A/N: I have no excuse, other than school and Madrigal, for why this has taken so long. However, I do hereby swear, that if I get to 200 reviews in this chapter, which seems realistic to me, the next one will be a minimum of 2,000 words rather than 1,000. You remember the last time I did this? For 100 reviews. Yup, it's happening again. I'm so thankful for all of you staying with me for so long.

This chapter is dedicated to Bubblekins1010 , whom I thank for reading and reviewing! I'm glad you understand the 'tough time' I've been putting the characters through . . . it makes me a little sad, what I do. The next couple of chapters might be a little slower, but it will speed up, I promise.

Read, Review, and, most of all, Enjoy!

Gwaine POV

Gwaine was too angry to speak. Despite everything that was happening, Yara Mair would still be dying in less than two days. It was just before dinner when Gwen came to find him, asking him if he could speak with the girl tonight. Gwaine knew what the young woman was really asking when she slipped him the keys.

'Do you think you can save this young girl from the gallows?'

At the moment, he was staring at the three large guards that stood outside the girl's cell.

The guards had been posted right outside the cell since the girls' attempted, and marginally successful, escape. Not by Arthur; he wouldn't have had time since the council meeting. Gwaine really hated those old men. It was people like them that made him distrust nobles so much.

He could see the girl huddled in a back corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her blond hair fell in waves over her the sides of her legs, the ends brushing the dirty stone floor. As Gwaine stood in shadow, out of the guards' sight, she looked up.

Her blue eyes burned into him, and Gwaine felt even his breath still in his chest. He would have sworn his heart stopped too . . . but . . . well, he was still alive. As far as he knew. The girl tilted her head slightly so that the hair on the left side of her face, pooled on the floor as the right was lifted from said surface. Those eyes were the brightest blue he had ever seen, though they seemed to almost be shimmering.

As Gwaine watched however, tears fell quickly down her cheeks, tears overflowing her eyes, and the color diminished. Almost as if the water had been magnifying the color of her eyes. For some reason, the tears motivated Gwaine. Maybe because of how terrified the poor girl looked. Or maybe he was just tired of hiding in the shadows.

The guards fingered their spears, but otherwise waited motionlessly until the knight was right in front of them. "I'm to relieve you from you duties," he said.

One guard looked through his helmet's slit at the other two before turning back to Gwaine and saying, "Under whose orders?"

"The King's."

"We are under strict orders from the Council to keep the girl from escaping," the guard said, but it was easy to detect the tremor of nervousness in the man's voice.

"Your King is Arthur Pendragon, not the council," Gwaine said angrily. "And if you would like, I could inform him that you are not heeding his orders."

Another guard, this one shorter than the others, tugged on the other's arm. "Come on, Gharet, let's go," he said, and the nervousness present in Gharet's voice also made itself clear in this man's. The guards left, armor clinking and clanking loudly as they made their way through the stone corridors.

Soon enough, the only sound was the crackling of the fire brackets on the walls. The girl was the one who broke the silence. "I don't suppose you happen to have the keys on you?" Gwaine jerked back to himself, and fumbled at the pouch at his belt to pull out the key. The heavy door opened with a creek, the sound echoing down the hallway. Gwaine froze, listening for a few moments, but no shouts came their way, no guards raising the alarms that a prisoner was escaping.

The girl offered him her wrist, where the shackles gleamed silver against her pale skin. Gwaine quickly unlocked those as well, helping the slender girl to stand. She leaned heavily against him, and she was shivering. They had taken away her black cloak, leaving her only in a simple dark grey dress and dark leather boots; Gwaine quickly wrapped his own cloak around her.

She leaned on him heavily as he escorted her through the bars of the cell and into the hallways bathed in flickering fire-light. He turned left, to get back towards the exit from the dungeons, but the girl leaned in the other direction. "There is someone this way that I must ask for guidance," she said.

"Who would you ask for guidance from in the dungeons?"

"He is waiting outside the dungeons this way, through what he tells me is a secret passageway."

"A secret passageway out of the dungeons?" Gwaine asked, surprised.

"There are secret passages in every part of this old castle," she said, and though she was leaned against him so that he could not see her face, he heard the smirk in her voice.

"By all means then, if there is a way out by which we will not have to pass the guards, lead the way."

She leaned gently to the right, and they went that way into the dungeons, going deeper down, the walls of the hallway getting rougher, darker. Eventually, the darkness ahead of them got so thick that Gwaine was forced to go back for a hand-held torch. The small circle of light afforded to them by the flame was just enough to see by, and reflected slightly off the walls.

Yara seemed to gain strength as they went on, walking straighter and leaning less of her weight against the knight. She seemed to know her way around the dungeons of Camelot suspiciously well, Gwaine thought, as she directed them left at yet another intersection. The fourth one on their journey. Eventually, they reached a wall that seemed just like all the others . . . about five corridors ago. To the left and right of this stretch was roughly hewn rock, the stretch itself was made of sturdy brick. It stuck out like a silken tapestry among rough sacks. Yara made him put the torch down, the fire flickering slightly against the stone floors as he set it gently down so that it would not go rolling away down the gently sloping floor.

The door that Yara opened was just large enough for the knight to crawl through, and he could feel the walls constricting slightly as they crawled on; Gwaine began to wonder if it would perhaps have been a good idea to leave his armor behind. His chain-mailed knees scraped against stone as wavering late-afternoon sunlight began to reach his eyes. Yara, who was in front of him, had left the tunnel, and was now reaching a hand down to him to help him up the old stone steps. The passageway hadn't felt all that long, but he realized when he looked back over his shoulder that he was a mile or more from the city of Camelot. Magic? Perhaps. The idea really wasn't so scary.

What was slightly scarier was the dragon standing not twenty feet away from where he and the young enchantress now stood. Gwaine swept the girl behind him as the eased the sword from its sheath. Yara's hand on his arm stopped him, and a gentle pressure from her had him lowering the sharp metal so that the point almost touched the ground.

"Great Dragon," she said, bowing deeply.

A/N: Again, sorry for the late chapter, thanks for reading and please review! :) You're all so great, I'm glad I have such a loyal and supportive readership.