—

Alpha Bitch
Mid December

Everything in life was looking up.

Drystan smiled broadly, not caring if he came off crazy. Two years ago, he'd thought he'd be the freckle-faced dishwasher the rest of his life. Then King Arthur had been crowned, peasants had been allowed into the ranks, and suddenly he'd found himself toying with the practice swords late at night.

He hadn't ever actually gotten good, but he'd fantasized. There he'd be in his chainmail on his white stallion, and that pretty servant girl with the dark hair would finally see him. He would have lived on those fantasies a long while, but Princess Morgana took over the castle and a lot of people were injured or killed. When the King had returned he'd needed new recruits fast, and Drystan had been handed his first real sword.

He'd only been worthy of a guard position at first, but he'd thrown himself into the job. He took naps so that he could be alert when on duty. He made his old friends sneak around so he could learn the sound of silent footsteps and smothered breaths. During training, he'd taken every bit of Sir Leon's advice to heart.

Once a year, Camelot had tryouts. Tryouts for Knighthood. He'd been green, in skill and in pallor, but he'd put his lot in anyway. Sir Brennis bet on his potential, and suddenly it was winter and Brennis had requested him specifically to learn this new, deep route through the forests of Camelot. Drystan would lead new guards along it on his own.

Next year, he'd probably be a knight. Of Camelot.

Sir Brennis held a hand up which stopped the pair in their tracks. His head swiveled back and forth, scanning from snow covered tree to snow covered tree, and he cupped his hand around his ear: the sign for 'hear that?'

Well, no, Drystan thought abashedly. He'd missed it because he was caught up reveling in his own successes. Brennis made the sign for splitting up, and Drystan nodded, now fully prepared to devote his focus.

Soon enough he couldn't hear the knight moving in the opposite direction, but Drystan continued onward. He stopped every five paces, listening through sounds dulled by snow for what Brennis must have heard. Fifty or sixty paces in he finally caught it: a sound like a cape snapped in the wind.

In any other sequence of events he would never have located the source. But the sun came out, and a shadow moved over the snow - too large to be a bird, and too fast to be a cloud. He looked up in time to see a white, lizard-like tail disappear behind the canopy.

With practiced movements he drew his sword and followed after, now orienting himself with every flutter of the creature's wings. As he stalked his heart beat heavy, making the pulse throb in his fingertips. This would be his first true test of bravery, and it would be against a beast of magic.

On they went, deeper onto untread paths. Here evergreens kept their pines, wolves' claws gouged bare trunks, and frost clung to revealed patches of dirt. He never heard the thing land.

It was an unfortunate error, but unavoidable. He was still lacking experience, naive in the ways of magic, equating brashness with bravery, and now he had walked into a campsite with eyes still stuck to the sky. He never did have time to recognize the dragon for what it was, because a flurry of human motion stole his attention.

In reflexive defense he brought the sword up, and he had a splitting second to think dodge as the panicked archer aimed. His muscles tensed, he tried to jerk left, and then he was on his back.

He saw blue sky. His throat burned, and his temple screamed like the worst hangover of his life. There was no air and when he tried to gasp he gurgled, the feathers from the tail of an arrow quivering above him.

Mother, he thought.

Then he died.

On this same bright morning Gwen woke facing Arthur, their foreheads pressed nearly together.

Their breaths mingled and the smell wasn't altogether pleasant, but other small facts kidnapped her concern. Every exhalation of his whistled on the end with a wheeze, his skin was flushed red and dewy, and she did not need to touch him to feel the fever radiating.

The winter sickness, she diagnosed with some small worry. I knew he was getting ill.

She leapt from the covers, sliding her feet into slippers and wrapping a ruby robe tight around her frame. Her fingers probed at her own throat and sinuses trying to trigger the telltale signs of the ailment, but luckily caused nothing abnormal. Tearing open the chamber doors she said to the posted guard, "Please fetch Gaius - Oh, Merlin!"

