Chapter 3: Ally (part 2)
"Get out. Everyone. Now."
More rumbling.
Ally looked up to see the two veiled knights manhandling a reluctant Mithian out the doorway to the corridor that passed the stable-chamber; the princess cast a glance of urgent entreaty over her shoulder. And then Gwen was at Ally's other side, her warm vitality making it possible for Ally's legs to obey, though stiffly and stumbling. Her fingers were cold and numb and she had to resist a ridiculous urge to giggle, of all things, and there was blood on Lancelot's face.
Because she stopped dead and turned to examine him fearfully – the chamber lit by sunlight reaching through a new crack somewhere high – all three of them were drawn to turn as Merlin stepped out of the other doorway.
Arms still spread. Every muscle taut – some drawn, some bunched – under the dirty-fine dark trousers and dusty forget-me-not blue shirt. He spoke spell-words again – hadn't enough breath – gasped and staggered back as the upper wall bulged… then exploded outward.
Ally clutched Lancelot, petrified. Great chunks of broken masonry tipped – crash-landed – cracked and tumbled.
Obscured the hearth.
Smashed the great round table to a crazily-canted position. Then chipped a great crescent out of the upward curve.
Merlin's table fell to kindling. Herbs and book-pages fluttered in the dust, in the settling sunlight.
Ruined. The ruins were ruined.
Ally couldn't breathe. Tears struggled to leave her eyes, descend her cheeks, as she watched Merlin's back and he stared at what remained of the hall.
But when he turned, in delayed degrees, she realized that it wasn't loss or disappointment on his dust-streaked face, but intent concern that the collapse was finished. Concern for them and their safety. And then she was blind with tears, and choked with weeping.
"Ally, are you hurt?" Gwen.
"What's wrong? Was she hit? I tried to –" Merlin.
Lancelot's breath warmed and filled her ear, spilled down her neck. "Ally?"
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Merlin, it was my fault, I tried to clear our way with the spell, we wanted to explore and see if you were –"
"Peace, cousin." Lancelot's hand cupped her elbow supportively, his other passed around the back of her waist, but Merlin's long arms wrapped her shoulders, gathering her in. "You're forgiven. But it's not your fault."
She couldn't stop crying, shaking his body at the same time. Someone stroked the tangles of her hair.
Lancelot said, "The egg?"
"Indestructible. I can find it anytime, don't worry about that. But there's blood on your –"
"Ally first. And then –"
"Just take her outside. I hope it's mostly shock. Maybe bruising, I couldn't… hold it all back."
If her feet touched the ground, she didn't notice. The bright, clear air overwhelmed and confused her, and she closed her eyes and turned in to Lancelot, refusing to let him go even as Merlin spoke lightly and calmly above her, and Gwen answered. Someone wiped a cool damp cloth over her face, and she was suddenly, inexplicably sleepy.
"Drink this."
Lancelot's instruction, so she obeyed. Two swallows of water, then three. From a skin, which had hung on someone's saddle, on the ride to… the picnic.
She blinked two last tears, and worry on Merlin's face cleared to an almost-grin. "Feel better?"
Instead of answering, she shifted to find herself curled on the ground between Lancelot's knees, supported by his arm as he knelt over her. She struggled to sit up on her own, to find an angle where she could see behind the ear on the left side of his head, where blood smeared the lobe and the side of his jaw, down his neck.
"Just bruises," she managed, in response to his worried frown. "Unless I'm bleeding somewhere?"
"You're not," Merlin reassured her. Lancelot cast him an unhappy frown, and her cousin addressed him as he reached to brush his fingers over her temple; she startled a bit at the touch. "This is yours."
At that, Ally squirmed around, away from her knight, and he allowed it. Merlin shuffled his crouch to face Lancelot, putting one knee down for stability as he refolded a cloth in his hand and reached for the water-skin to wet it again.
Lancelot obligingly tilted his head, granite-faced and not meeting Ally's eyes as Merlin's fingers lifted chainmail away from the side of his neck to begin sponging blood from his skin. Ally cringed and grimaced, clutching one of his hands in both of her own to convey encouragement and support. Nowhere near as bad as the arrow in his leg, she told herself, and couldn't bear to think of him so still and cool and pale in the bed of the guest chamber in Descalot.
