And though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our
Bodies safe to shore
Merlin and Michael walk through walls and closed doors and people and things until they finally reach the room with the locked door. He looks around for the younger blonde girl, who he eventually sees sitting in the corner with a short, scrawny boy with a mop head of curly, light brown hair who couldn't be any older than fourteen. The boy looks up when he realizes he and Orion have company, and he smiles weakly at the two of them, hazel eyes dull and tired.
"This is Lander," Orion says, getting to her feet and approaching the two of them. "He lived in the lower town."
"How'd he get here?" Michael asks, raising an eyebrow at the black-haired boy who's watching them a bit nervously.
"Drowned, by the looks of him. Probably slipped and hit his head near a lake. Not the most noble death," Orion whispers back and Merlin raises an eyebrow at the boy.
"How can you tell?"
Orion looks over at Lander, then shrugs. "Don't know. It's just a thing you pick up, you just know. Hard to explain."
Merlin nods slowly, narrowing his eyes at Lander who shuffles in his chair awkwardly. "He looks scared."
"He's dead. You can't expect him to be completely comfortable with the situation," Michael snaps back at Merlin, who gives him an ironically shocked look. Michael deliberately ignores this, and Merlin watches as the younger boy approaches Lander slowly. "I'm Michael."
"Lander," the boy says after swallowing a lump in his throat. Orion walks to stand beside Merlin and they watch as Michael attempts to talk to the clearly terrified boy.
"I know that. You drowned, right?" Michael asks and Lander nods slowly, eyes wide as he stares up at the older boy in front of him. "Sorry. But hey, good news is that you're not all dead. Just half-dead."
Lander's eyes widen at this and his jaw drops a bit, staring up at Michael in what looks like shock. And then, to the surprise of everyone in the room, Michael lunges forward and pulls the shoulder of Lander's top down, revealing a black Druid symbol on his shoulder. "Druid, huh? That's what I thought. Why didn't you think that was important?"
"I-"
"You didn't give him much of a chance to say it," Orion says, cutting off Lander before he can say anything else.
Michael doesn't answer directly, just shoots a glare at her over his shoulder.
"What's a Druid doing living in the lower towns of Camelot?" Merlin asks the younger boy, who bites his lip a bit nervously. "Magic is banned here. So why are you living here?"
"I could ask you the same, Emrys," Lander says, finally making out a full sentence and, to Merlin's surprise, the boy's voice is a lot deeper than he'd expected. "My mother warned me about you."
"I thought Emrys was a high figure for the Druids?" Merlin tilts his head to the side a bit in confusion, and Lander shakes his head.
"Not you. Him."
Michael sits up quickly, looking almost nervous as Lander stares at him through narrowed eyes. "Why me? What do I have to do with anything?"
"The time traveling Druid boy. If they knew you were still stumbling around they'd more than likely go insane."
"Best they don't find out, then," Michael says flatly, pulling himself to his feet and walking over to Merlin and Orion. He stops with his shoulder touching Merlin's and leans towards him, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Keep an eye on him. Don't let him escape. I'll work on binding him here."
Merlin watches as Michael sends a glare at Lander before disappearing through the wall.
"Druid, then," Merlin nods and Lander, who's apparently gone back into his silent state sitting back in his chair. "Orion? You, too?"
She looks up at him and shakes her head, almost sadly. "No. Just a regular mortal. I thought I'd finally gotten one of my own," she laughs once, nodding in Lander's direction.
"Well, maybe someone else will die soon and you can have a dead friend of your kind," Merlin smiles at her, despite the darkness of the joke. Orion doesn't seem to notice or care because she grins up at him before turning her attention back to Lander.
"What was Michael so concerned about?" Merlin asks after a very long awkward silence, and Orion shrugs and shakes her head.
"Hell if I know. He gets that way sometimes."
"How much do you know about him?" Merlin asks, not really concerned about Lander overhearing because the boy has completely zoned out into his own world, and Merlin suspects he's got a bit of a mental problem, but he ignores it.
Orion keeps her eyes trained on Lander as if he'll disappear if she even blinks, which she hasn't in while. Merlin realizes he doesn't need to blink, either. He's just been doing it out of habit. The same seems true with breathing, too. "Michael?" She asks, and when Merlin nods, she sighs and shuffles her feet awkwardly. "Not much. He doesn't really talk much about his past. It took me forever to find out that he had magic. The other one, the fourth- well, fifth now- was about to kill me. Like, kill me kill me. Michael saved me with his magic. That's how I met him."
"Kill you? Weren't you already dead, though?" Merlin questions, and Orion nods.
"Yes. Well, we're sort of in a middle-world. Not quite dead but not quite alive. Heaven is the next step, but if you die here, in our state, you just die. No afterlife, no eternal happiness, nothing. Most people call it hell."
"And... The fifth one?" Merlin asks nervously, not sure what sort of reaction this will surface, but Orion only sighs a bit sadly.
"Not something you should be asking me about. Ask Michael if you want to find out about her."
Merlin leaves her alone after that, her clearly wanting silence and him willing to give it to her. He has a lot to think about, anyway.
The next time Merlin sees Michael is a few days later. He's about forgotten looking for him, instead has taken to sticking by Arthur to make sure the idiot doesn't get himself killed trying to do Merlin's daily duties.
