gnimaerd | Fic: Five names that Arthur has called Morgana

Title: Five names that Arthur has called Morgana
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Arthur/Morgana
Genre: humour/romance
Summary: Pretty much what the title says.

Notes: This was written for the

merlin_rarepair 'five things' challenge. I have two more, also Arthur/Morgana, that are MUCH longer than this one coming. Beta-ed by the ever-patient

clanne . The last scene was inspired by an AWESOME conversation with

shantirosa a while back about the potential for rune!porn on Merlin.

Five Names That Arthur Has Called Morgana

He’s four years old – and he can’t really manage her whole name. He tries – makes a valiant effort towards Morga…Mori… Mogan… but in the end can satisfy himself only with a simple Mog.

“Where’s Mog?” He asks, continuously, when she and her father are visiting.

He likes Mog. She always gets her own way.

He’s ten, and he long ago mastered her full name.

“Morganaaaaa…” he stomps and pouts and bunches his fists. “Father, she took my wooden sword!”

“I most certainly did not!” Morgana informs him, primly – all perfect braids and pretty dress and up-turned nose in the air.

“Liar!” Arthur cries, “liar, liar, liar!”

“Arthur, don’t call Morgana such a thing,” Uther does not look up from his meal.

“Liar!” Arthur insists, one last time.

Morgana only smiles, coldly, and tosses her hair.

Arthur folds his arms and huffs. He saw her take that wretched sword, as well – running off with it outside his rooms. But no one’s going to believe him.

He hates Morgana – she always gets her own way.

He’s fifteen, and Morgana has been away most of the year staying with cousins in her father’s land. Uther insisted that it would be good for her.

Arthur has, of course, to be there with his father to greet her when she returns, though he’s not particularly happy about it. He ought to be out on the practice field sparring with his friends – not standing around in the castle court yard all ponced up like a prat with his hair combed flat and his new boots all polished.

Except that something’s happened to her in the year that she’s been away – or maybe something’s happened to his eyes. But he can’t look away from her when she alights from her carriage, and she offers him what must be the same, vague smile of recognition she’s always offered him – and his stomach drops down to his toes.

“Sire,” she murmurs, when she takes his arm. “You’ve got taller.”

“My lady,” Arthur returns, trying not to puff up too much. “I think you’ve just shrunk.”

She laughs.

Her beauty doesn’t make her any easier to bear, though. She’s still high and mighty and stubborn and quarrelsome. And now she lets the men in Uther’s court fawn all over her like spaniels, pawing and drooling and panting. He’s certain she does it within his eyesight on purpose, as well.

He’s twenty, and he has far worse names to call her now than he did when he was a boy (not that she can’t be equally as foul-mouthed when no one but he can hear her). He tries not to, because it’s not proper – but there are days when his temper simply gets the better of him.

“Bitch!” He cries, harsh with anger – and bites back whore! on top of that.

And she slaps him hard enough to leave the bright red stain of her hand on his cheek for hours afterwards.

He breathes into her skin, slick with sweat and soft and pale against the furs on the bed; he is twenty five and king and away from Camelot and doing just exactly as he pleases for a night (for once).

Morgana laughs, low and warm, and lets him mouth his way up from her thigh, watching runes flickering in and out of existence on her skin at his touch – glowing and skittering as he chases them over her flesh.

“What are those?” He asks, softly, grazing his nose over one as it wriggles past and then fades – only to burst into brilliant existence again beneath his lips when he kisses one of her ribs.

“Magic,” Morgana tells him, luxuriously smug.

He finds another with his fingertips, tracing its glowing tendrils as it blooms over her heart. “They’re beautiful,” he tells her, meaning it.

She smiles, reaching round to idly stroke the back of his neck.

“Are you doing that or am I?” A great stream of them flare up under his hand as he runs it down her belly – his gaze is so gentle; the glow of the runes on her skin picks out the features on his face and makes him look like a child.

Morgana touches them too, shrugs, smiles. “A little of both.”

He sits up and kisses her. “Witch,” he calls her, without any malice at all, “sweet, beautiful witch.”