Merlin: The Heir of Annwn

by Stella Limegood

Long has the World of the Underground, been separate from man. Now with 'The Wicked Day' come, the Doors of Old have reopened: New Evils arrive, Secrets of Merlin's mother will shake everything the warlock ever was or thought he knew, Uther lives, powerful strangers are in Camelot, magical changes, Queens, dragons & worst of all Arthur thinks,"I now know about IT!"

3. Chapter 2

See Disclaimer at End of Chapter…

Merlin: The Heir of Annwn

By: Stella Limegood

Chapter 2.

…. .Concerned gleaming oceans upon oceans, sky shaded blue eyes, eyes he had trusted with his very life, stared at him. High elegant royal cheekbones he had seen every morning were now set in a face that went way beyond possibly girly to down right ambiguous beauty. Funny ears were now even funnier and ….'OH LORD!'

"MERLIN?!" and with that Arthur Pendragon Prince of Camelot finally fainted.

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The stars laughed.

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…16 Long years ago in Camelot…..

He was seven! He was a Prince!

So why did his father insist that he had to ride in the smelly old carriage with the smelly old man named Geoffrey? It just wasn't fair! Every time they went on one of these… what was the word his father had used? Oh yea! One of these, 'treaty' things, which he noticed, never ever actually involved any candy, at all! He was made to ride in the stupid smelly stuffy carriage! How was he going to see the world or be a great King like his Da? If he was stuck in the box with wheels every single trip!

Even Sir Oscar's son Meliodas got to ride with his father on horseback and he wasn't even seven! Meliodas was six! A whole year younger! So why didn't his father let him ride on horseback?

"ZZzzzz" snored the old smelly Geoffrey, as a seven-year old Prince Arthur of Camelot scowled most spectacularly, while the royal carriage moved along its path in a gentle humdrum roll. Outside the window Arthur could hear his father talking with his knights about all sorts of neat things, like tracking or possible bandit attacks! Real ones! Real Bandits!

There are very few things as exciting to a young seven-year old boy, then the possibility of a "real" Bandit Attack, especially to one that is stuck most days inside his rooms all alone with his tutor.

"ZZZZZ(snort)"added said tutor.

Prince Arthur couldn't agree more.

A bandit attack was just what was needed right about now!

Little Arthur's heart leapt in excitement at the very thought as he heard his father, The "Great" King Uther, in his most booming voice tell a Knight named Sir William to scout ahead for any signs of trouble. Nearly simultaneously his father's trusted servant Gaius asked when it was that they were planning on camping?

'Really, who cares about camping?' thought the boy scowling.

'Silly Gaius,' thought Arthur, ' there could be bandits hiding nearby in the shrubbery!'

Arthur could see them now just sitting there with twigs on their heads, those bad bandits! They were out there just lurking and waiting to catch the royal family for supper!

It was just too much! They had to be stopped! It was up to him!

The Prince of Camelot!

He could take on a whole fleet of bandits! Why? Just the other day Cook had said he was the bravest "cutest" (ugh!) little prince in all the kingdoms and that was just for catching a mouse in the cupboard!

Even his father had patted him on the head and told him he was truly the best 'swordsman' in the land just yesterday, when he'd been practicing outside in the yard against Camelot's biggest scarecrow!

Nope.

It just wouldn't do, this sitting all the time in the stuffy smelly carriage. He needed to be out there with Sir William! Out there! Scouting ahead for danger! Catching those thieves for his Da and spanking them for their badness, maybe, just maybe, even forbidding them dessert! Or worst of all sending them to bed with a bath!

Baths! Ugh. Awful.

Bandits couldn't be left to go all over the place like ants. It was against the rules. Just like writing on the castle walls. That settled it. He would have to catch them.

Yea! He could see it now! Him standing in all his seven-year old amazing-ness atop a pile of ugly dirty fat old warty bad guys! With his own shining suit of armor and a mighty steed!

His father would be so happy with him! He would give him one of his smiles!

His Da… didn't smile a lot. Arthur had begun to notice this, particularly on this past trip, especially in contrast to Meliodas's father. Meliodas's father Sir Oscar had smiled a lot and even played with them in the courtyard the other day in a game of tag.

His Da…had never played tag with him…

His Da…hardly ever smiled?

His Da…never wanted to spend much time with him.

His Da…didn't …didn't do much of anything with him?

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But, but, maybe if he caught the bandits?

Yea. Yea!

It was decided! First though he had to get out of this dumb carriage!

Young Arthur took a few moments to figure out how and when exactly he was going to be able to actually manage his escape from 'cargo imprisonment' when fate decided to intervene.

Unbeknownst to the young prince, Sir William had returned to inform King Uther of his findings. As the knight made his frantic report to his King of Dark Strange Sightings. Uther called a halt to the party's progression.

So it happened that while the King of Camelot was being informed of his nearby surroundings, his seven-year old son managed quietly, as only little children can. To sneak open the one unguarded side door of the royal carriage, and with his tutor deep in the hearty throes of "Mighty Morpheus" utterly oblivious, young Prince Arthur made a clean get away! Out into the foliage of what would later be known to him as the Darkling Woods, unnoticed by all!

And the young Prince Arthur's absence would remain unnoticed until about six hours later when Geoffrey of Monmouth would awaken from his involuntary nap to a most frightfully terrifying situation.

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Alternatively for a young Prince Arthur, it had been his very first venture anywhere in the world entirely by himself! Let alone to say in the forest, and it was magnificent!

All around the young child was the lush vibrancy of the world of nature, and as the young prince went further and further away from the safe embrace of his father's entourage he came across rabbits, squirrels, foxes, even a gigantic fearsome badger!

He saw the greenness of large Ankerwycke trees and smelled the deepness of the wild honeysuckle and the world glittered to the seven year old as the way nature does to the young. It was beautiful, new, fun and it was free. But it wasn't too long before the little seven year old finally made his way over to a log by a nearby pond and had to take his first break from his bold 'noble quest'.

Bandits apparently were better at hide and seek then the boy had thought?

Who knew?

He made a promise that he would inform his father of this information, for more accurate bedtime stories to be made.

Still, missing cutthroats aside, Prince Arthur was having quite the time of his life. Now that he was faraway from any of his father's watchful servants eyes, Arthur found he could get away with quite a bit, such as picking his nose for instance, a very important activity indeed! He could also go jumping in a few mud puddles near the pond's edge! Which he most certainly did! Better still, he even got a hold of a frog! And after naming him 'Sir Fred' decided to keep him in his best trouser's pocket and no one was there to tell him he couldn't!

It was wonderful!

"Rrrrribbbit!", 'Sir Fred' agreed.

It was enough excitement to keep him from paying attention to his little legs, which were starting to bug him, there was just too much yet to be explored!

Little Prince Arthur kept wandering onward in a merry little jig that turned into a rather spectacular game of hopscotch with 'Sir Fred' before he even thought of going back. So he pressed on, the thought of home fleeting and besides he still had yet to find those bandits for his Da and bring them to justice!

Maybe if he caught a lot of bandits, his Da would be so proud of him that he would let Arthur into his secret council meetings with all the other older knights?

Maybe now after today his Da would teach him how to ride horseback?

Maybe his Da would play knights with him?

Maybe his Da would smile and say he loved him just like Sir Oscar had for Meliodas?

He hoped so.

Oh he hoped so!

After all, finding bandits, was turning out to be hard work, "Where are you?" shouted a young Arthur in annoyance after having passed a giant large oak tree for the third time in a row.

"Rrrriiibbbit," added 'Sir Fred'.

"Maybe…the bandits can't hear us Sir Fred? What do you think?"

"Ribit."

"Your right Sir Fred, we should try over there!"

"Ribbbbit," croaked Sir Fred, in complete accord!

Young Arthur walked on an on, until about five hours had passed when the little lad got rather tired of trying to find the bandits and in a very grumpy mood stomped his small foot on a mushroom ring patch, and decided it was time to go home. Mumbling to himself as he trenched along, a rumbling tummy added it's two cents to the situation and a few blisters bloomed on his tender feet causing the child to become quite cranky.

But as little Arthur tried to find his way back, much to his young hearts dismay he discovered an unfortunate thing as most lost children do. . . He couldn't seem to find his way back or anyone else around?

Suddenly being alone for the first time in his life without even a chambermaid close by was well a little daunting for the boy.

In fact after a few well-placed shouts of, "Hellloooo!" with no reply little Arthur began to realize that no one was around to answer him!

Possibly no one would talk to him ever again!

Panic started to take hold of him.

Where was everyone?

Where was he!?

"Ribbit," Sir Fred was confused too!

He didn't know where he was!?

The carriage was gone! Everyone was gone! Gone!

He was lost!

OH NO!

"Da?" whispered the frightened child as darkness fell upon the world and with it the once beautiful woods transformed alongside the night sky into something alien and utterly spooky.

It would be years until Arthur would later come to realize and know just how lucky he truly had been, to survive that day he had wondered alone, into the woods.

He would remember, that as night had fallen, he had broken into a full scale run!

His little seven year old mind terrified as the tree branches turned into dark looming claw like hands and eyes gleamed out of the bushes and brush from every direction like evil demons come to steal a child away!

"DA! FATHER! FATHER! PAPA! PAPA!" Arthur screamed as his short little legs tripped over a branch, sending him soaring through the air, into a bunch of old knarly black rotting tree roots. That was when Arthur had begun to cry.

It wasn't fun anymore!

Where was everyone? Why was he alone? It was so dark!

'I'm scared! Papa I'm scared!' the child thought as he cried.

He didn't want to be alone!

"DA! DAAA! FATHER! FATHER!" he wailed allowed his young heart hammering in his tiny little chest when suddenly he heard a deep noise from behind him…

Even 15 years later no beast, save one..

Would ever frighten Prince Arthur as that looming presence had that dark night.

Not even the questing beast had shaken him so.

Nay, he doubted any other creature of magic could scare him as that one had.

He could still smell it fifteen years later in his nightmares.

He could still feel the cold clench of fear consume him….

Dark fur as black as shadow, enormous paws with sharp gleaming red glittered claws padded the hallow ground. Claws that could sunder the very earth, large white teeth stained red from other prey dripping with saliva and blood. It's mouth opening to shred him too, with an ungodly stench of disease and rot. Two enraged boiling red orange slit eyes, narrowing at him as it began to stalk towards him. Snarling at him with a predator's hate!

The fully grown Demented Dire Wolv had not taken well to the accidental intrusion the young child had made into it's territory, it howled it's rage to the blackened sky, but the seven year old trembling prince had yet to learn the manner of such things, learn though he would.

For in a split second with little Arthur having no time to truly think, as frightened of the towering five-foot beast as he was, the Wolven Beast of Oldattacked!

Claws suddenly fell upon him! Black fur matted with dirt & decay smothering the child as the boy tried to push it away! Blood. Pain. Snarls and growls. Sharp red stained teeth and his own screams as he felt his skin being torn!

That is what Arthur would forever remember.

That is what years later Arthur realized could have ended him.

Had she not appeared..

Yet she had. . . .

"GREAT FEY OF ANNWN! BY RHIANNA'S 'EART! OFFA IM! YE FOUL BEASTIE! AWAY I SAYS! AWAY! BYDDWCH YN MYND! BE GONE!" cried the crackly croaking voice of a woman who in contrast to the sound she made appeared to be in her late twenties to early thirties.

With some unknown force that young Arthur couldn't see clearly, blinded as he was by a bloody scratch above his eye, she single handedly threw the Beast off of him! Then in between her palms she brought forth a few orbs of sparkling blue light that she shot at the monster in hasty succession that sent the dark hungry thing running with it's tail between it's legs! Having then defeated her foe, she rushed over to where the little Prince lay bleeding and knelt down next to him, her hands glowing with a sparkling white blue light, as she gently took him into her long bony arms.

Her face was not what Arthur would, even years later call 'pretty' especially by society's standards, but at the time and even still in the corners of his heart…

She retained her title as his beautiful childhood savior.

Her hair was dark brown in color with multiple strands of grey, and she had a large bump on her crooked nose, her teeth were not very strait. Although it was hard to tell in the dark, but by the light of the next day he would find one tooth even hung over her lip with a sharp tip?

Her ears had been oddly shaped, and stuck out from under her hair, which was also long and soft to the touch. Her asian-esque shaped eyes were a golden hazel and she had upon her, two moles on her right cheek of her round square jawed face. Yet despite her rather interesting exterior, her smile had been so gentle as had her hands that little Arthur had only found her wonderful, especially after being nearly killed.

Indeed as a speechless young child, Arthur had just lied there in her arms, the woman had sent waves of healing magic upon him, as she spoke frantically to him with her 'hag like cackled voice',

"Oh Oh! Ye poor l'iddle mite! Wha? In the name of m'ighty Arawn iz a l'iddle one such as ye doing all by yer lonesome out ere? I've a mind to turn ye mam an tad into a pair of toads that I do fer sure!"

She exclaimed in maternal indignation as she carefully but pragmatically went about checking Arthur from head to toe for more injuries, her glowing wart covered gentle hands brushing over his skin as she healed him wherever there was even the smallest bruise, much less scratch. Her claw like nails pushed aside his golden hair as she inspected his head much the way a mother primate does for ticks, as little Arthur tried in vain to catch up to what was happening to him?

However, his first near death experience had been too much for the child so instead of telling the 'nice wart lady' who smelled of… gooseberry pie? To stop playing with his hair, he instead had begun to cry.

"Awww. Aw. There. There. Iz a'ight my l'iddle d'affodil. Listen to Mam Baba Yiga now. Iza gonna take care of you. Aw. Hush hush. Don't cry fy un bach. Hush there. Hush. Say? I thinks I ere a grumbling tummy? That I do! Come. Come. Mam Baba Yiga take ye h'ome, gets ye fed. Ie feed ya sum nice 'ots newt eye stew! O ie!," she said as she held his quivering little body to her in a warm hug. Before she picked him up off the ground like a sack of oats and carried him rather lopsided to her small home deep within the Darkling Woods.

He would never be able to really remember the journey to Mam Baba Yiga's dwelling. Nor their exact arrival that night at her cozy mushroom covered cottage for it seemed that like most little children after a fright he'd fallen into an exhausted slumber.

What Arthur does remember is the smell of her as she carried him, it was a homey spicy sort of gooseberry smell that could have been associated with breadcrumbs, roses or possibly peppermints with just a touch of lavender and something he still couldn't put his tongue on?

Woodland, muskiness perhaps?

Gooseberries?

Perfume aside, his rescuer's home had been full of oddities & strange objects he hadn't known what to make of come the following morning . . .

In fact the very first thing little Arthur remembers upon waking up, after her rescue of him, is the feeling of warm soft feathery covers lying on top of him? Someone had put a blanket made of pheasant & chicken feathers on him as he had slept?

'Where am I?' thought the little boy.

A glint of light caught his eye, above him and his feathery bed sparkling and gleaming in the mornings early sunlight was some sort of strange thing hanging above him?

"Wow?" squeaked the child as he rose from the nest like bed to get a closer look at the object.

