Chapter Ten

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.

"So, Hertha," Gwaine said conversationally as he wrung out yet another piece of soaking wet clothing. "Do you think they believe us, or do they think we're all escapees from a mental hospital?"

She giggled. "Escapees from a mental hospital, definitely."

Chuckling, Gwaine looked along the riverbank, where everyone else was busy getting water out of their own supplies. The closest bridge across a north-bound river they'd been planning on crossing that morning had collapsed during past earthquakes, and fording hadn't been easy. "Seriously, though, what do you think?"

They hadn't gone very far after the bandit incident the day before; just a mile or so past where the attack had taken place, they'd found a good spot to camp for the night, and the rest of the afternoon and evening had been taken up with rambling explanations and clarifications like, "Yes, magic is a real thing; if you want more proof we can manage it," and "No, this isn't anything to do with hallucinogens," and "Yeah, that King Arthur did actually exist, though not quite like you may have heard before."

"I think Ruby and James don't believe us at all." Hertha's brow furrowed, her eyes following Ellie and Emma as they shrieked and chased the dogs up and down the riverbank. "The others...maybe. Give them time. It's hard to completely discredit myth and magic after seeing Elen in action."

"Yeah, that's true." Gwaine gave his youngest cousin a sidelong glance as she returned to her task. "Are you doing okay? With the memories and everything."

"Um…" She half-smiled without looking at him. "Ask me in a year, maybe?"

"Everard had it pretty rough, I think, when he remembered. Elwin, too."

"At least Elwin's not being a grumpy bastard."

Seeing an almost-thirteen-year-old talk say words like that reminds me of Holly. Shaking that off, he said, "My point is, if you need to talk, need help working things out...I'm here. Elen, too."

"I know." This time, she looked at him when she smiled. "I'll be okay, Gwaine. May be a while...but I'll make it. We all will."

Shaking his head, he reached over and ruffled her hair. "You're something else, little cousin."

She rolled her eyes and smacked halfheartedly at his hand. "Not so little anymore...unfortunately."

He almost didn't hear the last word; she said it so quietly.

Over the course of the day, the weather alternated between sunny yet cool and light, chilly mist rolling over the craggy hills to the south. Besides the two youngest people in the group, who seemed to be taking the whole "magic exists; Camelot existed," thing in stride, and Mary, who had the best ideas for routes, no one spoke much as they continued on. The widespread silence got oppressive after a while, and even George didn't seem inclined to break it.

Walking with his sister, Gwaine finally said, "This used to be the kingdom of Gwynedd."

"Under Caerleon, right?"

Until Arthur killed him, yeah. "Later it was ruled by his queen, Annis. She was tough, let me tell you."

He could feel Elen's piercing look without seeing it. "Cleva was from here."

"Don't. Just don't. I'm not going there."

"Gwaine…"

"You got your husband back, Elen. That's not a guarantee I'll get to see my wife again." That ended the conversation.

Evening began to fall not long afterward. "If we keep following this road and it's not destroyed by quakes, we should reach the first of the two bridges to Anglesey tomorrow," Mary said as they all took a break to consult the map. "If that's gone we can go south to the next...Hopefully at least one's still standing."

"Okay," Leon said, "let's find a place to make camp and…"

A long, loud howl interrupted him. Everyone looked around nervously, instinctively moving closer together and shielding the kids. The dogs growled softly.

"There aren't supposed to be any wolves in the UK!" Ruby exclaimed. "How are they even here?"

"I don't know, the same way wyverns are?" Hayden suggested.

"So...magic," Amelie ventured.

James turned to Elen. "That likely?"

"I'm a sorceress, not an expert in wolves. I suppose it's likely that magic is involved...how exactly, I have no idea."

"Well…" Gwaine hesitated as another howl echoed through the twilight. "Let's build a fire, make some torches. Wolves don't usually attack groups of people, but let's be safe."

Wood wasn't in short supply as they were surrounded by swaths of forest. A lot of it was wet, so Elen lit an entire large pile with a word.

