Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

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Damp spring wind whistled past his ears as Bran ducked low under the tent flap into the night, wrapping his coarse homespun robe closer to him as he made for a small campfire. The druid enclave was settling in as best they could; they’d traveled through the day, and set up camp in a well-worn clearing deep in the forest long after the shadows had begun to stretch and linger. But there was a growing sense of wariness among the camp. Even those without magic were quiet and awkward, uneasy.

The birds had left.

Beyond the edges of the firelight, there came a growing rustling. Bran frowned, catching Nessa’s worried glance. A twig cracked underfoot as he crept forward, peering into the darkness. Behind him, the camp was hushed and silent. Listening.

Gathering his courage, Bran let his magic flow out around him, expecting to feel the rushing heartbeat of a fox, or the slinking coil of a snake. He shivered when, rather than the warm thrum of the forest, his magic brushed against a towering— something. Something very slick, and very cold. 

“Nessa,” Bran called back in a low voice. “Fetch an Elder. I can sense—”

There was a low skittering sound. Then, a sweep of shadow, and Bran was gone.

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Sionann hummed breathlessly to herself as she shoved her weight behind the over-full wheelbarrow, heaving it over the uneven road. It was getting late; the sun shone low at her back, and there was still a way to go before she returned to the village. At least the days were long and lengthening.

Nearly Midsummer, she thought to herself, and huffed the hair out of her face. She hoisted the wheelbarrow up the hill, pressing hard with her heels into the damp earth. The week’s rain had softened the road, and now the wheels carved deep ruts that quickly filled and flowed with water. 

Sionann spared a sigh for the state of her boots.

She stopped to catch her breath, leaning against a mossy stump as she gazed down on the little village, delicately painted in soft lavender under the shadow of the hill. From this vantage point, she could see the rich blue of the evening sky stretching over the border, cresting over the hills that rolled Camelot into Mercia. In a few months, the inky expanse would brush a wash of tiny pink and white flowers, and the blooming heather would flow like the sea.

Contented, Sionann glanced back the way she’d come— and stopped short.

Since she’d last looked, the western light had gone all… funny. Dim, in a way that had nothing to do with the setting sun, and buzzing faintly in a way that brought to mind a swarm of wasps, a thousand minds moving with one malicious fury. The horizon was tinged with rust, the air wavering with— what, she didn’t know. But it wasn’t heat.

Sionann wedged her wheelbarrow between the tree stump and a particularly sturdy shrub, and stamped over the muddy road. Eyes narrowed, she squatted down and plucked a bright sprig of heather, rolling it between her fingers.

It disintegrated. Soot stained her fingers.

Sionann shot back up, eyes darting over the way she’d come. The path loomed empty. Goosebumps prickled her arms.

“Canfod drwg a da,” she muttered under her breath, and magic whispered, faint as moonlight on a sunlit day. Sionann looked back over the crest of the muddy hill again, and gasped.

Where before there had only been an odd distortion of light, there now lay a heavy, grey haze. It curled firmly over the hill, dripping down over the hardy shrubs and oozing into the wet soil; it roiled like fog, low and thick over the ground, billowing closer and closer. The air tasted of ash, and of ice. The buzzing was growing louder.

She turned and flung herself down the path, abandoning the wheelbarrow in her haste. Heart pounding, she pelted down the hill, through the paddock, past the little barn, and wrenched herself into the inn, slamming the door shut behind her. There was a shocked clatter of bowls and tankards as patrons turned to gawk at her desperate entrance. 

Imposing as ever, Alfreda Richardson rounded the bar, a quivering mountain of indignation in a beer-stained apron. “And who do you think you are, young miss,” she snapped. “Slamming my doors, as if this isn’t—”

“Something bad,” Sionann panted, back flush to the door, “Something— evil— on the barrow. Something— coming. Must warn— warn—”

She doubled over, coughing so hard it stung her nose and eyes. Helpless to it, Sionann coughed until she wretched, her knees buckling. The answering commotion was thunderous, chairs scraping and voices raised; within it, a sharp curse and the sounds of quick feet, then sure hands braced and steadying against her shoulders. Throat burning, Sionann wiped at her mouth with her sleeve. It came away black as coal.

Someone gasped. Alfreda's hands tightened on Sionann. 

“Right. Off to bed.”

“But—”

“No buts. I’ve sent a runner to warn the lot of the village. You’re going straight to bed and I don’t want to see you stir til morning. You’ve had a shock and you’ll sleep about it. Come,” said Alfreda briskly. “My Tom’ll find you a bed by the fire, and you’ll take it and rest.”

Sionann let herself be bundled off. Vaguely, she was aware of a warning cry going up outside the inn, of the clatter of many bodies running, of window shutters and deadbolts. In the low grate, the fire popped and hissed. Shivering, Sionann clutched the blanket round her. Muffled in the thick wool, she whispered every prayer she could muster.

Mother, Maiden, and Crone— protect us.

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High and keening, the baby’s wail pierced the night. Rosaline was sitting up before she even knew she was awake, clambering out of her bedroll and scooping little Owen up out of the crib. Beside him, Ellen groaned, rubbing at her eyes. 

“Wha’s happ’ning?”

“Little man’s hungry, I think,” whispered Rosaline, tucking a pillow behind Ellen’s back as she shoved herself up, slumping forward.

“Isn’t he always,” Ellen sighed, taking her baby into her arms and kissing his red, bawling face. “C’mere, darling, I’m here,” she cooed, and guided him to her chest. At this, he quieted, content in his mother’s arms.

Rosaline stretched, rolling her neck as she rummaged through her knapsack. She dressed quietly, methodically, slipping her lightest dress on over her shift, though she left the padded wool bracer tucked in its place inside the knapsack for the moment. Shoving socked feet into boots worn to softness, Rosaline glanced over at the other inhabitants of the small cottage, relieved to see Ellen’s mother and little sister still sleeping while Ellen hummed tunelessly, barely awake as the baby fed. Ducking her head to hide her eyes, Rosaline sent a pulse of magic through her fingertips, recharging the runes hidden throughout the stitching of her clothes and bag. Baby spit was tedious to launder, day in and day out; might as well get ahead of things.

Owen gurgled loudly, announcing the end of his meal and wrinkling his nose as though considering crying again, so Rosaline knelt, and Ellen pressed another kiss to Owen's face before passing him over and folding herself back into bed. 

“Rest,” Rosaline murmured to Ellen, cradling Owen's downy head to her shoulder as she rooted around in the dark for a burping cloth. Ellen blinked up at her, and she shook her head. “Let me do my job, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough as it is.”

“Y’re not in my hair,” Ellen sighed, wriggling until the quilt covered her nose; Rosaline smothered a laugh.

“You are,” grumbled a sleepy, disgruntled voice in from the other end of the dark room. “Would turn you over if I’d any proof— like as not, you’ll poison us all. Witch.”

“Mama,” hissed Ellen. Her mother groaned and rolled over, and Ellen stared up at Rosaline in horror, suddenly wide awake. “I— I’m sorry, she— I wouldn’t—”

“It’s fine,” Rosaline said softly. “Go back to sleep.”

She slipped out the door, easing it shut on Ellen's guilty expression. Rubbing firm circles over the baby's back in the cool night air, Rosaline turned to face the sleepy village. The year had already tipped on its fulcrum, and morning had just begun to take its time in coming. The sky above them was still ink-dark and shining, but its thick spill of stars was beginning to fade in the east. Owen gurgled and cooed as Rosaline held him close, bouncing gently as she paced. 

Ellen hadn’t meant any harm by it, Rosaline knew. Of course, Ellen’s mother had, but Briallen was a mean old bat who had been barely tolerating Rosaline’s presence for a number of weeks; if she were going to turn Rosaline over to an angry mob, she would probably have done so by now.

Besides, Rosaline wasn’t much of a witch, anyway. She'd probably be quite anticlimactic to burn. Most people were.

Rosaline leaned against the garden wall, well-burped baby cradled warm in her arms as the stars began, just slightly, to fade. Faces tipped to the sky, they watched as the first rays of dawn light slowly crept over the low, thatched roofs to catch in dew-brushed grass and fresh bales of hay. Absentmindedly, she stroked Owen’s downy head, kissed it, and ducked back into the cottage.

Hours later, as the village bustled with preparations for the week’s livestock market, the young midwife slung her bow on her back, laced on her quilted bracer, and strode to the woods, returning greetings as she made for the privacy of the wood-line as quickly as she could.

It had taken some time (it always did), but they’d come to accept her oddity with a grace not uncommon along Camelot’s western border. Soon, perhaps, she’d head for south to Gawant, or cross Dyfed and board a ship to the Western Isles again; it didn’t do to stay long enough for rumors, though few villages would turn down a helping hand now that harvest time loomed its golden head. The bow was another boon— the fruits of a modest hunt were a peace offering even Briallen would accept.

She made it past the last row of freshly coppiced trees that marked the edge of the village, and entered the woods. Almost immediately, Rosaline felt her shoulders slump as the dense, curving trees closed behind her, muffling the hubbub of the midday crowd. There were some elements of witchery she felt down to her boots, and a firm distrust of crowds was one of them. Finally, she thought, gazing around at the woods, listening for the little skittering sounds of life and death in lilting balance, I’m back in proper company.

Lush and fragrant, wild lilies swayed beneath the verdant canopy. Clover dotted the forest floor between graceful tulip stalks, bobbing with bright flowers that held the morning light close in cupped petals. Midsummer rains had fed the trees well, and their boughs hung heavy with shining leaves of emerald, jade, and peridot.

Through it all hummed magic, deep and familiar.

In the safety of the trees, after long weeks of unyielding poise under Briallen’s hawkish eye, weeks of gently dodging questions from Ellen’s little sister, Rosaline finally allowed her own magic to unfurl. Water-bright, it slipped past her carefully constructed shields to dance over knotted branches alongside the golden sunlight, joining in the susurrus of living power.

“Thank fuck,” Rosaline mumbled to herself, and hiked deeper in to check her traps.

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The traps were all empty. Every one.

“Not natural,” Rosaline muttered to herself as she slung her way down a gnarled oak, skirts hitched high out of the way. “Set too bloody many to catch nothing—”

Twoee. Twoeet-twoee.

She fell silent. Deep in the magic of the greenwood, a whisper of light curled up the tree.

Twooeet. Twoeet-woeet. Twoee-twoee-woeet.

Rosaline pulled herself back up towards the call. She climbed, clambering past her trap and still further, until there were no more branches that would bear her weight. Carefully, Rosaline wrapped a leg around the thickest branch available, and leaned until she could just reach a small, sunken hollow. Within it sat a tiny fledgling, nestled in the shade of the oak’s leaves and calling out plaintively. It rustled with agitation as she approached, but did not take flight; one delicate brown wing lay open at an unnatural angle.

“Gently now, come on,” Rosaline whispered, reaching slowly for the little bird. It shrunk away, but she caught it and cradled it carefully in her palms. “I’ll not lie to you, love; it’ll hurt. But it won’t heal otherwise,” she murmured, and winced sympathetically as she set the broken wing, gently as she could. The fledgling cried and rustled, but Rosaline quickly let her magic wash over and through it, soothing the pain and bolstering the tiny body’s own energies— with a careful eye for tuning and a careful ear for balance.

At last, the little bird calmed.

It hopped out of her hands, tentatively flexing its wing. Then it chirped, let loose a trilling cry, and swooped off into the sun-warmed air.

Rosaline smiled.

She let her eyes flutter closed and sunk back into the firm cradle of the oak. Her magic and the magic of the wood mingled and blended until the borders between them were hazy, immaterial. Lazily, she nudged at a bramble until it stopped choking a neighboring sapling, then whispered the sapling’s roots out to a firmer foundation. A badger snuffled a meandering path through the undergrowth, and the blackberry bramble hummed, thorny leaves rustling. High above the canopy and a long way off, a hawk circled— once, twice— then dove.

Rosaline slipped down from the tree, took her bow and quiver back up from where they’d sat nestled in the oak’s roots, and began wending her way deeper into the forest.

The summer breeze was warm and gentle. It brushed softly past her ears and rustled through her layers, thin as they were for the warm weather. Rosaline hummed to herself as she pushed through the brush toward the river, and almost laughed to see the clear water dancing in the riverbed; it glittered jewel-like in the sunlight, and with her Sight, Rosaline could see Vilia leaping and dancing in the rushing current. She smiled at them, kneeling to splash the sparkling water on her face and hands, and over the back of her neck.

A scream shattered the quiet.

Rosaline bolted.

She was back in the brush in seconds, following the flow of the river toward the cry, boots flying over the earth as she slipped her bow off her shoulder and readied an arrow. Gruff voices rang out, jeering and yelling, and she slowed, softening her footfalls until they were near silent. The voices were growing louder, and Rosaline ducked low behind a hedge. Carefully, she peered through to the glade beyond, and felt her stomach twist with dread.

Maisie, Ellen’s little sister, clung to the thin trunk of a birch tree— just out of reach of a band of bandits. Nine men jostled and argued at the tree base, armed to the teeth.

One of them carried a large, burlap sack. 

Above all of this, looming above the riverbank, was a roiling mass of magic— more powerful than anything Rosaline had ever felt in her life. The murky cloud twisted and warped, billowing malice, coiled tight and ready to spring; it hung heavy over the glade like smoke, and where the trees touched it, they withered. Beneath it, the bandits shifted a little, sending up little uneasy glances even as they kept their attention on their quarry.

Ducking back down, Rosaline thought quickly, trying to steady her pounding heart. In the forest, healing came like breathing, but she had always been far more skilled at abjuration than offensive magic, and her training had been the kind of practical, down-to-earth, ‘don’t be stupid, don’t be prideful, and for Goddess’ sake, don’t get yourself noticed’ kind of education witches favored— and even that had been cut prematurely short. If it were only the bandits, she could lead them away with the help of the woods, but this magical presence was something else entirely— it emanated unbridled malice, acrid with the stench of death and...

Licorice root? 

She was low on arrows, not at all proficient in battle magic, outnumbered, and wildly outmatched. But running was not an option.

Keeping close to the ground, Rosaline eased her way back from the hedge. She tossed a pebble against a far tree, holding her breath as it landed with a soft thunk. One of the bandits huffed, and tramped off in the direction of the noise. As soon as he left the glade, Rosaline pulled the plush, damp silence of the moss up into a broad, cushioning bubble, nocked an arrow, and dropped him in an instant.

One down, eight to go.

“Where’s that idiot got off to now?” grumbled another bandit, looking about for his fellow, and he too stalked out of the glade. Rosaline slunk down into the bracken as he passed her, tucked just barely out of sight, and nocked another arrow. She waited, bow light and steady in her hand, until the bandit had almost reached his companion, then dropped him just as he turned to yell a warning. He too fell into the bubble of mossy silence, and made no sound.

Two down.

She glanced back at the glade.

Maisie was still out of reach, sobbing as she clutched the birch, pale hair mussed and falling across her terrified face. She’d been lucky to find a tree whose lower branches could not support the men’s weight, but they would find a way up sooner or later, even if she managed not to fall. 

Rosaline’s eyes darted between the bandits and the cloud of magic. She had spent enough time with other mages to know with certainty that the caster was not among the bandits (there were none of the signs, even accepting that almost no one wore identifying garments anymore for fear of angry mobs), but try as she might, she could not see the caster anywhere.

Rosaline took a deep, steadying breath, and remembered her lessons. She leaned out of herself, into the magic of the forest, and Listened.

She trembled with horror. Even the trees could not say where the caster was— not because the mage stood at a distance or well-disguised, but because the trees felt them everywhere, permeating through wind and water like oil.

Like disease.

Rosaline shoved down her dread and focused on her fear, allowing it to quicken her senses and sharpen her mind. She dropped her concentration on the silencing spell, and sent a curl of magic into the undergrowth, circling the glade until it reached a bandit who had circled the birch tree and was making to climb. A tendril of ivy came away in his hand and the vine lashed out, bursting into animation with strangling accuracy. All the bandits yelled, and another arrow hit its mark as the men dove for cover.

High among the branches, Maisie trembled with shock.

Three down, six left, one of them pinned. Bloody gigantic evil cloud with an invisible, imperceptible caster.

Rosaline looked down at her quiver, and swallowed. One arrow.

Catching sight of a bandit’s arm peeking out from behind a boulder, she sent a bolt of powerful tracking magic straight for him, hoping to negate his cover— but the instant it touched the metal of his armor, the spell dissipated like mist in the sun. 

