Okay...I PROMISE the next chapter they'll find Merlin. I just couldn't resist a little more horror.
Also, I'm a little nervous about the confrontation. I'm generally more comfortable writing reaction over action (you can probably tell from the first FIFTEEN or so chapters consisting solely of talking and introspection). I pledge that I will try my best, though. *determined face*
Oh, and I've received queries as to Bedivere...well. His father likes to have complete control over people, and he's had at least one woman captive...so yeah. Two and two, all that.
There's a nice doctor here who lets me have access to the computer, because he's a fan of this story! How about that?
Ecrivez reviews, s'il vous plait!
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Somewhere in the back of Gwaine's mind, a small part of his brain remained untouched, unaffected, carrying out the necessary functions to follow the boy's instructions. Right turn here, correct course here, it was automatic.
The rest of him, however, wasn't nearly as calm.
No matter how many times Gwaine had simply brushed off, avoided, or selectively forgot bad experiences, it started to add up, like small stones being added until they formed a heavy pile. There had, of course, been good parts, memories he liked to keep from his patchwork life. Chief among them, his time in Camelot, where he realized that maybe he could finally belong somewhere at last. Finally, the pile of stones seemed inconsequential.
Until today, the moment he had noticed Merlin missing from the kitchen.
Now, with Bedivere's tearful announcement, it was as if he was incapable of understanding what was happening. No matter how many times he repeated it to himself, it refused to penetrate. Dead? Dead? Dead? The litany coursed through his head, bouncing off the walls of his skull in a cacophony of confusion as he struggled to join the concept of Merlin, energetic and cheerful and alive, with the cold stillness of death.
It simply was not conceivable.
But it's real, a quiet, disturbingly even voice noted in his head, just because you can't believe it's real doesn't make it false. You couldn't believe Camelot was quite real, having an actual family instead of scarcely encountered drinking mates, could you?
But this isn't that.
Abruptly, Gwaine knew that if Merlin was dead, truly dead, he would leave Camelot. Camelot without Merlin, a little brother in all but blood - to all of us, no matter how much the princess denies it, the idiot - would not be a Camelot he wanted to remember.
"It's up ahead." Bedivere said, an odd note in his voice.
Gwaine, though tossed about with creeping grief while the litany in his head grew louder, as if it were slowly realizing the significance of what it said, heard the tone of the boy's voice and a part of him primed in numerous bars and fights recognized the somewhat off inflection of the words.
He stared down at the top of Bedivere's cap. "What's ahead?"
The boy froze for a second.
Leon and Elyan glanced, puzzled, at Gwaine. Even Arthur shifted subtly, though not taking his eyes from the forest around them.
"What do you mean?" Leon asked.
"I mean," Gwaine said, pulling his horse to a stop, "what's ahead?"
The others paused their horses, and Bedivere said "The place. Where they are."
"Which is?"
Bedivere faltered, and Gwaine was struck with a sense of realization as some of the boy's earlier words came back to him. "You never said it was a graveyard. You said he'd be -" he forced the word out even as it threatened to stick in his throat, " buried. You said it more than once." Gwaine stared at the back of Bedivere's head as dread coiled inside him. "You were convincing yourself he was. You said he'll be buried or."
There was an ringing silence.
"What," Gwaine said quietly, "came after or?"
Bedivere shook his head.
Even Arthur was looking at the boy now.
Gwaine gritted his teeth. It was a horrifying, tragic, heart-shredding thing to have a friend - not just any friend, Merlin - be gone, dead, but if something else happened to him, something hurting him beyond death when by any fairness he should be at rest...
There was something stirring inside Gwaine that only now took the effort to manifest. A slow, heavy anger wound its way through him, snarling as it was woken, pacing inside its restraints as it finally started to sink in that Merlin had been murdered.
"What." he stated in a low, dangerous voice. "Came. After. Or."
Bedivere was still as as statue, save for the nearly imperceptible shaking of his shoulders.
Gwaine refrained from grabbing the boy. That would most likely only terrify him even further. The small, even voice in his head observed he would have to reign himself in if he wanted an answer.
Gathering the entirety of his tenuous self-control, Gwaine forced the snarling thing inside him back behind bars.
"Bedivere," he said in what he hoped wasn't a threatening tone.
"The Rotting Trees."
There was a brief silence.
"The -" Leon started.
"Please," Bedivere's voice was brittle. "you'll see. He buries most of the people anyways."
Most. Gwaine ground his teeth together. Most wasn't all.
They stood for a tense second, then Gwaine nudged his mount into moving again.
The Rotting Trees. Most. You'll see. Most. Please. The place. The Rotting Trees. Most. Gwaine couldn't help but feel the thing lift it's head again, chafing with impatience as it wandered in the dark.
Merlin is dead. Merlin was murdered. The litany finally sunk in and he twisted the reins in his hands so tightly they turned white as a result of denied circulation. Somehow he couldn't summon the effort to feel it.
Had he been scared? Had he been in pain? The thought that Merlin had been hurt before he died, been perhaps hoping his friends could find him in time, was nearly unbearable. Had he been conscious? Had he given up that they would find him?
No. No, he knew Merlin. He wouldn't have believed his friends might not find him in time. He would have held out hope until the second he was -
Gwaine twisted the reins tighter.
This woodsman would pay.
"Oh, gods."
The quiet, almost inaudible utterance wouldn't have registered in Gwaine's tumultuous thoughts if not for the utter horror filling the word.
He looked over to his left to see Elyan. Even though it was impossible, Gwaine could have sworn his face was several shades paler. He was looking up and to the right, and Gwaine followed his gaze.
To a human skeleton, hung in the tree, yellowed bones eerily still and soulless eye sockets staring down at them.
Gwaine was dimly aware their horses had stopped, and the others were staring at the skeleton as well.
His mind refused to work. There was a skeleton here, a human skeleton, hung up as if it were some kind of -
Trophy.
Some kind of goddamn trophy.
H-he'll be bur-ried or -