Warning: serious whump ahead for our heroes.
Morgana was on the ground, stunned and winded as if her lungs had been compressed by some tremendous weight, but alive. Surely she wouldn't be so sore if she were dead. She also didn't think she had committed any misdeed grievous enough to warrant eternal damnation, but this couldn't be paradise - the air in paradise shouldn't smell so foul, and Merlin should be with her.
"Merlin," she mumbled. They had been together only a second ago, or so it seemed although she had a feeling she'd been unconscious for some not-inconsiderable time. "Merlin?"
A faint moan answered her. Ignoring her muscles' protests, Morgana forced herself onto her hands and knees and crawled the short distance to where her fiancé was slowly coming to. "Merlin, are you all right?"
"My head…feels like it was used as the clapper in a giant bell. Morgause must've given me a fairly severe concussion, and in retrospect I probably shouldn't have attempted a spell to get us home before my magic had had time to heal me. We aren't in Dagon, are we?"
"I don't know where we are, though from the stench in the air I think we must be near a bog."
"Bog?" Merlin slowly sat up and looked around. "Oh, damn."
"What?"
"I sent us to the edge of the Black Lagoon."
Morgana recalled Will and Freya mentioning it. "Isn't that the place rumored to be populated by unusually large leeches?"
"That's it," Merlin confirmed with a grim nod. "Giant leeches aren't even the worst of it. We need to move."
"Are you sure you can?"
"We'll have to go on foot since I don't think I should try another transportation spell yet, and walking might make my head hurt worse, but between headaches and being eaten by swamp monsters, I'll take the headache. On the bright side, at least we're out of Escetia. We won't have to worry about Morgause's army hunting us down."
The castle's collapse had probably killed a large number of her men, but even so Morgana had no doubt that Morgause would soon rally what remained of her forces - even ruling out the possibility of survivors, there was no way Escetia's entire army could have been inside the castle - and come looking for revenge. The sooner they returned home to raise the alarm and ensure the kingdom was prepared for Morgause's inevitable assault, the better. It soon became clear, however, that their journey home was going to be a slow one, at least until they left the Black Lagoon behind.
Traversing the huge swamp's border was hard work; the knotted roots of petrified trees resembling deformed skeletons protruded from the sunken earth, tripping them up, and the ground in between was pocked with miniature quicksand pits, which they discovered when Morgana stumbled into one. It swallowed her leg up to the knee almost before she realized she had strayed off solid ground. Merlin, who had been inspecting a clump of bushes, hurried back when she cried out, seized her under the armpits, and pulled until her leg came free with a sucking, slurping sound.
"Thank you," Morgana panted as they lay where they had fallen after their momentum sent them tumbling backward, catching their breath.
"Least I could do after you saved me from Morgause. I'm afraid the berries on those bushes are poisonous."
"And my shoe is gone."
"Not surprising when you wear such delicate little things. If you had a good pair of boots-"
Morgana slapped weakly at his shoulder. "Not another word about my shoes."
"Just so long as you don't expect me to carry you now." When she didn't answer, he raised himself onto an elbow so he could look her in the face and said, "Not that I wouldn't if you needed me to. You know I would, don't you?"
"I know, but I don't think you need to. I just need a moment before we start again, if we can afford to take a rest."
"Sure, we may as well stop for the night; soon it'll be too dark to make any more progress. Besides, there's no hurry…although, come to think of it, how long did you say Morgause had held us captive?"
"Nearly a month, I believe."
"Then it isn't that long till our wedding. I suppose we should try to make it home for that."
"We most certainly should - I wouldn't want that lovely dress your father commissioned for me to go to waste. …Uther will be there, though." Morgana's fists clenched at the thought of him. "He betrayed my father, slept with my mother - all those years of thinking her paramour must have been another sorcerer, and it was him - fathered Morgause, misled me into thinking having magic made me a monster… How can I look him in the eye and pretend I'm still his loving ward when all I want is to plunge my dagger into his black heart?"
Merlin took her hand, pried her fist open, and twined their fingers together. "You won't have to face him alone. I'll be with you, and I won't let you do anything regrettable."
Morgana looked over at him. "I don't think I would regret killing him," she whispered.
"You'd regret having to postpone the wedding while we dealt with the ramifications of his death, though, wouldn't you? Think of how long your dress would sit there… On the other hand, I'd get to put off wearing whatever Mistress Flora's constructed for me, so perhaps you should go ahead and kill Uther."
At last, unable to stop herself, Morgana reluctantly cracked a smile. "This is why I love you, Merlin. You can brighten even my darkest moments." She leaned closer, intending to pull him into a kiss, but to her surprise, his lips claimed hers first.
He was hesitant to begin with as he explored the way their mouths fit together, an exploration Morgana complicated with her impatient little whimpers and eager flicks of her tongue against his lower lip until he pulled back, holding her by the hair at the nape of her neck to prevent her from reattaching their lips. "Quit squirming, will you?"
