Afternoon sunlight finally burns off the near-perpetual mist in the Bay of Nemeth, allowing the guests a first glimpse at the small isle where the labyrinth is to take place. Gossip about the Isle of Lysagh–a place no more than a small spit of land out in the Bay–has ruled the castle this past week. Rumors and myths and stories have run wild, spilling from the mouths of visiting nobles, domestic servants, and royalty alike.
Merlin had a difficult time parsing out the rumors from true information at first. But in the little free time he had had this past week between studying ill ducks and cursed princes and stiffly making his way through interminable small talk with other nobles, he had pursued those rumors with as much gusto as he could muster. Past experience with Arthur, after all, has left him with deep suspicions that the Isle would turn out to be cursed. Or haunted. Or plagued with wyverns or wildren and/or other terrible beasts. Likely and, and he resolved early on in the week that he would continue forward as if that were the case until proven otherwise.
He had first stopped by the library. Upon inquiring, he found that all the books mentioning the Isle had already been borrowed by other guests. But Merlin would not be dissuaded by such a minor inconvenience, seasoned researcher that he is.
So instead, he forced himself to listen attentively to a lecture on Nemethian military and geographical history and fhe existential threat of bookworms from the Librarian until he was well-tolerated enough to press the man for details on the Isle. He got not only his first description of it, but a list of which books had been loaned out and to whom. Just for good measure, Merlin also took out quite a few books on seafaring and ship construction, as the idea of setting foot on a boat made him slightly nervous. He had never been a strong swimmer and his profound lack of grace on land alone made him anxious about his balance at sea.
He managed to track down a fair amount of people who had loaned out helpful-sounding books that mentioned the Isle and asked most of them to allow him to read the materials in exchange for little favors: passing along messages, scheduling appearances at parties and teas and meals, communicating particular instructions to different staff. But he didn't stop at the reading. He used his new connections.
Lady Lian had introduced him to a bevy of royal cartographers, who trapped Merlin in an hours-long, ale-heavy conversation which went from midnight to the wee hours of the morning. Sybil had introduced Merlin to the servants in the castle who she deemed most knowledgeable about any tales and myths regarding the isle, and he spent an excruciatingly early morning listening to them while assisting with their chores. Sir Galahad had taken Merlin down to the docks to speak with fishermen who would regularly sail past the Isle, and more than a few who had pulled up on its shores to shelter from a storm. Sir Fred had introduced him to naval veterans who had done much the same as the fishermen.
Before Merlin and his servant left for the first competition, but after the princess had departed, Merlin had chosen to divulge all of what he had learned. It was truly meant more as an attempt at idle chatter to ease his anxiety than anything else. But Dagonet had listened with growing horror, looking at Merlin like he was perhaps the most insane man in all of Albion, and then threatened to box Merlin's ears. A baffled Merlin was then informed that Dagonet was upset not simply for Merlin's refusal to sleep, but primarily for not divulging all of this work to Dagonet, who certainly would have helped and who now despaired at not having updated Merlin's social diary with those particular meetings.
At this, Merlin had laughed–guffawed, quite unattractively, according to Dagonet–and had said, "Oh, sweet Dagonet, if you knew half of what I get up to right under your nose, you'd lose your head."
Dagonet did not, in fact, lose his head, but he did throw the boot he had insisted on polishing in Merlin's general direction, which earned him a laugh and an approving thumbs-up from his strange temporary master.
According to Merlin, and as he had explained to Daonget once the boot had been returned, the Isle seems perfectly harmless. Of course it is difficult for the advisor to truly believe that assessment, even if it is his own, but the reports he heard first-hand all sounded about the same. Long ago, someone had attempted to use the Isle of Lysagh as some kind of fortification or guardhouse. At the time, it had been dubbed a part of the castle grounds and belonging to the royal family. It has technically been a part of the castle grounds since time immemorial, but that fact was typically treated as a novelty more than anything else.
Despite its disuse, the small isle retains most of its buildings, all which are kept in relatively good shape. Its habitable structures are contained to a small complex in the middle, consisting of a tower and a few outer buildings containing a kitchen, servants' quarters, a small garden, and a few livestock pens. The labyrinth had been built as a way to protect whomever lived there once upon a time from sea-faring invaders, and then tunnels built beneath that as a way to allow the inhabitants of the Isle a quick getaway were they to actually face danger.
Nothing of note ever came of it. The soil there proved too poor for anything but the hardiest of vegetables and herbs to grow, the shoreline too at the mercy of the strong tides to be regularly depended upon, the Isle too often cloaked in thick mist for visibility to be a real advantage. It was long ago abandoned, and used only infrequently as the setting for fanciful fairy tales and romantic myths. He had been told, in fact, that until the Gamesmaster had gotten it into her head to use the Isle as the setting for a competition, it was only used in recent history as a place for the odd fisherman caught in a sudden storm to take shelter until the weather passed.
Altogether, it was a strange thing that the Isle promised no threats–physical, magical, existential, or otherwise–and so as Merlin and his servant leave his chambers (locking a very put-out duck in behind them) and head down to the docks protruding from the pebbled shores of Nemeth's bay, he finds himself strangely nervy. He only fights off the urge to fidget and pace and shake out his hands by every so often catching Dagonet's watchful brown eyes.
