Sorry, I know it has been ages on these. Next up: Somebody that I used to Know by Goyte. Once again, nothing belongs to me, all rights belong to their respective owners.

Merlin found himself staring across the small clearing in the forest, the magic dancing from his fingertips as he tried to warn Morgana back without having to either address the witch or use magic. Arthur was an unconscious heap directly halfway between them. Two magical beings on either side, one determined to protect him, the other kill. Merlin wasn't sure whether he could say that he was winning that fight as of yet, especially considering the way the king hadn't listened to his warnings but walked straight into Morgana's magical trap – hence his current predicament.

"What happened to you?" Merlin eventually muttered, his voice soft and low. There was a blue spark weaving its way around his fingers as his magic prepared itself to fight for Arthur's life, but there was a great sadness in Merlin's eyes.

This was the once proud noblewoman that he had come to respect and even love in his own way. Morgana had been afraid of nothing and no one, determined to do what was right regardless of the consequences. She had been brave and beautiful, the only one that the then King of Camelot would listen to. Even Arthur wouldn't have dared to go against her, the woman he considered to be a sister to him being the only one who could put the arrogant prince in his place.

But that was not the Morgana that Merlin was looking at now. Instead he was looking at someone twisted and bitter, who had allowed the magic to corrupt her in exactly the same way she had been taught all of these years. She had cut off all ties with everything and everyone they had once shared a mutual interest in – Arthur, Gwen, Gaius… She had turned her back on them and chosen a different path in life.

"You did." Morgana spat. In contrast to Merlin's blue, there was a dark flame flickering in the palm of her hand and the glare that she was sending him was so fierce that Merlin would have taken a step back if it hadn't meant that she was close to Arthur than he was. He wouldn't risk the King for anything. Merlin dropped his eyes with a sigh.

"I thought we were the same, Morgana. I thought we were right for each. Yet look at us now! You just treat me like I'm some sort of stranger, that everything that we went through didn't happen. You can't pretend that we didn't do those things together, Morgana, because they happened. They made you the person you are now as much as they did for me, and look at us, two opposites." Merlin didn't truly realise that he had started to talk until the words started coming out. They just didn't fit together, they didn't make any sense. And yet he had found that he was almost addicted to her in a certain kind of way. He was the light to her darkness, meaning that he had got himself addicted to a sinner.

"You screwed me over, Merlin." Morgana hissed, pacing back and forth, but thankfully getting no closer to Arthur as she did so. "I thought that it was something that I had done, that the magic was tearing us apart. You said that the magic didn't matter, that it wouldn't come between us because we could be stronger, we could work together."

Merlin made to interrupt, wanting to tell her how right she was. Her magic was tearing her apart, but whilst he knew that he could have handled the whole situation better, she was not the only one that was scared. But unlike her, he hadn't turned his back on everything just out of the fear that they might not accept him, he had just pressed on and hoped that when the time came, everything would be okay. Thankfully, he had been right. Arthur might have yelled at him for the whole kingdom to hear, but the fact that Merlin was now Court Warlock showed that the king had come around eventually and accepted magic. But Morgana pressed on before he had the chance to even open his mouth..

"I didn't want to live like that. I didn't want to have to think about whether you were meaning something else every time that you opened your mouth, whether you were going to betray me or not…"

"Don't try and blame it on me, Morgana." Merlin wasn't going to listen to this anymore. "You chose your own path, and look where it has got you. You're cut off from everything, you have no one. All of our-your friends- you've just cut yourself off from them and vanished without telling them why you want them all dead. Did you ever think to give them a chance, to think that they might have actually accepted you?"

"Uther…"

"Uther is dead. Arthur is king now. He accepted me, he would have accepted you if you hadn't been too busy trying to kill him."

The air crackled with magic as the two sworn enemies looked at each other over the motionless body of Merlin's king. He could still remember her smile when she knew that he was helping her with Mordred, the look in her eye when he had followed her to the Druids in order to warn her. They had been happy back then, even if they had not realised it themselves. But her magic had driven them apart, the decisions she had made with it…

Morgana had cut him off at the end of the day. She had refused to listen to any sort of reasoning he might have offered her and tried to kill him more than once. She was no longer the woman he had first accidentally walked in on all those years ago, and staring at her now, he knew that he didn't need her love or acceptance.

"You're just somebody that I used to know, Morgana. Nothing more." And with those words, Merlin let his magic fly, determined to protect Arthur.