Mordred's knuckles hovered momentarily at the door to the Queen's chambers before lightly rapping twice. He felt hyper aware of the two guards standing stoically at either side of the door, though they didn't even spare him a glance. It was odd how donning his scarlet cloak in the name of Camelot felt so very right, and yet being amongst his fellows felt so intimidating. Logically, he knew that he'd been summoned here by Ser Leon, expected to appear promptly. Additionally, knights and guards both were slowly growing to become some of the closest friends that Mordred had ever had; they trusted him implicitly and teased him regularly and Mordred felt that he'd never trusted anyone to have his back the way that these men did. And yet, standing in the shadows of the silent, armed watchmen he didn't know while he waited to be called in sent a chill up his spine. As he reprimanded himself for being ridiculous, the Queen's voice called for him.
"You may enter." Mordred pushed the door open and found himself to be the third knight in the room. Queen Guinevere was sitting at a desk, turned right in her seat so that she could look out the window into the courtyard and down the main street that cut through the citadel. Ser Leon stood before the desk, his hand resting casually on the pommel of his sword, and Ser Gwaine leaned against the desk, also twisting his head to look out the window. Mordred was grateful for Leon's reassuring smile as he closed the door behind him and approached the group.
"Good evening, your Highness. Sirs." Mordred gave a small bow and let his eyes trail over to the window as well. The main road bustled with people despite the dwindling hour, for it was Midsummer, the longest day of the year. Distant music carried on the wind could still be heard through the closed window. Chimneys across the citadel smoked with scent of savory meats all day, and Mordred had gone out earlier to partake of the meat pies on sale for a half penny. Come to think of it, Mordred was surprised that Gwaine was here on two feet when he knew for certain that the Rising Sun was just serving up their first keg of strawberry mead for the season an hour ago.
The Queen's gaze lingered on the window for a time after he spoke, but with a soft sigh she turned and sat straight in her chair to address the room. Gwaine pushed his hip off of the edge of the desk but continued to stare blankly out the window.
"I have a request. I know it's Midsummer, but there's very few whom I could ask this of." Mordred's neck heated at the praise, honored by the Queen's trust.
"This morning, I caught Merlin on his way out of the castle before the festivities had even begun. He said he was out to gather peppermint for Gaius' hangover cures before all the drinking began, but that he had the day off from tending to Arthur and was excited to see the lower town's Midsummer celebrations. That was not even an hour after sunrise, and now the sun is set and I fear no one has seen Merlin all day." Her brows knit as she spoke, and Mordred could hear the worry in her tone. "I spoke with Gaius; he said that peppermint grows in large swaths some ways up the north road. It should not have taken much more than an hour, two at most. I was hoping to spend some time out in town with him and Arthur, but everyone I sent to find him reported that no one knew where he was. Then Gwaine…" Gwen paused and gestured to the knight.
"Merlin, some others, and I promised to meet up for a drink today after noon, since it was a rare day off for him. He never showed. I figured he could be late or forgot, but I waited for hours. It could be nothing, but with what Gwen says," Gwaine finished with a shrug, his arms crossed tight in front of him.
"Have you checked with the King?" Mordred asked, speaking before he realized that would be the first place anyone would think to look when looking for Merlin. Gwen smiled at him still and nodded tiredly.
"Since we returned from the lower town, Arthur has spent the whole afternoon mock-jousting in the ring. Needless to say, Merlin was nowhere to be found in the vicinity." She held a wry grin for a breath before her features settled again into concern.
"Would you two go out to the north road and look for Merlin? Leon will watch at the north gate for his return and will alert you if he does." While she spoke, Leon nodded and looked between Gwaine and Mordred.
"When you have found the peppermint patch, one of you takes the woods west of the road, the other, east. Reconvene at the Hawthorne after an hour. If you both come back empty-handed, return and we'll send out a proper search party. If one of you doesn't come to the Hawthorne after an hour, return to the castle for back up. Understood?" He spoke of the hawthorne tree that grew out of the center of the north road a few leagues away. It was considered by the ranks to be a meeting point for patrols, messengers, and runners because of its notable location and size.
"Yes, Sir. With pleasure, your Highness. We will leave at once." Mordred spoke for them both, but Gwaine broke his empty stare out the window to meet Gwen's gaze and nod.
"We'll find him, your Majesty."
"Thank you," Gwen offered. "This all could be nothing, and I hope it is. But I couldn't ask just any knights to go out looking for a servant who may or may not be missing on a holiday."
With final bows, Gwaine swept out of the room and Mordred quickly followed.