It had looked like some sort of woven band with a plethora of different colored strings tied to various objects from spoons to celestite crystals with a giant dragonfly stuck in the center of it? Its multi-colored wings still beating as it floated gracefully around above him lazily.

'What is this place?' wondered the boy, intrigued!

As the more awake he got, little Arthur's eyes grew wider, hundreds upon hundreds of similarly strange objects came within his sight. There were thousands of the string things? Scattered everywhere from the walls to the ceilings some with lizards, others with feathers. Come to think of it the whole place from top to bottom was littered with feathers, from parrot feathers to peacocks, to one feather Arthur would remember in particular.

It was a brilliant reddish pink, and it glowed! He could only dream of what kind of bird that had come from? Other things glowed too especially under the twinkling mornings light! In fact the whole room was filled with a rich soft earthy creamy daylight!

It was enough to make little Arthur forget the terror of the night before or the fact that he was still quite lost. Instead of feeling homesick or scared he found himself to be feeling safe. Especially now that he was no longer alone and in Mam Baba Yiga's home? His natural curious nature once again resumed and so it wasn't long before he was quietly creeping about the little cottage in playful exploration!

The first room little Arthur entered was some sort of workroom?

It had a low-cut ceiling and the ivy had well worn its way through the walls. There were jars of beetles everywhere but not all the beetles, snails, and other crawly things were in the jars, kept labeled for them? Some of them were crawling on the floor right over his toes! Dragonflies of all variations buzzed around what in place of a desk light appeared to be some sort of giant overgrown poppy flower?

While there upon the oaken wooden tabletop lay thin beautiful tweezer shaped tools with little hooks at their ends, but unlike any tweezers Arthur or even much of man knew as of yet, these were 'special tweezers'.

They were so fine that a mortal man would have needed a magnifying glass to see the various different detailed ends each one had. While their entire length was inlaid with gold & silver, and if one had a large enough magnifying glass one would have read the scripted words, "TO MY DEAR FRIEND YIGA.-THE LADY MORRIGAN OF ANNWN."

Next to the 'work table', was a very peculiar shaped sort of chair that Arthur found upon closer inspection to be in all honesty one overly sized moss covered mushroom? There were other things like a set of pins piled on the table and a whole vase full of different kinds of sticks but after a snail crawled across his bare toes leaving a sticky cold trail of slime on his foot, Arthur decided to go see what the next room held.

To his surprise the next room of Mam Baba Yiga's cottage was without bugs, but was full of thread, yarn, wool, and cloth! There were three different kinds of looms in it, and all along the walls were shelved spools of every kind of thread a person could imagine! It would of made any seamstress green with envy, and Arthur would never know it, but the worth of some of those spools of silk would have paid for over three kingdom's ransoms. Unfortunately being seven and more of a wannabe knight kind of boy rather then a patchwork quilt sort of kid, Arthur quickly grew tired of the second room and went to the third which much to his disappointment turned out to be nothing more then another bedroom.

Although, it must be noted that there had been an ostrich size egg made out of diamond on her bedside table that had briefly caught his gaze? However, it hadn't been enough to keep him entertained long and so off he was exploring again.

Little Arthur made his way down the spiral staircase of Mam Baba Yiga's house and the first thing he saw…were chickens?

Lots of chickens!

Chickens everywhere!

Chickens Galore!

Crammed into what presumably had to be a kitchen somewhere under the feathers? Were at least fifty-five maybe a hundred or so chickens! There were also plenty more of those strange string crystal hanging things and more mushroom seats, but before Arthur could take another step forward into what was the equivalent of some sort of hodge podge living room, a gigantic feathery faced white rooster clucked at him!

'CLUCK! CUCKKOO! CLUCK!'

Startled little Arthur made a small cry of alarm and fell backwards into a hanging array of pots and pans! Which frightened the chickens causing a miniature whirlwind of feathers when Mam Baba Yiga once more made an appearance, "Wots all the ruckus Rupert'n? Why? If'n izn't the l'iddle mite! Bless ye this fine morn m'good boy!"

"Um… good morning milady?" replied a rather put out seven year old suddenly finding himself to feel rather shy, amongst many a feathery fowl's eye. After all what does one say to the person who saves them from scary monsters and has an army of chickens in their kitchen?

"M'lady, oh ho ho ho ho. Did ya ere that Rupert'n I'z a Lady I'z is," laughed Mam Baba Yiga as she slowly made her way into her little kitchen plucking & chucking hens to and fro as kitchen utensils suddenly whirled in the air as if with a life of their own!

"Now then, me l'iddle dyn, we've a said good morn whicha means it must be time fer Break'ast! Howza bout sum Oats! Come. Come Sit ye down ere then crwt. Rupert'n moves ye arse! Outta that char or Izza gonna turn ye human!"

'ClUCK A DOODLE DOO!,' went Rupert'n the great white rooster as Mam Baba Yiga let out a sigh, "Don't mind im lad. Ee youse ta l'ive wiv an Elf King? Pfft. Got it in ez head now e musta be royal too! Pfft. As if!"

"CLUCK. CLUCK. KOO! DOO!" let out an offended Rupert'n.

"Oi! Cuddiwch ef! Rwyt ti'n ymlacio pluen plu! Take this ye royal bum!" and suddenly there was a yellow bowl that floated down and scooped the recalcitrant "royal" rooster from his favorite perch and sent him out the window into what was Mam Baba Yiga's front yard.

Little Arthur's couldn't help but giggle at the sight! His eyes widening at the constant flow & sight of all the magic being used around him!

It was amazing!

'Awe. There'sah good s'ign tha. A giggle like tha should be let out fer allll the world! Why I'za bet Lady Morrigan 'erself, bless her soul abundant, be filled with joy at it. Tha' I do," stated the older woman as she began setting a place for the two of them to eat.

'Who is Lady Morrigan?,' his young mind wondered before it switched and honed in on Miss Yiga's prior threat of turning the rooster into a person, 'Really!? Can she?' he thought.

"Can you really?" he asked shyly as he nervously held the ends of his shirt in his little fidgeting hands, before being distracted by a floating tea-kettle passing over his head, and what appeared to be an argument breaking out between the spoons & the forks?

"Canz I wha?" asked Mam Baba Yiga as she poured some oats into a pot which with a flick of the wrist & a snap of the fingers was suddenly filled with water and had a small fire underneath of it.

"Turn the rooster into a person?" replied Arthur as he sat himself onto the wooden stool nearest her, of what perhaps once upon a time had been Miss Yiga's kitchen counter? It was hard to tell between the bugs, the stubborn remaining chickens, and the parade of kitchen utensils now heavily engaged in an all out war to rival The Battle of Versailles with the mice, and what once upon a time may have been a …dishcloth?

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It seemed a Plate was trying to negotiate terms?

Clearly it was failing because it came back covered in mouse droppings.

The sugar bowl, the kettle and the rolling pin were absolutely livid!

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As the 'living' cutlery continued it's determined assault this time on the napkins, little Arthur found his eyes drawn elsewhere? More crystals and some strange fungal plants were growing along what appeared to be the wooden cabinets? Then blossoming spontaneously into jelly looking flowers, before peeling away from their perch and floating on into the woods? Which speaking of the woods brings us to an interesting fact about Mam Baba Yiga's home?

For as Arthur sat down and his eyes spun around the entire dwelling it became rather apparent that although upstairs had been strange but close to a traditional house, the ground level of Mam Baba Yiga's home was missing something rather vital to most homes… walls?

Correction.

There was on the one side by the stove and staircase two walls. They formed a nice corner and kept the upstairs supported. Yet they were the only dark walls to be found under the green ivy & other growing foliage across the domicile, on the other side pass the giant leaves that made up her living room and what looked like more mushroom chairs was what seemed to be a door constructed out of more ivy and then there was nothing.

Nothing.

Just big wide-open outdoor spaces where a garden stood with thousands of more 'Doo Dads' of those same 'string things' Arthur had seen upstairs? They were tons of them hanging all across the woods nearby?

"Ho Ho Ho. Why of course I can! I'z Mam Baba Yiga! I canz do m'ucha more then turn ole Rupert'n into a man! Ha, that I canz! Now tell me luv does ye like yer oats warm and soupy or mashy washy?" asked Mam Baba Yiga as she eyed the little human child squinting at her home curiously, 'What a l'iddle darling,' she thought.

"Um..mashy washy? Please," answered Arthur suddenly very hungry.

"Aight then, ere we go luv," said Miss Yiga in happy approval as she poured him a warm bowl of oatmeal and one for herself before handing him one lone 'deserter' spoon, "Digs in! Ho. Ho. Can I turns ole Rupert'n human, what a question, ye asks? Why m'boy If'n I'z try ard enough I can turn'em into an Elf imself! Oh yes! And tha's not an easy trick no sir m'iddle blond duckie!"

"Woowww!" replied Arthur! This was definitely the most interesting person he had ever met! Not even smelly Geoffrey with all his books knew how to do that!

Arthur's tummy rumbled.

"Best eat it, whilst it's h'ot luv!" suggested Mam Baba Yiga gently, as she dug into her own. Arthur eyed the oatmeal a little suspiciously at first but after one tentative bite and with Mam Baba Yiga's happy gurgles of pleasure as she ate from her own bowl for background noise he quickly began stuffing his face as fast as his little arms could!

It was delicious! It was full of cinnamon, blueberries and other fruits, all very pleasing indeed but it couldn't distract Arthur for long after all this was the first magic person he had ever met!

Already at that tender age his father had begun teaching him that Magic was "bad".

However, surprisingly, Geoffrey had secretly told him a few "fairy tales" and Arthur couldn't of helped being fascinated with them?

After all, what little child doesn't like hearing a story about tiny Elves that sneak in the night and make shoes?

"Are you a witch?" he asked in wonder as he swiped his chin with the back of his sleeve, before he took another bite of his tasty oatmeal.

"Well now," began Mam Baba Yiga as she vanished her empty bowl with a finger and with another pass of her hand transfigured a spoon into a cup of warm raspberry smelling tea! Arthur's mouth fell open…oatmeal and all!

Mam Baba Yiga smiled before she took a small sip of her tea and continued answering, "Izzn't tha refreshing being asked direct like that. (chuckle) Hmm. To start's with I must say no. No I'z iz not a witch."

"No?" asked Arthur in surprised doubtful confusion. His awed eyes glued to the magically transformed teacup the magic lady held, "but you use magic, Da, I mean Father says all women who use magic are witches?"

Mam Baba Yiga spluttered on her tea and let a hearty laugh that filled the air,"Oh doez ee? HO HO HA ho ho ho. Hm. Not know mucha bout magic yer father then eh? I suppose, if'n he thinks only witches use it. Why? Witches m'boy barely even touch ta stuff! They's more into the mind and spiritz. . .although a lot depends on the witch erself? Now I thinks on it." said Mam Baba Yiga sagely.

"Really? But then…well what are you?" asked Arthur curiously.

"Ydy plentyn, really. Tiz a true. As fer wha I'z iz, why Iz za from the great big Underground, buts I'z a suppose ye could class me az a part Gnome and a part Pixie," answered Mam Baba Yiga sweetly before a thoughtful expression took her face and she said, "Although whenz I thinks on it sum men's folk use to call me a Swynwr."

"A swy..nr?" asked Arthur, before he cut himself off to ask instead, "What's a gnome?"

"OH HO HO HO Hoh o! WHAT'S A GNOME! HO HO! Why! Iz za Gnome," replied Mam Baba Yiga her eyes twinkling playfully as she laughed and teased the young in, "Howza bout yerself? Wha za you?"

"Well," began Arthur slowly as he found the tables turned on him before swiftly answering, "I'm a boy."

"Tha's you iz. So then m'boy youza know Yiga's name, wazza yer name? Iz it Fred?" she asked him before taking another sip of her tea.

(((Sir Fred as it happens was currently outside in a heated debated with his majesty Rupert'n the Rooster over the enlightened meanings of the space and time continuum and bemoaning the fact that neither of them would be able to enjoy a nice cup of coffee for about another thousand years and a few reincarnations later.)))

"No. That was the name of my frog! I'm Arthur," declared the little boy cheerfully, "Prince Arthur."

"Prince Art'ur? Of Camelot!" gasped Mam Baba Yiga in surprise, her tea cup suddenly sprouting wings as pink bubbles rose out of it and filled the room!

"Yea!" squealed Arthur in gleeful delight at the sudden explosion of bubbles.

"OH ZA DEARZ! OHS M'GOODNESS! ARAWN HIS MIGHTY SELF PRESERVE ME! OH'Z M'GOODNESS! OH'Z SEREN UWCHBEN!" cried Mam Baba Yiga as she stood up and began scurrying all around the partial room with super human speed as she tried to do what appeared to be ten things at once before reaching her one tiny little window in her one wall and shouting out of it at the top of her lungs, "RUPERT'N WEZA HAVE ROYALTY HERE!"

"Cluck?" replied Rupert'n, confused, before he turned back to the commoner frog, ("Was that suppose to mean anything? There's always been royalty here, I'm here!") the white Rooster's feathers fluffed in indignation!

"Croak" commented Sir Fred, (which was the equivalent of a froggish shoulder shrug, 'Sometimes it's best to say nothing, no good can come from arguing with the crazy ones,' thought Sir Fred as he eyed the perturbed Rooster.)

In the blink of an eye Mam Baba Yiga was dashing about the little cottage at speeds no human eye could hope to follow, in her wake every object began to sparkle anew, every surface appeared to be polished and shined! All the clutter of the house seemed to disappear and in fifteen seconds the place went from looking roughly put together to ornate! The wall covered in vines suddenly burst into a sea of flowers, the mushroom chairs grew and expanded as if they had been made of pillows their tops looking especially fluffy to sit on. Dust bunnies fled for their lives as all the little knick-knacks began to organize themselves into shelves or array themselves as if on display in a shop?

And the strange "string hanging things" suddenly lit around the house, making soft chime noises, freshly clean and magically restrung they glittered sending a myriad of colors into the room and Arthur gasped.

Colors were everywhere and everything sparkled.

It was dazzling!

Like suddenly finding oneself inside a cave full of diamonds!

Even the fighting cutlery now sparkling clean (save one seriously pissed off sugar bowl) on the table, seemed stunned and began the equivalent of bowing in deference to the little boy…although the Plate was having a bit of a tough time of it.

It kept falling flat.

The sugar bowl however did not bow, or kneel.

It glared. It's enemy the dishcloth didn't seem all that impressed either.

Arthur giggled at the moving objects before the glittering colors distracted him again.

"Wooow," said Arthur reaching one hand up out towards the nearest 'string thing'.

"There'z now. So, sorry bout the mess l'iddle Princeling. If'n I'z a known who ye was, I'z a cleaned up sooner. Ah I'z a see ye spotted one of me Shambles, tha's a beauty isn't it. Got the egg in the center just right I'z did," spoke Mam Baba Yiga as she resumed her seat with a quick swipe of her brow. Before she waved a hand and made herself another cup of tea appear out of thin air.