Rosaline stared. Silent and slow, she crept through the bracken to the bodies of the fallen bandits, and reached for one of their swords. Instantly, she was overcome with freezing pain, agonizing in its immediacy, terrifying in its depth.

She snatched her hand away in dizzy shock.

Cold iron.

What kind of bandits wore cold iron?

Rosaline heaved herself into a looming yew, climbing swiftly until she was perched high above the glade, higher even than the cloud of dark magic. From this vantage, she could see the bandits crouched behind their boulders, and she shifted until she found a clear line of sight, then nocked her last arrow. She exhaled, deadly calm, and the final arrow struck true.

A cry went up. Five bandits remained. The cloud of dark magic remained untouched. Storm clouds began to roil up over the glade, flattening the light and sending it skittering for warmer pastures.

Panic bled into her adrenaline. 

Silently, Rosaline eased herself down onto a branch above Maisie’s head. She sent a flicker of magic curling down, just enough to catch Maisie’s attention but (hopefully, fucking hopefully) not enough to alert the invisible mage.

Maisie looked up, and stifled a gasp.

As clearly as she could, Rosaline mouthed, “Higher.”

Blank with terror, Maisie nodded and began to climb.

Rosaline watched the bandits with baited breath; they had fanned out, hunting, the swarm above them seething. Heart in her throat, Rosaline sent out a sharp burst of magic into the thicket across the clearing from her hiding place. It was only a cantrip, but the rustle caused by the spontaneously flowering bush drew the bandits’ attention, and they redoubled their search in the wrong direction.

Thank the Goddess for small mercies.

Maisie reached Rosaline’s perch, and Rosaline helped her to clamber around the trunk out of sight of the glade. Rosaline gripped Maisie’s arm. “Listen to me very carefully,” she whispered, putting as much steel into her voice as she could. “You’re a brave girl. You’re going to keep your head. Yes?”

Maisie nodded, blue eyes wide and swimming with tears.

“Good. Now, you’ve seen me take good care of your sister and your little nephew these last weeks. Do you trust me?”

Another nod. Rosaline breathed.

“Thank you for trusting me,” she whispered. “I’m going to help you escape. You’re going to climb to that tree right there, and then to the next one. You’re going to keep going, tree to tree, until you can see your cottage, and then you’re going to find an adult and tell them what happened. You’re not going to look back. The trees will help you, but you have to let them. Do you understand?”

Maisie’s lip wobbled. “I understand,” she whispered.

Rosaline squeezed her hand. “Good. There’s not a moment to lose. Trust yourself. Go.”

Eyes shining, Maisie began to climb— carefully, so carefully— to the next tree, an ancient oak whose broad boughs blocked the girl from sight almost immediately. Rosaline held her breath until Maisie came back into view— now scrambling through thickly gnarled branches, and Rosaline pressed her palm into the birch tree’s trunk, grounding her panic in the smooth scrape of bark.

She sent a stream of magic down, down through the water of the root network, and pleaded.

<Please get her home safe. Please get her home.>

Deep, deep in the rich thrum of the woods’ magic, ancient as morning and fresh as dew, came an answering rumble.

<Yes, Sentinel.>

For an instant, Rosaline’s vision blurred green, gold, and she was there in the creaking dance of roots beneath the path back to the village, and there in the star-bright rush of the river.

Good. The trees were charting the way, and the Vilia were spreading the word. 

High in her perch above the clearing, Rosaline looked to where Maisie was gingerly clambering around a neighboring beech. Her triumph stuttered. The girl may have grown up at the edge of the forest, but she was no ranger. She would be spotted the moment her footing slipped, unless something pulled focus, kept the bandits from looking up for their quarry. Unless someone engaged that seething mass of hateful, rage-filled magic. 

Rosaline rolled her shoulders, unstrung her bow, and dropped smoothly into the clearing.

Five heads snapped to her. Weapons glittered in the last remnants of the shrouded sun. Looming above, the wrath-like darkness swirled and snapped, sending wracking shivers through the treetops. Where the bitter coil of magic brushed the lush ground, the clover shriveled.

As the bandits gave each other knowing and rather unpleasant grins, Rosaline tried to remember what exactly it was old Alice had used to say. It changed between tellings, but usually went something like, ‘There is always hope, you silly girl, so long as you believe in it with enough fury. Now, mind the washing doesn’t sit about, and don’t let me catch you neglecting the goats.’

Rosaline drew her hunting knife with grim purpose. She was— if not a proper witch, then at least the closest thing present. The druids trusted her, the wood needed a sentinel, and she knew her duty— and that was at least half of witching, anyway.

With no small amount of dread, Rosaline faced the bandits and the eldritch smog of hatred, and braced herself.

And then all hell broke loose.

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Chapter Text

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Rainwater streamed into Lancelot’s boots, icy and incessant. It sloshed into the small glacial pond that had been accumulating there over the last hour and twenty-three minutes. Not that he was counting.

Lancelot suppressed a sigh. He had not exactly missed the truer details of life on the road.

It is an honor to be trusted with diplomatic duty, he reminded himself, not for the first time that day.

After the… unsavory debacle with the erstwhile queen (Lancelot would never, ever forget the smell of troll, not as long as he lived, particularly as it insisted on lingering maliciously in the council chambers, no matter how violently the maids scrubbed), the king had conceded to Arthur that perhaps a few more knights (even untraditional knights) wouldn’t go amiss— under the circumstances.

Uther had been grey with uncharacteristic embarrassment, but they had been knighted nonetheless in a very (very) ((very)) small ceremony. Geoffery’s reedy voice had echoed in the cavernous hall as Arthur and Leon stood at attention, Morgana and Gaius bore witness, Gwen and Merlin beamed with pride, and absolutely no one else watched from the sidelines. Uther had intoned the words with the obligate solemnity, and staunchly refused eye-contact with any of them— especially Gwaine.

Later, Merlin had admitted to Lancelot, apologetic to the point of figeting, that Arthur had argued for their promotion by convincing Uther that it would indebt the common-born knights to him, and buy dependent loyalty. Merlin had been white with shame when he confessed that, in fact, this argument had been his idea.

Lancelot had been quite surprised to find he didn’t mind. Not one bit.

Knighted, he could see Gwen nearly every day, and help Merlin not to run himself directly into and through the ground (however cheerfully he tried). Arthur had placed his trust in him, and Lancelot had stumbled into comradery with Percival, Elyan, Gwaine, and even Leon faster than he could possibly have hoped. He was honoring his family’s memory. He didn’t need Uther to like him.

Besides, being trusted to deliver letters to the king’s brother-in-law really was an honor… even if that honor had been bestowed to get the common-born knights well out of sight of guests during the Samhain festivities.

Rain poured down in an unrelenting, miserable torrent, pounding the dirt road into thick, sucking mud. The lines of the forest fell away on all sides, scrubbed clean of themselves, and autumn’s brilliant finery blurred together into a streaming mass of gray. On horseback beside him, Elyan and Gwaine held their shoulders high against their necks, though Lancelot knew just as much of the deluge must have run down into their tunics as it had his. At least they were back in plain clothes; wet chainmail kept a body very, very cold.

“D’y’think our Percival is nice and dry tonight?” shouted Gwaine over the downpour.

“Percy’s no fool,” yelled Elyan. “Bet you a silver mark he’s all bundled up by a roaring fire.”

Gwaine spat a lock of sopping wet hair out of his mouth. “Lucky bastard.”

“Buck up, Gwaine,” shouted Lancelot, clapping Gwaine on the shoulder and inadvertently spraying himself with water. It wasn’t as if he could get any wetter, anyway. “There’ll be an inn any minute, you know how this goes.”

“That I do— Princess in his lovely tower, Percy warm in the duke’s guest chambers, and us sprouting gills and flapping our charming little fins all the way home.”

Lancelot snorted. “I can see the inn, Gwaine. Your gills may have to wait.”

Gwaine shook his head like a dog, flinging water everywhere. “Pity. I’d make an excellent fish.”

«···◊·◊·◊···»

“So,” Gwaine said as soon as they’d ridden out of the deafening rain and into a stable that smelled securely of horse, leather, and rather moist hay. “Drinks tonight?”

Elyan’s head snapped up. He looked to Lancelot with wide, imploring eyes.

“Yes, alright,” Lancelot sighed, dismounting and beginning the hopeless process of wringing out his sopping cloak.

Gwaine whooped, and Elyan clapped all three sets of reins into his hands. “You can manage these, then, since we’ll be managing you all evening,” he said magnanimously.

“It’s not like that anymore, and you know it,” Gwaine said, pouting a little.

“As always, my friend, you must prove it one more time,” Elyan teased.

Lancelot shook his head as Gwaine floundered for a retort, Elyan continuing to needle him. He gave his cloak another futile twist and swung the blasted thing back on with his saddlebag tucked beneath his arm, stepping back into the rain and leaving them to their bickering.

The inn was warm and dark, bustling with merry laughter and butter-golden candlelight as Lancelot squelched his way to the bar. Behind it stood a stout woman with a ruddy face and iron grey hair, cleaning a rather misty glass in the traditional fashion, and surveying her realm with satisfaction.

Lancelot pushed his hair off his forehead, and hoped he didn’t look too hopelessly bedraggled. “Good evening, madame,” he said pleasantly. “Food, drink, and beds for three, please. Just the one night.”

The innkeeper gave him an appraising look, which Lancelot met with a friendly smile. Despite his best efforts, he remained horribly aware that he was dripping rainwater all over the bar-top.

“Hot water’s extra,” the innkeeper said at last. “Too many stairs to contend with for these old bones.”

“My friends and I would be happy to lend a hand,” Lancelot said warmly, setting down five silver marks.

A smile crept over her round face. “Bless you, love,” she said, approvingly, and pocketed the coins. “There’s a table by the fire still open.”

“Thank you, my lady,” said Lancelot, and meant it with every damp particle of himself.

“‘My lady,’ he says,” the innkeeper laughed, ducking her head. “Go on, then, food and drinks will be ready in a minute.”

Nodding to her, Lancelot made his way through the crowded room to a low table. As promised, it stood beside a roaring fire, and Lancelot leaned into its warmth gratefully, peeling off his cloak and coat and slinging them over the end of the bench to dry a little. His shirt was already starting to steam slightly.

His boots still sloshed. He ought to have emptied them in the stable.

“God, I’m soaked,” groaned Gwaine, flinging his jacket down with a wet thwack. “Here I thought these days were behind me. Please say there’s food.”

“Yes, yes, there’s food,” sighed the innkeeper, pushing past him to set down a large tray, heavily laden with fragrant bowls of stew and tankards of golden ale.

Gwaine beamed at her. “You,” he said, earnest as anything, “are the loveliest creature in all the land.”

“Come off it,” she said, suddenly very pink. “Cheeky, you are.”

“I speak only the truth,” said Gwaine, bending to kiss her rough hand. “Thank you for your very kind hospitality, my lady.”

“My word,” she murmured, and, blushing all over her broad, shining face, she bobbed a quick curtsy before making her way to the kitchen, glancing back over her shoulder with sheepish delight.

Lancelot shook his head. Gwaine tended to have that effect on people. He charmed exquisitely— sometimes all the better when he wasn’t trying to, and often without noticing. On occasion, this meant Gwaine crashed himself into the kind of spectacle Lancelot would rather not witness, not unless Merlin was there to help get the bar-fight started and the whole thing over with.

“Marvelous woman,” sighed Gwaine, gazing down at his stew.

“Of course she is,” said Elyan, slinging himself down next to Gwaine. “She’s fed you.”

“No small matter,” warned Gwaine, brandishing a spoon at him. He turned back to the bowl with single-minded attention. “Why’s Percy get to be off on at some fancy house, anyway?” Gwaine asked, around a mouthful of food.

“Percy was a farmer before he was a carpenter,” Lancelot repeated. “He’s the best one of us to renegotiate a grain deal.”

“And we lived on the road far longer than he did,” added Elyan. “We blend in.”

Lancelot raised an eyebrow, and exchanged knowing looks with Gwaine, who teased, “Do we now, city boy?”

Elyan sat bolt upright. “I left home at seventeen! I lived on the road!”

“Oh yes, I’ve heard the tales of your madcap gallivant—”

“Gallivant!?”

“You lack the romantic melancholy of a true vagrant, Elyan,” joked Lancelot quietly, bumping his shoulder against Gwaine’s. “Take our friend here— he’s got romantic melancholy stamped all over him.”

“It’s called style,” sniffed Gwaine, shaking out his hair, which had been unfairly undeterred by the rain.

“It’s called something, alright,” grumbled Elyan.

“Perhaps it’s his socks that make him melancholic…”

“They aren’t that bad anymore!”

“Gwaine, they’re awful,” Lancelot said, a small smile playing at his lips. Gwaine was so easy to rile— almost as easy as Arthur, though he rolled with jests more lightly than the prince. “I nearly booked a second room just for them.”

“Traitors,” grumbled Gwaine. “Absolutely no loyalty among my sworn and bosom friends.”

“I’ll drink to that,” laughed Elyan.

The food was hearty and the ale was smooth, and soon all three men sat slumped by the fire, contentedly warm. The drinks were good, though not terribly strong, and Lancelot felt himself soften more from the heat of the fire and the presence of his companions than anything else.

Outside the shuttered windows, the rain poured on.

“So, Lancelot,” announced Elyan when his bowl was clean, elbowing Gwaine with good-humor as the other man scraped his bowl with a crust of bread and honed determination, “you’re looking pensive tonight. Tell us, have you got any hidden depths?”

“What,” said Lancelot, with great feeling, “on earth can you mean?”

“Course he hasn’t,” sighed Gwaine, leaning into Elyan’s side wistfully (so as to more easily poach Elyan’s last lonesome piece of cheese). “He wears his whole heart on his sleeve, our Lancelot does.”

“On my sister’s sleeve, I think you mean,” corrected Elyan, slapping Gwaine’s hand away.

“And what a pretty favor it makes, too,” Gwaine cooed, now eyeing Lancelot’s plate sidelong.

“Must we?” groaned Lancelot, fighting back his blush with every ounce of his being and pulling his plate closer for its own protection.

“Oh, alright,” laughed Gwaine, slumping back in cheerful defeat. “What about me, then, Elyan? Aren’t you the least bit curious about my hidden depths?”

“You haven’t got any depths at all,” scoffed Elyan.

“I have!”

Lancelot snorted.

“I have!” cried Gwaine, affronted into good posture for the first time that night. “I’ve plenty of stories you lot haven’t heard yet.”

“He’s just fishing now,” Elyan teased.

“If Percy were here, he’d bite,” Gwaine said darkly.

Elyan leaned close to Lancelot, the better to whisper conspiratorially. “Now he’s going to tell us some nonsense about his secret life as a sailor,” he said, loud enough to reach Gwaine’s ears.

“Perhaps a painter,” offered Lancelot, delighting in Gwaine’s huff of indignation.

“A clown, more likely,” Elyan hummed.

Faintly, into his tankard and avoiding their eyes, Gwaine muttered, “Close.”

Lancelot blinked.

“Come off it,” laughed Elyan. “What would you do in a circus?”

Gwaine shrugged, a little self-consciously. “Knife juggling, mainly.”

Elyan gaped. He leaned back over to Lancelot, keeping one eye firmly on Gwaine, and asked, “Do you believe him?”

Lancelot watched Gwaine closely. Against all likelihood, beneath the cheerful surface of Gwaine’s expression— nothing so disingenuous as a veneer, per se, but perhaps several layers of multicolored gauze scarves that blurred and distorted whatever lay beneath— he seemed to be telling the absolute truth.

Gwaine noticed his searching gaze, and met it with great dignity. Then he waggled his eyebrows and popped a pilfered piece of cheese into his mouth.

“You know,” Lancelot began slowly, “I actually think I do.”

“Interesting,” murmured Elyan. He leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest and leveling Gwaine with a playfully stern look. “How’d you end up in the circus, then?”

Gwaine’s grin was very sharp. “Same way everyone does. Ran away from home.”

Lancelot nodded. He’d very nearly ended up in the circus himself, but had managed to find an apprenticeship to a mildly honorable sword-smith and committed to it with all his might.

Elyan, however, had grown up in a mostly intact, very kind family. “Huh,” he said, sitting up. “How old were you?”

“Dunno. Thirteen, I think. Maybe twelve. They started me mucking out stalls, but, well… I’m good with my hands.” Gwaine smirked.

