HELLO, peoples! NO, I am NOT dead! OR in a coma! Or OTHERWISE incapacitated! I just needed some time to figure out where I wanted this fic to go! Do I sound ODD? Somewhat manic? That's odd. Maybe because I have A NEW CHAPTER! Did I say odd TWICE?
ON WITH THE FIC!
The nice doctors let me out because I stopped telling them I owned Merlin, but I just don't say it in ENGLISH anymore...
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Arthur felt the desperate thump, thump of his heart with every beat, as if it was reminding him that Merlin's might stop at any moment. He wanted to shake Bedivere, who seemed to be acting with agonizing slowness.
Of course, Arthur was clearheaded enough to realize that would only scare the tiny boy, who had reacted unexpectedly strongly to the idea that 'demon-man' meant 'sorcerer'.
Oh, thought Arthur, as he watched Bedivere pull away from Guinevere, rubbing his eyes, under the laws of Camelot, if his father is a sorcerer... but he had looked genuinely confused when Arthur had asked, so the woodsman most likely wasn't a magic-user.
"Your papa?" Guinevere asked, looking inquiringly at him.
Bedivere nodded, considerably calmer now. "Yes. He wasn't a very nice papa, so I ran away. And I made myself different, so he didn't even know who I was!" He paused and looked inquiringly at Guinevere. "What does two handfuls mean?"
"Never mind that," Gwaine said impatiently, "where is he?"
"You go out of Camelot, and find the witch tree, and..." Bedivere trailed off, frowning. He tried again uncertainly. "That's a big tree, and it has faces in it, so you know what it is...and then you go to the snigger bush, because it laughed at me and it's mean..."
Arthur felt his stomach drop in acid. Obviously Bedivere only knew the way to wherever his father was through childlike logic, landmarks and things that would take his notice being his guide. Any instructions he gave would be incomprehensible to them. He saw the dawning realization on the other knight's faces as well.
"T-then you get to the strings -" the tiny boy seemed to reach the same conclusion Arthur had, and stopped, tears threatening to spill over again. He looked at Guinevere and said with a slight edge of panic, "You c-can't follow those, cause you d-don't think like me, so you can't find the sick man, so h-he's gonna die, and because of me -"
He started to cry again, but Guinevere was as frozen as the rest of the knights and Arthur, Bedivere's words crashing around the room with the force of a castle falling to it's knees, or maybe that was just what it felt like.
h-he's gonna die
he's going to die
Merlin is going to die.
The words burned into Arthur's brain, etching themselves into his skull, pounding louder and louder as if they wanted to drown out the beating of his heart so he could no longer say Merlin's was beating also, because surely his would stop if Merlin's was still and he felt the words, overflowing with smug finality, ripping into him from the outside the same time the thing returned and shrieked into his ears no no nononono as it thrashed inside him with dagger-sharp claws that shredded him to bloody scraps from inside-out...
Abruptly he stood, grasped the boy's arm and moved him toward the door.
"Arthur?" Guinevere called, shaking off the stupor. "What are you doing?"
Arthur looked down at the tiny boy and felt a mental stab of worry, but it was barely a prick compared to the still-swirling maelstrom of fear for Merlin's safety. He was surprised when his voice came out sounding even and matter-of-fact. "He's the only one who knows where he is."
"You - you can't take him with you!" Fear for the little boy momentarily overshadowed the fear for her friend. "I've worked in the kitchens, I know him, he's only five years old!"
Inwardly, Arthur flinched, but he replied, "I don't want to, Guinevere, but we can't spend hours looking for a tree with faces, or a bush that laughs. He can get us to the place quicker, and we'll look out for him."
Gwaine nodded, though unease was plainly written on his face. "Yeah, don't worry about it. We need to find Merlin fast."
Hesitantly the other knights agreed. Arthur knew what was going through their heads. It was the duty of a knight to protect innocents, to pull danger away from them. Now they were deliberately bringing an innocent to danger - and a child at that. Anyone would pause.
Arthur glanced down at Bedivere. He let go of the boy's arm and forced his tone to be gentle. "Do you think you can take us there, Bedivere?"
There was fear on the young face, fear that Arthur felt was for older and more experienced men who knew there was something to be afraid of. Bedivere met Arthur's eyes and quickly shifted his tearstained ones away. "Are you g-gonna order me to?"
Arthur's heart sank like stone.
He couldn't blame the boy, who had already shown courage finding them, which couldn't have been easy for a tiny kitchen boy. From the few sentences he had said regarding his father, he wasn't a good man, bad enough so that his son, barely out of toddler age, had run away. Arthur got the distinct feeling it was for a good reason. To ask a child to go back to the one thing that inspired true fear in them was asking too much.
Still, the words pounded into his head, over and over, until they were deeper than any of Merlin's scars.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000
Bedivere could tell his answer had hurt the straw-haired man - the prince. But he couldn't stop remembering the little cabin, the bolt on the floor and his p - the woodsman, who had never hurt him but always seemed like he might at any given second.
I'm lying, Bedivere realized. I'm lying to me. I said to myself I'm scared the woodsman will let the sick man die, but I know the woodsman is going to make him die. That's why I needed to find the Knight so he could find the sick man.
They can't find the sick man without me. Without me the sick man will die.
I can't let the sick man die.
The prince spoke, and even Bedivere could hear the desolation in his voice. "No, Bedivere, I won't order you." He shook his head. "Just...give us the rest of the directi -"
"I'll take you."
Bedivere didn't know how his voice came out so strong, but it caught the attention of everyone in the room. The prince's eyes widened, and Bedivere hastily remmebered to wipe away the tears from a few moments ago. "You...will?"
He nodded, hoping that he was hiding how scared he was and looked brave now.
"You're sure?" the prince asked, but his head appeared to be racing and his eyes were alight with hope.
Bedivere nodded again, and the prince turned to the Knights and the pretty lady. "Elyan, go get four horses. He can ride with me." The dark-skinned Knight rushed out the door.
"Four?" the pretty lady stood up. She looked a little mad, but also sad too, because it looked like she was about to cry. "Arthur, I -"
"Please, Guinevere." the prince interrupted her, sounding urgent and gesturing to Bedivere. "I'm risking enough bringing him along. I can't put you in danger as well. Percival needs to stay behind too, to get that jaw looked at."
The giant Knight, who towered over Bedivere, glared at Sir Gwaine. His face looked funny, the bottom half crooked. Sir Gwaine cast his eyes anywhere but the giant Knight.
"Also, someone needs to keep an eye on him." the prince spat out the last word, nodding toward the wall. Bedivere looked and saw a bundle of clothes. Why did someone need to stay with a bundle of clothes? Were they dangerous? How could clothes be dangerous?
Reluctantly, the pretty lady and the giant Knight agreed to stay. The prince turned to Bedivere and led him out into the hallway, with Sir Gwaine and the Knight with hair slightly darker than the prince.
The dark-straw-haired Knight glanced down and gave him a small smile. "That was very brave, Bedivere."
Bedivere bit his lip. "I can't let the sick man die. Not like the others."
He didn't see the shocked glances between the Knights as he began to run over the way to the woodsman's house in his head, the one he had hoped to never have to travel again.