Merlin and Dagonet follow the flow of other nobles toward a particular section of the docks obviously overtaken for today's event by Nemeth's navy, and all thoughts of fidgeting or small talk are lost to Merlin amid the curiosities that comprise the vessels of the Nemethian naval fleet. He has never seen a ship before, sea-worthy or otherwise, and the small rafts people would use to take themselves over creeks and rivers closer to home in Camelot and Essetir could hardly be called boats compared to these feats of engineering. It was sort of like thinking huts made out of sticks is all that constitutes a house and then suddenly stumbling across a castle.
Merlin finds himself gang-pressed into traveling with Sir Galahad and Lady Lian on their personal yacht, and spends the beginning of the short passage dangling over the prow by his waist and exclaiming at the fascinating creatures called dolphins racing ahead of the boat. Dagonet dangles next to him and keeps a firm grip on Merlin's arm to keep his master from fully clambering over the side of the ship, but grins just as wide and shouts observations to his master about the speed with which the creatures surge through the sapphire waters below.
Before long, however, a familiar figure stumbles their way over to the pair. It is Sir Kay, profoundly wan and pressing his lips together in a tight line. Merlin gives him a sympathetic look. He has heard that seasickness takes some men poorly, and had truly anticipated to be one of those people himself. At least, Merlin thinks looking at Sir Kay, the illness would keep the scion quieter than normal.
But alas, Merlin finds himself proven quickly wrong. Seasickness alone would not sway Kay from his garrulous nature. Kaymakes valiant attempts to expound on the refreshing sea air and the rejuvenating motion of the boat on the sea, getting as many words out as quickly as he could before he had to shut his eyes and focus on keeping tight-lipped, his chest heaving with the effort of reining in his more virulent bodily functions. Despite his periodic pauses to collect himself, Merlin and Dagonet still find themselves helping him vomit over the side of the yacht several times.
Lady Lian and Elena join the trio at the prow perhaps a candlemark after their departure, having seen the situation and taken pity on Merlin and his manservant. Lady Lian begs of Merlin–with a wink behind the ill scion's back–to go and join a restless Galahad at the wheel of the ship and ensure they did not wash up on a reef somewhere. The mere mention makes Kay curl up on himself and groan.
Merlin gets the message and obliges, but not without a mouthed thank you to his rescuers. Lady Lian and Elena wave him off and begin to fret prettily and attentively over the golden-haired would-be prince. Merlin leaves, Dagonet trailing behind.
They both move with surprisingly nimble sealegs given their shared clumsiness on land and make it without incident to the quarter deck. They hear long before they see Sir Galahad. When the pair approaches, he is busy manning the wheel and shouting delighted and manly statements over his shoulder to a worried-looking man with a face like leather. The true captain, Merlin surmises, watching the older man flinch with every movement Galahad makes.
Galahad himself seems in his preferred element here. He has shucked off the armor that befits a knight, as well as the velvet and brocade that suits a lord. Instead, he stands proudly in a simple linen shirt, a broad-rimmed and deeply defeated-looking hat, and his breeches and boots. His salt-and-pepper beard, neatly trimmed as always, blows in the salt-heavy wind. When he finally catches sight of Merlin and Dagonet approaching, his already broad grin widens. He releases a hand from the wheel to wave, and the old man behind him dives forward to steer in his stead.
"Lord Merlin, my good man!" Galahad exclaims happily. He reclaims the wheel, and the captain takes a small and highly suspicious step backward. "And how're you faring out at sea?"
Dagonet speaks up and answers, "Like he was born for it, my lord."
Galahad laughs heartily and claps Dagonet on the shoulder. "And why not? So was I, my good chap, and yet I had never set foot on a ship until I was thirty and two. Lord Merlin, you must come and try steering for yourself."
Merlin does as he is bid, carefully minding the sharp remarks of the old man behind him and the bellowed directions of the knight beside him. They manage well enough until they draw within sight of the Isle of Lysagh. At that point, the old man finally raises his voice against Galahad and forces himself once more to the helm, arguing that there are reefs out of sight that one must know by memory to navigate correctly. Merlin gratefully gives up the wheel and goes back to the prow, now blessedly absent of Sir Kay, who must have been brought below decks to treat his seasickness. He watches as other ships in the fleet peel off to deposit nobles at other temporary docks about the island, one at each cardinal direction and at each of the four entrances to the labyrinth.
They dock at the eastern side of the isle, and Merlin looks over it with a critical eye as he and the other nobles disembark. The beach is rich with dark, earthy colors in the shining pebbles. The waves crash in a predictable rhythm while gulls circle and cry overhead. Servants are already waiting here, having been brought over earlier in the day, standing at pleasant attention next to tables heavily burdened with hors d'oeuvres.
Sir Galahad and Lady Lian's private yacht, due to Galahad's hand at the wheel, is one of the last to arrive. This proves to be rather fortunate, as Merlin must while away little time before the competition. He considers his options briefly before coming to a quick decision.
In order to avoid being stayed by the still-green Sir Kay or others who had traveled over with them, Merlin decides to stretch his legs and take a walk about the beach. It takes only a handful of minutes to pace from one margin of the crowd to the other along the shore, so he paces a line inland along the western fringe of the nebulous group of nobles. Eventually, he climbs a small heather-laden hill to get a better view of things. He stays there for a long few minutes, taking in the sights.
