Chapter 2: Genius Loci

Mordred strode into the palace stables deep in thought. His audience with the grieving father of the latest, youngest victim of the attacks on Druids living on the outskirts plagued his mind. That wasn't all. Mordred spared a distracted glance toward the dark distortions enshrouding most of his right arm. Tiny, hazy tendrils were beginning to creep towards his upper torso. The more it spread, the less he felt; the less he felt, the more Mordred craved the feelings of others. Such forbidden contact risked spreading this strange infection to other minds, and their pain and fear seemed only to feed his illness. Mordred feared that he couldn't stop.

"Your Highness, I never expected to see you down here," a familiar posh-sounding tenor greeted him with only the subtlest hint of tension.

"Patrick," Mordred returned. "How fortuitous, you are the one I am here to see."

The disgraced knight looked from the recently crowned Prince to Sir Leon waiting a few paces behind his right shoulder.

"You want to see me again. So, exactly how concerned should I be?" Patrick digested, posing his question to the stern-looking Head Knight rather than his past rival.

"Continue to address your Regent in such a disrespectful manner and I will make sure that you'll concern yourself with nothing ever again."

"Leon," Mordred cautioned, raising his hand to quell his escort's wrath. He returned his attention to Patrick. "I wish only to speak with you."

"As you bid me, Sire," Patrick replied dryly, wiping his hands off with an old rag before following the royal heir outside.

"You've heard that there was an attack on the outskirts this morning?"

"Yes, Sire."

"What do you know about it?"

"Just what I've heard. Mainly rumor, really: someone's been raiding the edge of town keeping people hostage in their own homes for days. Some say they've been targeting the Druids in particular. Others think it's something to do with witches. Some say it's both." Patrick cocked his head. "What's it to do with me? I've got nothing but this job now that my father's dead. My family cast out the both of us."

"You haven't even pursued the faintest interest in goings on? I understand how easy it can be to gather knowledge through the unobtrusive perspective of a servant. Helpful hands are all around us, watching, listening, always overlooked," Mordred recalled from his own experience as one of Ragnor's slaves.

"That's as may be, but this servant's work is all I've got to live on. I haven't the time to waste on the petty exploits of criminals."

"You expect us to believe that, Patrick? I remember you having a very different perspective not long ago," Sir Leon challenged. This time Mordred didn't stop him, instead waiting to observe the former knight's reaction in depth.

"Yes, well, my Prince is a Druid these days, isn't he? I might have lost my honour, but I am no traitor. I chose my King over my own father rather than betray the pact forged between our families," Patrick said, his attention focused on his Regent alone. "If those actions cannot speak for my loyalty then there is little left for me to say."

Mordred could feel the steadfast certainty and passion in the other man's words. Patrick believed with every fibre of his being that he was serving the legacy of their forefathers; he was bound inextricably to Mordred by that ancient, invisible tether.

"I believe you," the Prince accepted aloud. "We are here because it has come to my attention that you were familiar with the most recent victims. Another Druid family who settled here just under a year ago. Gareth told me that he intended to bring his wife and child to stay with you had they managed to escape."

Patrick let out a long breath, "They're alive?"

"Gareth is," Mordred elaborated. "His son was killed. We have yet to learn the fate of his wife."

"I haven't seen them since the summer… I was in charge of securing their passage through our territory. When they first arrived. Iain was barely a slip of a boy. He liked my sword," Patrick ran a hand over his face. "I am not sure what more I can tell you. I barely knew them."

"They felt you were safe enough to run to."

"I was assigned to guard them; perhaps they remembered me. I don't know. What do you expect me to tell you?" Patrick exclaimed, frustrated. "It's a bloody shame what happened! I expect they would've been disappointed to find me here! Is there anything else I can actually do for you? ...Sire." Patrick corrected himself, his eyes landing on Sir Leon's gloved hand moving to his sword.

"That will be all for now. You may return to your work." Mordred overlooked the tension for both men's sake. He knew that many of Arthur's eldest knights viewed Patrick's misbehavior as a personal insult, but he felt that he could understand at least part of the difficult position in which the young Lordling had been placed. To choose one's Kingdom over one's blood was an excruciating sacrifice, not unlike the pain of stabbing one's own mother in the back to protect one's King.

"Thank you," Patrick said gruffly, bowing his head with less ceremony than typically encouraged, before marching back inside to continue his menial labor.