"What's a Shamble?" asked Arthur as he stood up from his stool and walked over to the 'string thing'.

" Ho oh ho. Ho. Tha' right there iz a Shamble," replied Mam Baba Yiga.

"But?... What is it?" pressed Arthur as his little hands came to hold the thing, his tiny fingers gently trying to cradle the egg & butterfly wings tied amongst the threads.

He felt something like a small pulse coming out of the thing, a funny tingle started in his fingers while the sensation of what felt like tiny water droplets began to crawl up his skin to his little chest? Before the strings snapped and then in a shower of sparks Arthur gasped as it disappeared!?

"It.. It's gone!" he cried in dismay, he hadn't meant to break it!?

Tears began to form in the little boys eyes, as he realized he might have made Mam Baba Yiga angry, but he hadn't wanted to break it!

He'd…he'd just wanted to hold it.

It was so pretty!

Why did everything he want always turn out wrong?

Was it because he was bad?

"(Hiccup) (hiccup) I… I didn't mean it!" he started to cry, when a warm gentle hand brushed away the first of his tears. Young Prince Arthur looked up over his shoulder into the suddenly quite close gentle sight of Mam Baba Yiga's, wart, odd toothed face, joyfully comfortingly smiling at him.

While the child had been playing with one of her Shambles, Yiga had quietly come up to the boy before kneeling down to his level beside him, carefully observing how the child's essence would react to such a powerful example of her spellcraft.

"Full of surprises aren't ye?" she mumbled gently as she brought the l'iddle boy into a hug, "Had a rough time az of late asn't ye? Facing darkest damned beasties, so far from the palace. Aye. Been a rough two days and me wiv all this magic bout ye, and ye from Camelot. No wonders ye eye's are as wide az dinner plates and yer head full of questions. Hee hee. Ho ho ho ho."

There was a sniffle from Arthur, "I did..didn't mean to..break it!" blubbered the little boy.

"Wha? Break it? OHO HO ho ho O dear me! Why? Ye didn't break it!" said Mam Baba Yiga as she wiped more tears away.

"I? I didn't?" asked Arthur.

"Not at all," chirped Mam happily.

"..Oh?..."mumbled Arthur suddenly embarrassed and confused.

"Righ, then. Well, first thing is don't ye worry one cent bout the Shamble…house iz'a full of em. Plus I'za only goings to make more, tha's wha I'za do afterall. Why? I'za be the best Shamble Maker in all the Underground I is," winked Mam Baba Yiga, as she cradled the young one on her knee.

It was time someone with some honesty explained to the child a few things about the world, Shambles seemed as good a place to start as any.

"Listen ere luv," she said as she got herself comfortable in her big ole mushroom cozy chair, the little one on her knee no longer wimpering but looking all the world ready to fall to pieces again in his confusion.

He had such innocence in him?

She could practically taste it.

Not too mention his own little magical stirrings, given time and proper nourishment he could become quite the clever little magician. It had been many, many years since last she had taken on an apprentice?

Was this a sign? An omen?

She wondered if her Lady was watching from the Stars?

This seemed very much like Morrigan of the Three Sisters doing? It would be something Morrigan would wish, wouldn't it? Her Lady never did like the fact that she hadn't had any apprentices after Princess Nuala. Heck she could practically see Lady Morrigan's golden sunshine light touching the boy? ….

"I don't believe in coincidence." Thought Mam Baba Yiga as she soothed the child and looking into those bright eggshell blue beautiful truthful honest eyes, made in a second an irreversible everlasting choice…

She would teach him what she could, for as long as she could.

"Now then, a Shamble m'luv iza many things and it's can be made of anything. Anything at all. Why even a dirty sock, an ant, and a piece of yer toenail wiv some ratty string do the trick!"

"A toenail?!" the child made a face.

"Oh ie! Toenails and better still the toes too!" teased Mam Baba Yiga as she tickled the boy, Arthur gurgled and laughed, before she stopped and gaining his attention again continued, "We'za use them mostly to help us wiv our many magics & many kindza spells, and even in some cases for our Caneuon."

"Can? Cane…"

"Caneuon, iza means in the Underground Tongue the word: Songs. See deepest, most precious magic. Magics of the heart, magic of the Stars… why that comes through best in Songs! Songs and Music they's make the whole world!"

"The world?!" echoed little Arthur.

"The world," nodded the enchantress, as the feather blanket floated down to wrap around the child and various items including some laundry started washing itself in a tub that appeared to bend itself out of the ground, and then with a POP! Little Arthur watched as a strange reed like golden pipe appeared and Mam Baba Yiga began to smoke it, and out of her nose came not smoke but small tiny trails of bubbles…

In fact the entire yard seemed to be filling with bubbles, some bending into remarkable animal shapes? The chickens and Rupert'n the Rooster didn't seem pleased as the bubbles and floating soap began to chase them around Baba's yard but with the wind chimes still singing, the light twinkling through the foliage of the trees, the various homely flowery smells of the enchantresses house and Baba Yiga's suddenly mysterious wise almost glowing eyes. Little Arthur was overwhelmed with awe.

Then the sound of a harp began playing…a tune on the air..

And..

And he remembered,

Yes, he finally remembered what happened next..

There in the bubbles she produced with her golden reedy smoking pipe, a pipe that didn't smoke, in her cottage surrounded by the essence of purest nature, chickens and glowing doo dads she called.. Shambles..

The Bubbles all came together, united, to form one gigantic Crystal Ball floating mid-air and he hears her as she teaches…him…and shows him with the Crystal Ball..

Her World.

The Underground.

Annwyn.

Land Eternal.

More then that, she shows him, They who live there.

She lets him SEEThem.

She lets him HEAR Them.

The ones…mortals dream of

The Fey.

The Tuatha De Danann.

Those Lords and Ladies of the Stars.

The First Kind who sing The World into Being.

Dancing.

Ever Dancing.

"I f…I know you….you'll love me . . . Once Upon …A …Dream…

"Tha'z the young Prince Llyr tha' one. See his mighty armor, He be a shifter! Ooh the Rascal."

I know ..you . . . I walked with you.. Once. . . Upon a Dream…

I know you the Gleam in your eyes.. is soo familiar a Gleam..

"Who's that?"

"Ah the Lady Branwen, very beautiful she is..she's a Mist Fey and tha's the mighty Oseidon, he's be a Water one, from the great Grey Lands and there's Prince Nuada… Very Powerful and oh look look what luck! There ah be the Mighty Lord Glasgalen! See'z iz ears E gots Wood Elf in him.. they's very lucky! And there …lookit there…lad hurry…There she iz… "

Gasp!

He remembers…

He remembers HER.

HER!

Horns that would put any Crown to shame, even his father's.

Eyes like two great stars, skin whiter then cook's flour in the Castle Kitchens, her gown glitters, SHE glitters!

Her lips are redder then the flags of Camelot. Her hair is long and dark like the Night Sky and when she sings….

He imagines his Mother to look like her…

Up till now, She's the most beautiful thing his seven-year old eyes have ever seen.

.

(She is still beautiful)

?

.

"Who?" he can barely say the word.

"That iz The Queen."

"The Queen?"

"Ie. Badb y dyn ei bod hi."

"Wha?"

"Shh. Listen.."

And he did… He listened as They Sang. And he remembered.

The Song..

The Beautiful Song of The Fey.

*I walked with you… Once upon a Dream. I know you…

That look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam…

Yet I know it's

true. That visions are seldom what they Seem.. But if I know you…I

know what you'll do….You'll love me at once. The way you did once.

Once ..Upon a Dream… la ya.. ah..ah..ah. la.. but if I know you…

I know what you'll do..

You'll love me at once..

The way you did

Once

Upon a Dream.*

Dancing…and Singing.

First the Lady Fey would start, then much to Arthur's surprise the males would echo them. They twirled and fluttered across a forest pearlescque ballroom floor in the bubble..their grace and beauty otherworldly, and yet ever so real.

Sometimes they changed shape, sometimes they made things appear, one Lady Fey had flowers blossoming right there in her sea foam colored hair, a Male Fey produced a sword that he turned into an array of rubies he bestowed upon a pretty female with fin's for ears.

They laughed. They danced. They played. They teased. They tricked. They Sang.

Such beautiful singing, they waltzed together across stars and golden autumn to spring budded leaves. They sang The Song, they were The Song, Their wings were of every bird, every insect and more little Arthur couldn't even begin to guess…and he watched as even SHE began to Dance her horns like a great Dragons! She spun around the glittering assemblage with the one Baba Yaga called a Wood Elf?

They were so rich and so colorful. They were Life. Joy. Bliss and they were Alive! Bright, illuminating living stars and even though he didn't know the words. Didn't understand them.. he knew…he knew now.

..15 years later…he knew now.

Somewhere, wherever he was..

That.. They were Magic and…

.

It sounded so girly…

.

Nothing else for it.

.

.

They were also.

Love.

Perhaps They were even more then That?

..He doesn't remember…how the Bubble show ended…he doesn't remember how the conversation switched back to Shambles…but he remembers ….the feeling.

That warm right feeling of being connected. To everything around him, like he was suddenly a part of something bigger now…? So much bigger then his father, or Camelot or…or even . . himself?

And that…he had wanted to know…EVERYTHING…

That he had wanted…. Nay Needed….MAGIC, …because…..because?

.

.

.

Why?

.

.

.

.

Alone.

What?

I…

I don't feel… alone…

.

Mother.

.

.

Make sense?

.

.

Baba Yiga.

.

I was alone.

She came.

.

.

I.

.

want.

.

He wanted .. to meet the Queen of The Fey.

He wanted to be her Friend.

So that he wouldn't be alone anymore.

Not ever again.

.

.

And maybe .

So that one day.

Maybe.

Someone could love him too?

Someone would play with him too!

With her he could dance with The Fey too?

He wanted to sing too!

He wanted MAGIC too!

He wanted to be her Best Friend!

Friends with a Fey!

He wanted..to be..

Friends with Magic!

…A wish. Just a silly…little wish…One he'd meant with all his tiny childhood heart.…a kind seemingly small little wish…One the Shamble he had absorbed inside him . . heard like a clear resounding church bell..

…a flicker of magic…a spark…and…it echoed the sound…out …into …the world..

….out into time…out into space….…out into dimensions…to come…..…..harkening…back..

.

.

….

.

.

.

What good are wishes anyway?

Apparently according to Mam Baba Yiga quite a lot! When done correctly, but that was the tricky part. They had to be done correctly, try to force a wish too hard and the spell over compensates. Try to do too little and the spell falls utterly flat just like a poorly baked cake in an oven, "Wishez…Bah! Messy messy bizness them! I barely's touch the stuff even on m'good days! Bah! If ya gets one thing off then…KAPLUEH! HOLE HOUSE FALL DOWN and YOUSE WIV IT! Na. na. stick to Shambles m'luv ye got a talent fer em I can tells. Also if'n any one claims to grants you za wish. You gives em a hard eye squint! Cause they's tryin to rip you off! Only the Royal Fey can moves the Stars! Don't ferget that!"

"Like the Queen?" asked little Arthur as he tried crafting his second ever Shamble.

"Ie. Well done! Youza are listenin! Ie. Like the Queen," agreed Mam Baba Yiga as she snagged a ladybug for her current Shamble.

"Whose that one for Yiga?" asked Arthur curiously.

"Ah. Ho ho. This one? Iz a fer a Selkie named Murrow. She'z havin a problem wiv a neighboring Kelpie eez's keep eatin her sea ferns and urchin friends..thus she come to me, askin fer a Shamble to h'elps her catch'em in the act," answered Yiga as she carefully threaded a needle through an oyster shell.

"Oh," replied Arthur, the seven year old trying to understand what sea ferns and urchins were amongst the so called, Kelpie? He had spent three wonderful exciting days living with Mam Baba Yiga in her little bungalow of a cottage, and each day he learned more and more about magic, the earth, and the way the world of Annwn worked?

He still couldn't believe the Earth was round!?

Just wait until he told smelly old Geoffrey and Gaius that!

Sometimes Yiga was hard to follow. There were so many different types of magical people to remember, and so many different kinds of variations!

There were dryads, nymphs, mermaids, gnomes, bodkins, brownies, naga's and even gargoyles that were made of stone! He decided to just group them all together for now, and like most small boys figured he'd know what they are when he needed too or met them in person. At least Mam Baba Yiga wasn't as boring as his tutors. Really though all the little boy wanted to know about in particular were of course: The Fey.

The Fairies and The Elves.

Ever since Yiga had shown them to him, the little boy hadn't been able to think of anything else, they were just too …exciting… and the more stories she shared like: Prince Pwyll and his brave descent into the abyss against the Corpse Devourer! And then his mighty battle with Havgan bringer of Fire!

His awe for them grew as did his fierce desire to meet them.

After all, he was Prince Arthur of Camelot!

Who better to meet a young Fey Prince turned King? Then him? A fellow Prince?

"Mam Baba Yiga what happened after Prince Pwyll beat Havgan? Did he slay more munsters?" ask the little boy tossing his makeshift Shamble aside as he picked a small stick and holding it aloft began making sword motions at a displeased rooster.

(For his part Rupert'n the 'Royal Rooster' hadn't grown any fonder of the boy since his arrival. The idiot two legger was stealing his favorite chair! The bloody usurper!)

"Ho. Ho. Hm. Let's me think…I suspect there was a few more adventures but the biggest adventure he had next was ..when he met his Lady Love…"

"Lady Love?"

"Princess Rhiannon of the Birds," supplied Mam Baba Yiga at the confused boy's expression.

"Rh…Ri..Rhiann ..Rhiannon?" tried Arthur.

"Indeed."

"Birds?"

"Many…" answered Baba Yiga as she spat on her hands before flicking to life some kindle wood, the little boy made a face before asking, "Who is she? What was she like? Was she an adventurer too?"

For a moment Mam Baba Yiga seemed to freeze then like the ice on a fresh morning her body relaxed and she spoke with great clarity her queer accent almost vanishing, "She was part of us all. Gentle, soft as clouds, and she had a quiet rare wisdom, a balance in all she wove. Some say. Her magic was even greater then Arawn's himself."

"Arawn…but isn't he like the King. . the. . (what's the word) . .High ..King?"

Mam nodded.

"Wow," said Arthur, "Where is she now?"

"Long has her Age passed, She travails the Roads of Odd now, ah, but tha's for the better, there were Dark Things in the Time of them days and Eviler Places," replied Yiga a bit sadly.

"She and her Lord Pwyll wiv the other great Fey of Old wove the worlds as they needed too and so we're fairly safe 'ere, until the next great trial… 'Lady Morrigan her eldest daughter watch over us wiv her.' Gone though she be in body, Rhiannon's Blood little prince still lives on and through them her, ah but Fey never truly die…they's the only true immortals and of Stars. They's live in everything.. even some…in the Trees!' Mam Baba Yiga then lowered her head and whispered to the boy.

"Some even…lives on in humans! They's be boys and girls just like you!"

"Like Me!?" exclaimed Arthur in shock his mouth falling open.

