Pair Dadeni {Part Five}

[ficofandalasia]

Chapter Eleven
Her consciousness crawled back, slowly, inching up her body like an advancing wave of crushing pain. Morgana had to grit her teeth against it just to avoid passing out again, breathing deep until the worst of the pain passed. She did not move from where she lay, sprawled face-down on the floor with grit pressing into her cheek, whistling air the only sound that broke the silence above her. It had been like this when her dreams had first been allowed free rein, when her magic had first ripped through her; Morgause had held her then, until the worst pain passed, but there was no-one now.

The thoughts of Morgause were more painful even than usual. Morgana opened her eyes, not knowing what to expect, and therefore unable to be surprised by what she saw. The ruins of an ancient stone building surrounded her, circular as far as she could see, open to what should have been the sky and with large portions having crumbled away. It should not have stood, but then again all that seemed to lie beyond it was a swirling waste, grey streaks screaming through a black beyond ink or night, faint figures that tugged at her memory appearing and disappearing with faint cries.

The Dorocha. That was what it sounded like. Morgana felt as if the air froze in her lungs at the realisation, but no, no, they were beyond the walls and could not reach her here.

Forcing the thoughts from her mind, she planted her palms on the ground, pushing herself up. It felt as if a great weight had settled between her shoulder blades, trying to push her back to the floor once again. The grit cut into her hands, sharp as fragments of glass, and she gave a gasp as she drew upright, looking in horror at her palms. Blood trickled down them, running over her wrists, the stones glinting in her hands.

She tore her eyes away, looking around as a fearful grinding sound surrounded her, the stones shifting and moving. They drew together, forming pillars several feet in diameter that spread out around the room, then unfolded like opening scrolls. In almost every one, a figure: standing upright and bound to the stones behind them, bodies slack and heads lolling on their shoulders. Each was a woman, or a girl, many of their dresses muddied and torn around the hem, their hands tied together between their breasts.

One stood empty, with snaking silver ropes lying against the stones. Morgana realised that they were meant for her, and backed away a few steps, fear making her breathe faster. The ground beneath her was flat, grit scraping against the bottom of her boots but offering no more resistance than the cool air that surrounded her.

“Ah,” breathed a voice behind her, and something shaped like hands but far stronger wrapped around her upper arms. “Cmb.”

A scream left her lips as she was lifted from the ground, high and wild; the hold on her was unimaginably tight, so painful that it felt as if her arms were being crushed into her ribs. She kicked out, but her feet found nothing against which to strike. Another scream, this one angrier and more deliberate, as she tossed her head and tried to see what held her only to find there was nothing to be seen either.

“No!”

Magic exploded in her chest, ripped through her like skin being torn from her body, and erupted into the air. The grip on her arms released, and she was thrown away from the invisible force, slamming into the ground hard enough for stars to flash in front of her eyes. She scrambled to her feet again as something moved across the floor behind her, something that was no more than a disturbance in the air, a human-sized shape which moved too smoothly to be anything like a human.

“Dewines,” came the voice, sounding now like multiple voices laid one over the other, not quite perfect in their timing. Morgana did not know the words, but she could feel the dripping hatred in them, the same as she had heard fall from Uther’s lips when he had spoken of magic users.

“I am,” she replied, “the High Priestess.”

She thrust her hand in front of her, magic pounding through her; she had forgotten how alive it made her feel, as if she had awoken from a refreshing sleep for the first time in years. Each breath seemed to fill her up from her toes to her hair, each heartbeat span blood throughout her body with ease. The magic pulsed out from her through her hand, a shockwave that should have thrown back anything with which it met, but it rippled like a wave over the figure, revealing for the first time a true human outline. Human... but wrong, as if each inch had been taken from a different person and then haphazardly stitched together in an attempt to make a whole. Nothing was quite symmetrical about the figure, nothing quite smooth enough to be real.

The figure swept its hand in return, almost lazily, like swatting away a fly. Morgana felt the wave of magic hit her in the chest harder than any punch would be able to, tossing her back through the air and slamming her against one of the stone outcrops. She felt something crack in her chest as she slid to the ground, gasping for air only to taste dirt on her tongue, coughing as it cloyed in her throat.