"I don't trust him, Sire, especially with this," Leon advised. "He's betrayed us once."

"On the contrary, Sir Leon, at the time he may truly have believed himself to be protecting his Kingdom," Mordred disagreed. "None of us has the luxury of choosing who brings us into this world. I would not be surprised if he merely made the mistake of trusting his parent's word without question."

"Yes, well. Some of us are better than that," Leon commented, unwilling to give the younger man quarter.

Mordred smiled faintly at his brother-in-arms' faith in him. "Perhaps."

Gwen jolted awake, looking around for any remaining sign of the phantoms and monsters hiding in the guise of her friends. They had tormented her all through the night, keeping to the shadows, playing with the moon's glow to aid in their mind-bending illusions. She only slept when the exhaustion overwhelmed her fear. Just as they had on the day of her arrival in this place, the monsters had retreated from the rising sun. They feared the light; she was certain of it.

"You can get through this. The knights are coming," Gwen reminded herself, getting out of the musty but comfortable four poster bed and crossing to the balcony. The captive Queen was in a room so high above the barren ground that she fancied she could feel the brush of clouds. There was a dark rim at the edge of the dust flats that she knew marked the beginning of a forest stretching between this tower and her salvation. When her friend came for her, that's where she would see them first. It was late in the day and the sky was a murky lilac-grey that evoked thoughts of rain without delivering. The iron door to her room creaked open, then clanked shut.

"Mealtime already?" Gwen questioned needlessly.

"It is a little early, but you'll waste away if you don't eat more soon," Morgana replied, taking a seat at one end of the small, wooden table. A large, wonderful smelling meal was laid out already. Gwen hadn't seen how that could be possible as the places had not even been set yet when she had passed it mere seconds ago. This place was not trustworthy, though. Gwen had grown wise to that over the course of her first night. The monsters and their screams played tricks on the mind, while the place itself often appeared to have a will all its own. It was best not to think about it too hard. She sat opposite the Priestess, as she had... who knows how many times before? "Go ahead: eat. You'll need your strength." Once again, her captor played the part of the concerned carer, starting into her own meal as if they were friends and this was normal.

"I still won't help you," Gwen asserted, eyeing the meat on her plate with suspicion.

"You always say that," Morgana teased with a fond smile.

"The knights will come for me. You cannot hold me here forever," Gwen sniffed the water in her goblet then tasted the barest sip, carefully.

"Come now, my Dear. If I was going to poison you surely I would have already done so by now."

Gwen relaxed, conceding the Witch's point. Hungrily, she began consuming her delicious meal.

"The knights have already come for you," Morgana lifted a shoulder in a disinterested shrug. "We will see how long they last."

"I don't understand your meaning. I have not seen anyone."

"You won't. She's keeping them in. You must've noticed that this place has a mind of its own? The forest is much the same. More so, even. It's quite maddening really. I was almost lost myself but I think she liked me," Morgana's smile shifted to a shallowly concerned expression. "Oh, do not worry, Gwen. We were friends once. I have no intention of holding you here! Don't be silly. I know what it is to be truly trapped, and I would not wish such a fate for you… even after you betrayed me. You aren't shackled. You have a lovely view, good food and drink each day, and you have so much room to move and stretch. I was not so lucky. I spent two years trapped in darkness, chained to a wall at the bottom of a cold wet pit. I knew there was no one who would care to come looking for me, no one to show me such kindness as this," Morgana gestured at the meal between them. "This is no torture. This is a conversation and when we are done you will leave with not a single scratch." The haunted madness of her expression vanished with a jarring abruptness to be replaced by a smile. "It's all in the past now. Let us talk. It has been so long. Tell me, Gwen, how fares my son?"

"He is well…" the Queen answered, feeling slightly overwhelmed. She found that she could never consciously retain the content of these little "conversations" the Witch kept coming to her to have. There was a strange familiarity to this line of questioning that nagged at her even as her thoughts spun off in different directions trying to parse her captor's claims. "We have begun teaching him as best we can in order to prepare him for his new station. It is rough going at times as I fear he believes himself unworthy. He is very clever, though, and I have every faith that he can adapt. Mordred is…" Gwen thought back to the magical eruption caused by her nephew's unrest on the night after his revelation. "He is a very special boy."

