A/N: Sorry for the wait, this is one tough chapter: a lot of information, things revealed and things alluded to... :) I would have cut it in half if that made any sense. Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Worrying Developments

8 January 1978

It seemed that only mere seconds had passed between laying his head down on the thin pillow and Morgana gently shaking his shoulder. Yet he had slept deeply and without dreaming for once. Which he considered a good thing as his dreams were utterly confusing. For instance he did a lot of sword fighting in them which might make sense as he often trained with the weapon. Still as far as he knew he had never worn chain mail. He wasn't complaining though as luckily they weren't visions. Of all the inhabitants of the Citadel only Morgana dreamed of the future.

"Arthur, it's time to wake up." She obviously repeated. Her pale face reflected the light of the two oil lamps she was carrying.

"I'm awake." Arthur blinked and sat up to proof it, "How much time do I have?" He rubbed his face and yawned. He'd been laying on top of his blankets but somehow the woollen quilt, that had been neatly folded together at the end of his bed, had crawled over him during his nap. That or someone had tucked him under.

"Fifteen minutes more or less." His sister answered and placed one of the lamps on the table, "That's yours. Electricity's been out for an hour now. Everyone's heading to the Council Room except for Rose who volunteered to stay with the children."

Arthur didn't comment on the lack of power. The last part of what Morgana said was much more uncommon.

"So it's a closed on?" He asked while a shiver ran down his spine. When someone needed to share something with everyone else it was usually just said during dinner when everyone was there. Official meetings did happen of course at least every two weeks to talk about logistical stuff and so on. But then everyone was present including the children.

In the past it only happened a few times that a meeting was declared closed, meaning that only those older than fourteen were allowed. Arthur remembered those times pretty well. Frankly he dreaded those emergency meetings to the point where he had nightmares about them. Because every time it happened, whether he had been included or not, things had changed. And bar a few someone had always died.

"Why are you so surprised, clearly something has happened." Morgana reminded him and then suggested, "Oh, and you might want to talk to Robbie afterwards. He's pretty angry about being excluded. Have you been teaching him to curse?"

She looked very stern right now, with her hands on her hips and staring down at him as if he'd been running around insulting people.

"He's just hitting puberty." Arthur said dismissively while refraining from answering truthfully. He grabbed his jumper from the end of the bed and wrestled it on.

"Just what we need," Morgana told him mockingly, "Another angsty teenager."

"I wasn't that bad." Arthur defended the obvious stab at his own teenage years.

"While we could debate for hours about your definition of 'not that bad' and the fact that you actually ran away for months, clock's ticking and you might want to wash the drool of your face before heading out." She informed him snidely before spinning around sharply and left pulling the door close behind her. The force of it made his shelves tremor.

Yes, Arthur thought sarcastically as he plunked back down on his bed, his sister was a real gem. Leon was one fortunate bloke.

He stayed like that for two more minutes allowing himself the chance to wake up properly. He had placed his feet flat on the floor though. The cold would keep him awake. Once he was up he followed his sister's lovely suggestion and washed his face with the water from his water bottle.

Suddenly he noticed that his pile of discarded clothes was missing. They were gone and more importantly his boots, which had been caked with mud, were clean. Pleasantly surprised Arthur put them on and went for his bag next. He unpacked an old toy car and placed it on the highest shelf. The paint was nearly gone but he could still see that it had been red once. He hope that Sean liked his birthday present.

Out one of the side-pockets he took a dried but bloody cloth wrapped around two set of teeth. They were as long as his index finger and as thick at the base, but the tips were narrow points. Arthur packed the teeth again and carefully put them in his trousers' pocket. They were evidence of the otherwise rather farfetched story he was going to tell. Maybe it was for the best that it was a closed meeting, he thought.

For an outsider walking through the maze of dark corridors of Project Pendragon was an impossible task. Arthur however was so familiar with the nooks, corners and overhanging pipes that he didn't need to think about ducking his head in time.

He was on his way to the biggest hall of the centre, barring the Main Court, which normally was used as their training room. All the medieval weaponry was lined along the walls and when they pushed all ten tables, benches and chairs to the side the space was just big enough to practice hitting a target.

Suddenly a voice called out in the darkness making him halt, "So you've finally decided to grace us with your presence."

"Gwaine." Arthur greeted back despite the other man's lack of courtesy and asked, "Do you have a reason for lurking in the dark?"

He had partly passed the narrow corridor where Gwaine had been leaning against the wall, arms crossed and without a light, when the man had spoken up.