Laughter rippled around her. Now it sounded more like her own laugh, like her own voice. Morgana stumbled to her feet again, gripping the stone for support as pain stabbed across her chest, teeth gritted and eyes flashing. With every second the figure was becoming more human in form, its outline becoming skin which started off grey and slowly swelled in colour, flushing pink with blood and brown with sunlight; hair tumbled down from the scalp, an indistinct mash of colours that shifted giddily; features appeared in the face, still with that unbalanced look, one eye larger than the other, lips crooked, skin all patches and gradients.

“Dewines ai peidio,” the figure said. “Rwyt ti’n yn eiddo ifi.”

The words were slimy and crawling on the air, and made the hairs on the back of Morgana’s neck stand on end. Still she did not understand them, but she could guess enough to know that she did not like them. Again she punched out with her magic, this time using both hands and fuelled with a touch of fear alongside her anger, and this time the figure staggered back at the blow, but still it did not do as it should.

Again, the laughter. It hurt almost more than the physical pain, and she was about to shout defiance again when, with a second sweep of its hand, the figure threw her back into the stonework. She struck her head, saw stars and felt nausea rise in her throat, but was ready to fall to the ground again when she felt ropes lashing around her waist, her shoulders, her legs, wrapping around her hands and drawing them together in front of her chest. With an incoherent shout of anger, she fought against them, but they wrapped so painfully tight that she could barely breathe, pinned back against the wall.

The figure stood before her; it looked like a woman, but still like a dozen people standing in the same place and blurred together. Its hair was white and black and blonde and brown and red, all rod-straight and unnatural; brown and blue and grey fought in its eyes to be viewed. A dozen different colours shaded across its skin, brown and black and gold and pink-white. It was as if someone had tried to describe humans, and not quite got the message across.

It wrapped one hand around her chin, fingers so hard that they felt like metal, as hot as glowing coals, though they did not sear her flesh. The other reached up, slipped over her nose and mouth, and then pulled away and it felt like something dragged from within her, as if she had been holding her breath underwater for too long and the pressure was too great to bear. She fought not to breathe out, just because she knew that it wanted her to, feeling her face redden and her fingers and toes curl with the effort as her throat began to burn. Finally, Morgana could hold back no longer, and let out the air from her lungs in a great sigh of relief.

Red smoke curled from her lips, almost solid on the air. Long, thin fingers closed around it, and the shadow gave a smile that had the feel of a grimace as it drew away, chuckling in that unsettling imitation of Morgana’s voice.

A circle fell away from the floor of the room, fine trickles of grit falling after it, sinking into the same terrible inky blackness that swirled around the walls. In its place rose a cauldron, unshining black with three stout legs and three thick handles, white light shimmering and boiling within it. It rose to just higher than the ground surface, fat-bellied and large enough that a person could stand or even sit within.

The figure carried over her handful of red smoke, which writhed within her grasp as if it was a living animal trying to escape. She released it like a butterfly at the cauldron’s base, and in the same instant other flames erupted beside it, in other colours, making a circle of ever-changing coloured flame that danced and sparkled. The cauldron began to boil more furiously, the black of its sides becoming glossy, as if sweat poured from its skin. The figure gave a triumphant howl of laughter, throwing back her head, then turned and in less than a heartbeat stood before Morgana again.

“A wrth gwrs...” This time there was no hold on her chin, but lips pressed against hers. Unlike the hands, they were cold, like stone in winter, unyielding. Morgana closed her eyes and tried to jerk away, but she was pressed too tightly to the stone and could not resist as a tongue forced its way between her lips and then...

The figure inhaled, as if she was breathing in Morgana’s air, and with a final defiant flare Morgana let her magic burst forth, all over her body this time, blasting out from every inch of skin into the surrounding air. The stones behind her crumbled; the ropes around her arms dissolved to ash; the figure was thrown away and crumpled to the floor as any struck with magic normally would. As Morgana, too, fell, the world coiled black, and for a moment she thought that her magic had destroyed the very light in this place, but then the reflections of coloured flames danced in her vision and she heard a heavy, beastlike growl of anger.

