† Year Two, Day 345 †

Magic. Magic filled the air, swirled with the currents of the water, and lured Merlin to take a sip of this unparalleled power. The pressure was downright painful, and her hands twitched at her sides, ready to reach out and dip into the magic field. Other sites in Britannia held remains of magic energy as well, ancient ruins of the Goddess Clan, strange forests with hidden springs, remote canyons in the northern mountains where forgotten armies had fought battles millennia ago. Belialuin still contained a wealth of energy, carved into the scorched ground until the end of time. But nowhere did Merlin experience the same pressure or heard the same alluring promises as with Salisbury Lake.

The light of the Goddess Clan sparkled on the crests, and its counterpart, the dark, destructive forces of the Demon Clan crawled in the in the depths below. The rough beats of Giant Clan magic, forever tied to the earth, pounded in between, interwoven with the soft, almost transient notes of the Fairy Clan. And in perfect accordance to Chaos' wishes, the various traces of human working filled the gaps and reached for even the furthest corners of the water sphere. The amalgamation of power, drawn from all of Chaos' creations, had lifted the lake from its bed to hover above the reach of gravity's law.

Merlin stood at the shore, a few feet away from the steep cliff, and stared at the raging waters of Salisbury Lake as though her glare could persuade the sphere to answer her. The tides only continued to twirl around their axis.

Two full years after the first humans had gone missing, Merlin had little doubt left that the Lady of the Lake played a leading role in the affair. Few creatures remained in Britannia who could teleport people at will, and fewer still used rain to cover their tracks. Salisbury Lake provided the Lady with a near infinite amount of magic, and although she had laid low in the years after Chaos' resurrection, Merlin should have anticipated her to slither her greedy hands into the happenings of Britannia after she had been gifted the necessary magic.

Nothing in life came for free. Merlin knew that better than most people.

She had traded the magic of her former comrades, the Seven Deadly Sins, for a chance to resurrect Arthur with a willingness that sometimes made her pause during an experiment, about to spill the priceless content of the test tube in her hand. That she had also lost their friendship through her decision was merely the tip of the iceberg, a sharp tip that cut into her insides whenever her thoughts dwelled.

But what Merlin could not ignore, the sin that glared at her every time she looked into a mirror, was the fact that she had given the Lady of the Lake all the tools necessary to carry out her plan and let her own wish come to fruition.

"Say, what do you want of the people you abducted? Did you plan to trick me from the beginning? Did you tell Meliodas all my deepest secrets, the truth I had locked up for all these centuries… did you tell him because you enjoyed the feeling of absolute control?"

No answer.

Merlin mocked herself a fool. The one who deceived others for so long had squandered the right to hear the truth. She had acted as the willing pawn in the game the Lady of the Lake played. If she had stopped one moment to think, to talk to Meliodas, to doubt the tales of Chaos' generosity, she would have seen through the lies she fed herself with.

But Merlin had ignored her conscious, and Ban's child suffered the consequences. Who would be dragged to the scaffold next?

She couldn't fault Ban for refusing to seek her help. He, like the other Sins, had never understood the temptation of Chaos, the vision of a young man who would right all wrongs and offer a hand to a lost girl. And, in all fairness, Merlin wouldn't trust herself with the safety of a child, no matter how often the Sins tossed around the word 'forgiveness' in her company.

With little more than a thought, Merlin rose from the ground and met the sphere of swirling water on eyelevel. Even without a command, the magic of Salisbury increased the power of her levitation, and she closed her eyes for a moment to escape the intoxicating overdose of energy. Meliodas' distinct fingerprints, an aftertaste of his Demon magic, clung to the water, a power designed to make humans cower in fear. Once Merlin had found comfort in his strength. Now, the ghost of his presence forced her to remember.

When she opened her eyes, her torn reflection looked back at her from the water. The pale skin washed away, the lips curled, sometimes into a malicious smile and sometimes into a grim line. Only the scars on Merlin's face remained plain as day.

Escanor. Not the first and not the last sacrifice she had offered to gain the Lady of the Lake's goodwill.

If force and harsh words were the only language the Lady spoke, Merlin would address her this way. She opened herself to the magical energy. In an instant, the torrents flooded her system, clung to her mind, threatened to drown her in their unforgiving currents. This surplus of magic eclipsed all the other times she had meddled with god-forsaken invocations, and for a moment Merlin thought she would lose herself and burst like a balloon with more air than its flimsy shell could hold. But she withstood the attack and was rewarded with the sweet tickling of magic at her fingertips.

