Golden Eyes in a Time of Hate

For a moment, Merlin saw Freya again. For a moment, she was still here. For the briefest of moments, he saw a great black cat flying his way.
Then he blinked, and he was standing in a hallway of Camelot castle, looking out over the courtyard. He blinked away tears, not wanting Arthur to see. Gaius would...understand--to a point. He hadn't lost the woman he loved. But Gauis had been around in the Great Purge, and had had his share of sorrow and more.
Then suddenly Merlin did see Freya. He blinked hard, and stared. But this woman didn't disappear. One of the guard was escorting a woman through the courtyard. A woman who wore a dress identical to Freya's, only dark blue...and ripped in the same manner.

"I have lost all my family, but one, and came seeking her. On my way I was...attacked..." the woman pulled her left sleeve--or a fragment of it--up, trying to cover the bandage roughly tied over her arm. Gaius looked sidelong at Merlin. Merlin knew he was thinking the same thing of the ripped dress. Was it possible this woman was also cursed?
"What is the name of the person you seek?" King Uther said, leaning forward in his high throne. The woman looked at the floor.
"Freya," she said in a small voice. Merlin gasped lightly, tears forming in his eyes again. He had known, somehow, that that would be the name the woman would say, but it didn't lessen the pain Freya's name brought him. Murmurs crossed the hall, and Uther leaned back.
"I see," he said shortly.
"She's dead," Merlin said.
"Merlin!" Gaius muttered. The woman turned to look at Merlin, her black hair, so like Freya's, sliding off her shoulder. Merlin felt the tears and fought to hold them in while all the court watched.
"She's dead," Merlin repeated. "She was cursed and she was...wounded while transformed, and she died." Merlin felt a tear slide down his fae, and he nearly slapped himself with the speed he wiped the tear away.
"Oh," she said, crying too.
"Would you care to explain better how you came to look..." Uther motioned vaguely with a gloved hand. "...like this?"
"I was attacked, my lord, in the forest. They said Freya had had magic, and I must have it too."
"Why would they think that?" Arthur asked, frowning. The woman's head moved slightly upwards, almost defensively.
"She's my sister."
"And do you have magic?" Uther asked, again leaning forward. She shook her head vehemently.
"No. I did not even know Freya had, until she...left...for the Druid's camp."
Uther made a disbelieving sound, looking away from her, before nodding and waving his hand again.
"Very well. What do you want, if anything?"
"Please, could I have work? Since my quest to find my sister has ended, and I have no home, I would like to be useful to Camelot."
"I'm sure we can find something."
"And possibly a doctor? My shoulder..."
"Yes, Gaius will attend you." Uther dismissed her with that, and she turned. Merlin moved forward with Gaius to take her to the physician's chambers.

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