The coastline, such as it is, extends perhaps only two hundred meters from the shore before the roses begin. They grow tall as hedges and thick as briars. It is impossible to tell from here if there were once walls beneath the tangle of vines and bursting blossoms, so thick have they grown.
And they are in every possible color. Blushing pinks, blood reds, snow whites, dusky oranges, all underlaid with leaves and vines the color of emerald. The fragrance of the roses–there must be hundreds of thousands of blooms–hangs heavy in the air above the isle, mingling with the smell of the sea. But there exists more than what he sees: the crisp smell of evergreen and the heady scents of hyacinth and apple blossoms and more plag on the wind as well.
This, then, must be the pride and jewel of Lady Reena the Gamesmaster and her fleet of workers. He wonder whether and, more importantly, how, they would outdo themselves at the other three competitions.
From all he has heard, the roses were a special touch on Lady Reena's part, as previously the labyrinth had been nothing but plain stone walls and cobblestones overgrown with weeds crusted in salt from the ocean breeze.
In the center of the island, not terribly far away, is the tower. Merlin notes the movement and the glints of light in the upper windows. He notes the birds wheeling above the Isle. He turns and watches the servants as they traverse the beach with dishes and parasols and picnic blankets and notes. He observes carefully as dozens of notes exchange hands, sent between persons directly or passed out by servants to several nobles at once.
The outrageous colors, the sunlight falling like honey from the sky, the smells, the crowd, the gossip, the anticipation and nerves of the first event–it all creates a rather heady atmosphere.
Merlin takes a deep breath and turns back to the tower to study it further. It takes Dagonet completely by surprise when Merlin decides to speak.
"Have you noticed anything?" Merlin asks his manservant.
Dagonet shifts where he stands two paces behind Merlin, displacing a few pebbles and making a slight crunch.
"About what, my lord?"
Merlin shrugs. "Take your pick."
"The servants," Dagonet says immediately.
"What about them?"
"They keep disappearing," Dagonet says. Merlin can hear the frown in his voice.
"Any idea why?"
"Some go to the ships to fetch more food or wine," Dagonet says slowly.
"But you aren't talking about them, are you?"
"No," Dagonet responds. "Others walk away from the picnic area and disappear. Some walk close to the shore and go as if traversing the beach to the next dock to pass along missives. But others go up to the hedgerows and walk out of sight, then come back too quickly to have gone to another dock, but nonetheless come back with notes."
"Do they go to the hedges with notes? Or empty handed?" Merlin asks.
"Empty handed," Dagonet muses.
Merlin nods and waves Dagonet forward. After a moment, the younger boy takes two quick steps forward to stand next to his master. Merlin nods up at the high room in the tower.
"Do you see something up in those windows?"
Dagonet squints. "Glass panes?"
"Wait. Look," Merlin instructs.
Dagonet waits, and finally catches a pinprick flash of light. "Spyglasses."
"Very good," Merlin says, pleased. "Lady Reena is up there with her cadre of workers. I assume people with spyglasses are watching competitors and a series of scribes are writing and copying messages to send out here with the servants."
"But how–"
"Tunnels," Merlin says. "This Isle has no military value, but that does not mean people have not tried to make it so anyway in the past. Tunnels were erected long ago, leading from the inner courtyard to different areas on the beach outside the roses. They had fallen into disuse, but Lady Reena had them shored up and restored for use today."
"Is that how you are going to solve the maze?" Dagonet asks. "Just find a tunnel and go to the tower?"
Merlin gives Dagonet a frown. "Of course not. Where's the sport in that?"
His manservant gives him a relieved and slightly sheepish smile, and the two turn back to survey the wall of roses and the tower rising above it.
"Though to be honest, I'm mainly not doing that because I would be caught immediately," Merlin muses.
"So what is your plan then?" Dagonet asks, his voice bordering on a whine.
This has been a point of contention between the two for the past week. Dagonet has vacillated between providing strategies of his own, accusing Merlin of keeping his own strategy secret, bemoaning the fact that Merlin does not have a plan, and insisting that the two think of a plan together. At this moment, it seems he has swung back to accusing Merlin of keeping his strategy a secret.
To a certain degree, of course, this is true. Merlin does have a plan, but it is not much of one. His plan, such as it is, is to find a way to be alone in the labyrinth and use his magic to get to the center. Little details, such as which spell he will use, or if he will use a spell, and how he will do so without being detected by the people with spyglasses in the tower, remains to be seen. They are unimportant details. Something always occurs to him, one way or another.
His backup plan is to simply turn right until he finds the center, but finds this less promising as he has overheard several other people declare the same thing, and saw even more glowering at the former individuals for stealing their idea.
After all, that is the most logical and straightforward way of solving the labyrinth.
But other people have other strategies, he knows, and even more plan to do nothing more but spend an idle day strolling through canopied halls of wild roses and enjoying the Nemethian sunshine.
Merlin gives Dagonet a wink and taps the side of his nose–mainly to annoy his servant more than anything else–then strides off toward the buffet tables to snag something to eat. He spends another few minutes stuffing hor d'oeuvres into his mouth and dodging chatty-looking nobles. But before too long, he is saved from the stifling nature of small talk.
