A/N: trigger warning for kidnapping
Time passed slowly for Em. Life seemed dull in Sábháilte after two exciting years spent under Ruadan's tutelage. While he was ecstatic to be home with his family, he had forgotten the stares the other Druids sent his way and the large amount of manual labor required to keep the camp running. He woke at dawn to swordfight with Alvarr, Adelina, and Gilli before heading to the fields. When the fieldwork was done, he studied with his father and filled in the gaps in his Dragonlord training. Sometimes he still had an hour or two to play with his younger siblings, Adelina, and Freya. Will, Gilli, and Alvarr thought they were above such antics, and did not join in.
The camp also seemed much more crowded. Fifty families called Sábháilte home. Druids typically begat large numbers of children, so there was always small children underfoot. Chickens and dogs roamed around the village green. Fences made of lashed-together tree trunks had also been erected behind each hut. It looked more permanent and less like a refugee camp. Gardens grew, and people had planted flowers and berry bushes.
Em, Alvarr, Adelina, and Freya all received new clothes. Hunith mended one of Gilli's outgrown shirts and gave it to Alvarr, and a Druid named Fabry who had dabbled in cobbling before the Purge made Em and Alvarr sturdy new boots. Older girls in the camp embroidered and mended their old dresses to give to the girls.
The older children took turns minding the younger ones. Em, Adelina, Alvarr, and Gilli switched on a daily rotation. At eighteen, Will fancied himself a man and insisted he was too old to be a babysitter. So, every fourth day, Em found himself in charge of his younger siblings and Freya. He often took them to a small pond in the forest to splash around in. He took a lap loom to spin thread for weaving. He always took his sword and the dogs for extra protection. One never knew what might be lurking in the thick mountainous woods.
One day, two months after Ruadan left, Freya was paddling in the pond in Bastet form, Sefa and Mordred on her back. Daegel watched mournfully from the shore; he was too young to swim. Bandit kept him company, while Bear paddled in the water with the other children. Sefa used a ratty old shift to swim in, and Mordred wore a castoff pair of trousers. Em was bored and tired.
Em, get back to camp! Cedran yelled excitedly. Em held his head in his hands.
Mordred tilted his head. Is something the matter?
No, no, not at all. You gotta come back, though. Something really exciting is about to happen.
The children got out of the water and changed into their dry clothes. Em put the lap loom in his bag and put Daegel on his hip. They made the short five-minute walk back to camp. There, a group of around thirty Druids stood in the village green. Of course, Emery was right in the center, along with a dark-haired woman Em had never seen before.
Freya froze in her tracks when she saw her.
"Mama, Mama!" she cried, pushing through the crowd. The woman wrapped her arms around the girl and they stayed like that for a good minute.
Is that Finnlagh? Alvarr joined Em and his younger siblings.
She must be. Look how happy our Freya is.
I see where Freya gets her looks from.
Em stared at Alvarr. You think Freya is pretty?
Freya will be a lovely girl one day. Alvarr laughed. She's like a sister to me, Em, and about six years too young for me.
Can we end this conversation now?
Yeah. Let's go introduce ourselves to Finnlagh.
Em and Alvarr shoved their way through the crowd. When Freya saw them, she grabbed their hands and pulled them over to her mother. "Mama, meet Alvarr and Emrys! Emrys likes to be called Em, though."
Finnlagh embraced them both. "Freya talks about you in every letter. It's like I know you boys already. Freya, darling, where is Ruadan and Adelina?"
Freya's face darkened. "Ruadan's gone back to the Dragonlords."
Finnlagh frowned and was about to speak when Balinor pushed his way through the crowd. "Greetings, old friend!" he called.
"Balinor!" Freya's mother exclaimed, delighted. She hugged him. "I've been told that Ruadan has left."
Balinor looked around at the other Druids. "Let's get you inside and fed first. Hunith's pottage is to die for." He put her hand on her shoulder and guided her back to his hut. Alvarr and Freya followed, while Em went back to collect his younger siblings. By the time Em walked through the front door, Hunith, Will, Gilli, and Adelina were there too. The small front room felt cramped with twelve people squeezed in it.
