Alaia Skyhawk: Opps, almost forgoet to put an note up here again, even if it's only to comment that I forgot on the previous chapter XD
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
Music: N/A
"Whom History Won't Remember" Episode: N/A
~(-)~
Chapter 38: The Gates of Avalon ~Part 2~
It was a shaken and frustrated young woman who strode into her guest room, the time being barely past midday. It had gone completely wrong. She had been so close, so close... Had it not been for those soldiers searching the woods, who had mistakenly fired in hers and Arthur's direction.
Sophia's father noted her entrance, frowning a little in surprise.
"You've not been gone as long as I expected."
She stopped in her tracks, frowning as well.
"We were interrupted."
"What happened?"
She turned to face him, a look of confused fear in her eyes.
"I was nearly killed. For a moment, I felt what it would be like to die a mortal death." Her expression changed to anger, as she almost spat the rest of her words. "He saved me. Someone so weak, so feeble, saved me! I can't bear to be like this a moment longer!"
Aulfric approached his daughter, speaking in both comfort and ambition.
"You won't have to. Once his heart is yours, the gates of Avalon will open once again for us and we can regain our true form."
"I need a little more time."
Aulfric's expression now became warning.
"You must hurry. The physician can see us for what we truly are."
Sophia snorted softly.
"Then he is not alone... The Lady Morgana confronted me. She fears her powers, but that will not keep her quiet for long."
"Tomorrow, you have to finish the enchantment, otherwise our chance to rid us of these mortal shells will be lost forever."
Father and daughter regarded each other for a long moment, before Sophia responded with a determined nod.
~(-)~
Elsewhere in the castle, later that evening, Morgana was already attempting to thwart them. Speaking to the king might have been out of the question, but perhaps speaking to Arthur might prove more fruitful. Or at least that had been the plan, until after admitting to him she'd had a dream he was in danger, he'd laughed her out of his chambers thinking her to be jealous, yes jealous, of the attention he was giving Sophia. The nerve of him!
She stormed into her chambers, practically slamming the door behind her much to Gwen's startlement.
"He is the utter limit! Could his ego get any bigger?"
Gwen approached her, hands clasped anxiously.
"I take it, it didn't go very well."
Morgana turned to her, sighing and shaking her head.
"It was a complete waste of time. He laughed at me, and is now convinced that I'm Sophia's jealous rival."
Gwen winced in sympathy.
"But what can you do now?"
Morgana sat at her dressing table, picking up a brush and running it through her hair in a half-hearted attempt to calm herself.
"I don't know. Gaius just thinks it's all bad dreams, nothing to worry about. Arthur thinks I'm jealous. And I can't tell Uther, because it might get me executed." She put down the brush, lost. "Am I really just deluding myself? Do you think I could just be going crazy, and that this is all some sort of mad hallucination?"
"Don't think like that!" Gwen hurried over to her, picking up the brush and resuming what Morgana had started. "There's something about them that I don't like either. I've seen Sophia, flattering him, going out of her way to get his attention." She lowered her voice a little. "It's the talk of the servants. Merlin may have covered for Arthur today, but anyone who knows him well knows he got himself put in the stocks on purpose. Sophia is up to something, and he's a blind to it as Arthur is. Merlin just seems to think Arthur's infatuation with her is funny."
Morgana regarded her from the reflection in the mirror.
"And that surprises me... He's normally a lot sharper than that, not that Arthur would know it. Have you tried talking to him?"
Gwen shook her head.
"I haven't had the chance. He spent the entire morning in the stocks, and the rest of today scrambling around to get all his chores done because of that."
Morgana sighed.
"Try and speak to him tomorrow if you can. Maybe he can talk some sense into Arthur, since our prince seems more inclined to listen to his servant than he will to me."
~(-)~
It was with a great deal of bemusement that Gwen stood there the following morning, watching as Merlin was pelted with rotten vegetables for the second day in a row. This was getting beyond a joke, especially when she needed to talk to him.
The maid waited until the current batch of throwers left, before walking up to the stocks and standing there with her hands on her hips in disapproval.
"What did you do this time?"
Merlin grimaced, although not at the question. No, he was spitting out a piece of mildewed turnip that had managed to find it's way into his mouth. That done, he answered her with a grin.
"I um... Forgot to tell Arthur he was supposed to be at the knighting ceremony this morning."
She folded her arms across her chest, not fooled.
"I don't think so, Merlin, and we both know it. You covered for him going off with Sophia yesterday, and you're doing it again today. This isn't right, he's taking advantage of you."
Merlin sighed.