Servants emerge from this port's entrance to the labyrinth, dressed in their finest Nemeth garb replete with silver embroidery and ridiculous hats. They each bear a horn of beaten brass, and in unison with six others across the island, send bright, clear notes into the air. From each of the tower windows, a shower of rose petals is thrown and becomes caught in the wind, floating across the island.
The nobles on the beach move in one large group to the entrance. Merlin keeps himself mainly to the middle and carefully away from Sir Kay, Princess Elena, and Lady Lian. When Princess Elena catches sight of Merlin, she sends him a wink and drops her handkerchief, which Kay dives to retrieve despite still looking greenish and unstable. Merlin gives her his largest, most lopsided grin, which extracts a slight flush from her, and pushes further through the crowd to get nearer the entrance.
Then the horns sound again, and the crowd pushes forward as one. The first competition begins.
Merlin finds himself taken along with the crowd for a few fair turns, but cannot bring himself to be overly bitter about this. Instead, most of his attention is taken up by admiring the labyrinth itself. Each branching path is wide enough for three to walk abreast at least, even with the wild roses reaching vines and petals out to grab at them.
The flowers have been made heavy and fragrant with summer sunlight. It is not just roses that grow here, Merlin discovers, but other flowering vines and strange plants make their home here as well: purple wisteria bursting like fat grapes overhead, morning glory with their pale purple trumpets studded amid the unfurling roses, patches of heather and soft sorrel line the cobblestone paths at their feet. Honey bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and various sea birds swoop overhead and pass between vines and petals, creating a cheery atmosphere of busy life.
Before too much time passes and before Merlin finds himself unwillingly made a part of any one group ambling through the labyrinth, Merlin makes a subtle turn down a branching passage. In doing so, he relieves himself of a chattering group of nobles who had–perhaps unintentionally–enveloped him in their group. He walks down the new path briskly and purposefully, being sure to take a few more turns until he finds himself certainly and blissfully alone.
On this new path he finds himself on, there is a small alcove. A ceiling has been forged from the strong vines of wisteria and roses, and its sides are sheltered by flower-covered rock walls.
Merlin considers it, then sits down and closes his eyes. He allows his magic to unfurl from his tight control, dispersing like water or mist and settling across the Labyrinth, and then the Isle. He feels other nobles, nearby but safely behind several walls of the maze, moving about with various speeds and purposes. He feels the insects and birds all around him, chittering and vibrating with magic and lifeforce. And he feels the roses and flowers, their unrestrained and wild lifeforce creating small currents of magic that weave across the Isle. He prods a little further at the network of flowers with his own magic, curious and delighted. The roses respond, allowing him into their currents and shooting him off, off, off across the Isle through their many varied connections.
He feels exactly where the roses have been cut back to clear room in the passageways. He can understand the way the vines tangle together, each and every last one of them, and how they came to grow that way. He can feel the bottom of their roots just as he can feel his own toes, and he can feel the tender ends of vines stretching toward the light just as he can feel the hair on his head being warmed by the sun. And he can feel, just as he feels where his fingers end and where the earth meets his feet, where the courtyard lies amid the tangle of thorns and petals.
Merlin opens his eyes and sets off down a passage, struggling a little more than normal to reel his magical sense back in.
Mithian really, truly, did have a plan for the labyrinth today.
She should have planned for the plan to go wrong, really, but she had been so certain she could pull it off.
She had thought that she could go through the labyrinth much like Ariadne had hers, tracing the path that she had already walked to find the correct one forward. Of course she would not use thread or even chalk to mark her path given the amount of other people tromping through the labyrinth today. It would not do to have her fellow competitors or the endless parade of hangers-on following her path through the labyrinth.
Instead, she had brought with her a sheaf of parchment and a charcoal pencil to annotate her turns. She and Sybil had devised quite a thorough number of abbreviations to denote her path through the labyrinth. But the first few turns she made after divesting herself of her attending noblemen and noblewomen were, by necessity, rushed, and she spent precious time once she was alone thinking through her path so far and scribbling it down. After that, things had gone rather well.
But she is growing frustrated at how long it has taken her to get even this far. Every so often she gets a glimpse of the high tower above the rose-covered walls, but it stubbornly refuses to draw much nearer. She thinks she has only made it halfway to the inner courtyard as the crow flies, which would be rather good, all things considered, if she did not just come across a dead end.
It takes her by surprise, though it probably shouldn't have. She's come across enough already. The path she had been walking down was a long and slightly curved one and had been devoid of branching passages for the past five minutes of her walking. Typically, they occur at least every hundred paces, if not more frequently. At least it ends in a rather pretty alcove: a small bench is set there, resting amid wild lavender and daisies, overhung with roses heavy as apples. She eyes the bench for a moment, conflicted, before finally sitting down.
Truthfully, she needs a bit of a rest. This entire week has been utterly exhausting, and the exertions and heat of the day have done little to improve that.
She has gotten, she supposes, a few chances at making this whole dreadful affair rather productive. She dined with Queen Annis and Queen Guinevere and found the former just as intelligent and engaging as the latter. In fact, she and Annis had met later in the week for a private game of Abrytan in which Annis wiped the floor with Mithian using a surprising strategy Mithian had not seen before, and the pair had spent a merry few hours dissecting their game together.
