The plot gremlins have returned. Sort of

The young druid boy sat in the front yard of the house he and the couple who had taken him in. Mordred had spent the day helping in the fields alongside Balinor. Hunith who had taken over as the town's physician had spent most of the day gathering medical herbs, taking the time to make lunch and eat when it was time for the midday meal.

Mordred peeled potatoes for the stew Hunith was making while watching the people of the town as they went about their evening routines. It was relaxing and reminded him a little of what the druid camps were like when they were able to stay in one place for a while, but with less magic. The young teenager had settled into life in the small town, he liked having an actual bed, which had been provided by the king himself. It wasn't a large bed just the right size for the room he was in, but it was more comfortable than sleeping on the cold floor and way more comfortable than sleeping on the ground.

Hunith and Balinor had been surprised when the men had shown up with the mattresses. Arthurs note had said he had wanted to get them something as a way of thanking them for all their help during Cenred's attack on Camelot.

He had sent a twin sized bed for Mordred and a queen sized for Balinor and Hunith. Arthur had also sent a few single sized mattresses for (ahem) visitors.

Of course, half the town had been buzzing with rumors for about a week after the mattresses had been delivered, but it was a small town and rumors buzzed whenever anything different happened. Like the king sending gifts to a peasant couple and their ward for any reason.

"Hello Mordred" a boy called as he walked past the house with a pail of water from the towns well.

"good evening Anthony," Mordred said, he watched as the boy open the door and walked into a small house a few doors down. No one in the town had taken to Mordred right away, seeing any new person as another mouth to feed. The kids had warmed up to him first after he showed them a nonmagic magic trick (what? learning to do fake magic is a good way to convince someone that the magic they saw was just slight of hand). The adults accepted him after they saw he was a hard-working willing to pull his own weight. Having lived among the druid for so long he had learned to hunt and once in a while he and Balinor would go out and get a couple of deer or boar for the town. The only holdout was old man Simons, but Hunith assured him that Simons would come around.

" Are you almost done?" Balinor asked as he walked through the gate with a stack of firewood in his arms, Hunith had used the last of the wood they had to start the dinner fire.

"Yeah," Mordred said looking over at Balinor " just two more then I'm done"

"alright" Balinor noded "once you're done we'll probably have about a half hour till dinner is ready, if your up for it we can get some training in"

"Yes sir, I'm up for it," Mordred said straightening up a little.

Balinor narrowed his eyes at Modred giving him a pointed look, Mordred immediately knew his mistake.

"Sorry, Balinor" Mordred corrected himself.

"I'm just going to bring this inside," Balinor told him "finish up and bring the potatoes to Hunith then we'll go"

Hunith stood by the table, her eyes focused on the vegetables she was cutting up for the stew. She looked up at the sound of the door opening. She smiled when she saw Balinor walk through the door, Balinor walked over and set the wood down by the wall before stepping over and giving his wife a soft kiss on the lips. He stepped back a bit but not too far giving Hunith a little space.

"I was thinking of taking Morded for a bit of training before dinner," Balinor told her "will half an hour be good?"

Hunith turned and stepped over to the pot hanging over the fire, she took the wooden spoon and gave it a good stir.

"actually you could probably do forty minutes," Hunith told him. "once everything is cook it will need to thicken a little"

Just then Mordred walked in with the bowl of peeled potatoes.

"Hunith, do you want me to cut these up?" He asked as he set the bowl down.

"No, thank you Mordred. " Hunith told him "I have dinner taken care of, you two go get out of my hair"

Balinor and Mordred each gave Hunith a quick peck on the cheek before heading out.

Hunith walked over and watched them from the window as they headed to an open area just off the edge of the town, it also happens to be where Kilgarah would land whenever he came around. In a way Mordred reminded her of Merlin, she missed him every day. However she understood he was doing something important in Camelot, he had already made progress in proving to Arthur and most of his knights that Uther had been wrong about magic. Hunith was almost certain that the only reason Arthur hadn't completely legalized the practice of magic yet was because he didn't want to cause a panic with people who had been taught to fear and hate magic.

Mordred walked with Balinor to there regular training spot. Balinor hadn't told Mordred to bring any sort of weapon which meant they would be practicing hand to hand skills. Once they got to the open field they began stretching out, it was a standard pretraining procedure.

The Dragonlord had Mordred practice some basic moves he'd already shown him to start out. He showed him a couple of corrections to his positions, to prevent self-injury and to improve effectiveness. Balinor practiced alongside him the two of them moved not quite insink.

"Alright," Balinor said after twenty minutes of practice. "I'm going to show you something new before we have to go back for dinner".

Mordred watched closely as Balinor brought his fist up to his hip, then brought his other fist around in front of his body to rest on the first fist. Balinor then turned sideways bring his arm that crossing his body out in a blocking motion, then he punched with his other fist finishing with a front kick. Balinor repeated the moves a couple more times to make sure Mordred got them.

"Alright now you show me," Balinor told him.

"it looks simple enough," Mordred said taking the first position.

He repeated what Balinor had done slowly, focusing on his movements. The man only had to correct the hight of Mordred's arm when he did the block part of the move but other than he did really well. Mordred practiced the move switch back and forth between leading with his left and leading with his right arms

"come on," Balinor said patting Mordred on the back.

