A/N: Thanks to Witchprincess18, IndiaMoore, and Baje Barra for the wonderful reviews!
Connotation
~Chapter 11: Red Leaves and Real Words~
By Fox
Gwen tries to keep running, but Morgana slips from her grasp and hits the floor with a whimper.
"Morgana?" Gwen whispers. "Can you make a light?"
The orb blooms into existence over Gwen's shoulder and she gasps and drops to her knees when she looks at the witch. Morgana's arm is, for lack of a better word, shredded. Four long gashes run down it and onto her side, bleeding profusely. Morgana looks at the damage and breathes sharply, gasping.
"Ah-"
"No, it's okay," Gwen assures her, ripping the sleeve of Morgana's tunic off. "It's not as bad as it looks." Morgana groans and rolls her head to the side away from her arm. Please don't let it be as bad as it looks. "I swear it isn't. Keep still. Keep still."
Gwen slides her pack off and sets it on the ground, repeating the words in her mind.
"Gwen?" Morgana asks, voice high.
"Shh."
Deep breath. This must work. Inhale…
"Þurhhæle dolgbenn."
Gwen can feel it this time, instantly taking hold. She watches as the bleeding slows, clots, and new skin stitches over the long wounds, all the way up her arm and down her side.
Morgana gasps, once, twice, and her eyes close.
"Oh no, no, Morgana not again," Gwen shouts, slapping her friend. "Morgana stay awake!"
"I'm awake," Morgana mumbles. She opens her eyes and sits up, hands fluttering over her wounds. Or what used to be wounds. Scars, now. "Gwen, did you- you used magic!"
"Yeah," Gwen admits.
"You're a witch!"
"I prefer sorceress," Gwen mutters. Since when? she asks herself. Since now, I suppose. "And I only know that one spell."
Morgana is silent for a moment.
"A sorceress is the same thing as a witch, you know."
"Yes, technically," Gwen replies. "But… I think I like "sorceress" better."
"How did you learn?" Morgana asks, eager. "When did you start?"
"A few days ago, and it's a long story. We should probably think about how we're getting out of these tunnels, though. Wilddeoren."
Gwen helps Morgana up, and the witch looks around.
"No wilddeoren here. I know this place. I… hid here, and when I left to get to the road, Abernard's knights caught me. These tunnels are vast, but I may be able to find another exit from what I remember."
Better than nothing, Gwen thinks, and gestures for Morgana to lead the way. The little witch-light bobs over her shoulder.
The air in the tunnels is thick and misty, pressing in on Gwen with invisible cushions. Morgana, seemingly guided by an inner compass, is silent as she leads.
Gwen forces herself to focus on the witch-light and not on the dark, or the way time doesn't seem to pass inside the stone.
Look how dark it is, whispers are treacherous voice in her head, Look at how close the walls are. If that ceiling were to crumble suddenly-
Stop it, Gwen orders, Look at the light.
Of course, as must inevitably happen, Morgana stops walking. Gwen breathes slowly. In, out. Damp air clogs her throat.
Damp?
"Gwen?" Morgana asks, worried. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," she replies tightly. "Why have we stopped?"
"I'm lost," admits Morgana.
Silence fills the tunnel.
"Gwen?"
Breathe, Gwen. In, out. Don't mind the walls, don't mind how close they are-
"Can you make more light?" Gwen asks desperately.
"Of course." Morgana conjures three more orbs, and one floats right up to Gwen's face. She puts a hand out and cups it- it pulses gently like a heartbeat.
"I'm okay," she says, mostly to herself. "It's just… the air…" Gwen takes another moist breath.
"What about it?"
"It's...," deep breath, "Damp. It's damp!" Gwen grabs the witch-light and moves it around, shining the glow on the cave walls.
Using the light and straining her ears, Gwen stalks down the tunnels, Morgana tiptoeing behind.
Then…
"Ha!" Gwen shouts, "A river!"
And a river it is, running through time-smoothed rock, deep and wide as any stream she's seen. She unfolds her hands and the witch-light takes off like a firefly and loops over the water, crossing to the far bank and back.
Gwen drops onto a rock beside the water and peers at Morgana by the light of the magic.
"It's bigger here," she says, relieved and half-embarrassed. "Since we're lost anyway." Morgana settles down across from her.
"We may as well rest," she says. "I'm sorry I got us lost."
"We'd have gotten lost anyway," Gwen says.
They sit for a few minutes, listening to the water rush, and Gwen idly plays with the returned witch-light.
"How are you doing that?" Morgana asks out of the blue.
"Doing what?"
"Touching the light. They are only supposed to float beside you, look." Morgana reaches out to a witch-light and passes a hand through one. It doesn't interrupt its gentle up-and-down movements.
"Oh," Gwen says thoughtfully, and glances at her light. She spins it on a finger. "I didn't know you couldn't."
Morgana nods as if the question's been answered.
"So, if you haven't been sleeping in caves," says Morgana, recalling their conversation in the forest, "Or the woods, where have you been sleeping?"
Gwen laughs.
"I've been bunking down in hay bales, mostly. Had a bit of an incident with wolves when I tried to sleep in the forest. Still, hasn't always worked out so well."
"Something happened?"
"Yeah, I woke up late last time. Some soldiers found me."
"What happened?" Morgana whispers, morbidly curious.
