Chapter 2: The Dawn

It was happening again.

Every morn he woke up to the sun and to cool air and to his mama's smile so close as they shared that one thin blue blanket that never seemed to altogether fall apart into shreds like so many other things do.

He woke up and he could not breathe. This time he was waking up and he was falling apart. It was happening again. There were shouts, coming from outside. He could not stop coughing. Someone was hitting the door hard. There were screams and a woman was making them. "Help us!" She shrieked. Too loud. "The door, help us!" She was screaming too loud.

Mama!

She took his face in her hands, arms around him. "Merlin!" She was shouting but her voice was soft against all the noise. There was a roar all around them. And Mama was pushing him to the ground, bellies on the dirt floor. It was hot, so hot. They coughed together. He couldn't stop. He couldn't breathe. Had the firepit made all this smoke? All this smoke? It smelled bad. The men were still shouting.

"Ma- Mam!" He tried to say it. Couldn't do it.

"It's okay." Her lips were pressed on his ear, pressed hard, he could feel her words.

A thick roar and crackling. A big fire.

"It's okay." Mama said.

He couldn't breathe. It was so dark. The crackling of a big fire. She was pulling him to the wall, to his little burrow that he had made. The dirt floor was uneven there, had always been, and he had made a hole between the rough wall of the house and the ground. He kept wriggling through it, day after day. Making it bigger. It was his secret passageway to the outside when his Mama wasn't looking. Making his mama mad.

"You will bring the house down!" She had squawked one day, hitting him with a wooden spoon as he slithered. But he always got out. He was so much smaller than her.

She pulled him to that little hole. She pushed him into the little hole. The house was crackling. The house was a big fire. So hot. Mama. He grabbed her hand, pulling his with him. She pushed him away. Mama! The blue blanket was on fire. Turning black. So hot. Mama pushed him through the hole. Mama pushed him away. The flames licking the wall seared his back. White hot. He screamed. He heard himself scream. Shirt in flames. He could feel it. His back was a fire, skin a blistering coal, burning. He was a burning leaf. Crackling. He writhed and flailed. Everything he touched hurt. He scrambled to get away. To just get away.

He was out. The grass was covered in dew, dew waiting for the morn. He rolled in it, the flames died and smothered on the ground. He could breathe. Barely. He covered his mouth. He waited. His burned back throbbed. Throbbed in time with his heart.

Mama!

Beams cracked and broke. The house crumbled like a hot coal.

MAMA!

The shouts of men. Grasping hands. Not mama's hands. And Merlin ran. Like running through water. Like running through a rushing stream, water pulling you back and back and back. It was so hard. He was so tired. Each stride pulled on his cooked skin, tearing at it. The hands were reaching for him. Taking his wrist, snatching his ankle, and he shook them off. Hands kept grabbing.

He couldn't breathe. He still couldn't breathe. He was out of the flames but he still couldn't breathe.

Leon had broken his nose before, so this time he was pretty sure it wasn't broken. But damn it all, did it hurt! He blinked back tears, eyes still watering profusely from the pain. When he pulled the cloth away from his nose, he noted that the volume of blood had decreased. Finally. He stood, steadied himself against the tree upon which he had been leaning, and began picking his way around the campfire to his lord. His sore muscles were tight in protest of his movements, but Leon ignored it.

"Leon." The prince grunted his greeting from a spot by the fire. He was poking at the burning kindling with a stick and staring into the flames.

Leon noted the apparent sour mood and sat down beside the prince with a little more care. There was no use in poking the bear any more than necessary. "Sire." He returned the greeting. His voice was a little nasally and he tried not to smile at the sound of it because smiling hurt.

"How is your nose?" Prince Arthur asked, tossing the stick on the fire and sighing.

Leon shrugged. "It will mend." His nose dribbled blood a little and he quickly dabbed it away. "It was just a glancing blow."

The sky rumbled from far off. A storm may be on the way. Though to be fair, Leon reasoned as he eyed the prince's dark, furrowed brow, there was a storm here already.

"A glancing blow?" His lord scoffed, voice raised enough to make some of the other men stir in sleep. "He kicked you full in the face, like a bloody horse."

