Disclaimer: I don't own Gargoyles.

I was not quite seven years old when the Archmage took me from my family (and just barely with their consent) north to Castle Wyvern.

In all honesty, I can not say that I was terribly enthusiastic about leaving. The way I saw it, they were handing me off to this strange, even frightening man who had arrived in our village not even a week ago, in all likelihood for the rest of my life.

"I am in need of an apprentice, boy. You will do nicely," he muttered in his almost impossibly harsh Welsh; I eventually learned that his voice in English was just as abrasive. "You have the mark on you; it is apparent." I assumed he was speaking of my appearance; my mother used to tell stories that some of the villagers thought the Fair Ones had switched me out for a human baby when I was born.

So we trekked the over two hundred miles from Gwynedd to Castle Wyvern. Anyone who saw us would have laughed at the incongruity of our appearances, he a great, tall, black cloaked figure more resembling a storm crow than anything else, and the small, bobbing shape beside him, matching in with the snow, I, a small, white-haired, blue-eyed child wearing a borrowed wool cloak, sometimes having to wade in the snow drifts up to my waist.

We arrived in Castle Wyvern after several weeks of traveling, with snow even thicker on the ground there than it had been in the land of my birth; in Scotland, I could not believe there was so much snow.

The lord of the castle, Prince Malcolm, left a much better impression on me than my new master, probably due to the fact that he actually bothered to ask me of my name; he spoke Welsh much better than the Archmage. Few others in the castle spoke any Welsh, so I resolved to learn English as quickly as I could.

Two weeks after we arrived at Castle Wyvern, Prince Malcolm's wife Princess Elena was delivered of a child.

.x.X.x.

Quietly, so as not to be noticed, I slipped into the bedchamber, avoiding the local nobles and guards as best I could. There was even a gargoyle present, an older one with graying hair and a thick beard; I shied away from his piercing stare when he noticed me.

It was late at night, and my master was asleep, but I was curious to see the newborn everyone was so excited about, so when I noticed a maidservant carrying a great pitcher of water towards Princess Elena's bedchamber I offered to deliver it for her. It would involve me taking the pitcher directly up to the table by the bed, so if I was lucky I would have a good view of Prince Malcolm's new heir.

I skirted the edge of the bedchamber, staying away from the small, softly whispering congregation until I reached the great finely crafted bed.

Princess Elena lay under several quilts and blankets and, despite the merry, crackling fire in the hearth, she was shivering almost convulsively. She had been in confinement for her birth since long before I arrived, but I could guess that it was the effects of the birth that made her seem so wan, so listless and so waxen pale.

As I set the heavy pitcher down on the table, the sound of wood hitting wood and sloshing water must have alerted Princess Malcolm to my presence, for her looked down and gave me a small smile. Prince Malcolm was standing at his wife's bedside, gently cradling a blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms.

"It is a strange day," he addressed me in Welsh, a hint of the conspiratorial in his voice, "that the birth of a single child should attract more attention than the resurrection of our Lord did, and that it should draw a child out of bed at such a truly ungodly hour."

I could not help but smile slightly at the blasphemy, but the dark-robed monk in the corner (who evidently at least understood the language of my birth), glowered at the blasphemy and glared even more fiercely at me, magic-using heretic that I was. I did not think it worth telling the monk that at the moment I could not have so much as transfigured a wine goblet.

"I imagine you wanted to see her, am I correct, Gwyn?" He was the only person who ever addressed me by my Christian name; as far as I am aware, he was the only person at Castle Wyvern who knew my Christian name.

"Yes, sire."

Malcolm knelt down beside me so we were on eye level, winking. "Here she is, Gwyn. Your future liege lady, unless my Lady wife and I are blessed with a son."

I saw a small girl child, mercifully asleep (My mother would never allow me to assist her when she was delivering a child—she adhered to the old superstition that men shouldn't be allowed in the birthing chamber—but what I knew was that there was a great deal of blood and screaming involved in any birth, and that the child was usually born with a formidable set of lungs). She had dark brown fuzz adorning the crown of her skull, and though she was clearly no longer upset, patches of red still existed at the top of her cheeks.

