A peasant girl was helping her mother pick eggs while the chickens clucked about her feet. She was a tiny, dark skinned child with black, tight curls cascading from her head and down her back. Too little to help her mother seed gardens or even to pull weeds, she was left to delicately try not to break the eggs she lifted from the nests and set into her near too big basket.
She was just leaving the coop when she felt a sudden drop of water hit her hand. Blinking, the small child looked up to the cloudless, sunny sky in surprise. She looked back at her hand and watched the drop roll off and onto the ground.
Her mother then called for her and she whirled around and quickly followed not bothering to look back. From the East came a gust of wind and another drop of rain fell to the earth, landing on a turret belonging to the castle of Camelot.
"Let's do something else." Arthur said dully while watching Merlin attempt to hold a real sword. Sir Antor stood warily by, greasy brown hair and bushy mustache obscuring his face. Arthur had been able to lift the sword for a whole minute, Merlin couldn't even get it off the ground.
It had been three weeks since Merlin arrived. Uther had assigned both Gaius and Sir Antor to watch the boys since two days after his talk with Arthur, Merlin mysteriously acquired a particularly large bump on his head. Both boys refused to say anything. Gaius, however, recounted the tale of Arthur's rather too enthusiastic throw of a rock toward the small boy after he had discovered that Merlin had finally learned to catch with his magic.
So Sir Antor, despite his fondness for Arthur, scowled and grunted with the best of it whenever Arthur voiced poor ideas (which was often). Feeling guilty though, Sir Antor would let them play with bits of his armour and would attempt to teach them small lessons on what being a knight was like.
Today he let them hold his sword while visiting the armory. Thankfully it was too heavy for either boy to hurt anyone with. The armory, however, was a bit hot and stinking of sweat and metal, the knight could tell that it was bothering Arthur. The boy had grown grumpier as the time progressed.
"What do you suggest we do, kid?" Sir Antor made sure his voice was gruff, Arthur seemed to think he could get away with more whenever Sir Antor spoke normally.
"I want to go into the woods." Arthur said, a gleam in his eyes. Sir Antor sighed.
"Too many beasties sire, your father said no."
"But it's boring staying on the castle grounds."
"And it's dangerous going into the woods. Find something else to do. Prince Emrys, what would you like to do?" Sir Antor had taken to prompting the foreign prince since he noticed that the child was unusually quiet. He found Prince Emrys kind of disconcerting, but simple enough to please and to keep entertained.
"Say something dummy!" Arthur stamped his foot. Sir Antor swatted Arthur on the head. Merlin said nothing.
"Be nice kid." Sir Antor scolded. Arthur was furious, he turned and started walking quickly away. Arthur also seemed to think that if he walked fast enough, 'old' Sir Antor would not be able to watch them so closely. The knight briefly thought of Gaius and wished he had not been whisked away to deal with some ailing lord.
He looked down at Merlin. Merlin wasn't there. He looked up. Neither boy was there, how were they so fast? Sir Antor sped out of the armory in a panic not noticing the now smirking Arthur and Merlin hidden behind a rack of spears.
They held still for a while, crouched and trying to be silent. Once they thought the knight was far enough away, Arthur stood up and Merlin walked toward the door.
"Merlin." Arthur said. Merlin paused and looked at Arthur with a surprised expression.
"Only my mummy calls me Merlin 'cause no one else is s'posed to." He said.
"I'm going to call you Merlin and you're going to say that you let me call you Merlin 'cause I don't want to get in trouble. And if you don't I'll lie." Arthur pushed past the boy and peered into the corridor.
Taking a breath, Arthur tried to relieve some of the heat he was feeling. It wasn't just the armory, he thought, he had felt uncomfortable since he awoke. He felt as if he were suffocated, he just couldn't bear being inside anymore. He wanted fresh air and relief.
Merlin tried to look around Arthur as the older Prince was leaning close to the side of the doorway. Merlin could make out the white-gray stones of the corridor and the red tapestries that hung on the walls next to the skinny, simple rectangular windows of Camelot that were now becoming familiar to him. It was not as regal as Lesser Albion but Merlin didn't mind, quite liked it actually.
Arthur stared down the corridor and then turned to look the other way, no servant was in sight and Sir Antor was probably well away. He pulled Merlin out of the room by his hand and they ran to the opposing wall. Inching forward, Arthur peered around the corner then smiled and tugged at Merlin and ran to another opposing wall opposite a fleet of stairs.
Arthur wiped a hand on his sweaty forehead then carefully tread along the wall and over to the steps. They made it down without too much difficulty, the going was slow though as Merlin's legs were much shorter than Arthur's.
Once they had made it down, Arthur checked for servants again. The halls were empty. They were near the door that lead through the kitchens and into the field. Arthur was starting to worry.
