Prologue.
Do you ever run for so long that your muscles feel so strained and your lungs burn like fire? That you feel as though you are about to collapse at any second, but you know that if you stop you will surely die? I want, more than anything, to be able to go back and take him with me, hide him away in the forest and live peacefully like the family we had always promised to be.
I don't know when I'll see him next. I don't know if I ever will see him again. Running, now, I realize was the worst idea. I should have stayed. I should have done what I could to help him, to help anyone. Instead, I did what I did best – I left.
Emrys, I thought his name sadly.
I stopped, only for a moment, to look back at the trail I had run. Of course I could not see Camelot through the thick forest trees, nor could I hear the clashing of swords against shields, but I knew – somewhere down there, a war was raging, a war that would test the King, his guardsmen, and his people. A war that would test his right hand's ability to follow through with the prophecy to protect the King at all costs.
Once I thought I had caught my breath enough, I knew it was foolish to even think about returning. I would be killed the moment I stepped onto Camelot's city boundaries.
So I turned around and kept running and praying that soon, some day, Merlin would find me again, as we both promised.