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Merlin: ~*The Ties That Bind*~
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allothi said I'd never write: "Hardyesque tragic melodrama. Morgana and Merlin fall hopelessly in love but society would never tolerate their class boundary-crossing romance, woez. So they get sekritly married and end up in horrible, angst-ridden situations when, for example, Arthur finds Morgana hiding in Merlin's chambers, jumps to the almost-right conclusions, keeps the secret to preserve Morgana's name but fires Merlin, WOEZ. Merlin leaves to be a starving peasant farmer. They turn out not to be married after all due to a confusing plot twist. Someone (probably Merlin) gets life-threateningly ill after sleeping all night in the open during a Terrible Storm. Morgana goes to nurse him back to health, reputation be damned! If they have had a Tragic Bastard Child at any point, it probably ends up hanging itself. Merlin starts to fall for Gwen at just the moment acceptance for his and Morgana's relationship is beginning to seem like a realistic possibility. Everything Morgana owns is destroyed in an act of god. She agrees to marry Arthur. Merlin goes mad with jealousy. Many people die. Possibly all together, by drowning, in the raging waters of the overflowing river. Survivors are psychologically scarred for life. But the scenery is exceptionally romantic and interesting-looking."
She remains correct. Having never read any Hardy, I wrote this instead.
~*The Ties That Bind*~
Merlin. 1476 words. 19th-century star-cross'd lovers AU.He was a punk, she did ballet. He from the lower class, and she from the upper. MELODRAMA ENSUES. Merlin/Morgana, Arthur/Morgana-ish. PG13.
He worries about getting her dress dirty more than she does, and she likes to laugh at him for it. It's a relief for someone to be more worried than she is, for once, and she would tug Merlin close and says, "My love, my darling, I would dirty a thousand dresses for the pleasure of your company."
"Even so," he would say, and then Morgana would kiss him so that he will say no more.
He takes the effort to wash himself before their meetings. He would still smell of the ashes and oil of the factory but his skin would be pink from the scrub-brush, or perhaps just from blushing.
"We will defy them all someday," she would whisper to him as they lie in bed together.
"Someday I will take you away," he promises, and she doesn't know that they don't mean the same thing.
+
There are no rings. Merlin feels wretched for it, but Morgana assures him that it is fine, that they have never been the kind of people who need trinkets to symbolize something so important. He promises to get her a ring as soon as he can anyway, and she smiles for him.
Over the next few weeks, she goes about her days in the warm bubble of her secret. I am a wife, she thinks to herself. I am in love. Uther continues to parade before her a line-up of suitable men, and she would reject every one of them until Arthur suggests that maybe it is not yet Morgana's time to marry.
"Are you mad?" Uther protests. "Of course it is. If we let her choose her own time of marriage, she will not have a husband until she is old and gray."
"With all due respect," Arthur says, "we have more than enough to be able to support her for the next few years if she wants to delay finding a husband."
"Pah!" Uther opines, but he acquiesces as Morgana knew he would. When Arthur steps out of his father's study, she is in the corridor having listened to the entire conversation, and she takes his hand and thanks him.
"The things I do for you," Arthur murmurs, and kisses her forehead. "Perhaps it is best to make yourself scarce around him for the time being."
"You're a good man, Arthur Pendragon," she says warmly.
"Thank you," he replies. "I suspect you are a good woman, but in I have only received evidence that supports the contrary."
She laughs, and Arthur smiles faintly.
Morgana doesn't tell Merlin about Uther's neverending quest to marry her off. It would only upset him.
+
"Merlin."
Merlin whirls around, wearing the expression of surprise to which Arthur has become accustomed. Sometimes Arthur thinks he could say, "Did you know the sky is blue?" and Merlin would widen his eyes and say "Really?", and look up.
Merlin says, "Arthur!"
Arthur frowns.
"...Mr. Pendragon," Merlin corrects himself. "Sorry, Mr. Pendragon. Yes. What are you doing here?"
"Overseeing my father's factories, of course. What does it look like?"
"Of course, of course." Merlin wipes his face on his shirt-sleeve, but it only serves to move the dirt around instead of actually cleaning anything. The other workers, Arthur notices, are slowly inching away, giving them wide berth. Merlin asks, "Can I help you?"
"Yes, I'm hoping you can," Arthur replies. "You see, Morgana returned home rather late last night. We were worried sick about her, and I think the only thing that prevented my father from going out on the town with a pistol was the extra laudanum that our doctor put in his tea."
Merlin is standing quite still, and his face is conspicuously blank. "Oh?"
"It was quite distressing," Arthur says casually.
"Is she all right?"