Morgana leered at her and there was a truly frightening wildness in her pale green eyes. "That he is. So, tell me, Queen Guinevere, do you think he's fitting in?"

"All right, then. This is simple," Arthur announced, trying to remain confident and authoritative after the group's attempt to navigate due North by the Sun's no longer infallible guidance led them, paradoxically, in yet another circle. "Do not trust anything that you see. As has been repeatedly proven, this forest is alive and it is clearly using some sort of glamour to trap us here. Merlin's dragon's blood seems to be the only hope that we have of overcoming the illusion. So from now on, Merlin, you're in front."

"Oh great. You want me to focus on the thing that's making me feel like crawling out of my skin? The one time that you want to follow my advice, it has to be this," Merlin grumbled. He did actually look like he might be about ready to shiver right out of his own hide from sheer agitation.

"Yes. I know, but you're the only one who can see this thing for what it truly is. Try to remain calm. I'm sure that we've been through worse," Arthur tried to downplay their plight for the sake of his friend's sanity. Merlin glared at him.

"When?" he demanded, then shook his head, looking as if the exclamation might have made him slightly nauseous. "This way."

That was another thing that was beginning to wear on Arthur and his knights. It had become increasingly obvious to all of them that their surroundings were having some type of wasting effect on their servant company. At first, it had appeared to be Merlin's panic taking its toll, but the longer they remained trapped, the more obvious it became that something about the place was making him physically ill. He was even beginning to look older now with streaks of white appearing at his temples - and that realization in itself was terrifying on multiple levels. No one had the nerve yet to mention it aloud, as if the act of mentioning it might make it more real. On the other hand, it was difficult even to know what was real in this place.

"It'll be fine, Merlin. Look at it this way. The sooner we find our way out, the sooner we never have to see this place again," Gwaine consoled the twitchy Dragonlord. Merlin took the knight's sword and savagely lashed out at a branch. The damaged limb leaked out something blood-red and steaming upon breaking off that smelled of sickly sweet rot.

"We have to get back somehow," he pointed out, passing Gwaine's weapon back to him. Elyan and the King exchanged a solemn glance.

"We'll find a way round it once we have Gwen," Arthur promised the group as a whole. Internally, he swore to himself that he would see the whole accursed forest -or whatever it was- burned to the ground.

"Stay clear of the dark puddles," Merlin warned the others rather than responding.

"Why?" Percival wondered, taking a couple of conscientious steps away from the seemingly innocuous little pool that he'd been about to step over.

"They fill more space than should be," Merlin explained truthfully.

"Don't you mean…" Arthur began, then noticed Merlin's dire expression.

"No."

"I hate this place," Arthur spat.

Mordred wandered through the main room of the ransacked cottage on the Outskirts while Sir Wallace and a couple of guards spread out around the small space in search of clues. The Clairvoyant knelt to pick up a tiny, torn, green cloak off the floor, lost deep in his own thoughts. He closed his eyes and drank in the lingering remnant of the lost child's unrealized magic. The little boy had been only five years of age, utterly innocent. He was terrified by the big, scary men bursting in to take his home, and his magic had imprinted that moment on the garment in his panic. Mordred knew the men's faces now. He already knew the father's heartbreak and rage as if it were his own. He could also remember the unexpected destination of their flight as the child's life was snuffed out. Safe haven is not a place but a person. Why had they run towards Lord Rhidian's son of all people with such utter certainty?

"Prince Mordred?" Leon questioned, crossing from his inspection of the raided cabinets to check on him. "Are you well?"

Mordred smirked at the hidden humor of his question, then sobered as a wooden carving caught his eye. It was far too polished and expensive in appearance to have belonged to the transplanted family that lived here. The prince crawled forward to pry the incongruous item out from under the overturned table where it had been shoved. "What is this…" His arm was too short to reach. His fingertips only managed to brush the cool, eerily perfect surface.

"If I may, Sire?"

Mordred retreated, allowing Sir Leon to take his place. He grasped the item easily but ended up needing assistance from Sir Wallace to handle the object's unexpected weight.

"What in the world?" the younger of the two knights grunted as they dragged the tome-sized oval into view. Mordred bent over it, already suspicious even before he noticed the sourceless reflected light over the silver engraved image decorating its lid. There was Ogham writing all over the box: familiar words in irrational combinations like a maze made of language. All attempts to make out the nature of the image depicted on the front induced a dull ache in the skull that intensified the longer it failed to be beheld.