I was curious about what the girl would be like as she grew older. I would naturally be able to watch her as she grew and I hoped, in vain, that she would not pose too much trouble.

"What is she called, sire?" I asked quietly, again in Welsh because my English was lacking to the point that I could not string together a single sentence in that language.

"Her name is Katharine, for my mother."

.x.X.x.

It had rained recently; the sky was still the color of unpolished pewter, and thunder grimly sang in the distance. Though it was barely ten in the morning, it seemed more like late afternoon. The courtyard was muddy; large stagnant puddles mired the ground everywhere.

I was sitting on a bench near a wall of the courtyard, poring over a book of Latin letters and studying and copying them to further in my instruction in that language.

In truth, on such a gloomy day I would normally be at my studies in the Archmage's quarters, but the Archmage was in a particularly vicious mood that day and I decided that it would be best to absent myself from my master's presence. Since I had gotten too big to fit into any of the hiding places in the castle I had used to use, I was in the courtyard, alone except for the occasional servant carrying something across and the Prince's deerhounds, who as ever ignored me—I prefer cats anyway.

I would have chosen the Great Hall, which was warmer, and at least a little drier (the huge windows unfortunately proved wonderful avenues for rainwater to find its way in through), but for one thing, which was also the present source of my master's absolutely malevolent disposition.

A nearby monastery was built down from a steep hill, and was inclined to flooding. This had happened two weeks past, and the monks had requested shelter and had been granted it, taking up temporary residence in the Great Hall.

My master and the local monks and priests had ever been engaged in what could only be termed as a secret, sometimes underhanded war between religion and magic; I once sardonically asked my master if he and the monks would be declaring open war anytime soon and received a sound crack over the head for my troubles.

Personally, I had nothing against the monks; they were men of God, and I respected them as such. In the village where I was born, when a woman was giving birth my mother would send me a half-mile inland to the nearest monastery, to summon the Father Abbot to be ready to baptize the child in case he or she died (so their souls would not be condemned to Purgatory), and they always welcomed me with open arms, despite my inherent strangeness. Not so here.

Here, the monks despised everything under the sun that did not fit with their view of ideal Christianity. They were dark, glowering little men whose rough-spun dark robes and habits swished almost threateningly and whose pointed public prayers brazenly displayed their dislike of all those who did not conform to their views. They feared anything strange and unusual in any way; in particular, the gargoyles, and (even if I did not practice magic) myself. They would have gladly seen both my master and myself burn at the stake for our heresy if it were not for the fact that we had such a powerful patron; the gargoyles did not escape their wrath either.

They hated us. And while I saw no point in retaliating, the Archmage was more than happy to respond in kind.

The monks were dropping off at an appalling rate. Everyone assumed that it was some sort of illness or infectious disease, but I knew better; the symptoms they suffered before dying matched exactly a particularly potent poison my master was fond of.

Disgusted by this, I had half a mind to go to Prince Malcolm and tell him exactly what was happening under his nose, and would have too, had it not been for my utter terror that the Archmage might do the same to me (my overwhelming fear of him, which had before seemed so irrational, was finally vindicated), and my master's assurances that if he went down, he was taking me with him; I was utterly dependent on the Archmage, even more so in the days when I could not speak English, and he was not afraid, even delighted in, exploiting that almost shamelessly.

So I kept my mouth shut, and watched in silent shame as the monks continued to die.

I was so preoccupied by the foreign words I wrote on worn, soft vellum and thoughts of monks dropping like so many short-lived fruit flies that I did not notice when she came upon me.

"Hello. You're the Archmage's apprentice, aren't you?"

I restrained a groan, barely. My hopes that Lady Katharine would grow to be a well-behaved, docile child had gone completely unheeded.

The little terror in question was four years old, and the running opinion among the guards, the servants and myself (and probably secretly among her parents as well) was that "Lady" Katharine was either a changeling sent to torment us all for some shockingly grievous sin we have yet to commit, or that she was simply an unadulterated hell spawn. I could not quite decide, but I always believed it was the latter that was closer to the truth. No one short of Judas Iscariot could possibly have done something heinous enough to warrant that little hell cat giving them grief.

What did not help was that I, like many boys of my age, was at the time possessed of an aversion to girls in general, much younger girls in particular.