Strengthened beyond her considerate limitations, Merlin placed a hand on the surface of Salisbury Lake and focused with all her might on the Lady of the Lake. Shockwaves rippled from her palm, and the water sphere writhed in agony.

"Return Lancelot at once!" Merlin commanded. A weak-minded human would have crumbled and lost their sanity under the influence of her words, and all those who kept hold of their self would have hurried to fulfill Merlin's order, at the expense of their own life if necessary. And perhaps the spell held the power to tear the Lady of the Lake out of her hiding spot.

Almost reluctantly, her shadowy silhouette emerged from the depths to replace the reflection of Merlin's face with her own.

Her voice roared in Merlin's head. "Such a pleasant surprise. I must say, I did not anticipate to see your face again. Have you been dissatisfied with our bargain, daughter of Belialuin? Have you not received what you wished for?"

"I didn't come here to exchange feigned courtesies. You steal humans from all across Britannia. Thanks to your actions, war between Edinburgh and its neighbors is only a matter of time. And you have taken the child of a… former companion of mine. The King of Chaos cannot ignore these crimes, and neither can I."

"A former companion... then I understand you no longer consider yourself as one of the heroic Sins. How unfortunate. It sounds to me like Lancelot has not to concern you, wouldn't you agree? Otherwise his parents would have surely sought your council. With all that knowledge you have torn out of the hands of dead people you could conjure a solution to their problem in no time. As for the quarrels between humans, they are irrelevant. All will be set right once Chaos reveals himself."

"Arthur is the King of Chaos," Merlin cut in. "And he demands the liberation of all the people you have taken prisoner."

The Lady laughed, a sound like hellfire raining down on an unsuspecting city. "You might have fooled your comrades and your precious Meliodas with your lies, but you cannot fool me. I know you, Merlin. I know all your petty human desires, I know your doubts and your regrets, who you love and who you hate. Arthur didn't send you here. He doesn't even know of your little visit."

Merlin held her eyes fixed onto the Lady without turning a hair. But inside, a hurricane raged through her mind. "Arthur has more important issues to attend to than a second-class creation of Chaos on the loose."

"Of course. The foundation of an everlasting kingdom must require a lot of strength from a single human. Especially for someone with so little experience. The last thing he needs is another worry on his mind. But I'm sure you are taking good care of him. You have proven before that nothing stands between you and your wish for long. Belialuin, Escanor, Meliodas – all pebbles on your way that needed to be kicked aside. It would be a shame if all your sacrifices amounted to nothing because Arthur crumbled under the weight of the dream you planted in his head."

"This dream is Chaos' will," Merlin said. "Arthur enjoys his fullest loyalty, and together they will create a world a creature like you can't even imagine. Whatever you plan to do with the humans you abducted, it is doomed to fail. Arthur is Chaos' perfect vessel."

"Is he?" The Lady wafted along with the waves. "Return to him and enjoy his presence while it lasts. Even your self-proclaimed King of Chaos is mortal. Don't forget."

The threat froze Merlin's muscles to ice. No, the Lady wouldn't dare to lay hands on Arthur, he was the reincarnation of Chaos, the only one the Lady of the Lake worshipped. And even if she did harbor evil intentions, she was bound to Salisbury Lake. Outside of its waters, she had no power.

"What do you want from Lancelot and the other humans?" Merlin shouted into the raging waves, but the Lady of the Lake had disappeared.

Gods would not answer the requests of a single human, Merlin had learned this truth a long time ago. While she had manipulated the Demon King and the Supreme Deity during the Holy War, she had only managed such a feat because she had understood their motives, their nature of light and darkness which forced them into conflict until one or the other triumphed. The Lady of the Lake wore the mantle of mystery. A ghost without a face or mind to read from, a creature of Chaos so perfect, she had aligned the pieces from afar to ensure his resurrection where all others had failed.

A conversation had done little to elicit answers from her – perhaps an active search would produce better results.

Merlin fished a flask out of her coat and collected half a liter of Salisbury water. If she examined the source of the Lady's power, she might find a way to weaken her. And if Chaos was generous, Merlin might at last atone and lessen the consequences of her folly.

But the human heart was weak, and so Merlin returned to Arthur's side and bathed in the light he gave her world. The flask with the answers remained untouched in her laboratory for a long while.

