Morgana's journey to the Continent (Patreon)

When Morgana was fifteen, she was betrothed to Lot. King Uther and Lord Merlin had personally journeyed to Avalon to deliver the dreadful news and drag her off the island.

There never was a question of accepting –it was not a proposal, but a mere fact she was informed about, thrust upon her as a supposedly advantageous union. Morgana failed to see it as anything else but a way of ruining the happiness she’d managed to find, after they’d already taken everything from her.

Morgana had cried throughout the night and the little sleep she got was fretful, plagued by horrid visions and rendered her more sick than rested.

They set off for the dock in the morning. It was a beautiful morning, bright and clear. Too bright and too clear; the light threw into relief her sunken, bloodshot eyes, the weary lines of her face. It pained Morgana to behold herself in the mirror and see her emotions so naked and raw on her features. It pained her even more to see it reflected on her family’s faces.

She’d resolved she wouldn’t cry before Uther and his dour-faced, blood-garbed retinue, yet the tears came unbidden as her family saw her off at the pier; as she buried her face in Augustus’ tunic, or clung to Gaius, who squeezed her back as if he’d never let go. The guards had to pry her off Junia, who held on desperately. Once pulled back, Morgana was struck by the girl’s expression, turned on Uther and Merlin; she’d never seen that commingled fury and fear on her.

Morgana set off towards the Continent in Avalonian garb, of the same azure as the Le Fay blue. She was a clear, bright rivulet among a sea of blood – weaving through hostile, enemy land that strangled her course. Merlin was the first one to take note of the particular choice of color, and the snake pendant hanging by her neck.

“A fitting attire,” he said, smiling, “given that we’re headed for Tintal.”

It’d been a long time since Morgana had last visited the Temple in Tintal, and she’d been yearning for her next visit; a desire now poisoned and twisted by circumstances.

Morgana affixed herself at the stern of the ship, fingers digging into the polished wooden rail. Her tears had dried against her red-hot face, blazing in anguish, and she blinked furiously against any new deluge that threatened to spill. She would not cry, not anymore, not in front of them. It’d serve no other purpose but to delight her tormentors.

Morgana kept her gaze, hazy and stinging with unshed tears, stalwartly fastened on the quickly shrinking Island. Once, she had read that long ago, sailors had devised a most cruel and brutal way of punishing people at sea. They called it keelhauling, and it was as awful as its name implied; they’d loop a line around the ship and tie the unfortunate to it, proceeding to drag them along the keel. Every pull would shred and tear and rip, every tug would bring a new wound and new pain.

That’s how Morgana felt, as the ship sped away from the Island; her wound deepened as the space between her and Avalon gaped larger and larger, as the waters beneath ran deeper and deeper, opening like an abyss ready to swallow her up.

Morgana kept her gaze on the island – on the three tiny figures on the shore she had to intently squint to hold in her sight – even as the ship was engulfed into the shroud of mist embracing the Island and its waters, even as her vision filled with woolly white and her skin prickled with the magic suffusing the air. She breathed in deeply, filling her lungs with it, letting it cleanse and alleviate, if only briefly, every hurting crevice of her being.

Then they were out of the foggy ring, out into the larger sea, Avalon obscured, lost along with a piece of her.

Tears gathered anew in the corners of her eyes. But she wouldn’t cry. She dabbed furiously with her palm. They stung, as if someone had poured saltwater into them – her whole body ached, as if she were one big, raw, open wound drowning in saltwater.

There was no island in sight now, so Morgana looked down at the waters, whirling and white-capped where they parted for the ship to pass. She stared into its unfathomable, blue depths, and wanted nothing more than to lose herself there. To dive in and swim back all the way to Avalon. And if she couldn’t, she’d still rather chuck herself into the sea than go to the Continent and marry that horrid man. Morgana leant forward, railing pressing into her stomach, as if ready to propel herself downwards. Yet she didn’t. A bitter laugh bubbled up her throat. They’d just fish her right back up. Or she might drown before they did – they may be glad to let her.

If she were going down, they were going down with her.

At least Junia and her dads wouldn’t have to witness it.