Mithian had met with Elena and Caradoc for two lunches now and had the opportunity to discuss real things with them, things like treaties and road maintenance and crop yields and politics.
She had had tea with Prince Bedivere, and a stiff and utterly platitude-filled luncheon with Sir Kay. She broke her fast with Queen Guinevere and Princess Elena, and made sure to end every day spending at least a candlemark sewing and drinking with ladies of her own court as a means to gather gossip.
She had even forced herself through a tea with Sir Pellinor, Sir Meleagant, and her own inner circle of knights–namely Fred and Galahad–which was dreadful and unpleasant in every imaginable way, but which did lead to some valuable insights about the current states of their respective countries.
In truth, even if she were to not win a single rose throughout this entire month, the fete could be considered a success just from her meals this first week.
But she has larger ambitions, and will not allow herself to be swayed. She sits and thinks and regains her breath and reassess her strategy.
She wishes she could have an idea of the correct way to get through the labyrinth. The benches are too low for her to use for a better vantage point; she's tried already, to no avail. The walls are too choked with thorns to be of any use for climbing despite the assessment of Pellinor. She could try to draw a map using her sheets of notes, but they would only denote where she has been, not where she needs to go or all the gaps of unknown territory in between.
Mithian is still thinking through her options when she hears footsteps approaching. She imagines coming face-to-face with Pellinor, Meleagant, or Sir Kay and suppresses a cringe. The princess quickly catalogs her options and stands just in time for the person to stumble across her and the dead end.
"Oh," Princess Mithian sighs, racing heart slowing. "Sir Gwaine."
Gwaine's momentary look of deep exasperation transforms into a smile when he sees her.
"Princess Mithian. A profound pleasure, as always." Then he furrows his brow and turns a quick circle before asking, "Dead end?"
"I'm afraid so," Mithian replies.
"Damn," Gwaine says, and Mithian smiles that he does not think to censor himself in her presence.
"Quite," Mithian says. After a beat of silence in which Gwaine broods over his options, Mithian asks, "I thought you were to be following the duke?"
"Yes," Gwaine answers, wiping a hand across his face. "I'm sure he's around here somewhere, but he's bent on shaking me." He winks at her. "Couldn't guess why."
Mithian chuckles. "Haven't the foggiest."
"You wouldn't have seen–" Gwaine begins, a frown on his face, but Mithian hastily interrupts him.
"If I had, I'd've climbed the wall to get away," she tells him. "The scarring from the thorns would have been worth the escape."
Gwaine barks a laugh. "Right enough. I thought he went this way, but perhaps not."
"Was there another path he could've taken?" Mithian asks.
Gwaine shrugs. "Probably. But he did try to climb one of the walls earlier. There's no telling where he's gotten to if he actually managed."
"Whatever made him think it would be advisable to climb a wall of thorns?" Mithian wonders aloud, not attempting to hide her wonderment at the man's stupidity.
"Probably the knight who was suggesting different handholds to him for over a candlemark," Gwaine responds easily. This extracts a real laugh from the princess and Gwaine smiles widely back at her for a moment before asking, "Are you…"
"Resting for a bit," Mithian says, "then continuing on."
Gwaine's easy smile doesn't falter. "Well, perhaps you'd allow me to escort you from this particular area. No telling who could come across you here."
"Oh, you're probably right, Sir Knight," Mithian says, and takes Gwaine's arm so he could lead her to the last intersection.
As they turn back the way they came, Gwaine asks her plaintively, "Why is it that I'm only ever probably right?"
"I think it's because people are too distracted by–"
"My irresistible charm and devastatingly good looks?"
"I was going to say the propensity toward drunkenness and reckless behavior, but whichever suits you," Mithian responds.
Gwaine laughs heartily. Wiping tears from his eyes, he says, "You know, that's exactly something Merlin would tell me."
"Then we're both very wise," Mithian says.
"And blunt as all hells," Gwaine tells her, eye twinkling. "Funny, though. Not many people could say that and have it sound like a joke."
"I think you should examine whether is was," Mithian tells him, but he notices her teasing tone and gives her a warm smile.
"You're an interesting one, princess, I'll give you that."
"Oh?"
"Oh, yeah," Gwaine tells her, nodding. "I'll have you know that few people in this world are tolerable, and a great many fewer enjoyable. You're one of the great many fewer."
They come to the intersection and stop. Mithian releases Gwaine's arm and gives him a sad smile.
"How terrible," she says, and Gwaine is already nodding in sage agreement when she continues, "how terrible it is that you look at the world in such a way. You should have more faith in your fellow man, Sir Gwaine."
Gwaine attempts a scoff. "And why's that, Princess?"
"Well," Mithian says, a line appearing between her brows even as she gives him a soft smile. "Because we're all you've got."
Gwaine looks at her for a long, drawn out moment, his expression inscrutable. Then, he smiles again, and it is as if an invisible weight suddenly fell off their shoulders.
"That's another thing you and my friend have in common, princess," Gwaine says. "You're both strangely wise when it suits you."
"Mm," is all Mithian says.
The knight gives her a jaunty salute and jogs off, hopefully to find Pellinor again and continue keeping him distracted. Mithian remains at the intersection for a minute or two and then continues on herself, taking care to go in the opposite direction of Sir Gwaine.
