"Merlin?" The young man looked up from his sketch pad to see his sister. She was in tears, they ran down her cheeks but luckily she never wore make up. He quickly wrapped her up in a hug. Merlin slowly stroked her head and made sure she was resting under his chin.
"What happened? Are you okay?" She didn't say anything but held tighter to him. He had no idea what could possibly make her this emotional, everyone knew he was the emotional one. "Do you remember the first time you hugged me? When we were ten?" Merlin suddenly said.
Mithian looked up, confused, but it soon grew in to a small smile as she remembered that day. "You went bright red and everyone basically declared you would be my future husband." She giggled and he grinned down at her. He loved making her smile; she had such a wonderful smile. He did everything possible to see her smile: he sparred with her, drew with her, gossiped with her and he even used magic for her.
Mithian's father already knew about his father's magic and therefore his magic. They told her when they arrived. He was so scared at first, his father and he had just reached Nemeth. He was only eight and had always been told to never tell anybody about his magic. But when he fainted in front of the King and Queen of Nemeth and their daughter he felt justified in doing so.
"Come." He took her hand and helped her to the chair next to him. "Look at what I've drawn." He took a few of the scattered papers from his desk and sat next to Mithian. Unfortunately, she'd gone back to her teary - eyed state.
He took both her hands in his and gave her a small smile then put the papers on her lap. He watched as she began to smile wider and wider. As he found things to make Mithian smile, he'd fell in love with everything he found. He loved to draw: he drew the skies, Kilgharrah the great dragon, his father, Rodor, and Mithian. Sometimes he would draw, just for Mithian, her…
"Mother!" She wrapped him in a huge embrace. Her tears were no longer sad and lost in despair but happy and thankful. He loved it; he enjoyed it more than being happy himself. His very determined sister did not like that at all.
"A memory came back to me this morning." He looked wistful as his mind travelled back to his 9th birthday. "Remember when Uncle Gaius couldn't come to see me on my birthday all those years ago and I was beyond distressed?"
Mithian looked up from the drawing of her mother and nodded before placing the drawings on the bed next to her. "Not even I could make you happy." He smiled, knowing that to be a very rare thing.
"Your mother, she took me to the lake just outside the castle walls. It was late and by the time we got there the whole castle was ready to send out a battalion and my father a dragon." They chuckled, knowing one of those to be true. "We sat by the old spruce tree and she told me to look at the stars and to pick one. Then she said that Gaius was probably looking at that same star right now. And…A…And," a tear slipped from his eye as he put a hand to his mouth to stop himself from sobbing; he'd been very close to the Queen before she died. She was like a second mother.
"And we miss her every day" she finished. They moved over to the bed and hugged and cried and remembered. If anyone were to come in now there would be no scandal. No that phase of their relationship was over; there would be no guards because as far as the kingdom were concerned they were brother and sister. They would have each other always.
Merlin pulled away then "Now tell me what brought you here in the first place." The look of complete loss came over her features and he held her tighter.
"Uncle Balinor says that you have to go to Camelot to fulfil your destiny."
"WHAT?"