It is mid-morning now, they have been walking for a few hours. Merlin was starting to wonder why it was so hot, but then he remembered that is was summer. And summer meant sun. Lots and lots of sun.
The light was flickered all across the path in little patches because of the leaves on the trees. It was making him dizzy and at one point he had been watching the bright spots rather than where he was going and had walked into a tree. Moorgarna had laughed at this and he had thought about doing it again, but his forehead felt like someone had thrown a brick at it. Or a rock. Were rocks and bricks the same thing? He couldn't remember.
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Earlier this morning, Moorgarna had woken him up by poking him in the shoulder, which admittedly he wasn't very happy about. But it was good of her to wake him because he needed to keep walking and apparently so did she.
"I'm running away," Moorgarna had told him.
He had wanted to ask why and who she was running from, but he couldn't. He could only repeat things she'd said in the past 2 minutes or so and sometimes even that was a struggle.
"Running ahwaey?"
"A-way," she had corrected him and he had scowled. It wasn't his fault. "Yes, I'm trying to get revenge on the man who murdered my father."
His shoulders had slumped back against his tree. Why did she have to keep using such long, silly words?
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So now they were walking in an unknown direction to both of them. Moorgarna had said it was East and even though he thought she was making it up as she went along, he really had no choice not to follow her. Since their journey had begun, Moorgarna had used even more long, silly words which saddened him greatly because he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
He'd remembered the word though! Moorgarna was... pretty. And she had a nice laugh. The laughing bit was good because he was so clumsy that she was laughing and smiling every minute or so. This made him happy, too. The shallow scratches on his legs from the prickle bush he'd fallen into and the sting on his arm from the bumble bee he'd angered made the smiles and the giggles worthwhile. And if she really was running away, then she definitely needed cheering up.
"I'm boiling, are you?" Moorgarna asks him, fanning herself with a leaf to try and keep herself cool.
"Boiling," Merlin repeats with a nod.
"Do you know where we can get water? A stream, perhaps? We need to cool down, otherwise we'll get ill," she says, but all he hears is 'water' and 'stream'. So, he takes her hand in his and pulls her away from the main path they were following.
He was sure there was water nearby! He couldn't remember a lot, mainly only silly things, but some things, interesting things, like the river he'd seen a few days ago, he was fortunate enough to remember.
Moorgarna stumbles after him as he races away, pulling her with him and barely dodging the trees that stood in their way.
"Where are we going?" She yells at him as they flit through the greenery, her cape snagging on thing branches and sticks.
"Wahta!"
"You know where some is?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" He chants excitedly, and then abruptly stops running as he brings them both into a clearing.
It was just as he'd remembered it in his head. There is a thin, yet deep stream running through the middle of the clearing and there are tiny, white flowers embedded in the grass. Daisies. That's what the flowers were called!
Moorgarna follows him into the space between the between the infinite trees and sits down near the running water, dunking her hands into it. He sits down next to her and does the same, the surprisingly icy water shocking his hot skin as it swirls around his fingers.
He stares off into the woodland as he thinks to himself. There are so many things he wants to ask her, but can't. He wants to ask her about her father because she had said something about him this morning and he wanted to know more. He wanted to ask her where she came from and why wasn't the rest of her family out looking for her? It didn't make sense. Nothing did. He just wanted to know things, because at the moment he didn't know anything.
"Moorgarna..."
"What?"
"H-how... you... wh-why... urgh!" He pulls up a clump of grass and throws it into the stream out of frustration.
"It's okay," she reassures him gently.
But Merlin shakes his head and starts picking off blades of grass that had stuck to his wet hands. It was not okay at all. She was the only one who could have the conversations. They move back to sit in the shade of an oak tree, the leaves preventing the sun's rays from blasting their pale skin.
"Can we eat those?" Moorgarna asks him after a while, pointing at a bush with some light red berries on. He shrugs. "I mean, are they poisonous?"
He frowns and looks over at a different bush with dark red berries on it and then back at the one Moorgarna had pointed to. Someone - he didn't know who - had told him once told him about which berries were poisonous and which berries weren't. The trouble was, he couldn't remember if it was the light berries or the dark ones. His mind was all muddled and he just wasn't sure.
"Well?" Moorgarna interrupts his concentrated thought process. "Do you know?"
He stands from the tree and picks one of each fruit and then brings them back to her. He holds up the lighter berry, pretends to eat it and then draws his finger across his throat, pulling a face like someone had just sliced his head off. He does the same with the darker berry. And then shrugs.
"You don't know which one is poisonous?"
He grins at her and nods, secretly proud of both of her and himself. They made a good team.
"How are we going to find out then?"
Merlin offers her a hand and she stands with him. He picks one handful of dark red berries and motions for her to do the same with the light red ones. One they have around 20 or so, he walks a few metres away from the clearing and places his berries into a pile. She copies him, the piles about a foot away from each other.
"Now what?" Moorgarna asks him impatiently. "Do we just wait?"
He nods and she sighs.
"But I'm hungry!"
He doesn't use any communication and sits down in the shadows again and so does Moorgarna, next to him. She starts gathering twigs and daisies together in a small heap at her legs. She picks up one stick and bends it in half. It snaps. She throws the pieces into the stream and he sees them float away on the current.
She selects another twig and this one bends easily without snapping and she is able to pull it into a tight circle and then tie it into place with an aged reed. She does the same with another stick and entwines the two circles. She then pulls a stronger, fresher reed out of the soil by the stream and starts weaving it around the two stick shapes, binding them together. He watches, unknown to her, completely fascinated.
Two more reeds are dug out and wound around the sticks, making it thicker. Moorgarna then picks up some of the daisies and starts making a chain out of them. Once this task has been completed, the ring of flowers is then curled around the green band, with the ends tied together to hold it in place.
Moorgarna looks up and their eyes meet. "Why are you watching me?"
He feels his cheeks heat up and turns away – his fingernails were very interesting all of a sudden, the short, stubby ends catching his gaze. He sneaks a glance at her hands. They looked so much more delicate than his. They'd felt softer than his hands when he'd joined them to take her to the stream.
"Do you know how to make them?"
He eventually brings himself to shake his head.
"Do you want to make one?"
He wrinkles his nose up at her. Bracelets were for girls. But they had still had a little while longer to wait. And there was no-one around to see. So he nods and she hands a few twigs and reeds. The first two sticks snap, but the third one bends perfectly. The reeds tear in two and the petals fall off of the daisies, but he eventually gets there.
Moorgarna smiles as he hands her the wonky band, turning it over to inspect it. "It's good," she compliments and he grins. She tries to give it back to him but he pushes it towards her, sliding it down her wrist. "Thanks."
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, because that's the only reason I write this!
Next chapter will be from Morgana's perspective, kind of.
Please review! It makes me a very happy person! Thanks for the one review I got last chapter and for all of the follows and favourites!
Thank you all for reading!