⸸ † ⸸

Lancelot stared into the black waters of the lake but failed to recognize his reflection. The round cheeks of his youth had made way for hollowness, and his blond hair had lost their touch of gold. Or perhaps the pale light of the sun made the strands look almost white. He had always been brawny, but the last year of training had added further muscle mass to his arms. Despite this, a shortage of daily calories had helped maintain a lean statue. Were it not for the blatant scar on his forehead, he might have believed to look at someone else.

Had he attained the strength to beat Tristan?

Probably not. Tristan's heart had overflown with the wish to become a knight, and the shining images of the Seven Deadly Sins had occupied his mind at every step. In all likelihood, Tristan had trained day in and day out to follow in his father's footsteps. And unlike Lancelot, his feet would allow him to catch up someday.

He stumbled. Tristan ran.

"You've grown so much," Morgan said while she hugged him from behind and stroked his hair. "Soon you will be taller than me."

She had no reflection. Only a shadow danced across the surface.

"I want to ask you a question," Lancelot said, "and please be honest with me."

"Always."

"Will I ever be able to leave Avalon? The Lady of the Lake offered me training, and I wouldn't trade what I have learned here for anything. But if I continue to lag behind her expectations, if I continue to lose every duel against Sir Jonathan, will she kill me?"

Morgan stopped caressing his hair, but she remained so close that her locks tickled his neck. "You will not fail. Never. These things take time. Arthur was four years older than you when he became king of Camelot. Other Holy Knights needed twice your time to accomplish anything of value. You are the most perfect human I have ever met."

Lancelot raised a brow. "You don't seem to meet humans all that often."

"I've watched a few. Most of them follow the same formula anyway. They live short but face everything with a will to survive that is utmost fascinating. You are the prime example. You will push forward no matter how difficult and painful the path may seem. With a resolve like yours, you are bound to accomplish great things. Some search for this strength all their life but never succeed."

"I wish I had your confidence." Lancelot traced the pink line of a half-healed sword wound on his arm. "Sometimes all I want is to give up and leave Avalon as far behind as possible."

Morgan pushed back and glared at him. "You cannot leave! No one can leave this place. You tried, remember? You tried to find your way through the mist and you almost drowned! What would I have done if you had died?!"

Lancelot stumbled away from Morgan, and the water seeped through his boots. Neither cold nor warm, but the contact made his muscles tense all the same.

"I never told you that," he said.

"I watched you that night from afar…"

"No, you haven't. When you first approached me, you said you had never seen me before. You never told me how you found me in the first place. You barely tell me anything. What else have you been lying about? Answer me! There is a way out of Avalon, isn't it? But you never told me so that I would stay with you."

"There is no way out! The barrier is a product of Chaos magic, no one can override—"

"What is Chaos anyway? You and the Lady of the Lake talk of this Chaos as though he were both your master and your worst enemy. You care to explain that?"

"Chaos is everything," Morgan said with a conviction that knew no equal. This single word, Chaos, passed her lips as both a prayer and a curse, admiring and spiteful all at once.

"You know what, forget it. I'm gonna find my way out of this hell alone. Once I've rescued the other humans who disappeared, maybe I'll return to finish my training. But don't expect me to talk to you ever again."

Morgan looked at him as though he had slapped her. The muscles around her eyes twitched, but she had no tears to give. "Please, don't try it. Not yet, not now. Don't throw your life away if the only reason you have is your anger towards me. I might have kept things from you, I might have twisted the truth here and there, but I never did it to hurt you. Please. You're all the hope I have…"

But Lancelot turned without another word and waded through the water until the mist swallowed him. Morgan had lied. Her kindness had shown its true purpose, nothing but a dirty trick to make him stay, make him forget about home and the people who really mattered. He should have done more to find Jericho months ago, but he had allowed the training and the afternoons with Morgan to lull him into the haze of forgetfulness. For all the vows he had made, his responsibilities towards Jericho, towards Benwick, towards his father had wavered and died under the pale sun. In everything he had done, every step he had taken, he had served the Lady of the Lake. She didn't care for him or his wish. He provided her amusement, in all likelihood she laughed at his failures each and every single day.

Even Morgan had been part of her plan to chain him to Avalon.

But Lancelot had seen through her trickery, and with luck, he would soon see through the mist and never bear either of their traitorous faces.

He shivered as the water climbed his legs and torso the farther he went. The wafts tore at his simple new tunic – the last one hadn't survived the countless defeats at the hands of Sir Jonathan. Even that part of his past the Lady of the Lake had taken from him.