At the sight of her friend carrying broth and tonics, she ushered him in and waved off the guard.

After a cursory inspection Merlin said, "He's gotten worse," but at Gwen's alarmed look he modified, "I've been on top of it; he should recover sooner than most." He wiggled a clear bottle between them. "I've even got one of Gaius' special surprises ready and waiting," he chuckled.

Recollection of the horrid taste made even the unconscious Arthur's lips turn down, and the king began to squirm. As he became more aware of his own discomfort he woke fully, blinking weary eyes and croaking unintelligibly.

Merlin shoved the vial in his face. "Drink up, sire."

Arthur groaned and propped himself up on an elbow, shoving the servant away with his free hand. "I want water, not poison." He tried to struggle further up, but Merlin's hand on his shoulder and a tightness in his lungs subdued him.

"You have to do as I say," Merlin sung. "You're sick, and I'm a Physician's Assistant."

"I want a second opinion," Arthur grumbled, albeit downing the tonic with a grimace.

A sharp rap of knuckles on the door sounded, but Gwen's two boys were very caught up with a struggle over the soup spoon. Merlin thought it would be funny to feed the infirm Arthur while making baby sounds. She shook her head in amusement as she opened the door, thinking it was the posted guard checking on them.

It was Leon. "Your majesty," he started formally, which immediately put her on edge. Something was wrong. The tone of his voice caught Arthur's attention too and he called out "I'm getting up!"

There was the sound of a scuffle as Merlin refused to let him. Gwen put on her no-nonsense scowl and aimed it at her husband. "You will not move from that bed, Arthur." When he froze in the face of her insistence, she turned back to Leon. "What's happened?"

"In short, we have two freshly dead bodies passing through our gates - unmistakably killed in battle."

Arthur frowned. "Now I'm definitely getting up," at the re-emergence of Gwen's glare he paused. "Or not."

"I will not stand by and watch you stubborn yourself into a winter coma!" Gwen stomped her foot and pointed a finger at him. "I'll handle this, and I'll summarize for you later. Now eat your soup."

Arthur was dumbstruck, but he nodded. Merlin chuckled despite himself. Leon said, "I'll gather the Council," then half-bowed as he swept away.

She grabbed a handful of dried fruit from Merlin's breakfast tray and nibbled as she strode for the Solar. The bodies would be taken to Gaius first, so she'd have to hear his judgement on how they died. There was more to the story than two dead people, the troubled look on Leon's face had belied it, and the small worry that had started with Arthur started to flip in her stomach.

As she climbed the stair she tried to turn her mind to her gowns. Deciding what to wear should provide a distraction capable of preventing her from fanciful conjecture.

"No!" Merlin shouted just as she reached her vanity. There was a clang and then, "Gwen said no babies if you don't do as I say." A pause, assumedly as Arthur mumbled something. Then Merlin again: "It was implied."

Gwen giggled softly as she began to brush out the tangles from her curly hair. It was getting quite long, but Arthur liked it that way and there was no longer a forge for it to dangerously dangle into.

Arthur coughed wetly, and Merlin commented. "That was disgusting."

This was a far better distraction, and she let the normalcy of getting dressed while listening to her best friend and her husband's morning banter wash over her. It never failed to put a warm feeling of contentment in her breast, and a fond smile on her face.

"I think the word you're going for is charming."

"If only I were enough of a dollophead to believe that."

"That. Is. Not. A. Word."

"If you drink all of your soup like a good little boy, I'll teach you the definition."

"Just because your pea-brain has chanced upon some explanation does not make the word real. Other people have to use it for it to be real."

"Gwaine—"

"—Does not count!"

"If I get Geoffrey to say it, you have to call me Master Merlin for a week."

"Do it by Yule, or you have to wear a pansy in your hair during the feast."

Gwen shook her head. Those two.