"Oh, she's fine, she's fine. Locked in the east wing for her own good, but fine."
"Oh, that's... that's good to hear."
"Merlin, do you know where she went off to last night?"
"Me?" he squeaks.
"You. Did you see anything, or hear anything?"
"No, sir, no." Merlin shakes his head. "And if I did, I would tell you, sir. I would."
Arthur looks at him for a long time, enjoying Merlin's nervousness, the way his eyes dart from side to side as if looking for a way out, but even the other workers don't look up. The focus on their tasks and pretend they aren't listening.
"Good," Arthur says finally. "Good."
+
Merlin watches Arthur leave the factory, and beside him, a voice sniggers, "You're in for it now, Merlin."
"Shut up, Will," Merlin mutters, and goes back to work.
+
The next time they meet, Merlin brings a ring. It is crudely fashioned and nowhere near as fine as her other jewelry, but she cries out in joy anyway and throws her arms around his neck.
"How did you get it?" she gasps, looking at it catch the light on her finger. "I hear Uther has cut wages again. How were you able to...?"
Merlin shrugs, giddy with her delight, and says, "I have my ways."
"You do," she grins, and kisses him. "You do, my love, you always do."
+
"Not that it's any of your business," Morgana sniffs, "but it's a present from Gwen."
Arthur frowns. "From your maid?"
"Yes!"
"Why would she give you a ring?"
"Because we are friends, Arthur. Do you know the meaning of the word?"
"One isn't friends with the help," Arthur says. "It isn't done."
"Well, I've done it."
"How delightful for you!" Arthur snaps. "One wonders what else you've done."
"Yes, because prancing about the factories making sure that all your workers will die of black lung disease is ever so much nobler!"
"Those factories," Arthur shouts, "are our livelihood. Mine and yours, and the workers'!"
"Are you quite finished? I do hate it when hooligans yell at me in my bedchamber."
"Hooligans--!" Arthur throws his hands up in the air, and turns to leave. "Morgana, I shall be glad when you find a husband, then he can deal with all of this instead of me."
"Likewise, dearest, likewise."
Arthur pauses with his hand on the doorknob and looks again at her, hesitant and contemplative. There isn't as much anger on his face as Morgana expects, and when he speaks, his tone is not as hard as she feels she deserves.
"We do what we do because we care for you," Arthur manages, and Morgana wonders if those are the words he actually meant to say.
"Well, stop it," she replies. "It doesn't become you."
Arthur rolls his eyes, and leaves.
+
She throws her head back as she straddles Merlin, his hands on her back holding her steady. Morgana moves against him in a steady rhythm, and he gasps her name into her skin as she tangles her fingers in his hair.
The door bursts open.
There is a great deal of screaming and cursing, and Morgana reaches for the blankets to cover herself as people rush into the room.
"Seize him," Arthur orders, pointing at Merlin.
"Arthur!" she exclaims, angry and ashamed. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he snaps, as Lancelot and Owain force Merlin to the ground. Owain punches Merlin in the gut for good measure, because Owain sometimes gets a little overenthusiastic.
"Stop it!" Morgana shrieks, rushing to him, but Arthur grabs her wrists. "Let me go!"
"You haven't any clothes on, Morgana, where is your shame?"
"We're in love!" she protests.
Arthur says, "Take him out back and make sure he doesn't go anywhere. I'll be back after I escort Morgana home."
"You will not!" And she tries to hit Arthur, but he throws his arms around her, pinning her arms to her side, and as much as she struggles, it does little good when she is also trying as hard not to cry.
"Stop ogling her, Owain, for god's sake!" Arthur spits out. "Get him out of here before I thrash you too!"
"Morgana, it's going to be all right!" Merlin says over his shoulder, and then they are gone.
"Merlin!" she cries out. "Merlin! Oh god."
"Put on your clothes, Morgana."
"Let me go!"
"If I let you go, will you put on your clothes?"
"Arthur!"
"Morgana. Morgana! Listen to me-- ow! Stop that! Morgana, listen to me!"
She struggles for a few more seconds for the show of it, but she knows it is over. She has lost. She exhales shakily, still shivering with rage and cold, and Arthur somehow dares to look her in the eye and say, "I'm sorry."
She slaps him.
"You're not forgiven, Arthur," Morgana chokes out.
Arthur touches his cheek with one hand, his face unreadable. He says, "Fair enough."
