Author's Note: Sorry for such a long wait. I have nearly no free time these days. I wake up, get ready for work, go to work, eat a quick lunch, go to my other job, come home, eat dinner, go to bed. That's basically my life 6 days a week because I'm still averaging one day off a week... But I was determined to get a chapter posted. The only reason I've been posting in my other story is because I'd already written those chapters and just needed to edit them before posting. Anyway, I'll be getting three new coworkers at one job, so that will give me some more free time coming up soon, I hope.
Anyway, thank you for reading as always and for favorites and follows! I promise to finish this story, but I'm not sure when I'll get the next chapter up. I do have tomorrow off, but I'm not sure I'll feel like writing. We'll see.
-Twenty-Seven-
Parting Ways
"You're sure?" Merlin asked for the third time as Arthur pulled on one of Merlin's spare coats. Arthur looked quite modern in his new clothes. Merlin had taken him shopping yesterday to build up a new wardrobe, and Ryll wished she could have been there for that. She could only imagine the look on Arthur's face when he realized no one was going to help him dress even in the ridiculous zippered pants. Arthur's hair was a little more ruffled than usual, and he looked more a young man than a king.
Arthur sighed. "Merlin, I swear if you ask me that one more time I'm going to buy a lifetime supply of buckets to dump over your head."
"Okay, okay!" Merlin said, holding his hands up in defeat. "Just…don't let Uther tell you who you need to be. That's your decision and only yours."
"I know," Arthur said. "There's no throne to try to shape me for this time." He turned to Morgana. "Good luck," he told her. "I'll try to make him see that there's nothing wrong with your magic."
"If I can change then hopefully he can too," she said. She hesitated and then reached out to embrace Arthur. "Good luck to you too."
Lancelot embraced Merlin and Ryll and shook Byron's hand before turning to Morgana. There was something there, Ryll thought. It was fleeting, but when Morgana put her arms around Lancelot for a quick hug, she saw the flash of regret on Lancelot's face. Morgana smiled at him. "I'll see you soon," she told him. Lancelot smiled back at her, and Ryll realized she had rarely seen him smile so genuinely. After all they had been through, the tragedy of his last days in Camelot, it was good to see him smile.
"All right. I guess we'll head out too." Merlin, Byron, Morgana, and Ryll had packed what they thought they'd needed. Ryll had no idea what awaited them. She had no weapons, but Merlin had a huge collection on the wall of his study. He'd handed her a familiar sword that morning.
"It's yours," he'd told her. "I kept it after…after you died." Ryll's eyes had flashed to his. She knew he had trouble talking about her death, but he was finally starting to speak of it with less heartbreak. "Take it with you. Just in case."
The others took a knife each. Tåhey didn't know just what they'd be facing in the caves. There could be beasts in there, enchantments. It had been blocked off for ages, but according to Merlin, the magic was festering inside.
Ryll had left Owl with a bowl of food and water, and Merlin had enchanted them to refill automatically. It felt like old times, going off on an adventure with her friends. It had been a long time since Morgana had come with them but, as they piled into Merlin's car, Ryll felt a pulse of excitement under her skin. She reached over and squeezed Morgana's hand, giving her friend a wide smile. Morgana returned the smile.
Byron looked tense in the passenger seat, so Ryll kneed the back of the seat. He scowled back at her. "You're not one of those people who asks 'are we there yet?' every half an hour, are you?" he asked. There was a smile behind his scowl, and she couldn't hold back her laugh.
"I might do it just to annoy you."
"Yeah, I definitely missed this," Byron said sarcastically, heaving a sigh. Ryll knew he was only teasing her.
"I missed it too," she said. As the sun sent scattered shards across the car, playing tag with the trees on either side of the road, Ryll slid on her sunglasses and rolled the window down. She leaned her head against the side of the car and let the breeze hit her face. For a moment she was back in Camelot riding Owl. She could almost hear the beating of hooves on the ground, see the clumps of grass tearing up and flying backwards under the sheer velocity of their flight. She could hear laughter and good-hearted jeering. She could see her friends.
The hills fairly rumbled with the sound of hooves as dawn broke over the horizon like a new era. Birds took to the sky in a frantic flapping of wings, startled out of their search for insects in the long prairie grass. Wind hummed along Owl's neck as Ryll crouched down low over her mane. Laughter bubbled up inside her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see how far behind the others were. Lancelot and Gwaine were closest with Leon and Percival trailing after them. Ever since Ryll had become a knight, competitions like this had become a daily occurrence. Anything to show up the boys.
Gwaine's horse pulled up level to Owl. He gave her a lopsided grin. "Getting slow, Ryll," he teased as his horse pulled ahead.