Princess Elena, who usually supervised Katharine and was the only one capable of keeping an eye on her and disciplining her, had recently miscarried a child of four months (dangerous, exceedingly dangerous; I marveled that she had survived through it), and was still bedridden. Prince Malcolm and Katharine's nurse were both inclined towards spoiling the girl to outrageous degrees, and they were all too easy for her to evade. That was probably how she had gotten all the way to the courtyard unnoticed.

I made no answer, praying she would believe that I had just not heard her and that she would lose interest. I did not make any room for her on the bench, to further the line that I was ignorant of her presence. Because wherever little Lady Katharine was, trouble seemed to follow.

Lady Katharine did not go away.

She watched me pensively for all of five seconds, before asking, "Are you mute?"

My English had improved immensely in the four years that I had lived in Castle Wyvern, enough that a year ago my master had ceased with English lessons and begun in earnest to teach me Latin, but I was still self-conscious enough about my English that I spoke it but rarely. I was not mute, not by any means.

The question irritated me; the only thing that kept me from displaying my irritation was remembering the patience my oldest brother (the age difference between Madoc and myself was the same as between myself and Lady Katharine) had always shown with me when I bothered him.

That question impelled me to answer, to restrain her tongue from further inquiring if I was mute, if nothing else. "I do speak your language, my Lady," I answered, in a thickly accented voice that still carried the thick note of my Welsh roots, and would for the remainder of my life.

She edged onto the bench beside me, peering into the book of Latin words and stylized letters. "What strange words!" Lady Katharine exclaimed. "Are they magic?"

I bit my lip before responding. "No, my Lady. They are Latin words."

I fell silent, my silence extremely pointed. She did not leave, however. I returned to the studying and copying of Latin words, trying my best to shut her out, and she watched me write the words with the sort of fascination that only a small child could possess.

Without warning, the dark-haired little girl spoke up again, just as tactlessly as ever. "You are rather strange, you know that?" I looked at her, and saw her gray eyes gleaming with wicked humor.

I smiled icily in response. "That, my Lady, is purely a matter of opinion." I prided myself on not losing my temper with her once.

Katharine looked rather offended, and was going to speak again, when her father Prince Malcolm appeared at the top of a staircase leading into the courtyard.

"Katharine!" he exclaimed. "You did give me a fright." Prince Malcolm hurried down into the courtyard, his brow creased in anxiety.

"She has not been giving you any trouble, has she?" he asked me kindly, addressing me in English; the Prince and his wife were ever kind to me (only God knows why), and I think Prince Malcolm's addressing me in English instead of Welsh had more to do with encouraging my confidence in my language skills than anything else.

"No, sire." I was lying through my teeth, but what could I say? She was just a child.

Prince Malcolm lifted Lady Katharine into his arms and began to walk back into the castle. "Come inside, Katharine, where it is dry." He looked at me. "You should as well."

Behind her father's shoulder, Katharine stuck her tongue out at me.

And she was going to be my lady mistress someday?

Lady Katharine may remember her childhood experiences with me with fondness, I am not sure. But I quite clearly remember my early experiences with her with a mixture of fondness, utter exasperation, and restraining the urge to do something to her that would have inevitably led to my execution for high treason.

.x.X.x.

The next time I had occasion to be alone with Lady Katharine was under entirely different circumstances.

I stared down at Princess Elena's still face. She seemed less animated in death somehow, less lovely than she had been. Her face was like carved marble, cold and veined.

Princess Elena had miscarried again, this time of a boy close to term. Neither mother nor child had survived.

I really was not sure what to feel; I was strangely numb, almost detached. I could not understand why. Princess Elena had ever been a kind mistress, considerate, soft-spoken. She had been, like me, a stranger in a strange land, and if she was ever afflicted by pangs of homesickness or feelings of isolation, I could more than sympathize.

All said, but I could not cry, I could not weep. I did not know why.

I was helping to prepare her body for burial; the other man, an elderly physician with a crooked back and strange vivid green eyes, was out of the room. I was alone, or so I thought.

As I shifted position around the lonely bed where my late mistress laid, a small swish of wool came from the threshold, barely audible but painfully loud.