Gwaine saw James jump slightly and move as if to block his children...who were sitting on a log with their mother, eating dinner...from the sorceress's sight. The next time he walked past the man, Gwaine made a point to say quietly, "Elen's not going to hurt your kids."

"I want to believe that," James said defensively, "But if you were a parent…"

"I was a parent, long ago." Gwaine clenched his jaw, taking a breath before he added, "So was Elen...and Hayden, and Leon, and Everard, for that matter. We know you're scared. But we're not your enemy." Several howls filled the quiet of the night, overlapping in a haunting and alarmingly loud melody. "Case in point."

"I don't like how close the wolves are getting," Leon called from where he stood guard at the edge of camp, a torch in hand.

Gwaine picked up his own torch and lit it in the fire. "I'm with you on that."

Hours passed, the stars and a full moon came often hidden by clouds came out, and the dozen or so likely-not-usual-wolves kept circling. No one slept.

Near the glowing fire, Mary held her daughters and Amelie resorted supplies while Hertha told long, ancient tales, sitting cross-legged with Malachite perched in her lap. Across from them, George and Gaius spoke in low tones. Everyone else, dogs included, paced or stood guard, armed with weapons and torches. Elen attempted to scare the wolves off with a few magic spells, but nothing seemed to work and they remained just enough in the shadows that she hadn't a hope of killing them all from a distance, not without doing something incredibly dangerous like setting the entire area on fire.

"Can't you spell yourself to see in the dark or something?" Ruby said at one point.

Elen snorted. "If I knew a spell for that, maybe I would!"

James looked ready to weigh in, but Hayden spoke before he could. "Magic doesn't make people invincible. And Turquoise and Jasper are smelling a possible new threat."

Taking a closer look at the dogs standing alertly on either side of the master, Gwaine said, "Are you sure? They look like they're acting almost the same as they've been…"

"Trust me. They smell something other than the wolves right now."

Elwin groaned. "I really wish you still had the wyverns, Hayden."

"Give him enough time in this strange new world and I'm sure he'll have some," Everard said. "Hayden, are your dogs giving any clues as to direction?"

"Probably southwest."

Elwin's "Well, that's specific," was mostly lost as a chorus of howls and snarls erupted up a nearby hill, accompanied by very human shouts and several bright beams of light cutting through the darkness.

"They have electric torches!" Elwin yelled.

Is that really the important part here? Gwaine thought. "Yeah, and they're drawing all the wolves to them. Elen, Leon, Everard, Elwin, with me!" Torch in one hand and long dagger in the other, he charged towards the sound of the fight.

The moon had begun to emerge from behind a cloud, so up on the hill without many trees around, the lighting could have been much worse.

That didn't stop the entire fight from being an utter mess complete with people screaming, people falling down, people tackling and being tackled by wolves that were honestly too large to be normal, and people nearly setting each other on fire and taking each other's heads off by accident.

After one hulking figure nearly did the last to Gwaine...Lucky bastard has an actual sword...he shouted, "Oi, watch it, big man!"

"You watch it, little man!" Then the towering man halted in mid-stride. "Wait...Gwaine?"

"Percival?"

They certainly would have been torn to bits by the massive beast that lunged towards them a second later, if Elen hadn't sent it flying the other way with a spell. "Stop ogling each other and watch your damn backs!"

A familiar, imperious voice sounded over the chaos. "What she said!"

When the last two or three wolves fled, the battle turned instantly into a sort of reunion, because Percival wasn't the only old friend present. Elyan was there, and Lancelot, and the ruler of all noble and idiotic himself, Arthur Pendragon.

Gwaine would've been far more excited to greet them all properly if he and Elwin weren't occupied with physically keeping Everard from punching his older sister Haralda in the face.

"You left us!" the teenager roared, struggling against his captors. "After we lost Mom, and Dad, and Alan! You just dumped us off on the cousins...How dare you! You couldn't even be bothered to look for us when the bloody world started to end?"

Even in the moonlight, Haralda looked ashamed. Swinging her bloodstained axe to and fro, she began, "I...I thought about it…"

"Clearly not hard enough!"

"Everard, just calm down!" Elwin pleaded. "She's still our sister! And she's survived! Isn't that a good thing?"