'CLUCK KOO DOO' put in Rupert'n from his feathery perch.

"Ie. Lad yn union fel chi. Just like you. Every now and then a witch, druid or a wizard has a Fey fer a relative and don cha ferget that! Cause them of the First Kind get mighty protective and youse being from Camelot aught to know tha. Huh!?" Baba Yiga's eyes suddenly grew wide in realization, "Now I thinks on it? Sum one aught to tell yer Tad about tha. If'n e 'arms, Stars and Grace, forbid a feyling! Ooh! We'z best make more Shambles…yer gonna need em!" instructed the Enchantress as she seemed to foresee the many troubles that would indeed come upon the woe begotten Kingdom of Camelot within the next few years. Her crafting hands moving with renewed determined vigor!

"How many?" asked Arthur as he helped her gather thread from her workroom, and followed the bustling gnome woman around.

"Oh ho ho ho! HUNDREDS!" declared Mam Baba Yiga as she pulled out all the stops. Another two days passed amongst blissful chickens, glorious threads, pretty beetle legs, fun feathery mushroom made beds and oatmeal breakfasts, for the young Prince, when at last the end of the week arrived . .

He remembers.

The Day.

When first he met.

Evil.

….

"Now fer instance take that one there's.." said Mam Baba Yiga as she pointed one warty clawed finger at a sparkling array of peacock feathers and amber crystals, "Tha' one is used to detect other person's spells whilst see's tha' one wiv the blue jay egg?"

"That one!" said little Arthur delightfully as he pointed enthusiastically, "Oh ho ho ho! Good Eye M'luv! Yes that one is used fer both protection and to help youse find missing things!" instructed the enchantress. Her hair bouncing as the wind blew through the air of the little cottage causing the many Shambles to suddenly sing and chime….very like modern wind chimes millennia later…

Yet.

He recalls?

That there was an icy edge to the day's wind an untoward chill?

Perhaps, in the corners of his mind, he wonders how things would have been vastly different. Had he noticed the steel cold touch of a cursed breath of icy air?

.

.

"What about that one?" pointed the curious child, as there some ways away was a much larger shamble then the rest, it was so large that it actually seemed to be set within the boundary of two oak & maple trees, "It has a really large red stone in the middle and lots of shiny things and spider webbings?" asked Arthur curiously as he stared in awe, wiggling a little on the old woman's knee.

"Ah," said Mam Baba Yiga, the edges of her eyes crinkling in pride and astute calculation as she nodded her head sagely before glancing at some carrots she was plucking from her little makeshift garden, 'Yes. A mighty magician ye will be! I can see'z it righ there. E's got the touch of Arawn in'em and no doubt Morrigan's guiding eye.'

"Tha m'luv is a very, very special Shamble. See all Shambles of great true Spellcraftare never the same. They's like snowy flakzz each one is unique, original, and different. No two the same. Similar oh yes ho ho, but not the same. That one I made for protection. Very important it is," replied Mam Baba Yiga as she gathered the carrots into a basket.

The little boy looked at the Mighty Shamble, he felt cold, he watched as the strings of it, the beauty of it grew dark and the webbing seemed to bend in the air as if something were?

Trying to pull it?

"Mam why's it moving like that? It's shaking all over?" asked little Arthur.

The carrots hit the ground, and everything that had been fluttering and bright stopped, Mam Baba Yiga slowly rose to her full height, and before little Arthur knew it, gone was the kind gentle soul he had been living with, and in her place was a frightening and powerful enchantress.

The entire area became still, silent, as Mam's eyes fixed on the quivering now violently shaking Shamble.

The red stone in its center suddenly catching on fire, causing Arthur to startle and flinch back…

..cckkkkkc…ckkkk…..

The chickens clucked and clattered before instinct took over and they began flying away with all their might…all save Rupert'n. Arthur felt Yiga's hand shaking as she approached the child and held his shoulder.

"It'za can't be…iza…impossible….it just can't...,"whispered Mam in quiet terror, Her hand, on his shoulder quivering from her fear.

"Mam?" questioned little Arthur in worry.

He watched as the woman seemed to stare forever at the burning Shamble, before those glowing eyes fixed upon him, the expression one he would one day later give to many of his knights before they faced death and doom.

"We must run," she whispered, "You must'n cry. You mustn't make any noise. Old..Old Evil comes. Servant of the Dagon! Twisted Fomoiri! We must run. You stay wiv me Ar'tur. Stay wiv Yiga. We go now!" she continued to whisper but her words were like the snap of a whip and the bite of bark.

She gathered nothing but a small bag before she grabbed his hand and then they were running, nay they were fleeing! Faster….faster and faster into the Darkling Woods. Her warty hand held his in a vice like grip as she sped them across bramble brush and brook never once looking back at where her home was.

Too bad.

In her panic, she hadn't told Arthur not too.

He looked back.

And he remembers that too.

That Other Side.

He would become vastly more familiar with as his life would go on.

That Dark Magic.

NO.

Not Magic.

NOT MAGIC.

Evil.

True Evil.

Faceless and muddy a black clad figure approached, riding a skeletal worm eaten horse.

Its eyes pale pink, lidless.

It had no mouth?

The rider bore only flesh.

It's ears like an Elf, but jagged, torn.

It's follows them on shadows.

He hears it gasping and clawing.

Yet he thinks, "How? There's no mouth?"

No mouth.

Wheezing for breath it gargles after them and he see's it's ribs bleeding soiled brown through its black clad armor.

Rotting alive..

He see's Mam Baba Yiga's home sucked lifeless as it passes swiftly by it.

The hens that hadn't scattered fast enough…melt.

It wants them.

.

Him and Baba Yiga.

He watches as the very ground under it's steeds foot grows black and decays.

Even the worms struggle to escape.

And he hears IT! In his head, still, muttering intangible things.

It hurts.

The very voice of it scratches!

" . Skkkrrrimmmsliiii…slifjlajfPendRagon…"

"NAY! NAY CHILD DON'T LOOK AT IT! DON'T LISTEN TO IT! NAY! YOU SHAN'T HAVE'EM! SERVENT OF SKRIMSLI FILTH! BEGONE DAGON SCUM! BEGONE! WRETCHED VILE THING! I FORBID THEE PASSAGE!" and like with the wolf Mam Baba Yiga suddenly flings herself between Arthur and the harrowing hollow rider.

"RUN! RUN TO THE RIVER CHILD! RUN ARTHUR! DON'T LOOK BACK! WHATEVER HAPPENS KEEP RUNNING!" screamed Mam Baba Yiga as she conjured daggers out of roots and flung them against the being that suddenly despite no mouth let out a terrifying sound!

Inhuman and horrible it raised its arm and it's hand became a white bone metallic like scythe! It cut down the roots with barely a scratch. The hoofs of its mount tore through the Earth like a mad titan of old. Enraged!

Yet the brave Enchantress stood tall as she brought forth bolts of flash fire and wove a shield of gold in the air! Blocking there would be assailant's assault! She twirled and the ground around her lit up like an unholy purple firestorm!

Still the lidless rider would not be stopped! It's lidless pink eyes expanded and like some sort of cockroach an antennae grew out of it's worm eaten skull, it moved like a tentacle of the ancient creatures of nightmare…

That only the denizens of the Mountains of Madness would ever dare claim kin.

It sucked up Baba's Firestorm with gusto and began retching black acidic muck like waves back at her. Yiga spun and her movements grew more animalistic with the savagery of attacks. Gone fully was the kind homely woman who had saved little Arthur.

Who stood frozen in fear!

Terrified, behind Yiga's impenetrable golden shield of light little Arthur couldn't move! He couldn't get his little legs to run, no matter how his mind screamed at him too! His heart thundered in his chest as he watched Yiga's back arch and her hands became long white claws and then…

WHAM! CLANG! SSSSCREECH!

They struck!

Scythe and Claw

Good and Evil

Baba Yiga flew off the ground, and she became like an impossible mist!

The rider dismounted, it's one arm a sea of snakelike protrusions! They aimed for her jugular, her eyes, any opening to rend apart an extremity, but the more the pale daemon tried to hurt the mist! The more its targets moved!

It HOWLED! VIOLENT RAGE!

BABA HOWLED HER OWN WAR CRY RIGHT BACK!

The seven-year old child watched, transfixed, and horrified, as trees were torn down, mud flied through the air and the wind became a torrent of cuts!

It was his first time on a battlefield and he would never forget.

Never. No matter how hard he tried.

Or his father.

The child watched as the ground burned and bubbled and he wept when he heard Yiga's cries of pain as those pale scythe like snakes for hands tore into her flesh without any mercy!

"…ah …ah…ah," he couldn't speak! The child stood traumatized.

What could he do? What could he do? He couldn't do ANYTHING!

Yiga's blood fell and became the mist and suddenly her blood was everywhere scattering like the spray of sea foam! However, it wasn't enough that the Monster had sliced Yiga like a piece of toast oh no.

There was a greater terror….the snakelike tentacle protruding from it's skull, latched onto a cut in Yiga's skin and then…it ..?

The little boy didn't know…

He didn't know…

All he knew….was that Mam Baba Yiga….was screaming. …screaming…..SCREAMING…SCREAMING!

No wonder he could never stomach torture.

He remembers, images of the days they had spent together.

He remembers how she saved him from the wolv.

The kindness of her.

The warmth of her.

Her home.

Her delightful Shambles.

Her stories of the Fey.

And all the little moments, sitting on mushrooms with her eating her food, helping her garden, chatting, singing, even her blasted rooster! Her hugs..her and

SHE'S SCREAMING.

SCREAMING!

IT'S EATING HER ALIVE!

BURNING HER!

Torture

It had been torturing her.

HER SKIN BUBBLES BLACK AND RED and BURSTS UNDER PRESSURE!

"AAAAAHAAH!"

IT'S KILLING HER!

MAM!

No.

"No"

…..

It's so small, but it's not the voice of a Knight, nor the voice of some mighty Gnome King. It lacks the succulent tides of a Selkie Queen. It falls short of the voice of a Unicorn, if anything it is subpar in comparison to such. There is nothing in tone about this tiny noise that matches any beast of the earth, such as lion or chimera. In truth no animal it knows, save one, can make such a distinct reviled sound. Yet it's not the voice of a Dragon? Nor a Witch? It is by far no Chrestomanci. Its not even a simple street enchanter...not yet anyways. …

Though it could be…

Indeed no. It is something else this impudent thing?

It's not the voice of a giant or an immortal colossus. Nay. The small cry comes from no Great Vampire. Nor any ancient entity of power from the time's of Celestial Emissary's. It comes not from Angels nor does the voice come from the Devils or even the great Giver of the Sea of Time or from the Lands Beyond the Stars, none visible to mortal Naked Eye.

This fact does not comfort.

This only makes it more terrifying.

It knows.

It knows what this small creature is!

Oh yes!

The Dagon Daemon of Old knows!

It KNOWS!

Neither great, horrible, but beautiful Chthullu Master of Ebrietas nor the Forgotten One, nor even the Founder of Deep Magic speaks or has spoken…

The Vileblood Daemon cannot feel, but it knows!

IT KNOWS!

THE SMALL CREATURE! IT KNOWS!

What was it like? To hear it?

The call of Doom?

An objection from one of Death's Fated!?

To hear directed at it the one thing that Gods, All Gods, even perhaps our God?

In their private hearts fear most?

Directed at it.

"NO."

Ordered a boy.

A small little boy.

A child of Man.

A Death Fated.

Man.

MAN

King of Beasts.

King of Tools.

Creator of Machine.

Storyteller

Slayer

Protector

Guardian

and

in the End when necessary,

when vital,

The Great Destroyer.

!

!

"s DYNE …WBl..ood...AAAsskkkkS! (CLICK) (SCREECH!"! It wails!

"NOOO!" the child screams at it!

Defiance.

Challenge!

Death.

It does not feel. It does not live, eat nor drink. Not in the sense humans know. Ah but it knows! It knows. Yes. It turns its pale head it looks at the little creature, so weak that dares to, dares! To order it!? To interrupt it's hunt! It will devour and slurp the flesh of the little pest next. Wait? Yet though it does not feel, it lives. It lives in a sense. Not in living sense but in dream sense and it smells….Death. Powerful death? Terror. Fear. Perplexity? It's death.

Yes. It knows. It knows.

This one child, this child of fated flesh, perishable blood, will lead and with all it detestable kind in pursuit, follow. It will destroy it!? It knows. It see's it now! A threat! A very real threat! The Great Threat!

For it remembers: Man is the Great Hunter. Man is the God Killer and Man is the King of Beasts, Man is Death's Working Hands, and Man loves the FEY.

Has Always Lain with the TUATHA THILTH!

Bedded them.

Of them!

Flesh and blood of THEM!

Disgusting Ugly THING!

UGLY. HATE! HATE! It growls in pain! It envy's such destructive talent and…it HATES. It hates MAN. For the child will be a man. It knows. It knows.

Threat. Man must die.

Man-Child must die. For the child is threatening it.

It looks straight into the child's eyes.

And It decides.

It will see it.

It will see, the threat, it came to Snatch and Kill.

Let it see this would be obstacle!

Let it see this …..child…

Pulsating pink lidless pupiless eyes open in on themselves like..

Like slime over an insect eye or flower petals? They peel back, stringy red wiggling worms twist out from under the pulled back pink iris nay the red wiggling worms are the iris!?

They flow together, in and out, garnet wiggling searing red worms!

And at last like a beak in a giant squid's maw

A cross between fish and toad like black pitch pupils appear.

Oozing and pulsing like bulging blue sacks of a heart chamber.

It's eyes now fully open.

Young Arthur is grossed out and disgusted, yet can't look away! The child watches the ugly being morbidly entranced. Unable to fully comprehend what he is seeing? For Man has always been curious, children especially, even when faced with something obscene, especially when a child has never heard nor seen such a thing. Curiosity, man's great strength and great flaw, works against the young boy.

Arthur concludes it's disgusting! Whatever it is?! This thing is the most disgusting thing he has and ever will see! Extremely so but it gets worse!

The thing forgets Mam Baba Yiga.

Drops her like a limp ragdoll.

She hits the ground hard.

THUD.

Her body black and blue like a plague victim and in truth perhaps she is?

"Nay….n.. ..Run…run…"she whimpers at him weakly, desperate.

…..

Later, much later, Arthur will realize how much she must have grown to love him, to suffer so for him….to….

But by then… he couldn't of run.

He couldn't even look away, he was but a frightened babe, when the pale rider's face twisted and it's jaw elongated only to split with a gruesome bone sickening crack, before it spoke at him.

What it said, he does not know.

He does not care too.

And he could not possibly repeat.

It was…. inhuman.

All he retains is that for one moment he felt nothing but agony!

Agony and Pain.

That as his mind suffered painful seizures, that their eyes locked together, his and the daemons, in a stare down.

That he was welcomed into it?

Allowed into its scarred churning alien head..

To see a fraction of it's world.

