It happens by accident. And although it did not happen on purpose, each of them later knew with absolute certainty that nothing could have changed the way each one of them acted in the moment their worlds changed. Nothing could have swayed the outcome.
It takes no more than a few pacing turns to wear a line into the earth between Merlin's friends and the helledor. As he speaks he runs his hands through his air, waves them about in the air. A fair sheen of sweat beads on his forehead despite the chill of the forest.
In truth, Mithian pays little attention to what he says. She's busy staring at the line Merlin treads between her and the danger. Watches as his eyes stay trained on the orb, flicking back to her only every so often as if to assure himself it has not sucked her in yet. Observes as he treads a thin line between death and those he loves and serves.
It shouldn't surprise her that his explanation launches first into the granular, the technical. He talks in large terms: ley lines, fractals, runic expressions. But the depth that he goes into, throwing around terms and mathematics and entire stanzas, does take her by surprise. It brings back memories of riding into the woods near Camelot with the royals and their manservant, Merlin chattering on about the latin names and properties of every plant they pass, or of watching him converse with Silas and Gaius, slipping into the physician's vernacular.
He knows magic. Seeing him here, pacing with strong posture and worried expression before a cosmic rip in the universe, expostulating and pontificating and worrying and protecting–he seems larger than life.
But after a few fair minutes of passionate and unintelligible oration, the two knights and the princess notice that his impassioned attempt at a detailed explanation has only served to make Merlin more anxious and stressed. Gwaine tries to interrupt with a cough, and finding that unable to keep the warlock from his pacing and monologuing, tries for a good old-fashioned interruption.
"Mate," Gwaine says gently, patiently, "mate, we've no idea what you're on about. Use small words, please?"
"What I'm saying is," Merlin responds impatiently, making a tight turn in his pacing, "my suspicions were correct. This thing is a tear in the veil."
"Like with the Dorocha," Gwaine says.
Merlin sighs. "Sort of. But the Dorocha were a result of Morgana simply opening the veil to the spirit world, and in a place where the veil was already thin. It required blood magic, correct location, ritual, sacrifice. This… she flung this here, and it ripped, and it stayed. And on the other side is not the world of spirits, but the realm of hell."
"So… worse," Gwaine says, watching his friend wear a line into the earth. "How much worse, would you say?"
The warlock's lips thin. He shakes his head, makes another tight turn. His hair, with its once-gentle curls, sticks up in odd places. And now he rubs his stubbly chin as he thinks as well. Mithian has never seen him do that before.
"C'mon, mate," Gwaine says. "We've faced a lot together: dorocha, wyverns, Arthur's socks on the twelfth day of patrol. How bad?"
The Cloudwood is quiet for a long time. Birds and other animals longs since abandoned this place. Finally, a howl resounds from the helledor. It claws its way to the bones of anyone unfortunate enough to hear it. Each of the four set their jaws against the sound. Mithian claps her hands over her ears. Merlin does not flinch, but his whole body tenses, and his fists clench at his sides.
"It's getting louder," Merlin says, voice nearly too soft to hear. He pauses in his pacing, facing the door now.
"Merlin," the princess says. She tries to keep her voice gentle and even. Merlin's head whips back to her. His eyes are blown wide and worried. His lower lip, chapped and ragged, is caught between his teeth.
"What are the runes for?" Mithian asks calmly. "You've spent all this time on them. Do not let our sudden appearance convince you that things are suddenly, somehow, more dire than they were a few heartbeats ago when you were alone."
Merlin stares at her. Myriad expressions traverse his face, some of which she could guess at, others she could not fathom. Surprise, compassion, disbelief, pity, desperation. Love.
"It is suddenly more dire," Merlin says. He finally turns fully toward her, still for a moment. He stands facing her with his back to the orb, palms helplessly held upward, eyes crinkled, smile crumpled.
"It is not–"
"Yes, it is. You are here again," he says simply. "Do you know exactly all I would do to keep you safe, my princess?"
