"Morning Comes" (Rose)
All too soon, morning comes with the tolling of the city bell. I sluggishly rise out of bed and am sure to alert Merlin. God knows that if he's late, Arthur will probably have his head on a silver platter before you could say ... well, anything.
I try to be light and as quick as I can as I make my way to assist Gaius. Merlin emerges from the room directly after I get to the old man. The poor, tired boy is the picture of exhaustion as he rubs his eyes.
"Late night?" Gaius asks, unknowingly.
"You could say that," he says with a quick sigh.
"I hear there was a disturbance, an intruder in the city."
"Yeah, I heard talking- in my head ...?" Merlin sits, giving Gaius a look that said he would recognize what he meant.
"As did I," I remark.
Gaius puts down what's in his hands and turns to Merlin, "They had magic?"
Merlin quickly nods as I step over to join the conversation. "I recognized the voice ... It was Mordred," he informs our guardian, whose eyebrow raises in further curiosity at the news.
"The Druid boy?" Gaius questions as I ponder ... What is it with Merlin and Druids? "What's he doing here?"
"He was guiding someone to Morgana's chambers."
"Are you sure?"
Merlin looks on him with complete certainty, and not of the positive kind. He nods again with a small movement of his head, as if not wanting it to be true. I cannot blame him for that if what he told me is accurate.
Gaius looks up with thought in his eyes, "She and the boy had a kind of bond ..."
"Yeah," Merlin confirms, "But this ... is about more than that."
"What do you mean?"
I listen on intently. I want to learn all I can of this new threat. I have to be prepared to protect Merlin if I should so need to.
"What if they'd been caught?" he furthers his point, "Whatever they were doing, they were prepared to die for it."
My eyes widen, "I hadn't thought of that."
"You're right, Merlin," Gaius mirrors my expression.
"Well, before we figure out how to discover just what they're up to, will someone please fill me in on this Mordred situation?" I plead.
As the two take turns recalling the past events concerning Mordred and the details of his fate- how it intertwines with ours- it all dawns on me. No matter how much this all frightens me, he is a missing piece to the puzzle. It is wise to know your enemy. I just can't believe one so young can hold so much potential for destruction. However, I always know that after a cold, dark night, morning comes both figuratively and literally in our lives.
"Caught" (Merlin)
From the events last night, I have been keeping a special eye out for any strange activity around the castle from one woman in particular. Sure enough, while Arthur is gone, I see Morgana briskly stalking through the hall and to his chambers. I follow her into the room with a few seconds pause between us.
She spins around, stopping quick in her tracks (obviously not expecting to see me here at this moment). "Merlin," she composes herself, "I was looking for Arthur."
"He's out training," I say plainly.
"Of course," she smiles and rolls her eyes, like she forgot.
"Yeah- He trains every day." I "remind" her, "Same time. Same place." I add an awkward smile onto my statement.
"I," she stammers slightly, "Just wanted to apologize for last night... Another time, perhaps." She makes her way around me, heading for the door.
I allow my gaze to remain on her, turning a bit and watching her leave over my shoulder. I know she just lied through her teeth. She was up to something in here, and I caught her. The only downfall is- I have no idea what.
Later in the evening, things are seemingly average as Arthur barks at me from his seat at his very own dinner table.
"Come on, Merlin! I'm starving," he whines as I bring his food to him.
"Well, you know what they say," I remark, "Good food takes time to prepare."
"And this," he takes up his utensil and begins to prod skeptically at his meal, "Taste sensation took exactly how long?"
"Nearly five minutes," I admit while still trying to make it seem like more of matter than it was.
"Really? Five minutes!" he feigns satisfaction.
"You need that long, you see," I inform him, driving the dagger further in my own backside I'm sure, "To let it thicken."
He pauses movement, whilst pulling a face of dull bewilderment, "Thicken." He lets the stew drop with his spoon.
On cue, the warning bells sound off, and something strikes me that I know who is behind them. For the second time, an act of wrong had been caught, but I know the issue here isn't going to be finding out what happened, but who did it.
Arthur swiftly rises from his chair and out to discover the cause of the commotion and I do my job in coming with him.