“Sorceress child,” the voice sneered, and now it was her voice but repeated poorly, like tin imitating silver. The figure’s hair began to darken, its skin to pale, amorphous robes forming a dress-like shape, as if it was trying to imitate her in looks as well. “How fitting that your breath should be the ninth to light my cauldron, to let me return.”

Somewhere, she had heard of a cauldron. Deep in the history of magic, in Morgause’s words. Morgana fought for the memory as she watched the woman coalesce.

“I sent my hounds to find me maidens; I did not expect them to bring me a sorceress.” Slowly, she glided back, more smoothly than walking, towards the cauldron. “Perhaps you will make me stronger. Let us see.”

Her hand closed around the cauldron’s rim, and from somewhere the knowledge burst forth, spilling onto Morgana’s tongue. “Mallt!” She cried. The woman looked around, surprise on her features. “Mallt-y-nos! From the ancient depths of Albion’s past!”

A smile like a cat’s spread across the woman’s features, still shifting, still coming close to Morgana’s but without looking human when put together. “My, what a clever witchling you are. Even your Old Religion had forgotten me, so long ago was your land mine instead.”

Before humans had domestic animals, or metal, or writing, it was said that there had been a woman of terrible beauty and fear who had ruled over them like a goddess. She had fed on blood, and the last breaths from people’s lungs, and had promised them immortality if they served her, with a cauldron that could bring the dead back to life.

“You were banished beyond. Not even Annwn would take you.”

“And where do you think you are?” Mallt laughed, and this time the sounds were bitter, as she swept her other arm to encompass the nothingness around her. "Until that great tear was formed by some fool magic-user on Samhain, I did not think there was a way back to the world of the living. But small holes still remain, and through them...” she raised a handful of the shining light from the cauldron, letting it trickle through her fingers like liquid and roll in drops down her arm. “There are ways.”

“The Cailleach holds back creatures like you.”

“My sister knows that I once walked your world. I will not tear through realities just by returning to it.”

Her teeth were very white when she smiled, too even and too sharp. Morgana remembered how she used to smile at the thought of letting Morgause back into Camelot.

“The world changes,” Morgana replied, quietly. She could taste magic in her mouth, on her tongue, surprisingly bitter but sparkling, sour as vinegar. “You are not welcome back in these lands.”

“Who says such?”

“I am Morgana Pendragon, next in line to the throne of Camelot, High Priestess of the Old Religion.” She raised one hand in front of her, feeling her magic bubbling underneath her skin, all of the power that had been held back for the last weeks, the last months, urging her to release it now. Her fingers curled halfway towards a fist, cupping air, but she felt on her hand weight like a great stone - or a great hunk of metal. “And I say such.”

The world flashed gold around her as she clenched her hand into a fist. She felt her fingers tearing through metal, felt the world crumple beneath her fingers - and heard a piteous, terrible scream as Mallt watched the cauldron fold in on itself like a leaf beneath a stone. The light from it spilled out in a terrible rush, pouring across the gritty floor, as cold as crystal and shining, throwing silver-bright light in all directions, up into the faces of the still-bound figures who began to twitch and stir.

Mallt dropped to her knees beside the cauldron, clawing at the twisted shape with hands that were forgetting what form they were supposed to be, as white as bone and sharp as knives, skittering and screeching on the surface. Cold rushed through Morgana’s body in the wake of her magic, and she almost stumbled, but instead clenched her hand again and heard the wind roar in her ears as the cauldron collapsed further in on itself, black surface cracking and shearing.

“I opened the gate for the Dorocha,” she said, over the keening whimpers which were all that now escape from Mallt’s lips. The flesh on the shapes of bones was beginning to melt, fading away and leaving darkness and shadowed suggestions of shape in its way. “And after it was closed I drew one through it once again. There is only one more powerful than I, and he does not tread here.”