As he still wasn't letting her see into his eyes, she looked past him – lifted her heels to prop herself higher, and looked between him and Merlin. They weren't far from the ruins. Which might appear slightly altered in the silhouette of the whole, but she ignored details.
Gwen and Mithian were seated side-by-side on a low, roughly-rectangular stone block, fallen and rolled – not today, though, by the rain-washed mossy surfaces, and grass growing around its sides. Mithian, the delicate gold sleeves of her dress ripped to her skin and dust showing in great smears on the butternut skirt – her neck bare of her gold-feather ornament – was watching Merlin tend Lancelot with an oddly intent detachment, but Gwen met Ally's gaze with a tremulous smile and nod. She was holding the princess' hand – or Mithian was holding her hand, maybe – while one of the guard-knights of Nemeth stood sentinel at Mithian's elbow, watching his lady closely. The other was behind Gwen, hands on his hips and facing the ruins as if unconvinced the rest wouldn't try to topple over on them.
"I'm sorry," Ally whispered. And in the grim stillness of sunlight and bird-call around the clearing, seemed to draw the attention of everyone but Mithian's knights. "It was that spell. I vanished the rock that was in our way, and I didn't know - I didn't think…"
"Ally," Merlin said, laying the cloth aside with his eyes still focused on the back of Lancelot's head, low to his neck. "It's all right. It was an accident, no one blames you."
"Yes, but you always say, be careful, and think about the consequences. Think twice," she emphasized his repeated instructions, privately resolving to make it thrice, hereafter.
"If I told you," Merlin said – slowly and absently, as he began to probe the area of the wound, and Lancelot flinched and closed his eyes, and Ally cringed internally again – "all of the times I wasn't careful… with magic or without… we'd be here til sunset."
He flashed her a wry-tired grin, and she sighed to believe her tutor and her cousin wasn't angry. But the next moment he looked at Lancelot, taking her knight by the wrist and beginning to lift his arm like he was still testing and diagnosing – and that worried her again. She wanted to get up and go behind them to see for herself, but didn't quite trust her legs yet.
"Does it hurt when you move this arm?" Merlin said to Lancelot.
"Mm. Not really, maybe a little," Lancelot answered quietly. Strain sounding through his habitual calm. "Mostly it just feels… too heavy to move. And numb."
Merlin lifted Lancelot's arm til his hand was above his head. "Keep this here when I let go," he instructed.
But when his hand left Lancelot's wrist, agony flashed across her knight's features, and his elbow buckled, pulling the hand down.
"Merlin?" Gwen said.
He shook his head, hand light on Lancelot's shoulder as he faced the other two girls. "It's almost stopped bleeding, this cut," he said to them. "But I'm afraid it's deeper than it looks – no, Ally, don't try to get up – and there's bruising, and it's so close to the bones of his spine."
"Gaius will be able to help," Ally said. Her mouth felt dry, but the thought of swallowing water made her stomach lurch. She repeated, to reassure herself as much as Lancelot, "Gaius will –"
Merlin looked back at her, and her heart dropped because… there wasn't certainty in his expression. His lips were pressed, his brows making a fine wrinkle between them, and his eyes. Her cousin could say more in one look than twenty of his rambling sentences, and what he was saying, with the dirt-smears on his skin and sweat-spiked curls turning the wrong way from his forehead, scared her.
"Use magic," she blurted. "It's allowed now. You're allowed now. Please?"
Merlin's lips thinned even more, briefly, as he considered Lancelot's wound. "Gaius' magic was never strong, and he's used it a handful of times in twenty-five years – he's only just now teaching me healing magic, and… Ally, I'm as much a beginner as you, in that. Probably far less talented, too."
"You're supposed to be very powerful," Mithian spoke up. Expressionless, like maybe she was nearly as rattled as Ally by their experience, but better trained and practiced at self-control.
"It's not a question of power," Merlin answered. "More, ability. Knowing what to do, and how to do it."
Mithian scooted forward a few inches on the stone, letting go of Gwen's hand to lean over her knees. "Try, Wel cene hole," she said, and Ally was surprised to understand the words; it meant she was learning, after all. "Your desire to help your friend should be enough to direct the result."
Merlin's eyebrows were up when he turned back, but he didn't question her advice. Only spread his fingers and palm a few inches from the back of Lancelot's head and neck, taking a moment to center himself. Ally, watching both men, saw that their eyes closed at the same moment – but Merlin's opened two heartbeats later, and flared that fascinating gold as he spoke the healing spell.