"Not on your life." Ryll took the challenge, urging Owl on faster. Gwaine's stallion, Gallant, ran neck-to-neck with the smaller mare. The tree they were racing to up ahead was within view, and Ryll leaned further forward until she was nearly flat against Owl's neck. The small mare flicked her ears as a silent message passed between the horse and rider. She started to draw ahead of Gallant, and Ryll could hear Gwaine cursing rather un-gallantly as she and Owl passed him up. Ryll didn't dare look back until they had passed the tree. She whistled, and Owl slowed. Ryll sat back in the saddle and looked to see how far behind the other knights were. Gwaine was closest with Lancelot's white horse working his long legs to catch up. Leon and Percival were a ways back, their horses looking a bit slow today. Elyan was on the morning guard otherwise he would have joined them but usually it was a contest between Ryll and Gwaine. Everything was a contest between them.
"Ha!" Ryll shouted as he pulled up looking dismayed.
"Rub it in, why don't you," he said, shaking his dark hair out of his face.
"Like you're ever modest about anything," she shot back. They were both smiling though. "Like that time last week when you won the sword tournament against the other knights – a tournament you made up on the spot, might I add."
"They looked like they needed some practice," he said with a shrug.
"And then there was that time you nearly lost a week's wage gambling at The Rising Sun."
"I won though."
"Only because the other man was drunker than you."
"What's your point?"
"You're a sore loser, that's my point."
"Well you're not much better yourself!"
"But I have something to prove."
"What do you have to prove?" Lancelot had finally reached them, pulling up his white horse who huffed and bent his head to graze.
"That she's better than any other knight in Camelot," Gwaine volunteered.
"Not true!" Ryll objected. "Just that I can be a knight even though I'm a girl."
"You don't have to prove that to anyone. They can see it for themselves," Lancelot told her.
"You have to say that. You're my best friend," she said.
"Don't say that, now Gwaine will be competing with me for that title," Lancelot teased, dark eyes playful. "And anyway I don't have to say that. It's true. You're as good a swordsperson as any other knight and a better horseperson than most."
"Your taste in men is questionable though," Gwaine said, giving her a wink.
"You only say that because I never fell for that silver tongue of yours."
"It is a shame," Gwaine lamented. "It usually works. Nine out of ten girls fall for it."
"And then they really get to know you."
"Know who?" Percival and Leon rode up neither looking too concerned about having lost the race. Leon tended not to join them, but they'd insisted today. Percival, despite his outward appearance, was too kind-hearted to be competitive.
"Gwaine. We're discussing his romantic pursuits. He thinks he's quite the lady's man."
Leon cracked a smile, and Percival chuckled. "Why is everyone laughing?" Gwaine asked, looking affronted.
"If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand," Ryll told him. He huffed.
"We should head back before Arthur notices half his knights are missing," Lancelot said. "I've got to be back for the noon patrol."
"I'm having lunch with Merlin," Ryll said beaming.
"Lunch?" Gwaine cocked an eyebrow. "I swear you two are the most boring couple in history. I caught them sitting in the library reading one afternoon."
"So?" Ryll frowned.
"So? Reading? Never mind."
"Just because we're not all over each other doesn't mean we don't care about each other," Ryll retorted. "We're happy the way things are."
"Leave it alone," Lancelot told Gwaine as the knight opened his mouth to say something more.
"I was just going to wish her a lovely lunch," Gwaine said, crossing his arms.
"Right." Ryll rolled her eyes, turning Owl back toward Camelot.
Ryll opened her eyes, the memory fading away along with Merlin's little town of Forest Ridge. She found herself already missing it but not as much as she missed Camelot. Maybe it hadn't fully hit her just yet – that her life in Camelot was over, that she couldn't go back. Her golden years had faded, and she was left with what remained. In all truth, she wasn't exactly sure what that was. She felt like a washed up version of herself. She'd already experienced all the good and all the pain and everything in between. Where did that leave her? She knew there were always new experiences to be had, but there had been nothing wrong with the old ones. Life had seemed so complicated back then, but the life she had awoken in seemed even more so. There weren't beasts and armies trying to kill her or Arthur or Merlin anymore, but the problems they faced went deeper than that. They couldn't be fixed with a sword or an army. Ryll wasn't a knight anymore.
Somehow that thought hit her hard. She'd wanted to be one her entire life and she had finally achieved that. She'd made history but now there was no place for a knight. Her achievement meant very little to this world and even if her friends still remembered it, there was still no armor for her to wear, no battle for her to fight. Not in the traditional sense. Her sword was a relic now, and she wondered if she still remembered how to use it. Where does that leave us? She'd asked that question so many times over the last few days that it echoed in her head like a death chant. She just wished she had the answer. She wanted to believe that the caves held all the answers, that everything would be made clear as soon as they entered them, but a part of her knew it wouldn't be that easy. Nothing was ever easy, but now she lacked the confidence she'd once held. Had she really grown so insecure that she needed to hide behind armor and a sword? She hadn't needed to before. She hadn't been wearing armor when she'd saved Morgana's life that first day they'd met. She hadn't needed a sword when she'd leapt in front of Merlin and taken the arrow meant for him. Why now was she so afraid to face her future? There had been a time when her future had looked bleak, a time when she'd been left an orphan, forced to steal for survival. There had been a time when she'd been a slave to Hengist, the crime lord who'd trained her to be his personal thief and assassin. There had been a time she thought she might die from an arrow wound. Ironic really considering an arrow had killed her in the end. If she hadn't come across Morgana that day, if she hadn't taken that that arrow for her and been rushed into Camelot to be healed, what would her life have been? And if that cursed arrow, forged in dragon's flames, hadn't hit her, hadn't been coming straight at Merlin, what then would her life have been?
