The merthur microfic prompt this week is Exile but ofc I wrote morgwen instead
âThe child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmthâ â African Proverb
Gwen had always thought exile was supposed to feel dramatic â a proclamation, banishment, slamming gates â something final and public. Something that everyone could point to and name.
She had never thought it would feel like this. God, not like this.
Not Morgana standing three feet away in the council chambers while feeling impossibly distant. Not learning to speak around each other instead of to each other. And certainly not this silence that seemed to settle where their voices and laughter used to live.
There was a time not that long ago when she noticed every shift in Morganaâs expression and could predict what she was about to do. A twitch of her mouth before a cutting remark, the particular tightness of her jaw and the wrinkle in her brow when she was frightened in front of the others and would rather die than admit it aloud.
She used to be the only person Morgana would let in â the only one Morgana was ever willing to truly reach out for.
Now, standing just behind where Morgana â Queen Morgana â sits on the throne, she realizes with sudden, sickening clarity, I could have stopped this.
Not entirely. Perhaps not even enough to have made a difference. But she could have stayed.
Because that was the beginning of it, wasnât it? Evenings in Morganaâs chambers growing shorter, conversations interrupted because Arthur might be free elsewhere. Feasts where Merlin, Arthur, and Gwen leaned toward one another in easy conversation while Morgana sat just outside it all, smiling too brightly, sitting to stiffly. Gaius, insisting Morgana needed more potions, deeper sleep, and Morgana begging her to dump them out because they made her feel like the waking dead.
The nightmares.
The witchfinder
Uther.
The fear.
Everyone saw Morgana unraveling and no one was willing to name it. Â
Including me.
Especially me.
Gwen had known she was the first one Morgana ever confided in about her dreams depicting the future. Sheâd known why Morgana had the nightmares long before Gaius even suspected.
But loving Morgana had always required a kind of courage that Gwen only seemed to possess in private â hidden glances, hands brushing, soft kisses. It existed in the quiet space between nightmares and morning, when Morgana shook so hard that Gwen would climb into her bed and hold her until she fell asleep.
But daylight was different â it belonged to Camelot. And Camelot had taught Gwen, slowly and carefully, that survival often meant looking away.
So she did.
Once.
Then again.
Then enough times that Morgana stopped reaching for her at all.
âYou could have stayed,â Morgana says later that night, voice low and exhausted rather than the anger Gwen might have expected. âWhen I needed you, you could have stayed.â
âIâm sorry?â Gwen asks, stomach sinking.
âYou chose him,â Morgana continues. âYou chose all of them.â
Gwen opens her mouth to defend herself â to explain, to insist she had been trying to survive, too â but the words die before they reach her tongue. Morgana is looking at her like she already knows every excuse, and a horrible understanding dawns on her: Morgana never stopped noticing.
Every hesitation. Every softened lie. Every moment Gwen chose silence over presence because silence was safer, easier, survivable. The way she, Arthur, and Merlin became a trio orbiting each other while Morgana stood just outside their circle. The way conversations quieted when she entered rooms. The careful looks exchanged over her shoulder. Gaiusâs reassurances that never truly reassured. Gwenâs own hands trembling each time Morgana spoke about the dreams, because some part of her had already begun to fear what the dreams might cost them both.
Morgana had watched herself being abandoned in real time by the people she loved most, and the cruelty of it turns Gwenâs stomach. Morgana, who once reached for her in the dark like Gwen was something steady. Morgana, who trusted her enough to unravel. Morgana, who had stood at the edge of terror for years, quietly begging the people she loved to notice she was falling apart. It was they who had betrayed her first.
Standing across from her now, all dark velvet and old grief sharpened into fury, Gwen begins to understand what it is to be exiled.
It is no mere banishment.
It is watching the people you love turn toward one another while you stand just beyond them â close enough to see their warmth, but no longer able to feel it.
Until eventually there is nowhere left to belong but the darkness.
