"Slipping" (Rose)
My heart stops at Uther's words. "Take him away!" he orders.
Fear and rage claw each other within my chest. I feel both lightheaded and so heavy that my feet are stuck to the stones beneath them.
"Your hatred of magic blinds you," I charge forward, totally careless of any consequences. "I don't care if you jail me for saying so, think me disrespectful, or even kill me because you have the power to." My heart beats wildly against my ribcage.
"I would advise you to not speak any further, while I still have my temper," Uther glares at me.
"And I would advise you to open your eyes to the real dangers in your kingdom. And right now, the biggest danger is you," my words drip with venomous truth. "You have costed so many innocent people their lives. You have no idea, and you do not care to! You shove the dirty work onto your army. These soldiers all around you, their hands are so coated in blood that their skin is no longer any color but a deep red. And you, you will someday see the results of your ignorance and all that it has cost. And you will be sorry, and you will remember what I said to you this day."
"I should have you flogged!" He stands over me.
"Then do it," I dare him. "The truth clearly has no place in Camelot. And I would rather speak the truth and die for it, than to believe lies and kill because of them."
His eyes widen with ravenous anger. I stare him down a few more seconds before tracing after Merlin, completely unchallenged. I know that everyone around is too stunned to do anything about me, so I take advantage.
My wrath falling away and panic replacing it, a deep ache wells within me as I run to the dungeons just in time to see Merlin shoved into a cell. The metal bars clang into place, and my heart breaks with the noise. I linger by the stairs until the guards step away, taking their watch. "Oh, Merlin," I say in a hushed and defeated tone as I approach him. I grip the cold pole barriers between us. "I can't help but feel as if this were all of my doing," I look down, tears beginning to gather despite myself.
"Hey," he says tenderly. "We all knew this would happen eventually."
"What?" I ask in shock, meeting his blue orbs with my own wide ones.
"I'm only teasing," he gives a small grin. "I just wanted the chance to distract you enough to get you to smile."
The hopeful look on his face warms my heart, and I can't help but let a little smile form. It goes as quickly as it came, however. "I can't stand seeing you like this. They caged you like you should be an animal or some kind of murderer or something."
"I know," he says feigning offense, "I am NOT that clever."
Merlin is the first person who can make me laugh in the darkest of times. "You're lucky you're locked up, or I'd smack you for that," I tease.
"I wish you could," he smiles sadly.
"If you lean close enough, I can grant your wish," I state.
Merlin being Merlin, he does just that. But all I do is place my hand on lightly on his cheek, and swear, "I will get you out of this. I promise."
"Then I have no reason to worry," he says, covering my hand with his own and pressing it into his skin, closing his eyes at my touch.
"I was cross with Uther … I may have even yelled at him … Very loudly … In the courtroom," I tell him, feeling almost embarrassed for allowing my emotions to cloud all else for the moment.
"That really was you?" he laughs, "I thought I was losing my mind!"
"Nope," I laugh lightly, "But I did lose mine."
He shakes his head while making a face, "Uther needs a good verbal kick in the royal rear every now and then."
"Speaking of kicking rears," I redirect, telepathically linking our thoughts. 'How are we going to break you out of here?'
'Good question,' he ponders. 'The guards are the main obstacle.'
'So we should figure out a way to create a diversion,' I bite my lip.
'Well, you're a girl,' he states.
'Why, yes. Thank you for noticing,' I tease.
There is laughter behind his silent smile. 'Another observation that shall earn me a sarcastic retort: they are men.'
'Alright, Merlin, I give. Where are you going with this?'
'Seeing as how you ARE girly and all, you could do the batting of the eyelashes and such. That would distract them plenty.'
My face instantly flushes. 'I most certainly could not, and even if I could, I would do no such thing.'
'Don't doubt yourself so much. You're friendly, AND you have such lovely eyes that your eyelashes are proud to bat freely and show them off.'