Lancelot closed his eyes. Gwaine laughed and kicked him lightly beneath the table.

“It was knife tricks soon enough, and I helped with the fire juggling and arch—” Gwaine cleared his throat. “Anyway, I stayed until I turned nineteen.”

“Why did you leave?” asked Lancelot, curious. His curiosity melted to worry as he watched Gwaine’s smile flicker and slip away into exactly the kind of melancholy Lancelot had jokingly accused him of, only tinged with true, cultivated remorse.

Lancelot exchanged a nervous glance with Elyan. This wasn’t completely new territory— they’d known each other almost two years now, and though the knighthoods were new, the foundations of their friendship were not. They’d seen each other through nightmares and doubts and drink more than once— but it was still a tricky business. With Gwaine, it was even trickier.

“Why does anyone do anything at nineteen?” Gwaine muttered, glaring mournfully into his tankard.

“A woman?” guessed Elyan.

“Adolescent insanity,” offered Lancelot.

“Slàinte,” said Gwaine, and downed the last of his ale.

“Here’s for you, love,” said the innkeeper, setting another tankard down in front of Lancelot. “From the pretty lady by the door.”

“Oh,” started Lancelot uncomfortably, “thank you, but I couldn’t—”

“You’re too kind, my lady,” winked Gwaine with startling brightness, and the innkeeper chucked his chin as she left.

Lancelot blinked at him. Gwaine had been on the verge of tears a moment before, Lancelot could have sworn it.

The other man shrugged. “I’ll drink it if you won’t,” Gwaine said, seemingly unfazed by the way Lancelot was staring.

“Yes, alright,” Lancelot sighed, sliding the tankard over to him.

“I don’t think I see a lady by the door,” said Elyan, peering through the crowd.

Gwaine took a swig, made a face, and set the tankard back down. “I don’t think I like her taste in ale. Come on, lets turn in quick before she comes over— and our sweet Lancelot has to explain he’s spoken for.”

“Yes, good, let’s do that,” said Lancelot, getting to his feet instantly.

They stacked their plates, bowls, and mugs, swept their table, nodded (in Gwaine’s case, winked) at the innkeeper, and left without delay. Lancelot breathed a sigh of relief when they made it to the stairs unimpeded, ignoring Gwaine’s snickering with firm determination.

“So. Now that we've done our task for the king, how are we to meet with our… friends?” asked Elyan as they reached the top of the stairs, leaning in close so as to not be heard over the fading hubbub of the main room below.

“Merlin said they’d find us,” said Lancelot, fishing the key out of his pocket and peering at the door markers. “So long as we stick to the woods.”

“Oh, good, the woods,” grumbled Elyan. “Where the rain is. Honestly, do you think—”

“Does Merlin even like them?” Gwaine interrupted absentmindedly, then bounced off Lancelot’s back when he stopped short in the middle of the hall.

Lancelot turned around slowly to look at Gwaine. He found himself frowning at the other man, who wilted a little under Lancelot’s stare— as though his brain had very suddenly caught up with his mouth and was now wishing it hadn’t. “What,” Lancelot asked carefully, “do you mean?”

Elyan glanced between them, a little wary.

“They’re Merlin’s allies,” said Gwaine firmly, “so they’re my allies, and I’ll defend them with my life. All I’m asking,” he continued, more nervously, “is if Merls likes them. He gets cagey when they come up— and so do you, Lance, it’s all over your face.”

Lancelot deflated, and let them all into their room.

“They… deify him,” he admitted, locking the door and turning back to his friends. Elyan looked inscrutable and collected in the way that meant he was latched on every word, and Gwaine leaned against the chimney, his brow drawn up tight and solemn. Lancelot sought for words. “It makes him uncomfortable,” he tried, a little stilted. “Which makes me uneasy.”

“Deify him?” Elyan prompted, frowning.

“They believe him to be their ‘Savior,’” Lancelot explained tiredly, shrugging his bag off at last. “They put all the burden of building peace in Camelot on him.” As if Merlin wasn’t already running himself ragged trying to solve every problem there had ever been, and hiding in plain sight under Uther Pendragon’s nose to boot.

Was it any wonder Merlin had begged Lancelot (and later Gwaine, who put up a good facade of indolence but was more than sharp enough to spot a magically flying bench, even during a bar-fight) to stay in Camelot after their first meeting? Just to have another person around who saw him and who could lighten the load, before Arthur had managed to get there— if he was there yet, which Lancelot wasn’t quite sure of. Arthur hadn’t lashed out in the ordinary way (had really taken things quite well, all told)— but Lancelot had held a quietly sobbing Merlin every night for a week of Arthur’s silent treatment, and then sat with Arthur as the prince paced in frustrated confusion on and off for a few more weeks besides.

“How can peace be one man’s responsibility?” Gwaine asked quietly.

Lancelot nodded, grateful. “It can’t be. But every time Merlin meets with them, he comes back convinced he’s got to protect Arthur at all costs, and unite Albion all on his own, and he stops— asking for help, or explaining why he’s just tumbled through my window absolutely covered in blood, he only listens to the— lizard, and I’m convinced that’s only because he can speak directly into his head, so it’s harder to make excuses or distractions or—”

He stopped, finding himself breathing rather hard.

Elyan grimaced in the sudden silence. “This has been weighing on you, hasn’t it,” he said, not unkindly.

Lancelot scrubbed at his face, a little embarrassed at his outburst. The rain at the window now seemed very loud and very close. “I don’t like how alone it makes him feel,” he said at last.

“He’s not alone,” said Gwaine fiercely. “He’s got all of us behind him. And we’ll make sure he knows it.”

Lancelot gave Gwaine a grateful look, and an apologetic smile. They wore ordinary travel clothes for discretion, but for a moment Lancelot could almost see Gwaine’s shoulders braced under the weight of his armor. He’d been the most reluctant of them to accept knighthood and still challenged Arthur often, but no one, no one could deny his loyalty to Merlin.

“You are right, my friend,” Lancelot said, and his heart eased at Gwaine’s palpable relief. “Forgive me,” he added softly. “I forget I am no longer alone in knowing Merlin’s secret.”

“Nothing to forgive,” said Gwaine, knocking his head against Lancelot’s shoulder. “We’d better get some sleep, though,” he yawned. “Who’s on first watch?”

“You take it,” said Lancelot, squeezing his shoulder, and Gwaine— who had, by all accounts, lived just as hard as anyone and knew wariness well— slumped a little further into him in trusting gratitude. Lancelot marveled at it. “I’ll take second.”

“You’re a good man,” said Gwaine with earnest, sleepy warmth. “Try not to snore too loud, Elyan.”

“I’ve got nothing on Arthur,” grumbled Elyan, crouching down by the fireplace and fishing out a bit of flint from his saddlebag.

“That’s true enough,” admitted Gwaine. He rubbed his hands together, glancing down at himself. “Right. I’m unforgivably damp, and it’s getting into my bones. Hot water?”

“We’d better go back down for it,” Lancelot sighed, standing regretfully, already mentally sloshing his way down the stairs.

“I’ll go,” said Gwaine, rising and raking back his hair. “That innkeeper likes me.”

“She’s old enough to be your mother,” chided Elyan as he managed to get the fire going.

“Did I say I was wooing her? Courting her? Proposing? Or did I say she likes me, so maybe I’ll get a discount on hot water for my pretty face?” Gwaine shook his head in mock dismay, scattering the artfully tussled waves at which Lancelot was always catching Arthur glaring. “Really, Elyan, the places your mind descends to…”

“Bugger off.”

“My!” gasped Gwaine, and was gone.

“Honestly,” grumbled Elyan, fighting down a smile, and Lancelot snorted. Elyan shook his head. “I don’t know how he does it,” he said, “but he gets in under your skin, doesn’t he? Despite all the bluster and the insanity.”

“He’s a good man,” said Lancelot quietly. “His life’s not been easy.”

Elyan looked at him in surprise. “Has he told you anything?”

“Only the cheerful stories.”

“Then how do you know?”

Lancelot shrugged helplessly. “That is how I know,” he said, and could explain no further.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

“Thanks,” Gwaine said, restraining a yawn through his teeth. “You said the well’s out back?”

“That it is, love,” said the innkeeper. “Though I’m sorry to send you out in the rain. You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Course not,” smiled Gwaine, and he nodded to her. “Good evening, my lady.”

“Go on, cheeky.”

Gwaine slung the washbasin up into his arms, and flashed the innkeeper a boyish grin. He eased his way through the crowded main room and ducked out into the inn yard, hugging the wall to keep dry under the eaves as he circled the inn. Squinting, Gwaine tried to make out the well through the deluge.

He stopped short, shut his eyes, and groaned.

“What am I doing all this for, then?” Gwaine grumbled, and slid the basin out under the flood of water. Rain hammered noisily on tin, and Gwaine slumped back against the wall, shaking his head in exasperation. He held out a hand, and rubbed the immediate handful of water over his face with vigor. It did little to wake him up.

They’d been riding hard all day to make it down to the druids, and before that they’d ridden hard all the way to Cornwall just to deliver a blasted letter. ‘A letter from the king,’ Arthur had emphasized, but even Arthur’s exasperated insistence on decorum had been faltering lately in light of Merlin and Lady Morgana’s magic and the unavoidable truth of Uther’s tyranny (and rank romantic taste), so Gwaine didn’t mind calling it ‘a letter from the Most Royal Troll Consort’ in the privacy of his own mind and Merlin’s giggling company.

What letter to an estranged in-law was so important that it needed three knights to deliver, anyway?

The rain poured down. It hissed and seethed on the cobbles, on the thick thatch roof, on the flowing mud of the inn yard. Gwaine listened to the calm, clattering roar of the tin basin filling steadily with water, set his weight securely against the wall with one hand on his sword, and rested his eyes.

Through the thrumming torrent, Gwaine could not hear the light footsteps behind him, or the murmured Words of Power. He did not see the flash of shadow along the inn wall, though he stiffened slightly as it neared and opened his eyes just in time to catch sight of a bloom of crimson smoke. His sword was drawn in an instant, but it was too late. The inn yard was already blurred to nothing, swirling away into impenetrable darkness.

Moments later, when Lancelot and Elyan came careening around the corner in search of the inky shadow that had darted past their window, they found only a small, tin washbasin, perfectly serviceable despite the numerous dents, chips, and scuffs that inevitably came of long use, sitting all on its own in the mud.

It was overflowing with rain.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Lancelot had thought the last waterlogged ride had been miserable. He’d been sure of it, had resigned himself to Merlin and Arthur’s endless jokes about wet cats, to meeting the druids utterly bedraggled and undignified, and to airing his boots out for a month before they’d stop squelching.

In retrospect, the last ride had been a jaunt. A picnic. An efficient mobile bath with a lovely, warm bed at the end to look forward to.

This ride was miserable. This ride was beyond miserable. This ride had surpassed miserable with such fantastic speed that Lancelot was beginning to feel seasick with misery.

Beside him, Elyan (and Elyan alone) didn’t look much better.

They rode in silence, the heavy rain battering at their faces in the pre-dawn gloom. Neither of them had gotten much sleep, but it had felt wrong to leave right away. It had been a leaden shock to wake and find that Gwaine had not, in fact, reappeared in the night.

The horses slowed as they turned them off the road, trotting up through soggy undergrowth and coarse bracken, meandering around trees until they were out of sight of the road, and doing their best to follow the signs Merlin had given them, though Lancelot hoped the druids might hear them crashing about and make their way over. Visibility was hopeless, and though Lancelot was very comfortable in the greenwood generally, he had not inherited much by way of woods magic.

They came at last across a river, so swollen with rain it was in danger of breaking its banks, and paused to let the horses drink and nose at the sodden grass. The two men ducked under the shelter of a towering willow, and squeezed the water out of their clothes and hair.

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” Elyan asked quietly.

“Hopefully not too long,” said Lancelot. His voice felt hoarse with disuse.

Elyan nodded glumly, and looked away.

They stood on the bank in the damp, rustling shade of the willow tree. It curled around the two men and their horses to dip its weeping head into the rushing river. Rain streamed down the willow wands to leap away on the current, and beyond the hushed curtain of pale yellow-green, the vermillion forest creaked and roared with water. The opposite bank was high— or rather, had been high before the rain— and it shone above the foaming rapids in a thick band of emerald green.

Upon it stood a druid, gazing down on them.

“Elyan,” Lancelot murmured.

Elyan’s head snapped up. “Ah,” he murmured. “Wait’s over, then?”

“Looks like it,” Lancelot said. “Shall we?”

“Don’t know how he expects us to ford the river like this,” grumbled Elyan, tugging at his horse’s halter.

Lancelot glanced up at the druid discretely, and caught his eye by accident. Cursing a little internally, Lancelot gave him a respectful nod. The druid nodded back, placidly, and stepped away from the riverbank. He lowered his head, held his hands out flat in front of him, palms pooling with water, and turned his hands over.

The river widened.

Between the knights and the druid expanded a passage of eerie calm. Mossy stones rose serenely from the glassy surface, all the rushing pressure of the water soothed to a sedate sweep— while to either side of the newly forged fen, the river surged thick with motion. The willow— and, subsequently, the sheltering knights— now waded knee high in water smooth as a mill-pond’s surface.

Elyan hissed in surprise. “How on earth—”

“Later,” Lancelot muttered. “Cross quickly— before the river remembers how it’s meant to be.”

“But—”

“Later.”

Elyan shut his mouth with a click. They crossed the river.

The druid smiled vaguely as they clambered up the mossy bank to stand before him. He bowed a little, and without a word, turned to lead them deeper into the wood. Elyan shot Lancelot a narrow look behind the druid’s back, and they followed.

After some time, Lancelot noticed that they were walking in wide, serpentine loops. He wondered briefly if he should mention this, if there had perhaps been some mistake and pointing it out might bring them in out of the rain, which was once again making itself comfortable in Lancelot’s boots.

Then, he noticed the druid’s self-satisfied smile.

So, it was like that, then. This was, unfortunately, exactly in line with Merlin’s late-night griping. Lovely.

At last, they emerged quite suddenly into a clearing, and the rain just… fell away. It continued behind them— even continued in front of them, but did so thinner, raindrops falling one at a time in polite succession. The abrupt silence was nearly deafening.

As Lancelot’s senses adjusted, he realized ‘silence’ wasn’t accurate at all.

Before them lay a calmly bustling camp, tucked neatly into the clearing with such natural deftness that it seemed to have grown there along with the bracken and wood sorrel. Here and there, druids in home-spun robes bustled between tents, ducking under the fabric flaps with baskets of herbs, twine, and leather held in their arms or braced against hips. One man hunched over what Lancelot recognized with a pang as a bundle of bow-making supplies, with a little boy sitting next to him and weaving a bowstring with an air of determined concentration.

“A moment,” murmured their guide, and he slipped away into a large tent.

Lancelot and Elyan stood at the edge of the camp, a little awkwardly. Elyan began to brush down his horse. Surreptitiously as he could, Lancelot tipped the water out of his left boot.

There was a tug at his damp sleeve and Lancelot glanced down, startled. A little druid girl no more than five years old, dressed in moss-colored wool, stood at his knee. She gazed up at him with round, curious eyes.

Lancelot knelt down to her. “Hello,” he smiled. “What’s your name?”

“Lena,” she whispered.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Lena,” he said softly. “I’m Lancelot.”

She gasped, eyes wide with shocked delight, and then scrunched up her face at him, shaking her head like he’d said something absolutely ludicrous. “No, you’re not,” Lena giggled.

“Why not?” Lancelot laughed, charmed.

Lena twisted tiny little hands in the worn, wet sleeve of Lancelot’s tunic, still giggling. “He’s littler than you. And he’s from the stories,” she said, as though this were very obvious and Lancelot very slow.

“What stories?”

The little girl gaped at him, her tiny mouth a round ‘O’ of horror. “You don’t know the stories?”

“No, I— Where are we going?” Lancelot asked as he found himself tugged forward, glancing back helplessly at Elyan, who coughed in an entirely unconvincing attempt to disguise his laughter.

“Lena,” called one of the older druids, a striking woman who had to duck quite low as she stepped out of the large tent into the bright clearing. Lena made a squashed little face up at Lancelot, who tried valiantly not to laugh as the druid woman gave Lena a stern look. “Go play, child. I have matters to discuss with the companions of Emrys.”