It takes another candlemark or so for her to come across someone else. She stands at an intersection of passages, scribbling on her parchment, when she hears multiple voices floating toward her and rapidly approaching. Caught off-guard once again, she makes a quick decision and jogs a few paces forward to where a statue has been placed in a small alcove. She shoves vines and bulbous roses and drooping wisteria, stepping carefully over the orchids and squeezing herself past the miniature rhododendron bush growing over the statue's base. Once there, she turns herself to the side so as to obscure herself more fully behind the statue and quickly rearranges some vines and flowers to cover her from view.
Then, she holds her breath and waits as the voices approach.
The closer they come, the more familiar they sound. But it is not until she can hear their words that she discerns who the speakers must be.
"...how happy he is," Guinevere is saying as they approach Mithian's hiding place.
"Of course," a much lower voice returns. The speaker sounds somewhat distracted. "I do fear to say it, comrades, but I do not believe we are getting any closer to the tower."
Mithian thinks hard about where she's heard that voice. She knows it is familiar, so familiar as to be embarrassing and frustrating that she cannot place it, but is unable to identify who it is before someone else speaks.
"Do you approve of your sister in law?"
That is Prince Caradoc. And if everything had gone to plan, the other speaker must be Prince Bedivere.
The group comes to a stop not far away from where Mithian hides. She considers moving, but stays where she is. Were she found, not only would she have to explain why she is hiding like a child, but she would have no reason to refuse them in an offer to accompany them through the labyrinth. Even if the trio wanted to continue without the princess, propriety would demand they extend an invitation were they to come across her, and propriety would demand that she acquiesce.
Better to try to stay out of sight.
"Of course. She is a wonderful woman, and a good queen," Bedivere responds absently. "Perhaps we should change strategies."
"Surely with your brother now married, your family is expecting you to–" Gwen begins. The corner of Mithian's mouth tugs upward. It is not very subtle of Guinevere and so noticeably out of character for her as far as Mithian is concerned, especially considering what a masterful stateswoman the queen of Camelot has proven to be. Bedivere must be acting particularly obtuse.
"I don't know," Bedivere says anxiously. "Maybe making every right turn is getting us nowhere."
Mithian suppresses the urge to curse. They've been using the simplest method, and here she is making note of every twist and turn and just as far along as they.
"If you think it better to throw in a few left turns," Caradoc says easily, "we certainly could. Or if we were feeling particularly wild and roguish, we could continue straight onward at the next intersection."
Bedivere sighs. "I wish Lord Merlin were with us."
"I understand you've been spending some time with my advisor," Queen Guinevere says, latching onto the new topic. "What think you of him?"
"A fine man," Bedivere says quickly, his words almost slurring together in his rush to get them out. "One of the best I've had the honor of meeting, truly. Which is why I would so like to find him…"
Someone takes a few quick steps forward. Mithian's heart races, knowing that with another step whoever it was would be right next to her poor hiding place. She stumbles backward, meaning to press herself further into the greenery behind her.
Instead, she steps through it. She emerges on the other side of the wall, blinking at yet another cascade of vining morning glory and blinking somewhat stupidly. Feeling a laugh bubbling in her throat, she claps her hand over her mouth and turns around.
She is in another alcove, this one with a small trellis directly in front of the hidden passage. She listens hard for a moment, only hearing the now-muffled conversation of the queen and princes on the other side of the wall. The princess pokes her head around the trellis and sees no one occupying the alcove. She takes a quick step around the wooden frame and listens hard again. Hearing no one, a smile stretching across her face, she continues onward.
At the next alcove, she stops. This one has a lovely fountain which proves difficult to get around, but she manages with minimal snagging of her dress. She pulls aside tendrils of wisteria to find another hidden passage.
And inside it that small space hollowed out in the wall, ruffling feathers at her, is a small white duck.
"Sir Quackenfell?"
The fowl gives her a small, pleased quack.
"What the devil are you doing here?" Mithian asks after she manages to close her mouth. Then, she crosses her arms and fixes the duck with a stare. "Did Merlin bring you?"
Quack.
"He wouldn't have. He isn't that odd."
Quack.
"No, you're right," Mithian says, wiping sweat from her forehead. "He is exactly that odd. Well, where is he, then, hm? Or did you wander off?"
The duck quacks again, then waddles forward and through the draping greenery on the other side of the wall. Mithian watches him go, still thrown off by the idea of Sir Quackenfell being here and the image of Merlin traveling across the Bay of Nemeth holding his strange little pet.
It is only when she realizes that she can no longer hear the gentle slapping of his webbed feet against the stone that she is roused into action. She picks up her skirts and goes to the next alcove. She squeezes past another statue and spills into the next corridor of the labyrinth. The duck is nowhere to be seen.
"Well, wait, would you?" Mithian calls. She listens again, and then raises her voice slightly and tries, "Sound off! Sir Quackenfell!"
No answer is forthcoming. She heaves a sigh. And then she remembers. She lowers herself into a crouch and observes the cobbles closely. And there, when she turns in just the right way, she can see a glistening trail of light blue footprints.
With a grin and a hitch of her skirts, the princess sets off on the trail.