Leon had seen what a horse kick could do and it was not something he would talk about lightly. He had seen a stableboy in his father's stables kicked straight in the head by a skittish horse while the child was just mucking out the stall. He and Leon had been the same age around then, about ten seasons. The kick Leon had received to his nose just now was not even a close to that. It had been enough to make his nose start bleeding and start a bruise under his left eye. But it was not bad, no, what had come after was a little worse.

"And then he tossed you across the fire, just like that," Prince Arthur pointed out Leon's previous trajectory. "Like a rag doll." The prince rubbed at tired eyes with his fingers. "I never want to see that again as long as I live." Leon heard him mutter.

Leon was inclined to agree. He knew well now that he was not meant for flying. "I am fine, Sire. Nothing broken, only bruised. My landing was…soft."

"I doubt Sir Bedivere would agree." The prince said through gritted teeth.

Leon winced. "He is only bruised as well."

His lord lowered his voice and turned to Leon, firelight glinting off his eyes. "Now they are all afraid of him."

Leon felt that the statement, 'And so am I.' Was there, but not spoken by his lord. The Prince was not expected to be scared of anything. Stupid, Leon thought, even princes are human. He bit his lip and thought a moment.

"Sire." Sir Leon said finally. "May I speak freely?"

The Prince gave a short nod. "Yes."

"He is just a boy-"

"Well, that boy just flung a man twice his size into…" Prince Arthur trailed off. Leon had caught the Prince's eye and he closed his mouth quickly. "I apologize, please continue."

"He is just a boy and he is very much scared of us, that is obvious. We look and act like men who have probably hunted him before now." Leon paused and chose his words carefully. He was speaking to a Prince, but also to his friend. "I do not think tying him up and treating him as a prisoner will help… things."

"He tried to run away!" The Prince squawked. One of the men sat up suddenly and his lord sighed. "Sorry." He lowered his voice. "You saw, you were on watch. We had to drag him back here." Some of the other knights and soldiers rolled over and shifted as they slept.

Leon allowed himself to roll his eyes since it would be too dark to see his exasperation. "I spooked him, Sire. He was having a dream, a bad one, and I woke him." The poor boy had sounded so pitiful. It was when the child had muttered the word 'mama' that Leon's heart twisted tight and painful in his chest. He had then crept over to wake him from the nightmare. "It was all an accident."

The Prince was silent for a minute or so. Leon looked over to where the packhorses were tethered and spotted the young boy, lying on the ground, tethered as well. Beasts of burden. From farther away now, some distant thunder. The storm must be passing them by.

Prince Arthur cleared his throat. "The fact remains that he has now proved himself a danger to us. I cannot allow him to put my men in harm's way." And his lord sighed before running a hand through his messy hair and some of the locks stood straight up, held together with the grime and grease of many days on the road. None of them had had a proper bath or change of clothes for months now. "What if it had been worse, Leon, what happened to you? I can't… The principle of it… I cannot do nothing." The prince was touching his own arm, fingers rubbing the spot there where the arrow had pierced him a day ago, and staring into the fire. Leon had seen the white scar. It was amazing.

"Let me go to him." Leon leaned towards Arthur, putting a hand on the other man's shoulder. "You must show him trust and he will come around. He healed your wound, he has a good heart. Let him be untied."

"I do not think that is a good idea."

"I will look after him."

Arthur frowned at Leon. "You swear to it."

Leon took a breath. "I swear I will keep him in check."

Arthur sighed. But he did not look away once from Leon's gaze. It wasn't a hard stare, but it was relentless. After a minute or two, he nodded. "Untie him." He slapped Leon's shoulder.

Leon grimaced. His flight earlier had landed him on that side of his body.

Arthur continued. "You two can take watch until dawn. We start moving then. If we keep up a fast pace we should reach Camelot by- Oh!" Arthur saw Leon's flinch of pain. "Sorry."

Leon stood. "Just bruises there, Sire."

"I am sorry, Leon."

"Thank you, sire. Get some sleep." Leon began walking towards where the packhorses were tied.

Prince Arthur laid down on his bed roll near the fire.

Leon let out a long sigh as he approached the boy. "Hello." He crouched by the stake where the boy's bonds were affixed.