In the end, she chose a light blue dress with a navy bodice in velvet. It had silver filigree, and it went well with the ornate crown needed for these sorts of situations.

She was a vision at the head of the room, her hair draping around her shoulders as she sat rigid-backed in her throne. The early sun spilled through the stained glass windows, littering the long wooden room in a scattering of rainbow. Along the other wall servants had placed chairs for the Council, and five nobles watched from plush red cushions, the lights dancing at their toes. A sixth Council chair sat empty.

Less structured were the clusters of knights, servants, and lesser nobles in the back half of the room. From that crowd came Leon, and behind him, a knight and a peasant woman. She had a round face with deep-set eyes inflamed from crying. Unwashed blonde hair was pulled back into a messy bun, but as the woman arrived in the center of the room she pushed back stray strands and then subtly covered a stain on her dress. She curtseyed shakily. "Your majesty."

Leon announced her. "Ethil, of the Druids," and then for the scribe, though they all knew him, "Sir Brennis, of Camelot."

A member of the King's Council being called to court was rare, and this explained the crowd eager for first-hand gossip. Brennis bowed. Together, he and Ethil stood alone in the center of the room.

Gwen spoke clearly, her voice ringing. "I will hear all the facts, then both of your stories, without interruption. The Council will follow with their questions." She looked to Gaius. "Tell me of the bodies."

The elder physician nodded, stepping half into the spotlight. "Similar amounts of rigor have set into both bodies, meaning they were both killed within a narrow timeframe. The guard died from a single arrow to the throat, and the Druid by a slash across the abdomen. There were no other fresh wounds."

She thanked him then turned to Leon, who had little else to add. "Sir Brennis arrived at the front gates approximately two hours after morning bell. The corner of his cloak was bloodstained," he gestured at the evidence that still remained, "and four men went with him to gather the bodies. From their reports, Drystan was found on his back near a hastily covered campsite, and the druid was found on his side, held by Ethil. They saw no signs of other travelers in the area."

Gwen held up a hand for clarification. "They were nearby?"

"Not within sight of each other, but nearby."

She drew a deep breath; a trick to stretch her back muscles while she came to quick conclusions. She had trusted Leon and Gaius to tell her the truth as they saw it, so throughout their speeches she had watched Ethil and Brennis. Neither seemed thrown off, so she wasn't expecting outright lies. However, Brennis was impassive and Ethil was frayed, and both frames of mind would likely result in bias.

With that grain of salt prepared, she addressed the Druid woman.

Ethil's trembling hands fisted in her skirts, and then her voice echoed across the chambers. "My brother and I are from the forests north of Essetir. Recently we were… taken to the capitol, and he was injured there. His knee. We laid low for weeks - hiding out in villages and barns." She dashed quickly at her eyes. "A rumor went around that Camelot was accepting Druids, and we thought we'd risk the journey." She quoted with self-deprivation, "Go west unto the Light of Dawn. Færeþ scéawen æthusa."

Camelot had been this woman's hope and refuge, and it had been brutally denied her. It turned Ethil's voice bitter. "So we travel through your forest only to have this raving swordsman come out yelling at us—"

Brennis talked over her, unable to take the attack on his character. "I had just left a hastily covered campsite where Drystan had died, and I see these two hiking off nearby. Of course I stopped them."

Gwen raised a brow, but didn't rebuke him for interrupting. She was interested in seeing how this argument played out.

"We did nothing wrong, we had nothing to do with the other man's death."

"I asked them where they were from, and where they were going. They lied, badly."

"We said we were visiting family in Camelot. It's not safe to claim a Druid heritage, especially not in Essetir."

So, even in Camelot, there's still fear of reprisal, Gwen thought.

"I asked for the name of whom they were visiting. They answered Iseldir."

"That sounds like the truth," Gwen probed, defending Ethil.

Brennis continued spitefully. "They likely did not expect me to know him. They backtracked upon further questioning."