A current of steel runs beneath the gentle words. With a sudden and complete moment of comprehension, Mithian understands: the person standing before her is the greatest sorcerer who has ever or will ever walk the earth. A figure of prophecy, a tall tale, a myth. A legend. A man with a tender heart, and warm hands, and a scent of lavender, and the weight of history on his slight shoulders.
The princess tries to shove the sudden tears pricking at her eyes away. She tries for blithe, but attains no more than gently teasing. Her voice is too thick, eyes too watery.
"Things are so dire that you would stay in the wood doodling useless runes?" she asks. "I fail to believe it. You've been doing something here."
Like a flash of unexpected sunshine reflecting off a stormy sea, Merlin's lopsided grin blinks into existence for a moment.
"I suppose not, princess."
"So. Explain, then. And explain the duck, too. I've been wondering," the princess commands.
"Very well," Merlin says.
Then, mostly addressing the orb, though keeping his face turned just slightly toward his audience so they could hear, he explains:
"Years ago, in a different struggle with a different kind of danger, Gaius taught me that one principle of magic is symmetry. Different schools bicker over how this manifests… Well, anyway. At the time I first learned of symmetry from Gaius, it in a practical fashion meant that in order to fight a creature of water and earth–"
"What?" Gwaine and Mithian ask as one.
Merlin continues as if not hearing them, "–one must use fire and water. Opposition. Symmetry. So, I thought I would apply the same principles here."
Gwaine takes a deep breath as if coming up for air after swimming. Fred, too, shifts where he sits in the saddle, eyes flicking momentarily from the orb to Merlin. They all feel some important summary coming, and emerge from their own thoughts to pay attention to the warlock's next words.
"Hellish door," Merlin says, pointing at the orb. Then, he points at the geometric patterns he had drawn in the earth that even now glow a pleasant and powdery blue. "Celestial runes."
"Celestial?" Gwaine asks, squinting at the shapes.
Merlin shrugs. "Allegedly. At the very least, runes used often in religious ceremonies invoking gods I felt to be in opposition to hell and helledors and black magic."
"Oh," Mithian says. "Well, that seems good."
Merlin's expression twists again, falling into that helpless and grim mien that Mithian has decided she hates. It looks too at home on his face, too broken to be so natural.
"And the duck?" she asks in an effort to remove that expression from his face.
She places the burlap sack on the ground and goes to disentangle the duck, but Merlin leaps forward with a shout, flapping his hands about hers until she relinquishes the sack. The sack and duck both fall onto the ground, resulting in a startled and offended series of quacks.
"Don't touch him!" Merlin exclaims.
They all watch as the duck manages to find the opening of the sack and get itself free. It ruffles its feathers and looks at each of them with what can only be seething disapproval, the most scathing look saved for the princess herself. Mithian finds herself giving the duck an apologetic smile before remembering herself and turning her attention back to Merlin.
"Sir Quackenfell seems to have some kind of connection to the hells," Merlin says, frowning. The duck's head swings back to focus on the warlock.
"As a result of the Fairy Fever?" Mithian asks.
A sigh escapes the warlock. His hands fly through his hair again. "I… I don't know. Prince Bedivere has visions of the hells–"
"He what?" Merlin's audience choruses, but he ignores them.
"–and when Prince Bedivere has these visions, if I touch the duck at the same time, I can see it as well. It is as if I am there. And these past few weeks, experimenting with what time and privacy I can find, I… the transition between…"
"You've been seeing it, too," Mithian finishes for him.
Merlin is quiet for a moment. Then, softly, he says, "I've been sneaking out at night, past the curfew. I come here to the Cloudwood and work on the runes. But…"
As one, each pair of eyes present flick to the orb. It howls again, and it feels to each as if the cold water of the Deep River has been dumped down their spines.
"I don't know," Merlin whispers, eyes not leaving the orb. "I think, perhaps, this is something even I… I just… this is unlike anything I've ever encountered."
