Category: Gen/Pre-Het (Canon AU)

Characters/Pairings: Merlin, Morgana, Aithusa, eventual Merlin/Morgana

Rating/Warnings: T for torture and violence

Summary: Merlin was caught by the Sarrum and thrown in the same well where Morgana had been for the past three months. Two months later, Morgana wonders how she can at the same time hate a man so much, but still trust him so blindly.

A/N: This was written for The Chronicles of Camelot challenge, an extension of a drabble.

Set after season 4, about six months after "The Sword in the Stone, Part 2". My headcanon is that Morgana was captured by the Sarrum not long after Aithusa saved her. When Merlin disguised as Emrys blocked her magic, it stayed locked for some time and that made Morgana vulnerable. So she was captured. (This was included in the first version of this story, which is lost forever due to stupid technology. Well have to make do with my hurried explanations.)
The events that led to Merlin being imprisoned will be explained. With time. The first part of this story is in 'layers': each chapter will unravel a part of the past. Then we'll go back to the present towards the end of the story. It's much easier than what it might seem, really.

Important: the prologue is set in the 'present', the first chapters after it are set two months earlier, then at a point the story will be set in the present again. Just to make things clear:

Prologue: Morgana has been in the well for five months. Merlin for two.
Chapter 1: Morgana has been in the well for three months. Merlin has just arrived.

What Morgana knows in the present (prologue) she didn't necessarily know before (chapter 1).

Thanks to MagicGirl41 for looking this over for me. Any mistakes are mine. I love you, MG!

Now, I hereby declare my rant over!

Prologue

So, yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can also be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and, well, strangely easy to mistaken for loathing.

–Yvaine, Stardust

The pitch-black darkness was suffocating.

Morgana knew, even if she couldn't see anything, that the space she was in was far too small to move. Especially since she wasn't the only occupant of the 'prison' — if the bottom of a dried well could even be called that way.

Her shoulders had gone numb, having had her arms tied over her head for so long, and her wrists hurt where the shackles had dug into the flesh as she struggled, to no avail, to get free. She had been there for what she guessed were more or less five months.

The young witch sighed and shifted to make herself as comfortable as possible. Moving, she hit something — or better, someone — warm. It was Aithusa, who laid beside her sleeping, restrained just as barbarously as she was.

Morgana felt her heart swell with love — something she had once believed she would never feel again — at the thought of her little dragon, the beautiful and pure creature who, for a long time, had been her only friend, her beacon of light in those dark times. Now, she could no longer imagine a life without it — her, the sorceress reminded herself. Aithusa was a female, as she had found out recently, thanks to Merlin.

Merlin. Arthur's loyal servant. The bubbly boy, now a battle-hardened man, who used to bring her flowers to make her smile and had kept her secret so many years ago. The very same man who had poisoned her, betrayed her, even when she regarded him as a friend — and currently, her only companion besides Aithusa.

The high priestess could hear the sound of his soft, rhythmical breathing as he slept. He was tired, even more than she was. And not unjustifiably so — the poor man had, after all, been tortured for hours to protect her just two days before.

Morgana wanted to laugh at the thought of their current predicament. If someone had told her that she would one day be trapped with Merlin, of all people, and forced to get along with him, only a few months before she would have laughed at them. But had they told her that in the future she would have also been willing to offer her life for his — and that he would have sacrificed his to save hers — she would have probably incinerated them on spot.

And yet, that was the reality, as ridiculous as it sounded.

They had formed a friendship of sorts, actually, the kind that is born due to necessity and instinct of survival more than real affection — that had later blossomed into an unlikely camaraderie. Merlin had been there for almost two months, and with time she had grown to be grateful of his presence.

It also helped that they were kin. Both creatures of the Old Religion, they shared the heavy and precious burden of magic. Of course, at first it had hurt — finding out that Merlin had been born with magic and hadn't told her anything when he needed him the most — but, with time, she had understood his reasoning to keep his own secret, even though she didn't agree with his choice.

Had he told her before about his magic, would things have been different? If so, would they have been better? It wasn't such a crazy hypothesis, was it? She could have been happy.

No, stop it, Morgana chastised herself. There's no point in crying over spilled milk.

She had other things to think about, more important things, like a plan to escape. They couldn't use their magic, the Sarrum had made sure of that, having put anti-magic manacles around their wrists. Cold iron, Merlin had said. Apparently, Gaius had taught him about that particular metal and its abilities to keep a magic user from using their powers.

And yet, Merlin had managed to do it. He had lit a small flame, less than a week ago, to give her some hope — she would never admit it to him, but it had worked wonders. Using magic had hurt him, tremendously so for such a simple spell, but he had done it. Meaning that he truly was powerful, even more than she was — but that wasn't a surprise by then.

The woman knew that her friend (that was what they were now, wasn't it?) was Emrys, the sorcerer she had hunted for since the Cailleach had told her his name and his role in her destiny. Oh, the anger she had felt when she had found out. He had told her himself, before the first week of his imprisonment had ended. She would have found it strange — his sudden willingness to reveal his secrets — had she not known that he had already lost too much to care anymore.

After that, he had also confessed that he had used a spell to block her magic when she had taken over Camelot, and that had been the ultimate cause of her abduction by the Sarrum.

Morgana wondered how she could at the same time hate a man so much, but still trust him so blindly. And care about him.

She would have snorted loudly, had she not known that it would have awakened Merlin and Aithusa. Oh, the irony. Morgana Pendragon caring about Emrys's sleeping habits. She almost didn't believe it.

The witch moved again to ease the strain on her sore muscles, and doing so, accidentally brushed her now-short hair with her arm. They had cut it to sell it, and she couldn't help but be grateful that those monsters hadn't done anything worse — not for lack of trying, though. Again, she had to remind herself to thank Merlin for it when he felt better.

Morgana let out a long, tired sigh as she thought about the last months. The situation had certainly changed her deeply. Her beliefs had been shaken to the core, and the fortress of hatred and bitterness she had built to shield her heart in the past years had slowly crumbled to dust, leaving her defenceless against emotions and feelings she had long since forgotten.

Slowly, a small smile crept up on her face as she realised that maybe, just maybe, changing wasn't necessarily for the worst.

TBC.