Merlin sat up with a start and inched away from Leon as far as he could. His wrists were bound together and then those bonds were given a little length of rope and tied to a stake in the ground. Merlin shied away just enough to make that rope taut and he could go no further. The dim light from the campfire gave Leon an impression of the boy's face. Tear tracks, shining in the firelight, ran down his dirty cheeks. His small nose was still swollen and purple, those dark shadowy bruises also passed from the bridge of his nose to rest under each eye. And he was thin. Too thin. Like a good stiff breeze might up and spirit him away.

"We match now." Leon pointed to his own nose, and smiled a painful smile. Worth it, though. "Two sore noses."

Merlin eyed him. "You aren't angry?"

"It was my fault. I scared you." And Leon added. "I am sorry."

Merlin looked over to the campfire, over to where Arthur now slept. "He was angry."

"He was just worried." Leon reached over and began to untie the rope at the stake. "Sometimes it looks like people are angry, but they are just scared too." The rope was loosed from the stake and Leon almost reached towards Merlin but he caught himself. He stayed very still. It was not worth scaring the child again when he had come this far. "May I untie your hands?"

It took Merlin a moment to crawl closer to Leon and hold out his bound hands. But he eventually did. He was slow and careful, watching the knight the entire time. But Leon felt that this was progress. Leon began attacking the knots that held Merlin's thin, delicate wrists together. "I wish they had not restrained you." Leon admitted as he worked. "But the prince was just trying to protect his men, you understand that, do you not?"

Merlin nodded silently, eyes on the ground.

Leon finally finished with the knots and the rope fell away. "You are not going to run away again, will you?"

Merlin shook his head.

A pause. Then the boy spoke. "Why me? I'm just a…I'm not…" Merlin shrugged. "Why?" He seemed to fold in on himself, like a dry leaf.

Leon opened his mouth, then closed it again. 'I am not sure myself', Leon almost told the boy.

The errand they had been given, the quest, was of the utmost secrecy. Only the Prince, the King, and the King's councilmen knew exactly what they were looking for and why. They were to find a user of magic, a powerful one, and bring them back here. And doubtless it was not supposed to be just any magic-user. It was supposed to be someone named Emrys. Or it was "an Emrys". That, Leon was not clear on. Prince Arthur seemed to think that this 'Merlin" was an, or the, 'Emrys'. Leon had expected a wizened old man or crone, someone who had been practicing magic for years. Or, he had anticipated another Druid, like the ones that inhabited the woods around Camelot and sat on Uther's councils. He had not imagined a boy barely older than twelve seasons, if that at all. But Leon could not muster up the will to say all that. Besides, the child would barely understand it.

He finally spoke. "We are here to see you to safety." Leon tossed the rope that had bound the boy aside and got comfortable in the grass, stretching out his sore legs. One knee clicked, an old injury, and Leon was reminded of it every time his knee settled into place. He rubbed the joint. "Each and every one of us wants you to arrive in Camelot, alive and well. But we cannot protect you if you run off. Cenred's men are everywhere here. In Camelot your talents are understood… respected. But here, they do not want to understand you. They are afraid of you and they will hurt you."

"I know." Merlin whispered.

Leon hesitated. "Have you… have they hurt you before?"

Merlin was now rubbing his wrists and staring at the ground. "They…they…my mama. I couldn't…" The boy closed his eyes. Screwed his eyes shut and bit his lip. Leon almost reached out and hugged the child. "I couldn't help her." Merlin whispered.

Mama

And Leon heard again how the boy had whispered it in his sleep and he shuddered. And that one word played in his head. Over and over again. Poor boy.

"Merlin." Leon sighed. Over the dark shapes of the trees he could see the sky beginning to lighten. Dawn was coming. His eyes were itching for sleep but he was not going to get it. That was just fine. It was fine. "Merlin?" He spoke again.

Leon met the boy's eyes and noticed that he could see the color, a deep blue. The same kind of deep blue that moved across the night sky as it yielded to the golden dawn. The same kind of gold that flashed in Merlin's eyes when he woke from his nightmare and kicked Leon in the face. The gold, luminous and bright, that had sent Leon flying, weightless for a few brief moments. Night, yielding to dawn.

So Leon tried. He reached out, slow and careful, hand extended through space, he reached towards Merlin. And he rested his hand on the boy's thin, bony shoulder. Merlin did not flinch away. He stayed still. Every so often, he would tremble or shake. Leon could maybe hear soft sobs. But he waited, squeezed the boy's shoulder, and waited. The sun rose. Dawn arrived. It always did.