#i can't figure out how to insert breaks from my phone so sorry ab that

[ursus-mari]

Morgana wakes from a dream of Gwen being crowned and is deeply confused.

When Gwen comes to wake her in the morning, Morgana asks her point-blank if she likes Arthur, to which Gwen, panicked at her years long crush asking about her starcrossed boyfriend, panics and says, “No!” then backtracks and says something like, “Not that-- I’m sure he’s perfectly lovely really, if you know him, which I don’t, I didn’t mean--”

Morgana snorts and goes, “Perfectly lovely? Arthur? Hardly.”

With that option (erroneously, mind) firmly off the table in Morgana’s book, she ponders the other possibilities. Uther? Never. Morgana would kill him before he forced Gwen into anything, and Gwen would never marry him of her own free will. So it can’t be any of the current royal family, and Morgana plans to take the throne soon…

That possibility that had been niggling in the back of her mind that she’d been refusing to entertain now seems the only viable option on the table, and Morgana blushes despite herself, butterflies lighting in her stomach.

She holds off on going to Morgause until she’s sure, and in that time, every time Gwen looks at her or touches her (quite often, given the duties of a maidservant) makes her giddy, and she starts to believe it despite herself.

Hating Gwen, kind, lovely Gwen, who holds her after she wakes up screaming and brings her flowers to brighten her day, had been so hard. This is effortless, by comparison. Natural. Like breathing. And if her dream is right, Gwen will feel the same, whether she falls now or later. Morgana is positively giddy.

Gwen deserves wooing, and Morgana starts to daydream of all the ways she could make Gwen happy… flowers for sure, maybe a dress? A romantic picnic, perhaps. The possibilities are endless, and Morgana cannot wait to start putting a smile on Gwen’s face.

Morgana starts by gifting Gwen whatever she seems enamoured by at the market. This includes but is not limited to pastries, pretty bobbles, truly expensive silk, a bouquet of flowers, and way too much jewelry. Gwen is really, really flustered by this and has absolutely no idea how to handle it. She tries to tell Morgana to stop, but Morgana is like “I’m basically a princess and if I want to buy gifts for my maidservant, I’ll damn well do so.”

Morgana’s not really got any concept of subtlety or taking it slow, see.

Poor Gwen is so flustered she feels like she could explode and has absolutely no clue where this came from, which only encourages Morgana to buy more stuff because she thinks Gwen being flustered is adorable. It’s as much the way Morgana is looking at her as it is the gifts, though, warm and fond and like Gwen hangs the moon and stars, and Gwen had missed that look, and she turns into a stammering wreck.

Afterwards, once Gwen’s collected herself, she explains to Morgana that she just can’t buy her things for money reasons, for Uther reasons, the whole shebang. And Gwen doesn’t really want or need those things, she says, and she certainly doesn’t want them all at once.

So Morgana has to go back to the drawing board.

Morgana goes to Morgause like, “Hey, I know we haven’t talked in a bit but I was wondering what you knew about wooing people.”

And Morgause is like, “??? Wooing people???”

“Yea.”

“Uhhhh, find their greatest desire and use it to manipulate them? Chop off their enemy’s head and propose a strategic alliance?”

So Morgana’s like, “...Right, so you’re absolutely useless, bye,” and fucks off to go look for other, more trustworthy sources.

The problem is she trusts absolutely no one other than Morgause so this is a difficult endeavor. She asks Arthur in a bid of desperation because he’s had flings, right???

Arthur goes, “Uh. Slay monsters very impressively? Show personal growth? Offer chicken? Have Merlin do it for you?”

Which is also useless, but she should have expected that, really.

She goes to the library as a last resort and tells Geoffrey, “BRING ME A BOOK ON WOOING!” in her most intimidating voice and Geoffrey scampers off to get that but he’s like. Really slow. Morgana waits as Geoffrey rushes and yet moves as fast as molasses, getting increasingly impatient and snappish.

What she gets is mostly a book on courtly rituals, so a lot of it is useless with Gwen but damn if Morgana isn’t going to try, but it also mentions something about asking family for permission, which, no, but it reminds her to go, oh! I’ll ask her brother!

And Elyan’s mostly like how many goddamn royals are in love with my sister (within the privacy of his own head, of course), but he also tells her that Gwen likes thoughtful, heartfelt gifts and honest work (and privately resolves to tease Gwen so much when she comes home).

