Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, BBC does. I only own my original characters: Eris, Gaia, Cles, and Ora.

Always

Eris stood near a tree at the edge of the camp they had set up, somewhere in the forest, just hours before. She watched with amusement as her companions, half drunk, sang songs from their youth around the roaring fire set up in the middle of the camp. Two of the children that had accompanied them danced around the fire. The girl played a lovely flute, which acted as her voice as she was mute. The boy played a lyre. They made beautiful music. The two of them were twins, if Eris remembered correctly, the boys name was Cles and the girl's was Ora. They were too young to drink but still they giggled and danced as if there were not a care in the world. Their playful nature brought smiles and laughter to faces that had once worn the emotion of worry.

The sun had disappeared from the sky long ago, but no one was asleep. Those who were not drunk were still on edge from the past days events. Everyone was tired, from the running they had done, but they didn't show it. They were all wide-awake just waiting for someone to attack them. As if any moment they would hear the cries of the enemy as their knights ran out of the darkness that surrounded them, ready to perform another ambush.

Eris was not as paranoid as some of the others, but she still felt every second that she was being watched. In this new environment she was sure that that was true. Though the ones watching them may not be enemies just curious forest creatures, it was still unnerving. Everyone would probably be beside themselves with worry if the old Captain hadn't brought out his secret stash of ale. Eris had no idea where he could have stashed it as they had agreed to pack light because they new that at a moments notice they might have to be running blindly threw the forest for their lives.

In the silence of the night she felt a soft hand rap itself firmly around her left wrist. Surprised she spun around, her eyes meeting with those of a girl not much younger then herself, perhaps in her early twenties. The girl's eyes were dark, ocean green and showed twinges of sadness that came from a lifetime of having to bear the emotion. In the dark it took a few moments but Eris finally placed where she had seen the sadness that occupied the girl's expression. She had seen it so many times. When this fact clicked into place everything else did as well. The dim firelight shone over the girl's face revealing more detail. The single streak of green in her short, dark brown hair reflected the light. Now she could make out the scar that ran from bellow the young girl's right eye in a straight line to where her face ended. It was a scar Eris knew so well that she could have traced it in her sleep, for she was the one who had put it there.

Eris took on the wicked smile she was known for and pushing a few wavy strands of her long black hair that hadn't made it into her ponytail out of her face, so the girl could see her piercing purple eyes. Eris finally broke the silence. "Never thought I would see you here, Gaia." The mischievous look Gaia was famous for took shape on her seemingly frail face.

"What are you doing here Gaia?" Eris asked. The girl still hadn't released her grip on Eris' wrist.

"What I am always doing." Gaia smirked. "Watching you Eris."

"I thought I was being watched." But Eris' grin turned quickly to a defeated looking smile. "Are you going to turn us over?" She looked at the ground waiting for their fates to be decided and she was surprised when Gaia put her hand under her chin and raised it slightly so they were staring into each other's eyes. Her expression was calm and kind when she answered. "No." Surprise and relief filled Eris.

"Why?" She asked. "I thought you were…"

"I still don't agree with your methods Eris, even if I do understand and believe in your reasons."

"First you betray, me then you help me. Whose side are you on anyway?"

"I don't know and I didn't betray you." Gaia snapped.

"Could have fooled me." Eris snorted.

"It was not my intention to betray you. You must understand my side of this."

Eris lowered her gaze, she did understand. Long ago when she was very young Gaia watched as a whole village of their people was slaughtered just for disagreeing with the king's law against magic. Gaia had hidden beneath an overturned cart of hay and watched in horror as family and friends were chased through the streets, cornered and killed. She saw no mercy in the eyes of their attackers. After that they burned the village. The hay in the cart she was hiding under caught fire and she was lucky to have escaped with only minor burns. The burns left no mark but after what happened Gaia was scarred for life. After that it had taken her a long time to even look at a blade let alone use it. She did not believe that violence was the best course of action in achieving peace between their people and the rest of the kingdom. That is where they disagreed.

"Eris killing the king will not bring our friend's back, and it will not make anything any better." Gaia continued the argument they had had countless times before.

Eris sighed. "He is the reason we are persecuted and living on the run." She argued.

"If you want to change his mind about us, acting like this will only make him see the worst in us. If we just lie low…" Gaia continued but Eris cut her off.

"What and watch him kill innocent people who have never done anything wrong."

"That is not what I was saying." Gaia's voice began to rise in anger. "Things can not change over night. If we want things to be different we must work for however long it takes and if that means working in the shadows then so be it." She had now released Eris' wrist.