Morgana leant back from the rail, lest some ‘helpful’ sailor got it in their mind to pull her away, thinking she might actually take the dive into the depths below. Instead, she let her eyes flutter closed and focused on the steady rocking of the ship – on the tranquil waves undulating underneath its sturdy hull. They were too calm, too placid. Not anymore.

It wasn’t hard. All Morgana had to do was open herself up to nature – let the anguish and wrath within spill like poison. It stirred the sea, slowly like building tension, like boiling water. It agitated the air, a briny breeze turned wind turned gale beating furiously against the sails.

The frenzied waves were the first thing the sailors took notice of. Sea monster! One of them called out, only to be promptly laughed off with a dismissive “It’s just currents, you idiot”. A third one joined far more soberly, squinting at the fluttering sails:“There’s a storm brewing.”

That they were right about.

She was going to raise a storm the likes sailor would recount, in hushed, somber tones, for years – that is, if they got out alive.

“That’s not a storm,” Merlin cried out, voice thick with urgency. “That’s ma–”

He was cut off by an abrupt, vicious tilt to the left. It sent the sailors and guards scrambling, slipping, and teetering, tossed about like toys of a petulant child. Morgana clung on to the railing, watching them struggle to regain footing as the ship tipped once again, steeper yet. The waves rose high and split over the deck. Pouring over confused faces. Feet slipping on the slick, wet boards, armor clanging against masts. Morgana was drenched too; she could taste salt on her tongue, deliciously vindictive and unforgiving.

The water roiled all around, a sea at storm – but there were no clouds, just strong, whipping wind and angry waves, rumbling like some great beast rising from the unexplored bottoms of the sea to bring destruction upon them.

“Morgana!” Merlin shouted over the din of the wind. He’d fought his way to the stern of the ship, putting up magic to clear out a path for him through the chaos. “We’ll all sink!”

“Then sink we will!” she shouted back, throat sore and scratchy.

Morgana wasn’t sure she could stop it even if she wanted to. Nature revolted in concert with her being, but she did not guide or control its wrath; much like her emotions, it lashed out wildly and blindly.

Now aware of the unnatural nature of the storm, the sailors and guards scrambled their way to Morgana with hectic determination. Merlin had fallen to his knees, not felt by a wave, but working. Scribbling away into the wooden boards with a carving knife, moving with unwavering precision even as the boat rocked and creaked awfully against waves intent on taking it apart, against wind resolved to tear into the sails and knock down the masts.

Morgana contemplated the sea and surrendering herself to it. They couldn’t stop her, not now when she was so close to sinking this ship down along with Uther and Merlin and these blood-stained goons.

Another wave came, and the world turned upside down. It wasn’t the ship that had tipped over, though – only Morgana, tumbling about the floor. She saw the planks, the blue sky, then the planks again. The air had been knocked out of her lungs, replaced by saltwater, burning its way through her chest.

She tried to get up. She made it as far as her knees and hands, coughing up water, skidding and sliding with every erratic tilt of the ship. Swaying in rhythm with her panicked desperation.

Hands grasped her. Fingers dug into her arms, closed firmly against her wrists, pinned her in place. As if that would help. The storm raged on.

Morgana struggled. She banged her knees and elbows into plates, bit into exposed skin. She trashed until a hit to the back of her head turned the world around her black.

***

When Morgana came around, there was something wrong with the world.

It was but an ill-defined uneasiness, filtering in hazily through her wool-stuffed head. An understanding above her mind’s current capacity to grasp, as if the world had shifted just a little bit off its axis.

She was in a wood-paneled room, laid out on a bed and staring at the ceiling, and her skull blazed with a headache. It took but one moment to ascertain they were still at sea. The waves, now calm again, gently lulled the ship, crashing against its hull in a soothing, familiar lullaby.

Morgana tried to push herself in a sitting position – all she managed to do was wiggle awkwardly, finding opposition.

Her hands were bound. Wrapped tightly in plain, twine rope that cut into her skin. What made her stomach drop, however, were the twin bracelets clasping both wrists. They were unassuming bands of metal, easy to take for a simple, understated fashion statement.

They were manacles.