"Other than waylaying you?" Gwaine shrugged and stepped into the main hallway.

"Couldn't you continue to ignore me? It made both of us happy." Arthur suggested tiring quickly with this non-conversation. He was already halfway turned when Gwaine suddenly grabbed him by his shirt collar and slammed him against the wall. It happened so fast that Arthur had no chance to react. A painful hiss escaped his lips.

"What the hell!" Arthur protested having managed to safe his lamp from being knocked against the wall but not his bruised back.

"Listen carefully, Arthur." Gwaine hissed as he leaned in close, "You have no idea what's out there. No idea at all. So do us all a favour and stop wandering off. Your luck can only last so long before you disappear like-"

"Gwaine!"

The man released his shirt swiftly smoothing the wrinkled fabric, but not quick enough. Elyan and Gwen were staring shocked at the scene in front of them. Arthur suspected their expressions matched his.

"What's the matter with you?" Elyan continued as he pushed Gwaine away from Arthur actually smacking the other man on the back of the head, "Of all the idiotic things…" They left arguing down the hallway and disappeared around the corner.

"What was that?" Gwen asked worriedly as she rushed to his side, "Are you all right?"

"No idea." Arthur was still pressed to the wall. That seemed the safest position for the next ten seconds at least. Gwaine's sudden behaviour had honestly left him reeling.

"I'm fine though." He went on after realizing his earlier comment could've answered both her questions.

"You shouldn't let him push you around like that."

"I don't." He stated but he could see Gwen was not convinced. She looked up at him with those big beautiful understanding eyes as if she knew what he was thinking. That Gwaine had every right to be pissed at him. That he too would go ballistic if he'd been in Gwaine's position and Morgana had been in Michael's.

"What's up with him by the way?" Arthur asked deflecting the attention from him, "It's been a long time since he was this antagonistic."

"I know he's been on edge ever since their group returned yesterday morning." Gwen raised, "I guess we'll discover the reason soon enough."

"Well, since Elyan left and took your light…" Arthur bowed lightly and asked, "My Lady, would you honour me by accepting this poor man as your escort?" Gwen's eyes lit up as she recognized this spiel from their childhood games.

"Of course, my good Sir." Gwen pretended to lift a skirt and curtsied, "This lady would be delighted." She accepted while hooking her arm through his. As she briefly leaned her head against his shoulder, Gwen whispered, "We should do this more often."

"I usually ended up pulling your pig-tails." Arthur reminisced as they strolled through the dark hallways.

"And I kicked your shins." Gwen reminded him in return.

"You had the sharpest toes for a girl." He exclaimed still sounding impressed which caused Gwen to laugh as they wandered on. The lamp gently swung back and forth in correspondence with their steps, creating dancing shadows against the walls. For a brief time Arthur felt that all was right with the world.

Just before they entered the chamber the lights flickered back on causing everyone to halt their conversation to look up. In that brief pause Arthur and Gwen moved inside while he cursed his luck because of course their entry wasn't inconspicuous that way. He got a few nods and smiles from the other inhabitants. The dark look Leon was giving Gwaine right now was especially telling. Arthur was sure that Elyan had blabbed to his brother.

With a whispered "Thank you for the escort." Gwen stepped away to greet Morgana and Mary before sitting down next to her mother, Rya. Of the twenty-nine above the age of fourteen, only Tom and Olaf were still absent, but Arthur knew they would be on their way now that the lights were back on.

In the middle of the ten smaller tables shoved together was the Map. This was actually a combination of several ordnance maps combined with Geoffrey's and later also June's talent for drawing since the landscape had changed so much. If England was a piece of paper then the earthquake had folded, ripped, punctured, added to and shrunken it all at the same time.

In the middle of it was the Citadel and the surrounding cliffs. Across the Map were various lines drawn around the centre like the altitude lines around a mountain. Yet they didn't depict altitude nor the distance from one point to the other. Distances weren't correct anymore and while they could try and measure the land again, it wouldn't mean anything.

Instead the lines equalled days of travelling. How closer together how more difficult the terrain was there. Those, landmarks and X's to mark treasure as Arthur had once thought when he was a boy, were the only things needed on a scavenger hunt.

It was tradition to sit with your families during the meetings. Only the Pendragons were the exception since Uther presided them and as a rule Lewis and Gaius sat right next to him. So Morgana always sat between the Brewer and Smith family, next to Mary and Gwen. It made sense since those three were the only girls at the moment who went on scavenger hunts as well. Arthur found them pretty impressive.