I let out the smallest of laughs, 'Well, I must thank you and my eyelashes then …'
He smiles sweetly once more. 'I understand your reservation. Those eyelashes should be saved for someone special. So, honoring that, I do have another idea … In my book of magic, there is a singing spell that will put its nonmagical listeners to sleep. If you sing the words with any tune, those who hear it will fall into a deep sleep. The only trick is, you can only sing the words once through, and once you've finished the song, you only have a certain amount of time until the victims awake.'
"I'll see what I can do," I take his hand and grasp it tight, then release it as I go.
I hardly notice anyone or anything around me as I press through the castle yard and to Gaius' quarters. My heart aches for the kindly physician to come back to us … Then again, my heart aches because I know if Gaius were to return at the moment, there would be no us waiting. There would be only me.
Once I know I am out of site, I tear through the chamber doors and pull up the floorboard that hides Merlin's spell book. Somehow in my desperation, my magic unleashes and sends the pages flying open to the exact incantation I need.
The words are easy enough to remember, so I place the book back in its hiding spot and escape my home before anyone finds me. Upon reaching the courtyard, I position myself outside the jail window at the bottom of the palace wall. I inhale shakily and softly begin to sing the spell with the tune of a lullaby my mother would always sing to me at night.
As I close my eyes and picture her smiling face, I feel my vocals grow stronger before the song reaches its end. 'It's working!' Merlin's encouraging voice penetrates my concentration. But instead of pulling my focus, it makes me all the more determined to set this all right.
"Lullabies, Beautiful and Strange" (Merlin)
Despite my current predicament, I quite enjoy sitting back and letting Rose's beautiful melody wash over me. It really is something I could fall asleep to, even if the words are meant to force me into slumber. Creeping forward to the door of my jail cell, I mutter a spell which disconnects the keys from the sleeping guard's belt and levitate them to me.
Two keys fall and clang against the floor before they're in my reach. I gasp, eyes flicking upward at the snoozing soldier. He stirs but does not wake. I bring them close enough to grab them through the bars and unlock my cell.
I lightly spring up the stairs and out the door to the courtyard, finding Rose awaiting my escape. She does not speak a word, but embraces me with shaking limbs. I know that she was terrified for my sake.
We continue on hand in hand, staying low as we come upon the arch that stands as both the entrance and exit to the castle courtyard.
There is a small group of guards, warming their hands over a little, dying fire.
Just as I begin to draw up a solution of some sort, the warning bells clang out over head, sending my head snapping in their direction.
Rose and I look in horror at each other, then I to the soldiers. I awkwardly nod upwards at them before we dash off for safety, running straight past them.
'We have to hide!' I mentally point out the obvious.
She continues this trend. 'But we can't go home, and we can't go to Arthur.'
'Gwen!' we think simultaneously. With that, we quickly divert our paths in the direction of her cottage.
Even though I feel extremely rude and intrusive, and, well, frightening, we clamber through Guinevere's door. From our crouched positions, we can see Gwen react to the noises we've made. I finally muster the courage to step up behind her, and grab her shoulder with one hand, and using my other to cover her mouth.
Her muffled cry lasts only a split second. I turn her to face me, immediately shushing her.
"We'll explain," Rose promises as Gwen takes in both of us and the soldiers charging past her home with wide eyed confusion.
"Alright," she says after a moment of inner debate. "Tell me what you can before sleep overtakes us all. They will most likely be tearing the town apart looking for you tomorrow."
We both thank her profusely, and I embarrassingly recount the events, leaving out only the details that do involve me using magic. Gwen is highly gracious with us in response, seeing that she lets us stay the night with no further information than I could pack into the two minutes of strange and stupidly fast blather I just spewed at her.
And although I am sure we are all just as restless as the next person, we settle in for the night, falling asleep with one eye open.
(( Soooo, unfortunately, now brings us to the point where I will really only be able to post one chapter at a time. But don't worry, this journey WILL be worth it. ))