As Finnlagh ate, starved, Freya sat on her lap. Em thought he saw tears in his friend's eyes.
Balinor finally broke the silence. "Why did you come back, Finnlagh?"
Finnlagh swallowed her mouthful of food. "I got a messenger bird from Ruadan, saying bandits had attacked his little hideout and he was headed towards Sábháilte with the children. Then I got another saying they were safe and taken care of.
"Then I realized it's been years I've seen my own daughter." Finnlagh wrapped her eyes around Freya. "I couldn't bear it anymore. After Emery and the other elders granted my request to return home, I chose a suitable successor for my assignment, and I set off to get my daughter."
"What were you doing, Mama?" Freya asked quietly.
Finnlagh took a deep breath. "I was our people's eyes inside Camelot. I worked as a barmaid at the tavern. It's a good place to pick up gossip."
"And what of Declan?" Balinor inquired. Declan was Finnlagh's husband and the mother of Freya.
"Still holed up in a miserable camp in the Darkling Forest. I'll send for him as soon as possible. Our family needs to be reunited. I cannot let Uther keep me from them any longer," Finnlagh said with vehemence.
"Agreed!" Alvarr cried. "We cannot let the Pendragon King control us any longer!"
Balinor pounded on the table. "May Nature grant Her children freedom once again."
Life changed a bit after Finnlagh's arrival. Iseldir let her and Freya move into his unused back room. Em knew his uncle appreciated the company; he was often lonely, especially at night. Although he usually ate supper at his mother's or brother's huts, he went to bed in a silent home and woke up to one too. Iseldir, Freya, and Finnlagh took to having dinner in their home rather than going to Emery's or Balinor's. It made dinner less hectic in Balinor's home at least.
Still, everything remained quite the same in Em's life. Sword fighting, fieldwork, lessons, and bed. Over and over. For months.
He missed Ruadan.
Adelina took to calling Balinor and Hunith "Ma" and "Da". That was new. The first time she did it, it reduced Hunith to tears. The girl still received letters from her older sister in some isolated Camelot camp, but her parents remained as silent as ever. Em wished he could find them and throttle them. How could they not appreciate their own daughter? She was sweet, loyal, funny, and the most gifted fire mage in a generation!
He tried to ask his adopted sister about it once, six months after they came to Sábháilte. "I just don't fit in with them," was all she was willing to say.
"What about Arabella, Lina? She writes you every week. She clearly loves you." That was her older sister.
"Bella's the only one who got me," Adelina finally said. "Can you just drop it, Em? I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay," he muttered.
Alvarr never did call Balinor and Hunith his parents. Em knew Alvarr felt he would be disrespecting his parents' memory if he did. He did call Adelina, Em, and the rest of Em's siblings his brothers and sisters, though. Em was proud to call Alvarr his brother.
Declan came in middle of the night, a year after Freya arrived at Sábháilte.
Freya was a lovely girl of ten now, with large green eyes and a curtain of black hair. She had charmed everyone in the camp with her sweet personality. In Bastet form, she even managed to kill the fox that had taken over a dozen chickens. That earned her celebrity status amongst the Druid wives for weeks.
When Iseldir led a man with her green eyes and pale hair through the door, she almost didn't recognize him.
She remembered, age six, her father telling her that her parents were sending her away. "You'll be safe, Freya. Mama and I can't give you that right now."
She cried and cried and cried. Yet they still sent her away.
A bit older now, she had come to understand and even respect their decision. It was a hard decision, and one most parents would not have to guts to make. Her time with Ruadan had helped her become a better Shifter and spell-caster. Still, she missed them terribly.
Living with Finnlagh again was awkward at first. Her mother, so used to being child-free, had to learn to be a mother again. Freya had been a daughter to Ruadan, and then Hunith and Balinor. That was easy. But she had forgotten how to be the daughter of Finnlagh. It took time to re-learn that.
Now she needed to re-learn what being the daughter of Declan meant.