Slowly. Shifted his hand incrementally, and repeated it. Examined his work critically, as Ally's heart climbed further into her throat with every pulse.
"Wel cene hole," Merlin said again – sweetly and coaxingly.
And then smiled.
Ally collapsed into an unintentional lethargy of relief as the tension and energy worry had lent left her. Lancelot inhaled deeply as if testing the stretch of his skin, and smiled before opening his eyes. She wanted to fling herself into the circle of his arms, but settled for hugging his hand instead.
"Thank you," Lancelot told Merlin softly.
Merlin retrieved the water-skin and cloth, but made no move to rise. "Where did you learn that?" he said to Mithian, sounding tired. "Do you have magic?"
"No, but… The study of magic is allowed, where I come from," she answered.
"Really," Merlin said, but his voice lacked the energy to make it a question. "I'm sorry, I…" He shook his head like trying to clear it, rubbed at the corner of his eye with the base of his thumb. "Should have asked you sooner – are you all right?"
Mithian's nod dropped her gaze and her chin, so the braids holding back the disheveled ringlets of the rest of her deep-brown hair fell over her shoulders. But Gwen said determinedly, "You were limping. You said your leg hurt?"
"Just a scrape," Mithian protested.
Merlin shuffled forward. "I can have a look at it, if you like? Use that spell again, if you want me to?"
The princess lifted just her eyes, and Ally – her hand still securely in Lancelot's as they rested and breathed together – wondered to see her cousin's cheeks so pink.
"Or you may prefer to wait for Gaius…"
The knight who'd guarded against further collapse swung around with a scowl, and the other at Mithian's elbow began to object, "Your father –"
"Gather the horses, please," Mithian said, an unmistakable order that would brook no argument or delay.
The knights exchanged glances and moved away; Ally read reluctance in their bearing and movement, that she couldn't see in their chainmail-covered faces. Of course Merlin would never… but they didn't know that.
"I'll go find our mounts – and talk to them," Lancelot offered, and left her with a whispered, "Just rest."
He walked without so much as a waver; satisfied, Ally turned to watch Mithian lift the ripped, stained skirt of her once gorgeous dress, then the underskirt out of the way to reveal a pair of low black riding boots, now well-scuffed. The side of her stocking was marred by dirt and torn to show blood - that might not end at the top of her boot.
"I'm sorry," Merlin told her, reaching to ease her boot off her foot – the casual treatment of the intimate liberty reminding Ally that he used to be a manservant. Mithian only leaned back on her hands, brows lifted in watchful surprise. "I'm afraid my protection in that tunnel was late and incomplete… It doesn't look too bad, but it's hard to see with this still on?" He looked up expectantly, and Gwen scooted from the stone to a crouch next to Mithian.
"I'll help you," she said, reaching up under Mithian's skirt, to the top of the stocking, above the knee – of course, she had been a maidservant. Mithian winced – Gwen winced in sympathy – Merlin looked away, and the stocking was down to her ankle.
"Better take it off," Merlin advised. "You're probably not going to want to put it back on – unless you want me to try healing it?"
Mithian tipped her head slightly, studying him. "No, you don't have to."
"All right." Absently he pushed the material of her skirt higher, out of his way, his other hand already finding a clean section of the wet cloth.
Efficiently and gently he cleaned. Ally had seen him perform similar tasks half a dozen times, as Gaius' assistant; it was her opinion that he was going to be just as good a court physician as the old man, if not better. Eventually.
"No, it's not deep," he finally concluded. "Still bleeding a little, though, and Gaius has a solution he brews that does a better job cleaning and preventing infection than just water – I'll see to it that you have some when we… Oh, are you heading to Camelot?"
"Yes," Mithian said.
Gwen met Ally's eyes and her mouth twitched in a smile – belatedly Ally realized, they'd never actually introduced the two, and Merlin seemed to have forgotten the identity of the members of their planned party, if he'd ever been told exactly who he was supposed to meet.
"Okay, good. I'm just going to rip you a bandage from this ruffle, may I?"
"Oh no don't, use my –" Gwen began, her mirth dismayed, but it was too late.