I turned, and for the first time felt some pain and a lump enter my throat as I saw little Lady Katharine, clad entirely in black wool, stare hollow-eyed back at me. Her wide gray eyes were the most expressive part of her now; dry and terribly open, hollow and empty, utterly lifeless.

Instantly, I moved in such a way that would at least partly shield the sight of her mother's body from her. She was a brat, it was true, but she was a brat who had just lost her mother and I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. I also did not even want to imagine the sort of nightmares the sight of her dead mother would inspire in the girl.

"It is alright," she piped up sadly, her voice hoarse and cracking. "I have already…I have already…seen her."

As she stood beside me, staring down at her mother's face, I felt a grudging admiration for the girl. No tears, no hysterics… She was almost perfectly composed, which was more than could be said for her distraught father. It then occurred to me that this repression of her emotions could lead to greater problems for her later.

I found myself reaching for words to say. Something that would be appropriate. But then I remembered something, something out of my distant past. A face.

When I was five years of age, my mother was called to deliver a child of a young woman who had always suffered from ill health. It was a long, hard labor that had lasted the entire night and ended just as the sun was starting to peek up from behind the rolling hills.

The child died within minutes of being born. As the Father Abbot performed the last rites, I stared down at the baby. It was a girl, small, perfect, flawless, beautiful. And dead. There was an eerie serenity to her small face, and I heard the Father Abbot murmur sadly that she was an equal of angels now.

Then, I looked at the mother. Her face… It was terrible in its grief. Her face was twisted, empty, broken, silent. Nothing anyone murmured to soothe her seemed to reach her, nothing comforted her.

And I stopped trying to find words to say to her. She did not need them, did not want them, and would not welcome them. And in truth, I could not find it in myself to offer empty words of consolation that meant utterly nothing.

But then I remembered. Several of the local nobles and King Kenneth himself had arrived to pay their respects; the king was there to comfort his inconsolable younger brother. As devastated as Prince Malcolm was, eventually he would notice his daughter was missing. And Katharine, I knew, did not want that sort of attention on her right now.

"My Lady," I murmured to her, "is there anyone I could send for? Your father, your nurse?"

Katharine shook her head halfheartedly. "No," she whispered. Her voice caught, thickened. I felt the lump in my throat reassert itself. "No." She looked up at me, sad hope in her clear eyes. "I would…rather like to stay here with you, if you do not object."

I was a little surprised, I admit, but I understood. "You may stay as long as you wish, Lady Katharine."

She managed a small, heartrending smile. She pretended not to notice when I wound my arm around her shoulders, and in turn I pretended not to notice when she whimpered.

.x.X.x.

"Gwyn?" Prince Malcolm whispered hoarsely. I bent low over him. "Do me a favor."

I looked at him in pity. "Anything, sire."

He smiled through what must have been a torturous pain throughout his entire body. "If I were to die, please, keep an eye on Katharine. Look after her, make sure nothing happens to her."

"Two eyes, sire." I smiled grimly at him. "I will need them both. And you are not going to die."

A little over a year ago, barely days after the death of Princess Elena, the Archmage attempted to kill Prince Malcolm.

Because of my dependence on him, I was often drawn into the Archmage's smaller schemes, either as an unwitting or unwilling accomplice. Most often, he had me spy for him as a child; he never had me steal for him because he knew that if I was caught anyone who found me would know that there was only one person I would have been stealing for. I did not like to think about what he wasn't including me in.

There was little love lost between us. In fact, I feared and detested the man, and I wasn't sorry to see the back of him; when he was gone it felt like a dark shadow on my life had went with him. To him, I was not his apprentice, I was his tool, and he hardly did anything to recommend himself to me.

Just after Princess Elena's funeral, my old master had finally done something too obvious for Prince Malcolm not to notice and too blatant for him to excuse. When he went to confront the Archmage, my old master attempted to kill him. Prince Malcolm recovered quickly, and the Archmage fled into banishment, or so he thought.

A year ago, the Archmage attempted regicide. Now, he has done so again.

My position was especially precarious after the Archmage was banished. Though I was not involved in the attempt on Prince Malcolm's life, I had been the one closest to the Archmage and there were many who advocated that I either be sent away or killed.