Emrys. The thought made her lip curl, made her want to spit onto the ground, but she resisted. With another flare of her anger the cauldron shattered, fragments scattering across the floor, even as Mallt tried to scrape them back together. Hair withered on the figure’s head as it became nothing more than a silhouette once again, and as it turned with a snarl on its lips there was barely enough face for the expression to show.

“Witchling! The beyond knows the smell of you now!”

“Then let it come,” replied Morgana, unable to help the smirk that crept onto her lips. She bent down to pick up one of the largest pieces; it felt like neither stone nor metal in her hand, too close to the temperature of her flesh, smoother than glass but not slipping against her skin. Her hand wrapped so tightly around it that the edges cut into her fingers, and she felt the bite of blood, the bruises that must cover her body from the magic blows it had suffered, but she did not care. “I am ready for it.”

She took hold of Mallt’s shoulder in one hand, gripping so hard her knuckles whitened, and drove the shard of cauldron through her heart.

A dreadful scream ripped the air apart, ripped her mind apart, and everything shattered around her as the between-beyond world they stood in collapsed, and realities tore themselves to separation once again.

Chapter Twelve
This time, surely, she was dead. She had felt the whole of creation explode inside her head, and had been torn to form a hole from beyond the world. The Dorocha had screamed into her, plucked at her body from every angle, torn her into shreds in an attempt to make her one of them. She had felt herself be destroyed.

It was rather a surprise, therefore, when she opened her eyes to find herself still standing outside the castle of Powys.

There was commotion, but not fighting: people were shouting and running around, but it was the circle of figures lying on the ground that held everyone’s attention. The hounds had vanished, the soldiers remained alive, and torches still lit the night. Morgana looked around, bewildered for a moment then recognising the other women from the beyond, the ones who had been missing. She was still looking around, though, the world reeling slightly with each move of her head, when Olaf appeared in front of her, brow furrowed, dried blood on his cheek.

The pain in her side reasserted itself, the broken rib grating as she bent over instinctively, cradling it with her hands. They were still sticky with blood, tiny cuts all over tearing with each minute movement of her fingertips.

Hands wrapped around her shoulders, holding her up, and it struck her as the most tender touch she had felt in more time than she cared to speak of. Looking up from beneath the hair that straggled across her face, she realised that Olaf was supporting her. “What happened?” he asked, gruffly. “There was a flash, and then...”

Time had not passed here. The white bond that had held her magic was still clutched in his hand, smeared with mud. Her eyes fixed onto it as the world swam. “It’s complicated,” she said. She did not have the strength for the full story, but she could see the disapproval that crossed Olaf’s face as she spoke, and braced herself to add: “The creature behind this... is no more. I have ended it.”

She struggled to read the emotion that flickered across his face, but rather supposed it came from a renegade usurper witch saving his Kingdom and daughter from something unspeakable. Exactly what feelings that brewed in him, she did not particularly care to know. He looked her in the eyes for a long moment, long enough that she saw gratitude in the mixture there, and it was she who broke the gaze off before she allowed herself to see too much.

He seemed finally to realise her injuries, as his hands spasmed tighter and he looked around sharply. “Aeslyn!” he called. “Aeslyn, over here! The Lady Morgana requires assistance!”

She allowed other arms to wrap around her, as her mind went blank and worked on understanding that her body existed. The amplified awareness of her pain was, she could not help but think, more bearable now that her magic made her remember just how alive she was.

With magic and excitement still buzzing in her veins, even her heavy muscles could not make Morgana desire to sleep, and she remained seated as Aeslyn checked her side - announcing that little could be done but to let the rib heal by itself - and ran hands down her back searching for any other broken bones, then cleaned her hands, slowly when she realised just how torn the flesh was. Red and grey swirled in the water, and Morgana watched the shapes of the colours in the torchlight. She could feel rhythm in the sound of the rain outside now, feel how the earth felt as the sky reached down to touch it. She had not realised how much had been missing.

Aeslyn used soft linen to wrap Morgana’s hands, now not speaking but not acting with the brusqueness that Morgana had previously seen in her. She was just tying knots in the linen - on the backs of Morgana’s hands, where it would not pull - when there was a sharp rap at the door, then it opened and a guard stepped smartly through.