It explained why the world felt so weird. So strange. As if everything was ever so slightly duller. The light dimmed, the sound dampened, the air thinner. She couldn’t see, but she knew the bracelets to be etched with powerful runes on the inner band pressing against her skin – suppressing her magic, keeping her from using it. She could feel it within, but she was cut off from the world around her. If she focused, she could feel it all – the air, the water, the fire sizzling at her fingertips – but couldn’t touch it, as if perpetually out of reach, just a hair’s breadth away yet unable to grasp it.

Motion at the corner of her vision caught her attention with a painful prickle.

“Morning, Morgana,” Uther drawled, raising from his chair. A grin sat too comfortably on his face, wide and toothy.

“Fuck you,” Morgana snapped back.

He threw back his head and barked out a laugh. It grated on her nerves, made the blood simmer in her veins.

“You know,” he said, leaning against the wall of the cabin. It must have been the Captain’s, Morgana decided, taking it the great oaken desk and affixed cabinets of liquor and pinned up maps. Or perhaps it was Uther’s. That made her hate it all the more. “That little tantrum you threw out there–”

Morgana scoffed. That was not a tantrum. To call it that was to belittle her emotions and her powers.

“–that could easily constitute treason. An attempt on the King and his Royal Sorcerer. It could mean a lifelong sentence in some dingy, forsaken dungeon. It’s not to be taken lightly.” Despite claiming so, Uther spoke as if talking to a naughty child, holding over their head a punishment of no more playtime for a month.

Morgana glowered at him, trying her best to look uncowed even as his words cut deep.

“I’d rather you execute me,” she spat out, coming off as incensed as she was desperate.

Uther’s smirk turned sharper. “I know. Well.” He slapped the wall with a dull, meaty thump, slipping back into his boisterous and loud joviality. “We’ll dock soon. Aren’t you excited to see your former home?”

He departed, leaving Morgana with those cruel words careening about her skull.

***

They shed her twine shackles, but not the bewitched ones, before coming off the ship.

The day was as bright and clear as it was on Avalon. The sun shone brilliantly over the calm sea and cobblestone streets. The port was buzzing, as was the town; and above it all Tintal Castle rose. It stood atop a forested hill; it was the castle’s grounds and so-called gardens, more tended wilderness, with pathways harmoniously carved along dense, verdant thickets than artfully planted, subdued flowers and trees. There was a tamed garden too, of pretty rose bushes and the likes, in the heart of that small forest; an explosion of colors in spring and summer. Of course, Morgana had never seen it for herself. All she knew was what her mother had told her, always speaking so softly and wistfully.

The closest Morgana had ever stood to the Castle was at the base of its hill, craning her neck to see it in full. It filled her vision, made her feel so small even as it stirred within her a yearning so violent it hurt, bigger and stronger than her frame. This Castle was supposed to be her mother’s. It was supposed to be hers. It was like facing something more than building, stone and brick. She was standing before history, a testament to what was stolen from her: family, power, land, legacy.

Her mother had always wanted them to meet at the Temple perched on the cliffside, its grounds giving way to a narrow strip of sand. It was the one place they could call haven, the one that offered them solace and shelter. The one place that still felt a part of them, a home to the Le Fay.

Morgana was soon shepherded towards a carriage – a big, fancy thing the likes you didn’t see on Avalon, where they would have considered it an excessively gaudy display of wealth and power. Its wood was painted red, that bloody, bright red of Pendragon scales that she’d come to despise, proudly embossed with the golden, roaring dragon and accented with copious amounts of gild. Uther Pendragon had to be loud and garish and bold in the most obnoxious of ways.

She rode with the King and Merlin, curling up on the cushioned bench opposite them, huddled in a corner as far away from them as possible.

“Now Morgana,” Uther said, as jolly and cruel as ever, “you be polite with our hosts, hear me?”

Morgana didn’t want to hear him. She wanted to wipe that insufferable grin off his face. Blaze it with fire that she could not summon – that seethed uselessly at her fingertips. He was enjoying this thoroughly, forcing her to see the countenance of her father’s murderer throughout this dreadful journey, and now to be humiliated as a guest in her own home, stolen and besmirched by traitors. To be so kindly received by the man who facilitated the massacre of her court.