"You wanted honesty so badly, so we gave it to you. It would have been better to lie!"

"If they were from Iseldir's camp, they would have one of the tokens." Brennis looked to the Council, specifically at Master Finch - the head of the artisans. "You'll remember we all agreed that Iseldir's druids would have a token that they'd use for passage into Camelot. Finch made the branded pieces of wood and we gave the whole lot to Iseldir during the peace talks." Brennis cleared his throat and spoke loudly to the room. "Ethil and her brother had no idea what I was talking about."

"How can we have known if we hadn't met Iseldir yet? We didn't know about that rule. Besides, is it a crime to not have one of these tokens? A crime punishable by death?"

"In some cases, yes." Gwen clarified, her seriousness in contrast with Ethil's rising voice. "It is the law of Camelot, but we don't have laws for the sake of rules, but for the safety of these lands. A token proves you are trusted."

"And when was I given the chance to earn that trust?" Ethil cried, aiming her embittered answer at Brennis. "You never gave us a chance!"

That answer troubled Gwen, and now she looked at the dutiful mask adorning Brennis' face, searching through the straight delivery of presumed facts. Was there any smugness there? And in Ethil, was her reaction now proof of her actions in the forest?

"After I asked for the tokens, and they were unresponsive and belligerent, the male reached for their pack."

"He was proving to you that we had no weapons! He said he was showing you we were unarmed!"

"Drystan died from an arrow wound, and a crossbow could easily have fit in their bags."

"Your imagination is your justification for killing my brother?"

"The both of you lied, and then failed to follow orders. He ignored me when I told him to keep his hands in sight."

"And that's worth this punishment? Sorry, but it seems a bit dangerous to just blindly accept whatever demands come from forest accosters. Anyone could get a red cape." Ethil's words had already cut sharp, but she carved her next words with an extra dose of venom. "And I find your excuses appalling. You had pre-judged us. We were guilty of 'traveling while Druid', a common villainy in Albion!"

Before the argument could get further out of hand, Gwen shouted. "Quiet, both of you!"

She didn't have the bellow of a man, but her authority was enough to tame them. The throne room dimly echoed with her voice, and the crowd looked to her in the wake of the screaming match.

More calmly she added, "I think we've heard enough. Does the Council have any questions for Sir Brennis or Ethil?"

There were too many. Lord Savile wanted to know if Ethil or her brother had archer's callouses on their fingertips, and Mistress Vanora asked if guards were out searching for other travelers that may have killed Drystan. She had directed her question to Leon, but Gwen had answered before he had the chance. It irked her that the Council would so easily assume she didn't know the actions of the military.

They went over the details to exhaustion. What did the arrow look like, how close had Brennis had been standing before attacking, the exact phrasing of the argument in the woods, etc. Eventually Gwen couldn't handle anymore minor information - she just wanted some space to think. She waved for quiet.

"Recess," she sighed. "I'll deliver my judgement tomorrow morning."

"So late?" Grenfell from the Council asked, causing a titter of surprise in the crowd.

It wasn't often someone second-guessed their ruler, and Gwen's lips flattened in distaste. "It appears the timing will have the added benefit of teaching you patience."

She stood, letting those words and the slow sarcasm of her tone reassert her authority. She could see Elyan's proud smirk from her periphery, but she couldn't indulge. With her next few sentences she set the Round Table knights on specific tasks and prompted the servants to begin preparation on a late lunch. Brennis wanted to help with the search for Drystan's killer, but that would have been in bad taste. She put him in charge of the funeral services instead. He'd be plenty busy organizing the pyres.

Then, before anyone could require anymore attention, she gestured for Elyan's arm and had him escort her out.

It pinched a little - Gwen could be very forceful.

Elyan put on his best serious face and tried to look like he wasn't being dragged by his elbow. His little sister with the dainty build and the soft features had been a lioness long before she married a Pendragon, and he fought back a broad grin as she led him to the upper walkways. First he thought she just wanted out of the room, and he nudged her and made a joke about the Council, but she didn't laugh. Then he was drug from vantage point to vantage point and his brow began to furrow. Were they looking for something?

