This is rather boring.
I suppose it can't help but be boring. After all, I'm deprived of everything. I am literally just my conscious mind.
Well, my magic is here too, but it's a bit useless, seeing as there is absolutely nothing to use it on. Except myself, which I could do, but I wouldn't know what to do. Reuniting with my body would be a lot easier if I knew how to get to it.
Not only boring, but frustrating. Wonderful.
Well, progress has to be done somehow.
So...
Black. That's...all. Everything. I see black, hear black, smell black, taste black and feel black. Well. I think it's black. I suppose it's really nothing, and black is just the closest I can come to experiencing the exact nature of nothing.
Interesting thought, Merlin. Gaius would be proud.
I really miss Gaius.
…
…
I wonder what everyone is doing.
Have they realized I'm gone? I think I've been missing for several hours, at least. It's a bit hard to tell.
What will they do? They know about Agravaine's threat. Obviously this woodsman is an assassin hired by him. Well, maybe. With my luck, he's completely unrelated to Agravaine and is simply a bit smarter than the run-of-the-mill assassin in targeting me first.
Still, I'll go with the assumption he was hired by Agravaine. No need to make my life even more complicated.
If they realize I'm missing, they'll go to Agravaine. He has no reason to think they know he's a traitor, so his guard will be down. If they're lucky, they might be able to get information on the woodsman if they take advantage of the element of surprise.
And Gwaine will be with them, so most likely he'll give Agravaine plenty of...motivation to talk.
So, what it comes down to is how soon they realize I'm gone.
...
Well, ordinarily, I'd be doomed.
...
Today, though, they heard Agravaine threatening to kill me. I'll take a leap of faith in assuming that might worry them if they find me missing. Even Arthur, since he knows now that I don't go to the tavern.
I've always hated that alibi.
Focus, Merlin. You really need to get out of...here.
Sigh.
Wait, what? Did I just mentally sigh? How do you even do that? I don't even have lungs!
…
…
Again, Merlin, focus.
Focus. You need to get out, to protect Arthur if nothing else. It's been proven time and time again that the prat is spectacularly oblivious when it comes to danger to himself.
Well, actually, that could apply to someone else as well...
Stop thinking to yourself, Merlin. The point is, Arthur needs protection, whether he admits it or not. I protect him. Simple as that. And apparently not that hard to figure out, considering my situation at the moment.
I wonder if I'm already dead.
Wait, WHAT?
Where did THAT come from?
I'm not dead! I'm thinking, and existing, so clearly, I'm not dead.
But would I know it if my body was killed?
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…
I don't suppose I would.
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The small man had come up with plan. A terrifyingly simple, cruelly brilliant plan.
The sorcerer's strange mind magic made it impossible for the woodsman to do anything to him. So that was exactly what he would do. Absolutely nothing.
After all, it only took three days to die without water.
He was careful to avoid thinking of hurting the sorcerer as he maneuvered him through the forest. Even so, he pulled him along on the sled that had originally held the broken deer instead of carrying him over his shoulder, as he usually did with his targets.
Obviously, the sorcerer couldn't stay in the cabin. The woodsman couldn't strictly control every thought that came into his head twenty-four seven, and he didn't want to find out what would happen if he dreamed about hurting his victim, as he often did.
No, it was much more practical to simply move him to the Rotting Trees, where he would die slowly and safely away from the small man, ready to be buried afterward. Maybe the woodland creatures would attack him, and do the job for the small man. Unlikely, though; he doubted the repellant magic worked specifically on him. After approaching, any animals with a meal in mind would most likely be treated to the same agony. The thought pleased him.
Another reason he was moving the sorcerer popped up insistently in the back of his head, and he stubbornly ignored it.
Frankly, the young man's eyes were unsettling.
They jerked to the side with no warning, they followed nonexistent trails wandering through his field of vision, they stared at a single spot so intensely the woodsman caught himself looking at where he was to see what was so absorbing, only to be reminded the sorcerer was seeing things that either had happened or would happen. Though there had been an instant when he hauled the limp body onto the sled when the sorcerer had followed his fingers exactly. That had been...unnerving, to say the least, and the small man had only relaxed when the eyes had flickered away with the same blank gaze.
As far as the woodsman could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to whatever the sorcerer saw. Seeing the waving hand a few seconds in advance, seeing the woodsman moving to the fireplace a few minutes after it happened, watching him load the sled in real time, it was completely random.
They were almost to the Rotting Trees. There wasn't the normal woodland noises here, birdsongs and the like. Instead, the air was filled with a barely audible humm blanketing the air, and the occasional harsh cry of a raven or crow.
The small man stopped for a moment, more to take it in than to rest, and he turned around to check on the sorcerer.
He was just in time to see the young man flinch, barely but clearly, on the sled. His eyes darted to the side of the path, at a spot to the left.
The woodsman froze. The sorcerer hadn't flinched before. What was this? Involuntarily, his eyes followed the staring young man's to a perfectly innocuous patch of ground, as his mind worked furiously to find out what had prompted actual movement.
After a few moments, he relaxed as a memory came to him. He remembered that patch of ground - it was where he had killed one of his targets, almost two years ago. A woman - she had screamed, high and loud when he stabbed her. If the sorcerer was seeing things out of time, it was logical to assume he could hear them too. It was natural to flinch at a sudden noise, especially a human scream.
Satisfied, the woodsman turned back around and continued pulling the sorcerer along, working busily to suppress the pleasure he felt when he thought of the young man's fate.