In Which The Sorceress Claims Her Brother:

Gwaine shivered and tried to suppress it; he'd been standing in the snow for over an hour, and it hadn't taken long for the wind to suck all the heat from his body. Even the forest had provided little cover; the trees seemed eager to spite him, refusing their protection from the bitter chill that bit his skin through the moisture that beaded it.

One of the many things his father had failed to tell him about being a knight was how you started to sweat as soon as you put on your armour. No matter where you were, no matter how blasted cold you were you still did it, and now, standing on this godforsaken stretch of road with a group of people who didn't even have the decency to shiver, the droplets had frozen beneath the metal, forming crystals that ground into his skin with every movement. Fabulous.

Sarcasm aside, this had given him an unprecedented opportunity to observe the mythical Emrys, and he found himself, as ever, completely thrown. Ever since Merlin had told him who he was, he had been unable to help thinking of the two as separate people, two distinct, detached entities, who just happened to share the same body. But they weren't; Merlin was just a smaller part of the whole, the part the world was presented with so they couldn't see all of him. Emrys was huge and impossible to comprehend, and so Merlin was made to spare humanity from the knowledge of who he was, and what he could do.

In the short time he'd been back in Camelot, Gwaine had been researching the man as thoroughly as possible, and Emrys, if the old prophecies were to be believed, was a figure to be feared. One particularly descriptive passage had him calling down a mountain on the enemy of his king, and at that Gwaine had put down the book for several minutes, trying to reconcile the man he knew with what he was reading.

It was easier now, three years ago he would have laughed aloud and dismissed it as ridiculous, but now...now it was harder. This Merlin wasn't a servant; it was obvious in the way they looked at him, the way he moved, in a thousand small ways, it could have been Arthur standing there. It was the way they held their shoulders, the way they tilted their heads as they listened intently, and the calm that seemed to emanate from them, that made everything breathe a sigh of relief.

Gwaine had never had that effect on anyone.

In a bizarre way, he missed Merlin more now than when he had been gone. That Merlin, with hair dusted with coal both real and metaphoric, and skin milky enough to shame any maiden had been his friend, someone he knew and understood. The boy, and he always had been a boy, no matter his age, who had laughed easy and often, and was willing to help anyone who asked. This Merlin was outspoken and yet reserved at the same time; Gwaine watched as a smile flashed across his face, and the expression is open as ever, but now there was so much hidden behind it. So many secrets that Gwaine would never know.

A pinching sensation in his calf brought him sharply back to the present, his muscle protesting against how long he'd been resting on it. Unable to help it, he sighed, and moved onto his other foot, his hand closing casually on the hilt of his sword. His exposed, ice cold, sword. He tried to suppress it but it burst from his chest; a sound that could, despite all his later protests, be called nothing but a squeak. The metal seared like fire and he shook his hand desperately, trying to escape the sensation.

Merlin glanced up, a frown that could have graced the brow of an emperor clear on his features, and Gwaine grinned sheepishly, holding his hands out in front of him in silent apology. The nomads didn't turn, didn't look away, their eyes almost eerily fixated on Merlin's face, searching out every line and shadow. The youngest was the worst; a boy no more than sixteen summers old with hair the colour of straw, he stared at Merlin as if confronting a god in human form; eyes the colour of cornflowers brimming with awe. And more than a little fear.

Then, at some unknown signal the nomads knelt, a single unit of shadow on snow, and rose without a word, moving swiftly off the path. Gwaine followed them with his eyes, their brown and grey cloaks easy to see against the snow, till the wind forced him to blink, and they were gone.

Just like that.

Without a sound Merlin mounted his horse, and they rode in silence, the wind their only companion.

Arthur growled and kicked a stone, watching it ricochet about the cave. Percival said nothing, staring out into the snow as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen, and Arthur growled again, throwing himself down on his sleeping mat and shutting his eyes. It had been less than a day, and already he was frustrated, the thousand things that could go wrong playing havoc with his thoughts.

He tried to picture something calming, soothing; the soft sheen of Guinevere's hair in the candlelight had never failed to settle him, but before it was even fully formed the image was snatched away, replaced by a vision he didn't understand. Two figures, black against the snowy hillside, magic cloaking them like fog, thick on his tongue.