Olaf followed him. Even in the torchlight Morgana could see redness around his eyes, pride in the smile on his lips. “My Lady,” he said, voice now showing the respect that she had prickled to demand from him in earlier days. “There is someone who wishes to speak to you.”

Morgana’s brow furrowed, and she was about to ask who could possibly wish to speak to her, especially at such an hour, when Olaf stepped aside to leave Vivian framed in the doorway. There was a smudge of dirt just beneath the princess’s ear, and a fragment of leaf in her hair, but she was wearing a clean dress and looked at Morgana with a clearer gaze than she had in a long time.

“My father says that... you saved me.” Vivian’s voice was quiet, less insistent than before. She clasped her hands in front of her, unclasped them, then put them together again quickly, but her eyes never left Morgana’s face. “He said that those creatures were coming for me, but that you went in my place.”

The words caught her completely by surprise. Blinking, Morgana nodded, slowly. “I suppose so.”

“You risked your life for me. Nobody’s even done that before... not since Arthur.”

She saw the hitch in Olaf’s breathing, but then the deep breath he took, making him swell up with pride, as Vivian continued.

“I wanted to thank you. Maybe you are as good as him, after all.”

Morgana met Vivian’s gaze, the truth in her eyes that had been missing all this time, some sort of clarity rather than the clouds of obsession that had surrounded her. Somewhere, there was still the girl that had gone to the tops of the towers with her to look out over the beauty of Camelot, and hesitated for a telling moment before declaring that she supposed it might be considered as beautiful as Powys.

She could still taste magic in her mouth.

From the depths of her memories, from somewhere in everything that she had read or dreamt or been told by Morgause, from somewhere in the magic that had formed her life for these years, a memory drifted upwards. Morgana rose to her feet, slowly with the stiffness of bruises, and crossed to where Vivian was standing. They stood almost eye to eye. She held out her hands, palm up, and Vivian paused for only a brief moment before taking them.

“I realised that I wanted to save you,” said Morgana, quietly.

Vivian looked perplexed. Olaf started to turn, and she could almost see the question forming on his lips, but with a smile she could not help Morgana ignored him.

Instead, she leant forward, and pressed her lips to Vivian’s.

There was no great magically-charged burst of song, no shaft of moonlight cutting through the clouds outside. But Vivian froze, her spine stiffening, until she seemed to soften into Morgana’s touch, her fingers curling around the hands she held, lips curving to press back. Something prickled across the point on Morgana’s wrists where their bare skin touched, but that could have been her imagination just as much as it might have been something real, and Vivian drew in a deep breath that seemed to mean everything all by itself.

Then Olaf made a choking sound beside them, and the moment ended. Vivian drew back sharply, still holding Morgana’s hands, and looked at her with a sharper confusion dawning in her eyes. “You...” she started, but didn’t seem to quite know where to take the accusation. “I...” A glance around, taking in the torchlit room, the guard and the physician and her father standing by, Morgana’s wild appearance and her own dishevelment. She released one of Morgana’s hands, reaching up to pluck the leaf out of her hair, and looked at it with pursed lips.

“Vivian?” said Olaf, and the tremble in his voice meant that Morgana could not look around and meet his eyes.

She watched, though, as Vivian turned, blinked as if still waking up, and looked to her father with true attentiveness in her gaze. “Yes?” she said, hesitantly.

Olaf let out a sigh full of such relief that he did not need to speak. He stepped forward, threw his arms around Vivian, and clutched her tightly to his chest, somehow all without a sound of protest leaving her lips. Morgana stepped back to see the tight embrace, Vivian holding her father in return, though a hint of confusion remained in her features, like something that she could not quite remember on rising from a dream.

“My daughter,” Olaf whispered, hands shaking on Vivian’s back. “Vivian, Vivian, my daughter.”

He didn’t even threaten her with a knife, Morgana realised. Perhaps all of them had changed.