Eris knew she had a point but she had come too far to change tactics now. "You know he will never change his mind, we have seen that. He believes that us even being born is a crime. If we don't fight back now he will wipe our kind from existence."

"I know that, but you are making everything worse. His mind has already hardened against us because we keep trying to overthrow him. You are only making his fears reality not showing him otherwise."

"But wouldn't it be better if there was no king at all." Eris contemplated.

"If there were no king then the kingdom would erupt into chaos. I have hope for a new king that will accept us and if you kill his father he too will turn against us."

"You are talking about the prince. He is the one hunting us down as we speak. He has already shown proof of what kind of king he will be." Eris spat.

"He is only following his father's orders, he is still undecided. We might still be able to convince him." Gaia explained.

"But that will take time, and even if you do sway him his father is still king and it will be a long time before he dies naturally and that is time we do not have. Who knows by then we could all be face down in a ditch somewhere. I will not lose this war Gaia!"

"I understand." Gaia relented, softening her gaze. "It is your nature to follow this path. It always has and always will be. There is nothing I can do to change that."

Eris lowered her eyes. "There was once a time when you would have followed me to the ends of the earth, but that has all changed hasn't it?"

Gaia began to stroke the scar on her face. "Yes… yes it has."

"I thought that it would be you and me against the world." A single tear ran down Eris' face but she quickly wiped it away.

"Its still you and me. We will always be fighting for that same cause. We just aren't on the same side anymore." Gaia stopped stroking her scar and took Eris' hand once more.

"So you are against me." Eris said, slightly squeezing Gaia's hand to make sure it was really there.

"I am neither with you nor against you. My intentions are honest, we want the same things but we have different methods."

"I understand, you were always the patient strategist."

"And you always believed a strong offence makes for a strong defense." The two laughed for a moment. They made an odd pair so different and yet exactly the same.

"In the end we may meet on the battlefield." Eris looked at Gaia who was avoiding her gaze. She noticed she had gone back to stroking the scar on her face.

They both remembered what happened the first time they had fought. When they had fled Camelot in fear of the law. Even though they had been very young they could still fight better then any soldier on that battlefield. They had both followed different kings, who'd been at odds for a long time and had finally gone to war. What the kings did not know was that the real battle was not between them but between their greatest warriors, Eris and Gaia. Neither side had won that war and in the end they had made piece but the battle had been long and tiring.

The two warriors had fought unending, both equal in strength but they also had their weaknesses. In the end Gaia, using her strategy, unarmed Eris but she hesitated in the last moment giving Eris enough time to grab a weapon and strike. She didn't think she would actually hit her. Gaia seeing the attack stepped back but not far enough. The blade cut deep into the side of her face, and as she stepped back she tripped, fell and hit her head, knocking her unconscious. Eris was shocked; even though they had been fighting she hadn't thought she would hurt Gaia. She gathered the small, frail form of Gaia in her arms and wept. This had been the war's fault that had set them at each other's throats from the beginning. This is what had turned two inseparable and loyal friends against each other. In Eris' rage at hurting Gaia she had used her power to end the battle and make the two kings see sense.

That had been a long time ago, but it seemed these events were destined to repeat themselves as the battles continued. Eris and Gaia had moved from kingdom to kingdom but they always seemed to arrive just as a battle was taking place. The wars got bigger and lasted longer. Through the years Eris and Gaia had always risen up to fight along opposite sides.

Finally they decided to return to Camelot only to find that the situation with the law against magic had worsened and a war had begun, one that would last for years. But this war was different for it had struck at the heart of their world. This time it was their people against the humans. For a long time they had lived peacefully together but then something snapped and the humans attacked them with fear in their hearts, led by their foolish king. They believed they were evil and untrustworthy, that they might use their powers to overtake the humans, and once again Gaia and Eris were forced to choose sides. Eris chose to fight right along side her people as a part of the rebellion. Gaia chose to work on the inside, trying to bring back mutual respect.

After only a short while of working on the inside, Gaia had discovered another with the same ideas as herself. Merlin, or Emrys, as their people knew him. She had heard so many stories about him in her youth. His powers were meant to be extraordinary. She had discovered him when she had been collecting her favorite berries in the forest and had found herself caught in the middle of the knights of Camelot fighting off a group of bandits.