Ally didn't know whether to laugh or sigh, watching her cousin separate the ruffle from the princess' underskirt. He folded it lengthwise with a deft flip, and began to wind it around Mithian's leg. Lancelot and the other two knights approached with the horses, as Merlin finished the bandage and tucked in the edges.
"Want to wear the boot?" he said. "You haven't injured the ankle at all?"
"Yes," she said. "And no. Thank you."
Merlin seemed only then to realize the presence of their mounts, twisting round to squint up at them even as his fingers fit the boot over Mithian's bare foot, easing it up over the bottom edge of the bandage.
"What about eating?" he asked – not as if he had presumed the picnic would carry on and he was surprised at the change of plans, but as if he meant to address the concern of their possible hunger, and sustenance.
Mithian huffed what Ally thought was an involuntary chuckle, very nearly a hysterical giggle, and gave Gwen a helpless shrug and a grimace of an apology. "We can have something after we return to the city?"
"Yes?" Gwen said, in the same quizzical way.
Lancelot reached down to help Ally rise; one of the knights was doing the same for Mithian.
"Your Highness," the stranger said, with frigid gravity behind his metal veil. "Allow me to assist you to your seat."
"Thank you," Mithian said, with a little smile, but her eyes were still on Merlin.
Who rose as she turned away to be lifted to her saddle between the two stranger-knights. Gwen stood also, a sympathetic-worried smile on her own face as she followed Merlin's pair of stumbled steps backward, stopped only by Lancelot's hand between his shoulder-blades.
"Highness," Merlin whispered dazedly to the three of them, more shocked now than he had been throughout the danger and recovery of the cave-in. "She's – that's –"
"Princess Mithian of Nemeth," Gwen said softly.
Merlin groaned, tipping his chin up slightly and closing his eyes. "Why didn't you – tell me, stop me?"
"I think you did fine," Gwen declared stoutly. Ally was sure she was wrong about the twinkle in her friend's dark eyes.
"Her father's going to want my head." Merlin looked at Gwen, turned past Ally to seek Lancelot's eyes. "Her father's going to ask Arthur for my head – and he might give it, if I've mucked up his treaty."
"Why?" Lancelot said blankly.
"No, he won't," Gwen said, more decisively, though Ally didn't know if she meant, King Arthur or King Rodor. "Even if there's bound to be more questions, the way you all look, she's nice, she won't complain about you saving her."
"Yes, but I…" Merlin swallowed, still holding Lancelot's gaze, as if pleading for understanding. "I touched her. When the corridor collapsed, I was… I was on top of her."
Lancelot looked down as if to hide a small involuntary smile, and a sensation of warmth chased a shiver down Ally's limbs to recall their own situation.
She said, "I'm sure Mithian preferred you, to a ton of rock."
"There you see?" Gwen said diplomatically, taking her reins from Lancelot's hand and turning to mount.
"Are you all right to ride back?" Lancelot asked Merlin, who shrugged glumly.
"I've got to saddle my mare. Our stable is fine, but she's probably thoroughly spooked. I should see if I can't find my jacket… Arthur said stocks if I managed to ruin another one… I'll be fine by the time I get back to Camelot, but after that…" He turned to Ally. "Are you all right to ride back?"
"I'll see to it," Lancelot promised.
Ally tried to smile and nod. Her hands were still shaking and her knees were still trembling, and she couldn't seem to make them stop, even though the danger was obviously past. Merlin shifted to move away, and as Lancelot turned to her, she stepped right up against him, clinging to the impersonal chainmail and wishing he wasn't wearing it.
He wound one arm around her waist and cupped her face in the other, cradling her close to murmur against her temple. "Oh, Ally."
There was no logical reason for it, but she found tears springing to her eyes again. "Lancelot. I thought – I thought… Please don't ever leave me. Not ever again."
"I promise," he said, gently disengaging from her and warming her with the smile in his dark eyes. "But I see only one way I can honorably keep that vow."
Tangling the remaining reins with her fingers, he slid to one knee at her feet. Which was disconcertingly all wrong. She should never look down to her knight, always up, she should not be the one in the position of authority.
"Marry me. Lady Alayna of Descalot, I would protect and love you, the rest of my life. However long I have, I want to give to you and spend with you."
Ally gaped, speechless.