Round eyes, their pupils so dilated as to seem black, turn on his audience. The warlock continues, voice thin, "I don't know if I can fix this. My very magic recoils from it. Is harmed by it. And the longer I stand near it the more I become convinced…"
Another howl rips from the orb. Merlin sets his jaw. His eyes remain wide, but anger and desperation color them now. He takes a few quick steps forward, exchanging his stare between his three friends. A hand whips backward to gesticulate at the orb.
"Do you understand now why I wanted you far away from here? When you were away, I was safe to–"
"–to put yourself in harm's way to study the thing," Mithian finishes for him, drawing herself up.
"To act in a way only I can to keep you safe," Merlin snaps.
He seems to be reaching the frayed edges of his temper. His words come out thin and threadbare and border on truly angry. It is not a tone Gwaine has heard from his friend much before, if ever. Mithian heard it before, when fighting about the duel, and appears unimpressed.
"You harming yourself and your magic does not keep us safe," Mithian exclaims, raising her voice in response to Merlin's own yelling. "We apparently depend on you and your magic, and you think that the smartest thing to do is continue to work alone, with no help, ready to flounce into the very thing that has harmed you?"
"Flounce?!" Merlin yells, voice pitched high. "Flounce? I do not–"
"I think we've gotten off-target here," Galahad interjects with a level voice.
Merlin looks over at him, wild-eyed. Then, he passes a hand through his hair. He rubs at the beginning of a beard he now sports.
"Right," Merlin says. "You are right, Sir Galahad. Little will be accomplished if we continue bickering like this."
Mithian huffs. She crosses her arms. "I suppose you're right."
A few moments of silence pass before Gwaine speaks up.
"Mate, hypothetically speaking, what would happen if your duck touched the orb?"
Merlin furrows his brow and responds, "I don't know. Perhaps he would establish the tear by walking through it and solidify the gate." Seeing his friends' blank stare, he explains, "That would be very bad. It would make this door more permanent. Sir Quackenfell could go through, and that would mean whatever lies on the other side could get through as well."
"And that is the worst-case scenario?" Gwaine asks. His voice is pinched.
"Well, no," Merlin responds slowly. "He could go through and get stuck on the other side. His Fairy Fever could react in some way which I could never predict. I cannot even predict his Fairy Fever as it is now, isolated and under my observation. If he were to… Or, perhaps, something could solidify it from the other side, and get at him first. Or he could be sucked into the orb and make it become more unstable, with him stuck in the hells and us on the other side. Maybe–"
Gwaine does not let him finish. He scrambles from his horse and darts forward. But Merlin realises too quickly what the knight's line of questioning had meant, what the sudden burst of movement must portend. He turns around.
There, naught but a foot from the helledor, stands Sir Quackenfell. His feathers are ruffled, his head held low, his neck elongated. A strange sound comes from him, one more suited to a goose or swan: a hiss, vicious and angry. He holds his wings out, beating them ferociously. He runs forward. His wings aid his forward movement, catapulting the little duck toward the helledor.
Merlin darts after him, his body language strangely similar to his duck's: his head is low such that he runs in almost a crouch, he shouts past the grimace on his face, his hair sticks up in odd directions. Gwaine's legs, pumping furiously, bring him within just a few paces of the warlock and the duck before Mithian and Galahad can even properly react. When they do, Mithian tries to throw herself forward as well, and Galahad throws his arms around Mithian's waist, rooting her to the spot. She struggles against his arms, stomping on his foot, elbowing his stomach, but the knight's hold on her remains strong.
The two of them watch what happens next. Over the next many years, Mithian will return to this moment and dissect it in her mind to try to distinguish each moment into its own separate event, to try and make sense of it in some way. She will come up short.
Several things happen simultaneously: Gwaine reaches Merlin, gathering the fabric of the warlock's new jacket into his fist and yanking backward like a mother cat grabbing a kitten by its scruff; Merlin tries to dive for the duck, his fingers falling just short as Gwaine gets a hold on him; and Sir Quackenfell finally launches himself at the helledor.
