Twins Eyes // Merlin Fanfic

Seas of Red - Chapter 12

{Disclaimer: this is a fan fiction. Therefore, I have decided to change the original events of the story.}

"If we attack from the North, we can cut off their supplies," Arthur shot at his father, who was adamant on attacking from the East.

"This is not about cutting them off,  Arthur, this is about battle. Destroying them, down to the last man, woman and child."

Arthur was uncomfortable. He knew his father's approach to the situation was completely wrong.  He didn't fit in, not in this meeting of the King and his understudies. Much as he was the Prince, Arthur was born to be a righteous ruler. Not a ruthless one.

"But if we can cut them off and then attack from the East, they'll be weak-"

"No, Arthur! What have I brought you up to become? A King. A leader, in battle and in preparation. Not some unwilling boy with ideas of his own! I invited you to this meeting for you to learn, to gain experience; not to interrupt and put forward your childish schemes!"

Uther's bellowing silenced the large room, his harsh and - in Arthur's opinion - unnecessary words reverberating around the cold, stone walls. The echoes were eerie, and dared Arthur to ignore he words of steel and ice that his father had directed at him.

The Prince took a step back and nodded his head towards the floor. He managed to resist the fighting urge to spit at his father, answering back with the truth: he was of age - infact, past being of age - and consequently no longer a child, and his ideas were canny plots to cut the Saxons off, weaken them and then attack from the back, the South. However, his father's stubborn will which was, obviously always right, would not allow him to express what he though was right.

What was right.

Uther never bothered listening to anything Arthur had to say. Ever. His intricate plans were just 'childish schemes' to his father, his cunning ways to defeat enemies just 'ideas'. But, in every battle that Arthur had witnessed, every set of plans and maps to be locked away in a cupboard, his 'ideas' and 'schemes' would've worked out far more efficiently than the way his father went about it: brutally, mercilessly and stubbornly. Arthur just knew.

Alas, as only a Prince,  Arthur knew that the would have to wait until it was his own turn to rise to the throne, and take Camelot for his own. The only downfall would be that his ascension to power and kingship would come at the unfortunate demise and death of his own father.

There were times where he couldn't have wished more for it to come sooner.

And there were the times where he and his father got along together like a house on fire; laughing and joking and enjoying each others company whilst it lasted.

That was generally before Morgana left.

It affected Arthur more than anyone - himself included - could've expected, because he knew they weren't related. He knew about Gorlois, and deep down, it mattered. Because she wasn't a sister to Arthur.

He loved her more than that.

So, when her heart became bitter and distant, her eyes became bleak and her speech turned sour in the precious moments before she left, the Prince turned his head. She was now his enemy, and he could not change that.

He could not risk his kingdom, his life or his relationship with his father for her.

He would, but he could not.

Yet that was not all. He saw the gleam in the beryl of his man-servant's eyes. The way he would flinch when she ruffled her inky locks. How his eyes would wander from her floor to ceiling when she was wearing even the least daedal of dresses.