"Seelie Silver…" Mordred knew better than to try to comprehend the otherworldly item, but the knights were starting to wince and grab their heads.

"Clear the building," the Prince ordered, standing and turning his back on the thing that shouldn't be. "Stop looking at it. Go!" A few guards nearby scattered at the sound of his command, but the Knights lingered.

"But what is that?" Sir Wallace wondered.

"It is Death. Get everyone away from it. NOW!" This time Mordred's uncharacteristic shout snapped his comrades out of their trance. Sir Wallace left immediately, Leon hesitated.

"I'll be right behind you," Mordred promised, heading for the back window. He called out to the guards searching the area outside. "Get everyone away from this cottage, quick as you can." He then hastily padded out to leave with the stubborn Knight still waiting for him by the front door. Light was beginning to build from within the box and just as they got a few steps clear of the exit, brilliant white flames erupted from the artifact. Leon grabbed his Prince and dragged him away from the magical explosion, tackling him to the ground in time to shield him from the wave of smothering heat and light that instantly obliterated the structure behind them. Mordred's ears were ringing. It took several tries for him to get his vision back. He felt Leon roll off of him and a hand on his opposite shoulder.

"-re? Sss- Sire? Can you hear me?"

Mordred looked up to see Sir Wallace standing over him. At some point he'd sat up, but he couldn't remember doing so.

"Are you injured?"

He shook his head. On his left, he saw the guards lifting an unconscious Sir Leon into a cart, his cape was scorched black as were parts of his armor, and one side of his face was burned. Mordred wasn't sure whether he should feel relieved to sense the older man was still alive.

"Sire?"

Mordred shook his head. "He should have left me," he muttered.

"It's a good thing that he didn't, Sire. You were nearly caught in the blaze… whatever that was," Sir Wallace disagreed. Mordred began to pick himself up and the knight held out a hand, continuing as he pulled Mordred upright. "They're taking him to Gaius. I can escort you there, but it'll have to be on foot. Most of the horses have bolted. Almost seemed to run before the fire..." The young knight shook the thought from his mind.

"I won't be seeing the Court Physician just yet," Mordred said, catching sight of a slender someone creeping around the periphery of their group, face shrouded by tawny cloth. He padded closer, forgetting his new shadow in favor of pursuit. Nevertheless, his quarry quickly noticed him and stepped up her pace. He broke into a run, darting after her in the direction of the wheat fields.

"Stop! Guards, with me," Sir Wallace summoned from somewhere behind them, having caught onto what Mordred was doing. The woman stopped at the edge of the field and looked back at Mordred, lowering the hem of the scarf to reveal her face.

"Kara?" Mordred breathed out, momentarily stunned. She turned away and vanished around the corner just as Sir Wallace caught up to him. He gestured for the guards to skirt around from the right in an attempt to cut their suspect off while he accompanied the Prince. It should have worked, but when they rounded the edge of the field heading toward the forest, the other Druid had simply vanished without a trace.

Mordred stood at the end of the patient bed in the Physicians' Chambers, watching Gaius work. Sir Leon had been badly burned in his effort to shield Mordred from the faery trap. It was a waste, something Mordred couldn't help. He wanted to stop this.

"Will he recover?" Mordred asked in spite of knowing the answer already. He'd heard enough stories growing up not to hold out much hope.

"It is too early to say, but I assure you that I will do everything in my power to make it so," Gaius responded, more focused on his work than on their exchange. The Prince looked over at the two other burned men. Less severe injuries there, yet serious nonetheless. He doubted that the old man really didn't know what they were in for. Mordred turned on his heel and left.

"Your Highness!" Sir Wallace called after him. Mordred ignored it, not halting in his march out through the courtyard. The young knight chased after him. "Sire, where are you going? You've not yet been tended…"

Mordred broke into a run on his way back to the stables for the second time that day. He slowed down only as he entered, searching the stalls for his old fellow novice. "Patrick? Patrick, are you present?"

A cropped blond head poked out of the end stall to his left. "Oi! Oh, your Highness. What've I done now?" The servant pulled his head back into the stall to finish tending to a minor burn on the flank of the beautiful, grey dappled mare he was tending to. She was already too calm, more aware than her carer of her arriving death. "I haven't much time at the moment, so no disrespect meant, but unless I am to be arrested…"

Mordred came to lean against the mouth of the open stall. "You have more time than you think," he informed the other young man tonelessly, watching the beautiful creature beginning to tilt on her uneven legs. "She was burned by spellfire."