She walks for close to two candlemarks following the duck's path. Because she must stop every so often to find the ephemeral path again, she doesn't manage to catch up with it, but its path is straight as an arrow through the labyrinth and makes use of the hidden passages behind the alcoves to make a direct line toward the castle. Luckily, the paths the duck seems to choose are devoid of other people, and she makes good time nonetheless, becoming noticeably closer to the tower much, much closer than before.
Eventually, as she pokes her head into a new alcove, she hears a man's voice speaking. She stops and listens, not yet daring to poke her head from the ivy curtain hanging over the passage.
"... strict instructions not to leave our chambers," the man was saying, and Mithian straightens because she knows that voice.
"Yet where do I find you? Inexplicably here. How did you even manage to board a boat? I know you didn't fly here."
The speaker is interrupted by an indignant quack.
"Don't try to blame Dagonet. He was with me the entire journey over. Oblivious though I may be from time to time, I would have noticed you hidden beneath his tunic."
Quack.
"You're not getting out of this one, Sir," the man insists. "I will have you know–"
Mithian quietly slips from behind the ivy and peers around the statue.
"–that I am doing perfectly fine on my own–"
She sees Merlin standing in the passageway, back turned to her, arms near-flailing with the force of his gesticulations.
"–and have no need for a bird–"
The duck in question ruffles its feathers and expands its wings so as to make it bigger. It lets off a series of quacks, giving the impression that it is truly talking back to Merlin.
"–yes, Sir Quackenfell, a bird, to get me through this labyrinth–"
Mithian picks her way over a hydrangea and past a lavender bush, finally getting into the passage itself, still quietly watching the exchange with interest. The duck lets out a series of surly quacks.
"I am not stuck. Look how far I am, sir–"
"When was he knighted, again?" Mithian interrupts to ask.
Merlin whirls around, eyes wide. When he sees Princess Mithian, his shocked expression softens into one one of delighted surprise.
"Princess Mithian! You are here," he says.
The princess adopts a bemused expression. "Did you think I did not attend?"
"No," Merlin says quickly. "I mean. I mean, I knew you would be here, it's just you're here. Behind me–or, well, in front of me, now. How did you get there?"
"I flew in on a breeze," Mithian responds easily, not suppressing the small smile that blooms on her face at his stammering.
"Must've," Merlin says, grinning at her.
"You didn't answer my question," Mithian says after a moment.
"Question," Merlin repeats.
The princess chuckles. "When was Sir Quackenfell knighted?"
"Oh, he hasn't been," Merlin says quickly. "It's not a title."
Mithian balks. "What?"
"No, no," Merlin says, laughing. "Sir is his first name. Surname Quackenfell."
Mithian stares at him for a moment, and then says thoughtfully, "That's perhaps the funniest thing I've heard in recent history."
"Yet you aren't laughing," Merlin observes, a wry grin twisting his lips. "Curious."
"It will hit later," Mithian assures him. "After I've fully processed your and your duck's absurdity."
Merlin nods sagely. "I believe you absolutely, and will assure you that it is completely normal and not at all strange to react in such a way."
The princess puts her hands on her hips. "Did you just imply that I am abnormal?"
"I think you will find that I said you are reacting in a completely normal and not at all strange way," Merlin corrects her with a lopsided grin.
"You are ridiculous," Mithian says.
"Of course," Merlin agrees. They are quiet for just a beat before they interrupt each other.
"How–" they both begin.
They pause.
"Do go on," Merlin says.
"How has your first week in Nemeth been?" Mithian asks him.
"I do find myself loving your city," Merlin says. At Mithian's expectant silence, he continues, "But, my gods, Princess Mithian, I do not know how you and Arthur and Guinevere do it. I must have half the engagements on my social calendar as you do, and none of them as important as yours, and I am exhausted. I nearly took a nap beneath a willow tree I found earlier in the labyrinth because I am simply that tired."
Mithian quirks an eyebrow. "You say that as if you did not essentially share a schedule with King Arthur for many years."
"In Camelot, there is always something I can be excusing myself to do instead of keep those appointments, though," Merlin complains. "Patients to treat, chores to do, experiments to tend to–"
"Kingdoms and kings to save," Mithian adds. At Merlin's blushing attempt at a glower, she adds, "Monsters to slay. Damsels to rescue."
"I have not rescued any damsels," Merlin says. Then, he says, "Actually… would Arthur or the knights count as damsels?"
Mithian snickers, and wonders at herself as she does so. She, Princess Mithian. Snickering.
Then, she snorts, but only because she is snickering, and Merlin's laugh bounces between the rose-covered walls in response. His own laugh is then interrupted by an involuntary snort of his own, and Mithian bursts into real laughter as well. Merlin doubles over, and then so does Mithian, and they continue that way for a long time until they finally devolve into giggles.
"They certainly count as damsels. Dramatic, beautiful, noble," Mithian says when she has finally mostly recovered.
"Clueless, hapless, hopeless," Merlin says with a grin, ticking them off his fingers.
Mithian smiles back at him, big and silly.
It feels good to be silly. It feels good to laugh. So much of her time is taken up by either dreadfully important banality or dreadfully monotonous polity. She struggles to remember the last time she felt like goofing off rather than attending to her duties, and realizes with a start that it had been when she was writing Merlin, before their correspondence shifted to discussions of the fete and their plan. When she was reading about the then-thought-imaginary Fairy Fevered duck and the midnight kitchen witch and the millions of other strange little things she and Merlin wrote each other about. Sure, she had attended the Servant's Night, which is all well and lovely, but like so many other things in her life, it contained ulterior motives: checking in on her people, ensuring their entertainment and relaxation, overseeing the creature comforts of every class of people comprising the many foreign delegations present.
