Disclaimer: Once again, anything you recognize, I own not.

Thanks to the wonderful Glastig, for betaing this story!

Key in the Kingdom

Morgana's Encounter

It was all Arthur's fault, Morgana fumed as she tore into her chambers and slammed the door after her.

Uther was in a foul mood, because his son had decided to take off for a few days without telling anyone. Of course, being he was the crown prince there was always the possibility that someone had managed to kidnap him, which was what had the king on edge. Until either Arthur showed up on his own or some else did with a ransom demand, they couldn't be absolutely sure which it was. Merlin was also gone, which made most people think the two of them had decided upon an unplanned hunt. Uther let them believe it. Because, what most people didn't know was that (and those that did were under pain of death, or whatever the king deemed equivalent to it, not to breath a word of it) was that there were no horses missing from the stables, none of their belongings seemed to have been packed and Gaius hadn't heard a word of anything from Merlin. Besides, usually Arthur left a message with someone if he were leaving without wanting to bother to ask permission in case his father had a mind to say no to him.

Morgana, however, wasn't worried about the prince and his manservant. For some reason, she just knew they were both alright. Woman's intuition, she supposed. At least, Arthur had better be alright, so that she could yell at him when he got back for being so irresponsible and leaving her to deal with an irritated, refuses-to-admit-he's-worried Uther Pendragon.

She was both glad and annoyed to find Gwen not in her chambers. On the one hand, she hated to take her bad mood out on her maidservant, however she also wanted to rant and scream at the top of her lungs without looking like she was losing her mind and talking to the furniture.

Suddenly, someone behind her groaned. Morgana whirled around.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me; it's way too early for this crap," said Dawn as she looked around the room, holding a steaming cup in one hand. She noticed Morgana. "Oh, hi Morgana."

"Hello Dawn."

Morgana forgot her anger in favour of staring at Dawn's very unusual-looking clothes. She wore a plain lilac-coloured shirt on top with very short sleeves and breeches that were a matching lilac colour and covered with little yellow stars. She was barefoot and her toenails were painted bright pink. Morgana had never seen anyone paint their toenails before, but had to admit it looked rather pretty. She wondered how many different colours were available for painting nails. And, also, whether there were shoes one could wear in order to show off these beautifully-painted nails or if one had to walk barefoot.

Dawn apparently noticed her assessing gaze, because she grimaced.

"Sorry, haven't had a chance to get dressed yet," she said.

Morgana looked up and realized that Dawn did in fact look like she'd only very recently gotten out of bed. Her hair was rumpled and her eyes a bit glazed-over and a bit red with noticeable circles underneath them.

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry, I'm afraid I was a bit preoccupied with your nails. I've never seen painted nails before. But, you look like you're barely awake. Please, have a seat."

She gently steered Dawn towards her bed. The girl sat down and sighed before taking a sip of her drink. Morgana caught a whiff of it and moaned.

"That smells good," she said, eyeing the thick brown liquid curiously. "What is it?"

"Hmm, oh, hot chocolate," Dawn answered and then looked up at Morgana thoughtfully. "You can try it if you like, but it might make you sick 'cause you're not used to our food. We, uh, add stuff to it and it's not like it'll kill you or anything, but since your body's not used to digesting it, you might not feel too good afterwards." She paused. "Which would be why I can't just give you the whole mug."

Morgana wondered what sort of 'stuff' could be added to food, but shrugged it off. She'd heard of far-off places that used strange spices and preparation methods for their food. Some of the dishes she'd seen at banquets whilest visiting some of Camelot's allies were such odd-looking things she hadn't dared touch them.

Dawn held the cup out to her and Morgana carefully took it, brining it up to her nose first to smell it properly. It truly did smell divine. She blew over the top of the liquid and then took a tentative sip. Her eyes widened and she couldn't resist taking a second, much larger drink, closing her eyes as the taste travelled through her whole mouth and then down her throat, leaving behind a lingering aftertaste of utter bliss.

"This is amazing!" she exclaimed. "I've never tasted anything like it."

"That's 'cause it'll be, like, a thousand years before chocolate comes anywhere near Albion."

Dawn grinned mischievously and Morgana echoed the expression. To think she was the very first woman in all of Albion to taste such a delicacy! It made her want to travel the world, to see what other wonderful things could be found in it.