“You should come back soon so my friend can tell you,” Lena whispered up to Lancelot. “You have to hear the stories.”

“You have my word,” whispered Lancelot, and the little girl beamed, and skipped away.

The druid smiled faintly after her before turning to Lancelot and Elyan. “I am Imelda. Emrys honors us in sending you,” she said, bowing her stately head. Her voice was like wild river rushes, and, though, her hair was silvered and her skin wrinkled with seasons of worry and laughter, she stood nearly as tall.

“The honor is ours, Imelda” said Elyan, and Lancelot bowed with him. “What is it you wished to discuss?”

Imelda sighed. “Disappearances,” she said bluntly, clasping her hands in the folds of her sleeves. “There have been several disappearances of a magical nature that we have not been able to understand. We had hoped that Emrys might be able to aid us in uncovering their cause, and preventing them.”

If Gwaine were here, he’d make a joke about being ‘perpetual errand boys,’ and probably ask if they were going to get a special hat. Lancelot missed him like a knife.

“Has there been a pattern to the disappearances?” he asked.

Imelda spread her hands in grim resignation. “They have mostly occurred within Camelot’s borders, though not entirely. Most were at night, though not all. Several items of ritual significance have vanished, but there is no consistency among them. A standing stone we believed to be damaged beyond repair is gone. Several of our number have vanished, including some very powerful mages— although not all of the people disappeared had magic at all, and none of them seem to have taken the missing items.”

Hesitantly, Elyan asked. “Has anyone… seen the actual disappearing?”

“It is a necessary question,” Imelda allowed. “Yes. All report a dark shadow, a sense of dread, and crimson magic. A mist, I believe.”

Lancelot met Elyan’s wide, horrified eyes. “We think our friend vanished the same way,” Lancelot said, heart pounding and stomach clenched tight with worry. “Last night.”

“I am very sorry to hear that,” said Imelda sincerely. “No one has yet to reappear. I hope your friend will be alright.”

Lancelot blinked. He looked to Elyan, then back at Imelda. “Can’t you… you can’t look for him?”

“Our magic is not strong enough to pierce the enchantments hiding those who have vanished,” Imelda explained, shaking her silver head. “We have skill, but our power is not enough. Not without those missing from our number, and perhaps not even then.”

Elyan frowned. “How is that possible?”

The druid woman gazed out at the camp as though she was seeing through it, down through to the very roots of the glade. Her voice was distant, and very old. “The force we face is not of earth, water, flame, nor air. It is unnatural. It has warped itself into something beyond our power.” Imelda looked back at the two of them, and there was warning in her eyes. “Your friend is in very grave danger, if he is under its power.”

“Gwaine,” said Elyan. “His name is Gwaine. If— if you hear any news of him, please send word to Merlin.”

“Of course,” said Imelda, her kind face solemn. “He is a friend to Emrys, and thus a friend to us. May the river guide his steps.”

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Chapter Text

«···◊·◊·◊···»

It was Thursday, and the pots were tangling. Again. Like an army of earthenware warriors leaping at each other with no regard whatsoever to Merlin’s personal desire not to be clanged to death in the melee.

Naturally, Gaius was no help at all.

They made their way through the soggy autumn air and bustling streets of the Lower Town, which was some relief after the chaos of Samhain festivities. The old man walked several paces in front of Merlin, who was festooned with pots hanging from cords around his neck, arms, and shoulders, and not at all pleased with it. Ostensibly, Gaius was charting the path to the next pot-borrowing patient, though Merlin had a sneaking suspicion this formation also served to hide Gaius’ expression.

From behind, he appeared to be sniggering.

Merlin’s eyes narrowed. “Lovely day for it, isn’t it?” he called above the hubbub.

“Indeed, Merlin,” said Gaius vacantly.

They turned a corner. Merlin caught a glimpse of Gaius’ face, took a deep breath to contain himself, and pressed forward.

“This wouldn’t happen to be a punishment for anything, would it?” he called, stumbling in his haste to get through the crowd that had parted for Gaius, and then flowed pack together.

Gaius nodded politely to the palace tailor and her throng of assistants, and stepped around a recalcitrant donkey. “Whatever gave you that impression?”

“You’ve got that face on.”

“What face on?”

Merlin huffed, and dodged the donkey’s cart. “The face where you look like you’ve just bitten a lemon because you’re trying to hide that you’re laughing at me,” he said flatly, catching up.

“Really, Merlin,” sighed Gaius.

“That’s the face!”

“I think you’ll find, dear boy, that this is simply my face,” said Gaius mildly. Then, slyly, “I hope the pots aren’t too heavy?”

“It’s not weight that’s the problem,” Merlin muttered, extricating a rogue pot whose cord had winded itself around his knee in a desperate bid for escape— or, barring escape, murder.

“Oh dear,” said Gaius, dripping with pity. “Perhaps you would benefit from more time on the training field with Prince Arthur. I’m sure we could arrange—”

“Unbelievable,” grumbled Merlin, chasing after his snickering uncle. “Absolutely unbelievable. You know, if this is about that business with the leeks, I’ve apologized for that— not that I was there in the first place, but, you know, if I was—”

Gaius stopped short. Merlin nearly ran into him, in deafening cacophony.

The old physician raised one condemning eyebrow, and, with a voice like humidity before a thunderstorm, asked, “What ‘business with the leeks’ would this be, Merlin?”

“Err… No business?” Merlin said. He adopted his blankest, most innocent expression. This might have achieved some degree of success, had his mouth ceased its movements. “I wouldn’t be caught dead with a leek,” Merlin babbled. “Especially not near Arthur’s boots. Certainly not near Uther’s pillowcases. I respect Cook deeply. What’s a leek?”

Gaius drew himself up. “Merlin Hunithson, if you—”

From the crowd behind them, Merlin heard a familiar voice call, “Merlin?”

Flooded with gratitude, he whirled around, ignoring the noise of a whole troupe of skeletons falling to their deaths. He squinted. “Lancelot?”

“Merlin,” came Lancelot’s voice, full of relief, and then there was Lancelot, falling through the gasping crowd with Elyan nearly over his shoulders. Both men were covered in dirt, leaves, and blood.

“Lancelot!”

Merlin ran, Gaius hot on his heels. He pushed through the throng of worried onlookers and hooked a hand under Elyan’s arm, taking some of his weight off Lancelot and his own feet. Elyan groaned, his eyes shut tight.

“Is he—?” Merlin started, horrified.

“Concussed,” answered Lancelot, catching Elyan as he swayed.

“M’not,” grumbled Elyan. He patted Lancelot on the ribs, which made Lancelot wince. “S’motherhenning again, s’all.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said Gaius dryly, inspecting the lump on Elyan’s head. “Considering your current control over your own two feet.”

“Bugger,” Elyan mumbled into Lancelot’s chest.

Lancelot winced again, and avoided Merlin’s gaze.

Interesting.

Merlin glanced around them— and felt his stomach drop like a stone. Through a surge of nauseous dread, Merlin croaked, “Gwaine?”

“Alive,” said Lancelot fiercely. Then, in a miserable whisper under his breath, “Pretty sure.”

“Then what—?”

“Bandits,” grumbled Elyan blearily, swaying into Merlin’s hold. “S’always bloody bandits.”

“Did they take Gwaine?” asked Merlin urgently.

“No,” said Lancelot, quick and firm. “They didn’t.” He hauled Elyan’s arm more securely over his shoulders, gave Merlin a worried, meaningful look, and said in a low voice, “We’ll explain everything, but not out here.”

Merlin stared at him. Then, he took firm hold of Elyan’s other arm, and, with Lancelot’s patient strength and Gaius’ path-clearing glare, began the hobbling trek to the infirmary.

“Merlin?” mumbled Elyan, as they passed under the portcullis and hurried across the courtyard.

“Yes?”

“Who’sall th’pots for? S’loud.”

“I'm collecting them. For an evil old toad,” muttered Merlin under his breath.

Gaius bustled serenely ahead of them, the corners of his robe snapping in the wind. “You know, Merlin,” he called over his shoulder, “I believe the leech tank could use a good scrubbing.”

Ears like a fruit bat, thought Merlin with grudging respect, and turned to make a face at Gwaine.

Then he remembered. The rest of the journey to the infirmary passed in dreadful silence.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Merlin leaned forward, his elbows resting among the pile of dusty, dried herbs strewn across the bench. His head ached from frowning. “But what happened?”

“I told you,” said Lancelot tiredly, pushing off the windowsill to sit heavily at one of the low, beaker-strewn tables. “He went down to fetch water. We saw a shadow go past the window. We ran out, and saw only red mist fading away. No Gwaine.”

“Druid lady said it’s been happening like that a lot,” mumbled Elyan indistinctly. He’d been bullied into lying back on the patient cot (and it had taken bullying) with his shirt off and a cloth over his eyes against the light while Gaius bustled behind him, pouring over a steaming concoction. Sir Leon sat beside him, dressed in neat, simple garments now that the Samhain guests had finally left, ginger curls pulled out of his face with a cord, the better to peer worriedly down at Elyan’s half-covered face.

“Shadow, dread, mist,” Elyan muttered, flapping a hand blindly to illustrate the clipped description, forcing Leon to dart back out of range. “They don’t know where they go either.”

Gaius hummed. “Perhaps a teleportation spell,” he mused. “Merlin, would you—”

“Got it,” Merlin said, leaping to his feet and beginning the dusty business of sifting through drifting piles of books. He tried not to feel Leon watching him, but glanced up against his better judgement anyway. Leon reddened, and, ducking his head, returned to attempting to keep Elyan still.

“Thank you, my boy,” said Gaius. The old physician strained his concoction through a small sieve, crushed in what Merlin really hoped was not a dried frog, added a ladleful of boiled water, and began to stir. “Sirs Elyan and Lancelot, do you recall anything out of the ordinary from earlier that night?”

Lancelot shrugged miserably. “I don’t know,” he said very quietly. “We rode to Terrabil, delivered the King’s letter, rode back, and stopped at an inn about halfway. Nothing struck me as suspicious; the innkeeper was friendly, and the customers happy. I can’t remember anything out of the ordinary until Gwaine disappeared.”

“No signs of unrest in Terrabil either, though we were there only briefly,” mumbled Elyan. “The lord was out hunting, so we delivered the letter to his steward. Place was bustling for the holiday.”

Lancelot nodded, his face hollow. Merlin frowned in sympathy and brought his stack of potentially relevant books with him to sit by the hunched knight. He bumped his shoulder against Lancelot’s, and his friend sagged like his strings had been cut, dropping his head to his hands.

“Elyan, I don’t remember. Did he talk to someone we didn’t?” Lancelot croaked.

Elyan brought a hand up to his head, frowning under the cool cloth. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, ignoring Leon’s exclamation, a crash, and Gaius’ sudden oath.

“Lancelot,” Elyan hissed, squinting at the other knight with great urgency, fighting Leon’s attempts to get him back on the bed. “Lancelot, the ale.”

“Sir Elyan, you will lay down now,” Gaius ordered, snatching up a rag to mop up the cup of water he’d dropped in his surprise.

Elyan ignored him, though he did press his knuckles against his temple. “The ale the innkeeper said was sent over for you,” Elyan said in a high, panicked voice. “Gwaine said it tasted awful— but they only had one kind of ale behind the bar, and it was fine.”

Lancelot had gone pale with horror. “He drank it for me,” he whispered, staring. “He— If he hadn’t, he would be here, he would—”

Merlin grabbed Lancelot by the shoulders, and shook him, glaring into Lancelot’s dark eyes. They were wide, distant and full of guilt. “This is not your fault,” Merlin said firmly. “It’s the fault of whoever is stealing people.”

“But—”

“No. Absolutely not.” Merlin shook Lancelot again, a little harder. “Not your fault. None of you had any way of knowing.”

“Lance, you know Merlin’s right,” said Elyan, fighting to maintain eye contact as Leon pushed him firmly back to horizontal and Gaius gave his potion a threatening stir.

“We have to tell Arthur,” mumbled Lancelot, avoiding their gazes.

Merlin shot Elyan and Leon a worried look. Leon winced, and Elyan grimaced back at him. This was not good. “Lancelot—”

Someone else knocked, cleared their throat, and said, “Er… Pardon me. Master Gaius?”

They looked up.

A guard stood uneasily in the doorway, one hand raised to scratch at a spot on his chin. Merlin recognized him as one of the men who’d taken Gaius to the dungeon on Aredian’s orders. As naturally as he could, Merlin set his elbow on the open book of magic beside him, covering it bodily. The guard, studiously avoiding Merlin’s glare, took no notice.

Gaius shot Merlin a quelling look. Mildly, he asked the guard, “What can I do for you today, Nathaniel?”

The guard shuffled his feet a little, his head ducked. Good, thought Merlin bitterly. In a gruff voice, Nathaniel said, “His highness requests Sir Lancelot and Sir Elyan to make their report, Master Gaius. Says he’d like you and Sir Leon to come, too.”

“Thank you,” said Gaius. “We’ll be along shortly. I must attend to these knights’ injuries, but am nearly finished.”

“Of course, sir,” said Nathaniel, “I’ll let his majesty know.” He nodded to Gaius, eyes lowered, gave Leon a brusque salute, and left.

“I’m alright to go now,” grumbled Elyan, gazing longingly over Leon’s shoulder at the closed door.

“I’m sure you are,” said Gaius dryly. “I believe Sir Lancelot is not.”

All eyes turned to Lancelot, whose cheeks shaded a deep pink.

“There’s a cut on your chest, isn’t there,” Merlin said flatly. “Under your jacket. Deep enough for stitches?”

Lancelot hesitated, then nodded.

“Right,” said Merlin briskly. “Shirt off. Now.”

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Camelot’s great hall was, as always at times like this, unyielding.

Lancelot could feel the cold in his bones. Merlin had stitched him up, found both knights clean clothes to change into, and wiped off most of the blood, but Lancelot felt the tatters and grime anyway under the weight of Uther’s cool silence as the king poured over his brother-in-law’s letter. 

Lancelot stood tall and straight, braced only slightly in case Elyan needed catching (though Merlin stood close by for the purpose as well), and tried to bring his eyes off the floor. Elyan was infinitely better suited to presenting reports to the king in practically every way, but his focus was necessarily on remaining upright at the moment, and Lancelot wasn’t going to add anything to that.

This was Lancelot’s report now.

His gaze flickered up as he ran over the agreed-upon version of events in his mind, and caught sight of Arthur, who was glaring at the conspicuous emptiness beside him and Elyan with barely contained agitation.

Lancelot swallowed. Was it possible, he wondered faintly, to die of shame?

Parchment crinkled as King Uther folded the letter and inspected the seal. He raised his head, leveled Lancelot with a disinterested stare, and droned, “Your report, Lancelot.”

Arthur straightened, his eyes hard as steel, as, at his shoulder, Lancelot felt Merlin bristle. Lancelot, silently and fervently, prayed they wouldn’t say anything rash. Lady Morgana, glittering at Uther’s left in gem-studded sapphire silk, cleared her throat purposefully.

“Sir Lancelot,” Uther amended, clearly bored. “I notice your number diminished. Walwen, was it?”

“Sir Gwaine, sire,” said Lancelot evenly. He held Uther’s gray gaze for another moment before his eyes strayed resolutely back to the stone floor, heavy with shame. “We were ambushed upon our return. Sir Gwaine was captured.”

He chanced another glance at the dais. Arthur looked as though he was bursting with the effort of keeping quiet, but, with what must have been a glare from Merlin, managed it. Lancelot caught the prince’s eye as he broke eye-contact with his manservant, and Arthur gave him a nod that was half encouragement, half apology, and all concern. Lancelot forced his breathing smooth and slow.

He couldn’t see Gwen from where he stood, and it was making him nervous. Right now, he’d give anything for a warm look from her.

“Captured,” Uther mused, his brow wrinkling slightly. “Were your assailants in livery? Any identifying signs?”

“No, sire.”

“I see,” said Uther, leaning back in his throne. “Not a direct insult from a neighboring kingdom, it would appear. Very well.” Uther’s eyes slid promptly away from Lancelot and Elyan, glancing back down at the letter in his hand. “Anything else?” he asked indistinctly.

Lancelot stared at the crack in the flagstone under Uther’s boot.

How was it that Lancelot could face any opponent on the battlefield without flinching, could live for months in disguise as a mercenary, cage fight brutes and literal monsters without freezing— but a glare from a nobleman cowed him?

