Wondering...

[dk323]

I'm thinking of posting "The Heart of King Arthur" at the merlinxarthur comm, but I'm not 100% sure if it'll be all right...the fic does end with Merlin/Arthur...but to be on the safe side, I suppose I should ask a mod. I don't want to step on any toes...what with the Arthur/Morgana in there, but then there's the complicated one-sided Arthur --> Merlin thing...and Morgana is Merlin's daughter.

I'm thinking of a sequel (why is it already plotted out in my head! I should move on from this verse...*resigned sigh* :P) that should be shorter than "The Heart of King Arthur" since it'll deal with a shorter span of time. I debated going back into Merlin's past...when Kilgharrah first chose him, and then when he met up with Nimue several decades before he met Arthur. I was thinking that Viviane would be about 14-15 years older than Morgana as she's the Lady of the Lake by the time Arthur's 11 (so Viviane needs to be a little older)... so Merlin crosses paths with Nimue about 30 years before he encounters Arthur.

Therefore, Merlin and Nimue have Viviane about five years after they first meet (or reunite, maybe Merlin was aware of Nimue's presence since she was the daughter of old friends...but he just never actively sought her out). And that makes Viviane about 25-26 (Morgana's 11, so add 14-15 years to that) years old when Arthur is brought to Kilgharrah to be saved.

But the timing and figuring out the years for that gave me a headache, so I'm just going to focus on my present day idea. Anyway, I'm still uncertain how Merlin and Nimue's first meeting went...I don't know what'll work best, so best to leave that alone. I'd imagine Merlin would have been a bit stand-offish because he'd kept himself away from people, staying with his dragon mostly, by the time Nimue came knocking. He didn't want to deal with the chance of having another Confessor daughter, so the best solution was to stay away from women. Poor Merlin. :(

Anyway, my present day idea is shortly after where the story ends...with Arthur and Merlin in their reincarnated lives (for Merlin, his first reincarnation ever as he's just been immortal before). And Arthur finds out that well, Merlin has omitted some very important details about what has been happening in his reincarnated life. Then again, Richard and Kahlan haven't told Arthur either (because it might not seem like a super essential detail...and really, Arthur has enough things to deal with).

Since I don't know when or if I'll be writing this sequel (tentatively titled, "The Devil You Know") so I'll just say what it is here. By the time I get the fic written, whoever has read this entry will most likely have forgotten the details...

What Arthur finds out, to his surprise, is that Nimue is pregnant (she's Merlin's adoptive mother in Merlin's reincarnated life, BUT Merlin remembers his past immortal life where Nimue was his wife for centuries...sooo, it's rather awkward here. Also, Richard and Kahlan sometimes helped to take care of/babysit reincarnated!Merlin when he was younger (he only remembered his past life when he was 17). Kinda weird, to have your granddaughter/grandson-in-law looking after you when you're small (well, Merlin didn't have his previous life's memories when he was younger, but he still remembers the events of his current life when all his old memories return (at 17)...and well, Merlin has to adjust to the oddity of it all in some way). Talk about an off-kilter reincarnation :P).

So if Nimue is pregnant, guess who the father is? And guess who Arthur will most likely be glaring at in the story? But Merlin has a good reason for it... basically, Nimue is like a surrogate here because the baby is really for Richard and Kahlan to raise as their own (and for the child to be the next Lady of Avalon after Kahlan...so the child has to be a girl).

Since Kahlan can't have a child with Richard because of him getting Confessed if he sleeps with her...and also Kahlan didn't exactly want to choose another man to bed (even if he was "willing" to accept the price of it), Nimue and Merlin decided to step in... this way, the child will remain in the same bloodline and with Merlin's track record, the baby will most likely be a girl. And at least he has a 50/50 chance of producing a non-Confessor daughter, so there's that (since Kahlan, as a Confessor, will always give birth to a Confessor daughter).

Except there ends up being a tiny problem and something bad happens as a result (vague explanation is vague ;)). And also, I plan to have Arthur visit Avalon (for the first time), but it's not under the best circumstances. At least he gets to properly see the place though! ;)

The good news out of all this is that Nimue and Merlin do give birth to a daughter, who isn't a Confessor just a carrier, and so Richard and Kahlan raise her. They name the girl, Ella. She has red hair and blue eyes. Nimue's mother (Morgaine) had red hair, so that's where the red hair came from...

Other than that, I'm not sure which WIP fic to return to. I was thinking of finishing "To Think of the Children" because I do have a lot of the final chapter...the thing is I feel like I have even more to write. I sort of started writing more for my HP/Merlin crossover that suffers slow updates (someone on FFN PMed me (not review) but PM *facepalm* to update it). But I think I should work on a purely Merlin fic now... after "The Heart of King Arthur" being a crossover/fusion... I think I need a break from crossover fics, so finishing Think of the Children sounds like a good idea. I have some intense, emotional scenes still left to write for that story. But at least when I finish this chapter, I'll be done with the story. :) Yay.

Also, as you can see, I changed the leftside image on my journal... I love the new shot of Morgana with a dagger. And Arthur/Merlin/Morgana is my favorite trio of the show...pretty dark on the Merlin/Morgana side of things, but I love the three of them anyway because I can pair them any which way and I still like the pairing (Arthur/Merlin, Arthur/Morgana, Merlin/Morgana). Of course, the three of them together beats them all (even if Merlin and Morgana will spend most of their time giving each other suspicious "I'm on to yoooou" looks). And Arthur will remain a bit clueless..."Merlin, why does Morgana give you an evil look all the time?"

I can't believe my whizzbang is done...and I can't believe that I still feel the need to write more in that verse. Almost 40,000 words was not enough apparently. Oo