#5x03 in the poetry scene cause he was sending a message to morgana' i would have gotten so damn mad

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

merlin ask: make a ridiculous AU right now

A ridiculous AU, off the top of my head? Okay.

It's a canon divergent AU for Coming of Arthur

Morgana had an inside man in Camelot: Leon

That whole "My loyalty is to the king and Prince Arthur. There is nothing you can do to change that," thing? And the smirk Leon gave Morgana afterwards? Yeah, that was all an elaborate plan to con Gwen, to gain her trust. Leon knew where Arthur was, sure, but Morgana wanted Gwen dead too, to ensure that prophecy would never come true. And Leon maintaining his loyalty and breaking out of Camelot with Gwen to find Arthur was the best way to ensure both of them died

After all, Leon was a skilled swordsman and a high ranking trusted knight. Merlin had no issues with him. A little regicide in the dead of night would be easy

And it was.

After all, no one expects a loyal knight to kill his prince. Even less do they expect a soldier to kill using poison.

And sure, maybe killing every last one of them could be seen as a bit much, but Leon wasn't an idiot. He saw what happened to people that underestimated Merlin. He wasn't going to make that same mistake.

He got "recaptured" by Morgana’s men and brought a sob story back of how the prince had been slaughtered by Morgana’s immortal soldiers.

With Uther’s public execution soon after, the people of Camelot had no choice, no hope. So they submitted to their queen.

Now, again, Leon wasn't an idiot. His loyalty to Arthur and Uther was well known. He couldn't just abandon that loyalty, even with them gone. So in the public eye, he was the begrudging advisor and first knight to Morgana. But behind closed doors, to Morgana and Morgause, he was a loyal ally.

Well. Here's the thing about that: you should never trust a double crosser

With the trust of the sisters, it wasn't hard to learn how the cup worked or that those with blood inside the cup were cursed a half life.

It certainly wasn't easy, getting Morgana and Morgause's blood without them noticing and getting it into the cup and correctly and covertly casting the spell to make them immortal. But Leon was patient.

After that, all he had to do was empty the cup of blood.

With Morgana gone, and his image of loyal knight of Camelot still in place with the people of Camelot, it was easy to claim the throne after that

#ask #anon #thank you for the ask! #liv answers #merlin #bbc merlin #morgana pendragon #sir leon #dark leon #i almost managed to make this not leon centric. almost. as you can see i ultimately failed #leon wins the game of thrones #au #ficlet #anon i highly doubt this is close to what you were expecting and im sorry for that #honestly? if they had pulled something like this in season 5 i would have lost my shit #like what if they were like 'oh yeah hes been morganas inside man since coming of arthur' and 'leon was lurking about the castle in #5x03 in the poetry scene cause he was sending a message to morgana' i would have gotten so damn mad