A world of dark taint, of blood scattered cobblestones, of mutilations, abominations, of endless burning funeral pyres and of an eerie field of white flowers where a blond ghost white female creature sings. Garbed in red with eyes just as ruby bright to match, she sits untouched eating from man-sized sacks of meat. She sits on a raised dais, womb bulging and bulging as she consumes other worlds to birth the twisted one she wishes for.

She sings a dark haunting irregular melody of smooth seduction. Of madness. Of plague and blight. A Vile Queen, but seemingly powerless then she makes a guttural shriek.

A cauldron is brought forth.

Pair Dadeni

A cauldron of terrible tragedy and power.

Where once an evil twin threw himself in to boil and burn. Out of an odd act of compassion for the other half of his soul that had been lost.

The Vile Queen pours water into.

She then submerges herself.

Wrong. Terrible.

Damned

Damned

Arthur screams his little skull is buring! He tries desperately to look away! He doesn't want this! Doesn't! Can't! Understand!

He pulls, but the daemon holds him in its stare. Forces him to see.

"YES SEE! BEHOLD AND BLEED!"

The Queen has a child in the forsaken cauldron!

A boy.

Not like Arthur.

No.

Not a boy.

Her baby eats her!

It stands. It's tall. It's dark. It's wrong! It's bad!

Bad. Bad!

WRONG.

It scares him shitless!

He wets himself in terror.

It turns.

Fully grown, ancient, old, powerful, evil.

EVIL!

White tentacles for hair, ruby carnal bleeding, human but not human eyes, it gazes at him through its servants' wiggling ones, and it knows.

See's HIM!

ARTHUR SCREAMS BUT HIS MOUTH WON'T OPEN!

HE'S PARALYZED!

.

.

.

The Vile King Approaches.

.

.

Born of Pair Dadeni.

Child of Dagon.

Unholy Sin.

The Monster sees him and laughs.

Voice smooth as poisoned barbs and soft like a serpents hiss, but guttural and deep like a rumbling choir, its voice scratches and its every word hurts like nails on a chalkboard!

"Oh?" Evil speaks.

"What have we found?….A little Prince? Does the child want to play? Play with Skrimslee? Yes. Play. Play then I eat you. Princes' nay…Kings should play together? Should they not? Tell me…Pendragon…what color does man bleed? Heheehe heehahehaaa..Come ..Come Komdu í sundur!"

MONSTER!

"Chwarae gyda mi Arthur, dawnsio a rhoi fy nifrod i mi ar y diwedd! Hir ydw i wedi aros amdanat ti, fy nghalon werthfawr. Rhai cymhelliant sydd ei angen arnoch chi? Y gwaed cyntaf yna bydd MINE!" Evil rallies.

*Play with me Arthur, dance and give me my destruction at last! Long have I waited for thee, my precious doom. Some incentive you need yes? First blood then will be MINE!"

"NAY!"

"NAY!"

"NAY! ARTHUR! NAY!"

"LOOK AT ME!"

LOOK AT ME ARTHUR!"

MAM BABA YIGA'S FACE APPEARS FILLING ALL HIS VISION. HER HANDS HOLDING HIS HEAD AS SHE FORCES HIM TO LOOK ONLY AT HER! SHE SAYS SOMETHING IN HER NATIVE TONGUE? ARTHUR DOESN'T UNDERSTAND!?

The daemon servant is PUSHED OFF THE CHILD, brutally fatally wounded by Yiga in it's distraction, it howls it's rage at Yiga's interruption, as does it's blighted Master in it's head.

For another word and the child's mortal mind would have been sundered.

Permanently perished. It's hungry King nourished.

/

"So close…so close" hisses the insidious King, licking his skull white lips, starving.

His many tongues slurp.

His tentacled skull tilts, a fog descends, he laughs and hisses, "All the better….skkksssssiahss"

/

MIRACULOUSELY YIGA BREAKS THE TRANCE ON THE CHILD, LIFTS THE SLIGHTLY CATATONIC LITTLE BOY IN HER BLOODY WOUNDED ARMS AND RUNS! THE RIVER. SHE THINKS! HER SOUL TERRIFIED!

MERCIFUL STARS! THE ABOMINATION!

THE MONSTER IS HERE!

BREAKING THROUGH THE DIMENSIONAL VEILS!

THE UNHOLY!

THE UNCLEAN NIGHTMARE!

TOO CLOSE! HE'S FAR FAR TOO CLOSE!

HE WANTS THE CHILD!

HEAVENS SAVE THEM!

..POWERS OF LIFE SAVE THEM!

IT CAN'T CROSS-MOVING WATER! SHE THINKS DESPERATELY! HE HAS NO POWER WITH MOVING WATER! HE CANNOT TOUCH THAT PLANE! MORRIGAN'S SACRIFICE STILL STANDS! HE HAS NO POWER! NOT EVEN THROUGH HIS SERVANT!

NOT YET! NOT YET!

THE RIVER!

IT'S THEIR ONLY CHANCE. THE CHILD'S ONLY CHANCE!

SHE RUNS AND WITH THE LAST OF HER MAGIC, EVEN HER LIFE ESSENCE MAGIC SHE DOES THREE THINGS…

SHE BLOCKS THE CHILD'S MEMORY OF THE DAMNED MAD FORMORIAN KING…

…SHE SENDS OUT A SUMMONING CALL TO KING UTHER AND THE KNIGHTS OF CAMELOT…

…AND SHE CASTS AS MUCH HEALING AND PROTECTIVE MAGIC AS SHE CAN ON …THE LITTLE BOY….

'Her little boy' cries her heart… she clutches him to her body …though the time had been brief some deep part of her had adopted him as her own…. And she would have enjoyed and loved being a mother to him in the absence of the one he had lost… for he was a wonderful boy…a good son…a sweet good tender little boy!

"Lady Morrigan, Lady Rhiannon, Lord Pwyll, Lord Pryderi, Lord Almighty Arawn please. . Oh STARS ABOVE.. MIGHTY EARTH . . SACRED ALL MAGIC! PLEASE! Please. All powers that be! Please, please protect this little boy! I beg ye..please keep him safe! Please! PLEASE!" Mam Baba Yiga prays and chants aloud over and over as she runs.

SHE RUNS…

SHE RUNS…

THOUGH FATALLY INJURED IT CHASES THEM DOWN!

STILL MAM BABA YIGA RUNS ON.

SHE MUST!

.

.

.

…. ….**************************….

…..

…

Arthur doesn't remember, how they reached the river. He can only recall how tight Yiga held him in her bleeding arms, as she ran towards it, panting heavily in exhausted desperation! Her breathing hard, her voice weeping and gasping aloud as she chanted something over and over in her native tongue. He remembers how she twisted and turned along the path, shielding him with her own sweat blood covered flesh as black headed poisonous barbed arrows whistled by them! One nicks her arm near his head! The droplets of red stay in his memory as does her yelp of pain! The creature pursuing them howls in ecstatic delight, the sound like a hags chortle! Arthur doesn't cry, not this time, instead he only holds Yiga tighter with instinctual child need.

Then there is the sound of splashing water! Yiga doesn't stop at the rivers edge but plows into it full force! She runs, partly wades her way across the river uncaring of the deepness of it or the moving current or the chance she could lose her footing!

All that matters is that the child reaches the other side.

A terrible enraged shriek is heard, the sound of whooshing air and then…

Yiga makes a choice. She throws little Arthur to the other side of the bank.

The seven year old child lands hard on his arm, spraining it, limbs all akimbo, but he manages to look up, back towards Yiga and…

A lance like, black barbed spear protrudes from her left shoulder. Blood falls out of her mouth and mixes with the water below. So much red. He's never seen such red. She falls and stumbles in the water. Still trying to reach him.

Trying to protect him.

From The Monster!

He sees the other end of the lance sticking out of her back…

The sight of her state, somehow miraculously breaks the child's incoherence!

"YIGA!" Arthur wails, "NOOO! STOP! NO! YIGGAA!"

In the distance he hears the horns of Camelot, the thundering of horses. He hears the cries of Sir Gadwhen, Sir Jerome, Sir Christopher, Sir Eliot, Sir Oscar and finally his father, "ARTHUR! ARTHUR! PRINCE!"

He doesn't even glance at them or in their direction. All he can see is the evil wretched thing running into the river behind Yiga. He watches her bleeding and stumbling. Her arms bravely, protectively, out stretched to him. The Monster holds another spear, it's rotting body bubbling and melting as it touches the water! It screeches in pain as it starts to succumb to death.

Mam Baba Yiga reaches the bank where Arthur lies on the ground.

The Monster launches the spear, before it fully disintegrates and melts into the river.

The Spear aimed at him flies….it's jagged black edge gleams with the precision of a dagger...

"ARTHUUUURRR!" his father screams with the knights in terrified witness.

THUNK.

Prince Arthur at the age of seven looks up.

Right into the gentle face of Mam Baba Yiga.

A woman of Magic.

Who acted as a living shield and took two spears for him.

She collapses next to his little body.

"There, There luv.." she whispers. . her lips caked with blood, "don't…cry."

"Z.a'right. . ye…safe…..now…" her blood trickles to the ground.

".m…m'shamble" she barely whispers, her eyes glittering wet and drifting.

They focus on him.

".…w'ont….let…Him…ave…you…never…by Ma..gic.…never.."

There is a tiny spark of gold.

Then the glint in her eyes fades.

"Yiga?"

"Yiga!"

"YIGA!"

…..*******..….^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^*************************************…****************************** …..

…16 years later in Camelot…..

..Present Day..

.

.

"Yiga..?" Prince Arthur mumbles the name on his tongue. He lets out a slight hiss as morning light rains down softly upon him through the red curtains of his father's chambers. He lifts one hand to block the gentle rays. His sky blue eyes filled with tears, but whether from the dream of recovered memory or from the sting of the sun he cannot say.

Outlined by the sunlight he stares for a moment at his twenty-second year old hand. Warm, alive, it is a man's hand, no longer a little child's, he notes. 'It looks like such a good strong hand doesn't it?' he thinks. There are calluses on the fingertips from his time training and leading knights, a small tiny mark on his thumb, from the slip of a sword once. The lifelines, a fortuneteller would have read, stretch across his palm, smoothly, the naturally knitted flesh, pale but sun kissed, making it tan. His nails are clean albeit a bit chewed, from a worry habit that he has to fight himself on…he always, especially when alone, secretly bite's his thumbnail in worry. He'd been doing so last night…..

'Last night,' suddenly in a flash Arthur recalls, his birthday, the circus bastard!

"Father" he whispers, afraid. He realizes that he's been lying on the dusty floor of his father's bedchamber, he registers that there is a scattering of twigs all across the floor along side him, which means . . .?

'The old man, the sorcerer…did..?' Arthur gulps. He needs to get off the floor, needs to know if he hadn't hallucinated the entire thing?

In his mind eye he see's, feels and hears it all again: the strange horned female entity, the old sorcerer casting his spells? The spell going wrong, the room spinning, objects morphing, singing, such beautiful singing..

The singing?

He knew that singing? He recognized it? Why? He had heard it before?

It was like?

Like?

Long ago…

Once…

Upon.. a dream..?!

Arthur's eyes widen. He feels like a blindfold has just been ripped from his eyes! He sharply inhales. On a stand near the window of his father's chamber lies a glass vase, the sunlight glitters against it, catching his eye. "Once upon a dream," he whispers, the glass sparkles like an enchanted bubble, "Once upon a dream," he repeats, "Once upon a dream!"

Memory flashes! Mam Baba Yiga blowing her bubble pipe! The Rooster! Yiga's teachings! The Crystal Ball! The Queen! The sound of their laughter. The beauty of their dancing, Their joy when they played. Their gentle teasing. Their silly tricks as They Sang. Fairies!

Such beautiful songs, he recalls, as they waltzed together across stars and golden autumn to spring budded leaves. Never ending in their singing for their singing as Mam had taught him makes the World.

They breathe The World with every breath and note…They are the World and They sing The Song, they were The Song….Magic, Life .. Love…

He remembers!

He remembers! ALL OF IT!

Arthur stares down at the palm of his hands. His eyes in disbelief and shock, because he hasn't felt this certain about something magical since the time Nimueh left him for dead in that cave of spiders where he followed that…that glowing…

He sucks in another breathe! His mind just might explode from the realization because it was a glowing bubble crystal wasn't it!?

WASN'T IT!?

A bubble crystal!

That guided him to safety!

She'd made them with her pipe!

'Bubble Crystals!...BUBBLE CRYSTALS!…YIGA! YIGA!' she had dazzled him for days with hundreds of soapy bubble crystals! And who else with magic but her would rescue him?!

"Yiga," whispers Arthur his heart breaking for it had to have been a spell of hers somehow? What other magical person would watch over him so? Cared for him so? It seemed that even from the grave she still protected him, brave, brave, Yiga.

Somehow he must find a way to honor her? To pay her proper homage. Thrice had she saved him, but how do magic folk like to be honored?

Better question: HOW COULD HE HAVE FORGOTTEN HER!

Nay, suppressed, so much!

'No wonder my father, had to overload me with so many duties, tutors, and lessons,' he thought grimly, a bitter ugly sour feeling growing in his stomach, 'the busier I was, the less time I had to think…or argue…or object..or question what he proclaimed!'

Which he had, hadn't he?

Yes.

Every single time he had asked or tried to argue with his father on the 'taboo' subject, he'd been punished hadn't he. Mention magic once, a slap on the hand. Mention magic twice, and his father made him muck out the stables alone at nine. Mention it thrice and he was to receive no supper, and he was kept locked in his chambers….like a prisoner….all to stop him from thinking.

To stop him from remembering!

Well he was certainly thinking now! Damnit!

Like an open floodgate, it all rushed back! Yiga! Shambles! Her lessons on gargoyles! How useful some of this knowledge could have been! Damnit! How could he have forgotten!

DAMNATION! He was more angry with himself for forgetting such details, for letting himself forget, then anything else. Father's actions or not! HE SHOULDN'T HAVE FORGOTTEN!

.

.

How!? The question burned.

Plus above all how could he have forgotten: THEM!

The Fey!

Those pure beautiful ethereal star-like beings, she had shown him, forever singing with joy, life ….!

Singing….the answer to that never-ending question in the back of his skull…

Stars….the origin of that little voice of denial and objection to his father's doctrine…

.

.

.

So many constellations of harmonic voices….

The Stars had sung…last night…

…Last night..?

.

.

.

A bird, a sparrow or a robin perhaps twitters a little near the open window, and he spots a mouse scurrying against the far wall of his father's bedroom…that's right? He's in his father's bedroom, he's still sitting on the floor too. Because last night… last night?

"She was here," whispers Arthur entranced as his mind picks and matches the details of what was once locked away from him.

"The singing? That particular song!" His previous line of inquiry runs rampant, as he recalls how the room spun, the walls changing into that amazing Other transcendent nebula filled, MOVING Place?

Yiga's stories erupting in his brain like Pompeii!

The certainty of the Magical Event oflast night burnishes in his brain like metal in a forge! As he recalls, not only his dream, his memory, or the little events of last night like giving that old man a piggy back ride, but also and most importantly his impression of HER!