Truly, it is a terrible thing to be aware that one's life is hanging by tenterhooks. In one night, I went from being the Archmage's apprentice to an unwanted houseguest.

What was it the old gargoyle called me, as he spoke with Prince Malcolm and the Captain of the Guards? Oh, yes. A viper in the nest, one that could strike at any time. I think that is where my dislike of gargoyles springs from, just as irrational an origin as Lady Katharine's because her father threatened to discipline her by sending her to the gargoyles. Maybe he should have; at least then Katharine would have seen that they meant her no harm. Anyway, before I heard that (and I doubt any of them knew I was listening; I happened upon them by accident), I feared the gargoyles, but I did not dislike them. Pity, even when I was older and understood that that was the rational, practical course to take (even if it did seem harsh, eminently cruel, it would have been for the best), my dislike did not wane.

Now, as I stared down at the cold, staring face of my liege lord, I felt a grim sort of desperation. The gargoyles would, with any luck, return with the Grimorum Arcanorum, my old master's spell book, before morning, and there would be an antidote in there. I had all the herbs usually utilized in antidotes on a table, and a guard primed to run to the apothecary if I needed more.

If the antidote was too time costly or too laborious to make, or if there was not one, I knew I had to be prepared to use that spell. The spell in question was one that would surely work to draw out the poison, raging as it was through his intricate system of veins, blood vessels, capillaries and arteries, but it was dangerous, for both of us. If I executed it wrong, it could kill us both. But I had to try.

Looking at him, I felt my chest seize. Prince Malcolm had been kind to me, always; after the Archmage left, he behaved as though it had absolutely no effect upon my status here, even though we both knew it did. What would happen to me if he were to die tonight?

As much as I wanted Prince Malcolm to live for his own sake, I knew it served my own interests for him to recover. If he survived, it would surely cement my position in Castle Wyvern. If he died, it would be the end of me.

Though only a handful of people knew that Prince Malcolm lay close to death, it seemed to me as though all of Castle Wyvern was holding its breath.

The wind howled outside; it had been tearing at my ears all night.

"Will my father be alright?" again sounded the small, tearful voice at my side. I groaned internally at the thought of her crying; with everything else that was going on, the last thing I needed was a crying child on my hands.

Lady Katharine had sobered somewhat after her mother's death. She still got into trouble often, but it was clear that she was no longer deliberately looking for it, and I found to my amazement that she was actually a rather likeable child.

"Prince Malcolm will recover, my Lady." I tried to inject confidence into my voice; I knew it was not convincing. "The gargoyles will be back by morning with the antidote, you will see."

She sniffled. "I hope so."

I felt equal pity for the child as I did her father. "My Lady, it is late. You need to rest." If she did not, I might have two royal patients on my hands.

Her lip quivered stubbornly. "I will not." She had steadfastly refused to vacate her father's bedchamber all night.

I needed her out from under my feet, and she needed rest. I had a solution in mind.

Without warning, I leaned down and picked the girl up, amid protestations of "Put me down!", and deposited her in a nearby arm chair.

Where she was, Katharine glared at me, though she could not manage a very impressive glare with her eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot.

I knelt so I was on eye level with the girl, and murmured, "Somnus", passing a hand over her eyes. The result was immediate. She would sleep until dawn. It was always difficult, even dangerous, to channel magic without a conduit, and I was left wanting nothing more than to be able to sleep myself, but thankfully I had not needed to put much of an impression upon her mind; she had already been on the verge of sleep, she was so exhausted. Lady Katharine would not thank me for what I had done, but she had needed it, more than she knew.

Just as I was backing away from the chair, I heard what sounded like a howling voice. I ran out onto the balcony before I recognized it for what it was.

It is said that all human sorcerers are descended from the Fair Ones in some way, and while I never knew what to think of that belief, it might have accounted for why, late at night, I would hear voices in the howling wind. Of course, it might have just been the final vestiges of my sanity slipping away from me. Lengthy association with the Archmage tends to have that effect on people.

I went back inside to where it was terribly quiet, for the continuation of a long vigil.

It was going to be a long night. Possibly the longest of my life.