They all watch as the little duck flies into the air, beak open and squawking. Before it, the orb shudders. Something dark and black moves deep inside it, then outward. A limb of shadow, reaching forward to meet the duck.
Sir Quackenfell grabs the orb in its mouth, throws it into the air, and neatly grabs it again as it falls from the nadir of its arc and toward the ground.
Then he eats it.
Everyone stills.
"Get away!" Merlin shouts. "Everyone back up! Retreat!"
No one moves.
"I'm going… to touch the duck," Merlin says.
"Is that wise, Lord Merlin?" Sir Galahad calls.
Though Mithian has temporarily ceased her struggling, he does not remove his arms from around her. Mithian cannot summon the capacity to chastise him for this. Her eyes are locked on the duck.
"Probably not," Merlin responds in a steady voice. "But at present, I'm lacking wiser ideas."
"Poke it with a stick first," Gwaine offers.
They are all quiet again for a moment of time that stretches interminably. Then Merlin says, "Gwaine, you have the mind of a scholar. Gods bless you. Find me a stick?"
Again, not a single member of their company moves more than necessary to draw slow, shallow breaths.
"Mate, I hate to have to point this out," Merlin says in the duck's direction, but loud enough to be heard by all, "but the faster you get me that stick, the faster I can figure out what's going on."
Sir Quackenfell turns around, small webbed feet making no sound against the soft forest floor. He cocks his head at Merlin. He lets out a small quack. Still, no one moves.
"Gwaine," Merlin says, voice low, "if you wait too long, Sir Quackenfell will do something else and make a decision for us. Now be a dear and grab me a bloody stick?"
"Right," Gwaine says, and pivots on a foot. He takes a few steps, then stops. "Merlin, mate, your doodles look… different."
"What?" Merlin asks.
He straightens and stretches his neck, peering into the gloom of the Cloudwood. He takes a few steps closer to the duck, moving cautiously as if he were picking his way barefoot over sharp stones rather than over soft leaf litter in new boots.
Mithian, now feeling Galahad's arms loosening, steps from his grasp. She, too, sidles sideways.
Gwaine is correct. Whereas before, the runes had been artful loops and careful geometric constructions looping endlessly into and from one another, these look… almost natural. It seems as if time itself has worn grooves into the earth as water shapes rock. The gentle furrows in the earth look the same as the small ridges that build from earth and decomposing leaf litter over the bony stretches of tree roots.
"Are those runes?" Mithian asks.
"No," Merlin says. The word comes out loose and soft. He sounds thousands of miles away.
"Do… did you do this, mate?" Gwaine asks.
"No," Merlin repeats, his tone the same.
Mithian allows, in the tense and close-held silence that follows, her eyes to fall on duck. It has busied itself pecking on the ground for hidden insects. She looks back at Merlin. The line of his shoulders seems to have relaxed from that unnatural intensity–a posture with all the silent and sure power of a dam holding back the flow of a river–to a more slight slouch more befitting a scholar and physician's apprentice.
"What is it?" Gwaine asks, some impatience coloring his voice. "Can I get across it to find a stick?"
"It won't be harmed by you walking across it, no. But… you may not need to get a stick."
A beat follows, after which Gwaine asks, "You've gotta explain why, mate. Are we in danger still?"
"It is a message," Merlin says. His voice dances along the words. Amused. After all of this, Merlin is amused. "From a Queen Mab of the Fey Courts."
Mithian's heart catches in her chest. She has heard tales of the faery, as well as their tempestuous courts. Most are known to be, at their mildest, tricksters of the highest order.
"What does it say?" Mithian demands.
Merlin clears his throat and answers, "Queen Mab of the Fae Court excises from this place in the Mortal Realm the tear between realms, and declares in this spot, forevermore, a place of peace and tranquility."
"And what else does it say?" Mithian asks. "Where is the catch?"
"You are right that it continues," Merlin says. "There."
