world dissolves into gold and in that moment she sees that death is beautiful. A golden end to the Golden Age is only fitting, after all.
She walks on, meandering around the fallen. Every now and then she recognises one who lies in the dirt beneath her, putting names to faces she has not yet met. She is walking on the graves of her friends, and she feels nothing.
A flash of red catches her eye, fluttering in the lightest breeze, not dripping like the rest, and she stoops down gracefully to pry it from lifeless fingers, the skirts of her dress dropping, forgotten, into the pools of blood.
It is a strip of the flag of Camelot, slowly unravelling where it has been torn apart.
Almost absently, she ties it round her waist, a blood red girdle, her spoils of war.
The blood is soaking up the silk of her skirt, scarlet running into blue and dyeing it a regal purple.
She looks up and she can see him now, Arthur, King of Camelot, kneeling at her feet. His face is painted with blood on one side, a rich red that complements the gold of the sunlight: the colours of Camelot laid out for all to see. She watches the blood trickle over his lip and she wants to know how it tastes.
He looks up, and her eyes are caught by his, shards of blue in a glorious world of gold.
He is not looking at her though, he is surveying his Kingdom, and he is crying. The tears are caught in his eyes as he lets out a roar. His voice is hoarse with grief and rage and battle cries. He has nothing left and there is no one there to hold him together.
She watches with quiet interest as the cracks in Camelot reveal themselves in its golden warrior-king. But his grief cannot hold her for long.
She turns away from him, unmoved by pity, and walks back towards the ruins of what was once her home. She holds her head high as she steps over her sacrifices, slipping away into the coming darkness, smiling and humming to herself - a tune she once knew.
… That world of gold drops away, leaving only darkness. There is a moment of nothing, just memory. Then she is screaming and awake.
Camelot is whole around her and there are arms holding her tight. She sobs into Gwen’s shoulder as she remembers and she mutters a litany of words over and over again.
That will not be her; that will never be her.
-
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: PG-13 for creepiness
Pairing/Characters: Morgana, Arthur, a little Gwen
Disclaimer: If I owned Merlin, then the Gwen/Arthur would not even be starting to emerge. It would only be a cover story. I don’t, it isn’t.
Warnings: Extreme creepiness, bleak, angst.
Spoilers: The Gates of Avalon sort of.
Author’s Note: Thanks to
wrennette for the beta. The title is from Dr Horrible’s Sing-a-long blog if you haven’t watched it do. The whole thing just makes me think of Morgana.Summary: Morgana dreams of a world of gold and blood red, and she walks the field of the slain.
In Morgana’s dreams she walks among the bodies of the dead and she is free.
The ground is rusty red-brown with churned mud and spilled blood, and the stark white faces of the dead remind her of little patches of the purest snow.
Somewhere, far away, a man is sobbing and she thinks it may be Arthur, but she cannot see him for the corpses around her. She lifts up her skirts slightly so that her feet can pick their way more easily between the bodies, and she watches their faces curiously as she walks on. Some are frozen in shock, others grim and fierce and not a one is smiling, and it seems a shame to her. Her feet are bare and slide into the mud, but for some reason this does not bother her.
As the sun sets on the battlefield, the whole world dissolves into gold and in that moment she sees that death is beautiful. A golden end to the Golden Age is only fitting, after all.
She walks on, meandering around the fallen. Every now and then she recognises one who lies in the dirt beneath her, putting names to faces she has not yet met. She is walking on the graves of her friends, and she feels nothing.
A flash of red catches her eye, fluttering in the lightest breeze, not dripping like the rest, and she stoops down gracefully to pry it from lifeless fingers, the skirts of her dress dropping, forgotten, into the pools of blood.
It is a strip of the flag of Camelot, slowly unravelling where it has been torn apart.
Almost absently, she ties it round her waist, a blood red girdle, her spoils of war.
The blood is soaking up the silk of her skirt, scarlet running into blue and dyeing it a regal purple.
She looks up and she can see him now, Arthur, King of Camelot, kneeling at her feet. His face is painted with blood on one side, a rich red that complements the gold of the sunlight: the colours of Camelot laid out for all to see. She watches the blood trickle over his lip and she wants to know how it tastes.
He looks up, and her eyes are caught by his, shards of blue in a glorious world of gold.
He is not looking at her though, he is surveying his Kingdom, and he is crying. The tears are caught in his eyes as he lets out a roar. His voice is hoarse with grief and rage and battle cries. He has nothing left and there is no one there to hold him together.
She watches with quiet interest as the cracks in Camelot reveal themselves in its golden warrior-king. But his grief cannot hold her for long.
She turns away from him, unmoved by pity, and walks back towards the ruins of what was once her home. She holds her head high as she steps over her sacrifices, slipping away into the coming darkness, smiling and humming to herself - a tune she once knew.
… That world of gold drops away, leaving only darkness. There is a moment of nothing, just memory. Then she is screaming and awake.
Camelot is whole around her and there are arms holding her tight. She sobs into Gwen’s shoulder as she remembers and she mutters a litany of words over and over again.
That will not be her; that will never be her.
-
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 11:30 pm (UTC)That was the reaction I was hoping for, it's the one I got when the scene came to me. I'm glad to know I conveyed it like I wanted to.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 12:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 11:32 pm (UTC)I'm glad you enjoyed it (if that's the word). I was aiming for something almost cinematic, it's good to know that I managed to make it vivid.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 01:00 pm (UTC)...
*shivers*
this was incredibly intense. but what i thought was brilliant - apart from the vivid and not-so-obvious descriptions, particularly of the colours ("shards of blue in a glorious world of gold") and their symbolism - was the way you managed to convey Morgana's total lack of sympathy, or grief, or... anything. She took her spoils of war, and surveyed calmly and proudly what she had done.
And as I read it again, the image of a bloodstained, heartbroken Arthur brought me to tears. God, I hope we never see this on the show or I will scream. And cry.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 11:35 pm (UTC)I really, strangely, enjoyed writing Morgana like that. Her detachment from it all was what really came to mind. I'm glad I managed to convey it properly.
Thanks again. :) *hands over tissues* Sorry about that.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-19 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-20 03:37 pm (UTC)yo
Date: 2009-06-20 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-03 09:48 pm (UTC)