Morgana smiled, her eyes burning with madness, raising her arms in treaty to the sky, but Emrys' didn't move, his cloak still despite the raging wind. Arthur couldn't move, couldn't speak as lightning struck him, as it was deflected by a shield that had come from nowhere, protecting its master automatically.

And then his sister turned from the other sorcerer, head tilted to the side in a mannerism so familiar it sent agony streaking through him. She smiled, and something in her face was so wrong, something black and terrible and burning with cold that when she spoke, her words were lost to him.

A thousand fingers began to tear at his skull, ripping him apart from the inside.

From far away he could hear Percival shouting, but it was so distant, so removed from the agony of the moment that the knight could have been calling from the moon.

When the blackness came, silence did not follow.

Shhh, little brother. Shhh.

Gwaine could only look on as Merlin leant over the boy, casting a practiced eye over the symptoms. The reports had not been lying; thick black tar continued to ooze from the child's ears, staining his blonde hair a rusty brown and leaving sharp trails on his pallid skin. When he breathed, which wasn't often, it was in sharp, ragged pants that wracked the boy's chest and made Gwaine ache in sympathy.

Merlin looked up, his face set.

"I cannot cure this."

There was a moment of silence, and the boy's mother let out a sound like a wounded animal, eyes wild with anguish. Then she collapsed, chest heaving with great wracking sobs that spoke of pain beyond despair. Gwaine tried to reach her but wasn't fast enough, and it was Merlin who caught her as she fell, lowering her gently to the floor.

"Madam, listen to me, please."

She didn't hear him, lost somewhere in the sea of grief, rocking backwards and forwards as the boy began to stir pitifully, calling for his mother through cracked lips. It was Gwaine who hushed him, laying a hand on his forehead, and the boy quieted, till the only sound in the room was the anguished weeping of his mother.

Their eyes met, the knight and the warlock, and to his surprise, Gwaine found a request in Merlin's gaze, almost a plea for permission. It was given in a heartbeat, and without a word Merlin pressed his fingertips to the woman's temple, eyes flashing gold.

The sudden silence was deafening.

"Madam, I need you to listen to me, very, very carefully." He murmured quietly, and the woman nodded, emotions dulled by the spell.

Fighting down guilt, Merlin continued under Gwaine's watchful gaze. "I need you to keep him as clean of the ooze as you can, but whatever you do, do not put the waste where it can re-enter the water supply. Can you do that?"

The woman nodded, moving like an automaton to the room that served as a kitchen. If she was surprised to find a profusion of rags and a well that supplied boiling water, she did not show it.

"Will that help?" Gwaine murmured as they exited into the near empty village, and Merlin nodded.

"A little." He replied, not looking at him. "It should give him a little more time."

"How long does he have?" It was a question he almost feared asking, and he held his breath, waiting for the reply.

Merlin kept walking, and for a moment Gwaine thought he wouldn't answer. "Long enough for me to find Morgana."

"Will I get it?" Gwaine asked with a laugh, a laugh made harsh by fear. This wasn't an enemy he could fight with steel, and the thought of this spreading, taking village after village with it... was unthinkable.

"No." The words were emphatic, assured enough for Gwaine to glance at his friend, a frown on his face.

Merlin smiled, but there was no humour in it, eyes focused somewhere far away. "Since his royal pigheadedness insisted, I thought it would be a good idea to shield the three of you. Its blood magic, and I can't keep it out forever, but the spells should hold for another three days at least."

They had reached the fence that marked the edge of the village, and Merlin continued past the horses, on towards the hill that marked the edge of Camelot. Eyes flashed gold and suddenly Gwaine was stuck, fighting to move his feet as Merlin pulled up his hood.

As Gwaine watched a figure crested the horizon, too far away for clarity, but even at this distance he could see fire spring to life, tying another shape to the boundary stone. If he squinted and strained his eyes, the details became cleaer, and his heart plummeted downwards. Black cloth snapped in the wind, indistinguishable from the witch's tangled hair, as her brothers glowed in the winter sunlight, a soft, gentle gold.

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