His tone sent a wave of bone-melting heat through her; had she been standing, she suspected her knees would have gone weak. "Yes, my lord." After that, she let him kiss her the way he wanted. She would have preferred to be the one in control, but she could cede some of her control if that was what it took to make him kiss her at last. Besides, she quickly learned that Merlin taking the lead was not a bad thing - though as inexperienced as Morgana herself, he threw himself wholeheartedly into mastering this new skill, much like he would apply himself to learning a new spell. Best of all, this time there were no interruptions.
"That was perfect," Morgana sighed when the kiss finally ended. "I wish our first kiss could have been like that."
"It certainly would have been better without Morgause storming in to ruin things," Merlin agreed.
"Actually, that was our second kiss," Morgana corrected him. "I kissed you for the first time when I was trying to convince you to take the healing water I'd brought you and you insisted I was merely a hallucination…and, well, I'd heard that true love's kiss could be useful for breaking enchantments. You have no idea how relieved I am that it worked."
"Of course it worked. Kilgharrah was right - you're my destiny. I'm sorry I can't remember how you saved me, and then the second time was over so fast… I suppose we could count this as our first kiss, if you want."
"What I really want is for you to kiss me again, and again and again until I lose count altogether. But you needn't do it this very moment; after all, we have a lifetime for that." She curled up like a cat beside him, pressing close to lend him her warmth; it had become much chillier after the sun set, and while Merlin's magic helped somewhat in keeping his body temperature up, Morgana imagined he was missing his boots and shirt right now. Even fully dressed, she was colder than she would like. She knew she should get some sleep in preparation for continuing their trek as soon as it was light, but between the cold and the fact that they were lying on hard, bumpy ground, sleep eluded her.
"Merlin?" she whispered after several minutes of trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep. He squeezed her hand to indicate he was awake. "Do you remember any of what Morgause did to you?"
"No. The last thing I remember is her enchanting me, and then you breaking her spell. There's nothing in between. You don't think she made me do anything terrible while I was under her control, do you?"
"I don't know," Morgana unhappily admitted; the thought of all that time Merlin had spent as Morgause's puppet worried her more than she cared to acknowledge. "If she did, I want you to know I don't blame you for any of it. You weren't yourself, so you can't be held responsible for anything she made you do."
Merlin's arms tightened around her. "Thank you, Morgana." Still, worry continued gnawing at him, unassuaged by her assurances.
###
Three days later, they made it past the Black Lagoon and into the Forest Perilous, which as Morgana pointed out did not exactly sound encouraging. "The name isn't meant to be encouraging," Merlin replied, "it's meant to keep people out. This place is infested with wilddeoren, serkets, and all manner of nasty things - even the occasional griffin and Questing Beast, or so people say."
"And how likely are we to encounter these creatures?"
"Well, I'm almost positive we won't see a Questing Beast; they're only supposed to appear as omens of some cataclysmic upheaval. I suppose Morgause could cause that if she attacks Dagon and Camelot, but we already know about her, so we don't need an omen."
"Why do I feel like you just made that up?"
"Because I did." Seeing her apprehensive expression, Merlin said, "Lighten up, Morgana. At least we're away from the Black Lagoon, and we should be able to find some wood for a fire."
"A fire would be welcome indeed. Perhaps we can find some food as well." With no game animals and very few edible plants in the Black Lagoon's vicinity, they had barely eaten in four days. At first the hunger pangs were excruciating, but now Morgana merely felt like she had a hollow pit in her midsection. The lack of sustenance would have made them too weak to go on if not for their magic; unfortunately, using magic to sustain their bodies limited their ability to use it for other things, which was why they were still walking. Merlin still seemed to be suffering the effects of his concussion too, and although Morgana didn't want to say it, she was growing increasingly concerned about his condition.
They agreed that he would get a fire going while she hunted for food and water - after all, Merlin was known to be a terrible hunter, so Morgana figured that, while she hadn't been on many hunting trips, she could do better…or at least she couldn't do any worse. Her lack of weapons presented an additional challenge, but with some rocks and a simple levitation spell, she managed to kill two rabbits. And Arthur says girls can't hunt - ha! Now if only there were some water…
Forgetting Merlin's warning not to wander too far, she went on, reasoning that the forest couldn't survive without a water source somewhere. Suddenly she stopped cold, her ears straining to catch some barely registered sound…and there it was again, a dry skittering like pebbles rolling downhill, only something told her it wasn't anything so harmless as a few pebbles. Morgana stood frozen, staring toward where she thought the noise had originated until she made out large shapes moving among the trees. Then she ran, dropping her rabbits.
Merlin had built up an impressive campfire - he still had the magical energy to do that much - and was just beginning to consider going to look for Morgana, who seemed to have been gone too long, when she burst into the small clearing at a dead run, a look of utter terror on her face. "Merlin, there's something after me!" She joined him on the far side of the fire, and only then did she allow herself to turn around and look at her pursuers as they entered the circle of illumination cast by the flames. "Goddess, what are they?!"