.x.X.x.

What is it with small children and running and hiding? Oh yes, I remember. If Lady Katharine was hiding for the same reason I did at that age, it meant that she was either frustrated or afraid. Possibly both.

It had been a year and a half since the second failed attempt upon Prince Malcolm's life, no one had questioned my right to inhabit Castle Wyvern since, and Lady Katharine seemed to have assumed my late master's favorite hobby of trying to drive Prince Malcolm into an early grave, though she was utilizing a decidedly different approach.

It was always the same. Her Latin tutor would report that she had never arrived for her lesson, Prince Malcolm would automatically drop what he was doing whatever he was doing (it was impossible not to notice that my liege lord's hair was graying rapidly), every single denizen of the castle from the lowest servant to Prince Malcolm himself would be mobilized and set to tumult searching for her, and inevitably I was the one who found her first.

And today would be no different.

I unceremoniously pulled back the tapestry, and a pair of guilty gray eyes stared back at me.

"Once again, my Lady, you have succeeded in unleashing an unparalleled degree of chaos upon Castle Wyvern," I greeted her with an incongruous mixture of joviality and acerbic wit.

We were in a mostly deserted corridor on the third floor. Behind a rich, ornate silk thread tapestry of Arthur the Pendragon being borne off to Avalon, there was a large niche in the wall large enough for a child to fit in to. This was where Lady Katharine was hiding; it was only a matter of coincidence, I supposed, that it was also the place I had most often used to hide from my master so many years ago.

Katharine accepted the hand I held out for her, clambering out from the niche and into the hallway, the stone walls bathed with torchlight and hot afternoon sunlight. "How do you always find me so quickly?" she asked, both curious and a little petulant.

I grinned wickedly. "Magic." It was a lie, but maybe it would persuade her not to run.

She gasped. "That is not fair!"

"It is not particularly fair to give your father the amount of grief that you do, my Lady."

In truth, I was not sure (and remain unsure) how I always found her so quickly. If I was using magic, it certainly was not conscious. The knowledge just came to me; I always knew exactly where to look for my liege lord's wayward daughter.

Seeing that she had once again been defeated, Lady Katharine started down the hall towards the staircase, silent but defiant. I walked after her.

Her silence, typical in these situations, gave me time to think. Why was she running from her lessons? True, learning Latin was difficult at best, painful at worst, to the point that there had been days when I had wanted nothing more than to be able to wash my hands of it entirely (and never did I feel more homesick for Gwynedd than on those days), but after a while it got easier.

Just as we reached the staircase, I turned to her and asked, "If you do not mind my asking, my Lady, why do you work so hard to evade your Latin lessons?"

Katharine looked up at me, startled, her mouth open, looking a little lost. Then her mouth clamped shut. Then she tried a fake, sad smile. Finally, she just sat down on the top stair.

I sat down beside her, and she took that as invitation to launch into her frustrated explanation. "He does not teach me at all, really. He just sets me to copying Latin texts and translating them into English, and when I make an error he does not tell me what I did wrong. He merely corrects them and moves on."

After taking into account a child's tendency to exaggerate, I considered what she had told me. And frowned. Obviously, he had taught her something, but what she was describing to me was certainly was not the way to go around teaching someone Latin; my old master (as much as I despised the Archmage, I had to admit that even he did occasionally have good ideas) had had a much better way of teaching me the language.

"I see," I said slowly, and suddenly I cracked a conspiratorial smile for her benefit. "I think, my Lady, that you and I can come to an equitable arrangement. If you agree to stop running from your lessons, I will take over instruction of your Latin lessons." I had a firm enough grounding in Latin that I was sure I could do it.

Her face lit up in a delighted smile. "Oh, thank you!"

"Now," I murmured pensively as we started down the staircase, "there is just the matter of your tutor."

Katharine smiled confidently. "Do not worry about him. I am sure we will think of something."

When Prince Malcolm grimly congratulated his daughter on running off her Latin tutor, I did not find it worth mentioning that she had had help.

The word 'somnus' is Latin for sleep. Since I had no idea what the verbal command form of 'sleep' is in Latin, if someone can verifiably tell me what that is, I will change the word in the text.

Hope you liked.