They paused in the bitter wind of the battlements, and Elyan had just opened his mouth to force her inside when she saw a guard posted on a tower's peak, and again they were off. It registered then that Gwen was looking for a place to be alone.

That was a need he knew well. When there were so many issues tangling in your mind, there was so little energy left for graces. Even graces like simple conversation with your family.

As she led them into the guest wing he slid his mouth closed. He stopped studying her faraway gaze and put his own eyes resolutely forward. He gave himself a look a purpose, as if he had destinations in mind when they passed guards and nobles and servants, because as long as she was tucked into his arm she could claim preoccupation.

He wasn't here to be her brother, he was here to be her shield.

Gwen knew this hallway blindfolded. She had walked it a thousand times, had counted the steps while her vision was blocked with laundry, and had puffed curls out of her eyes while dragging bathwater. She had navigated by firelight when duty kept her late.

Her hand trembled on the doorknob at the end of the hall, but she didn't pause. The heavy wood swung inward, revealing the mundane decoration of their second guest room, and left Elyan wavering in the doorway as she swept past curtains into the drawing room.

There was still a rectangular table with two hard wooden chairs, and she had pulled one out and landed in it before allowing herself to really feel how silly this was. The adjoining rooms had been largely redecorated for Agravaine, and then wiped clean once again. Almost everything was different now. Plus, what had she hoped for? The comfort from the memory of simpler times?

Sitting in the ex-chambers of two of the greatest traitors in Camelot's recent history didn't offer much comfort. In fact, it only lent a reminder to how one small decision could result in so much failure.

Gwen's fingers ran over her lips, and she tilted her head to look at the afternoon light slanting through one thin, uncurtained window. Morgana's changing screen used to sit right before it. She made the last movement to grab the ornate crown and bring it down into her lap. It was a beautiful thing, really, but much more her once friend's style.

In look only, though. Everything else that came with the crown Gwen knew she herself did better. She had known what she was getting into by courting and marrying Arthur. She had expected daunting responsibility, and she had expected to have to endlessly prove herself. She would never push all duty into Arthur's lap - she was just as much his to lean on as the reverse.

Earning the crown did not make her infallible though. Reticence, self-absorption, and ignorance were all traits she had carried in some capacity, and her worst failures had leered alongside them. She had been blind when she'd helped sneak her father from his jail cell, precipitating the crime that would finally kill him.

Kissing Lancelot while betrothed had been monumentally stupid. She had missed him so much in that moment, and she had remembered how much she had loved him - still loved him, at the time. That indulgence had banished her. She'd lost her home, her friends, and Arthur's trust. It had hurt, so much.

But those mistakes had, mostly, only affected herself. Both were undeniably the decisions she'd regret forever, but neither was the worst decision of her life. That decision still echoed in her mind in moments like these, when everyday issues tilted just slightly into abnormal and charged with emotion.

"I'm fine."

It haunted her - how wrong she had been; how badly she had failed.

"You should go, if you want. I'll be alright on my own. Really, Gwen." Morgana's skin had been pale, her eyes desperate, her posture huddled. She had been terrified to admit the truth, and Gwen hadn't been so stupid as to not have guessed at it herself. "I'm fine."

And she had walked away. She had left Morgana, on that bed just there, and she had never broached the topic again. She could mark the beginning of their rift to that exact moment. She could not afford to ever be so heartless over anything ever again.

Elyan's troubled expression brought her back to her surroundings, and he crouched to be on her level. His dark skin was striking against the shine of his armor and the red splash of his cloak, and his eyebrows bent together. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

She smiled in apology. "I just need to think. I'll speak with Arthur later as well, but for now there are just so many consequences I have to weigh. I'm sorry for dragging you out here, Elyan."