Gwaine looked to Elen for help, but she was ignoring the family part of this reunion in favor of getting right into Arthur's face and demanding, "Where's Emrys?"

Arthur handled it pretty well. "You mean Merlin? I don't know; I haven't seen him since I died, oh, fifteen hundred years ago or so."

Elen sighed. "Well, shit."

Before anyone else could comment...and plenty of people looked ready to...Ruby's voice came up the slope. "What the hell is going on up there?"

"We're alive!" Leon called.

Everard went limp, and after seeing that Elwin still had his grip on him, Gwaine let go and turned to the others. "Another good question is: what are all of you doing here?"

"We're part of a settlement on the Isle of Anglesey," Elyan said. "There's lots of people...Anyway, we were on a hunting trip and heard the wolves…"

"This sort have been a problem around here," Percival put in. "We thought it sounded like they were hunting."

"Tell me Heidi's okay," Haralda said suddenly, voice taut. "Is she with you?"

"Hertha is fine," Everard snarled. "And yes, she's with the others down by the bonfire."

"How many others?" Lancelot asked.

"Three men, three women, and three kids, counting Hertha as one of those," Leon replied.

Gwaine grinned. "We have Gaius, by the way."

"Our Gaius?" Arthur's face broke into a broad smile. "Oh, thank the gods. Some things just keep getting better, and I mean that."

It took Gwaine the length of the walk to the bonfire to process that Arthur himself was back, along with Elyan, Percival, and Lancelot, who had really gotten the short end of the stick in his past life. Once back with the others, however, the reunion really got underway, with hugs, introductions, and very confused recounting of the past year.

I feel a bit badly for James, Mary, and the others. Just yesterday, they found out magic was real. Today, they got introduced to the legendary King Arthur.

Arthur had apparently led a group of four dozen people, including Elyan and Gwen, away from the insanity of crumbling London to Anglesey in the early months of the apocalypse. Much of the population on the island had been wiped out by a fast-acting, unrecognized plague before Arthur and his group even got there, and the survivors had been reluctant to welcome anyone. But in time, they had found a way to work together, along with others who came seeking sanctuary.

"Anglesey has plenty of room for farming, and seemed like a somewhat fortifiable location in case of any attacks by militant groups," Arthur explained. "I was also thinking of potential retreat strategies...The funny thing is, I didn't have my old memories then. Didn't get them until halfway across England."

"Same with me and Gwen," Elyan said.

Percival and Haralda had happened to be staying on Holyhead Island, adjacent to Anglesey, when things started to get bad. Lancelot had arrived sometime after Arthur.

And no one had seen or heard anything about Merlin, or anything definite as to why the apocalypse had occurred.

But for the moment, one issue had been solved. The next day, the entire group set off for Anglesey, certain now of the safe haven's existence.

Well, it's as safe as we're going to get in this world.

Tensions among the Barclayns were still running high as they approached the island, and it was Hertha who told Gwaine, "Haralda's hiding something."

"Sure she's not just feeling guilty for abandoning you kids? Hell, I'm still angry about that myself. "She hasn't been talking much."

"It's more than that. I heard her tell Percival, 'let it be a surprise.'"

"A surprise, huh? Hope it's a good one." Right now, I just want to get everyone to safety.

The bridges to the island had collapsed months ago, so a large raft was the only reliable way across the channel. It only fit half of the group at a time, and Gwaine waited for the second ride. Among the others who waited with him was Arthur, who took a moment to say, "I'm glad you're here, Gwaine."

"Glad to be here." Pause. "We'll find Merlin. Or he'll find us."

"I hope you're right. We need him."

The raft returned with Percival and Lancelot rowing, and they boarded, heading across to join the others.

Guinevere was there, greeting everyone enthusiastically whether or not she knew them already, but Gwaine's attention was immediately caught by someone else.

"You're alive."

"Yes, I suppose I am." Cleva looked up at him with sparkling eyes and said. "Are you just going to stand there like a bewildered goat? I mean, you could if you wanted."

He laughed and kissed his wife instead, and for a minute, it felt like the Golden Age had already come again.