HE'D RECOGNIZED HER!

"That was their singing! The Fey! The Fey singing! No HER Singing! That's what they do! Mam told me! I remember! I REMEMBER!" he gasps as he mumbled over the words, clutching his hands, his eyes trailing around the room for any lingering sign of HER presence!

'The Queen! The Queen of the Fey! The QUEEN! She had come! She had come to help him! In his time of need, the Queen of Magic itself had come!' he thought clutching his trembling hands in awe and wonder. The part of him still left over from the recollection of his childhood memory whooped with near fanatic joy and he felt like crying? Another part of him was honestly, mortally, terrified by the display of such power! Right in the heart of the Castle!

Completely invisible, with everyone at her mercy and yet… and yet?

It had been…HER.

The one magical being he had so greatly and so desperately wanted as a child, wished to meet, had come! Had come for him! To help him! The son of a man who hated her kind! Executed anyone like her on the spot….still she had come..?!

He could still feel her calming strong clawed feminine hand on his shoulder. He still heard the ripples of her oceanic voice, felt her austere natural air, her nobility, her immortal gentility and grace and he realized that he had put his trust instinctually in her last night? His body and the deepest parts of his subconscious somehow had instinctually known, had felt safe, been ready…to trust?

God above he could still say that…that…

Her great horns still put any Crown to shame, most definitely including his father's. Her eyes still like two endless cosmic stars glittered ever beautiful. Her skin though it had been hidden by shadow was still whiter then cook's flour in the Castle Kitchens, her sparkling effervescent gown had been replaced, with a probably for the occasion but none the less, radiant, midnight black feathered robe of shadow, yet how she had shined!

"Who?" he hears the ghost of his younger self, ask like a humongous echo in his head.

"That iz The Queen,"replies the now free memory of Mam Baba Yiga.

"The Queen?"

"Ie. Badb y dyn ei bod hi," voices the magic woman from his youth in a language he doesn't know, but still conveys the tone of confirmation.

The Queen…of Magic…Her grace….Queen Badb?

….Had been in Camelot…right next to him…

.

Comforted him. Held him together just when it seemed his world was going to once more fall apart…?

.

.

.

Badb…..

.

.

.

.

Queen Badb… a strong name… …it certainly sounded regal….didn't it?

.

.

Emerald Ocean eyes flashed in his head…

'Badb'

.

.

.

"She even knew my name," mutters Arthur dumbfounded.

His wish!

He'd wished to meet her hadn't he?!

Over ten blasted years later but the damn Wish Shamble finally worked!?

"Oh…oh.." Arthur stuttered he didn't know what to make of all this! He really didn't! He was curled up on the floor in practically a ball but who could blame him! Here he was the damn accursed Prince of Camelot where Magic was all but a sin to act on and what does he do! He goes and breaks the law! Not only does he invite a sorcerer and extremely powerful moody old sorcerer into Camelot by smuggling him in, but …somehow he drew the attention and or brought or got the aide of the QUEEN OF THE FEY!

Magical Royalty HERSELF!

If he was remembering what Yiga taught him correctly?

Arthur felt like he was about to start hyperventilating…

Sweet saints above or any power listening if his father was in fact alive and on that bed, and got a hint of ANY of this. Then maybe he aught to just get up off this floor go down to the main square and start building his own pyre?

At least it would be a productive and rather normal way to spend an afternoon in Camelot wouldn't it? Maybe he could even enlist the Knights to help him, they'd make it a nice big bonfire heap size pile of wood. He asked Gwaine to get some pigs and roast them along with him. Might as well cook some meat and have some kind of farewell banquet as they send him on his merry way… 'Lord I feel sick,' he thinks as he morbidly imagines himself burning down to his bone.

His flesh tearing away with the fire like…like the skin of that poor old sorcerer?

'Wait..that's right? The sorceror?' Arthur sits up and remembers after the room, the Queen, the singing, the spell failing…then the old sorceror, wailing, no screaming his very bones breaking. . that strange amazing other place? So many stars spinning and spinning until . . finally . . that that bloody…but golden beautiful winged creature….

That…..

That was a Fey…wasn't it?!

The sorceror had turned into a Fey!

That was a Fey!

A High Fairy!

I'm sure!

But…..

"Arthur?" it had spoken with a voice too beautiful and toofamiliar...

His thoughts freeze.

Blue eyes look up to where the old man should have been in the room.

Either standing or on the floor… splayed out like himself..

"Arthur?" says that otherworldly voice again all too familiar…

Arthur shakes his head.

"No," he whispers so quietly…

"Arthur…Arthur….Arthur.." says the Fey…the Fairy…the voice ringing and chiming in his head over and over…sweetly soft, like a gentle wind brushing his hair…like a trusted friends shoulder pat….the vision of the winged golden horned ambiguously beautiful but very male being appears in his minds eye, speaking his name…all with eyes he knows…yet doesn't..

Those concerned familiarsapphire shaded blue eyes, with golden light. .dancing in them. . .

"Arthur?" the being said with… .

.

.

'Is it true?' Arthur thinks. 'Was …Did that happen?' Arthur asks the air aloud.

He'd passed out right after. . he couldn't be sure?

"Yiga," Arthur says like a small prayer, "Fey" he whispers… still marveled, time freezes, as his brain begins to connect some seemingly random dots.

The sound of a bird greeting the dawn touches his ears, no doubt the Robin from before? Slowly the crown prince gazes around the room, his mind growing more and more clear. He wonders momentarily how he can confirm? He wants to be certain? Has to be, this was no time to jump to conclusions! He looks around when he notices, there!

Right there!

On the ledge of his father's window, beyond the sparkling glass vase, is a rose.

One perfect cream colored rose!

No rose bush exists under his father's windows, more importantly it's on the inside? Why, it looks like it's growing right out of the wooden frame of the window! Eggshell blue eyes absorb the sight of it! Across the floor, upon the furniture, under the obvious twigs…those same bright slightly bewildered eyes notice that the dust of the floor…is shimmering, shining in the sunlight?

He looks closer and…it glitters like tiny diamonds?!

His heart pounds within his chest!

It is a queer silvery, prismatic substance finer then sand that covers the room!

He shuffles across the floor over to it!

His hand reaches out for the substance, brushing over the surface…

"Arthur?" says that otherworldly voice again all too familiar…

A gasp fills the air.

"This is…?" he whispers...'Stardust,' supplies a part of his brain.

Pure…Stardust!

"Real," he whispers awed, the space for doubt growing dimmer and dimmer.

He stares at his hands, feeling the fine soft unusual texture of the stardust upon them! Arthur rapidly blinks! Sunlight causes the dust to shimmer, and a myriad of small prisms burst all around him!

A small sound escapes him.

He leans back on his rump, his back hits the wooden dresser behind him gently, and he notices that there is a scent in the air? Soft, fragrant, of a kind of peppermint, a sort of floral mix, perhaps lilac or lavender with something of the woods, something spicy almost like a queer cinnamon?

Something…of berries, so very auspicious, so very familiar…he sucks in another breathe! Then in the silence of the room….he hears a noise, like the echo of a ghost, it is so very, very faint? The prisms dance around the room, with the day's dawn. It's hard to hear! He holds his breathe, and stretches his ears! Focusing! Focus!

.

.

.

"Upon..a..dream…That…look…what..they…seem…...la ..ahh….if I know.. ..the way you did once …"

'Once upon a dream! MY GOD!'

"The Fey! SHE WAS REAL! THEY WERE REALLY HERE!" he declares aloud in stunned wonder! On instinct he laughs in stupefied shock, "Fairies! Fairy! Magic! Like Yiga showed me! I remember! They were here! REAL! Truly here and I knew… I know it! I?" He stops. His mind vividly recalling everything he can from last night's interactions and desperately cross-comparing it to those vague brief childhood ones!

He see's them again at last in his mind in all their pristine finery! Clear as day! As if he were right there back in Yiga's chicken filled garden! He see's them in their court of nature and splendor, singing as the world had sung last night! He just can't get over the recovered memory! He keeps seeing them dancing as the stars had danced, their bodies easily ever shifting as the bones of the sorcerer had shifted…

.

The old sorcerer, wailing, no screaming his very bones breaking. ?

So many stars spinning and spinning . …flesh…morphing…blood…space..

That bloody…but golden, beautiful winged creature…being born….?

"Arthur?"says that otherworldly voice again oh so painfully familiar…

With the face of…

.

.

.

.

Stop.

Hold on.

One moment.

Arthur frankly looks at the empty spot across the room. His awe and delight fading into frightened …confusion…no…worse…..a looming understanding!

He feels like his mind just opened another door….except this one was locked.

For darn good reason.

.

.

'Alright,' he thinks, 'The sorcerer?What exactly had happened to the sorcerer…?'

.

.

'He was standing there….?'

.

.

'I was over here a bit….?'

.

.

Wait a tick.

Hang on!

One minute!

There had been something else, hadn't there?

Something else he had seen, last night, or remembered?

Something important?

Something that up till this mornings dream, memory, recollection, whatever, had topped every other crazy magic-related experience he'd had thus far…?

The sorcerer…it had to do…with him?

His face….

It had unsettled him?

Deeply disturbed him?

Why?

What had it been?

It had made him faint in shock?

What could?

.

.

"Arthur" says the Fey…the Fairy…the voice ringing…

What was it?

Oh come now Arthur!

It was just last night!

He'd seen?

What exactly had he seen?

Okay. Step One. There was enchanted singing, his father's chair had sported wings? Grown fur? Alright. Second step. The walls had flowers and trees sprouting from them? Yes? Maybe?

Hmmm

Okay. Moving onwards. Next moment? He could have sworn everything including himself had been floating…then there was that horned…HER! The Queen! Right!

RIGHT! Absolutely fairy!

Okay check off magical creature involvement, and …and…the sorcerers bones had been breaking. . they had gone or been transported to that strange amazing other place?

With comets and…and… the sorcerers flesh had ripped open…turned into a bloody mess quite literally, and then….and then…..

.

.

?

.

.

!

.

.

Golden scales…large black golden-flecked feathery scaly wings

…golden horns..

.

silky back hair….

Pointy ears…

"Funny ears", he mumbles, numb. Sunlight glitters across a star dusted room…

.

.

.

.

"No," he whispers so quietly, but it's too late…

.

.

.

"Arthur?" the Fey had said with…with…

.

.

.

Merlin's face.

.

.

.

.

.

.

'No. No. No I must be mistaken, hallucinated it… my mind is just confused.'

'I mean..' he starts, 'Had that really been Merlin? I mean? No..? Couldn't have?...Couldn't possibly have?...' wonders Arthur, unnerved.

'It looked so like him . . What if? . .It can't have . . . Could it?'

'No….Yes….No….Yes….NO!'

'It couldn't of…maybe . . maybe the incense the old man kept burning got to me?'

.

.

'Arthur' whispers the voice…

.

.

'Arthur' …

.

.

.

.

.

Merlin

.

.

.

Merlin.

.

.

.

.

My friend.

.

.

Merlin's face!?

.

.

That was Merlin's face!

He saw that face every day! Every bloody morning! Granted not that 'gussied up' but … WHAT THE HELL WAS MERLIN'S FACE DOING ON THAT…THAT FAIRY'S! WHAT THE HELL ...WAS IT DOING THERE!? ON A FEY!? SORCEROR!?

.

NO!

.

.

NO!

.

.

.

.

..

No.

NO.

It couldn't of ..?

It had!

No. It couldn't!

It was!

.

.

.

.

Merlin?

.

.

.

It was Merlin's face upon…?

'Had that really been Merlin?'

'It couldn't of…maybe . . maybe the incense the old man kept burning got to me?'

.

.

'Didn't I think that already! Well obviously that's why cause…because…!'

.

.

'It looked so like him . . What if? . .It can't . . . Could it?'

.

.

.

'That was magic! The sorcerer! SOMETHING! COULDN'T!...COULDN'T!'

.

Merlin isn't magical!

Merlin's …MERLIN!

NO.

..

Merlin is his manservant. His friend. His plain. Boring. Normal. Cheery. Upbeat. Perky. Predictable. Tavern obsessed. Chore skiving! Goofy. Useless. Crazy. Odd. Annoying. Silly. Sometimes very wise, kind, loyal, best HUMAN FRIEND!

HUMAN. MORTAL.

HE IS NOT A MAGICAL….BEING OF OTHERWORLDLY POWER!

It's not possible!

.

.

.

.

.

.

NOT POSSIBLE.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Arthur!" spoke a voice.

A voice he knew, yet had never heard before?

Not with the waves of water for pitch or the warmth of a hearth for tenor.

Not with an inhuman mesmerizing charm.

Not with startled inexplicable fear?

Not like that...

*"Arthur!"

"Prat!"

"Clotpole"

"Supercilious"

"One day you will be a great King"

"You must learn to listen"

"A feeling"

"You have a choice!...So how you do it?"

"Nope! You're coming with me!"

"Just don't be a prat."

"She's my mother"

"Cabbage head!"

"I thought you were going for a hug?"

"I never left!"

"Must be irritating."

"Destinies are troublesome things"

"People should marry for love."

"Trust in yourself"*

"Arthur?"

"Arthur."

"ARTHUR!"

.

.

"Arthur!'

Merlin?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

No.

Just no!

What a ridiculous idea!

Preposterous!

Clearly he had waaaaayy too much wine at the celebration a day or so ago…

Yes. Yes. Or maybe he'd been drugged! What was in those twigs!?

That incense!

That damn druidy incense was to blame!

Right. Yes. That makes much more sense!

A very logical conclusion…had to be…because…. Because…

"Some even…lives on in humans!" chimed an old recovered memory.

No. It's not..?

"Like Me!?" exclaimed his own voice.

'No. No. No. He must be mistaken, hallucinated…his mind confused?'

"They's be boys and girls just like you!" the memory taught confidently.

Oh God.

"Some even…lives on in humans!"

OH GOD

" They's be boys and girls just like you!"

.

"Like Me," whispered Arthur staring at his hands, then the twigs across the floor.

"Like Me," he whispered again, his head whirling.

"Have we met?"

"No I don't believe so. I never forget a face."

"Your eyes we've met somewhere before?"

OH GOD!

NO DAMNIT! IT'S NOT…IT COULDN'T…

.

You know better.

'You know' snarked his own inner voice, unmercifully.

You know.

.

.

.

The dragon?

.

.

The excuses?

.

.

The "funny feelings".

.

.

.

.

Your dumb "luck".

.

.

An air of natural…

.

Nobility?.

.

Wisdom?

.

.

.

Something special…?

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

"Arthur!"

.

.

.

.

"It could." Whispers the darkest most secret depths of his soul.

"It most certainly could."

"Really now?"

"Why are you getting so upset? You've been suspecting it… deliberately ignoring it…haven't you? In truth. You've known about it for a long time, however just like your childhood memory of Mam Baba Yiga. You kept suppressing it, ignoring the obvious. You did the same with your sister Morgana's oddities."

