Merlin can feel destiny breathing down his neck, down all their necks. His skin is screaming with it—every muscle, tendon and fingernail tense. Everything is going wrong, and he is utterly powerless to stop it.

Arthur is quiet for a long moment, beside him, before he answers Mordred. "I wish I knew."

He turns from the cell.

Merlin follows.

He has to do something. He has to try and fix this, before—

But it's like trying to talk underwater, asking Arthur to listen. He can't hear Merlin, because for all this time he's been kept in the dark, and now Merlin's standing in front of him, choking to death on the panic, the dread that's settling like silt in his veins and slowly filling his lungs.

"Arthur—"

"It's my decision. Mine alone, Merlin." Arthur is troubled too, he can tell. Exhausted. Grieving, blind-sided by Mordred's betrayal. But he doesn't know. He doesn't know what Merlin knows, that this is the beginning of the end: that if Kara is executed, and Mordred turns against Arthur, his fate—their fate, together—is all but decided.

Blood pounds in his ears, hot and wild with fright. "Please."

"What would you have me do?" Arthur demands, whirling to face him, voice sharp with frustration, desperation. "I have to uphold the laws of Camelot!"

Merlin swallows. It's all rising up in him, a decade-long bile of secrets and sacrifices, and hope, and horror—

"Exile her. Exile them both."

"Merlin, I can't just—"

Something in Merlin snaps, or breaks loose, because he just—he can't fucking do this. He can't watch Arthur die. He can't. "Arthur. There's more, alright, there's so much more to this than you know. I can—I'll tell you about it. I'll tell you everything—"

Arthur's gaze locks on him, eyes wide, and he looks—frightened, or lost. Merlin is shaking.

"Please," he repeats, choking on it; realises suddenly he's crying. "Please, Arthur."

"Alright." It's a murmur, low in the dwindling space between them, as Arthur steps away from the window, towards him, hand hesitant but reaching. "Alright, tell me."

And Merlin does.

—✦ prompt: 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫

@andromaex — fic, gwen/morgana

@frogmerthur — web weave, gwen/mithian · moodboard, gwen/mithian · web weave, gwen/morgana · web weave, freya/morgana · web weave, nimueh/ygraine · web weave, nimueh/ygraine

@girasoligialli — fic, gwen/morgana

@haloud — fic, freya/sophia

@happybunnykat — fic, gwen/morgana

@idkhowtomakethis — fic, gwen/morgana

@interrogatethecat — fic, hunith/ygraine

@keeperofdragons — fic, gwen/morgana

@limbel — art, mithian, kara, freya & sophia

@many-gay-magpies — fic, gwen/morgana

@peachesandcringe — video, gwen/morgana

@readingbythequire — web weave, gwen/morgana

@secondstar-acorn — video, gwen/morgana

@thebookluvrr1816 — gifset, gwen/morgana

—✦ prompt: 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲𝐬𝐰𝐚𝐩

@hagstoned — fic, gwen/morgana

@limbel — art, gwen/morgana

—✦ prompt: "𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐝"

@frogmerthur — web weave, kara

@mayonaisie — fic, gwen/morgana

@tiredandoptimistic — fic, gwen/morgana

There was a narrow path behind the lower town, half-swallowed by wild grass and tangled brambles and the slow, patient insistence of nature reclaiming what people forgot, and it was there, on a bright spring morning washed clean by rain from the night before, that Morgana first found Gwen gathering flowers.

She had escaped the castle because the walls felt too close, because every corridor echoed with expectations she had never asked for, because every nobleman seemed to have an opinion on what she should become and every servant lowered their eyes when she passed, and because the sky beyond the battlements had looked impossibly blue and she had wanted to walk beneath it.

She almost missed Gwen entirely.

The blacksmith's daughter was kneeling in the grass several yards away, her skirts stained with dirt, her sleeves rolled carelessly to her elbows, completely absorbed in the task before her as though the fate of the kingdom depended upon it.

Gwen reached for a cluster of tiny white blossoms growing between stones, smiling faintly as she gathered them, and there was something so peaceful about the sight that Morgana found herself reluctant to move.

Most people behaved differently when she was near.

They straightened.

Stumbled over words.

Became painfully aware of her rank.

But Gwen, unaware she was being observed, seemed utterly herself.

And perhaps that was what kept Morgana standing there longer than she intended.

Eventually a twig snapped beneath her boot.

Gwen startled.

Her head jerked upward.