It's not like he can do anything about it, though. No matter how hard he tries, the only things he finds he can move is the other people in the half-dead (or whole-dead) world. He can't move people or objects or incant spells on things in the living world.
This proves to be a bit of a problem, because Merlin never really noticed just how much trouble Arthur tends to get himself into. Of course he knew Arthur was under a constant threat, but it never occurred to him how much threats came the prince's way.
Arthur's lucky he lived through Cedric's ridiculously idiotic spiel through Camelot. It had been Morgana who'd eventually realized that it had been Cedric who'd taken the crystal from the vaults, and somehow they'd managed to get Cornelius Sigan's soul back in it- after a bit of a scare that involved possession of Arthur's body by Sigan himself.
Gaius, Morgana and Gwen had searched through every book in the library for any kind of exorcism that could help them. Merlin only helped a bit at the end. Arthur's lucky that the man was dead, though, or else who knows what would have happened to him. If Sigan had been alive and somehow managed to take Arthur for a walk, the spell that Gaius and the girls had found wouldn't have had any more effect than it did this time, and Merlin wouldn't be able to do anything about it, either.
He's also been keeping a close eye on Morgana. The girl's dreams had gotten much worse despite the even stronger sleeping draughts Gaius had given her, and as Merlin sits cross-legged on the dresser thing at the end of her bed, chin resting on his clasped hands, he mulls over all the factors in his mind. Morgana's dreams had come true before, like when the Sidhe Sophia and her father had came and enchanted Arthur. Morgana had claimed to have dreamt about them before they arrived in Camelot, but nobody had believed her, and then again when Arthur went after the questing beast. She'd dreamt of his death then, which had almost come true. Now sitting here with lightning crashing outside, watching helplessly as the king's ward kicked and thrashed and muttered mostly unintelligible words apart from the occasional "Arthur," and even Merlin's own name, he wonders if they should have been more concerned about Morgana's nightmares.
Merlin's heart skins to his feet when Morgana breathes "Mordred." He sits up quickly, almost falling backwards off the dresser. Why Mordred? One would think he'd be smart enough to not come back to Camelot after he was almost executed the last time.
Suddenly Morgana jolts up in her bed, looking around her room and Merlin jumps as the girl's eyes go from their usual blue to a bright gold. He scrambles to his feet and turns around to see the candle in the corner of Morgana's room growing until it reaches the curtains and before he can think about what's happening, the entire room is surrounded in flames and Morgana is screaming in her bed behind him.
"Get out!" He yells at her, not really realizing she can't hear him. It was an impulsive reaction. Morgana's head whips around and it seems like her eyes focus on him, and her lips move to form an "M" just as the door flies open and Arthur rushes in, taking a look around the room then running toward Morgana. He grabs her and pulls her out of the bed and drags her out of the room, her staring back at Merlin in shock the entire time.
Merlin's left standing just as shocked in the middle of the flames that don't particularly bother him that much. It's a bit hot, sure, but not nearly as hot as it should be. He's not breathing in the smoke, either. He doesn't need to breathe.
He quickly snaps back into the world around him, running out after Arthur and following him down the hallway until they reach Gaius' chambers. "There's a fire!" Arthur yells, waking Gaius up. The old man sits up in his bed, looking around in confusion.
"What?"
"Morgana's room is burning, take her, I'll deal with the fire," Arthur says urgently, setting Morgana down as gently as seemingly possible before rushing out of the room.
"Morgana," Merlin whispers, taking a step towards her. He's not entirely sure if he's expecting a reaction, but he can't help feeling a bit disappointed when she doesn't look over at him.
"What happened, my Lady?" Gaius asks Morgana, grabbing whatever medical thing he needs. She's not burnt or anything, she just looks terribly shocked.
"I don't know. The candle, it wasn't even lit. I woke up and I looked at it, and it just... Lit up."
Gaius hesitates for a moment, looking a bit stumped, but he only shakes his head. "I'm sure it was lit, you were just seeing hallucinations because of the shock."
"But I wasn't. I lit the candle, I know I did," Morgana says in a bit of a choked tone, and Gaius sighs as if he's about to go into some long spiel. "Don't try and tell me that it's not what we both know it is," Morgana warns him and he slams his jaws closed, and it's silent for a while.
"You could see me," Merlin says, kneeling next to where Morgana is sitting. "You could. You looked right at me. How is that possible?"
"Oh, and Gaius?"
Gaius looks up from what he's doing at Morgana, who's face is a mask to hide the fear she's so clearly feeling. "Yes?"
"The candle wasn't the only thing I saw. When the room was burning, I looked to the corner of the room and... He was there."
Gaius looks as though he already knows the answer to the question he wants to ask, but he asks it anyway. "Who was there?"
Morgana's expression is stone-hard as she looks back at the old man and says what Merlin is both excited for and dreading.
"Merlin."
so this is interesting
morgana can see merlin hmm how does that work
but yeah the next chapter features some events from the beginning of the end but im skipping the once and future queen because that episode's plot really doesnt fit in with my plot line sorry guys and girls
also i am going episode by episode but only really the outlines like the episodes really wont be anything like these chapters theyre just outlines
but yeah next chapter will be up soon massive thank you to all my reviewers, im so glad you all like it and i love talking to you guys and getting your feelings on this i hope it lives up to your expectations!
-notreallymagical