"Trying not to acknowledge it. That which is, in the end, when scrutinized oh so obvious…yet you didn't want it to be true… didn't want to add the facts up…. Didn't want to think of those missing hours with the dragon?

With everyone but…Merlin unscathed… .unharmed..by such a powerful creature? …All those incidents where he …helped you…that didn't make sense…..the Fisher King's Trial for instance….you still don't know what happen to the beasts that attacked you? Do you? You only remember losing consciousness as they were falling upon you…then Merlin's face….convenient how he shows up is it not?

…..How about this? ….How did Merlin and Lancelot …take on Cenred…and Morgause….you've fought Lancelot in training he isn't near as talented as you...So….How then?

When you take the time to add them together...there are a plethora of incidents, of odd occurrences...Remember that 'Love Spell' cast on you…..Merlin "knocked you out" rescued you …..Merlin..

Merlin always there…..and you know….you know….but you don't want to know…you don't…. …and you know why you don't want to know…didn't want to know..…so of course…how could it?...It can't…possibly..…it couldn't have possibly been Merlin last night…transformed or disguised somehow as that old man…..that oddly "familiar" old man with such piercing strikingly similar blue eyes…..who turned into…?"

.

.

.

.

.

.

A long buried image of Merlin storming into the council chamber, Gwen under arrest…for a healing poultice…that cured her father, "Gwen is not the sorcerer! I AM! I DID IT!" screams his idiot of a friend… in such bold declaration…

.

.

.

.

"I AM." Such two powerful words….

"I AM." Said with such pure solid conviction….

.

.

"I AM!"

.

.

I AM.

.

.

I am.

.

.

.

That's what he said, his dear beloved idiot of a friend…

.

"Except he isn't an idiot is he? Often he puts things together faster then you doesn't he?" Arthur whispers.

.

"I AM"….two words... pronounced with all of Merlin's honest severity.

.

I Am.

.

…. "…How you treat your servants! They do everything for you! But do they get any thanks!" yells the Old Man…oh so familiar….

.

.

.

I Am.

.

It plays again, the events of last night, this time like a beautiful terrible dream…

"Arthur!" the voice is of water, of warmth, of light and music but it's still His!

Isn't it!?

Something trickles down out of his eye.

His fingers are quivering.

Something starts to fall from his other eye. The room begins to get blurry….

"Arthur!"

His name.

His. Spoken…by…?

He can't shake this.

Can't deny or ignore it, for one thing, he's still in his fathers chambers isn't he?

Which means he was in his father's chambers last night.

He gulps again, as he slowly brings his hands into a position where they can help support his weight.

He has to know.

He has to know if last night was real! If? If?

IF!?

Has to know whether he dreamed it all up in some desperate delusion or if, if? Does he really want to know? He pauses. He feels so numb, hallow and a tad disoriented. His large now fully-grown hands are trembling, nobodies here so he instinctually bites the nail of his thumb. He looks up, blurry vision and all, to the bed from his spot on the floor. He can see the outline of a body lying there.

He's afraid.

Afraid to be right.

Afraid to be wrong.

From the open window in his father's chambers pours the soft light of morning, the sounds of a new day echo. He can hear the distant cheery call of a knight or two. He can hear the gentle humdrum stirrings of Camelot, and he's lived here long enough that he can match the sounds to the citizen's activities.

It is a good distraction, temporary though it is.

The maids and handmaidens are gossiping about the Kitchens, carrying pitchers and laundry, the Cook has her latest assistants tossing out yesterday's leftovers, preparing this mornings bread. The new blacksmith and Elyan are pounding away at the smithy, the horses' neigh as they are being shoed. The morning patrol makes it's rounds, and the shop owners in the market place are bustling about whilst opening their stalls in preparation of selling their wares.

A breeze blows by through the window, grazing his skin and blonde hair, stardust spins in the air, still so beautiful, on the wind he catches the faint melody of the local tavern, string and drum, beating away like his anxious heart. Children being bathed by their mothers or awoken by their parents laugh and squeal in delight, he thinks he can hear Gwaine making jokes already as he flirts with the horse masters daughter. He even thinks he can hear Guinevere humming as she brushes sleep knots out of her beautiful rich hair.

A dog barks.

A cat meows.

There is the smell of morning dewdrops left from last night's thunderstorm that reaches his nose.

Directly outside his father's chambers the guards arrive at their post their heavy footfalls, clear identifiers, and somewhere in his head he knows that either Gaius or another member of the council will arrive soon to check on his father's health…

It's all so mundane, so normal, routine, and he can't help but feel a little isolated, because it suddenly doesn't feel fair. That such a beautiful average day should harken forth what he knows will be the beginning of the single largest existential shift in his perception of his reality that he has ever had to face.

The worst part is….deep down…he's known.

The truth lying there possibly just within his reach.

He has always known.

This shouldn't be so hard?

He takes in a deep breathe.

If he could accept almost by instinct, fairies, fey, The Queen, and …Yiga…then?

This shouldn't be so hard, but it is?

This, this is a secret truth he had long suspected.

One that has been kept hidden from him, misconstrued and perhaps often denied.

It rattles him and he stares at the bed, specifically the body in the bed.

He needs to get up off this floor.

Needs to confirm, 'Oh god…please…please..'

"There, there luv.." whispers the memory of Yiga in his head.

It encourages him to be brave.

Her memory, even nearly completely forgotten, has always encouraged him to be brave!

Another tear falls down his cheek, he remembers her fully now.

For so long he had tried to forget her, hadn't he?

Torn so between the love of his father and the love of the magic woman, the loving gnome who had saved his life. How could he have suppressed her memory, almost all of her had been lost, and suddenly he's leaning against his father's favorite chair. Ashamed. Bitter.

Sad, because she was one of the main reasons why he had wanted to be a knight?

Wasn't she?

He had wanted to honor her.

He feels a wash of shame for nearly forgetting her, for trying too.

Oh sure he had wanted to be a knight for his father's sake and approval, but it wasn't until after Yiga's sacrifice that he'd really taken it all seriously.

It wasn't until her death that he had truly put his heart into it, even at the age of eight, because like Yiga, he had wanted to be brave.

He had wanted to be strong.

So that he could always protect those he cherished, just as she had protected him.

More tears escape. Didn't he say he wouldn't cry? Or couldn't?

Well now he can't seem to stop, as frustration and rage pour out of him, and then guilt. Terrible guilt and grief.

He stares at the bed.

What did it mean if it had worked?

If the spell the "old man" or whatever he really was, had been cast correctly….?

If the "old man" truly was…Mer.. …?

.

.

.

.

…Mam Baba Yiga had known him for only a few DAYS!

And now that the memory was released?

His father tried so hard to overshadow her, keeping him so constantly busy: princely duties, tracking lessons, knightly duties, teachings, training, fencing lessons, horseback riding lessons, archery, geography classes, bloody knot tying classes, 'Oh! OH GOD!'

They had buried her.

His father who hated magic, who loathed it!

Had buried her, an honor he had forbade so many countless others!

Solid proof of his hypocrisy, Arthur felt bile rise in his throat..

She was there, her poor torn body was still there. Buried in a lonely solitary marked grave by the river in the Darkling Woods…

He had unknowingly gone past it, on every single patrol!

He'd done it for supposed shear luck!

His subconscious trying to tell him of its true important significance!

A choked sob escapes him as a sudden epiphany overwhelms him, "Oh god please. . please forgive me" he whispers his heart breaking!

How many little druid children had he chased down dressed in Camelot red?

Running as he had.

Once upon a time?

How many fleeing 'Yigas' had run at the sound of his own horse's hooves and the approach of Camelot knights, knowing that death was pursuing them?

Just as he and Yiga had from that Monster on horseback?!

'Oh God. NO! . . whatever the results of the spell…between the Unicorn and Yiga…oh god. What have I done? What in my father's name have I done?! What. Have. I. Done?!' thought Arthur wanting to scream and scream suddenly.

His soul wailing in sudden awful guilty tormented anguish!

He felt pieces of him breaking away.

Morgana flashed across his head, the little druid boy pressed against her, the pleading in her eyes, * "Please he's just a boy! He's just a little boy!"

Merlin's friend Will in the village of Ealdor, "That's twice I've saved you."

The old Dragon Lords weary sorrowful eyes, a gruff scoff, "I seek no reward."

Anhora's wise knowing eyes, "You could have chosen to ignore his taunts. What harm would they do you?...Your people's suffering is not my doing. It is yours."

Grettir who guarded the fisher kings bridge, "You'd be wise not to dismiss it so freely. …You must be Courage."

The quiet druid boy turns, eyes as blue as his own, "My name is Mordred."*

"Your fear has blinded you. I pity you." Declares the druid man, Mordred's father so bravely before he is executed. A hundred other cries echo him, some pleading mercy, others begging, many fighting…fighting for their lost loved ones, for their children, for family, for justice, for faith, for respect, for their right just to live.

To Live!

Just as Mam Baba Yiga had fought for him, all the way to her bitter end!

"Z.a'right. . ye…safe…..now…" her blood trickles to the ground.

YIGA!

Arthur shuts his eyes, he suddenly can't breathe!

.

.

Despair. Guilt. Anger. Hate. Sorrow. Failure. Agony and oddly enough a strange sense of Hope and Longing so much, yet all seem unsuitable words for what he feels! There are no words to describe this torrential downpour of feeling! Of knowing!

'How many?' his jumbled fretted mind thinks, 'How many more? How many….'

Arthur's eyes widen.

He is not…a stupid man.

Despite what many may think or assume, he knows four languages, can write and read, and if he focuses…

He stares at his hands.

Such strong looking hands, aren't they?

Bloodied, guilty hands…hands that could have been ….

'Killed.'

'I could have been killed, if not, for a magical person' the world stops.

Slowly he looks back up.

Sunlight glints around the room and with it, the illumination of a whispered thought.

.

.

.

'If?' he questions.

'If even Morgana, my sister, had magic and I didn't notice…?' he gulps again, he tries to breathe. His mind placing and organizing things so fast he couldn't even begin to explain the connections he was suddenly seeing, the loop holes in his memories of the last three to four years, certain adventures he could suddenly explain and daring to guess at!

There was one memory in particular…one with his mother….his mother.

"God," the word halts upon his tongue.

His mother…his mother…

*"She's a sorceress!"….that's what Merlin said wasn't it?

Merlin..whose face…had last night appeared on.. …

The eyes of the old man…..

The familiarity ….!

The Dragon Lord…

Merlin crying…s

The .. . close calls. . . the shield Merlin warned him of. . . the troll . . Merlin..

Merlin always being right… Merlin…always there…

.

"Oh god," he sobs aloud.

!

!

Two things.

His mind puts together two things.

Two very important things!

Like two words

I AM

!

.

.

.

.

.

"What another one of your funny feelings Merlin?"

"Well…yes.."

"How could you possibly know?"

"I …I just do!"

"She's a sorceress!" Merlin cries in a painful anguished pleading tone.

Painful.

Full of so much pain…

.

.

.

Those were the "Magic" words weren't they?

"She's a sorceress!"

"Anything with magic, must be evil," that's what his father had always forcefully drilled into him and that was probably the only thing that Merlin could have said at the time to get him to hesitate in his fury.

That fury burned now, but it was buried under a strange numb ambiguous feeling he could not define, save a single need, 'The truth? What was the truth?'

Yiga's teachings came back to him in a flash…the song of the Fey drifting over his thoughts…

Suddenly he didn't have to look at the bed.

He didn't even need to get off the floor.

His mind played the memory of that ugly incident again, him at his father's throat, the guilt he'd seen in his father's eyes and it being oh so similar to the guilt he'd show after the reveal of Morgana's parentage and magic.

'Guilt. For he was guilty wasn't he… What a small taste of what was to come or what had been, buried like brave Yiga, all along,' his mind felt heavy.

He felt heavy.

Worse for the first time he felt, old, nay, he felt ancient.

Weak.

Tired.

Broken.

Yet he couldn't stop the cogs in his brain from turning, couldn't stop the sudden traitorous or perhaps the clearer picture of what exactly had really happened in his father's council chamber that awful, miserable day.

It was like an avalanche, unstoppable, brutal, and full.

There was no way to stop it.

Not when the truth, like grass under melting frost, was suddenly becoming visible…

'Lets say for a moment,' said the logical detached calculated part of Arthur, 'that you had magic, 'Very, very, very secret powerful magic! Crazy as that is and let's say even crazier! That your . . 'friends' with the son of the man who kills people like you everyday. . then . your friend finds out a terrible truth that has him about to run his old man through and . . . being the large Idiot, and you are the Biggest Damned Idiot, which you are,. . you realize that your friend would forever regret such an act so. . . what do . . you . . do?'

"She's a sorceress!" that was exactly what Merlin said wasn't it?

Merlin.

Merlin.

Merlin.

MERLIN.

INSUFFRABLE BLOODY MERLIN!

Merlin tearing up, as he tries to convince you not to kill your father!

"I Am"

Damn him.

Merlin who doesn't cry over so many other things he should!

"I AM!"

Merlin close to crying like a girl over something that honestly wasn't even related to him! Had nothing to do with! Just like with the stupid Dragon Lord, just like so many other times that might make sense if he applies one tiny little word!

Confound him.

Damn him.

Damn him!

Damn himself too!

Damn his father!

Damn Camelot!

DAMNMIT!

WHY WAS MERLIN ALWAYS THERE?

EVERY SITUATION!

WITH A SOLUTION! CRAZY BUT A SOLUTION!

WHY THE HELL HAD MERLIN EVEN BEEN UPSET!?

HE WAS THE ONE LEARNING HIS FATHER HAD LIED TO HIM!

ALL HIS LIFE!

HE WAS THE ONE WHO MAY HAVE BEEN BORN OF MAGIC…

Oh F**k.

OH SHIT.

SHITE!

WELL SHIT!

…

…

…

The shamble.

.

.

Yiga.

That's right.

That's right isn't it!?

He can't breathe.

He had been born of magic hadn't he?

He'd made a shamble.

"A magician you'll be yet!" she cheerily chirped at him.

.

.

"A magician you'll be yet," he mutters bitterly.

He tries to breathe. He can't! He can't! His eyes burn!

"A…(sob)… magi…(gasp)...cian," Arthur slumps.

He's practically lying back down on the floor. A terrible sound emerges from his throat or lungs! He can't tell!

He's laughing, crying, laughing, and crying because he knows it's true!

Sixteen damn years later and here's the Truth!

Oh Morgause, the foul bitch, probably had been using him to finish off his father that was for damn sure; but the she-bitch had used the Truth!

He feels himself falling apart.

Scratch that breaking!

Breaking!

He hears something or someone moving, rustling about but it's probably with his luck just a rat.

Merlin made him eat rat once, but if last night was real, if that had indeed happened.

Then his "manservant" should have …conjured up some blasted damn potatoes!

.

.

He feels detached like this is happening to someone else. He wishes a little bit that it was. He just doesn't know what he feels and suddenly he just can't help but laugh!

He laughs and laughs and then he lets out a sad wail of anguish!