“Sir Elyan and myself encountered a band of bandits as we approached Camelot, sire.”

“Bandits?” Uther straightened, his gaze suddenly sharp as steel. “Near the citadel?”

“Yes, sire. On the main road through the Darkling Woods.”

Uther’s cold eyes flashed. “We must send out another patrol soon,” he muttered to Arthur. “It was foolish to delay them for our guests. Dismissed.”

Lancelot blinked. He glanced at Arthur, whose jaw was clenched tight, then at Lady Morgana, whose face had gone smooth and icy cold as she glared at Uther. Lancelot bowed, caught Elyan before he could stumble doing the same, and met Merlin’s eye as they turned.

Merlin nodded.

Lancelot took a breath, and, as subtly as he could, helped Elyan out of the throne room and back up to the infirmary. They would wait there for the others. Knowing their friends, they would not be waiting long.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

The Round Table sat in stunned silence, punctuated only by the slow drip of condensed steam falling back into Gaius’ kettle. They’d converged on the infirmary quickly, Percival joining them in the hall outside, dusty from travel and his own report. Lancelot had gone through the whole thing again, his voice even, level, and calm as it always was despite the strain of travel and worry, and now they all sat with the news heavy in the air. Merlin gazed at his horrified friends, at Gwaine’s empty chair, and ached.

Arthur was wearing a hole through the floor, arms crossed tightly over his broad chest as he paced. Merlin tried hard not to sigh as Arthur glared at the walls, the fireplace, the table, and then wheeled on Lancelot. Flatly, he demanded, “The druids didn’t know anything?”

“Similar disappearances for months; they haven’t the resources to track them magically,” Lancelot repeated, his earnest face haggard with exhaustion.

Arthur scoffed, and returned to pacing. Merlin swallowed. He knew it was only worry for Gwaine, but Arthur's anger was making him distinctly uneasy.

“Is there some way we could give them the resources?” Morgana wondered, her long fingernails drumming an anxious rhythm on the table.

“How do you propose we do that,” snapped Arthur, “without alerting my father to our treason?”

“I had imagined,” began Morgana icily, “that this meeting was to collaborate towards a solution, but if that is not the case—”

“Please, as if you ever ‘collaborate toward’ anything—”

“What, pray, is that supposed to—”

“You know very well what I—”

“Children.”

All eyes turned to Gaius, whose stony glare could have frozen a house fire. Even Arthur and Morgana shrunk beneath it.

“Thank you,” Gaius remarked, his voice dry in the silence. “If we could return to the matter at hand. Arthur, I believe your father has granted permission for a rescue mission?”

“Yes,” muttered Arthur. “We leave at first light. I’m to be back in time for Bayard’s delegation, so he’s given me a week.”

“A week?”

“Well, it’s Gwaine, isn’t it,” Arthur snapped, glaring at Merlin, who had sprung to his feet in shock. “We all know how my father feels about him.”

“Very well,” said Gaius firmly. “I must insist that Sirs Elyan and Lancelot stay behind.”

“What!?”

Now it was Lancelot on his feet, while Leon and Percy clamped down on Elyan’s shoulders to keep him from leaping up as well.

“Sire,” begged Lancelot, uncharacteristic desperation lending tension to his frame. “As it is my fault Gwaine is missing, I beg to accompany—”

“Don’t be daft, Lancelot,” snapped Arthur. “It’s the sorcerer’s fault, and you’re injured. You and Elyan stay here.”

“Arthur, come on,” hissed Elyan.

“Absolutely not,” Gaius declared. “You will both be staying here, where I can monitor your healing.”

Elyan groaned and dropped his head to Percival’s shoulder, grumbling venomously under his breath. Lancelot just slumped back into his seat, all the fight draining out of him as quickly as it had come.

From her place beside Morgana, Gwen shot Gaius a look of deepest gratitude. Clearing her throat gently, she asked, “How can we help from here? I’ll be watching out for the servants,” she added quickly, “but there must be something else we can do.”

A thought came to Merlin. Turning to Morgana, he asked, “Do you think you could convince Uther to let you sit in on council meetings?”

Morgana sighed. “Uther believes women too ‘soft’ for the council,” she said bitterly. “He’d never let me participate.”

“But he never passes up an opportunity to boast,” reasoned Merlin. “If you flattered him into it, would he let you observe?”

“It’s worth a try,” Morgana said slowly. “I suppose someone will have to keep him from hiring another power-mad lunatic to ransack the citadel.” She raised her chin, flashing a sour look at the door. “He’s still sending me jewelry, as if it makes up for anything.”

Merlin shuddered, glancing at the piles of books waiting to be mended and re-bound. Aredian’s presence had yet to stop haunting the infirmary. Every knock seemed prelude to the dungeons, the pyre, the hangman’s noose. Every spell was a death sentence. He’d forgotten that, up on the hill in the fresh morning air, and they’d all paid for it.

Merlin would never forget how frail Gaius had looked, cold and exhausted in the dungeons. Not for the rest of his life.

A hand settled on his shoulder, and Merlin looked up into his uncle’s knowing face. Gaius gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze.

“Morgana,” Arthur said suddenly. “Can you…” He cleared his throat. “Can you… look for Gwaine?”

Morgana stared at him. Merlin did too, and Arthur reddened.

“I can’t control the dreams,” Morgana said, a little warily.

“But can’t you…” Arthur huffed and flung a hand around, clearly at the limits of his knowledge, “I don’t know, use a crystal ball or something? Father’s always talking about sorcerers spying; surely there must be something to it?”

All eyes turned to Gaius.

Only Merlin was left staring at Arthur, mouth open. Arthur had suggested magic. 

“It… might be possible,” Gaius allowed, frowning a little, “but I caution against trusting visions over-much. The Seers of the past trained with masters of the craft for years before their Sight could be relied upon.”

“How lucky for them to have such tutors,” said Morgana sweetly, rising to her feet. “I don’t have a crystal ball, as I value my head. What can we use?”

“A bowl of salted water and a drop of ink should suffice,” Gaius nodded. “I will prepare them. In the meantime, Merlin can begin research.”

Arthur had suggested magic.

Merlin blinked. “Hm?”

“Gwaine drank something with an unpleasant taste,” Gaius reminded. “And then was tracked, or teleported.”

Merlin nodded, yanking his thoughts back to the present. “I’ll just…” he began, jerking a thumb vaguely.

Gaius gave an approving nod, then turned his attention back to the two injured knights. “Bed,” Gaius ordered. “Now.”

“But—”

“Now.”

Percival helped Elyan to his feet, and squeezed Lancelot’s shoulder. Lancelot blinked the exhaustion from his eyes, and rose stiffly, leaning slightly into Percival’s side as Gwen gazed up at him with worried eyes, then stood as the rest of the group did, shuffling a little to stand beside him.

Only because he was watching did Merlin notice Gwen slip her hand into Lancelot’s behind the fold of her skirts. Lancelot’s tired gaze stayed low, but something fundamental in his bearing changed; it was as though a great weight had lifted from his shoulders, leaving behind only true weariness without torment. Slowly, as if he couldn’t believe it was quite real, Lancelot glanced down at Gwen’s hand with grateful wonder.

Merlin ducked his head to hide his smile. He maneuvered around Elyan and Percival, and, catching her eye, winked approvingly at Gwen.

Gwen rolled her eyes at him, and blushed.

Merlin grinned.

He collected his stack of forbidden books, snatched up a roll of parchment and a bundle of quills, and bounded up the steps to the loft for a fresh candle. As his friends trailed out the door, Morgana staying behind (with an tiny, impish wave to Gwen), Merlin plonked himself down at one of the low tables.

He looked up.

Arthur still stood in the doorway, one hand around the door as if he wasn’t sure whether he was opening or closing it, and he was looking at Merlin with an absolutely unreadable expression. He reddened as Merlin met his gaze, and cleared his throat.

“You’ll be busy with this,” Arthur said, his voice blank and clipped.

“Er…” said Merlin, immediately wrong-footed. He could feel Morgana watching them, her sharp green gaze darting between their faces. “Yes, I think so. I don’t know how long it’ll take, since we don’t know anything about the potion— not even its effect, really, because Gwaine was only observed for a few minutes after drinking it,” Merlin frowned, glancing to Gaius for confirmation.

“Right,” said Arthur. He shifted his weight, cleared his throat again, and nodded. “Well. See you tomorrow morning, then.”

“Oh,” said Merlin, profound and burning awkwardness sitting like lead in his stomach. “Er. Goodnight. Should I…?”

“No.” Arthur frowned, and shifted again. “That is, I’ll handle it. Goodnight, Gaius.”

“Goodnight, Arthur,” said Gaius mildly, glancing between Arthur and Merlin with beleaguered fascination.

Arthur nodded brusquely, and turned to go. Merlin considered the merits of jumping out the window.

“Sleep well,” Morgana called sweetly.

The door shut with a bang.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

The candles burned low within their mottled glass guards. Silence had slunk in slowly to fill the growing pockets of darkness, and now the lights were little more than knobby lumps of guttering, pooling wax in a sea of quiet. Merlin squinted muzzily at the nearest wax drip, and scratched his jaw.

His fingers came away ink stained. He blinked at them, and frowned.

Beyond his dusty spill books, Morgana sat hunched over a wooden bowl, staring blearily into the dark liquid within. Gaius sat beside her with his own stack of books, glancing over periodically at Morgana’s attempt to scry with an air of disgruntled apprehension.

“Mind the surface, my dear,” Gaius mumbled as Morgana leaned closer to the bowl, her nose nearly meeting the water.

“But I’m almost…” Morgana whispered, “I’m almost…”

She gave a loud gasp. Gaius jumped, thumping the table with his knee.

“It worked!” Morgana laughed, shocked and delighted. “Yes, there’s Gwaine!”

Merlin scrambled up, suddenly wide awake. “Where is he?” he demanded, batting scraps of parchment off his face as he leaned forward to see. To his eye, there was but blackness in the depths of the bowl, but Morgana’s gaze darted across its surface, tracing unseen movements.

“He’s… in a tower,” Morgana murmured, unblinking. “Uninjured, I think, or not badly; he’s moving about the room. And… and…” Morgana trailed off, frowning with the effort.

Then she yelped and shoved the bowl away, clutching at her head. Inky water sloshed over the side, and Merlin and Gaius both scrambled to snatch up pieces of stray parchment. “It’s gone,” Morgana muttered, pressing fingertips to her temples. “Something lashed out. It was blocking me.”

“Blocking you?” Merlin asked, darting a troubled glance to Gaius, whose worried scowl deepened the lines of his face into crags.

“Yes,” Morgana grimaced, rubbing small circles into the bridge of her nose. “It was like… like looking through fog at a broken mirror. When I tried to piece it back together, it hurt.”

Merlin stared. “That cannot possibly be good,” he said at last.

“No,” agreed Morgana. She glanced at the window, where stars spilled bright over the dark citadel. “It’s well past midnight,” she sighed, smoothing hair out of her face. “I’d better get to bed, or Gwen will worry. Try not to stay up too late?”

“You know me,” yawned Merlin. “Mum always said I was a good sleeper.”

Morgana gave an unladylike scoff. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Goodnight, Gaius.”

Gaius patted her hand affectionately. “Goodnight, my dear. Take a headache tonic as you go.”

Morgana gave him a wan smile, slipped the tiny bottle into her sleeve, and let the door close behind her with a soft snick.

Merlin propped his elbows up on the mess of books, and dropped his head into his hands. He heard the rustle and scrape of Gaius getting to his feet, the dry shuffling of footsteps and parchment. A fond hand dropped onto Merlin’s shoulder, and he leaned into it, settling comfortably into the warm darkness behind his eyelids.

“Have you found anything, my boy?”

Merlin mumbled indistinctly.

“I see.”

Gaius eased an open tome out from under Merlin’s arm.

Merlin huffed and snuggled back down onto the table. Sleep crept over him like a rabbit in a garden, quick and hesitant by degrees, and Merlin half-listened, half-dreamed, as Gaius leafed through the thick book above him, pages crackling like reluctant, wafting leaves.

“Hmm...”

“Hmm?” Merlin yawned. He blinked, looking at Gaius with bleary eyes.

“I believe I may have found something,” Gaius said.

Merlin pushed himself up and scrubbed his face. Gaius sighed and sat, pointing to a section of cramped, spidery text surrounded by illustrations of what appeared to be… clouds? Smoke?Merlin blinked at it, but couldn’t manage to focus his eyes. “Er…”

“‘Evanescere Auxilium,’” Gaius said grimly.

“Huh,” Merlin frowned. “What’s that?”

Gaius’ face was drawn in displeasure. “In the days before the Purge, the Evanescere Auxilium was a potion highly sought-after by disreputable characters. It allowed one to mark and track the drinker.”

Merlin sat up. “Mark and track? Not teleport?”

“Indeed,” said Gaius. “Someone could purchase a distillation of Evanescere Auxilium, add an element of themselves— most commonly a single hair— in order to attune to the potion. Whoever drank it would be marked, and could be tracked from a great distance” Gaius tapped a finger to the text of the page. “The potion itself requires tremendous magical skill to prepare, but requires no magic whatsoever to use— unlike a teleportation potion, which cannot be activated without a powerful caster.”

Merlin gaped. “That’s— we’re coming back to that later— but if the Evanescere Auxilium marks the drinker, then…”

Gaius nodded darkly. “Then, whoever it is who kidnapped Gwaine did so with the aid of formidable sorcerer; the skill required to brew the distillation is profound. And, there is the small matter of the teleportation spell used to take him away.”

“So it may have been the sorcerer himself after all?”

“I do not know what it may have been,” Gaius entoned, his pale blue gaze endless and grim, “seeing as the druids themselves seem to have witnessed similar magic, and did not know what to make of it.”

Merlin stared at the candle flame, dancing and flickering above a puddle of wax. “Something here doesn’t add up, Gaius,” he said, shaking his head.

“I agree. And I am afraid it shall have to wait; you must make an early start tomorrow,” Gaius warned. “Arthur will want to leave before the king changes his mind.”

Merlin groaned and stood, his limbs leaden and uncoordinated. “Night, Gaius,” he yawned, padding his way up the stairs to his little room.

“Goodnight, dear boy.”

Merlin undressed in a fog of sleep, stumbling as he yanked off his boots and tried to pull his shirt over his head. Shirt, neckerchief, and trousers all landed somewhere vague and unimportant as Merlin rooted around for a sleep shirt, found one in a crumpled ball at the back of a drawer, and tugged it on. It hung loose and billowing, leaving Merlin fighting through swaths of fabric to fumble with the laces. He gave up, pulled the laces free, and chucked them back in the drawer.

Dropping into bed with a groan of relief, Merlin slung an arm over his eyes to block out the spill of moonlight across his pillow. Tangling himself firmly in the blankets, he cast a surreptitious warming spell, and snuggled down to sleep.

«···◊·◊·◊···» 

Gaius suppressed his eighth sigh of the morning. Hunith was a saint. A saint.

“Gaius, I’ve watched you do all of this before,” whined Merlin, glowering through the window at the gray, pale dawn. “How hard can it be?”

“You do not know what kind of injuries Sir Gwaine may have sustained,” said Gaius severely, shoving another roll of bandages into the bag beside a jar of burn salve and a bundle of needles. He peered over the collection, then went to fetch another jar of vinegar— knowing his apprentice, one could never be too careful. “One of the knights may be injured during the rescue— you may be injured during the rescue.”

“I’ve got magic for that,” the young man muttered.

“Merlin,” Gaius began warningly, but he was interrupted by a bellow from the hall.

“Merlin! If you aren’t down here, with my bags, in the next five minutes, it will go hard with you,” Arthur yelled.

Merlin rolled his eyes violently, slung several bulging bags over his shoulder, crammed three pieces of toast into his mouth, and made his goodbyes in a flurry of limbs. Gaius helplessly watched his young nephew bolt down the passage, then crossed to the window overlooking the courtyard in time to see him and Arthur running down the stairs together. They were clearly bickering, Merlin spraying Arthur with crumbs as he spoke and the prince whacking his tunic clean with murderous intent.

Standing in a huddle by four saddled horses, the other knights glanced at the two of them, then cast their eyes skyward.