This, she thinks, this interaction with Merlin is one of the few private things in her life that is truly all hers.
"How have you been, Princess Mithian?" Merlin asks, interrupting her thoughts. "I have hardly seen any of you with how involved you are in hosting the fete."
Mithian hesitates, then allows her face to fall into a grimace. "Fine, if you must know."
The advisor nods solemnly, his slightly overgrown black hair flopping into his eyes, and says, "But just fine."
"Yes," Mithian says, deflating slightly. She goes to sit on the pedestal of the statue in the alcove. Just a moment later, Merlin joins her, perching so close that she can feel the heat from his arm and shoulder, but not so close that they brush together.
"Tell me about it," Merlin says.
And he sounds so curious and so gentle and so nonjudgmental that Mithian, much to her own surprise, does.
"I have had meetings with all the highest-ranking nobles from each country that sent a delegation," she tells him, "but they were all social meetings. Teas, breakfasts, lunches, games, promenades."
"Not meeting-meetings," Merlin says, his lips twisting into a sympathetic grimace.
"Exactly," Mithian huffs. "I don't see how well I can do on proving my mettle as an independent ruler if all my engagements are purely social."
"We-ell," Merlin says, elongating the word. When he catches Mithian's questioning gaze, he continues, "This is a primarily social event. I think, as the hostess, if you wanted to get around to the politics–"
"Not–"
"–governance of it all," Merlin amends, "you will have to begin the efforts yourself. How many of these engagements did you put on your own calendar?"
Mithian scowls as an answer, and Merlin nods knowingly.
"Start there," he says with a shrug. "Set your own meeting. Your own agenda."
Mithian nods and stays quiet as she chews this over. Merlin waits for a minute or two, then nudges her with his shoulder. She looks up at him to see his gentle smile and twinkling eyes.
"Tell me more," he says.
A corner of her mouth quirks up.
And so she does. She tells him about her game of Abrytan with Queen Annis and tries to describe the strategy that lost her the game. She discusses meeting with Bedivere, and how she had been thinking the whole time not of his prospect as a suitor, but of the horse that had knocked over Lady Eloise and the trade route possibilities between their countries. She tells him of the tea with Sirs Meleagant and Pellinor and Fred and Galahad, and finds some comfort in the expression of worry and distaste written across Merlin's face at her story. She talks about how the only real headway she had made had been with Elena and Caradoc, and how she was disappointed because an alliance with Gawant is already a given, considering the friendship between the heirs of those countries and the historical partnerships that existed between the countries already.
And Merlin listens attentively throughout, interjecting every so often with a question. And as he did so, quite without Mithian's notice, he had gently pulled her to stand, and had picked up the duck and set it down again on the cobblestones, and had taken her by the elbow and had begun leading her after the duck.
She just talked, talking instead of noticing, trusting him wherever he would lead them to. Instead of noticing, or even really caring, she told him all about her week, and her ambitions, and her goals, and her misgivings about their whole plan and this whole affair. And she relished in having someone that would listen to her–truly listen–and take the time to want to understand her life a little bit better without telling her how to live it. And when she finally realizes that they had been walking, she realizes, too, that they had paused.
Mithian looks at him, unsure of where in the labyrinth they are, or why she had started divulging all of these things, or quite why she had stopped.
He looks back at her, a soft smile on his face. On anyone else, she may have described it as fond. But the adjective, when it comes to mind, sets off a strange feeling in her stomach and spine and in the tips of her fingers, and she quickly looks away from him and forward in order to escape the feeling.
And sitting there on a pedestal no more than a foot before her is a single golden rose.
The craftsmen had been impeccable. The petals look delicate, the thorns sharp, the leaves thin. It looks, for all the world, like someone had taken a rose from the labyrinth and dipped it into gold.
"I believe this is yours, my princess," Merlin tells her quietly.
Mithian's breath hitches. She glances at him, takes in his crinkled eyes and his proud smile and his earnest face. She turns back to the flower and picks it up, barely hearing the blast of trumpets coming from the tower that is now directly next to her. Rose petals rain down on the two of them, and Mithian turns to look at Merlin again.
She looks at him long enough to see a grin breaking his face in two. Overjoyed. For her.
Before she can manage a response to his expression, however, she notices something strange. Barely audible over the rush of blood in her ears and the horns still sounding from the tower announcing the victory, she hears something.
"Do you hear bells?" Mithian asks, looking up at the tower. "Is this a bell tower?"
"Oh," Merlin breathes, and whips around to look behind him.
Sir Quackenfell sits on the pedestal where the rose had just been. He nips at a few falling rose petals and spits them out immediately at Merlin's chest.
Then, the duck quacks. The force of its own noise, now louder than a thunderclap, let alone the horns now playing Nemeth's anthem from the tower and every entrance to the labyrinth, sends the duck flying backward. It lands in a heap at the base of the tower and stays as it lands for a long moment before righting itself, obviously stunned.
Merlin gives Mithian a sheepish grin.
"I'll look into it."