For a moment they simply stared at one another.

Then Gwen rose so quickly she nearly dropped half her flowers.

"My lady."

"What are you doing?"

Gwen glanced down at the flowers gathered in her arms.

"Collecting these."

"Obviously."

A laugh escaped Gwen.

Morgana felt absurdly pleased she had caused it.

"For my father," Gwen explained. "He likes having flowers in the house."

Morgana looked at the mismatched collection.

Tiny white blossoms.

Yellow buttercups.

Blue cornflowers.

"They're just weeds."

Gwen's expression softened.

"No."

The answer came so simply that Morgana looked back at her.

Gwen held up a flower.

A small thing.

Fragile.

Ordinary.

"They're flowers."

Something about the certainty in her voice made Morgana smile despite herself.

The morning stretched around them.

Birdsong drifted through the trees.

A breeze stirred loose strands of Gwen's dark hair.

And without entirely understanding why, Morgana remained.

She helped gather flowers.

Badly.

She crushed stems.

Picked the wrong plants.

Got caught in thorns twice.

Gwen laughed every time with genuine amusement that made Morgana want to hear the sound again.

And again.

And again.

By the time they finished, the basket was overflowing.

Gwen sat beneath a tree to arrange the flowers into something resembling a bouquet.

Morgana sat beside her.

Gwen worked carefully, weaving stems together with patient fingers.

Morgana watched.

Finally, Gwen selected a single flower from the bundle.

A pale blue cornflower.

She hesitated.

Then held it out.

"For you."

Morgana stared.

Nobody gave her gifts.

Not real gifts.

Jewels were obligations.

Silks were expectations.

Everything expensive came attached to something.

But this was just a flower.

Picked from a field.

Offered because Gwen wanted to offer it.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Morgana accepted it carefully.

As though it might break.

"Thank you."

Their eyes met.

For a moment neither looked away.

And something settled between them.

Not love.

Not yet.

Nothing so obvious.

Just the faintest beginning of something.

A thread.

A possibility.

A flower pushing through stone.

Small enough to miss.

Strong enough to survive.

Then voices drifted faintly from the direction of Camelot.

Reality returning.

The castle.

Responsibilities.

The distance that existed between a king's ward and a blacksmith's daughter.

Gwen stood first.

"We should go back."

"Probably."

Neither moved immediately.

Morgana turned the cornflower slowly between her fingers.

Blue petals catching sunlight.

Ridiculously ordinary.

Ridiculously precious.

When they finally began walking toward Camelot, the flower remained tucked safely behind Morgana's ear, and though she would later receive necklaces made of gold and gowns sewn with silver thread and gifts worth more than most people earned in a year, it was that small blue flower she remembered long afterward, because it had been given freely, beneath an open sky, by a girl who saw flowers where others saw weeds and who, without knowing it, had begun to make Morgana wonder whether the world contained more kindness than she had ever dared believe.

Beside her, Gwen carried the basket home.

“What are you thinking of discovering?"

Moomintroll cleared his throat and felt very proud.

"Oh, everything," he said. "Stars, for example!"

Snufkin was deeply impressed.

"Stars!" he exclaimed. "Then I must come with you. Stars are my favorite things. I always lie and look at them before I go to sleep, and wonder who is on them and how one could get there. The sky looks so friendly with all those little eyes twinkling in it.”

With deft hands, Ygraine finishes knotting the last of the sheets together. An experimental tug shows that they hold fast, and it’s with no small amount of giddy relief that she realizes this might actually work.

When she told Tristan she would rather run off and live as a common peasant in the woods than marry Uther Pendragon, he laughed as though she’d made a particularly amusing joke; she wonders, her lips quirking in a wry smile, if he will laugh again when he hears that she has actually gone and done it. It will be his own fault, for underestimating her.

Ygraine has the makeshift rope gathered in her hands and is about to toss it out the window, when there’s a knock at her door. She goes still. Perhaps if they think no one is here, they’ll go away. She fights the urge to swear when another knock comes, accompanied by a woman’s voice.

“My Lady?”

Ygraine shoves the sheets behind a curtain and hurries for the door. Her heart is thudding against her ribcage as though whoever is on the other side knows that she is trying to run. It’s ridiculous– she has played the part of the acquiescing bride since her arrival, hasn’t spoken of her plans to anyone– but the fear still leaves her wrongfooted. She wrenches the door open, unladylike and just barely composed.

The woman on the other side of the threshold doesn’t help in the slightest.