Morgana took a deep, rattling breath and closed her fingers around her serpent pendant. Underneath her hand, she could feel her heart beat a wild, anxious beat, as if wanting to burst out of her chest. It filled her whole ribcage, making it hard to breathe, and even think. The trees outside the window were a dizzying, green blur as the carriage wound up and up.

She’d pictured Tintal Castle many times, reconstructed from her mother’s tales and chronicles she’d read. Now she both dreaded and longed to see it up close, knowing that whatever she’d see, it’d be marked by the blood spilt, even if it’d been long washed and scrubbed away.

The carriage screeched to a halt before the Castle, and Morgana found herself paralyzed.  When the footman came to see them out, she waved away the proffered hand, stumbling out on her own.

There he was. Bernard Allard – the traitor – standing before the entrance with his happy little family of traitors. A wife with a perfectly polite smile and small, earnest child, all three of them decked in refinery. Tintal blue refinery, with the Le Fay golden serpent that did not belong to them depicted on their garments.

It felt strange, to brim with so much fury yet not have the wind wail along with her pain. The air was still, calm, sweet. The trees stood in reverential silence, muted betrayal.

They were pleasantly received. Uther and Bernard clasped hands. patted their shoulders and laughed heartily at jokes only they understood. Maybe they were laughing at her. Maybe they were relishing their victory again. Lord Merlin saluted the family, displaying his usual, elegantly subdued manner that stood in such stark contrast to Uther’s unfettered enthusiasm.

Morgana, for her part, couldn’t bring herself to put on even the faintest simulacrum of nicety. She stared blankly at their greetings and well-wishes for an engagement she never consented to, glared at Duke Allard as he inquired after the voyage.

Morgana kept all her answers clipped and laconic. She didn’t smile, she didn’t laugh, and made no pretense of politeness. Once presented to her chamber – guest quarters, far larger than the bedroom she’d had back on Avalon, outfitted with its own bath chamber – she planted herself by the window, staring down at the forested hill, cobblestone street and narrow strips of beach, fancying Igraine doing the same in happier times. She obstinately refused the summon to dinner when a maid came by. She had lost all appetite, and the sight of those vile traitors – Allard with the all too pleasant smile as he talked like he owned the Castle, Uther with his smug, wicked glee – would assure she’d get nauseous, too.

The maid acquiesced, returning later with a tray of food and drinks. Morgana expected Uther or Merlin to come drag her down to dinner, berating down on bad manners, but she was mercifully spared any such nonsense, left to her own devices.

It suited Morgana just fine.

***

She was not completely spared of their presence, though.

Merlin had come to her bedchamber later that night, carrying a daintily wrapped package. He set it down on an empty chair and said within she'd find garments suitable for her future station. Lothiangarments. Morgana glowered at the package, the teeming underneath her skin urging her to chuck it into the fire – staring as if intent on setting it afire with her gaze alone. Had she not been rendered magicless, she might have made the blazing vision true with a flick of her wrist. The fire in the hearth still presented an opportunity, as did the window. She restrained herself for the moment.

Merlin studied her expression and smiled, that stupid, infuriating indulgent and patient smile of his and said: "And if this particular outfit is not to your tastes, I can readily provide another."

There was no escaping the Lothian fashion, as there was no escaping her marriage.

Merlin turned to leave but stopped, one hand on the knob. “A word of advice, Morgana. Making enemies is unwise, especially now. Uther has never been kindly inclined towards you.”

Morgana huffed: “As if you’ve been.”

Merlin kept on smiling his infuriatingly indulgent smile. “I might have been.”

Morgana jerked to her feet. “What you are is duplicitous. Drop the act, Lord Merlin. Stop pretending as if you care – stop pretending you are not bitter.” A cruel, sharp smile split her face. An intoxicating, smug rush pulsed through her veins. “I, a child, bested you. Doesn’t it drive you up the walls?”

“As I said,” Merlin smoothly intoned, “making enemies is unwise.”

But you’ve already made an enemy out of me, Morgana thought as he slipped out the door.