Warning: romantic bit coming up at the end of chapter! When I was writing it I didn't know whether to go all gooey or to be sick…seeming as this chapter's up I survived anyway! Haha, please review (:

Chapter 25

Feu had little experience of magic, nor did she know many magic spells, but the Druids had taught her a few and thanks to her mother it ran in her blood, and now she was using it for the first time in years. Feu had never felt so angry in her life, her hands grew hot like burning coals as she seized one of the men who were dragging her away tightly by the arms by the face. He screamed with surprise and pain and fell away. Feu then began to throw stones, hundreds of stones, without the use of her hands. They simply rose into the air and pelted themselves at the shocked soldiers, smashing into their helmets with surprising force. Suddenly then men weren't fighting two defenceless people, they were fight two defenceless people and about a ton of rocks.

Arthur didn't know much about what was happening behind him, he was having his own problems, there seemed to be an endless number of soldiers coming towards him, and he was trying desperately to fight them off. They were good fighters, he was better, but they weren't prepared to give in yet. He just managed to duck out the way as an arrow flew past his shoulder.

"Feu look out!" Arthur cried as an archer raised his bow towards her. He knocked the archer off his feet before he could fire the arrow, and turned to see that Feu wasn't listening to anything Arthur was saying, and that she was fighting about five men at once with flying rocks.

The sight made Arthur freeze on the spot with wonder and confusion. The men began to fall back, or fall to the ground as the rocks shattered their skulls. But Feu wasn't trying to fight them off any more; she was trying to get to the river. They kept on pulling her away and trying to land a fatal blow with their swords, but she attacked them with fangs and claws.

It didn't take Arthur long to work out what Feu was so distressed about, he heard her calling Merlin's name, but he was nowhere to be seen. Arthur immediately realised that Merlin was in trouble, but there was nothing he could do about it; there were too many soldiers. When he saw Merlin's body lying underwater, Arthur understood the full scale of what was happening and like Feu, began to panic and fight desperately to try and get to Merlin quicker. Arthur tried to push the soldiers out the way to get to the river, but his way was blocked, and he already had a feeling it was too late.

The soldiers were finally starting to fall away when they saw the dead men around them. They saw that they had underestimated what good fighters they would come across, they saw the anger in Feu's eyes, and they saw the blood on the ground, the trees, even some flowing down the river. By this time there were less than ten soldiers left, and these were the ones that had more brains than bravery, so they decided that it would be better to leave the forest before all of them were dead. Their mission a failure, they turned and fled back into the trees.

By the time the soldiers would have got back to their King, to lie to him that Arthur was indeed dead, there would only be three of them left. They may have surrendered but the forest never does, and their blood and the blood of their fellows could be smelt from miles around.

When the soldiers had disappeared into the shadows of the forest, a sudden hush seemed to fall upon the clearing; the whole event seemed to have only taken a few minutes and now the forest fell into almost total silence.

Before Arthur could do anything, Feu was already down by the river, pulling Merlin out of it. The water had made him a lot heavier than she had expected, but she managed to haul him onto the bank, where he lay motionless.

"Merlin?" Feu said gently, kneeling beside him and shaking him tentatively by the shoulders.

No response.

"Merlin!" She shouted suddenly, shaking him even harder.

Still nothing.

"MERLIN!" Feu gave out a terrible shrieking sound, and seemed to begin to attack Merlin in despair, shaking him roughly and hitting him, as if it would somehow wake him up.

"Don't!" Arthur rushed over to Feu and tried to pull her away from Merlin before she could do any more damage. But she lashed out at Arthur, eyes flashing green, claws just narrowly missing his face.

But Arthur knew why she was so angry, why she kept on shaking him, he could see it himself. Merlin wasn't breathing.

"Feu, step away from him, I'm sorry but there's nothing we can—" Arthur began, angrily rubbing at his eyes as tears ran down his face before he could stop them.

"Don't say that!" Feu shrieked, "he's going to be OK, he's going to wake up! Merlin wake up!" She shook him again.