"I fell off a cliff." Morgana looks horrified, and glances up and down Gwen's body as though looking for broken bones and gashes. "Oh, no," Gwen assures her. "I mean, I was pretty bashed up. Mostly dead, I think. But then the vilia…" Gwen stops. "The vilia, Morgana!" Gwen scrabbles frantically in her pack.
"You met vilia?" Morgana exclaims.
"Yes, yes, they healed me, and then they gave me this leaf… ah ha!" Gwen pulls out the red leaf and holds it up. "They said this would call them to me."
Morgana watches intently as Gwen drops the leaf into the river, and they both lean out over the water to watch the current carry it away. They watch the ripples in the water expectantly for a while, then sit back.
"Well, they said it would," Gwen defends.
After a few more minutes of nothing happening, Gwen begins to lose hope. Maybe the leaves expired. Maybe we're too far-
"Gwen," Morgana says, "Look!"
Something is glowing down the river, swimming slowly upstream. As it gets closer it resolves into three watery orbs under the surface and stop whey they've reached the pair. They emerge from the stream and look passively at Gwen.
"You're not the same ones," is the first thing Gwen says. They're a different color, mossy green.
"We are many," replies the vilia at the front of the trio. Gwen looks at Morgana, who looks amazed.
"Told you so."
"And the witch," the leader says. "Who devastated the balance and wrought darkness in the land and our waters."
Morgana pales, and Gwen thinks Perhaps this wasn't a good idea, but the witch only bows her head.
"I regret what I did," she whispers shakily, "I am sorry, although I know that will not fix anything.
"It will not," the vilia intones.
"I will try to make reparations for what I have done, and what destruction I have caused."
Throughout this Gwen sits and stares, mouth oven. The vilia are silent for so long that if she wasn't looking at them, she'd think they disappeared.
Then all three dip in the air, nodding towards Morgana and then back up. A bow?
"Your words are sincere," says the leader. It turns to Gwen. "Why did you call us to you?"
"We need to get out of these caves," Gwen explains hopefully. "Could you, I don't know, get us a boat or something?"
"There is no water-craft for many hours," answers the vilia, "But we can guide you as far as there is river."
"Great!" Gwen says in relief. "That's great." She stands and pulls Morgana up. "Let's go. The sooner we get out of these tunnels the better." The vilia re-submerge and move slowly in the direction of the current.
"Hang on-" Gwen starts.
"-how do we follow?" Morgana finishes. One vilia bobs out of the water for a moment.
"Walk in the water." It disappears again.
"That river's freezing!" Gwen says. Morgana shrugs and pulls off her boots, rolls up her pants, and steps into the water. She blinks at Gwen.
"It isn't cold anymore," she reports. Gwen copies Morgana doubtfully and finds that the water is indeed only pleasantly warm, though it comes up to her hips so there really wasn't any point in rolling up her trousers.
"Let's go then," Gwen says, and they slosh after the vilia. The witch-lights obediently follow.
"So," Gwen says after a few minutes of silence, having been turning over Morgana's conversation (albeit a short one) with the vilia in her head. "You're being honest, according to the magical bubbles. About being sorry. You really regret it?"
Morgana looks at her so desperately Gwen wants to turn away.
"Truly."
"All of it?" Morgana hesitates, and Gwen thinks I knew it.
"No. Not becoming a witch. Not Uther being dead, or killing him. I would do it a hundred times over." And yes, Gwen can understand that, now she has the full story and isn't feeling betrayed and confused in the castle as it takes place.
In the deep recesses of her mind a voice hisses You would have done the same, if it was you. You know it, you just won't admit it. And Gwen's conscience tells her she can't hold something against Morgana that she would do herself. It doesn't work like that.
"But," Morgana continues, "My actions towards my… friends, you, Arthur… Camelot itself, my home… I regret that. I was alone and lost, mostly in hatred and confusion, and I did unforgivable things."
Gwen stops walking and stares at her friend.
"How could you think you were alone, Morgana?" She feels, if anything, insulted. "I would never have- have betrayed you, or told Uther! Neither would Arthur, not even for a second would he have turned away from you!"
Morgana just shakes her head.
"I didn't know who I could trust. The magic… and Uther… I didn't know."
A low hum interrupts Gwen's reply. A vilia is hovering just out of the water.
"We must proceed," it says.
"Yeah," Gwen says, "Yeah, of course, sorry. Lead on."
They slosh through the stream like that for hours, until Gwen's legs are numb and her whole body feels waterlogged, despite the warm temperature.
Finally, the water begins to ebb away, until it's only ankle deep. Here the vilia once more rise up to eye level.
"This is as far as we may travel," the leader says. "Follow this water until you reach the open air."
"Thank you," Gwen says. Morgana echoes the sentiment. The vilia dip in the air and then sink back underwater, and swim slowly upstream.
"Come on then," Gwen prompts. "It can't be that far. I think I see light."
When they finally step out of the caves Gwen laughs a bit hysterically, and swears to herself never to never get trapped in a cave again. Morgana flows down on the ground and rolls her sopping wet pants back down.
It's midday, by the look of the sun, and Gwen feels, as she pulls on her boots, that things are looking up. Morgana… regrets being evil? Isn't evil anymore?
Is on somewhat better terms with Gwen, she eventually decides. And, well, that's it, really. Camelot is still cursed, and she has no idea where they are.