So in a clockwise direction there was the Brewer family with Alice and Gaius. Their extended family was the biggest one of the settlement as their three children had married over the years. They were the proud grandparents of six. Mary was the oldest one at twenty-one and considering how she and Percy sometimes gazed at each other, Arthur was pretty confident that within two years at most the older couple would become great-grandparents.

Then sat the Smith family with Tom and Rya. They were the only family who hadn't lost a member during the years. Rya firmly believed that Leon's legendary luck had rubbed off on the rest of the family after they had taken the young boy in as one of their own. Arthur wasn't superstitious, but seeing his friend's luck for himself in the outside world he agreed with Rya.

After the Smiths came the O'Connell family with Alan and Margaret. Just like sitting with your family had become tradition, so had Alan's spot at the table become undebatable. He usually sat right across from Uther. While Arthur and his father were descended from a proud line of entrepreneurs, Alan came from an equally proud lineage of union leaders. Their initial antagonistic relationship had soon been replaced by grudging respect though neither Alan nor his father would ever admit that.

Then sat the Mullins family though Geoffrey was the only one who carried that name. When the earthquake struck his granddaughter Hazel had been here on a visit and ended up marrying the young man she'd ran away with. He died however before seeing the birth of his daughter, Vivian. Hazel remarried eventually and had another child, Owain, with Olaf Nass. She herself sadly died during the 1970 sickness.

Next to Owain sat Gwaine, the only representative of the Greene family as his mother was looking after the children. Arthur wondered about that arrangement. Rose was an outspoken woman much like her son, but unlike Gwaine, her rashness had tempered since losing her husband in 1970. Arthur knew her as a very intuitive woman.

At last came the Burke family. Whereas the Smiths never lost anyone, Lewis lost his first wife during the earthquake. He then remarried and lost his second wife as well. Also he lost his adult sons, one during the storms and another during an accident on a scavenger hunt, the same one in 1963 which forced Uther to use a walking stick. His daughter, Freya and grandson, Percy are the light of his life though and Arthur is often annoyed by Lewis' steadfast faith.

There used to be two more families present around the table. The Morrow family all departed after Gorlois' death. While Morgana could technically be considered a Morrow she thought of herself as a Pendragon now. Truth to be told Arthur never really talked to Morgana about Gorlois or Vivian. And he knew his sister had looked up to Morgause and Morris, her older siblings. But she never mentioned them either.

The other family were the Woods. Of all the families here Arthur had felt closest to them, they were after all his mother's family. Arthur had adored spending time with his grandparents. They had been old at the time of the earthquake, older than Geoffrey, and had travelled to every corner of the earth during their life. Arthur often recalled their stories after they had passed away until he had memorized them all.

He had two uncles, Tristan and Uncle Archie. Tristan had married before the disaster to his Aunt Edith and they had one daughter, Evy. Tristan was the first one to die shielding Ygraine from an explosion of glass during the earthquake. After his Aunt died in 1970 just hours before his own mother, and Uncle Archie and Evy went missing in '74 the Wood family was no more.

Arthur slid into the empty spot next to Leon and June and asked the woman quietly, "Any idea where my clothes ran off to?"

"They miraculously found their way to me this afternoon so now they're already hanging to dry." She answered with a smile.

"Thank you." He said sincerely and glanced around the table. Everyone was either busy talking to the person next to them or subtly pretending to listen to their conversation. Nobody stood out however so out of desperation he turned back to her and asked, "Any idea who I need to thank for cleaning my boots?"

June held up her hands and briefly pressed her lips together before answering, "I'm sworn to silence."

Leon who had been listening leaned closer and whispered, "It's a conspiracy, Arthur. Run."

"I might…" Arthur mumbled jokingly before his father loudly cleared his throat to gain everyone's attention. The young man immediately snapped his mouth shut and turned his head back to the other side of the table. Apparently he had missed Tom and Olaf's entrance.

"Tom, Olaf, do you have an update on the electricity?" Uther asked. Meanwhile Lewis was already taking notes.

"Yes, well to summarize, everything that could go wrong is going wrong lately. Yesterday one of the fuses burned out, this morning a couple of light bulbs were broken and now Olaf an I discovered there's water damage by the generator." He summed up, "We fixed it, but we're running out of spare parts. A couple of more mishaps like these ones close to each other and we're out of electricity."

"It hasn't rained in days." Alan remarked.