She must have hit her head, too. She was hallucinating, hearing things –
A slight frown marred his perfect features, and he prompted, a little worriedly, "Marry me?"
"Oh," she said. "Are you sure? I mean, me? Are you – you're asking –"
Merlin – hadn't he walked away? guess not – murmured, "Stand up, Lancelot."
Her knight rose, and the equilibrium of her world righted. She leaned against him and felt the supporting circle of his arms around her back – safe, secure, no gaps in his warmth or devotion. He didn't look away from her, and she inhaled, a little panicky to suddenly contemplate marriage –
But Lancelot. Then would be hers.
"Are you sure?" she said again.
Someone called lightly, "Say yes, Lady Ally!" and it wasn't Gwen or Merlin.
"Never more certain in my life," Lancelot assured her, and so she knew it was true, but –
"Forever?" she ventured tentatively.
He pulled her close, leaning his cheek on her hair. "Or longer, if we can manage?"
She tipped her head up to see him again, but he was close, and already bending further still, and –
His lips. Those perfect, full, fascinating lips, that she couldn't help watching, sometimes, when he spoke. Were on hers.
What were her lips like? she wondered wildly, and couldn't answer. Had she ever paid particular attention when looking at herself in a mirror? Today, of course, now, she was a mess…
She didn't know what to do. But he didn't retreat, and his breath and the soft coaxing movement sent waves of relaxing warmth through her, and – she liked this, and – rose on tiptoes, lifting her arms around his neck, and –
Belatedly remembered their company.
She gasped into his mouth – he might've loosed the faintest groan – before they pulled back.
The heat in her face was nigh unbearable, to think that everyone had just seen. But his eyes were on her mouth and there was something in his expression that she'd never seen there before. That she'd put there, and so it was hers.
"Yes," she said, and cleared her throat. A flicker of confusion crossed his face, before it cleared into a quiet, steady sort of joy. "Yes, I will."
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
Three days later, when Ally stood with her knight at the bottom of the main courtyard stair for Nemeth's farewell, her legs still felt unsteady. Though this time, it was because the rest of her felt like she should float up in the air with the buoyant quality of her happiness.
Both her hands at Lancelot's elbow, because one could not wrap all the way around his upper arm, and he was hers to hold, now. He wasn't wearing chainmail, today, but a charcoal-velvet jacket that made him look like a lord's son.
And a smile, twice as often as before. Even when he wasn't looking at her.
"You're going to miss her?" he said softly.
Ally took her eyes from the scene everyone else was watching – the kings' leisurely leave-taking, while the princess to whom everyone could say honestly, come again anytime, was measuring length and breadth of the entire stair, saying personal goodbyes to over half the people assembled.
"Yes," she said honestly.
Because after the accident at the ruins, Ally had slept the afternoon away with the help of one of Gaius' potions, suggested by Gwen and administered by Merlin, who looked in need of one himself, returning almost an hour after the rest of the party. And afterwards, had kept close to her chamber, as shaky as she felt.
And because she had lots of time to spend with her newly-betrothed. She experienced fits of euphoric happiness followed by sharply-tangled questions of what-about-her-father. Lancelot promised it would be fine, but she sensed he wasn't sure, and had to hope that Arthur could settle things for both of them, as her knight also claimed.
There was still the insidious heavy dread that it was a mistake somehow that would have to be corrected, that it was a dream that wouldn't last. This morning, though, she found reason to hope that time and the love and presence of her knight would soothe that irrationality away with proof to the contrary.
Mithian spoke to the maid who'd been assigned to her for the duration of their stay, and squeezed her hand; Ally felt a twinge of guilt that she didn't even know the girl's name.
"They have been busy these last couple of days," Lancelot commented, without undue curiosity.
Because Mithian and her father and Arthur also had a marriage – or at least a betrothal – to decide upon.
Ally said, "Of course she'll be back…"
"Oh, are they coming to see the dragon hatched in the spring?" he said, looking back toward Rodor, a distinguished man with white hair and a face lined from years of ruling.
"Probably," Ally said vaguely. Because it wasn't common knowledge yet, that the princess might marry into Camelot.
She tried to decide whether the princess was spending more time saying farewell to any one of the young knights or lords than the others. She wasn't privy to Mithian's list, of course. Was Gwen, though?