So Morgana’s like???? Heartfelt???? What do I do with that??? Crap, what does Gwen like? But she’d given Gwen all the things she liked at the market, so that can’t be all there is to it?? Morgana is confusion?????

Okay, honest work. So should she make a gift?

Morgana doesn’t have any crafting skills though. Fuck. Uh.

She could embroider something? She’s crap at embroidery but she knows how to do it, at least. Something small, there’s only so much embroidering she can stand. Handkerchief, maybe? And that’s like offering a favor, almost, so that’s cool.

Morgana thinks back to the market and all the fabrics Gwen had lingered on and goes for a (relatively) moderately priced one that Gwen had run her fingertips over longingly.

So Morgana utilizes her well-honed sneaking skills to go buy the fabric, then bewilders Gwen by kicking her out to work. This is not her brightest idea, as it makes Gwen feel quite hurt and renews her suspicion.

After many, many hours of pricked fingers, extensive and creative cursing, and a half dozen traumatized servants (except not because if you work under the Pendragons on a regular basis you’ve probably got balls of steel, but Morgana certainly tries her best), Morgana comes out with a crude, messy rendition of a rose embroidered onto the (...maybe a little bloodstained? Whatever. It's fine.) handkerchief.

Morgana presents it to Gwen, shy and yet utterly pleased with her work, and Gwen wavers between fond laughter and bursting into tears. In the end, she just smiles so hard her cheeks hurt and thanks Morgana, then tucks it away like something precious.

Gwen still regards it with wariness, of course, because Morgana has up to this point been extremely suspicious and possibly (definitely) evil, but it's very hard to think it might be magically dangerous when it looks like a child's work and Morgana had seemed so sincerely proud. The fear and animosity melts away in the wake of it despite Gwen's best judgement, and, she reasons, it would alert Morgana to her suspicions if she didn't use it, right? It's only logical to use it and treat it like something precious and gaze upon it fondly, right? Right.

And now Gwen has two utterly romantically incompetent people she adores with all her heart doing their best to make her happy. And that's… yeah.

This might work out after all.

(Meanwhile, Arthur finds out who Morgana wanted to woo, and the two of them turn the courting of Gwen into a competition, because of course they do, ignoring entirely that Gwen is perfectly happy to date both of them, and plans of kingdom conquering fall to the wayside, much to Morgause’s chagrin.

Merlin regards Morgana with deep, deep suspicion that she returns with interest, but Gwen won't stand for the animosity so they grudgingly make nice while glaring at each other over Gwen's head and being blatantly insincerely sweet. They forget their hostility only when they both turn on Arthur, at which point they join forces in insulting him, Arthur complains, and Gwen laughs at them all. It turns out to be remarkably hard to sustain ill will in such a comfortable atmosphere; who knew? It's like there hasn't been attempted murder on both sides!

Uther is bewildered by his children’s good moods and Morgana's renewed disdain of him, and they merrily ignore him except when he's being genocidal. When his genocidal tendencies manifest once more, as they inevitably do, Merlin and Morgana are baffled to find themselves on the same side but remain vehement in their assertions that they do something about it, and Arthur is convinced by his very passionate friends and quietly conflicted but firmly insistent girlfriend.

(Merlin and Morgana feed off of each other’s strong feelings and forget to check with Gaius and Kilgharrah and Morgause respectively. As such, they have no one to talk them down into caution and suspicion, which is on the whole for the best as they find themselves a united front.)

This whole situation cumulates into a coup. Also, magic reveals. And long, emotionally involved, serious conversations about magic and its morality and Merlin and Morgana's roles in magic shenanigans thus far. There's a decent amount of shouting, maybe a few threats, hurt all around, but they make it through, and they do it without completely destroying their relationships with each other, so that's cool.

Uther is overthrown (Morgause is very upset to have missed it), the kingdom is absolute chaos, it takes a lot for Arthur to be seen as a legitimate, trustworthy ruler, but he has his people behind him, they call the knights of the round table and knight them, and they make it work.

Work is started on the legalization of magic.

Gwen does become Arthur's queen, and Morgana relives her dream, and finds herself overwhelmingly, brilliantly happy despite having been wrong. After all, afterwards Gwen throws herself into Morgana's arms to give her an enthusiastic kiss and wipes away her happy tears with the handkerchief Morgana had gifted her all that time ago.

And so they live happily ever after (or something mushy like that).)