When the night falls

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

This hatred had been living in her for a long time. Morgana couldn't remember when she stopped feeling something warm to her guardian, but the last straw was the execution of Gwen's father, a poor smith, who had also been accused in sorcery. And although he was for sure innocent, and distempered by injustice Gwen cried and begged to have mercy for her father so, that even the stones would shed a tear, but the king, confident in his rightness, stayed unshakable.

Uther's cruelty just knocked Morgana off her feet. If there in her soul any love for this man still remained, in the day of execution all the rest of it was mercilessly trampled by a heavy foot. Blind by his thirst to eradicate any demonstrations of magic, the king was ready to sweep everything off his way and it was scary. Feeling that she could go mad, if she didn't confront him, Morgana challenged Uther. She told him everything she thought about his methods of ruling, about his relations with magic and about himself - and she ended up in a dungeon.

Not used to recalcitrance king raged like a stormy sea.

- Silly girl! Spend a night here and you'll think better! - he shouted, leaving her alone in a dark and damp cave. He might have waited for tears and words that could soften him, but Morgana proudly kept silence and just gave him looks, each of which could rival with any weapon by its wounding energy.

Perhaps, deep inside she still kept a naive belief in a final triumph of good. She hoped like a child that she was special for Uther and he loved her and couldn't treat her like the rest. He even treated his only son Arthur stricter and more severe than her. But she must have made him really angry by her recalcitrance. Or it was just her turn to feel all the dark power of his rage. Anyway, when the heavy iron-shod door was shut, giving Morgana to darkness and solitude, she was no longer a naive girl. That was the moment she lost her last illusion.

But Uther was wrong, thinking that the dungeon would make the girl change her mind. After a sleepless night, full of uneasy thinking and hard emotions, she leant by heart two things. First, Uther was ready to hurt any person close to him, even her. That is why she shouldn't hope for any indulgence from him.

And the second, to get what you need you don't have to go right through. Morgana had always been too open and honest and she spoke what she thought (and she was proud of it, but it often was an obstacle). Now time came to change her behavior and act cunningly. She tried that and soon she was aware, that her charming smile and humility were much stronger weapon then stubbornness and recalcitrance inherent to her character.

It was easy to get back her guardian's special treatment (an image of a sinner feeling sorry and a couple of phrases about how much wrong she was worked smoothly), but Morgana now lived only with hatred, overfilling her rebel heart. She craved after Uther to pay for all his atrocities and the final price had to be his life. But when the death penalty was made, something unexpected happened.

Together with the king she went to her father's grave and there Uther in an impulse of candor (that happened from time to time, when Morgana was around, and she was very much amazed) confessed, that he had felt sorry about Gwen's father execution. Morgana was so shocked, that she immediately helped their guard to find and stab the bandit, that she had hired to kill the king.

Analyzing everything later, she could not believe, that she was going to enjoy the king's death. It was very weird. No matter how strong her hatred to Uther was, how could Morgana, always supporting diplomatic and peaceful ways of solving any conflicts, go for a murder? She was shaken by a sheer thought about it. She couldn't even kill a cockroach!

Having pondered a little about it, she decided that some black sorcerer must have instilled her these thoughts. She was acting against her own will, but as if obeying someone's orders and only a miracle helped her not to make a fatal mistake, for which Morgana wouldn't forgive herself, she was sure. Anyway, he was the closest person to her, having replaced both her father and mother. And no matter, what hostile feelings she could have for Uther, she knew, that she would never be involved in his death...