"True, but it's probably from a source of ground water." Olaf suggested though Arthur knew the man was sceptical towards his own explanation. He agreed. If they had a large or small reservoir of water close by, they would have found it before now.

"Do we have enough fuel, candles and batteries if that scenario comes to pass?" Uther inquired.

"A week at most with regular use." Duncan immediately answered, "Used sparingly and only for necessities? Perhaps a month."

"We have some light sources that don't need any of those like the dynamo-torches or Tom's gravity lamps." Helen reminded everyone.

"There's an old power station a six day hike from here." Arthur stood up and pointed to it on the Map, "We never stripped it of all its equipment because it wasn't needed then. If Tom and Olaf could explain or even draw what we need we could go and get it before the lack of power becomes a problem." He proposed as he sat back down.

Gwaine suddenly made an odd noise, it sounded suspiciously like disagreement and before Arthur could asked what was so disagreeable about his suggestion he noticed that Leon was drumming his fingers nervously on the table. Arthur glanced at his friend quizzically.

"That might be a problem." Leon raised slowly.

"Did something happen to the place?" Tom asked worried. Clearly he had been counting on that solution. It was the only one that would solve their problem on a long-term basis after all which was why Arthur had proposed it.

"We never went that far." Mary admitted. There was something in her voice though that Arthur couldn't place. He was still not seeing what was wrong with his proposal however and said as much.

"Then I don't get the problem."

"Let's get to the crux of the matter and the reason for this impromptu meeting." Uther interrupted cutting Gwaine off before the man could say a thing, "Leon, if you could?"

"This is actually Gwaine's story to tell." The young man confessed. Instantly Arthur realised this was the reason why Rose was absent. Gwaine would have told half-truths to spare his mother and Rose had known this.

Arthur narrowed his eyes. It never took Gwaine this much coaxing to tell a story yet the man appeared very reluctant and struggled to gather his thoughts.

"So um-" Gwaine started hesitantly, "we just reached our haunt halfway between here and Bayard's camp…" He narrated how they proceeded on the scavenger hunt. Arthur drowned out most of the technicalities Gwaine was saying as he was familiar with how that group worked.

Instead Arthur studied Gwaine's expression. Earlier he hadn't really bothered for obvious reasons. But now, truth to be told, the man looked like he'd seen a ghost. To his left Leon wasn't looking that well either and further down the table James and Mary had gripped each other's hands in support.

"… I was just about to screw the lights out of the lorry when I saw it."

The young man paused again and Arthur felt his own uneasiness grow. Gwaine never ever minced his words like this.

"What did you see?" Gaius insisted gently.

"You all know that I draw Mr. Chad everywhere?" Gwaine asked and for a very brief moment his eyes twinkled mischievously. Yes, everybody knew that. Ever since he was a small child and listened to the stories about the Second World War, Gwaine had this strange fascination with drawing Mr. Chad, the bald-headed stencilled man with a prominent nose peeking over a wall.

And ever since he went out on scavenger hunts he drew it with charcoal or chalk on any flat surface near the place where he didn't find something and wrote "Wot, no cans?" or "Wot, no sugar?" underneath the drawing. Or he wrote "Kilroy was here" in the footsteps of unknown US soldiers. Soon though he had replaced Kilroy with his own name.

Now the lands around the Citadel, and the building itself, were hosts to at least hundred smaller and bigger drawings of the bald-headed man. Some even became landmarks. So again, yes everyone knew this. What Arthur wanted to know was why everyone seemed to be freaking out about a chalked drawing?

"I had drawn Mr. Chad on the rocky cliff years before and well…" Gwaine steeled himself before going on, "I looked up and there was a gigantic bloody X painted across him."

That had not been on Arthur's list of likely things to happen. In fact the full implication of this discovery had utterly silenced everyone even those who had known about it. It explained so much though: the eerie feeling he had felt since entering the Citadel, his father's strange mood and Leon's and Gaius' worry and relief. It even gave new meaning to Gwaine's threat earlier. Arthur looked contemplatively at his old friend wondering if in some bizarre and twisted way that hadn't been a threat but a sincere warning.

"Maybe someone was trying to communicate." Alex raised reasonably. He had always been the first one to calm down in a crisis. His pragmatic way of handling things was something he had undoubtedly inherited from either Alice or Gaius.

"Of course someone tried to communicate. I'm just not thrilled to go meet whoever paints bloody crosses over Mr. Chad." Gwaine shot back.