Gaia had watched from a distance in awe of the skill that the knights had displayed. She easily picked their leader, prince Arthur, out of the crowd. Even though she had only seen him a few times when she had been performing some of her duties as a maid in the castle, his blond hair easily gave him away. Along with the fact that he was surrounded by his closest knights, and as many may have missed this point, his closest friends.

This small group also included prince Arthur's manservant, Merlin. No one had noticed her presence so, when he thought no one was looking, Gaia caught a glimpse of Merlin's eyes flashing gold, causing one of the bandits to trip and knock himself out. From what she had witnessed she knew immediately who he was.

Gaia knew that she had stayed long enough and had rushed back to the castle, and to her small chambers. She hid her basket of berries under the bed so no one would find them, for the berries had been rumored to have certain magical qualities if mixed properly.

She sat in silence on a chair next to her window that looked out over the courtyard. Gaia had taken to sitting in this exact spot whenever she was contemplating how to save her people's fate. She had watched many of her people die from this window. Even with everything she was doing she could not save everyone. King Uther had meant the executions to scare sorcerers into abandoning their magic, but for Gaia it had done the opposite.

Uther's actions had only magnified Gaia's want to change Camelot and return it to its former glory. She had found moments where, even though she did not like to admit it, she had wondered if Eris was right in wanting the king gone ahead of schedule. Gaia had quickly shaken this thought from her mind. She had chosen her path and was, like Eris, too stubborn to change her mind so far into the game.

After the revelation of Merlin's magic, Gaia had secretly followed and watched him to see what kind of person he was. She was not disappointed with her findings. He had a kind heart and had done so much for Camelot that no one even knew about. Because of what she had found out about him, Merlin had gained a new ally, even though he would never know it. Gaia had found that her job was a lot easier if she did it from the shadows. As Merlin secretly protected Arthur, Gaia would secretly protect him. They would never even know she was there.

But unlike Merlin, Gaia found that she enjoyed her deception. She decided that she would be that person that no one ever noticed and so no one would ever suspects anything from. She would always be the person in the background. Gaia knew that everyone else was too busy to put the pieces together, the fact that she was always there when evil was defeated or when they found out how to defeat them. No one ever suspected Merlin, so she knew that no one would ever suspect her. The only one she would ever expect to catch on was Merlin, but he had remained oblivious, much to Gaia's delight.

Her place at the castle also aloud her to protect her people even though to them she was a traitor, a breaker of oaths. She had vowed to never leave the side of her people. Oh if they only knew. Even her closest friend, Eris believed her to have forsaken them. But she could not tell her exactly what she was doing. Though she had told Eris her intentions she hadn't told her about Merlin. Eris' intentions were good but her ally Morgana had other plans.

A light squeeze of her hand jolted Gaia from the past to the present. But one look at Eris confirmed that she too had been lost in the past and was still there. Time was running out and Gaia knew she would soon have to return to the castle and put on the disguise of a quiet maid who never had and never would truly accomplish anything of worth in her lifetime. But she gave Eris a few more moments.

Eris and Gaia were both equally matched in battle. They had both survived the other conflicts but Eris knew this time would be different. If they met in battle again their combined power could destroy them both. Eris would give anything to turn back the seasons to when they were both innocent, like Cles and Ora. To a time when people would comment on how Gaia and herself seemed to be joined at the hip. From the beginning Eris had known there was something familiar about their friendship, as if in another lifetime they had walked the same path together. Sometimes she had short bursts of memories that she knew did not belong to her, of people she could not name and places filled with the impossible. Oh to go back to the time when that was the only problem that had been on Eris' mind. To when they had first taken the oath, vowing to never leave the side of their people. An oath Gaia had broken. Deep in thought Eris didn't notice Gaia's hand slip from hers.

"I have led the soldiers away from your camp but they will not be fooled for long." She said bringing Eris out of her memories.

"I understand." She knew that this was Gaia's way of saying that this was goodbye for now. "Be carful you know what will happen if you are caught and they find out you are one of us."

"I know." Gaia said and their eyes locked. "You too."

"What?"

"Be carful." Gaia took Eris' hand one last time and lightly squeezed before letting go and turning to leave. Eris turned around to look back at the camp then turned her head back to see the slowly retreating form once more.

"Gaia," Eris spoke up.

"Yes." She said turning to look back as well.

"We'll always be friends right?"

Gaia smiled. "Always."

Then she disappeared into the trees, her last words still ringing true in Eris's ears. Always.

Should I continue this story?

Please REVIEW! This is my first fanfic.

Thanks guys.