"Well that is just great!" Chloe huffed, feeding Pollen, so she could transform again.
"You're the one whose bright idea it was to just hand that crazy old wizard your miraculous!" Rena Rouge accused.
"I thought you four could take one old guy! Seriously, he is literally hundreds of years old! What was that?!" Chloe shot back, adding "Pollen, Buzz On."
"And now we lost our chance to find out how he defeated this mosquito kwami of chaos last time," Carapace lamented. "Wasn't that like the whole reason we're even here!"
"No...not the only reason," Ember finally interjected. "And don't cast blame on the bee weilder, I should've known Merlin was up to something."
"But Carapace is right," sighed Chat Noir. "Lady Justice said he was the only one who would know how to defeat the new Hawkmoth, and now he's gone!"
"In his story there was one other he mentioned that helped defeat him," Ladybug said carefully. "The son of Guienivere and Lancelot; Galahad."
"Do you really think he's still alive after all this time?" Rena Rouge asked skeptically. "I mean this Lady Justice person and Merlin are apparently immortal...or near to it, but you think we're just going to randomly run into him if he is?"
"No not Galahad, but Chat Noir and I have already encountered one of his cousin's ancestors...maybe he will know where we could start looking for clues," Ladybug looked over at Chat Noir.
"Not that guy?" Chat Noir complained. "Not the German Swan weilder!"
"What's wrong with him?" Ladybug asked surprised. "I thought he was really friendly."
"Yeah, getting a little too friendly," Chat Noir murmured darkly, remembering how enamoured the Swan Knight was with Ladybug.
"Well, he is the only one with a link to Galahad I can think of. What do you say Ember?" Ladybug asked.
"King Arthur set up his court at the site of the teamwork portion of the trials for a reason. As a leader he used to follow his intuition, and while there was still trust among the miraculous knights, they were willing to follow him. I believe this is a wise move, but now will your fellow weilders follow your lead?" Ember looked around the group.
"We're with you," Rena Rouge stepped forward, and beside her Carapace nodded.
"Okay Ladybug let's do this. This guy can't be worse than that last ol' guy!" Queen Bee shrugged.
Ladybug looked over at Chat Noir.
"You already know I'd follow you to the ends of the earth Bugaboo," Chat Noir replied.
"Alright! It's settled then," Ladybug smiled at each of them. "I will go retrieved the Swan Knight, and we will see if we can still get some of the answers we came for!"
Ladybug quickly summoned Kaalki, and she and Ember vanished before them.
"Soooo," Rena Rouge paused, looking over at Chat Noir. "That Merlin guy made Ladybug swear on the love between you too! Any retractions or comments you'd like to make regarding the status of your current relationship with Ladybug?"
"I've always loved Ladybug, you know that," Chat Noir tried to brush off Alya's inquiry lightly.
"Yeah, but what are you to each other?" Alya pried, and Carapace and Chloe looked over at Chat Noir curiously.
"We are the Chat and the Ladybug of course!" Chat Noir joked. "Best super hero duo ever!"
"But are you..." Rena Rouge started to ask, when Chat Noir breathed a sigh of relief at the arrival of Ladybug, Ember, and the Swan Knight.
"Dude! That didn't take long!" Carapace said in surprise.
"When such a radiant women asks for assistance, how could I in good conscious refuse," the Swan Knight smiled at Ladybug.
Chat Noir couldn't help rolling his eyes. This guy was always laying it thick!
"So are you some weirdly young guy who is actually from the dark ages too?" Queen Bee eyed him cautiously.
"No!" he chuckled, "I'm afraid I only inherited my third gen miraculous from my grandfather a few years ago. I'm probably not that much older than all of you."
"What good is he going to be then?" Chloe asked Ladybug, not very discreetly.
"If I may," the Swan Knight interjected. "I might be able to help you know where to start looking...but even still it might be like looking for a needle in a haystack."
"I guess even then it is good to at least know we're looking in the right haystack," Rena Rouge shrugged.
"Haha! Too true!" the knight laughed jovially. "Do you know Hay on Wye?" He turned to Ember
"Of course! The little bookshop town! If the manuscript from Galahad and Merlins adventures adventures exist it could have ended up there!" Ember sparked excitedly. "Well weilders get ready to dig through some dusty old books, this is going to be the literary scavenger hunt of a lifetime!"
"Eww dust!" Queen Bee wrinkled her nose.