"It could've been paint." Arthur felt it necessary to back up the man he still called Uncle Alex in his head no matter how unlikely his suggestion might seem.

"It didn't look like paint!" Gwaine nearly yelled.

"I agree. It certainly wasn't red paint." Mary interjected before this escalated even more.

"I know our reaction might be considered over the top," James went on as he backed up his sister, "but this feels like a confirmation of something we've always known. Or at the very least always feared."

"What are you talking about, James?" Alex, the young man's father asked when his son didn't immediately continue.

Instead of answering directly though James gazed around the table and challenged, "If you never had the feeling out in the wild that you were being watched, please raise your hand."

It was both telling and chilling that nobody moved. Arthur looked down at his hands as they were placed flat on the table. There had been moments when the hairs on the back of his neck had suddenly rose without reason. When he would have sworn he saw something in the corner of his eye. When he turned to face it that something was nothing more than the wind playing with the rubble or even the fast shadows of birds flying over. Yet that feeling never fully passed.

"It could still be one of Bayard's or Annis' men?" Uther raised disturbing the growing silence.

"Annis' people live too far." Leon pointed out and grimaced briefly before going on, "And I don't want to cause any more worry, but when was the last time that we came across any of Bayard's men?"

"It's not exactly rare that we don't hear from them for months." Gwen told them. She tried to sound aloof and that was telling. Arthur could hear the worry in her voice and felt a stab of jealousy at her words.

Bayard's settlement was a seven day hike from the Citadel. It was built inside an old railway tunnel and used the various compartments of several trains as houses. It had been Tom and Gorlois who encountered the group in the winter of 1956 and ever since then both settlements have a tentative truce even friendship going on between them. Sometimes months and months passed though without seeing the other group. It was indeed not that rare.

"True, but we share some haunts as you know and par agreement everything used should be replaced after leaving. I know it's been more than a year since anyone else than us used the haunt under the Two Giants." Leon concluded.

The Two Giants were two massive rock formations. In truth they weren't that tall but the fact that they were standalone rocks created the feeling that they were looming over you. The wind had cut rough curves in them making them resemble actual giants more and more with every passing year. At the base of one of the giants was the entrance to a cave big enough to house five or six adults for a short time. Usually they left some food and firewood behind for emergency use.

"I went to Annis' settlement in November." Arthur reminded the assembly, "They were all well and never said anything about being watched."

"You never raised your hand either, Arthur. Nor did you voice those thoughts before now." James remarked cleverly.

"A fourth group we never heard about?" Rya raised coming to the inevitable conclusion like everyone else.

"Who makes itself know by painting bloody crosses? I agree with Gwaine, I don't want to meet them." Margaret finally spoke out for the first time since the start of the meeting, an occurrence so unusual that it was only surpassed by what she said. Margaret rarely agreed with anything Gwaine said.

It certainly gave Gwaine the little nudge he needed to continue, "After freaking out and getting back to base camp and freaking out some more because only Mary and Leon were there cause James was late..." He fixed the younger man with a glare that was so unconvincing Arthur wondered why the man had even tried.

At least Gwaine sounded a bit more like his old self as he went on after James' resigned and mumbled apology. No doubt the youngest of that scavenger group had been saying sorry ever since.

"So after showing the others the drawing and spending a really shitty night in the haunt we made a slight detour before travelling back. Two of the eight Mr. Chad's we passed were crossed out as well, the closest a mere four day hike from here."

And just when Arthur thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. He tried to put off imagining what this could mean for the future but that was very hard. Neither Annis' nor Bayard's group had ever been violent. Sure sometimes there were the expected tensions a lack of sleep could cause but that was it. Who would paint X's across harmless drawings? And he didn't doubt Mary's confirmation that it was in fact real blood.

He cleared his throat to garner attention as he pulled the cloth covered package out of his pocket. He felt Leon tense beside him and saw Morgana purse her lips together in the corner of his eye.

"We might have another problem as well." Arthur ventured carefully and unpacked the bloody cloth. "I know you won't believe me, hence the proof, but some gigantic slimy lizard beast tried to eat me a couple of days ago."

"Those are genuine teeth?" Alan asked as he and almost everyone else leaned forwards in their seats to get a better look. Arthur glanced up at his father who remained emotionless as expected.

"It was a beast I didn't recognise." The young man answered remaining ignorant of the complete shock Uther was still feeling. Arthur pulled a piece of paper and a pencil towards him, "I'll draw it so you know how it looks."