"dinner is probably ready by now"

Hunith placed a bowl of buns on the just as Balinor and Mordred walked in the door. They both took their boots off placing them in the proper place and put on their house shoes on (a gift from Morgana and Gwen). Hunith filled some bowls with stew from the pot and placed them on the table. Balinor and Mordred thanked her and the group ate dinner in a comfortable silence. Breakfast and lunch were generally more vocal but dinner was mostly always quiet.

"We got a letter from Merlin today" Hunith spoke taking a couple folded up pieces of paper from where she had placed them, while Balinor and Mordred washed and dried the dishes that had been used to prepare and eat dinner.

"I didn't see anyone ride through town" Balinor spoke

"yes well it looks like Merlin learned a spell, " Hunith said as she sat down and unfolded the paper.

"just turned around and there it was on the table"

"what does it say?" Mordred asked.

Hunith looked at the letter scanning it a little before she started to read out loud.

{

Dear Mother, Father, and Mordred.

I hope this letter finds you well. Everyone here is doing well and they all tell me to say hello from them.

Gwen has recovered completely since the incident at the feast celebrating her marrying the royal prat and being crowned queen.

Arthur took the night and I out hunting, he will say it because Camelot needed the meat but I think he was starting to get stir crazy or drive Gwen crazy either one. We got some fish, some deer, some boar and some bandits.

Morgana has been reading up on healing magic and taking lessons from Gaius, she has a really good aptitude for medicine and when He is ready to retire there is a good chance Camelot could have its first female royal physician.

Agravaine, (Arthur's uncle, do you remember him from Arthur and Gwen's wedding?) keeps trying to convince her that she should pursue something more appropriate for her station as a princess. Morgana, of course, points out that she is not a princess since although her birth father was the King her birthmother was not the queen.

Agravaine even went to Arthur and tried to convince him to stop Morgana from the as he calls it unladylike studies. Arthur told him he had no problem with Morgana studying medicine of any kind, (I am not sure Agravaine is aware that she is studying healing magic too) but if Agravaine wants to keep trying to convince her to give it up he's welcome to try.

I really don't like that guy too much, I don't know what it is about him. It could be the way he looks at Gwen and Morgana when he thinks no one can see him, or it could be the way he keeps trying to give Arthur really bad advice. Seriously Camelot could have gone to war twice in the past less than a year had Arthur actually followed the man's advice instead of the first time listening to me and the second time listening to Gwen.

Some new men arrived from Essetire to train to become knights, most of them are getting along with everyone pretty well. However, there are of course a couple that thinks their station means they can treat everyone below their station however they like. Three times I've caught them bullying the servants and they keep glaring at me when Arthur and the knights aren't looking. They also "accidentally" pushed me into a mud puddle which was beside a pile of manure the other day. Arthur has given me permission to join in on training tomorrow.

{

Mordred smiled at that, Merlin may not look it but he was strong, agile and could hold his own against anyone. The two bullies would probably underestimate him and get their butts kicked by the ex-servant.

{

Arthur and I will be meeting with the druid leaders in about a week, along with Sir Lancelot, Sir Gwaine and Naitm, oh yeah Arthur got a new servant his name is Naitm. If everything goes well the druid will no longer be in hiding, at least not while on Camelot's lands. There is still a lot to be done before magic and by extension, anyone like the druids who support magic are accepted in all of Albion.

Anyway I know it's a bit late and I understand if he doesn't want to or can't but I thought Mordred might like to come down to Camelot and join us for the meeting with the Druid. If you leave in the next couple days you should be able to get her before we go.

I wrote the spell I used to send you this letter on the bottom of the second page, all you have to do is fold the letter and hold the four corners with your thumbs and forefinger on the table, focus your mind and where you want the letter to go and say the spell.

I suggest practicing on a piece of paper and sending it to different rooms in the house.

Please let me know if you are coming or not.

As always I and everyone send out love.

Merlin.

{

Hunith placed the letter open down on the table, Balinor and Mordred moved closer to take a look at the spell. It looked simple, though neither Mordred nor Balinor had ever seen the spell before.

"what do you think? Do you want to go?" Hunith asked.

"you might see someone you know," Balinor told him.

Mordred thought for a moment, he wasn't sure.

"what about the harvest?" Mordred asked

"it's almost done, and you've done more than your fair share already" Hunith pointed out.

"you don't have to decide right now," Balinor said

"I would like to see Arthur and Emrys again," Mordred said, "and it would be nice to see my old friends, but it is kind of last minute to"

"Merlin did say it would be in a week, that is last minute." Hunith agreed "but you could still make it if you left within two days. That is unless you don't want to go which you don't have to"

Mordred thought for a minute.

"I kind want to sleep on it," He told them.

The next day after much thinking and practice with the spell Mordred was ready to send his reply to Merlin.

Mordred wrote out his reply and folded the paper before placing it on the table holding it down with his thumbs and forefingers. He concentrated on the table in Merlin's chambers, the small one by the bed. Mordred made sure he was focused, before tapping into his magic and speaking the spell.

"Ærende þys ærendbóc bæcern ic gewill " (send this letter where I will)

The young warlocks eyes flashed gold as he focused his magic on the spell, there was a slight breeze and then the letter glowed then vanished.

Sorry for taking so long with the chapters, my plot gremlins have certain ideas of what is going to happen but even though it suppose to be interconnected one-shots there should still be an order of the story. The plot gremlins are having trouble agreeing on what that order is. If you read the last chapter of a different path you will know there are certain things that need to happen in this fanfiction.

Anywho, this is a filler chapter which I hope you have enjoyed and I will try and get my plot gremlins to make the next one better.