#diiiiid I write this just so gwen and morgana could have chemistry and exchange ''giving head'' jokes

[notbecauseofvictories]

For the meme - morgana and/or gwen, either from bbc merlin or the larger mythos lol

The Kingdom of Gorre is mostly cold, and wet. Guinevere gets used to seeing her breath fog before her and turning her face down as she hurries from out-building to castle, trying to save her paints and powders from the pissing rain. It is always raining, in the Kingdom of Gorre. 

When she tells this to Arthur, he laughs, but it is a pained, abortive sound sound. “The things we endure for family,” he says at last, with an insincere smile. (Guinevere has been told of how the branches of the Pendragon family tree twist; still, it surprises her that Arthur will acknowledge it, even in so sideways a fashion. However much she loves and honors her husband, he is a bad liar, a worse politician; he fares better when he ignores such ugly truths entirely.)

Still—it suits, somehow. That the Kingdom of Gorre should be wet, grey as iron and cold as sea-washed silt. Guinevere knows that the marriage between Morgana and King Uriens is one of political expedience. For all the many weddings that begin in ignorance and fear before flowering to joy, there are those that curdle into bitterness instead. Despite Ywain, who is a handsome, happy child, the marriage of Morgana and Uriens is that. 

Guinevere watches her at dinner, at dinner after dinner. Most of their visits to Arthur’s allies’ kingdoms feature dinner heavily. And there at dinner is Morgana, whom Guinevere’s people call le Fay—the witch, the fairy. They say being passed over for Arthur, the unhappiness of her marriage drove her to demonic arts and black magics, and other sorts of unspeakable things. They say that all Gorre’s strength came from Morgana’s art, though it folded before the sunlit Christ-anointed Arthur; there are rumors that Ywain was conceived by such profane arts, though Guinevere doubt that entirely.

(If one could have a child by swearing a pact with fairies or demons, Guinevere would not be in Gorre at all—she would be on bedrest in Camelot with her third, perhaps her fourth. She would be birthing Arthur’s children the way rabbits do: in litters of seven.)

All that being as it is: Guinevere watches Morgana. 

Guinevere finds that she is dark, and slight, and there is nothing about her that might suggest she is more than a cunning woman placed at the unfortunate left hand of a king. A hnefatafl piece, moved about the board by her brother and husband. Guinevere finds she is almost sorrowful for it. She had been expecting le Fay, and there is only this girl, not so much older than Guinevere herself, who was bowed to others’ will.

The cup is passed around, again and again, to Arthur, to the knights of his kingdom and Uriens’, who lose themselves to stories, boasting of jousts, green (green! it makes Guinevere want to laugh) men who came to challenge their courage. Grails and questing beasts and wives, women, angels, all clad in samite and—

Guinevere startles at the touch of a hand at her wrist. “Queen of Camelot,” Morgana says, and so close, her eyes are dark as stone lashed by the rain of the Kingdom of Gorre. “My lady, my sister. Will you not drink?”

“You offer me the bowl?” Guinevere asks. It is an audacity, even so late in the evening—the men are drunk enough not to notice what passes among the women, but Guinevere is not, and neither are most of the ladies in the room. High-born and low, she can feel the wives, handmaids, harpists, serving girls, watching her, marking how she will respond.

“I do, my Queen,” Morgana says smoothly, presenting the ornate goblet to her. “If you like, you may tell me a tale of a woman in samite, to prove your worthiness.”

Guinevere smiles, despite herself. “I have no tales of women in samite.“

“Then perhaps you have cut off some unchivalrous man’s head,” Morgana says, and the corner of her mouth is ticked up, just slightly.

“Ah,” Guinevere says, with a regret she does not feel, “alas, no. I have only accepted head when it was offered freely.”

Morgana, called le Fay, laughs aloud at that. “My Queen,” she says, “my sister, my lady. For that alone, you must drink.”

Guinevere graciously accepts the goblet, watching the claret slosh in the cup. “Do you know,” she says absently, “it always rains here.”

“Yes,” Morgana answers in that same, placid tone. “Always. The king and the land are one, you know. And if the king is—well, sometimes the land chooses to be one with the queen instead.”

“I see,” Guinevere says, and lifts the goblet to her lips.

(Later that evening, Morgana will take the goblet and press her mouth to that same spot, where Guinevere’s painted lip left a smudge of color. She will recite incantations, and wear Guinevere’s skin, and then she will fuck Arthur in the bed meant for him to share with Guinevere. And Guinevere will hate Arthur, and hate—something else, bigger than any one of them, but she will never hate Morgana. Every time she tries, she thinks of that slim, dark girl; the witch, the fairy. She thinks of heads, bleeding on pikes. She thinks of the rain.)