"Here we go!" Ladybug ushered them through the newly drawn portal, and into a little town with curved cobblestone streets and old stone shops. The large picture windows at the front were each piled high with faded leather bound volumes.
"There is the bookshop!" Carapace started to move across the street, but the Swan Knight held them back.
"There are more than twenty book stores in this area alone. The one we need to get to is down that way, and a bit older than the others," he said.
They let him lead the way. Banners announcing the literary fair and visiting authors hung from iron sign posts. The tiny corner bookshop they ended up at ended up being quite off the beaten track for the standard bibliophile. They had to turn sideways to even edge into the old wooden door, crowed by rows of shelves that rose up to meet the ceiling. Carapace almost knocked over a whole row like dominos with his shell shield, but luckily the Swan Knight caught the teetering shelf in time.
"Sorry!" Carapace whispered self consciously.
"No worries my turtle friend. I nearly did the same thing last time I visited this shop with my Granfather a decade ago...not much has changed in here!" The Swan Knight assured him.
"So how exactly do we find this intel?" Chat Noir asked.
"To dig deeper into the past you have to go further back and further in," the Swan Knight advised weaving through the dark maze of articles and paperbacks. The shop was deceptively large, and eventually they got to a wall of dusty encyclopedias at the back. In front sat a petite old lady with a neatly braided bun pinning back her snowy hair. She was hidden behind a red book, and peered up at them with her spectacles bearly clinging to the edge of her nose. A fat orange tabby cat was curled up on the counter beside her.
"What genre?" she demanded, scrutinizing the eclectic group of super heroes. before her.
"A quest for the grail," the Swan Prince spoke up.
"Schätzchen! Cygnet has returned," the lady's voice lifted in recognition. "Wee little Schwan is all grown up!"
"Aww common Mrs. Cadogan!" the Swan Knight complained, like a child being embarrassed by his mother on the playground. "We came here looking for something special...something Grandfather Cob showed me years ago."
"You were saying you were looking for something," she waved her hand absentmindedly, and turned away, shuffling the books behind the counter. "The grail quest..." Then she turned around studying each of their faces. "Fact or fiction?" she inquired.
"Fact," Ladybug confirmed.
"Hmmm," the lady hummed to herself, turning back to the encyclopedias, and pulling out one then another in a somewhat random order, old to plop them back into place. Upon reaching the "G" she pressed the spine where an embossed miraculous symbol was etched. The book clicked in with a thud, making them all jump. Then the wall of books slid open revealing a hidden room behind.
"Is this all...Miraculous history books?!" Rena Rouge squeaked out. "Okay just lock me away in here and throw a way the key! I'm in heaven!" She eagerly raced to one cover to the next, squealing with delight. Each page could have been able to fill dozen of Ladyblog posts.
"Slow down llwynog fox-girl!" Mrs. Cadogan caught a surprisingly firm grip on Rena Rouge's 'tail.' This is my private collection, but there is one piece I think you might be interested in!"
She went through a stack of thick volumes off to the side, and opened up a heavy atlas, with it's vellum brown with age. Pinned inside it's back over was a small leather journal that she produced thryumpantly. On the cover was a crest with a cross reaching out to the edges.
Mrs. Cadogan laid the book tenderly on the table within the center of the room, with a stool. Ladybug sat down, and carefully turned the fragile pages open. Each page had a date neatly scripted.
"It is a journal...a journal...it couldn't be his journal?!" Ladybug looked up at the bookkeeper.
The elder gave a nod, with an amused smile on her face. "Quite a good read to be sure. What a pure heart that Galahad boy had...but with a tragic end...as many truly great stories have," she commented, leaving them to further scan the pages.
The others eagerly leaned over Ladybug's shoulders as she gingerly read through page after page, until finally she reached the last page. It was left unfinished, as if the writer had been interrupted mid-sentence, and a splash of dark ink was smudged across the bottom of the page. Ladybug quietly closed the book, her face drained and pale.
"What is it Mi'Lady?" Chat Noir broke the tense silence. When she didn't answer he sensitively laid his hand on hers. "What do we need to do?"
"He gave up all his memories to save them all," Ladybug said as if in a daze, looking off into the future. "They called it the Battle of the Last Unicorn."
Ooooo
If you have reached this far readers you have endurance;) Thank you so much for your interest in my story! A special thanks to those who have been encouraging in reviews. A shout out to SaraDaniela2004, who I always look forward to hearing from!!!
Hope you follow/favourite...Wales is a intriguing and mysterious location...and there are some new key locations to come too!