Feeling too overheated to stop though, the prince went to the door and pushed it in and saw nobody. The kitchens were empty. Arthur shook his head to clear it as Merlin softly walked past and hid behind a table leg despite the lack of people. There wasn't anything cooking or fires burning or even a maid to clean the floors.
Arthur knew it was wrong, knew that there had to be somebody but as soon as he had opened that door he also knew that he had to get out. He could feel his skin's heat and the drip of sweat that occasionally fell to the floor. He kept going, he barely remembered to tug at Merlin's shoulder before exiting the kitchens and finally making it to the grounds.
The sky was gray with heavy clouds and there still wasn't a person around. No lords, ladies, servants, knights, children, not his father nor Merlin's mother, not King Elrich, nor even Gaius. There wasn't enough wind blowing though so Arthur made for the gate that would lead to the sheep pastures, the fields that were near the woods.
He had wanted to go after all.
Rushing, he and Merlin finally made it to the fields where, to Arthur's great relief and mild annoyance, a shepherd stood tending his flock as the boys hid behind the wooden gate.
"I can't believe we made it this far. There's usually hundreds of servants about." Arthur looked back toward the castle as he crouched behind the solid, thick gate. He felt the suffocation from earlier go away, the heat slowly fading, but then felt a kind of pulling feeling in his chest, it almost hurt. Arthur felt a deep need to go into the forest.
Merlin was tracing an etching on the gate unaware of Arthur's worries. Royal Flock,proclaimed the door though Merlin couldn't really tell, his learning only taking him so far. Arthur turned back to him, agitated.
"Merlin, could you…I don't know, distract the shepherd or something. I want to go to the forest."
"Not s'posed to." Merlin mumbled while looking toward the field and forest just down the hill from them. He frowned suddenly.
"I don't care. Besides, don't you want to see a manticore? Or a unicorn? Maybe a dragon!" Arthur near shouted but remembered to keep quiet. He peeked around the gate and looked through the fence. The shepherd was picking his ear with his thick, bulbous pinky. The prince wrinkled his nose and pulled back. "Knock his staff over."
Merlin didn't want to but Arthur was always so angry whenever he didn't do as he said, screwing up his face he held out both of his tiny hands and felt the crook with his magic and pulled it away from the shepherd.
The shepherd, who had been leaning on the staff at the time, fell flat on his face. Arthur and Merlin burst out laughing. Merlin felt a little bad but it had been funny.
Thankfully the shepherd didn't notice the giggling boys as the sheep bleated noisily. Arthur nearly forgot to run but then started tugging on Merlin's arm fiercely and they raced through the fence and nearly down the hill before Merlin started to pull back against Arthur's grip.
"What are you doing? We're almost there!" Arthur slowed a little but his heart was racing fiercely and that pull was tingling in his chest.
"No. Wrong. Something's wrong. Not s'posed to. It feels bad. I want to go home." Merlin looked scared of the forest, his big eyes wide with a hint of gold lurking in the blue. They heard a shout.
"Hurry!" Arthur pulled again at Merlin's arm but this time the little boy fell forward and both of them wound up tumbling the last few feet to the beginning of the woods.
Merlin began to cry miserably as his face and hands were scraped and bleeding slightly. Arthur felt guilty but then heard the shepherd shout again. He hastily grabbed Merlin and attempted to drag him into the forest. Merlin was too upset though.
"N-n-no. My chest hurts. I don't want to." Merlin blubbered then with a look of shock and golden eyes suddenly Arthur was left with an armful of nothing.
"Merlin?" Arthur queried as he looked around worriedly. Suddenly there was no shepherd and flock, suddenly there was forest surrounding him and he was all alone.
"M-Merlin? Stop it. Where have you brought me? Bring me back. This isn't fair. I'll tell!" Arthur panicked and started stumbling in random directions. "Merlin? Please?"
He stumbled a few steps and felt great fear wash over him, he didn't know where he was and the pull was gone. It was dark, the sky was gray, and it started to rain heavily.
A tall, dark haired woman walked into his vision from behind a tree but as soon as he saw her she disappeared a second after. All he could tell was that she was wearing something vividly red.
He was reminded of Lady Hunith briefly but he knew it was not her.
"Merlin?" He called in a small voice. He was wet and cold now, the rain wasn't letting up. The ground was muddy and he had almost lost a shoe to a puddle. He kept walking forward.
This time when the lady showed up he screamed at her, "wait! Please!" She didn't heed though and was gone. A screech filled the air. Arthur whirled and saw some creature whisk over his head, a claw grabbed at his arm.