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They left Camelot at a relatively easy pace. There were too many people on the road inside and outside of the citadel due to the festivities. When they finally got far enough away that the bird song was louder than the people on the road, they increased their pace. Usually, Gwaine always had something to say, but today he seemed focused on the road ahead of him. Mordred was a bit surprised; Gwaine seemed to have more faith in Emrys' capabilities than any of the other knights and was quick to remind others not to underestimate him. This situation must have him worried enough that he is no longer confident that Emrys is okay.
Mordred predicted that Emrys was just fine, probably. He could handle his own, particularly without any knights around to hold him back. His reasons were not best shared though, so he had little comfort to provide for the unusually serious knight riding before him, and they trekked on in a tense silence.
On horseback, the trip was short, and the setting sun was still streaming through the treetops when they found a grove that contained enough peppermint to stock Gaius' shelves for years. It filled the ditch beside the road in large clumps, with most of the stems grown tall and weedy. The pleasant smell and golden rays of light felt assuring, like nothing bad could have happened to Emrys on a day as fine as this Midsummer.
"The Hawthorne is about another half hour up the road on foot from here. I say we tie the horses behind the brush here and search the woods on foot. If we run on our way back, we could even cut that time in half," Gwaine said with an eyebrow waggle, like running from the tree to the horses was something he should be excited to do. But Mordred saw the sense of it and began to dismount. There wasn't much else to say to each other as they tied down the horses and parted with a simple acknowledgement of their splitting.
Mordred started by studying the peppermint patches on the west side of the road, trying to look for something Emrys would have seen that would have drawn him into the woods. The forest was beginning to shadow as the sinking sun hid beneath the trees' thick, green canopy. The contrast of the trees silhouetted against the brilliant, pale-yellow sky made it difficult to see details in the foliage as he searched, and it wasn't helped by the fact that Mordred wasn't confident he could spot a clue like the other knights could. He could spot deer trails and could point out where the red squirrels buried their stash, but the ability to track a specific person or animal was a skill he did not need as a druid or as the mercenaries' errand boy.
He did not continue his fruitless search long before an idea struck Mordred, and he huffed to himself for not thinking of it right away. Mindspeak was an ability he excelled at, and he felt that it was the exception to his resolve to do no magic. When one with magic lived in Camelot in secret with another magic user, the ability to communicate silently was almost as important in keeping himself alive as avoiding spellwork. Additionally, when he spoke with his mind, he found it easier to say what he meant because of the inherent sense of the other's emotions. It was only with the barest flicker of uncertainty that Mordred focused his thoughts and cast them out into the space around him.
Emrys?
He held still as he listened for a response, but only the rising swell of nightingale song filled the silence. Emrys was not nearby. Or he could be ignoring Mordred. Either option made Mordred's gut clench, though he rationalized that the second option was unlikely. If he wasn't anywhere nearby, they hadn't passed him on the road, and no one knew of his whereabouts in the citadel, something had to have happened to him.
From nowhere, Mordred saw a flash of bright light from the corner of his eye and his head snapped to follow it. His sword was quickly unsheathed as his eyes scanned the forest before him, but just as the flash had seemed to come from nothing, there appeared to be nothing there. The leaves rustled softly, the birds sang, and the sky seemed to grow more brilliant, but nothing else moved. Mordred crept forward with his sword at the ready. The place where he saw the flash was only a few steps away, but as his vantage changed, he still found nothing. Until suddenly, the bright light glided out from behind a thick oak tree. Mordred almost dropped his sword in surprise to see a dancing orb, burning with bright, blue fire. The orb drifted loftily away and disappeared behind another tree, and Mordred stared, dumbfounded.
His thoughts fell back to some of his earliest memories, a particular night around the fire. He and the other kids his age were eating while Kian - the father of one of the other boys - told stories about Will-o'-the-Wisps. They were blue-flamed spirits that appeared before a guileless traveler and led him away from the road. He didn't know if they really were spirits or magic cast by the fae, but the stories were all the same: they were tricksters, and one should avoid following them.
Mordred acknowledged these memories as he stepped after the wisp. Where his situation differed from those fairytales was that this place was the last known location of Emrys, magic incarnate. If there was anyone who could bring such tales to life, it would be him, and Mordred would not be called a coward for running away from the dancing orb.