"Serkets." The giant scorpions seemed wary of the fire, but Merlin doubted it would hold them off forever. "Morgana, can you climb trees?"
"I could when I was a little girl, before I became Uther's ward. He never let me-"
"Then do it!"
A serket scurried forward; at Merlin's command, the campfire reached out with eager tongues of flame and consumed it. This stirred the others, and they began advancing, their stingers ready to strike.
"Get up that tree, Morgana!"
"I won't leave you!"
"I'll be right behind you! Go!"
She scampered up the nearest tree, but before Merlin could follow, a pair of serkets leapt at him. This time the fire exploded in every direction; when Morgana looked down, she saw nothing but a raging inferno that seemed to have swallowed everything. "Merlin!" Her scream was drowned out by the roar of the flames and the shrieks of the burning monsters.
The firestorm extinguished itself as suddenly as it had begun, shrinking back to a merrily crackling campfire. The only signs that anything out of the ordinary had happened were the burned-out husks of the serkets' exoskeletons…one of them in the exact spot where she had last seen Merlin. Breathless with fear, Morgana clambered down from her perch, hardly even noticing the discomfort of landing on her blistered bare foot. The serket's burnt remains were flung out of her way as she approached, though she hadn't consciously unleashed her magic; underneath she found Merlin, miraculously unscathed.
"Merlin! Thank the Goddess you're all right!"
"You didn't think I'd let myself get burned by the fire I conjured, did you?" he asked with a weak laugh that turned into a yelp of pain when Morgana threw her arms around him.
"What's the matter? What hurts?"
An examination by the fire's light revealed a large, ugly wound in his right side, just below the ribcage. "It stung me," he muttered in a tone of dismayed disbelief. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed the hot, throbbing pain before now.
"It looks bad, but all it needs is a bandage," Morgana said bracingly. "I can tear strips off my shift…"
"Thanks, but the wound isn't the worst of it - it's the venom I'm worried about."
###
While Merlin and Morgana were being attacked by serkets, Gwen was crossing into Dagon from Escetia. Her journey had been somewhat easier than theirs; she'd found a horse that had escaped Morgause's stables when the walls came down, which let her travel faster, but she'd also had to dodge Escetian soldiers more than once. That should no longer be a problem now that she was over the border, though.
Gwen had just congratulated herself on completing the hardest part of her journey when an enormous cloud passed overhead, blocking out the stars, and her horse reared, throwing her, then ran off in a panic. Well, it looks like I'll be walking the rest of the way… What is that? Unless Gwen's eyes deceived her, the cloud was lowering, dropping from the sky.
As it descended, Gwen realized it wasn't a cloud at all - it was a silvery-gray dragon that happened to look a great deal like a moonlit cloud at a distance, and it was diving straight at her. Even though she now lived in a kingdom ruled by a man known for his ability to tame the creatures, Gwen had never seen a dragon and found herself transfixed by the sight. It was a fearsome beast to be sure, yet it had a certain majestic beauty as well; while Gwen's instincts told her to run for cover - becoming louder and more insistent when she glimpsed its teeth and claws - she couldn't tear her eyes off it long enough to find any.
She stood like a statue as the dragon landed directly in front of her, buffeting her with the gusts of air stirred by its wings. When at last it was still, a human figure slid down from its back and hurried toward her, calling her name. Gwen blinked, sure she must be imagining things, because there was no way that Arthur Pendragon had just swooped in on a real dragon. Then he was sweeping her up in his arms just like he had when they kissed on the Isle of the Blessed, and she knew it had to be real. "Arthur, how-? Where did you get a dragon?"
"Balinor sent them out to search for Merlin and Morgana after I told him they were outside the area we'd been covering on horseback, and I and some of the other knights insisted on going along; you wouldn't think so, but flying is actually quite enjoyable. In fact…well, I wouldn't say I like it, but I must admit that when it comes to traveling over long distances, magic speeds things up considerably. That High Priestess transported me from the Isle to Balinor's castle in the blink of an eye - surprisingly decent of her seeing as I don't think she liked me very much."
Gwen smiled. "I'm glad you're seeing a good side to magic." That should soften the blow of learning that Morgana had it.
"Don't tell my father."
"I wouldn't dream of it, sire."
"Good, now let's get you home."
"What about Morgana and Merlin? Have they been found?"
A troubled frown crossed Arthur's handsome face. "Not that I know of, but there are plenty of others searching for them in different places. They obviously aren't here, are they? Besides-" He wrinkled his nose at the smell of sweat and sewage that clung to her "-you really need a bath."
Hope you enjoyed the bonus Arwen scene! I was tempted to stop with Merlin getting poisoned by the serket - ouch - however, I wanted to give you something cheerful since the majority of the chapter is taken up with Mergana getting pummeled by the parts of Dagon that you wouldn't put on a tourist brochure. Plus I couldn't resist ending with Arthur telling Gwen she needs a bath. Dear, lovable Arthur… He really knows how to put the 'charm' in Prince Charming, doesn't he?