"ANTOR, FATHER, PLEASE! MERLIN! FATHER! NOOO!" Arthur screamed as the beast lifted him into the air and slowly made its way up. Branches caught on his tunic but still they climbed. Wishing desperately for a dagger or sword, the boy flailed wildly.
"ARRRrrrthurr!" A blubbering wail came from beneath him, Arthur looked down and saw that Merlin had appeared, his eyes still glowing and his arms were outstretched. Arthur felt a pull on his leg very unlike the pull he had felt earlier toward the woods. It felt warm, like a soft hand was gripping his ankle and tethering him to the ground. The creature screeched and let Arthur go.
Arthur got a brief glimpse of it as he was falling: big, black, hairy, with leathery wings. Then he hit the ground and for second the world went black.
When the world came back, Merlin was beside him. He was soaked through but the rain seemed to have stopped. Merlin was crying still but gold shone bright and he felt a tug and then, with a blink, he and Merlin were at the edge of the forest again. The sky was clear and the sheep's bleating was loud.
The baby Prince's eyes had dimmed to blue and his body had stopped shaking. He was awfully pale, Arthur noticed, and then Merlin vomited on to Arthur's chest.
"You deliberately disobeyed me, you not only got yourself in danger but Prince Emrys as well. You've hurt yourself and our royal guest is bruised and ill. You have only yourself to blame Arthur. Disrespectful, absolutely disrespectful." Uther was fuming, pacing back and forth in front of his white-faced child who was now lying under the thick red quilts on his father's bed.
Uther had admittedly been more worried than angry at the first sight of his boy, curled in the shepherd's arms along with Merlin. The shepherd had found the boys muddy and wrestling near the forest's edge.
Wrestling had been an overstatement as Arthur could only manage a few weak punches before clutching his aching head and laying back down. Merlin had let him, not feeling well enough to hit back or to say anything.
After Gaius had proclaimed both boys well but tired, Uther's rage rose.
"What on earth possessed you to go to the woods?! Which servants let you go? I ought to flay Antor." Uther restrained himself from roaring at his son. Arthur looked a bit sick himself but also fidgety and unresponsive, glancing at the window now and then.
"Arthur." Uther commanded his boy's attention. Arthur looked but did not say anything. For the boy to be so quiet, Uther grew concerned. "Arthur," he said more gently and moved from the foot of the bed to sitting on the side of it with his hand covering his son's, "what's wrong?"
"-was a monster." Arthur mumbled almost so his father couldn't hear.
"What?"
"A monster. Big monster. It tried to get me but Merlin. Merlin grabbed me with magic and he pulled me and the monster let go. Father…Father I don't want the monster to come back. What if it comes back?" Arthur was shaking and felt more Merlin's age than his own but didn't care because Uther had bent over and hugged him.
"It's alright son. You probably just angered a bear. Don't worry Arthur." Uther rubbed his son's back and thought to himself he would punish the boy later.
"N-no. It's not a bear. It had wings!" Arthur's hands gripped his father's cloak.
"Whatever it is, it's nothing the knights of Camelot can't handle." Uther patted his son on the back then pulled away. "I'll have them hunt for it this very afternoon."
Uther stood and made to leave the room but Arthur said something that made him pause.
"Watch out for the woman. I think she's in the woods too."
"Woman?" Uther turned to him slowly. Arthur looked to the window and back.
"Yeah, she was tall and red and she had black hair I think. But she was there and then she disappeared. Make sure the knights don't hit her."
"Arthur, they're knights. They're better trained than that." Uther tried to sound normal. He left the room feeling as if he had numb limbs and his body was filling with white fear. He grit his teeth and let anger fuel him through the castle.
"ELRICH!" Uther shouted down the corridor as he strode quickly toward where he knew the other King and Lady Hunith would be. When he burst into Merlin's room and found both there, Hunith lying in bed with her little son, soothing him, and Elrich standing up from his chair beside them, he gestured harshly toward his friend and left the room.
"What Uther? Has the child not been frightened enough? Must you bang into his room and scare him more? What is so urgent?" Elrich had followed, closing the door behind him carefully.
"Her. It's that devil woman. It's- "
"She can't. She can't! She shouldn't be able to."
"But she has!" Uther sprayed a bit of saliva on to Elrich's face but he was far past caring. "Ready your guards, I'm afraid mine alone won't be capable." He wanted to hit something or burn something or even someone. He had to stop himself from thinking that.
"I'll join them in the search. Uther. Please. Remember what Isla said-"
"I bloody well remember what Isla said!" Uther fought hard to not swing his fist at his friend. "I remember, now let's go."
With that, the two of them set out to meet with their respective knights. The guards were placed foremost with Arthur and Merlin, then the castle, the rest took the woods hunting. Their orders though were quite opposite of Arthur's concerns.