The wisp was always several paces away from him, and out of sight for more than half the time he followed it. Mordred's uncertainty grew the longer he followed and the farther away he strayed from the road. The sun had finally touched the horizon and the golden clouds were deepening into a rich, blood orange. Though the day was ending, the forest was more alive than ever and filled with the raucous cries of birds, frogs, and insects. The combination of their calls resulted in a never-ending buzz that was both exhilarating in its fervor and calming in its familiarity. A burning nostalgia for life with the Druids flared in him as he was immersed in the sounds of the forest and the very air seemed to shift into a shade of pink because of the setting sun. The alien blue flame of the wisp was the only thing that kept him from stopping and basking in this forest that was starting to feel otherworldly.
The sunset was at its most brilliant when Mordred realized he'd been following the wisp for quite a while, and he was still no more confident that Emrys was in this direction. He feared that he'd been foolish to disregard the stories and had followed a wisp this far away from the road.
That was until the wisp drifted into sight a stone's throw in front of him and flickered in place, even as Mordred neared. He realized there was a clearing before them, and the wisp hovered at the edge. Suddenly, another blue flame appeared and twirled around the first wisp until the two were locked in a symmetrical dance. Mordred stared, fascinated as he noticed more wisps dancing through the trees, seeming to converge on the clearing. He took one more step forward and felt a substantial shift in the air.
As he passed some invisible threshold, Mordred knew then that this ground was sacred. It wasn't a site of the Druids, for no tokens or chimes hung from the branches of the trees, but this clearing made his heart pound and trailed goosebumps up his spine. He could not fathom how long he spent staring at the wisps dance as the atmosphere faded to a purple shade and his blood sang with magic. He would have been content to stand there for the rest of the night, but from nowhere a voice rang across the clearing and Mordred flinched violently.
"You don't have to hover, Mordred." He tore his eyes from the wisps to finally give his attention to what was in the clearing. A fallen tree cut the clearing in half but was consumed by tall grasses on either side. On the far side of the fallen tree, there sat a figure sitting in the grass with his back leaning against the trunk. Most of his body was blocked by the tree, but the voice and familiar head of black hair finally registered for Mordred. He'd found Emrys.
Mordred shifted his weight to step forward, but the buzzing sensation that surrounded him both audibly and physically reminded him that this place deserved reverence. Mordred loosened the buckle that held his sword and slowly pulled the strap over his head. He felt that this was proper, even though the missing weight of his weapon made him feel unbalanced. He carried the sword into the clearing and rested it against a tree. The wisp he had followed here had glided away from his approach, and he soon lost track of which wisp was his as he saw that the clearing was surrounded by perhaps a dozen or more spirits. Their dancing was chaotic like a cloud of gnats, but mesmerizing. He was enraptured by them as he tramped through the grass towards the fallen tree and shakily sat down on the log, a few hands away from Emrys. Emrys sat with legs outstretched and arms crossed. He looked relaxed, which was a new look for the usually weary and distrustful manservant.
"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Emrys said with a gravelly voice. "They just started arriving, one by one." Somehow, though he spoke softly, the buzzing of the summer insects did not drown him out.
"I was warned as a child that Will-o'-the-Wisps are trickster fae and that you should turn the other way if you see one."
"Will-o'-the-Wisps?" Mordred caught the question in his tone and wondered at the idea that Emrys did not know of these creatures.
"In the druid camps, our bedtime stories warned against them. They always lured the unfortunate traveler deeper into the woods until they were lost in the fae realm, never to be seen again. That, or killed. Or turned into a bear for the fae's amusement. Some kids used to pretend they saw one to scare everyone else, but I'd never seen one before today." He was surprised to hear Emrys give a soft chuckle in reply, and the sound gave him more relief than he expected. Usually, his interactions with Emrys were so tense that he feared being in his presence. He'd spent hours trying to reason out why Emrys despised him so, for Mordred could not help but value his opinion of him higher than anyone else. Emrys was the hope of his people, the closest thing to a god in the realm of men, and his disapproval was like a weight. It was the vindication of everyone who had ever disliked him. The lack of that weight in Emrys' mien now was heartening, but strange. He didn't know how to tread around the other.
"There is no evil here." His words were soft and distracted. "Look. The glow worms have been waiting for this moment." Mordred was confused by the sudden change in topic but pulled his gaze from the wisps anyways. The sun had sunk lower, melting into the horizon. The forest was fully shadowed now by the trees but tinted by the color of the dusk. Mordred watched with bated breath as tiny, green specs of light appeared blinked slowly to light on tree trunks, dangling leaves, and on the seedheads of the tall grasses. The glow worms emerged nightly in the summer and were familiar to anyone from Cornwall to Northumbria. Tonight though, their twinkling sparks had congregated here en masse. They sat in relative silence as the light in the clearing dimmed to a gentle indigo and the darker it became, the more the glow worms flickered alight. Already, the space was full of them. Their green glow was much softer compared to the brilliance of the wisps that still weaved between the trees. Mordred idly wondered if they were both lost in the fae realm like the stories warned.