Nothing.

Feu grew angry again, why wasn't Merlin waking up? Part of her knew what had happened, but she refused to believe it. There was no chance that Merlin was dead, she should be the one who is dead. Why him? Why him! She screamed in anger and thudded Merlin's chest with her fists, punching his heart.

"Feu stop it!" Arthur cried desperately, he tried to pull Feu away from Merlin again, but she shook him off.

"Leave me alone!" She shrieked. "You don't understand, this isn't fair! This is my fault! Merlin wake up, WAKE UP!" And she began punching him in the chest again, full of sorrow and rage.

Then something extraordinary happened.

Merlin woke up.

His eyes snapped open and he jerked forward, coughing and spluttering out water, eyes watering, his lungs gasping for air. It took Feu and Arthur completely by surprise, they both leapt back, unable to believe their eyes.

Merlin looked up at them; unable to remember where he was or understand why he was there and why Arthur and Feu both seemed to be crying and looking so afraid.

"What happened?" He gasped.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Arthur asked for what felt like the fifteenth time in five minutes.

"Yes." Merlin said again.

"You look like death."

"Why thank you." Said Merlin sarcastically, but he did look very pale and he himself felt like death.

Arthur and Merlin were sitting by a warm fire, they hadn't gone far from the river, Arthur and Feu seemed to decide at exactly the same time that Merlin shouldn't be going anywhere for the rest of the day. Merlin constantly tried to persuade them that he was feeling fine, despite the fact that he felt dreadful, and it showed on his face. So they left the river and set up camp near by under the cover of the trees. No one had spoken much until darkness had fallen.

"You know you really scared me today," Arthur admitted.

"Well, you don't have to worry about me," Merlin told Arthur jokily, but he didn't find it funny at all, and neither did Arthur.

"Well I'm going to get some sleep," said Arthur after a brief silence. "And you should too. You'll feel better in the morning."

Merlin nodded, but didn't say anything. He looked over at Feu, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire; she had said nothing since the incident. After Arthur settled down to sleep, Merlin went over and sat next to her.

The burning fire lit Feu's face up in a yellow glow, and Merlin thought the same thing he thought every time he saw her: 'wow, she's beautiful.' However Feu's face was sad and she was in deep thought, the spark in her eyes seemed to have gone out. Merlin didn't say anything until he was sure that Arthur was asleep, he suddenly felt like he wanted to take the opportunity with Feu without Arthur's judging eyes upon them.

"How are you feeling?" Merlin asked gently.

Feu nodded, but didn't say anything, Merlin assumed that this meant 'I'm fine.'

"You don't seem yourself."

"Why are you asking all these questions about how I'm feeling, shouldn't you be worrying about yourself?" Feu pointed out, glancing at Merlin, her stunning blue eyes making Merlin's mind freeze in mid thought.

"I just—" because if there would be the slightest thing wrong with you, I wouldn't be complete, Merlin thought desperately. "Like I said, you just don't seem yourself."

Feu sighed deeply and sadly, "I thought I had lost you today, I thought you had really gone. The only person I cared about almost died today. It's all my fault, if I wasn't here it wouldn't have happened, I'm a curse." She explained.

"It's not your fault," Merlin put a comforting arm around her, she smiled at him, but it faltered.

"You shouldn't have pushed me out of the way, I should have taken that blow." She shrugged off his arm, annoyed with herself. "It's my fault you ended up in the river."

"But I wouldn't let anything happen to you," Merlin told her, "and you saved my life today."

"I know, but I don't know how, it just happened. It had nothing to do with me, it was a miracle that's all." Feu paused, and continued a little quieter. "My mother used to tell me that everyone has a fallen angel from heaven that will follow you and look after you, help in the greatest time of need. It was your fallen angel, not me."

"Well perhaps you're my fallen angel." Merlin said.

"You really think that?" Feu asked, looking up into his eyes.

"I know it." Said Merlin.

And they kissed in the firelight.