"Cho-co-late, hm?" Morgana tried the word on her tongue. It even sounded delicious. Then she smirked. "Oh, I'll have to make sure to tell Arthur all about it! He'll certainly be sorry to have missed this!"

"The only thing he's missing right now is probably the safety and sanity of his normal, Andrew-less existence," said Dawn drying. "Oh, by the way, you should probably know that he and Merlin are safe. Stuck fifteen hundred years in the future and in the wrong dimension, but safe."

Two things crossed Morgana's mind in that instance: firstly, there was relief that her almost-brother was in fact safe and secondly, annoyance that he'd gone on such an interesting adventure and left her behind. Which begged the more pertinent question.

"How did that happen?" she asked. Dawn cringed.

"I appeared here again last night – well, last night for me anyway – and we were talking and then my cellphone rang. Which is a sort of communications device and something that should not have been able to work here, like, ever. I picked up and suddenly I'm back in London and they're with me. Giles figured we should wait 'till the morning to figure things out so we all went to bed. Also, it's apparently a proximity thing, 'cause neither one of them was anywhere near me when I, uh, shifted back here."

Morgana was stunned. And jealous. She took another sip of the hot chocolate.

"Well, I'm glad they're alright," she said eventually. "And I'll think of a way to tell Uther that won't end with him launching a kingdom-wide search, which seems to be his solution to most things these days. Although, you might want to warn Arthur the king is rather annoyed with him for taking off and not telling anyone about it."

Dawn frowned and then looked at Morgana with concern.

"Exactly how long has it been since they disappeared?"

"About two days, why?"

"Crap. I'd forgotten all about the time difference between our dimensions. It's only been about twelve hours or so since we arrived in London."

"Oh."

Morgana pondered this for a moment. It meant that, although Arthur and his manservant were both safe, it was impossible to guess when they'd be returning to Camelot. And Morgana couldn't just lie and tell Uther they were off on a hunting trip, because how in the world would she explain her two day memory lapse in between. She supposed she would have to tell the king the truth.

"And there's no way for them to get back without you?" she asked Dawn.

Dawn shrugged. "There might be. We'll have to call Willow in on this one for sure. And I think she mentioned Angel having a friend who was a genius with portals or something. Or maybe she was a genius, who got sucked into a portal... Whatever. Either way, Giles will probably be able to figure something out."

The girl took a deep breath and stood up, looking thoughtful. She looked like she was about to begin to pace, when she spied the window and her eyes lit up. The exhaustion that had blanketed her face earlier disappeared as she raced to the window and looked out into the courtyard.

"Wow, you know it's still kinda insane that I'm actually looking out at medieval England," she said after a while with an excited giggle. "Makes me wish I could figure out how to control this dimension-hopping thing and just spend some time browsing around. Like, exploring, you know?"

Morgana giggled back.

"I'd love to show you around," she said. "Though, I think you'd have to borrow some clothes first. Oh, I have a dark green dress that would look spectacular on you!"

"This plan is sounding better and better all the time! I wonder if we could convince the king to turn a blind eye while I pretend to be a visiting lady so I can attend a proper ball or banquet or something...without the creature feature obviously."

"I doubt it, but if we don't tell him it's you he might not notice."

"Yeah, I suppose I didn't exactly look my best when I met him."

"No, that you didn't, but with good reason. And at least your clothes didn't have stars on them."

Dawn blinked and then looked down at herself.

"In my defence, I was about to go shower and change into normal clothes. These are my pyjamas, after all."

"And I take it pyjamas are a type of sleep attire?" Dawn nodded. "I thought as much."

Something in the courtyard caught Dawn's attention and she grinned, watching whatever it was avidly. Morgana placed the warm cup of hot chocolate onto her bedside table and then made her way to the window. She leaned against sill next to Dawn and looked out, wondering what the girl found so interesting. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, she turned to her visitor.

"Dawn, what-?"

The sentence remained dangling, never to be finished. Morgana walked away from the window and scanned the room. It was certain, Dawn was definitely gone. The only proof she'd ever been there at all, was the cup of hot chocolate.

Morgana smirked and walked over to her bed. Sitting down, she picked up the cup and inhaled one, long breath of the delicious aroma. Dawn had warned her that drinking too much of it would make her ill. But it wouldn't kill her and that was all that mattered. If it made her ill, well, then she'd be ill and it will have been worth it.

Morgana took a deep drink of the warm liquid heaven.