As he treaded water, Lancelot tried to remember the faces of his parents. But all he could reach out to were shadows, words without voices, a smile when he presented them a frog he had caught, a scowl when he had picked a fight with a Fairy and returned home bloodyhanded, arms to hug him, hands to ruff his hair. And yet, Ban and Elaine remained faceless silhouettes in his memory. He had failed them so badly. They were better off forgetting him, bury the shame, and move on.

Until no one would speak of him, and he drowned in this lake without a whimper and without a sound.

Lancelot stumbled over a stone deep below the surface and dropped face-first into the waves. He gasped for air, reached for the murky light overhead, and then the ground disappeared. Endless depths stretched above and below, and no matter in which direction Lancelot spun with his subpar swim skills, he could not see a way out. His thoughts would soon fall apart and drift away alongside the air in his lungs. Until then, the questions hailed down on him, a panicked storm inflamed by the foolish hope to survive. Was he once more at the mercy of others? Would the Lady of the Lake take pity on her plaything and return him to shore the way she had before?

Then, a jolt went through the water. Everything went still. An unknown voice called through the dark, and the water stopped pulling Lancelot to listen. A moment, a memory – his mother called him. He had ventured too deep into the unexplored parts of the forest, and she worried he might come back home late for dinner.

But the voice didn't belong to Elaine. More maturity lay in this voice, maturity and a willpower people wanted to follow. Her command alone stopped the torrents, and like a guiding light, the sound reached Lancelot as he drifted off into the depths.

He didn't come here to die. For all her wrongdoings, Morgan had been right to warn him not to throw his life away.

Lancelot swallowed the last remains of air in his mouth and pushed upwards. He needed to live. He needed to persevere. If nothing else, he needed to make up for his childishness and overcome the frustration every setback had carved into his mind. The foreign voice urged him to fight for his life, use the survival instincts the Lady of the Lake had numbed, and escape the waters.

Magic. Magic resided all around him, and as Morgan had told him, he could use this power to his advantage. Enslave the waters under his will so that he might life. And so, Lancelot reached out to the magic of light and darkness, of nurture and nature, of contradiction and chaos, and in his darkest hour, the lake answered his call. An entity he had no name for placed strong hands on his shoulders, hands that had once held the world, hands that knew no limits to creation. They honored and accepted his will. The water swirled, the ground deep below rumbled, and as shortage of breath cast the curtain of blackness over his eyes, he shot to the surface.

The rough crumbs of earth crunched under his fingers, wonderful and familiar, but Lancelot barely had the strength to spit out the water in his system. After a few painful coughs, the dizziness subsided, and he lifted his head to look around.

He was lying on a small patch of land in the middle of nothing. The waves splashed against his refuge, eager to swallow the one who had escaped their grasp. No other islands besides Avalon existed on this lake. The Lady had no use for them. And yet, here he kneeled on arms and legs, saved by dumb luck and an islet that shouldn't exist.

Or maybe, the magic of this place had accepted him despite his weakness.

The water itself had left behind no taste on his tongue, but his head nevertheless spun with a sensory overload he hadn't experienced in years. The air on his skin, the waves at his feet, the slippery stones underneath his palm – he even felt plants and structures far outside his range, Avalon and all the sights that shaped its surface. All of it at his fingertips.

Morgan could make stone circles appear overnight, she made plants grow and commanded water thanks to the magic of the lake. If Lancelot had managed a similar feat once, maybe he could repeat his success. Maybe the training and the hours, days, months spent on the island had paid off after all.

Although a part of him resented the contact, Lancelot reached into the water. From his fingertips, ice spread and created a path back to Avalon, a white line amidst a black canvas. The first step upwards.

Thank you, Master.

Lancelot followed the trail of ice until he reached the shore where Morgan awaited him. Too exhausted yet at the same time too euphoric to argue, he allowed her to pull him into a deep embrace. Tomorrow, he would meet Sir Jonathan's blade anew and face every defeat and every obstacle the knight threw at him with new strength. He might not defeat him tomorrow, nor the day after that. His first victory might still lie years away. But the magic of the lake had deemed him worthy.

And Lancelot would make sure to repay this trust.


11/15/20 - A bit of a calmer chapter before the big turning point. But this one should give you an idea of where I want to take Lancelot with this story and how his personal journey might affect Britannia at large. I hope you're looking forward to the next chapter. And as always, please consider a review of any kind.