No. 11: Just keep swimming / adrift / drowning / dehydration
Whumpees: Arthur & Merlin
"Sire, you should know, her powers have grown," Sir Leon's face was grim. "Sir Bertrand and Sir Montague are both dead."
As the court convened and the knights shuffled out, Arthur's face was grim. His sister would stop at nothing to see him and Camelot fall… and unfortunately, if she was headed to the Seas of Meredor and this Isle of the Blessed as Gaius said, that probably meant more dark magic headed his way.
"Merlin," Arthur called his servant hovering by. "Prepare the horses. We ride in the morning for the Seas of Meredor."
As Arthur prepared that evening into the night, he kept pondering his choices. Why go after his evil sister at all? Wouldn't that be inviting trouble? Though when it came down to it, as long as she was alive, Camelot was at her mercy. She was definitely persistent; he wasn't sure how many more attempts to blow up the citadel the castle could take before it crumbled. No, it was needed: Agravaine could take over for a few days while he went to have one last fight with his sister. They had been training together since birth; with or without magic, he knew he could beat her in battle.
The ride with Merlin out to the Seas of Meredor was a longer one, since they had to go so far west. Through the forests that laid on the outskirts of Camelot, over the White Mountains, through the Valley of the Fallen Kings, around the Plains of Denaria… finally, the ocean mist was in their sights. "For once there weren't any bandits", Arthur thought. "How lucky." Even Merlin's prattle was welcoming as they entered their third day travelling.
Merlin had been keeping tabs on the feelings and presence of people since he was a boy. He could usually sense the good or bad in people just by being in their presence for a few moments… and he had never gone through a ride so quickly, without running into some gang of bandits or someone with malintent. It was a good omen, since facing Morgana was no easy feat. He knew he'd have to give it everything he had in order to defeat her, especially with the information Leon and Elyan shared.
They rested their horses on the beach, and after a quick rest themselves, they started toward the sea. First off, they'd need a raft to get to the island nearby. Merlin and Arthur quickly got to work collecting wood and reeds from the beach. Merlin found long, wide branches that would make wonderful makeshift oars, and Arthur started tying it all together.
"Those are pretty knots," Merlin said, whittling some handles in their oars.
"Yes, Merlin. All knights are taught pretty things, like how to make pretty knots," Arthur rolled his eyes. "Survival training is one of the first things you do when you're training to be a knight. Do you know how to swim?"
"Swim? But I thought we were building this raft so we didn't have to swim."
"Ha-ha, Merlin. It's a serious question."
Merlin sobered up. "Yes, I know how to swim. There was a river in Ealdor that all the children learnt in."
Arthur nodded his approval. "Good. This raft should hold us, but it's always good to know that you'll be able to handle anything that comes."
The next morning, they were able to put their raft to the test. Both climbed in and started the long row to the island.
"How is it that anytime you're on the water, things look like they'd be relatively close, but then you end up rowing for hours?" Merlin asked, taking a moment to rub his sore shoulder.
"Keep rowing, Merlin – if you rowed as much as you talked, we'd be there by now."
They finally made it to the little island. A small boat was already docked to let them know that they weren't alone. Arthur and Merlin both pulled out their swords and ducked down as they entered the ruins. There, Morgana was standing, waiting for them, Morgause tucked away in the distance on the stairs.
"Hello, brother," Morgana said with her usual sneer. "Have you come all this way to hunt me?"
Arthur straightened up. "I never wanted to hunt you, Morgana. You or anyone else."
She chuckled, a humourless laugh. "I don't believe you for a second."
"You don't need to believe me," Arthur said. "And if it weren't for the fact that you're so hellbent on the Camelot throne, we could even live in peace together."
Morgana threw her shiny black hair back, a true guffaw leaving her lips. "Now, that would be something for the books, right, dear brother?" Her eyes shone a shiny gold and she threw Arthur against the stone wall nearby. "The time for talking is over. You and I were never a "we", and that won't start now."
A line of blood was dribbling down Arthur's forehead, and Merlin ran over, checking to make sure he was just knocked out. Sometimes he truly worried about Arthur's head, since he seemed to bash it quite a bit.
"Ah, yes, run over to your little pet," Merlin felt the ground sparkle with Morgana's magic now aimed at him. "Arthur treats you like trash, and you still worship the ground he walks on," she spat out her last words, "how pathetic". Suddenly, Merlin felt himself leave the ground, bracing himself for the stone wall. Sadly, no matter how much you brace yourself for something, it doesn't take away the pain of the impact when you finally hit it. His head cracked back on the stone, and he fell to his hands and knees, vision blurry. He could see Morgana in her statement black dress to his left, a thin blurry line of black separated only by her ivory skin.
"I believe in Arthur, and everything he'll build," Merlin stood up shakily. "Ruling people by fear is no way to rule them," he punctuated his final sentence with a quick stunning spell aimed at the blurry line of black. Based on the screech Morgana let out, he must have hit his target.
Coming here was risky, Merlin knew. Having head trauma and having to face not one, but two, high priestesses was just a little too much. Arthur had yet to do any of his usual groans or mumbles, and Merlin knew that getting themselves out of this mess was going to take priority. He summoned the clouds in a last-ditch effort to cover their tracks, gathered Arthur in his arms, and ran for their raft.
Merlin had forgotten about Morgana's boat – now watched over by a very creepy boatsman. OK, raft it was. He deposited Arthur and used his oar to row them back to the shore. In fact, Merlin was so focused on escaping, he didn't realize just how cloudy he had made the skies until he was rowing in dark blue waters. Water that was increasingly becoming choppy and wavy.
Maybe it was time to slow down on both the rowing speed and the clouds… except his clumsy hands couldn't look back and row at the same time. He dropped his makeshift oar into the water, watching it immediately sink and become hidden from view.
"OK, Plan B," he muttered to himself, picking up Arthur's oar.
Merlin seemed to row for ages. The water was still pretty choppy and wavy, and Arthur had yet to wake up. Merlin would drop the oar in the middle of the raft and scramble over to check on his friend every now and then, but there was no movement. "How hard did you hit your head, Arthur?" Merlin asked. Sometimes it helped to talk to Arthur when he couldn't talk back. "That wasn't your greatest plan, now was it?"
Merlin licked his lips. If only they were in a river or a lake, and he could take a drink of water. "How ironic", he thought. "To be surrounded by all this water and be thirsty." His throat burned with the effort of rowing for most of the day now. "I wonder…" he said aloud. "Just a little water couldn't be that bad, right?"
As Merlin reached over the side of their raft, a few things happened at an alarming rate. Both Arthur and the oar went sliding down, responding to the change in weight. Merlin lunged for Arthur, and the second oar went sliding down, past the raft, and into the water. And in making sure Arthur's unconscious form stayed on the raft, Merlin found himself off of their raft, landing in the water with a big splash.
After spluttering in shock, Merlin leaned his arms on the raft and started kicking. "OK, Plan C," he said aloud, shaking his head. This was going to be a very long day.
If Merlin's shoulders were going to ache from rowing, his legs were going to hurt twice as bad from kicking. He was trying to swim them ashore, but with the constant waves and movement of the sea, it seemed that any forward motion was out of the question. And if Merlin had been thirsty before, now he really was thirsty. "Just. Keep. Swimming," he said, breaths coming out in pants.
This was going to be a very long day indeed.
-Will be continued in Chapter 18-