Ally craned her neck to find her first and best girl friend, wondering if Arthur had confided in her, discussed with her. Gwen had mentioned yesterday in passing when she'd come to check on Ally's recovery, that Mithian had asked after the characters and attributes of several young men, since Gwen as a former servant might have different views and opinions than Mithian as a princess could form through observation. Ally was a relative newcomer, and her magic kept her less than social – which she was comfortable with, but it meant she'd have nothing to offer Mithian on the topic of her suitors, if she wasn't going to pass along Merlin's opinion on their attitudes about magic.
Gwen was standing with Gaius, and Merlin behind them, near the top of the stairs. Gaius' attention was focused on the two kings conversing at front and center, while Gwen was turned away from Ally's position, presumably watching Mithian also, now on the far side of the step and hidden by its curve.
A young boy appeared at the top of the stair, tumbling without hesitation for the ceremonial gathering down to Merlin, a boy with a fluff of fuzzy brown hair on the top of his head. Merlin bent to listen; Tobe clung to his sleeve to pass his message in confidence.
Uh oh, Ally thought.
Merlin nodded to Tobe, and leaned to speak surreptitiously to Gaius – who also nodded, and Merlin turned to ascend the stairs two at a time, following Tobe darting on ahead.
Nothing too important, Ally decided, or Gaius himself would have been sent for… or maybe it was the other sort of importance, for Merlin to go…
Either way, it was too bad he had to leave early. Ally watched Mithian arrive before Gaius and Gwen; she seemed to hesitate fractionally. Then the physician bowed, and the princess interrupted Gwen's curtsy to embrace her. When Mithian turned, she seemed to search the stair – then headed right for Ally and Lancelot, across and down.
"Highness." Lancelot bowed away from Ally's hand. "It was good to have you and your father here in Camelot. I hope you've enjoyed your visit."
"Oh, more than you know." Mithian smiled; Ally hoped, but didn't dare – and so she was gripping the sides of her skirt and dropping her eyes when the princess of Nemeth slipped arms around her shoulders to interrupt her curtsy. "Thank you for everything!" she whispered in Ally's ear.
"Thank you for coming," Ally contradicted honestly. "I hope you have a safe trip home, and…" She tried to think of something to say about the new baby – niece or nephew? which brother's child? and there was another one expected, wasn't there? – but her attention was caught by Mithian's necklace. Three golden wings laid end to end and fastened round her neck on the chain. "Your necklace! But I thought you'd lost it –"
"In the ruin, I know. I did." Mithian touched it, smiling happily. "It was my mother's – the pieces represent me and my two brothers. Merlin brought it back, that afternoon."
"He found it in the rubble?" Lancelot asked, with the barest touch of incredulity.
"Somehow. And then he said, he was at my disposal and my father's, for the remainder of our visit." Ally gasped, and Mithian rolled her eyes demonstratively, and Lancelot didn't understand.
"Why… is that unusual, Highness?"
"He was offering himself for any punishment we saw fit, because of what happened at the ruin." Mithian shook her head, her high cheekbones stained faintly pink. "Silly, really."
Ally saw on Lancelot's face that he might not take the word the way the princess meant. "Merlin is often, silly like that," she said softly.
"Mithian!" The princess turned, and the three of them saw King Rodor step away from Arthur, down to the courtyard where the veiled knights and the horses waited. Her father beckoned Mithian.
"Only, tell him I very much missed saying goodbye, and that I very much look forward to meeting again, here or in Nemeth, he's welcome to visit anytime, and…"
"Mithian!"
"Yes, that's all." The princess appeared flustered – spun away – turned back and offered a last smile, then flew down the rest of the steps in a flurry of white-lacy skirts.
The party of Nemeth mounted – the kings raised their hands in a last salute to a new ally – the horses were turned and clip-clopped through the barbicon.
Those left behind began to shift and murmur, and when Arthur turned to ascend the stairs, speaking to Leon with Orryn a respectful step behind, most moved away to resume regular duties.
Beside Ally, Lancelot sighed. "Well, my lady, now things can begin to return to normal."
"No," she said. There were letters to be written to her father, decisions and plans to be made, friends to tell and gossip with. She gave Lancelot all her happiness and excitement in a smile. "Things will never be normal again!"
A/N: End of part the first. I hope the disconnect between the end of one part and the beginning of the next will be slight, and not confusing. A bit of time passing, but not much.