Only the next morning did everything become real. Morgana awoke from the exhausted sleep that had finally overcome her to find sunlight across her bed, the bonds removed from her wrists. She reached up to gently run her fingers over the bracelet that had been returned to her, heavy and warm with her skin, carvings picked out on the metal surface. Her bracelet, Morgause’s bracelet, the only thing that had ever been able to make her dreams bearable. The first clue that had ever been given to her as to who she was.

The movement made her muscles grate against each other, and she drew in a sharp hiss of breath as her arms dropped back to her chest again. The pain in her side reasserted itself, the soreness in her head and neck, but with it the thrill of her magic, unleashed, ready to live once again. Every breath let her feel the beauty of the air fill her, every mote of dust sparkled in the sunlight. Doubtless it would not feel so overwhelming for long, but she was content to feel it whilst it lasted.

“Morgana?”

The voice startled her, and she looked round to see Olaf sitting at her bedside once again. There was a cut on his cheek, a dark brown line of blood, and deep shadows beneath his eyes, but he was not looking at her with anger.

Morgana managed to prop herself up on her elbows. This time, she had no angry reply, no cutting remarks to give. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

He had said it before, when he had realised that she had chosen the safe path when it came to trying to help Vivian. This time, though, it was softer.

“Surely you did not wait all night just to say that.” She found herself smiling, just slightly, nothing wicked or sly about it this time. In reply, Olaf merely shifted his gaze just beyond her, to the far side of the wide bed, with a slight nod. Morgana looked round, surprised all over again to see Vivian lying beside her on top of the coverlet, head pillowed on one arm, looking peaceful and angelic in sleep.

“She did not want to leave you,” said Olaf by way of explanation. It made something contract in Morgana’s chest. “And I was glad to see a night that she did not cry herself to sleep over Arthur Pendragon.”

Arthur’s name rankled, the knowledge that he sat upon the throne that should be hers by right of birth, but it was distant and did not matter as much as it once had. It was suddenly enough to be alive, to feel the magic in her veins, to be the captive of no-one, not even her own hatred.

“You have done as I asked,” he continued. “Kept your side of the bargain, and released Vivian from the magic laid upon her. She does not remember all of the last years, just a faint... hopelessness. But her obsession with Arthur is gone.”

She almost wanted to hold her breath in anticipation as he continued, waiting to see what he would now say. As a user of magic, she was still as much an enemy of this kingdom as she was of Camelot, and by law she should be returned there, or put to death.

Olaf seemed to have some trepidation of his own; he leant forward, setting his elbows on his knees, and laced and unlaced his fingers a couple of times before continuing. “Earlier in the night, I spoke to some of my council members about the revocation of the law on magic. To use magic as a weapon would still be as much a crime as any other attack - but magic by itself does not need to be a crime any longer.”

The words struck her almost like a physical blow, and she clenched her hands to fists in the sheets. Of all the things that she had thought Olaf might say, that was not one of them; it was beyond what she could have possibly hoped for.

“And if you wish to stay within the borders of Powys, I will offer you protection, and even vouch for you, should Camelot try to force your return.”

At that, she could only stare, unable to think of words for a reply. Even those who had at one point treated her fairly had always turned against her in the end; never had someone started off in animosity and come to treat her well. No matter how much anger she had been able to find for people in the past, she could not bring herself to be angry at Olaf.

“You really mean that?” was what she settled for.

He nodded.

She was spared from trying to come up with anything further as Vivian stirred beside her, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. Morgana could not help but look round fondly, before catching the sentimentality and rolling her eyes at herself. She wriggled further up, to a seated position, as Vivian cocked her head to one side.

“I still can’t quite believe that you did that,” said Vivian frankly. She rolled over onto her stomach, propping her chin on one hand. “I mean... you saved me.”

She sounded surprised, though pleasantly so, as if it was a gift she had not been expecting. There was less bite than Morgana would have expected.

A scraping chair on Morgana’s other side caught her attention, and she looked round to see Olaf rising to his feet. He inclined his head, and said: “I will leave you alone to talk.”