She turns her back on him, silent with fury, and begins to dress.
allothi said I'd never write: "Hardyesque tragic melodrama. Morgana and Merlin fall hopelessly in love but society would never tolerate their class boundary-crossing romance, woez. So they get sekritly married and end up in horrible, angst-ridden situations when, for example, Arthur finds Morgana hiding in Merlin's chambers, jumps to the almost-right conclusions, keeps the secret to preserve Morgana's name but fires Merlin, WOEZ. Merlin leaves to be a starving peasant farmer. They turn out not to be married after all due to a confusing plot twist. Someone (probably Merlin) gets life-threateningly ill after sleeping all night in the open during a Terrible Storm. Morgana goes to nurse him back to health, reputation be damned! If they have had a Tragic Bastard Child at any point, it probably ends up hanging itself. Merlin starts to fall for Gwen at just the moment acceptance for his and Morgana's relationship is beginning to seem like a realistic possibility. Everything Morgana owns is destroyed in an act of god. She agrees to marry Arthur. Merlin goes mad with jealousy. Many people die. Possibly all together, by drowning, in the raging waters of the overflowing river. Survivors are psychologically scarred for life. But the scenery is exceptionally romantic and interesting-looking."She remains correct. Having never read any Hardy, I wrote this instead.
~*The Ties That Bind*~
Merlin. 1476 words. 19th-century star-cross'd lovers AU.
He worries about getting her dress dirty more than she does, and she likes to laugh at him for it. It's a relief for someone to be more worried than she is, for once, and she would tug Merlin close and says, "My love, my darling, I would dirty a thousand dresses for the pleasure of your company."
"Even so," he would say, and then Morgana would kiss him so that he will say no more.
He takes the effort to wash himself before their meetings. He would still smell of the ashes and oil of the factory but his skin would be pink from the scrub-brush, or perhaps just from blushing.
"We will defy them all someday," she would whisper to him as they lie in bed together.
"Someday I will take you away," he promises, and she doesn't know that they don't mean the same thing.
+
There are no rings. Merlin feels wretched for it, but Morgana assures him that it is fine, that they have never been the kind of people who need trinkets to symbolize something so important. He promises to get her a ring as soon as he can anyway, and she smiles for him.
Over the next few weeks, she goes about her days in the warm bubble of her secret. I am a wife, she thinks to herself. I am in love. Uther continues to parade before her a line-up of suitable men, and she would reject every one of them until Arthur suggests that maybe it is not yet Morgana's time to marry.
"Are you mad?" Uther protests. "Of course it is. If we let her choose her own time of marriage, she will not have a husband until she is old and gray."
"With all due respect," Arthur says, "we have more than enough to be able to support her for the next few years if she wants to delay finding a husband."
"Pah!" Uther opines, but he acquiesces as Morgana knew he would. When Arthur steps out of his father's study, she is in the corridor having listened to the entire conversation, and she takes his hand and thanks him.
"The things I do for you," Arthur murmurs, and kisses her forehead. "Perhaps it is best to make yourself scarce around him for the time being."
"You're a good man, Arthur Pendragon," she says warmly.
"Thank you," he replies. "I suspect you are a good woman, but in I have only received evidence that supports the contrary."
She laughs, and Arthur smiles faintly.
Morgana doesn't tell Merlin about Uther's neverending quest to marry her off. It would only upset him.
+
"Merlin."
Merlin whirls around, wearing the expression of surprise to which Arthur has become accustomed. Sometimes Arthur thinks he could say, "Did you know the sky is blue?" and Merlin would widen his eyes and say "Really?", and look up.
Merlin says, "Arthur!"
Arthur frowns.
"...Mr. Pendragon," Merlin corrects himself. "Sorry, Mr. Pendragon. Yes. What are you doing here?"
"Overseeing my father's factories, of course. What does it look like?"
"Of course, of course." Merlin wipes his face on his shirt-sleeve, but it only serves to move the dirt around instead of actually cleaning anything. The other workers, Arthur notices, are slowly inching away, giving them wide berth. Merlin asks, "Can I help you?"
"Yes, I'm hoping you can," Arthur replies. "You see, Morgana returned home rather late last night. We were worried sick about her, and I think the only thing that prevented my father from going out on the town with a pistol was the extra laudanum that our doctor put in his tea."
Merlin is standing quite still, and his face is conspicuously blank. "Oh?"
"It was quite distressing," Arthur says casually.
"Is she all right?"
"Oh, she's fine, she's fine. Locked in the east wing for her own good, but fine."
"Oh, that's... that's good to hear."
"Merlin, do you know where she went off to last night?"
"Me?" he squeaks.
"You. Did you see anything, or hear anything?"
"No, sir, no." Merlin shakes his head. "And if I did, I would tell you, sir. I would."