"I have no concept of what you could be on about," Patrick remarked, annoyed by the Prince's perceived vagueness.

"She was at the sight of the explosion. I know, I was there too. The flame of the Old Gods' instruments is not of our world. It warps the flesh it touches," Mordred tilted his head, watching the animal rest against the side of her sanctuary. "She knows. She can feel it." He rested a hand on her velvety hindquarters absorbing the pain from her ailing body. "The wound is deep, and animals always recognise it first. That's why most of the others bolted."

"I've never heard of anything like that," Patrick denied. He'd always been fond of her.

"You wouldn't. You grew up in a city without magic," Mordred pointed out. "Shhh…" The mare lowered herself to the floor and settled in as though to sleep. "You'll be alright. You've been very good."

"What are you-"

"Shhhhh… I'm not talking to you," Mordred intoned in the same calming voice as he'd used before. He beckoned for Patrick to follow him out of the stall. "I am sorry. I understand that you were fond of her."

Patrick stared back at the unfortunate, deceased creature lying so peacefully in the stall, then down at Mordred. "You came here for a reason?" He noticed the knight pushing off of the far wall to wander towards them. "Sire."

One corner of Mordred's lips quirked upwards at the Lordling's continued nerve. "You still don't like me very much."

"You're weird. I don't have to love you to be loyal," Patrick justified.

"I like that. You're loyal to my family, not to me. I can work with that," Mordred told him honestly. "It is all the well-meaning coddling that has been getting me in trouble. It makes everyone think they know better."

"That's why you wanted to speak with me?" Patrick disbelieved.

"Not entirely. I am looking for a new servant. In the meantime I would like to know why the latest crop of Druid settlers on the Outskirts all seem to hold you in uncommonly high esteem."

Patrick frowned. "I truly haven't the slightest idea."

Mordred studied him. "Hmmm. I believe you."

Patrick sent a harassed look Sir Wallace's way. "He's gotten stranger."

"He's your Regent and you had best give him the respect-"

"Get down," Mordred dragged Patrick back into the stall by his arm just in time to stop him from getting hit by two well aimed crossbow bolts.

"Sire!" Sir Wallace called from his crouch on the stable floor.

"We're fine! Go!" Mordred ordered as a silhouetted feminine figure darted past the entrance, backlit by the setting sun. The young knight bolted after her, and to Mordred's surprise, Patrick joined him.

"It's safer if you stay here," the ex-knight advised on his way out, then he was gone. Mordred leaned back against the wooden paneling, counting down in his head to calm his mind. The Prince considered a silent prayer, then swore under his breath in his native tongue and went after them. He didn't understand what in the world Kara thought she was doing, but he knew that he didn't want her to get herself killed.

Sir Wallace watched, slack-jawed, as the suspect woman leapt from one pile of crates to another, then bounced up off the top of a bundle of wooden rods to land on the edge of the city wall.

"Well, she's gone. No one else is going to manage that, let alone catch up to her!"

Patrick cleared his throat meaningfully, stepping aside for the Druid Prince sprinting past them.

"I wouldn't count on it," he contradicted, watching Mordred sprint vertically up the wall, levering himself onto the roof of the nearest peddler's stall. The former cat burglar ran along the crossbeam, then dove off using a footlong protuberance out of the city wall itself to swing-flip up onto the edge.

"Ahh," Patrick sighed in regret. "Should have made a bet," he noted as Mordred darted out of sight without showing even a hint of difficulty. Then the disgraced warrior was off like a shot, headed for the stairs that led to the top of the wall.

Sir Wallace turned a wide-eyed look on his vanishing company. "You knew that he could do that?"

"You'd better hurry if you want to keep up."

Up on the palace wall, Kara paused in her flight to look down at her remaining pursuer, then stepped up her pace. She hurled a throwing knife at him, running for the door into the nearest archer's nest. Mordred flipped sideways onto the walkway, catching the weapon as he did and hurled it back. There was a surprised shriek. Mordred stalked down the walkway to face his fellow Druid, observing Kara's struggle to free her arm from the blade pinning her shirt to the door.