"Why have you come here, Mordred?" The question didn't feel loaded. He was about to explain about the wisp he followed before his addled brain remembered Emrys didn't know the context of why he was in the woods at all.
"Queen Guinevere worries for you. She said you went out early and never returned, so she sent me and Gwaine out to look for you." Emrys hummed and glanced up briefly at Mordred. He was about to speak, but Mordred was distracted by the golden light burning in Emrys' eyes. His eyes were lit with the fire of magic, shining so brightly they cast a glow onto his cheekbones and eyelashes. Emrys spoke like nothing was different.
"I should have considered that Gwen would worry." He sighed and gazed out at the wisps. "I just… I left this morning with the intention to gather herbs for Gaius, but the forest is different today. Everything is…" He struggled with his words, but Mordred paid rapt attention and waited. "For the past nine years, I stayed in the citadel during the Midsummer celebrations. Before Camelot though, I used to spend the morning doing chores around the farm and the rest of the day in the woods around Ealdor. I had forgotten what it felt like to be out here at the height of summer. The breeze sings along with the music in the citadel, and the trees are so… alive. And they know it, too. They're so intertwined with everything else that magic flows like a river through them and I can't help but want to dip my fingers in the flow." His voice trailed off as his hand raised and gestured at the air. There didn't appear to be anything there that Mordred could see, but as his hand raised, the forest reacted. The lichen on the dead log upon which he sat began to glow the moment Emrys lifted his hand and brushed the air. The glow worms' lights pulsed together at once, revealing the locations of hundreds of the insects. Clusters of small orange mushrooms at the edge of the clearing also flared to life, their warm glow akin to the color of embers. The wisps spiraled like leaves riding the eddies of a fast-moving river.
Mordred was speechless. He felt Emrys' gaze on him but couldn't find words to say. 'Beautiful' was close, but the thrum of magic in his bones and the unnatural glow of the clearing ascended beyond just beautiful. He thought he could understand what Emrys meant when he said that everything felt alive, at least in that moment.
"You see why I didn't want to come back to the castle," he said with a grin. Mordred met his gilded eyes and agreed.
Together they sat in the darkening twilight as Emrys lit the glow worms and fungi in rhythmic patterns. He was smiling while he played, his hand making subtle movements while he directed the lights like a minstrel.
"How are you doing that? How does it work?" Emrys' uncommonly good mood was affecting Mordred and his eagerness to know the answer overcame his reserve with the warlock. Emrys considered his question for a while, but the silence wasn't strained.
"Consider a spider web. A spider's web allows for vibrations to travel along it to alert the spider that an insect has been snared. All the living things in this wood are connected by a web of magic, you could say. I'm merely touching the web and watching the ripples. I can't see the web, but I can feel it. I am a part of it too. We all are." He pauses and is gazing into the trees for a moment before he shrugs. "That didn't make sense."
Mordred smirked, because no, it really didn't. He could grasp the concept of ripples on a web, but not how he "touched the web" or felt its existence at all.
"Okay, to be specific, when you cast a spell, do you feel a sensation under your skin or in your hands or chest? Can you tell the difference between when you are not using magic and when you are?"
Mordred considered and nodded. After all, he'd felt a buzz under his skin the moment he'd approached the clearing. He was also intimately familiar with the feeling of thinking versus casting his thoughts. Casting magic felt like a liquid flowing away from him, under his direction and control.
"Today, everything is so charged with life. Something to do with the sun…" He paused, as he looked at the glow on the horizon in thought. "Today, magic is so heavy on the air that I feel like I cannot move in it without affecting it. Like I am casting a continuous spell, but not expending energy. It's constantly flowing through me, and it moves as I move." Mordred stared at him wide-eyed, able to see the golden aura of his eyes even though he looked away, and he thought he might understand the reason his eyes were lit.
"Did you know that your eyes are glowing gold?" Emrys didn't break his gaze at the sky, yet raised a brow in a very Gaius-like manner.
"No, but I suppose it makes sense." He squeezed his eyes shut and stretched before continuing. "Thanks for letting me know. Wouldn't want to walk into the citadel like this." Now it was Mordred's turn to raise an eyebrow. Thanks, from Emrys? He really was acting strangely. He usually only ever thanked Mordred when others were around.