"Look, I'm just doing this as a friend, and while he won't admit it to my face I know for a fact that somewhere in that oversized ego of his he sees me as one too. He's met a girl, he's become smitten with her, and by the end of the week chances are he'll forget her or she'll dump him. I'm hoping for the latter, because then I can tease him."
He was grinning by this point, Gwen shaking her head at his attitude.
"Look, whatever your reasons, when you get out of the stocks and get cleaned up, come find me. There's something important we need to talk about."
Merlin nodded, or as best he could with his head in the stocks.
"Sure, I'll do that."
She turned to go, before pausing to glance back.
"When do you get let out?"
"Mid afternoon... Uther added two hours to the time because it was the second day in a row I'd messed up. If I mess up again, well..."
Gwen shook her head again and walked off, leaving him to his fate of flying vegetables while she went to report back to Morgana.
~(-)~
The physician looked up from the book he was reading, as his ward walked into the chambers once again splattered with stinking sludge and pulp. He sighed at the sight, shaking his head.
"Not again, Merlin, surely."
The warlock was looking similarly unimpressed, although for a different reason.
"You would think the appeal of pelting the same person with fruit would wear off after a while, but oh no."
Gaius raised his eyebrows a little, as Merlin proceeded to fill a basin with water from the barrel by the door and rinse the gunk out of his hair.
"I heard that Arthur wasn't at the knighting ceremony."
Merlin grinned.
"Yeah. He wanted to make the most of his time left with Sophia."
A note of slight disapproval.
"So you helped him?"
"I'm his servant, I had to."
"...You shouldn't have done that, Merlin." There was something in his tone that made the warlock look up and listen. "I fear that Sophia may not be all that she seems."
Merlin frowned slightly.
"Why?"
Gaius rose from his chair.
"What do you know about seers?"
Merlin shrugged.
"Not much. They're supposed to be able to see the future, like prophets."
"It's said to be an innate ability. Those who have it are born that way. Some aren't even aware that what they see is the future. It comes to them in their dreams."
Gaius had now settled on a bench much closer to his ward, Merlin frowning once again.
"What's this got to do with Sophia?"
"The night before she and Aulfric came to Camelot, Morgana had a dream... Sophia was in it."
Merlin's eyebrows immediately rose in surprise.
"Before she arrived in Camelot?"
Gaius nodded, his tone serious.
"I've been watching Morgana since she was very young. And though I tried to persuade myself otherwise, I realised that some of the things she said she'd dreamt came to pass." Merlin came over and sat beside him, attentive as he continued. "I kept it secret from Uther, of course. The gift of prophecy is too close to the work of magic."
Merlin stared at him.
"You think Morgana is a seer?"
Gaius looked grim.
"I don't think it. I fear it... Morgana said she dreamt that Sophia killed Arthur."
"Couldn't that have just been a dream? Maybe the woman Morgana saw just looked like Sophia."
Gaius shook his head.
"That's what I hoped. But Aulfric caught me in his room and, in a flash of anger... his eyes changed colour."
Merlin was now equally concerned.
"Who are they?"
"It's not who they are that worries me... It's what they want with Arthur."
~(-)~
He sat there on the edge of the bed, eyes distant as though in a trance or deep in thought. That was how he'd returned to the city with her, and even now she wove her web of enchantment ever tighter around him.
"Our love is strong. You feel the same way too? If we were ever to be parted..."
"I'd never let that happen..."
Arthur stared into her eyes, Sophia intent upon him, her voice soft as she lured him ever deeper beneath her influence.
"You may not have the choice... There are some here who don't want us to be together."
"I'd never let them come between us."
"Because we are in love."
"Because we are in love."
She smiled.
"You must seek permission for us to marry. So that we can be together."
He continued to gaze at her.
"Til death do us part."
She placed a kiss upon his lips, before standing back and murmuring.
"Tuce hwon frec ure, Arthur." Her eyes glowed red as she cast the spell, Arthur's doing likewise as it took hold. And then she stood straight and regarded him haughtily. "...Til death do us part..." She headed for the door, opening it to reveal her father pacing outside, answering his unspoken question. "He's ready. Tomorrow he'll do what we need him to."
Aulfric looked relieved.
"Good, you have done well. I must go to the elders."
Unbeknownst to them both, Merlin had been just around the corner, waiting to see if the agitated Aulfric had a reason for hanging around outside Arthur's rooms. It turned out that he did, and it didn't sound good. He waited until Sophia had closed the door again, before following Aulfric out of the castle, out of the city to the woods beyond.