As Merlin stowed his bundles in the saddlebags, Arthur clapped Elyan lightly on the shoulder, glancing back at the castle as he spoke. Percival hugged Lancelot, seeming to take the opportunity to mutter something in his ear, before Elyan tugged Percival away to hug him fiercely. Merlin, Arthur, Leon, and Lancelot stood deep in conversation for a several minutes, Arthur gripped Lancelot’s hand for the barest moment, and then Merlin was hugging Lancelot, Leon was hugging Elyan, and all four of the rescue party were up on their horses and riding out of the courtyard.

Gaius shook his head, watching Merlin’s dark head bobbing as he leaned towards Arthur, his neckerchief a bright splash of crimson against the gloomy day.

“Be careful, my boy,” Gaius muttered, and knew it was for naught.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

The day had gone very slowly since his friends had left that morning, and now the castle felt quiet. Empty. 

It wasn’t, of course. Camelot’s halls hummed with the susurrus of tiny, comfortable noises that made up life in the citadel as Lancelot did his best to keep well out of everyone’s way. The servants bustled about their post-holiday chores, the courtiers went about their… whatever it was courtiers did (he was sure they did something), and Lancelot spent the hours alternating between entertaining Elyan, trying to catch glimpses of Gwen as she dashed about her work, and running slow drills in his room where Gaius couldn’t find him.

He was filling the time.

Percy had woken him just before dawn, and together they’d gotten Elyan down to the courtyard to see off the rescue party. Arthur had been in foul spirits and (Lancelot admitted in the privacy of his own mind) Merlin hadn’t been much better, both of them bickering and needling as though it was all that was keeping them awake. Lancelot had the fleeting thought that perhaps it wasn’t so bad to have a break. The balance of things had been unpredictable since Merlin had revealed his magic, and while none of the knights wanted to be stuck in a room with the two of them making oblivious eyes at each other, Arthur and Merlin’s definition of ‘getting along’ had always been ambiguous.

He felt a surge of guilt envelope him. Both Arthur and Merlin relied on Lancelot for council, for comfort, for friendship, they honored him with their trust and fellowship, and here he was grateful for a break— now, as Arthur fought to adapt and Merlin stood uncertain of his place at Arthur’s side, while Gwaine languished somewhere beyond even Morgana’s sight.

Shame stung his eyes. His chest ached.

‘Be kind to yourself,’ Percy had murmured as they’d said goodbye.‘Or Elyan and Gwen will bully you into it, and Merlin and I'll be back soon to check— with Gwaine.’

Lancelot sighed and rose, straightening his bedspread where he'd wrinkled it. He would make himself useful and check on Elyan. Gaius didn’t seem concerned about long-term damage, but Lancelot knew from experience how tedious a concussion could be. He crossed the room in two paces, tugging on his gambeson for warmth— but no sooner had his hand met the latch than a knock rattled through the door.

Lancelot froze. Noiselessly, he shifted, glanced down at the play of light beneath the door, placed a loose hand on his sword hilt, and let the door swing open.

A very spotty guard stood in the passage. “Evenin’, sir,” he said anxiously.

“Nathaniel,” Lancelot said, relaxing a little. “How can I help you?”

“His majesty wants to see you. Says I’m to bring you to the throne room.”

Lancelot straightened and, glancing past Nathaniel to Elyan’s door, closed his own door behind him. “Lead on,” he said politely.

Nathaniel sagged with relief. He led the way up the winding passage, and Lancelot fell into step, his heart racing.

Carefully, Lancelot asked, “Did his majesty mention what the summons was for?”

“Didn’t say,” said Nathaniel apologetically, scratching under his nose-guard. After a few more silent paces, he added, “Didn't seem too cross, though. I think.”

Lancelot nodded.

They reached the throne room in silence. Thick, oak panels separated the foyer from the vaulted hall, and guards stood before the high archway. They nodded to Nathaniel, ignored Lancelot, and uncrossed their spears.

“Good luck,” murmured Nathaniel.

Lancelot nodded. He let alertness flow over him, set his shoulders, and crossed the threshold.

Night had crept over the citadel and now the throne room was illuminated by candle and torch alone. A heavy table ran the length of the room, scattered with parchment, ink, and quills left over from the afternoon council session Morgana had managed to attend. Lancelot recognized several atlases— maps of Camelot and its neighboring kingdoms. Shadows sat thick in the corners of the hall, in the niches and fluting of the columns, and the lofty ceiling high above lay shrouded in darkness.

At the end of the table, pouring over a scroll by candlelight, sat the king.

Lancelot cleared his throat politely.

Uther looked up. “Ah. Sir Lancelot,” he said. His lips were thin, his smile sharp.

Lancelot bowed low, keeping his face politely impassive.

«···◊·◊·◊···» 

Lancelot stumbled up the stairs, his mind racing. Finally reaching the door, he knocked, then knocked again. Voices hushed within.

Then there was a swish of skirts, and Gwen was smiling up at him, curls spilling freely around her face.

Lancelot's spine unknotted.

From further inside the infirmary, Gaius’ voice asked, “Who—”

“It’s Lancelot,” Gwen called softly, not looking away from his face, and her eyes were so bright, so warm, and he was so tired— before she realized (with a very sweet start) that he stood in the drafty passage. “What am I thinking,” she mumbled. “Come in— we were just talking, come in.”

He stepped into the infirmary. Fire crackled in the grate and candles guttered along stained, dusty tables between stacks of books, each dotted with scraps of parchment. Gaius and Lady Morgana sat at the table nearest the fire, mugs of tea cupped in their hands. A third sat beside Morgana, where Gwen must have left it.

Lancelot bowed.

“I have told you,” sighed Morgana, and Gwen giggled. Lancelot tried to smile.

“Join us, Sir Lancelot,” offered Gaius warmly. “What brings you here?”

“Thank you,” Lancelot said distractedly, sitting by Gwen. “I’ve just come from the king.”

Morgana’s head snapped up. “What did he want so late at night?” she asked.

“He’s...” Lancelot looked into Gaius’ wise, worried face. “He’s adding us to the patrol. Me and Elyan. We leave tomorrow.”

Gwen’s hand flew to her mouth. Gaius closed his eyes.

“He... what?” Morgana hissed. She stood sharply, a crackling column of indignant fury, and squeezed Gwen’s hand. “I’ll sort him out,” she vowed, and was gone in a swirl of blue silk. The door swung madly on its hinges in her wake, clattering against the wall.

Gaius sighed, and rose as well. “I had better follow,” he said dryly, “to ensure it does not come to blows.” With one hand on the door, the physician fixed Lancelot with a sharp look, and added, “Mind you rest, Sir Lancelot.”

Lancelot was too tired to blush. And then Gaius was gone too, and the room was quiet but for the crackle of the fire. Lancelot set his elbows on the table, and dropped his head to his hands. A gentle hand settled on the back of his neck, warm and safe, and Lancelot leaned into it gratefully. 

Softly, Gwen asked, “Are you...? How are you, Lancelot?”

Lancelot turned to her. Her brown eyes were wide and worried, and her gaze darted over his face, lingering on the small cut on his cheek, the bruise on his jaw.

“I’m alright,” he said softly.

Gwen fixed him with a look, and Lancelot couldn’t help but smile.

“I am… very tired,” he admitted sheepishly. “But I worry for Gwaine, and for…”

“For all of them,” Gwen said quietly. She nodded. “So do I.”

Lancelot’s gaze dropped to the table, and shame bloomed again under his ribs. “Gwen,” he started, and he felt her eyes on him. The shame crept up his throat, and he whispered around it, admitting, “Gwen, I’m afraid for them.”

Gwen took his hand with startling quickness. “So am I,” she said firmly, leaning to catch Lancelot’s gaze with honey-warm eyes. “I’m afraid of not knowing what’s happening to Gwaine, or when they’ll find him, or if anyone else will be injured,” Gwen said, shaking her head. She chewed her lip, and then admitted in a rush, “I’m afraid of the king too, and how— hateful he is, and that he keeps sending you on dangerous missions without any care for your safety.”

Lancelot’s damp gaze slid to the floor.

Gently, Gwen asked, “Lancelot, should I be ashamed of that?”

His head snapped up, seeking Gwen’s eyes. “Of course not,” Lancelot insisted, indignant, and Gwen’s smile flashed with approval.

“Right,” she said firmly, and cupped his jaw in one of her small, strong hands. Lancelot’s heartbeat sped up against his will. Softly, Gwen said, “Please try and be less ashamed of it in yourself.”

Lancelot could feel the heat rising in his face, and he ducked his head, careful not to dislodge her hand. “I cannot blame the king for his dislike of me,” he evaded. “I represent too much disruption.”

“That,” said Gwen fiercely, “is no excuse.” She squeezed his hand tightly, the other warm on his face. “You care so deeply, Lancelot. Don’t ever change.”

Lancelot looked at her. Curls had escaped the knot at the nape of her neck and now fell over her ears to catch in her eyelashes and brush over the smooth line of her jaw. Her brows were drawn, her full lips pursed, and there was such strength and beauty in the intensity of her gaze.

“No matter how far Uther sends me, I’ll come back to you,” Lancelot whispered, his voice unsteady with honesty. “For as long as you’ll have me.”

Gwen smiled softly at him, her sweet face shining. “Always, then,” she murmured, and she stroked his cheek with her thumb.

His eyes fluttered closed.

There was a knock at the door, and they both started, glancing at each other a little guiltily as they separated, though they kept hold of each other’s hands.

Morgana burst in, her mouth a tight line. Closing the door behind him, Gaius caught Lancelot’s eye, and, full of regret, shook his head.

Quietly, Lancelot said, “Thank you all the same.”

Morgana perched on the bench across from them. She was tense and pale, and her eyes were ringed in red, but she managed a small, tight smile for Gwen.

“We’ve bought three days,” Morgana said, her lips pressed thin. “Physician’s orders.”

“That’s something,” Gwen said, her eyes too bright. 

A thick gloom fell over the room. Lancelot gazed at the dark window, where a howling wind thrashed damp leaves against the glass. He pressed one hand to the smooth hilt of his sword, and held Gwen’s dear hand gently in the other.

She laced their fingers together. Their arms brushed, and Gwen leaned her head against Lancelot’s shoulder. He pressed his cheek against her curls and closed his eyes.

She was anchor and lodestone. He would come home, because she was expecting him and if it was within his power, he would not disappoint her. It was simple as that. Warmth bloomed in Lancelot’s chest and infused every part of him, radiating from every point she touched.

‘Always, then,’ his heart sang.

Only three days to rest from an attack that had injured them both, Elyan much more substantially. Worry seeped through Lancelot’s happiness, settling over his heart like a shroud, and he searched his memories for the prayers his grandmother had once woven to ease the paths of travelers.

He found only fragments, dusty and cobwebbed.

Lancelot hoped Elyan was sleeping well. They would need all the rest they could get.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Chapter Text

«···◊·◊·◊···»

They had ridden south from the citadel toward the border with Cornwall, at whose far bourn Tintagel lay. They’d found the inn, found the wood wherein the druids had met Lancelot and Elyan, and scoured the countryside surrounding— but try as they might, there was no hint, no tracks at all, only a strange, slinking, befuddling something that only Merlin could feel. There was no trace of Gwaine.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Merlin was dreaming.

Chest deep, he watched rippling concentric circles of clear light spreading across the surface of the lake, then dipped his head, relishing the cool close of water as he sank into soft willow moss and gazed up from the lake-bed. Refracted sunlight glinted and glowed on waving water lily stalks, green and graceful and tall. Between them flashed tiny fish, tugging along nets of light filled to the brim with Arthur’s dirty socks.

Merlin pushed off the lake-bed, paddling to the bank through the light as water violets and starwort brushed his arms and chest. He pulled himself out of the water and stepped up into a field full of flowers— lapiz-blue irises, freckled foxgloves, and blood-bright poppies dancing in the breeze.

Beyond the meadow, the fading sun sank. Where it brushed against towering treetops, it painted them scarlet and vermilion, laced with gold. Where the trees huddled close together against the night, they loomed dark, rich indigo.

The lake had vanished.

Merlin turned again to the trees. Steadily, he made his way through the field towards the high wood, feet making no impression on the soft, violet ground.

Darkness fell swiftly. No moon rose in the sky, and the stars were distant. Dim.

A noise floated to him on the whistling wind, shivery as a hand brushing parchment, tangled indelibly with a warm rumble that shuddered deep in Merlin’s chest.

Careful in the dark, he picked his way closer. As he approached, the noises began to take shape, though Merlin could still see nothing but branches and the rare pinprick of starlight. There were two speakers, and they were arguing, voices rising and falling like breath.

“It isn’t as though it’s terribly deep?” said the first voice. It was a fluttery sound, dry and nervous.

“It ought not to be… there at all,” said the second voice, gruff and creaking. “It rather… hurts.”

“Well,” sighed the first voice.

Merlin cleared his throat to interrupt; it was as good a time as any, and it seemed the thing to do. “Um… Hello. I’m Merlin. Are you alright?”

The voices paused. Merlin waited, blinking in the dark. He hoped they wouldn’t mention ‘Emrys.’ Then, oozing dissatisfaction, the creaking, rumbling voice said, “There’s a blade in… my trunk, under Ivy, and… Robin has not removed it.” 

“Right…” said Merlin. Why not. Gaius said it was all part of being a sorcerer, but Merlin wished his dreams would be a little more straightforward. “A robin stuck a blade in your trunk. That sounds uncomfortable.” 

There was a low, rolling, “Harrumph,” and the rumbly voice spoke again. “She did not stick… the blade. I said, she did not remove it. She is… hasty, but tends to us.”

“I see,” said Merlin, who did not see. The papery voice let out a tittering sound and he turned toward it (as much as he could, in the utter darkness of the dream). “Um. What about you? Do you need help with anything?”

“Me? Oh no,” giggled the papery voice.

“Harrumph,” grumbled the deep voice, and the papery one giggled. It was a strange giggle. Shivery. 

“Oh, you are right, I’d forgotten— Robin said, ‘keep her safe,’ and, ‘help her not to fall.’ Poor little thing was ever so afraid. Of course, that’s what comes of heaving about on such shallow roots.”

“Right,” Merlin said. “So. A robin needed help staying… in a tree, and—” 

“Oh, pish! She’d hardly need help, even if her roots are shallow too. No, it was the little Girl. We helped her home— but she was very frightened.” 

“Is—” Merlin stopped short. He was starting to develop a headache. He hoped, with some resignation, that it would be a polite headache and stay here in the dream after he’d left it. His hopes were not high. Slowly, Merlin asked, “Are you trees?” 

There was more shivery, dry laughter, and a low thundering sound that might have been a chuckle. 

“What a question. Of course we’re Trees!”

“Right,” said Merlin again, for lack of anything better to say. “So— a little girl was frightened?”

“Yes, haven’t I said so? But we brought her home. They took Robin toward the evening like the rest of them, though, and she seemed ever so sad— her branches weren’t moving! Oh, but that wasn’t the proper message— she said, ‘Warn the Druids and their Wards that there are Iron-Wielders in the Woods’— that’s what it was! They left some behind too— nasty, awful thing; Clover is so unhappy.”

Merlin frowned, disparate pieces clicking together in his head. “Your robin… she’s a human person? She was… bound? And taken somewhere, heading west?”

“My, isn’t he clever?”

“Harrumph.”

“You said, ‘Like the rest of them,’” said Merlin, “You’ve seen others taken towards the evening— taken west?”

“No others under my branches,” rumbled the low voice, “but there have been… many little Two-Leggers whose taking has traveled through our roots.”

“The other Sentinels have gone quiet too,” shivered the papery voice. “Not right. Not right.”

Merlin felt a chill go down his spine. “Do you know who is taking them? Or what they want?”

“We do not know,” said the low voice slowly, “but River… says that many have been taken across… and Sentinels have not been felt by Forest now for many Mornings.”

“Who are the Sentinels?” asked Merlin, and the voices huffed and rustled.

“That… is for Druids to keep and give as they wish,” came the gruff reply. “It is not for us to tell Two-Leggers.”

“Oh, but won’t you tell her how well I delivered her message? I tried ever so long to find someone to hear it.”

Foreboding curled low in Merlin’s chest. “How long?”

“Dog-Roses were blooming by my roots when she gave it to me. Please tell her I sent you! She’s ever so clever, and Nettles are creeping round my trunk too boldly for words. You will tell her, won’t you? So she knows to come clear them?”

