Merlin grinned as he crossed the wide square of Camelot. In fact, he was still grinning as he arrived at the stables he had been ordered to muck out. He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes, the smile still stuck widely on his face.

Although the Knight was not the only one to notice this, Gwaine was the only one to mention it. 'Merlin!' he greeted him. Percival steadied him as he swayed. 'You look happy for a man covered in horse shit!'

As he often was when not out on patrol, he was very slightly drunk. Merlin, not acknowledging his remark, simply grinned wider if that was possible, and told Percival to look after his friend.

'As I've been doing anything else since Arthur made him a knight.' he grumbled in return, then flashed a grin to show he wasn't serious. Elyan gave a rueful smile as he joined in. 'Although his knowledge of ales makes up for it in part, I suppose.'

Gwaine tried to punch him but instead fell flat on his face. 'Don't tell me I'm a bad influence…'

At this point, Sir Leon jabbed a right hook towards his stomach and Gwaine shut up.

Suddenly, something was wrong.

A moment before, Merlin had been laughing with the Knights, but then he was gasping as he felt something come in to contact with his stomach, his vision blurring and the breath punched out of him. Then, just for a moment, he felt something.

He was old, unimaginably old. He'd seen the world start and he would see it end… But no, he was Merlin, and the Knights were looking at him and saying something, their concerned faces merging in to each other.

'I'm fine.' he told them, his words breaking through the odd troposphere. 'I've got to be somewhere.'

Arthur sat at the head of his table, going through his papers and dining with Gwen, now and then ranting openly about his manservant's tardiness. Gwaine caught a small smile disappearing under her hand as she turned towards him and he realized that she was amused by Arthur's threats. At the same time however, she was trying to control it. There was no point in pushing the king to further annoyance.

Gwaine disagreed, but before he could start a rag his fun was spoilt - Arthur, apparently, had noticed it too. 'What's so funny?' he asked his queen, breaking off in midstream.

'Oh, nothing.' she told him with another little grin. 'I was just imagining what would happen if you could actually pin Merlin down.'

She was the master, Gwaine decided, when it came to annoying Arthur. It was a shame she was never inclined to do it - there was real potential in that smile.

'What do you mean, if I could pin him down. It's not my fault he doesn't turn up on time.'

It was time that he got involved, thought Gwaine, and leaving off sharpening his sword he turned to his king. 'I think she meant if you could catch him in a fight.' he told him nonchalantly. 'I mean, you might be a pretty good swordsman but you're not exactly fleet of foot.'

Arthur's face hardened as he turned to his knight and friend. 'You're talking about what happened at Jarl's castle again, aren't you?' It wasn't really a question. Gwaine shrugged.

'What do you mean pretty good swordsman?'

Luckily, Percival, Leon and Elyan broke up the would-be fight with their entrance. 'Have you seen Merlin?' the second of them asked as the others sat down. 'I think he may have stolen my horse.'

Arthur and Gwaine stopped their bickering and looked up at their friend.

Merlin rode non stop throughout the day.

It was angry.

And he didn't know what it was.

Great.

He'd been stupid, he knew that - he hadn't thought, taking Leon's horse, but it had been the first one he'd laid eyes on and in his immediate hurry and despair he'd acted blindly. He'd left a note for Gaius with a servant he knew as he'd left the city, but how was the old man going to explain his and the steed's absence for two whole days? Two days, soon to be three. He would have to make camp soon.

Well, there was no point in turning back now, he told himself steeling his resolve. Arthur might as well be furious over six days as over two.

The manservant pulled his thin clothes more tightly around him, put a log on the dwindling fire, and went to sleep.

The white mountains are made up of a confusing and truly stupendous number of peaks and crags, littered across the scape like a giant's playthings. No human creature ventures there but the mad, and the suicidally brave; and then the sheep, of course.

Who, if you think about it, are fairly insane themselves.

The only paths to tread are those few and precarious furrowed and etched by their cloven hooves, and the sudden morning mists might change to murkiest fog in the space of ten minutes: many people have fallen unsuspecting to their deaths, their last cries lost in the humid air, and their corpses absorbed by the grass and ground.

They become the mountain itself.

But something is changing in the depths of that world. The still valleys shift and lessen, where once the mutton grazed there are now only gaping chasms.

And the livestock that goes up the side of a particular peak never comes down again.

The farmers try to stop their cattle grazing higher than the foothills, parents forbid explorer games. But none of this will make any difference.

Because the mountain is waking up.