And just like that, Mordred's mood shifted. If Emrys could be kind like this to him, why wasn't he? Why did it take a sacred clearing full of summer magic to get Emrys to forget his grudge? Mordred tried to calm his suddenly thumping heart by focusing on the wisps, but his confusion burned in him still. He feared this moment may be his only chance to get Emrys to speak candidly with him, for it would ruin the peace they had so carefully kept. Still, the words inevitably spilled from him.
"Why do you distrust me, Emrys? How can you stand my company now, but not in the citadel?" He waited for Emrys to face him, but he did not. "What have I done wrong?"
He found some relief in the fact that Emrys did not immediately brush him off. While he did not look at him, his face was serious, and his brows were narrowed. But now the silence was long and heavy. Mordred listened to the nightingales while he waited. Several minutes passed before Emrys spoke, during which Mordred's frustration grew.
"You're right." Mordred did not know what specifically he was right about, but he knew he was. Emrys was slow to continue. "I was given an opinion of you that I allowed to become my reason for mistrusting you. You have done nothing wrong, and yet I felt I had a reason to fear, so I did." Mordred felt so lost.
"You feared me? Do you fear me now?"
"No. Because I know you have done nothing wrong. And just as I can predict that the glow worms will light when I do this," He gestured, and they lit. "I know that if I continue down the path that I have been on, you will be affected." Emrys stopped talking to run his fingers through his hair and sigh. Mordred wanted him to keep talking.
"If you admit I've done nothing wrong, then why did you take this opinion to be fact? Who convinced you I was not trustworthy?"
"A paranoid dragon." Emrys huffed to himself. "I see now that is what he was. His paranoia seemed like reason, and I trusted it because he was so insufferably right most of the time. I'm sorry that I have wronged you, Mordred." Mordred was still stuck on the dragon part, never mind grappling with the idea of Emrys apologizing to him.
"What did it… He, think I was going to do? Is it because of Alvarr? He was reckless, but was wronged by Uther and grief made-"
"No." He waved a dismissive hand and the clearing pulsed with light. "It was before Alvarr. Dragons are incredible beasts of magic and wisdom, able to study the vibrations on the web and predict the future. He read the future and guessed where it would lead. Then by speaking it, he made it all the more likely. But Mordred, I see now, today, that every prediction or prophecy is a guess and none can know how life plays out until it does." Finally, Emrys met his gaze. His eyes blazed in the twilight darkness and pinned Mordred in place. "From here on out, I vow I will not let a guess dictate how I treat you."
Mordred had been busting with questions as Emrys talked, but his vow brushed them aside. He scrambled to think of something to say.
"I- would like that?" His words were awkward, but it seemed to be okay because Emrys smiled.
Mordred's window of opportunity to ask Emrys questions passed as they both looked up at the periwinkle sky and remembered where they were.
"I suppose we should go; Gwaine is probably lost in the woods. Did you two even bring a torch?" Emrys pushed himself up off the ground and bent to grab his pack that was resting against a log. He seemed so normal all of a sudden, though the glow worms still twinkled, and the wisps continued to dance. Mordred slid off the log and waited awkwardly while Emrys climbed over the fallen tree to join him.
"Um, Emrys, your eyes. Will you be able to… stop them?" Emrys blinked.
"I guess they've got to. Give me a moment, I'll try something." Mordred stared as Emrys closed his eyes. Mordred found it distractingly interesting that the blazing golden light shone through his eyelids. Eventually, the light behind his eyelids began to dim and Mordred gasped as all the magic they had been steeped in started to drain away. The never-ending buzz lessened bit by bit, and the glow worms started to wink out. Soon the wisps stilled and quietly glided away from them into the forest until they vanished entirely. When Emrys next opened his eyes, they were dark, and the sacred ground was sacred no more. Mordred finally grasped that the clearing had not been special except for that Emrys had been there. He found himself just as stunned as he had been when Emrys had first lifted his hand to direct the glow worms. He had thought it was magic of the earth or of the gods that they had been basking in; Some place where people of old asked the gods to bless that clearing, and they had merely stumbled across it.
Emrys looked at him strangely, seemingly confused about why Mordred was staring at him like he had a third head.
"Are they still gold?" Mordred tried not to gape.
"You are Emrys." Oddly, he looked annoyed by that. Mordred backtracked. "I just… remembered, I guess."
"I'm Merlin, thank you." He grumbled, then checked his tone and sighed. "Sorry, that's just what they always say." Mordred guessed 'they' were the Druids, because it would be so obvious to anyone who grew up with magic. "Just try not to get into the habit of calling me Emrys, if you could." Mordred kept his face perfectly still as he thought, too late.
"I'll try." Mordred ducked his head and went to grab his sword and scabbard.