The voices were fading now, quiet and hushed. Merlin’s mind raced, more questions on the tip of his tongue, but the dark was lightening and the rush of wind and water drowned out his voice. He caught a glimpse of leaves and branches, of a rushing river beside a thrashed grove, an empty quiver hanging from a broken bough, a sword stabbed gracelessly into the trunk of a massive yew, and, strewn in the grass, shattered fragments of what had once been a bow.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Merlin awoke in the gray dawn to the sound of rustling leaves and Arthur’s familiar snuffling.

He stared up at the canopy through the light brush of morning mist. Green, gold, and russet. Here and there, it was already skeletal. The forest around him thrummed with life, vibrating with deep, earthy magic beyond incantations or runes. Now that he knew what to listen for, Merlin could almost decipher voices in the magic, a chorus of living power flowing through root and twig, carried on the wind. There was no doubt in Merlin’s mind that the voices in his dream had been real. The trees had spoken to him.

But what to do with what they’d said?

Merlin’s temples throbbed.

Toward the evening— heading westward, like the rest of them. ‘Iron-wielders.’

The trees had said nothing about Gwaine, but they’d seen a woman kidnapped— a person they knew, who had warned the druids and given the woods command. They’d said she was one of many taken; could it be that Gwaine had been taken to the same place? Was this where all the strange disappearances of the past months led to?

In the gray light, the camp felt very small.

They’d been going in circles for three days, each trail gone cold and hopeless, twisting this way and that until it became unflinchingly clear to Merlin that there was some form of magic keeping them from tracking their missing friend; it slipped and snaked like oil, untraceable, cold, and foreboding. The similarities to Morgana’s description of her scrying were too close to ignore.

Beside him, Arthur and Percival were snoring still, but Leon was beginning to twitch awake and Merlin knew the other two would be quick to follow despite their weariness. If he was going to try anything, it would need to be quick.

Even Leon— oldest of the knights, who, like Arthur, had grown up in the thick of the king’s law— had sworn quiet oaths to keep Merlin’s secret, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable to cast openly. And, always, he felt the weight of Arthur’s eyes.

Maybe he always would. Maybe Arthur would always hold him at arm’s length. Maybe he would never truly accept him. 

Merlin pushed the thought away before he could drown in it, and let his eyes fall shut.

Cool air brushed his cheeks, the dampness of it settling lightly in his hair. Breathing deep, Merlin held fast to his dream— the rich colors of it, the richer darkness through which the trees spoke. He took in another lungful of cool, clean air, and imagined himself sinking into the forest floor, sinking through moss and bracken, through loam and water, through the life-bed of the forest, sinking down into the living basin of the woods. Merlin thought of the flame-bright lake, and let the memory flow out and through him as he dreamed— until he brushed against a vast, flowing wellspring of power.

The woods cradled a living, breathing magic that seemed to reach tendrils out to the end of the world.

Wild with wonder, Merlin cast his thoughts to Gwaine, feeling westward for his friend’s bright laugh and stern anger, his quick hands and his quicker wit, rooting himself in the forest, and growing past the oil-slick barrier, and— there!

A winding path to the north and west, traces of Gwaine’s own life-force caught in moss and clover— there was the trail at last, unmarred and untangled, about another three days travel.

There was the road to Gwaine.

A whisper ran around him, a susurrus of growing things. Eyes shut tight and magic still flowing within the forest’s web, Merlin felt the earth shiver as root and branch pinned themselves into the traces of Gwaine’s presence, holding the faint trail steady with sparking determination even as the strange, slippery force twisted against it.

Breathless, Merlin took a moment to revel in the woods’ magic. It flowed like fire in tight and layered weave, moving and shifting like cloth; mutable and impermeable, bright, living, and alive. It danced, calling his own magic to join in its merry movement.

Then, he froze.

The trees had given him a warning, given to them by a mage (a druid?) who’d been captured— months ago, to go by the blooming dog-roses. Had the warning reached anyone else? The druids knew of disappearances— had begged Merlin to investigate them— but they’d said nothing of ‘iron-wielders’ or a west-ward danger when they’d spoken to Lancelot and Elyan. Had they noticed that the ‘Sentinels had gone quiet’— whatever that meant?

Merlin was still adjusting to the Silent Speech. Only the druids used it, as far as he knew, and they seemed to delight in popping into his head without preamble, startling the living daylights out of him and slipping away without explaining how they’d done it. But ever since Mordred’s fateful escape from Camelot and the ensuing tumble of truths and reconciliations, Merlin and Morgana had taken to practicing Silent Speech as often as possible.

‘An undeniable asset,’ Arthur had called it when they’d told him, arms thoughtfully crossed and sea-blue eyes bright with possibility. Of course, then he’d said, ‘You’re sure your head isn’t too thick to send messages into, Merlin?” and Merlin had been forced to spend the rest of the week hiding his shoes.

But though Merlin and Morgana had gotten quite good at Silent Speaking between the two of them, they’d never managed to do so from farther than across the castle— it took vast reserves of energy to carry a message through nothing but air, let alone to an unfamiliar recipient, and Morgana had more natural talent for it than Merlin by half. But now…

Experimentally, Merlin closed his eyes and sunk deeper into the wooded web.

He imagined himself growing roots of his own, tangling them gently into the thrumming network, extending his own power along them until his magic and the woods’ magic were one and the same— another living thing in the family of things.

Breathing slow through his nose, Merlin curled into the root web and Called out, as clearly as he could:

<THE TREES WARN OF IRON-WIELDERS. DANGER TO THE WEST. THE SENTINELS HAVE GONE QUIET.>

For a moment, there was nothing.

Then there came a rumble like an earthquake, deep and low, spreading out from the camp like a wave of stone. The trees shook as if caught in a roaring gale, and to the north, a flock of crows shot into the air like bolts of iron, screeching and spinning into the clouds.

Merlin gaped at them. Had he…?

“Merl’n? Wha’ issit?”

Merlin turned wide eyes to Arthur. He was barely awake, shoved up on his elbows and smacking his lips as he squinted at Merlin, hair pressed against his head like wet straw. There were creases mashed into his face from the bedroll.

“I… um. I sent a message. To the druids.” Merlin smiled, as guileless as he could manage.

Arthur’s eyes narrowed to slits. “But…”

“But… I may have miscalculated?”

“Miscalculated what.”

Merlin winced. “Erm… Volume?”

“Merlin!”

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Chapter Text

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Gwaine’s head ached like he’d spent a week under the table.

Carved armrests sat beneath his loosely curled hands. The air was cool and fresh with the dampness of recent rain lingering on stone and dust. There were other smells too, buttery, appetizing smells blowing across Gwaine’s face on the cross-breeze. A strange stillness filled the room, loud with the little noises of intentional silence and heavy with eyes.

Nothing bound him in place, but his sword belt was gone. He shifted ever so slightly in his seat, keeping his head limp, his chin soft on his chest, his breathing rolling slow and easy, and— yes.

The knives hidden in his boots, trousers, and under-tunic were all gone too.

Grand.

“Ah,” came a bright, jolly voice at entirely too loud a volume for the way Gwaine’s ears were ringing. “You’ve awoken. Capital!”

Welp.

Gwaine opened his eyes, blinking in the candlelight as a man’s smiling face swam into view. It was a strange face, broad and pinched all at once, and lightly worn with age. His hair was light and straight, cut in the fashionable shape sported across Camelot’s elite though the way it fell across his forehead seemed to echo Carleon’s court— at least, Carleon’s court about fifteen years ago.

A lord, then.

Gwaine’s gaze flicked over the man’s doublet.

Ah. Definitely a lord.

“I do apologize for our method of getting you here, dear fellow, but I am afraid there was simply no other course,” the lord said, his dark eyes creased and sympathetic. “You must be hungry— I am told one often is, after such travel.”

He smiled, and Gwaine repressed a shiver. There was something deeply unsettling about the man’s eyes. Gwaine glanced away.

A small table lay between them, heavily laden with fine pewter dishes of food and drink. There was pheasant and cormarye, stuffed eggs and dillegrout, honeyed pears and quince connate, and flagons of richly spiced wine. Scent and warmth wafted up through the evening air.

He touched nothing.

The memory of the gifted ale was still sour in Gwaine's mouth, though the taste itself had faded while in that little room, where he’d dreamed only of sleep and the promise of a hot, simple breakfast, and possibly of arguing his way into spooning Lancelot— who did not kick, as Elyan did, and did not pretend to be put-upon about cuddling.

Gods, he hoped his friends were safe.

The chamber he sat in now held little, though it was not a small room. There was the table, which was made of walnut-dark wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl (overkill, in Gwaine’s opinion), the ornate chairs the two men occupied, and little else. A small side table at the edge of the room held an empty letter tray of gleaming silver, but there was no other furniture to speak of.

Night poured in through huge, pane-less windows set low in the thick stonework, and drifted up from the four arched doorways that led away from the sparse room. Torchlight flickered from the far passage; in it Gwaine could see the shadow of a spear shifting on the flagstones— but that was no surprise. Doubtless each passage held several guards, with more prepared to come running.

Nothing adorned the walls. No paintings sat mounted on the stone, no tapestries hung to catch the light, no banners waved for all to see. In short, there was no show of lineage.

So it was all bullshit. No lord lived here.

“If I may ask,” Gwaine said, his voice cutting roughly through the filigreed scrape of cutlery. “Who are you, and why am I here?”

“Oh, my,” said the lord, patting his mouth with a thick napkin. His rings flashed in the candlelight like jeweled beetles. “Where are my manners? You may call me Lord Travain.”

Gwaine returned the smile with what was probably a grimace. Snake.

“As for your second question,” continued Travain blithely, “I have long wished to make your acquaintance, Sir Gwaine. Tales have spread far and wide of your fighting prowess— not to mention your adventures across the Continent. I particularly enjoyed that of the lifting of the besieged castle; I trust the maidens were appreciative?”

Gwaine stared, incredulity and disgust warring within him. He folded his arms across his chest, slouching as he privately longed for the bulk of his chainmail, and drawled, “What do you want, then?”

“A man of action, indeed,” said Travain appreciatively, smoothing his dark doublet. Wealth couldn’t buy taste, but it could buy black dyes— not to mention thick brocade lined with canary silk; Merlin would have something to say about that. “You are right to ask. I wish to offer you an opportunity.”

“An opportunity.”

“Certainly,” Travain smiled again, and the smile only grew more unsettling with each repetition. “I shall be frank with you, Sir Gwaine; I have heard you to be a man of discerning insight. Surely you have felt the… How shall I put it? The rot at Camelot’s heart.”

Gwaine’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

A strange sadness passed over Travain’s face. “I speak of Uther Pendragon, Sir Gwaine. Has he been a kind master to you?”

“No man is my master.”

“Oh, but of course. Forgive me, I misspoke.” Travain smiled, and sighed. “Candidly, sir, I wish to offer you a chance at employment.”

Gwaine’s brows shot up. “Employment,” he said, trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

“Indeed! You would have a place of honor among my men. Your skills, experience, and reputation are exemplary— reputed to be a match for the great Arthur Pendragon himself. I would be honored to have your allegiance.”

“Right,” Gwaine said slowly, his frown deepening. “Well, I’m spoken for. Thanks all the same.”

“Your modesty best becomes you,” Travain nodded, his smile unmoving. “Well, I shall be honored to host you for a time. Roberts and Atkins will show you to your quarters. Gentlemen?”

Two guards appeared behind him, their bulk filling one of the four fire-lit arches. Both were tall, heavily built men with none of Percy’s gentle warm about them, and well-armed. They loomed dangerously, dim light glinting off weapons and studded leather armor. One man shifted his weight, the coil of rope at his hip catching the light just as it did his great-sword, low and menacing; there was something leery in his eyes that put Gwaine immediately on edge. The other man grinned wide and satisfied, giving Gwaine a mocking bow with a sweep his massive pike.

“Follow us, Sir Knight.”

Gwaine got to his feet slowly, then turned and gave Travain a shallow, sarcastic bow; Travain returned it with a guileless smile.

The first guard stepped back for Gwaine to join them, and the second flanked close beside. They were at least as tall as Percy and Leon, possibly broader, and Gwaine squared his shoulders, keeping his posture loose and confident as best he could. The pike-wielding guard (Atkins?) settled a meaty hand on a belt of knives around his waist.

Gwaine eyed them in his periphery as they approached the passage. Maybe if he just…

A servant’s door slammed open. Three more guards burst into the chamber, wrenching forward a tall woman in dust-streaked canary silks, shoving her down into the chair Gwaine had vacated. Gwaine caught a glimpse of a face— bruised, defiant, familiar— before he was marched away, expression carefully impassive to disguise the sudden thundering of his heart.

Travain’s cool voice drifted down the corridor behind him, scraping unbearably at his skin.

“My dear, why must you thwart my hospitality so crudely? This cannot pass unpunished, you know.”

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Despite his predicament and deep unease, Gwaine slept soundly.

He awoke at dawn, well-rested and unharmed, to find a tray of steaming porridge resting by the door. After only a moment’s hesitation, he ate it. It was good, salted and sweetened with honey, and Gwaine knew better than to snub food when he was hungry. If they wanted to poison him, there wasn’t much he could do about it anyway.

From there, the first day in the very polite cell passed slowly. The room was neat and bare, devoid of anything that could be used to escape— even the sparse furniture, well-built and unwieldy, was bolted fast to the floor, and a quick look out the barred window revealed that he currently occupied a tower of tremendous height and absolutely sheer stonework. Gwaine scoured the room anyway— first minutely, then methodically, and then with absolute haphazard frustration until he could confidently say he’d left no stone unturned, and no finger unbruised.

His grand quest returned one (1) spare pillowcase, two (2) flies (one still buzzing, one dead), and two (2) loose nails.

Gwaine pried the nails out of the bedpost and stashed them in the roll of his sock. He smoothed the pillowcase, folded it, and tucked it flat against his belly under his tunic and the waist of his trousers. Then, he swatted at the buzzing fly for good measure, and began another murderous pass at the room.

Eventually, boredom overtook him, and Gwaine climbed up onto the windowsill to see what he might see.

The high tower overlooked a small, bare courtyard, patrolled by guards dressed in the same carefully nondescript uniform Gwaine had seen in Travain’s hall. Beyond the thick stone of the keep wall was a flat, bare plain of wild grasses, grey in the clouded light and so windswept that it flowed like the sea. The plain stretched on for at least a mile before being overtaken by thick, dense woodland, though the woods seemed to creep nearer on the northern side of the keep. Perhaps they came nearer still on the southern side, but Gwaine’s window was narrow, and there was only one.

Not much chance of escape before dark, then.

Gwaine turned his attention back to the keep’s defenses. Now that he looked, he could see inconsistencies among the guard. All were dressed the same, in well-made leathers and unmarked grey tabards, but some marched in even step, others stalked, and still others ambled across the wall. A few men sparred in the courtyard, but though most handled their swords well, one or two had the distinct style of men used to fighting with clubs, or fists. They had not been trained together— or, in some cases, Gwaine realized as a scrawny man bit and kicked his way to winning a bout, at all.

So. A mixed company. Though the soldiers outweighed the bandits, it was not an overwhelming majority; that meant fights and posturing, and plenty of rivalry. But what was a man like Travain— so opulent, so frivolous, so ostentatiously proud of his status— employing bandits for? By his clothing, he could probably afford at least a hundred well-trained knights.

Gwaine tucked the question away for further thought, and cataloged everything he could think of. He would need it for his escape— or rescue, if his friends found a way to reach him.

He wanted to believe they would. He trusted them with his life, a trust hard-earned and wary— and yet, long years on the road had taught him pragmatism. He had always been a thorn in someone or other’s side, Gwaine knew. He’d been kicked out of any number of bars, towns, and cities— and he’d been banished from Camelot once already. Even now, Uther was no doubt celebrating his disappearance as an untimely retirement, and gleefully pronouncing his name wrong in the eulogy.

Arthur would certainly get less trouble with his father if Gwaine were gone. Lancelot could worry less. Elyan and Percy would miss him but move on, and Leon might get a little more sleep. Gwen was too kind not to mourn him a while on principle, but what would change in Morgana’s life? Merlin would be sad, but he’d have the others— he’d have Lancelot— and eventually even Merlin would grow to—

No.

No, he was being shamefully unfair— to all of them, probably, but especially to Merlin. He had to believe that Merlin would come for him. He owed his best friend that much.