"Kara stop this, please. I have no wish to harm you," Mordred requested, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword. Kara struggled furiously to pull herself loose, ignoring him. Mordred sighed and tried again, "Listen-"

With a wordless shout, Kara tore her sleeve away from the embedded dagger. Using both hands and her leg against the wall for leverage, she then retrieved the weapon and turned towards the Crowned Prince, falling into a battle-ready stance.

"I wish you wouldn't," Mordred lamented, then caught Kara's arm and leaned away from the dagger being plunged towards his right shoulder. He moved to draw his sword but his childhood-friend prevented it with a kick aimed at his midsection. Mordred pushed her knife-wielding hand away in order to block her and spun into a low-sweeping kick which forced her to leap away. Kara hurled her knife at him. He dodged it, but she landed a punch to his chest in the next second, catching his arm in both her hands and flipping him onto his back. Kara paused to pick up the knife before he could reach it. He drew his sword but she kicked it away and pinned the Prince in place under her boot.

"Stop right there!" Patrick said from the doorway behind her, having found her standing over the prone Regent with a knife.

"Kara... please..." Mordred quietly urged.

Kara looked from her childhood friend's pleading expression, to eye peripherally the ex-knight pointing a crossbow at her back.

"Look what I've found," Patrick joked, then turned deadly serious, "Raise your hands and back away from his Highness, slowly."

Kara gradually straightened from her bent pose, but kept her hands hanging between herself and her apprehensive kin.

"Your hands," Patrick warned. "I will shoot-"

Kara spun swiftly, throwing the dagger into his shoulder in the same movement, and made a run for the outer edge of the wall. Patrick fired a bolt after her as she dove out of sight. Both men heard the thud of the projectile striking flesh and a cry of pain. Mordred rushed over to see her landing in a clumsy roll and pausing to clutch at her wounded right calf. Kara glared up at him before dragging herself to her feet and fleeing for the trees in a limping sprint. Patrick joined him at the edge, aiming the crossbow for a second shot. Mordred held up a hand.

"Hold your fire. I doubt that she'll make it very far on that leg," he reasoned. "We don't want her to bleed out before we can interrogate her."

"Yes, Sire," Patrick answered shortly, then turned to look him up and down. "Are you injured?"

"Hardly," Mordred replied, still following his old friend's retreat with trepidation. "I am more practiced in hand-to-hand combat than she is and I highly suspect that I know who trained her to fight like that."

Patrick paused to surrender his weapon to the newly arrived Sir Wallace, now that the knight had finally caught up to them.

"Who?"

"The same person who taught me: Mother," Mordred bit out. He turned to address Sir Wallace directly. "I do not believe this to be a coincidence. Morgana has drawn my Uncle away by ambushing the Queen's procession; now she sends a spy to track my movements."

"We can double the guard around the citadel, but that will require us to withdraw most of our men from the Outskirts," Sir Wallace informed him. Mordred paused to consider the decision.

"Do it. I will hold a meeting with those we can spare in an hour's time," he commanded. "Call in the Knights that we were planning to send scouting. I will be re-assigning them from their current duties for the foreseeable future."

"Yes, your Highness."

"Patrick," Mordred prompted.

"Prince Mordred?" the servant acknowledged, with a suspicious and uncertain expression.

"Come with me; I believe it is high time that the two of us spoke in private," Mordred stated decisively.

"Are you sure that is wise, Sire?" Sir Wallace questioned, obviously not at all comfortable with the idea of leaving his new Prince unguarded in the company of a traitor.

"I am. You have your orders," Mordred replied, making his way down the stars into the guard post. He flagged down the closest man. "Please, send word to Gaius to meet us in my chambers. We will need him to treat the wound Patrick has acquired in the course of my protection."

The guard bowed his head. "Yes, your Highness," he accepted and left, stealing a distrustful glance at the disgraced knight, on his way through the door.

"You do realize that you are Crown Prince now; you don't have to keep explaining yourself to the underlings," Patrick advised him, hugging his injured arm to his chest while he followed the slighter young man like an overgrown shadow.

"Don't remind me," Mordred replied bristling a little at the idea. Patrick seemed to find his discomfort unexpectedly amusing, shaking his head at the Druid's strangeness.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Hopefully, it will not become a theme. Fingers crossed. Special thanks for this chapter to Agana of the Night and SisterOfAnElvenWannabe for their kind reviews, and thank all of you, Dear Readers, for your continued patience.