She realized she needed to stop thinking about what her life could have been and what her life could be. She touched her finger where a ring might sit. It felt oddly naked as if the ring she'd never gotten the chance to wear needed to be there for her to feel whole. Why did she feel as if she had seen what could be? Whenever she thought about it, she got glimpses of a familiar memory, fuzzy and faded like an old photograph. Was she happy? She thought so. She remembered feeling happy. She'd long ago realized that visions could be misleading though. There was no timestamp on them telling her exactly when something was going to happen, and there were always multiple outcomes. Why then did she long so much for a future she couldn't even remember and couldn't even say whether it was real or not?
…
It was odd heading away from Morgana and Merlin and Ryll, Lancelot thought as he drove away from Forest Ridge and back toward White Castle. He felt as if his loyalties were torn, and that had never happened before. There were times when he'd kept the truth from Arthur like Merlin's magic, but he'd kept his duty to his king. Now it was torn between Arthur and Morgana. They were on the same side, but he felt as if he was at the wrong person's side. He glanced over at Arthur. The king was looking out the window, his brow furrowed as the unfamiliar world flashed by. Lancelot felt a twinge of guilt. Of course Arthur needed him at his side. This was a big adjustment for him, and Lancelot was still loyal to him even if Arthur was no longer a king.
"Let me know when you get hungry," he told Arthur. "We can pull over for lunch in a few hours."
"Right." Arthur cast Lancelot a glance, and Lancelot could tell he was bursting with questions while still trying to retain his dignity. "I suppose they just serve you at the side of the road?"
"There are restaurants. We'll pass through a few small towns. I might need to fill the tank." He glanced down at the petrol meter. "The car's tank, that is. It runs on petrol which you buy at a petrol station."
"Ah."
"Kind of like when you feed a horse oats for extra energy," Lancelot said with a smile.
Arthur returned the smile. "Do you feed it carrots for a treat then?"
"Well, you could always get premium petrol or get it a tune up."
"You make it sound like it's alive." Arthur cast a suspicious glance toward the engine, and Lancelot chuckled.
"Only in its mechanics. It can't think."
"Well thank goodness for that." Arthur glanced down at the map Lancelot had provided him. "It looks so different. How can I have once been king of this land? I don't even recognize it. I couldn't even tell you where Camelot was."
"It's been a long time," Lancelot told him. "That world doesn't exist anymore."
"But Camelot does. The castle still stands." Merlin and Ryll had told them about their explorations of the castle. Lancelot would never forget the look on Arthur's face when he had learned that the castle was in ruins. "We could rebuild." He sounded so hopeful, and Lancelot didn't want to take that hope away.
"We could."
"But for what purpose?" Arthur asked. It wasn't his question but the question he knew was lingering in Lancelot's mind. Lancelot hadn't wanted to put it into words, but Arthur seemed to know what he was thinking.
"There is no farmland left. No crops to be grown. There are no people to rule, no title to claim."
"But I still have my knights," Arthur said.
"You do have that," Lancelot agreed. "And your friends and your family."
"Not quite all of it."
They fell silent, and Lancelot felt a stab of pain at the thought of Gwen. He had once loved her too and though Arthur had won her heart, Lancelot still loved her for being the most kind and caring person he'd ever met. The world seemed a dimmer place without her, and he knew Arthur probably saw the world in shades of night without Gwen's brilliant shine to brighten everyone's lives. He could make empty promises that they'd find her, but those promises had already been made, and he wasn't even sure if they could keep them.
"It's something to hold onto," Arthur said finally. "I loved Camelot, and that will never change even if it only holds a place in legends. It will always hold a place in my life because it's a part of who I am."
"No one's asking you to let go," Lancelot assured him.
"Just to move forward."
"I know it's hard, but you can't go back. None of us can. We have to keep moving forward and trust that our memories will keep our pasts safe. Camelot will never be gone if we don't forget it, and I don't intend to."
"You're a good man, Lancelot. You don't need to be a knight to be as honorable as one."
"And you don't need a throne to be as noble as a king."
Arthur was gazing out the window as Lancelot spoke, but he saw Arthur's face light up, a smile touching the corners of his mouth.
"What king needs a kingdom when he has friends like you?"