Arthur looks at him for a long time, enjoying Merlin's nervousness, the way his eyes dart from side to side as if looking for a way out, but even the other workers don't look up. The focus on their tasks and pretend they aren't listening.
"Good," Arthur says finally. "Good."
+
Merlin watches Arthur leave the factory, and beside him, a voice sniggers, "You're in for it now, Merlin."
"Shut up, Will," Merlin mutters, and goes back to work.
+
The next time they meet, Merlin brings a ring. It is crudely fashioned and nowhere near as fine as her other jewelry, but she cries out in joy anyway and throws her arms around his neck.
"How did you get it?" she gasps, looking at it catch the light on her finger. "I hear Uther has cut wages again. How were you able to...?"
Merlin shrugs, giddy with her delight, and says, "I have my ways."
"You do," she grins, and kisses him. "You do, my love, you always do."
+
"Not that it's any of your business," Morgana sniffs, "but it's a present from Gwen."
Arthur frowns. "From your maid?"
"Yes!"
"Why would she give you a ring?"
"Because we are friends, Arthur. Do you know the meaning of the word?"
"One isn't friends with the help," Arthur says. "It isn't done."
"Well, I've done it."
"How delightful for you!" Arthur snaps. "One wonders what else you've done."
"Yes, because prancing about the factories making sure that all your workers will die of black lung disease is ever so much nobler!"
"Those factories," Arthur shouts, "are our livelihood. Mine and yours, and the workers'!"
"Are you quite finished? I do hate it when hooligans yell at me in my bedchamber."
"Hooligans--!" Arthur throws his hands up in the air, and turns to leave. "Morgana, I shall be glad when you find a husband, then he can deal with all of this instead of me."
"Likewise, dearest, likewise."
Arthur pauses with his hand on the doorknob and looks again at her, hesitant and contemplative. There isn't as much anger on his face as Morgana expects, and when he speaks, his tone is not as hard as she feels she deserves.
"We do what we do because we care for you," Arthur manages, and Morgana wonders if those are the words he actually meant to say.
"Well, stop it," she replies. "It doesn't become you."
Arthur rolls his eyes, and leaves.
+
She throws her head back as she straddles Merlin, his hands on her back holding her steady. Morgana moves against him in a steady rhythm, and he gasps her name into her skin as she tangles her fingers in his hair.
The door bursts open.
There is a great deal of screaming and cursing, and Morgana reaches for the blankets to cover herself as people rush into the room.
"Seize him," Arthur orders, pointing at Merlin.
"Arthur!" she exclaims, angry and ashamed. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" he snaps, as Lancelot and Owain force Merlin to the ground. Owain punches Merlin in the gut for good measure, because Owain sometimes gets a little overenthusiastic.
"Stop it!" Morgana shrieks, rushing to him, but Arthur grabs her wrists. "Let me go!"
"You haven't any clothes on, Morgana, where is your shame?"
"We're in love!" she protests.
Arthur says, "Take him out back and make sure he doesn't go anywhere. I'll be back after I escort Morgana home."
"You will not!" And she tries to hit Arthur, but he throws his arms around her, pinning her arms to her side, and as much as she struggles, it does little good when she is also trying as hard not to cry.
"Stop ogling her, Owain, for god's sake!" Arthur spits out. "Get him out of here before I thrash you too!"
"Morgana, it's going to be all right!" Merlin says over his shoulder, and then they are gone.
"Merlin!" she cries out. "Merlin! Oh god."
"Put on your clothes, Morgana."
"Let me go!"
"If I let you go, will you put on your clothes?"
"Arthur!"
"Morgana. Morgana! Listen to me-- ow! Stop that! Morgana, listen to me!"
She struggles for a few more seconds for the show of it, but she knows it is over. She has lost. She exhales shakily, still shivering with rage and cold, and Arthur somehow dares to look her in the eye and say, "I'm sorry."
She slaps him.
"You're not forgiven, Arthur," Morgana chokes out.
Arthur touches his cheek with one hand, his face unreadable. He says, "Fair enough."
She turns her back on him, silent with fury, and begins to dress.
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They are really sweet but it just can't end like this! They were so innocent and in love and naive and then they get caught at it and humiliated and oh lord D: Arthur being her protective older brother, though, I love that even though he has to be awful in the end. I would totally read this starcrossed lovers fic as summarized at the top XD I would giggle but I would also love it.
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I would totally read this starcrossed lovers fic as summarized at the top XD I would giggle but I would also love it.
lol me toooooooo.
I think there's a fic waiting to be written where Gwen and Morgana get REALLY INTO plotting some Karl/Friedrich fic but then the roleplaying gets Too Real, and suddenly there is Gwen/Morgana.
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