He reached out and cupped her cheek in his rough hand. His eyebrows had always been expressive, and she had read truth and lies from them since they were children. They told her now that he was earnest. "Our parents would be so proud of you, Guinevere. I'm so proud to be your brother. I know that, whatever you do, it will be the right thing for Camelot."

His hand drew back and he began to walk away. Elyan would probably never understand how his easy belief in her was extraordinarily better than specific help. He hadn't been worried, and it was like a steel cable along her spine. "Elyan," she said quickly before he was too long gone. "There is one thing I need, actually."

He turned back and she stood, holding her arms out.

"A hug, for luck?"

Elyan is fantastic at hugs. He gives them warm and slow and unembarrassed. Morgana doesn't know this though, and never will.

Hugs for her fall somewhere between the awkward few Uther had bestowed, and the uncomfortable but loving one she'd hunched through for Aithusa. The unfamiliarity explains the strangled feeling that makes her twist on the cold ground, waking her from a coma-like nap to struggle with fabric cinching her arms near her body. Who in the fuck did this!?

She sits up like a snapped tendon which releases the trapped sleeves, and she flails ridiculously as the green cloak flutters to her knees. She knows she's battling the winter sickness, but her magic is the front lines as always, and so she doesn't concern herself with it.

Instead, she hunches down and bares her teeth at the Leshy watching her from the clearing's border.

"Priestess, the Tormentil is ready," Ruadan alerts, purposeful as always. Morgana turns to him and runs her eyes over the small clay pot now cooling, still on its stand but off the fire. She gets to her feet and ignores the dizziness.

Within the container is just enough liquid to bind the curse she's planning, though the plan begins and ends there. She just feels like hurting someone. Any distraction, even a half-arsed one like this, is better than the broodings she's succumbed to recently. She dips a finger in and then draws it out, watching the dye drip between her knuckles and into the lines of her palm.

The small pot of Tormentil Red before her does not belie the work it took to produce it. This is a product of careful accruement of particular roots, alcohol, and time spent peeling, boiling, mashing, straining, and stirring. The consistency of the liquid is exact, the aroma acrid, and the waft of magic potent. "Let's hurry," she says. "Do you know the words?"

"I can guess at your plans, Priestess, but I don't actually know them."

Morgana gets down on her knees and turns the cloak inside out. Her hands smooth down the rippling fabric and stop where a person's abdomen would rest. "Just don't waste any." She holds out both arms. "Coat my hands."

Ruadan lifts the bowl from its stand and tilts it carefully. At first it puddles in the hollows of her palms, and then it begins to run over in sticky lines.

"Don't forget my fingers," she snaps, then begins to chant an incantation. As she expels her buoying magic into the dye, her windpipe dries and prickles with irritation.

She pumps energy into counteracting the properties of the herb. She goes through the chant thrice as she amplifies the curse, and the further along in the spell she is, the warmer the liquid becomes in her hands. At first it's uncomfortable, and soon it stings like acid. The destruction of her magic leaves her frail, and her arms shake while the liquid becomes sandpaper on raw skin.

Eventually the corruption has taken all it can from her, and she presses blood-red palms into the fabric of the Leshy's cloak. The liquid slinks away from her skin and glows beneath her hands, and then the stains disappear into the dark spaces between threads. A violent shiver wracks her, and she turns the motion into a bad attempt to turn the cloak right-side out.

Her head is aching, and she has the urge to draw her arms out of her sleeves and curl into a ball under the curtain of her dress. "A gift," she pants as she pushes the cloak towards Ruadan's feet. She doesn't think she can stand without another wave of dizziness. The Leshy glares woodenly from the shadows, and so, just to be rude, she continues, "I have no need for it. My allegiance can't be bought."

Ruadan looks at the pile dubiously and scratches at his silver beard. "What will it do?"