But he hoped that Merlin wouldn’t be so confident as to come without backup. Gwaine couldn’t see everything from his perch, but the keep was plainly crawling with soldiers— and that was just the threat he could see. He had been kidnapped by a sorcerer, and though he had long known better than to equate magic with evil, it certainly complicated his predicament.

And there was the matter of the woman in the silks.

Gwaine’s pulse was loud in his ears as he paced the length of the room, glancing up and down at the scattered evidence of his search.

If he couldn’t get out of this tower, how were they going to escape the keep? If she hadn’t managed it, how powerful was the sorcerer involved in Travain’s schemes? And where was she? Where in the blasted building was he keeping her?

Doubt whispered low in his mind, but Gwaine banished it. He knew. It had been years, but he had not, could not forget the face of the friend he had abandoned.

He could not forget Rosaline.

Gwaine chewed his thumbnail, and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. He raked his hair back, scratching roughly at his scalp, and began once again to pace the small room. Finally, he hopped up on the windowsill, and— resolutely refusing to hope for anything— filled his lungs with air. He rang out slowly, clearly, and loud as he possibly could:

"I’m a rover, seldom sober,
I'm a rover of high degree…"

The last note hung in the air, straining and unresolved, and Gwaine listened hard, still and silent as he leaned against the window.

After several long, foolish minutes, he heard at last a very faint reply.

Bouncing of the stone walls of the keep such that he could not possibly tell where from, the other half of the refrain came in a tumbling echo of a clear, round voice.

"… It’s when I'm drinking, I’m always thinking
how to gain my love’s company."

Gwaine couldn’t help it. He laughed, bright with relief.

Footsteps pattered and thumped in the passage, and Gwaine flung himself onto the bed. He kept singing, now bursting between top voice and mumbling as though merely attempting to remember forgotten lines, all while listening to the sounds from the corridor.

Two people. One heavy and swaggering, one quick and frightened.

There was the sound of bolts sliding back and the leery guard (Roberts, maybe? Gwaine was almost sure) swung open the door. A servant bobbed past him carrying a laden meal tray. Gwaine gave the servant boy a friendly smile but he kept his eyes averted, ducking back around the guard as soon as the tray was placed.

“Good evening to you, sir,” probably-Roberts smirked, all slimy unpleasantness, and he shut the door slowly as if daring Gwaine to make a dash for it. When he did not, bolts slid fast with a heavy, clunking finality, and then those footsteps too faded away.

Alone again, Gwaine deflated. He sighed heavily at the high ceiling, then swung his legs off the bed, knelt in a dark corner of the room, and pried up a little chip of tile. He scratched two neat lines in the wood on the side of the bed, and flopped back into it, face-down in the annoyingly soft pillow.

«···◊·◊·◊···»

Halfway through the second day of absolute boredom, a guard (a new one, whose face seemed to have weathered many a tavern brawl) let in the frightened servant boy to deliver a light washbasin and a change of clothes.

As the servant skittered away, the guard drawled, “My Lord Travain invites his honored guest to stroll the grounds and share a meal. You will wash and change.”

“What, no flowers?” asked Gwaine sweetly.

The guard slammed the door shut. Bolts slid noisily a moment later.

Gwaine rolled his eyes, and rose to rifle through the stack of folded garments. They were in Travain’s colors, naturally, all dark greys and blacks slashed through with canary yellow— and all completely, utterly tasteless.

Oh, well.

Gwaine washed, put his own clothes back on, replaced the pillowcase and the nails discretely, then tugged the new clothes on over top of everything. His worn leather jacket he folded flat as he could, and tucked beneath the doublet. Rolling his shoulders and stretching, he found the extra bulk did not impede his range of motion much, though the cut of Travain’s finery was not ideal for fighting even before wearing it as a second layer— but Gwaine had met several sorcerers who could scry through water, or ink, or mirror, and nearly all of them had used a hair or belonging to aid their magic’s search. Best not to leave things behind.

Hours later, Gwaine was released from the little room, to be escorted down the long spiral staircase once again flanked by hulking guards. Atkins gave him a snide look, and the punch-able man merely glowered at Gwaine’s bright smile, hand heavy on a notched short-sword. A falchion gleamed on his back as well, and Atkins’ pike and knives glittered in the torchlight.

Loud and clear, Gwaine thought, and he tucked his hands in his pockets with a loose grin.

Atkins snorted. The other man said nothing.

They reached the end of the staircase at last, the passage opening into a vaulted hall, and Travain looked up at their entrance. He was seated at a writing table littered with candles, papers, and pots of ink, which looked rather out of place in the cavernous central room. At the sight of Gwaine, Travain beamed, quickly folding the letter he’d been reading and tucking it into his sable doublet.

“Good evening,” he cried. “Good evening, my friend. How do you like it here?”

“Am I supposed to like a prison?” said Gwaine. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, come now, come now! Hardly a prison, Sir Gwaine,” tsked Travain with cold, smiling eyes. “Come, dear fellow— allow me to show you around. It’s a very pleasant little place, you know.”

«···◊·◊·◊···»

It was not, in fact, a very pleasant little place.

For one thing, it was massive.

It was, frankly, absolutely fucking bigger than it had any right to be. In fact, after the fifteenth unfurnished hall of towering and majestic size, Gwaine had begun to suspect that the keep was inventing new rooms on the spot to suit Travain’s whims, unrolling new passages right in front of their feet as they walked, and packing up the old ones behind them like an overwrought host just itching for a bit of quiet and a nice, long drink.

Huge, pane-less windows sat low to the ground in every room, easily clambered through. Any number of passages led outside, and Travain pointed many of them out, swinging doors open with no need of a key. The grounds were full of guards, but their movements seemed more a messy training exercise than anything else, and the gaps in the patrol were glaring and obvious.

Travain paraded through it all with a slinking ease that baffled Gwaine. Nothing about the keep appeared to be Travain’s doing (besides the guards, each of whom he knew by name), and yet his attitude suggested a profound confidence in his defenses. Either he was very stupid, or he trusted the sorcerer responsible deeply. Both were possible.

“— Of course, you are quite welcome to leave if you wish,” Travain said casually, a smiling tangent from his present stream of babble.

“I’m sure your bowmen are well-exercised as it is. My lord.”

Travain gave him a magnanimous smile that Gwaine returned tightly, and the lord returned to a description of the punishment he’d once exacted on a maid whose mending of a torn jerkin had failed to impress. Gwaine forced himself to tune it out; as guards still trailed four paces behind and he remained unarmed, attempted murder would probably not end well for him.

A man could dream, though.

As they walked through yet another unfurnished foyer, stones hurriedly gathering dust as they went, Gwaine turned his attention from the prison to his jailer.

Travain’s hair caught the light in odd ways. It was not an unnatural color, a sort of unassuming yellow-gray, but it shone strangely— as though unused to its own hue. Gwaine found himself staring at it as Travain spoke.

And— there was almost something familiar about Travain— or whatever his name actually was. Not his face, which defied recognition, pinched and stretched all at once, smoothed out and re-wrinkled in some lunatic’s attempt at normalcy, but something.

And there was something in the quick, dark sharpness of Travain’s eyes that cut through his own vacant prattle like a hot knife.

At last, they came to a familiar room, which was somewhat reassuring after the parade of imagined hallways. The sparse dining chamber was once more occupied by an ostentatious display of dishes— as though the room was trying hard to distract from its lack of decoration or furnishing. Three places were set, and no one filled the third.

Gwaine did not miss the angered flare of Travain’s nostrils at the sight of the empty chair. A harried looking servant caught Travain’s glare, bobbed a horrified curtsy, and scuttled out of the room through the servant’s door. Gwaine could hear running feet echoing up an unseen staircase.

“Well,” said Travain, smiling tightly and dropping heavily into the gilded chair at the head of the table. “Please, be seated and begin. You are, of course, my guest.”

“Waiting for another?” said Gwaine, choosing a chair facing the door through which the servant had vanished, and leaning casually so that he could see through two other arch-ways as well.

Travain sighed, unfolding a napkin. “There is an age, I find,” he said, almost conspiratorially, “where young people become remarkably obstinate and remain so for some time. I do not presume to mean you, dear fellow, though I believe you are of a similar age, but it is a common ailment of middle-youth.”

“Hm.”

“Yes,” Travain remarked, as another servant darted in to pour the wine into his cup, “I find it grows tiresome. A failure of parenting, perhaps.”

“I’m sure your parents made no such mistakes,” Gwaine said, heavy with sarcasm.

“Oh, my siblings had their moments, I am sure, but though my brother and I had our little disagreements, I generally found my sisters to be quite well-behaved. Comportment, you know. They made… fine young ladies.”

“Married well, did they?”

“Well enough,” said Travain. Something in his bearing had gone flat and remote.

“Let me guess,” Gwaine drawled, delighting in the way it made Travain’s fingers twitch. “Ran away with a knight errant, did she? Took up with her maidservant, and left a king at the altar?”

Travain gave Gwaine a grim, stilted smile. “Not quite.”

“Ah. Pardon me, I’m sure.”

“Indeed.” Travain gave him a slightly pitying look, and then sighed. His face shifted, a mirage of honesty. “To be frank with you, Sir Gwaine, it is of my family I wished to speak.” There was a kind of hollowness in his voice. He spread his hands, his mouth heavy with sadness. “They are all gone, you see. Lost to Uther Pendragon’s wrath.”

Gwaine did not show his surprise, though his stomach flipped. “Sorcerers.”

“No,” Travain answered quickly, leaning forward with such intensity that Gwaine nearly flinched back. “No, they were not, though magic was not held as evil in those days— some say even Uther himself made use of it. No. We simply stood between him and something he did not need, but wanted; that was all. Our great house fell because we saw Pendragon for what he was— a liar and a murderer. Now I am all that is left in the world; a lonely remnant of a proud and noble lineage.” He gave Gwaine a pleading, hopeful look. “This is why I ask for your aid, dear fellow. With the Pendragon line ended, we could—”

“Let me stop you there,” Gwaine interrupted loudly, letting his voice ring flat and bored when he saw how it made Travain stiffen. “I’ve no love for Uther— right miserable bastard, he is and no mistake. Sorry about your siblings; sounds like him. But I’m loyal to Arthur til the day I die. There’s nothing you can say to sway me against his Camelot, so you might as well not bother. Also— well, I am sorry to say it, but have you considered chewing mint? Sweetens the breath, I find; what you’ve got going is… blegh. Hgleghk. Bleeeeghhackehck. You know? But I pray you pardon me, my lord, I mustn’t speak ill of mine host,” Gwaine said, and he grinned a broad, ridiculous grin.

Travain’s eye twitched. His expression ticked once or twice, smile fixed and rictus, and finally shuttered. The jovial facade crumbled away at last, and what surfaced beneath it was cold and unyielding as drowning.

There we are, Gwaine thought with satisfaction. Something honest at last.

“Very well,” said Travain, his thin lip twitching uncontrollably into a very nasty sneer. “You will be shown back to your room. I am sure, after some time alone to contemplate, you may come to see the appeal of—”

“… Pardon me, sire?”

“What is it now?” barked Travain, wheeling around with a snap of his cloak. Gwaine peered over his shoulder.

The captain of the guard hunched in the archway like a battered gargoyle. His face was scratched, the sleeve of his doublet torn clean off, and he sported the beginnings of a rather severe black eye. Stiffly, he limped into the room, yanking forward a familiar figure in a plain overdress and ripped shift, and throwing her down on her knees before Travain.

Gwaine felt himself go very still.

There was blood in Rosaline’s hair. Bruises discolored her cheek and brow, her lip was split and bleeding down her chin, and he could see the distinct impression of a gauntlet pressed purple into her neck and shoulder. Her whole body curled protectively around the bruised arm where it dangled uselessly at her side, and she was breathing hard.

“Is this the way you keep a prisoner?” Gwaine snarled, fury strangling each word as it left him, almost shaking with rage as he rounded on Travain. “And you claim to be better than Uther—what can she possibly have done to warrant this kind of treatment, you utter—”

Without so much as a glance in Gwaine’s direction, Travain flicked a finger. “Gag him.”

Cloth was shoved into Gwaine’s mouth before there was time even to breathe, filling his senses with stale, heavy dryness. Huge hands came down roughly on his arms as Gwaine twisted and wrenched, thumping hard against the table so that the dishes rattled— and then he froze.

Held fast beneath his ribs, a razor-sharp blade prickled on each inhale. “Try,” muttered Atkins in his ear, the grin audible in his voice as he tightened his arm. “I’d love the excuse. Try.”

At that, Rosaline glanced at Gwaine— just once, wide and sharp— before dropping her gaze to the floor, and Gwaine forced his breathing to slow.

“Pity,” whispered Atkin, and he brought another knife up to rest casually at Gwaine’s throat.

Travain took no notice of any of this. He seemed not even to hear Gwaine, as if he had ceased to exist as soon as the hope of his usefulness had been discarded; now all Travain’s furious attention was locked firmly on the captain of the guard.

Whey-faced under Travain’s stare, the captain pushed Rosaline’s bloodied head down into a bow and her mussed, tangled braid slipped free to sweep the floor. It was at least a meter longer than Gwaine remembered.

“Captain. Why have we been interrupted?” Travain asked, his voice low and sharp.

Gwaine’s hands itched for his sword.

“My lord,” the captain said woodenly. “She refused your generous gifts, so I let Roberts in to teach her a lesson.”

“I see. And where is Roberts?”

“… In the infirmary, my lord.”

“I see.” Travain’s voice was like damp stone. “It appears you too could use a trip to the infirmary.”

“Er… yes, my lord.”

“Might I remind you, captain, had you managed to bring me a suitable guest, one to my clear and consistant specifications, rather than some tree rat so feral that even I have struggled to tame it, we would hardly be in need of such frequent infirmary visits for you and your men?”

“Yes, my lord. Won’t happen again, my lord.”

“See that it doesn’t.”

Head still held firmly down, Rosaline scoffed, glaring venomously at Travain’s kneecaps. “You make a habit of kidnapping children?” 

“Please,” Travain replied icily. “Captain, how old would you say she was?” 

“Fifteen, sire.” 

“Fifteen. Hardly a child, wouldn’t you say? Besides,” cooed Travain, curling a ringed hand around her chin and tipping it up towards him so that the captain lurched quickly backward, “I have had you to contend with these happy months, though now I find the challenge grows stale. In future, I shall hold a greater appreciation for the ease with which my next companion acclimates.”

She spat in his face.

Travain wrenched Rosaline’s injured shoulder, and her strangled scream ran through Gwaine’s bones. Before he knew it, there were heavy hands on him, shoving him back down into his seat as he fought to rise, spitting muffled profanities into the gag.

But he wasn’t stabbed, which was odd. Why hadn’t Atkin stabbed him?

Crumpled on the floor, Rosaline gave a tiny whimper. Her lips were white with pain.

“Oh, my. It appears we have disturbed the sensibilities of our noble guest.” Travain smoothed his robes, velvet deep and rich in the candlelit hall. He smiled, sharp, and looked to the captain. “New quarters are in order, I think. Atkins and James will return our good Sir Gwaine to his chambers while you deliver the lady to the dungeons.”

The captain gave a brusque nod and pulled Rosaline to her feet. She went easily enough, before elbowing the captain hard in the gut with her good arm, yanking herself away as he doubled over. Like breathing, Gwaine was up, throwing his weight against the guard behind him and heaving his chair into another, whose short sword clattered from his hand. Rosaline ducked fast to avoid a heavy right hook, and Gwaine lunged for the sword— but Travain’s arm flashed tight around Rosaline, jeweled dagger flush to her jugular vein, and Gwaine stopped short.

“For that little display,” panted Travain, lip curling against Rosaline’s ear, “I believe we must devise something special. Dungeons for you both, I think. One cell should do nicely.”

The guards were back on Gwaine in an instant, hands clamped painfully around his arms and shoulders. The captain clambered to his feet and took hold of Rosaline from Travain, his face sour and thunderous as he pinned her good arm tight behind her back, sword held across her chest. She spat a lock of hair out of her mouth, chest heaving.

Her dark eyes flicked briefly to Gwaine, shadowed and unreadable, and Gwaine’s heart sunk down to his knife-less boots. This was not the reunion he had hoped for.

“I suppose you had better pray our good Sir Gwaine really is such a gentleman as he claims, my dear,” Travain called after them as the guards began to drag the two prisoners through a passage Gwaine had not yet seen, one that winded down and down through the bowels of the keep. “You will have plenty of time to become acquainted.” 

«···◊·◊·◊···»