The morning after the battle dawned heavy with mist.
Morgan Pendragon stood alone at the edge of the camp, overlooking the field where so many lives had been spent like coin the night before.
Her robes were torn in places; streaks of dried blood marred her hands and sleeves — some hers, most not. The acrid tang of steel and magic still clung to the air.
Below, soldiers moved about quietly. Even the victors dared not speak too loudly, as if their voices might awaken some slumbering god of war and bring the slaughter anew.
And beside one smoldering fire near the center of camp, she saw him.
Jaune Arc.
He was seated on a low log, his left arm bandaged and pinned across his chest, his right hand clutching a steaming cup of broth.
He looked like hell.
And yet, he still somehow managed to smile faintly at one of the young village girls who passed by, carrying water.
That same smile that infuriated her sometimes.
And, to her irritation, comforted her just as often.
Morgan made her way down to him, her boots crunching softly in the frost-hardened grass.
Jaune noticed her as she approached and set his cup aside, trying to rise despite the pain that stiffened his limbs.
"Don't," she commanded lightly, pressing him back down with a hand on his good shoulder.
He obeyed without complaint, but his lopsided grin lingered.
"Morning, Your Highness," he said, the title teasing now.
She rolled her eyes and settled herself on the log beside him, resting her elbows on her knees.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
It was enough just to sit.
Just to breathe.
To not be queen or knight or heir or hero — just Morgan and Jaune, two weary souls sitting by a dying fire.
But Morgan, as ever, couldn't leave the silence alone for long.
"You nearly died," she murmured.
Jaune didn't flinch, just stared into the embers.
"Wouldn't be the first time," he said quietly.
Her jaw tightened at that — at his maddening tendency to throw himself into harm's way without a thought for himself.
She remembered the moment as if it were happening all over again: the way he'd stepped in front of her when that Saxon captain lunged, taking the blade meant for her with a roar of defiance.
She'd killed the captain moments later, but the sight of Jaune collapsing into the mud had frozen her blood.
Morgan's hands clenched in her lap now.
"You're an idiot," she said flatly.
Jaune chuckled softly.
"I've heard that before," he admitted.
"From me," she reminded him.
His grin grew wider despite himself.
"Mostly from you."
She shook her head and exhaled sharply, letting the chill air sting her lungs.
Then, to her own surprise, she heard herself say:
"I was afraid."
Jaune blinked at her.
"Afraid?"
"That you wouldn't get back up this time," she said, voice softer now.
That admission hung between them for a long while, unspoken yet understood.
"I promised you back then, didn't I?" he said at last.
She frowned slightly.
"Back when?"
He tilted his head back, eyes half-closed, as though trying to remember it himself.
"The night we left the castle," he murmured. "When you asked me if I even knew what I was getting into."
She remembered.
The dark woods.
The moonlight on his foolish, earnest face.
Her fingers curled tighter now.
"And you promised you'd stay," she finished for him.
Jaune's lips quirked.
"I did. And I will. Until you tell me to go."
She swallowed hard and looked away, hoping he couldn't see how her composure cracked just a little.
The day passed slowly after that.
Villagers came and went, offering thanks and tending to the wounded.
Morgan found herself watching him as he moved around the camp, despite his injuries, helping wherever he could.
She remembered another time — when he had insisted on carrying her supplies through the swamps near Gwynedd, stubbornly refusing her offer to levitate the packs with magic.
He'd slipped and fallen face-first in the mud, but he'd laughed even as she scolded him.
And she remembered the first time he killed, how his hands had shaken, how he couldn't look at her for hours afterward.
That night she'd sat next to him silently, letting him lean against her shoulder until his breathing steadied.
Now, watching him wrap a young soldier's arm with careful hands, she felt something shift inside her chest.
A hollow place she'd carried for so long — the place where duty and bitterness and ambition had lived — was filling with something she didn't quite understand.
Later, as the sky darkened and the campfire crackled once more, she found herself sitting beside him again.
Jaune leaned back against the log, his eyes half-closed but his mouth curved faintly in that infuriating smile.
Morgan stared into the flames, her own thoughts spiraling.
"You asked me once," she said quietly, "if I still wanted to be queen."
Jaune cracked an eye open to look at her.
"I remember."
"I still don't know," she admitted.
He regarded her silently for a moment, then asked:
"What would you have to give up to take the crown?"
She didn't answer at first.
But in her mind, the answer was clear:
You.
The thought startled her, and she buried it deep.
She was Morgan Pendragon — heir of Britain's will, daughter of Uther, student of Merlin.
She could not allow herself to be so weak.
And yet…
When he reached out — when his fingers brushed hers where they rested on her knee — she did not pull away.
The days that followed were quiet ones.
They rode to nearby villages, reassuring frightened folk that Britain still stood.
They helped repair broken walls and gathered the scattered dead for proper rites.
Everywhere they went, she saw the way people looked at him — at them — with a kind of quiet awe.
And every time, she felt her stomach twist with something between pride and jealousy.
One evening, after the work was done and the villagers had retired, she found him alone in the churchyard, leaning against the cold stone wall.
She approached softly, and when he didn't turn, she leaned beside him, looking up at the stars.
"You've changed," she said.
He glanced at her, bemused.
"Hopefully for the better."
She studied his face — the faint scar across his jaw, the stubborn gleam in his eyes.
"You're still an idiot," she said, but her tone was gentler now.
Jaune chuckled under his breath.
"I'll take it," he said.
In the quiet that followed, Morgan allowed herself to remember.
The girl she had been before he arrived — proud, cold, angry.
The nights she'd spent awake, resentful of Artoria, plotting how to take what she thought was hers.
The hollow victory she'd claimed on the battlefield.
And the farm boy who had stumbled into her life and — by sheer force of foolish kindness — taught her to see more than just the crown.
Finally, she spoke, her voice barely a whisper:
"If it came down to choosing between you and the throne…"
She hesitated, words catching in her throat.
Jaune waited patiently, as always.
"I don't know what I'd choose," she finished.
He smiled faintly, though his eyes softened with something she couldn't quite name.
"Then I guess we'll just have to make sure you never have to choose," he said simply.
The next morning, the first scouts returned with grim news:
Vortigern had regrouped.
Artoria's banners were sighted on the far hills.
The final reckoning was coming.
But for now — for just a little longer — Morgan allowed herself to sit with him in the dawn light, letting her hand rest lightly atop his, her heart caught between duty and desire.
And for the first time in her life, she dared to believe that perhaps she could have both.