Before covering his mouth trying to stop a sob as bile rises.

He goes quiet, his chest aches, his body heaves!

For it's all so …so ridiculous!

Yes hilarious!

All of it, his whole life is like one…one big giant sick joke!

It dawns on him that he's having a bit of a panic attack or something vaguely similar to a mental break down? He's decides he's had enough of those within the last twenty-four hours. So some part of him tries with herculean effort to do the opposite. In his need his body, mind, whatever tries to help him handle the situation by using some sword fighting meditative focus techniques. He starts, or well he tries at least. He breathes in and out he listens once more to the birds singing, the hustle and bustle of the people in the courtyard and nope.

Nooopeee..

It's just not working.

Padded feet and the shuffle of a quilt sound in the background but he doesn't register it.

The whole world has been turned upside down, and all because last night he had wanted to save his Da!

"I AM!" he hears his friend confess as his mind screeches at him the truth over and over.

What had Yiga said about wishes?

Messy business? Yea. Sounded accurate.

"Ohhh noooo" he wept.

It wasn't fair!

Cause even if he wasn't seven years old anymore. He still loved his father.

Needed his father.

His Papa.

His murdering, hypocritical, faulty, harsh, judgmental, self-righteous, vain, selfish, stubborn, lying father, wrong father, and damn him, damn him for choosing to have him! Because Arthur couldn't help it!

He loved his irresponsible psychotic twisted up, faulty, guilty, bully of a father!

God help him! God curse him!

GOD WHY!

IT WAS TRUE!

OH IT WAS TRUE!

ALL OF IT!

ALL TRUE!

BORN OF MAGIC!

'I WAS BORN OF MAGIC'

HE WAS BORN OF MAGIC!

AND HIS FRIEND …

HIS FRIEND….

"I AM"

Arthur sobs.

He weeps like a little child. He weeps for his life, for the lives he had wrongly taken, he weeps for Yiga and all her unjustly persecuted kind, he weeps for his lost misguided, missing sister, for his mother, for his father, and he weeps for them!

For all the people of magic! For all the people of Camelot! For Gwen! Her father! Hell even the criminals! He weeps for his suffering kingdom! For the innocent he falsely so wrongfully misjudged and condemned.

He weeps for them!

…..The Prince of Camelot, the Once and Future King…curls up into a tiny ball..and bawls his broken heart out to the world.

His body is wracked by gut wrenching sobs…broken.

Everything is broken!

Honor is gone!

Everything is wrong!

He doesn't understand!

He doesn't know anything anymore!

What did he ever know!?

His friends were right! He was a 'Princess'! Blind and ignorant to the world!

Total clot pole! His poor sister….his poor mother….his poor people.

'Oh Gwen,' he thought, the guilt for her father's murder, weighing him down like a stone, 'Gwen', how strong she was?

What would Gwen say?!

Oh God…

The world he knew died, last night and now?

Now?

MERLIN HAS MAGIC!

MERLIN IS SOME KIND OF MAGICAL CREATURE!

MERLIN'S A SORCEROR!

MERLIN SPROUTED WINGS!

MY FRIEND LIED TO ME!

EVERYONE LIED!

LIARS! LIARS! LIARS! LIARS! LIARS! LIARS EVERYWHERE!

SURROUNDED BY LIARS!

WHY!?

WHY DAMNIT ALL! WHY!?

IT….IT!

It hurts so much.

So very much.

No one trusted him.

Was he so unworthy?

Not Gaius. Not his Father. Not his friend…

He was…alone and still being coddled.

Kept in the dark.

Manipulated.

Used.

Like an inanimate object!

His stomach rolled. He felt sick!

He had trusted Merlin with his life!

His life!?

He felt so angry!

Honesty and faith?

Were such things truly so hard to give!

Here he was born of Magic. Saved by Magic. His best friend had Magic and …

HE WAS MAGIC!? HE WAS MAGIC TOO WASN'T HE!?

I AM! I AM MAGIC TOO!? 'BORN OF MAGIC' OF MAGIC!?

Yet his father was the man who slaughtered anyone with anything to do with Magic.

His father.

HIS FATHER THE TYRANT KING!

HIS FRIEND, MAGIC, IN THE HEART OF CAMELOT!

HIMSELF!

BORN OF IT!

….

.

…

.

He didn't know how to cope with this.

.

.

'I'm not strong enough…I? I? I?'..

…

.

.

What would happen if?

.

A vision of Merlin burning at the stake …

NO.

NO.

HE WOULD USE MAGIC HIMSELF FIRST!

...

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.

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Arthur froze. His whole body going fiercely still. The thought like the smooth steady slash of a mighty sword.

.

.

.

'I'M BORN OF MAGIC.

I really can? Can't I?

.

.

I, the son of Uther Pendragon, can use Magic!

Hang on? If I can….then? Does that mean?'

.

"A magician you'll be yet!"

.

.

.

.

'I'm..not just of Magic.

I'm not just Magic.

I..

I.

Am.

A

Sorcerer!' .

Or?

At least..

I could be!?

I COULD BE!

.

.

Merlin.

.

Gwen.

.

Gwain. Elyon. Leon. Percival. Lancelot…

.

This.

This.

Is too much!

It's too much!

…I…..I…I need help!

.

.

.

…I can't! I can't believe….!

"I am," whimpered a sad little voice before out of his throat it came. A buildup of all things culminating into one ululating deluge of animalistic anguish, "I AM! I AMMM! I AM!"

He was magic.

Arthur Pendragon, The Crown Prince of Camelot, was magical.

.

.

.

GOD HELP ME!

MERLIN!

YIGA!

MOTHER! SOMEONE!

PLEASE.

HELP.

.

.

Prince Arthur despaired, weeping profusely. At long last, after sixteen years of lies, he finally knew the truth. So lost in his anguish, his bewildered misery, he failed to notice the astounding sight of King Uther rising phenomenally from his bed, failed to comprehend the old King once again healthy, fit as a fiddle! King Uther seeing his son's distraught state immediately moved towards him! Assuming his son had thought him dead, it had been years since his boy had wept so!

Prince Arthur so trapped within his mind's troubled state, didn't even notice when the King's arms gently enfolded around his shaking, quivering form, cocooning him in a rare paternal embrace. Arthur didn't notice a thing, until his father spoke, "Shhh. Shh. It's alright my son. My son, it's alright. My dear boy!"

"F..father?!" choked Arthur! Watery sky blue eyes, filled with confusion and shock, looked up at last!

"Yes, I'm here, why are you crying?" queried the old King concerned?

Arthur couldn't speak….tears rolled down his cheeks, tears his father gruffly but gently brushed away! His father! He couldn't speak! What of the fair Prince's heart that remained, that had not been torn asunder by too many revelations, or crushed by negative emotion, latched onto the one thing that albeit making no sense served as a true-life line.

For whatever to come.

For whatever had been.

Here was a miracle.

"Your alive!" cried a startled gasping, disbelieving Arthur.

"Your alive!" The Prince cried a piece of his shattered heart returning.

No. Rebuilding.

King Uther was silent for a moment, something heavy passed across his eyes, a haunted, awe filled, humbled, troubled look and then he too began to weep a little before a small ever so family familiar, gratefully, sincere chuckle escaped him, "So I am?" The King paused in wonder, "I am indeed! We both are!"

"You are!" wept Arthur, his heart rebuilding, his brain taking this. This one substantial TRUTH in as it whispered an answer at long last to the question that had plagued his kingdom, plagued his family, and gripped his soul, "Forget" it whispered in simple confirmation, "Forget all that you thought you knew. All that your Father falsely assumed. Forget those of Morgause's and Nimueh's ilk. Forget the monsters, the cruel enchantments, the walking dead, the beasts and focus on this…this one miraculous gift."

"Your alive," mumbled Arthur as he took in his Father's healthy complexion, his body still shaking from shock and too much mental trauma and stress.

His father was alive.

Alive.

The Prince's heart, so filled with turmoil, dread, uncertainty and fear, suddenly quicker then any save a few could have predicted…filled beyond the brim with hope.

Clarity and Hope.

'There is another side to Magic,' spoke the inner chambers of the Prince's soul, 'Magic isn't evil. There is good! There is Good! THERE IS LIFE!….'

"Father! YOUR ALIVE!" Arthur joyfully shouted! He didn't need to say anything else, whatever the elder man had done, whatever sins he had committed, whatever trials to come, whatever complicated mess his life was, truths, untruths, all that he would face later! For now…..for now the Prince of Camelot flung his arms around his parent in a fierce bear hug, relishing the treasure of this one incredible moment!

This gift that Magic had given him!

THIS MIRACLE OF HEALING!

THIS….GOOD MAGIC!

'Thank you,' he thinks, his soul building anew, stronger then ever before!

Purposes springing to life in the depths of his heart!

Something dawns on him…?

It is an answer.

The answer!

To all of Camelot's problems, and woes, to the biggest problem of this land, and finally he see's not a solution, but the solution. The best solution! Nay! It defines itself in his mind like an open book, like ….like…like he was seeing the whole world for the first time!

It was so obvious now!

So clear!

He knew what had to be done!

What Camelot needed!

Yiga!

The Queen!

MERLIN!

.

.

.

Magic.

The answer was with Magic, but not with the kind that his city had seen under fire and force!

No! CAMELOT NEEDED GOOD MAGIC!

Good Magic!

Miraculous Magic!

Magic like the feeling of his father's living heart!

.

.

His father….

.

.

.

The purpose in the Prince's heart turns to steel. It burns with the passion of flame, is tempered by the flow of far sight…..

Images, memories of two individuals…two selfless, self-sacrificing souls play in his skull, and no matter how thankful he is to feel his father hugging him…..it does not dissuade him from the course he knows he must now follow, that he is soul bound too….….

He cannot falter. He cannot fail. As a knight he is honor bound to serve.

As a man he is duty bound to atone.

How can he ignore or veer from what he knows must be sought out and corrected…..?

He will not deny the truth, he will not suppress his memory, and he will not relent or give up.

Not when brave women who save children from demons were and for all he knows? Still are, hunted by evil things he has no name for, and men with no understanding…..nor where dearest, closest allies, those truest of friends must hide their greatest skills, their vital wisdom and knowledge, knowledge that could save, that had saved! Hundreds! Hundreds of lives! Including his own! Including his people! Many a time!

Not when noble souls that deserved freedom, or simple souls just wanting to live were being cruelly, yes cruelly, persecuted and flayed alive.

No longer.

No more.

It was like….nature..

There would always be wolves, thunder, thorns, but then?

'Where were the deer? Where was the rain? The flowers?'

"It's alright Arthur! Don't worry son! I say I'm feeling a bit hungry! I'll have the kitchen prepare us some breakfast! We should eat together!" spoke his father, alive and breathing, and talking!

….

.

.

.

'I use that one fer hiding things…' said Yiga.

'Just….a funny feeling…' said Merlin.

.

.

.

Arthur blinks rapidly!

It's so obvious!

'They're hiding. Some of them, I bet, right in plain sight! Of course! It's the ones who are bad! Violent! The fighters! The vengeful ones that keep attacking!' he feels the room spinning again his father's grip tightens, "Perhaps you should lays down son?" states the King in concern.

The living King….

'The good ones, the kind ones, the healers….Merlin…..are hiding! Not only from us…( a flash of the evil daemon enters his brain) ….(Morgause attacking Merlin)….attacking my sister! From the bad ones! Who helps them!? Who defends the good ones! The ones who don't throw curses! Or fireballs!'

'….I….I'm not ….evil…..I'm not ….perfect….but I'm not….'

Arthur sucks in a breath.

It is like a veil has lifted.

..

.

'I'm just human. Just me and…and so are they? Aren't they?' he thinks sadly. Determination fills him. He has to find them! He will find them! All of them! Every good magic user he can! He has to know more! He has to learn! He can no longer remain ignorant! Not when this affects him too! Not when he too is of Magic! He has so very much to learn! There is so, so much he doesn't know! He doesn't' even know where to start!? He would need help! So much help! Camelot needed help!

The Kingdom of Camelot needed them! Him!

Needed the Truth about Magic!

Later he decided he would worry about what was to come, what steps to do next, later he would figure out how to cope with all this, because right now he was a bit of a pathetic puddle on the floor.

He most certainly was still crying like a baby, but after, after he recovered some he would go figure it out…somehow he needed to solve this, to free those falsely accused, those citizens of his kingdom with special talents, who had to hide all that they were..

Then even later he would seek out his so-called best friend, his unique, terribly stubborn, selfless idiotic, wonderful, sneaky, magical friend. Demand some answers and give him one hard punch for lying, make that two punches then maybe, maybe ….later a hug, or a bloody damn day off!

Screw that! There wouldn't be time for days off! Not with his sister still missing!

Poppycock!

However for now. For this small personal moment, these tiny in sequential seconds, he allowed his mind to relax, because his living parent, his only family still immediately around, was miraculously alive and …so….so…was he.

'Thank you, Merlin!' Arthur thinks as he is finally able, to properly breathe.

'Thank you…..Magic,' vows his gracious soul.

.

.

…..

…((End of Chapter 2)….

End chapter disclaimer:

So yeah, I don't own BBC's Merlin, nor Maleficent. I make sadly no profit. No money. Zip. Zero. Nada. I'M POOR AS HELL! SOB! SOB! WOE IS ME! NO MONEY! SOB!

Only write for fun and to share alternative plot ideas, as a devoted fan! I have no beta reader, and do it all on my lonesome. Again no profit!

I will say I do own my Original characters like: Yiga and Rupert'n the rooster. As well as the basic plot twists unique to this tale but…again I make no money!

I write to inspire others like myself, and to get out the craziness in my own skull! :-D

Moving on…

Woo. WHAT A RIDE! One of the hardest, longest chapters I've ever had to write, but this is it! This is the big wake up call! The 'Reveal' Jeesh! Exhausting! Anyway I'm excited to be moving on to the next chapter! Had a few more things to type in but…I feel like if anything is worthy of it's own chapter, then it would be Arthur's "awakening" to magic, for lack of a better term? Also it has been far, far, far, far, too long since I updated, and this was waaaaaaaayyyyy longer then I planned! Also since I'm typing multiple stories both in and outside of fanfiction. Novels I want to get published etc., and still struggling with real life jobs..it's been a challenge, retail seriously is lousy but hey a writer's gotta eat!

Excuses. Excuses. I know. Sigh. Anyway all in all I hope you enjoy! Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this stuff! I don't respond to reviews really, please don't be offended, I just don't have time, but please go ahead and leave one if you wish! I'm just too busy! However, I hope to continue this story more soon! And as always all my love and gratitude to my fellow fans!-sincerely Stella Limegood.

P.S. I am my own editor so …I apologize for grammatical errors! I try! I really do! I have more updates for other stuff and three new ideas coming soon! For now, all my love and thanks to anyone that reads this crazy fanfic! My thanks to any followers and well?

Peace! See ya later you Magical Space Cowboys & Gals!

P. P. S. I think the next chapter, I will try to make shorter, just so that I can have a quicker update! Alright…LATERZ!