He roughly sketched the creature before passing it to Leon who passed it on to Elyan after inspecting it. This went smoothly until it reached his sister. Morgana viewed the drawing critically as if she was looking at a piece of art. She clicked her tongue.

"I'm impressed" She admitted and from her tone Arthur knew it wasn't a compliment, "Now everyone knows to keep a look out for the bizarre lovechild of a skinny camel and a crocodile with overlarge teeth."

A couple of people snorted at her comment including Leon, the traitor. Arthur glared half-heartedly at his sister as he gratefully realized that some of the tension in the room was draining away and quipped easily, "Who taught her biology?"

Morgana sighed in defeat and gestured Leon to pass her the pencil, "Let me."

She passed it on after making some alterations, though Arthur had been quite proud of his stick figure. When it reached Gaius the old man's eyebrows rose remarkably as he blurted out, "That looks like a Cockatrice."

"A what?", was Uther's unintelligent sounding question as he viewed the drawing himself. It was something out of a nightmare really. It looked like a dinosaur he once saw in a museum when he was a lot younger.

"Just a sudden insight." Gaius explained, "It's a legendary creature of magic."

"Magic?" Uther echoed passing the drawing to Lewis, "Are you suggesting that magical animals are roaming around England now?"

"It's just as likely as young men and women displaying gifts none of us can explain. There's a reason why Morgana could draw the beast so accurately or why my grandson tends to burn his tests when the answers allude him. Or why Freya can sense instantly if water is drinkable or not by just touching it." Gaius added, "I could go on."

"That's not necessary. Thank you, Gaius, magic exists. The world's gone crazy." Uther summarized bluntly, "We knew that, it just seems so…"

"Unnatural?" Morgana dared him. Uther had known about her gift for years ever since she came crying that wolves were going to attack. They did the next day. Even so his daughter sometimes acted like he would start to condemn her for her inexplicable ability.

"No, I was going for surreal."

"What happened exactly?" Tom steered the conversation back to Arthur.

"It attacked, I thrust my sword in its stomach." The young man narrated matter-of-factly. After doing that he had rolled out of the way just in time or the creature would have still killed him with its crushing weight. Arthur hadn't even thought about the unlikeliness of the attack until the beast was already dying at his feet.

Truth to be told it had felt rather exhilarating. And unbelievable once his brain had caught on to what he had done. That's why he didn't elaborate on the fact that he never froze not even when the creature barrelled him over with a speed that made both of them tumble down a rocky hill. Or that he managed to hold on to his sword when the beast launched at him again. He had felt agile, fast and focused.

It was only when he tried to pull his sword out, futilely since it was lodged deeply in the creature's spine, that he fully grasped how close to being mauled to death he had come. Now that realization had caused a minor panic attack.

"How big was it?" Percy asked suddenly as he'd been examining the sketch.

"It wouldn't fit through a door so about nine feet high and with its tail perhaps seventeen feet in length?" The young man estimated cautiously. Shocked gasps echoed through the chamber and Arthur tried very hard not to look at Gwen. Or Margaret. Or Alice. Or anyone else actually so he just stared at the Map awkwardly.

"You're lucky to be alive." Alex voiced out loud what everyone had been thinking.

"It looked starved so I'm guessing it was weakened already." Arthur tried to shrug some of that concern off which sort of backfired when Gaius remarked, "Which begs the question how such a large animal can feed itself."

Another deafening silence descended on the room.

In hindsight it was definitely for the best that the meeting was a closed one. In times like these Arthur wished he was years younger, wished he wouldn't have to carry the responsibilities of an adult just because he was one now. That he could just hide away in the library or on top of the watchtower making those wishes, like the naive child he was, on shooting stars. Neither of those wishes had come to pass after 1970.

But as he gazed around the table, at the anxious expressions of those he considered his friends, his family even, Arthur knew that he would do anything to make sure everything would be all right. No matter what was decided today, in that moment he vowed to get to the bottom of things. If Morgana and Alex, two of the bravest persons he knew looked this frightened, then he didn't want to imagine the reaction of the children.

Despite the size of the creature he wasn't too concerned about that. The fact that he had some time to process its improbable existence was no doubt part of the reason. Animals though were easy to decipher. Carnivores – like wolves and apparently now also gigantic lizard beasts – needed food and thus killed for it. He understood that. What the motivations were behind drawing large X's in blood was less comprehensible. That it's meaning was anything but benign was clear though. Even an idiot could see that.

So any thoughts? Suggestions?