Ironically, Tormentil is best used in healing spells. This explains Ruadan's confusion. He has no knowledge of dark spells, unlike Morgana. "Hurt," she says, because it will. Dark magic leaves a vacuum where magic once was, and whoever wears this cloak will feed that vacuum until they are empty themself. "Give it to my enemies. Any of them; I don't care."

"So Sefa and I can leave today?" Ruadan looks to the sky and places the sun. It's already late, but it won't keep him.

"You're no more use here," she retaliates.

"I need to find the rest of my people," he diverts. "I've been away for too long."

"As you've said before," she answers bitterly. "Send me news of the tribes and Camelot at first thaw."

"As you wish, Priestess."

And that's it. He places Sefa's few belongings into the center of the cloak, wraps them up, and then walks away without a backwards glance. Not that she wanted him to look at her.

She's the one sending them away, anyways. She doesn't want them here. Especially not Sefa with her mothering tendencies and her nightly stews.

She's cold yet she's sweating. The beginning of forbærne comes to her lips, but her entire body revolts at the attempt to use any more of her magic. So the fire dies down further, and by the time it does she feels like she's burning with heat anyways. Her world tilts, and she careens the rest of the way to press her cheek into frosty grass and the tangle of her hair.

It's cold and scratchy and smells like stale sweat. Perhaps she should have taken Sefa up on her offer to wash it.

Stupid girl. Thank the Goddess she is finally gone.

Now if only the Leshy would stop it's staring, she could be happy. It's snuck closer and is now standing like a frozen gargoyle complete with bird shit and dead eyes. Why won't it just leave; doesn't it see she wants to be alone? Morgause used her, Aithusa left her for Emrys, and Arthur and Gwen have permanently cuddled up. She hates everyone and everything and she just wants that bloody tree to go away.

Really.

She's fine on her own.

Footnotes:

(1) Drystan and Brennis, introduced previously (P2: Matchmaker's Return Policy. P1: A Roll in the Hay, It's Just a Prank, Bro).
(2) Secrets you don't care about: The King's Council are based on the characters from Clue. Secrets you do care about: Yes, it was Colonel Mustard in the Forest with the Sword. The full Council is introduced in P1: Cinderella, but there are some earlier and later descriptions scattered around.
(3) The real Old English for Light of Dawn is dægrædléoma. That's a bit of a mouthful. Greek is αὐγή. I old english-ified it: æthusa. So, Færeþ scéawen æthusa "translates" to Go west unto the Light of Dawn.
(4) Thanks to Leannie and Samiri for getting me thinking of the Druid POV because of open-ended questions they left while reviewing previous chapters.
(5) Tormentil is a root native to Europe. It's really good for digestion and other minor cures. In the summer it grows yellow flowers. It's proper name is Potentilla erecta.

Author's Note:

My explanation of dark magic finally made it into the story. I was thinking along similar lines with the Eancanah in Part 1.

Unfortunately I did not finish the court room drama. Next chapter will open from it and we'll go from there. How do you think Gwen should handle this? It's a tough decision. Definitely elements of some arguments going on in the states these days. The Druid tokens also reminded me of something particular in history.

This was a good test for me in writing trials; what I did and didn't like about it. It'll come in useful.

Things are random now, and I admit and apologize for that. We're almost done with these middle chapters, I promise. Winter is going to pass fairly quickly - this isn't Game of Thrones.

PMs inbound for all you wonderful people who don't deserve to wait this long for an update. Thanks to Linorien for working on this during math class and helping me boost and reduce all the major scenes. Her idea for Aithusa is still paying itself forward. And lovely thanks to Jewelsmg and Dmarie for being a daily dose of wonderful conversation about anything and everything. It's like coming home to two great roommates every day. Bonus thanks to Jewels for realizing what dollophead means. You guys ready for it?

Airhead!

Next Time: My Father's Body. Gwen's decision spurs a chain reaction that won't see a conclusion for a long while. Whether the results are good or bad, though, is up for interpretation.