Morgana still wasn’t sure whether Olaf had simply erased the kiss the previous evening from his mind. Usually, all that a man had to do was look at Vivian in an inappropriate manner to find himself needing to leave the kingdom or face a rather painful fate. It would make the most sense; Olaf did not strike her as unworldly enough to think that only a man could successfully bespoil Vivian’s honour. Though, as much pain as Morgana was in, and with everything that had recently passed, bespoiling anything was rather far from her mind at that particular moment.

“You really... cared enough to save me.” Though there was a slight upward cant to Vivian’s words, it was not a full question leaving her lips.

“It looks like it,” said Morgana. It had surprised her, as well, right up to the moment when the shout had left her lips. She could have claimed that she knew what was waiting for her wherever that knight was going, could have said that she knew it was the only way to stop the fear that was being spread across Olaf’s kingdom. But they would have been lies. At least in that instant, her only thought was that she did not want Vivian taken by the Cŵn Annwn to complete the nine that had been gathered. “You don’t still want me to magic you away to Arthur?”

Vivian pulled a face, and Morgana had to suppress laughter. “Apparently he’s all that I’ve spoken about. I can’t imagine why! He was perfectly beastly to me when we were children, and no better when we were older... until he came over all obsessed with me.”

“You don’t remember being obsessed with him?” The look of shock that crossed Vivian’s face was more than answer enough. Morgana felt a strange trickle of pity down her spine. “It was a spell. Cast on him first, to make him fall... in love with you, and then cast on you as well.”

“A spell?” Vivian’s hand fell to the bed cover, fear tipping into her voice alongside the horror that had been there all along. It made her tone less amusing to hear.

Morgana nodded. “And while his was broken... yours wasn’t. Until now.”

“Until... last night,” said Vivian carefully. Her eyes still had that clarity about them, the look that Morgana had almost forgotten, so long had it been gone. Like looking at the sky without clouds all across it. She swallowed, rose to her knees, and looked Morgana in the eyes. “Until you kissed me.”

“Yes.” It was barely more than mouthed.

“Why did you do that?”

“The mouth is a way in and out of the body, a way by which magic can come and go. It’s more powerful than most people realise.” The words came easily, but Vivian was giving her that deeply unimpressed look which expressed perfectly what she thought of them. “It seemed right.”

This time, Vivian’s response was to lean forward, slide one hand onto Morgana’s shoulder, and kiss her in turn. Her mouth was soft, and magic’s breath if it wasn’t the first time that Morgana had been kissed in longer than she cared to think of. Impulsively, she reached up to cup Vivian’s cheeks and kiss her back, savouring the moment.

It was Vivian who finished the kiss, as much as she had started it, with a little smile that had just a touch of smugness in it. She held Morgana’s gaze for a moment, then leant in again and planted a peck on the tip of her nose. “You know, sometimes I was really rather relieved that father sent all those boys away from me. And not just because half of them were only thinking of taking over Powys.”

“Such flattery,” said Morgana. It didn’t stop her from smiling, though, as she remembered how they had been before, honest and argumentative and never holding anger for each other. She reached up, and plucked the shred of leaf out of Vivian’s hair. How it had managed to stay there all night was anybody’s guess.

Vivian gave a shrug, and reached to take one of Morgana’s hands. She held it gently, careful with the bandages that were still wrapped around it. “Well, how about I get my own sorceress to keep them away instead?” Morgana was already considering a reply when she continued. “Or sorceress-consort?”

“Only a few hours out of that spell and you’re already having good ideas. I can’t wait to see how things go from here.”

At that, Vivian smiled as well, bright and undeniably beautiful. It felt like the sun was rising, and she had left all of her darkness either in Camelot or in the place beyond where the world had been torn away. Slipping her hand out of Morgana’s again, she got to her feet and ran a hand through her hair. “Now, I am going to dress, and go and talk to my father. It seems I have missed any number of things in the last few years.”

“You and me both,” said Morgana quietly, but Vivian did nothing more than smile tightly at the observation before she turned to leave. Slowly, as her aches caught up with her, Morgana lay back down again and lifted her hand so that she could rest Morgause’s bracelet right over her heart. A night without terrors, and a morning without threats. She could not deny that she would by far prefer this life.

AO3 | Paper Legends | LJ Masterpost
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