He clearly wasn't expecting to be followed, not at this late hour and not when he was an honoured guest of Uther's. He walked for the better part of two hours through the woods, along trails Merlin was unfamiliar with, and yet he seemed to be homing in on a certain place. That place turned out to be a small lake to the west of Camelot, surrounded right up to it's edges by trees, with the White Mountains barely visible in the distance beyond it, moonlight cast upon their slopes.
Aulfric stopped on the narrow section of shoreline, where a curve of pebbles kept it clear. His voice rang out through the darkness.
"I seek an audience with the Sidhe Elders! Dotiag-sa ar idbairt do denam!"
There was a sudden glow from beneath the waters, serene blue and unearthly. Tiny glowing lights shot up from the waters, flitting about the air too fast to see clearly. That was when Merlin noted the now oddly jerky movements of Aulfric, and being a user of a similar technique himself he recognised it for what it was. Whatever those lights were, your time needed to move faster to be able to see them.
He took a deep breath, deciding to use something he'd been practicing lately. Gaius had managed to provide him with a transcript of the lengthy spell used by other sorcerers in the past to slow time, and he'd then set about reversing it to speed up his own in a fashion that didn't make him sick. Downside was, unlike when he sped his time his usual way, with this he couldn't move more than a single step or he'd break it. But right now, he wasn't about to move, he wanted to stand and listen.
"Se folde hit slaweth, se gethyl hit slaweth, se eorth hit slaweth. Hit sy astille, astille und suge... Aet me lec se folde slaweth, for ic beo fleotig..."
The world it slows, the wind it slows, the earth it slows. It is still, still and silent... To my eyes the world slows, for I am swift...
Everything did just that, the branches waving in the wind, the ripples of the lake's water, everything taking on that eerie hush that comes when time's flow changes. Only Aulfric and the glowing lights now moved at what seemed a normal speed, revealing them to be tiny blue figures in various robes. He was entranced at first by the sight of them, fluttering on iridescent wings like those of a dragonfly, but the conversation to come soon revealed these were no friendly fairies.
Aulfric called out to them.
"I come before you to plead for the chance to win passage back to Avalon and a life of immortality!"
One of the fairies approached him, hovering there, his damning words clear to Merlin despite the distance to his hiding place.
"Your punishment for killing another sidhe is a mortal body and a mortal life. You will never be able to return to Avalon."
Aulfric's tone was pleading.
"The crime was mine, not my daughter's."
"The gates of Avalon remain closed to your daughter. Unless the soul of a mortal prince be offered up to them."
Merlin twitched, forced to fight to hold his spell when the movement almost made him lose his balance behind the tree... They wanted what?
Aulfric clearly didn't have a problem with it.
"Thank you. An immortal life for my daughter is all that I desire, so I promise you the soul of the greatest prince of all. Arthur Pendragon!"
That was all Merlin needed to hear, as he broke his spell and turned to get a short head start on the man, enough that he could start running for Camelot without fear that Aulfric would hear him seeing as the man was laughing maniacally at present... He had to get back to Gaius.
~(-)~
"Avalon! What you saw at the lake, it's Avalon! It must be!"
Gaius looked utterly astounded, Merlin having roused him at dawn after grabbing a bare couple of hours' sleep himself. But of course Merlin had utterly no clue why what he'd seen was so special.
"What's Avalon?"
Gaius was still in a state of shock.
"The land of eternal youth. Mortals are only supposed to glimpse it the moment before death!"
Merlin blinked.
"But I've seen it and I'm still here."
"Extraordinary... What did it look like?"
Ok, that was enough of that. Merlin decided that they should get to the point.
"Does it matter? They're going to sacrifice Arthur, and we don't even know who they are yet."
Gaius, jolted back to the matter at hand, hurried to a book he'd been reading last night.
"We do now. I found writing like this at the top of Aulfric's staff. It's Orcan, an ancient script. It means 'to hold life and death in your hands'. With the writing on his staff and what you saw at the lake, I'm afraid I'm now certain... We're dealing with the Sidhe."
Merlin regarded him warily.
"That does not sound like a good thing."
"They're masters of enchantment."
"You think Arthur's been enchanted?"
Gaius nodded.
"Almost certainly... I'm afraid Morgana's dream is coming true."
~(-)~
Alaia Skyhawk: Yeah, I gave Merlin another way to speed his time up to fill the tiny plothole I created with my Merlin!Wump. Having him puke his guts out after listening to that scene wouldn't have worked too well lol. But, like I said in the scene, when he uses the alternative and rather long-winded spell, he can't walk about afterwards or he'll break it. Hehehe :)
Oh, and I hope you liked the two scenes I added :D