Instead of looking out of a castle window into a real-life medieval courtyard, Dawn suddenly found herself staring at a much less exciting wooden door. After a few moments of blinking and staring – to allow her mind to wind its way around her present circumstances – Dawn sighed and opened the door. Inside, the surround sound was blaring out a scene from Lord of the Rings (somewhere in the third movie, she thought) and four young men sat on the couches and armchair, their eyes glued to the big screen in front of them.

"Ooh, Merlin, could you do that?" Arthur yelled excitedly, pointing to the screen as Gandalf's staff splintered apart in his hands.

"Uh, Arthur, you do realize the guy who did that is the Witch King of Agmar, all-around evil guy and highest minion of the Ultimate Evil, Sauron, right?" Xander asked.

Arthur waved him off.

"Well, yes, obviously without the whole being evil bit."

"I don't know Arthur," said Merlin with a sigh that made Dawn giggle. "It's not like I've had the opportunity to battle many sorcerers."

"Hmm, that's something else you'll have to practise then." There was a slight pause as the witch king flew off and the camera shot to a cut of the orc army. "Also, that flaming sword spell would've been useful against some of magical creatures we've come across."

"It was." Arthur's head spun to Merlin so fast Dawn swore she saw his hair swish with the motion, short as it was. She couldn't see Merlin's expression, but she imagined he looked like he was regretting saying anything at all.

"Andrew, make the people stop," said Arthur (well, it sounded a bit like a command, but since it was directed at Andrew, she didn't care so much).

"For the record, it's called 'pausing'," said Xander once the movie froze. "Also, you're pausing the movie, not the people on the screen. Well, technically I suppose you're pausing the people too since they're in the - no, you know what forget I even started this conversation."

Not that it mattered, since Arthur was ignoring Xander in favour of staring Merlin down. Merlin twitched a bit nervously, before finally speaking.

"Well, it wasn't the same spell, or at least it didn't look the same, but there's a similar spell and it worked against a, uh, magical creature or two we faced..."

"Such as?"

"Such as... oh hell, why did you think Lancelot was able to take down the griffin so easily when you and your knights all failed?"

"Woah, hang on, Lancelot?" Xander exclaimed.

"As in Sir Lancelot, you've met him?" Andrew echoed, though twice as excitedly. "But, wait, I thought Lancelot-"

"Hey, whoa, stop with the spoilers there, Andrew," Dawn cut him off, not wanting to deal with yet more potential damage with people and time lines.

"Sir Lancelot?" Merlin said, grinning from ear to ear as he whipped around to face Andrew. "So Lancelot becomes a knight?"

"See, you're already spoiling things for them."

"Sorry."

"Hey Dawn, not meaning to pry or anything," Xander began with a confused frown, "but haven't you already been up for a while. Spike said you were heading up to have a shower and that was hours ago."

"Yeah, I was going to have a shower. Then I walked in on Morgana."

"Morgana?" four voices exclaimed.

"As in Morgana Le F-"

"Andrew, shut up!"

Dawn and Xander glared at Andrew, who promptly slid backwards into the couch to get as far away from them as he could. Arthur and Merlin exchanged bewildered looks. Then Dawn cleared her throat and smiled at them.

"So, yeah, apparently it's been something, like, two days since you guys disappeared from Camelot and the king's a bit pissed at you for not telling him you were leaving. So, Morgana's going to come up with some sort of story to tell him, which might possibly end up just being the plain, yet not-so-simple truth. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to stick to the two of you like glue so that the next time I go dimension hopping I drag you along for the ride back."

"Guess this means we'll have to call for the big magic guru of the twenty-first century," said Xander with a grin.

"Probably, but I'll let Giles make that call. First, I'm showering."

"I thought we were supposed to be sticking to you like glue?" Arthur called to her as Dawn exited the room alone.

"Nice try, Arthur," she called back with a roll of her eyes. "I highly doubt I'm in danger of tripping to Camelot this soon. If I do, I'll make sure to bring you back a souvenir, though, to ward off homesickness."

"Just so long as it's not Morgana." Arthur made a face and Merlin snickered.

Dawn giggled and then froze. She looked down at her empty hands.

"Damn. I left my hot chocolate there."

Well, there you have it folks. I had fun writing these three chapters with the additional BTVS cast, so I hope you had fun reading it as well. So... review?