It meant big hugs and warm conversations and spells that made pictures dance in the fire. It also meant getting yelled at for disappearing into the forest with Em and Mordred for four hours and confined to their hut for a week. Declan hugged her and told her that he loved her afterwards, though.
It meant watching her parents remember how to be married again. Four years was a long time to be apart.
"I made your favorite tea!" Finnlagh said to Declan one night, a month after his arrival. With a wide grin, she placed the steaming earthenware mug in his hands.
"Rosehip?" Declan looked up at her with genuine excitement.
"It's mint," Finnlagh said. She looked at Freya in alarm. The girl shrugged. How was she supposed to know what her father's favorite type of tea was? "You love mint tea, darling."
"I love all tea, especially mint," Declan said, recovering quickly. He kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, love."
Finnlagh never made mint tea again.
As time went on, they learned to be a family again. Conversation no longer felt forced. Finnlagh learned they liked turnips in their pottage, but not onions. Declan learned that when he brought flowers to his wife, he couldn't bring daffodils as they made her sneeze. Freya learned it made her parents happy to hear her sing, so she did it as often as she could.
She was now the daughter of Finnlagh and Declan, again.
Emrys felt his life was quite stagnant, but eventually he came to prefer it. Constant letters bringing news of Druidic conflict with non-mages reaffirmed this. Sábháilte was boring, but it was safe. And, honestly, life wasn't too bad. The Druids did their best to make fieldwork fun; they always sang and joked around in the fields. Everyone pitched in and worked together to keep the camp running.
The children of the camp still found time for recreation. Adelina, Em, and their younger siblings often went on adventures into the forest, swimming in the ponds, or playing hide-in-seek in the fields. Almost always, Freya joined them. While his older brothers teased him and Adelina for participating in "children's games", Em thought it was better than their idea of fun. All they wanted to do was kiss girls and shoot arrows at targets they carved into trees.
He and Adelina had an awkward age gap of a year and a half. It meant that, for part of the year, she was two years older than him rather than one year. Right now, it was early spring. Em was still fourteen, and Lina was barely sixteen. She constantly rubbed it in his face.
They were walking in the woods after a long day of field work. Balinor had a fever, so he couldn't teach lessons that night. The younger children went to study with Iseldir for the night, but Adelina and Em had been given a break.
What a blessing that would turn out to be.
They were maybe three miles from camp. They both had their swords, and of course their powers.
"It's so quiet and peaceful," Adelina sighed. "I wish it could be like this forever."
"I don't like the quiet," Em said, wrinkling his nose.
"It makes you think," his sister acknowledged.
That's when someone dug a knife-tip into her back. She twisted around, and saw that Em was in a similar situation. His thug was masked, and clad in raggedy and foul-smelling clothing. Judging by the stench, she figured her man was too.
On the count of three, Em said. One…Two…THREE!
Adelina's palms ignited with the hottest flame she could summon. She pressed her hand against her captor's leg and he screamed. It was a haunting sound. He immediately let go of her. Meanwhile, Em used a spell that made his thug's knife turn hotter than a blacksmith's forge. He dropped his weapon with a yelp.
The pair unsheathed their swords and stood back-to-back. The man Adelina burned lay on the ground sobbing. The smell of burnt flesh filled her nostrils. She almost felt bad for him. Later, she regretted not slitting his throat when she had the chance.
Their odds suddenly seemed bleaker when a dozen more masked men appeared from the forest. Adelina summoned more fire, ready to burn them alive. No one messed with her or her little brother.
One of the men, clad in a ragged blue cloak, began to sing in a language she did not recognize. Blue sparks of magic danced in his outstretched palms. The world seemed fuzzy… instead of a dozen men, she saw two dozen. Em suddenly had a twin.
She heard Em and his twin calling faintly, "Cover your ears, Lina, cover your ears!"
She was out cold before his warning could register.
A/N: As much as I hate the term "filler chapter", I really needed to get the plot moving, so voila, I present this piece of garbage. I ended up splitting the chapter into two parts, so that why I left y'all on a bit of a cliffhanger there. It was getting to be well over 6,000 words! Anway, as always, thanks to everyone who followed, favorited, and left reviews! They make my day. Much love :)