He points to the area nearest Gwaine, the location where Merlin had been interrupted in his rune-drawing. Upon closer inspection, it does look different from the others making the graceful arc around where the helledor had been suspended. This portion of the unfinished circle looks… artificial. The gentle swells of earth turn to farrows dug from the ground, everything looking moist and fresh. The smell of wet earth fills the clearing, unnoticeable before beneath the excitement, but near overwhelming now.
"For the treatment and study of the part-Fae known colloquially as Sir Quackenfell, this boon is bestowed upon Lord Merlin of Camelot and Ealdor, whose career the Fae Courts shall continue to watch closely."
"A free boon," Mithian breathes.
The thought is near-incomprehensible. Even with Mithian's limited knowledge of the workings of the arcane and religious, there are some things she knows with certainty. Everything, it seems, demands some kind of payment, whether it be a merchant or a king or a god or a Fae. But Queen Mab, solely out of some unfathomable interest in the workings of the mortal realm–and one individual among them in particular–chose to act on their behalf.
"A free boon," Merlin confirms. He turns slightly to look at the duck. Sir Quackenfell briefly pauses in his rooting and pecking to look right back at the warlock, who says softly, "Thank you."
Sir Quackenfell quacks in response.
Merlin turns to look at his friends. The events of the day–and most likely night as well, having been caught by a hunt that started not too long after dawn–appear etched into his face. Dark circles cocoon his eyes. His hands hang limp at his sides.
"Well. That is fortuitous. And good news, as it allows even more time to go after Morgana–"
"What?!" Mithian demands.
Merlin turns wide, disbelieving eyes on her. "What do you mean what?"
"You are not going after her, Merlin," Mitihian says calmly. For in that moment, all at once and with pure certainty, a realization has come over her.
"I at least need to confirm she's left the Cloudwood," Merlin says. Then, almost unwillingly, he adds, "And, hopefully, if she has, ascertain where she may be going next."
Mithian recognizes the effort. Normally, she guesses, Merlin would keep such plans to himself. It would be one thing to make sure Morgana has left the Cloudwood and another entirely to get close enough to figure out where she may have left to. He did not have to tell her his intentions at all, much less his entire plan, however generously his ideas could be called such.
"Someone does. That someone needn't be you," Mithian responds, voice brooking no room for argument. "We have several people here today to attest to what's happened–minus the bits about your magic. We can send my soldiers and knights after Morgana. Place regular patrols. Isildir gave me these shells as well, which can help communication instantly and over distance. We could see if he has more, and if not, ask if he could make more, and if not, operate as we normally would under these circumstances. Are the rest of your runes sufficient to at least alert you if she comes back?"
Merlin furrows his brow, staring hard at her. "I suppose so, yes, but–"
"But nothing. If they are, then we have two means of warning. I trust Sir Galahad and his men to handle the situation sufficiently."
"If she has the power to rip open a tear anywhere in the Cloudwood, then–and no offense, Sir–nothing your men can do could stop her."
"You could," Mithian says. "But you're dead on your feet as it is. How long has it been since you slept?"
Merlin blinks at her. "What day is it?"
"Right. And how about since you've had a meal? A proper one." The following silence is all she needs. Mithian sighs. "Do you remember what I told you earlier about how having you injured or dead is much worse for us than if you were at peak condition?"
Merlin inclines his head in a grudging facsimile of a nod.
"Right. Well, the same goes for sleep and food, my Merlin," Mithian tells him, and though she tries to make it firm and casual, it comes out more wry and fondly exasperated. She cannot bring herself to care. "And anyway," she says, finally attaining the cool casualness befitting a princess, "you have more important things to do than go tearing off through the forest."
Merlin frowns, obviously having difficulty with the notion. "What do you mean?"
"Well," Mithian responds, "you have to meet with my parents, of course, and then the council. I imagined you'd want a nap and a meal and a bath before then."
"Ah," Merlin responds. "Of course. They'll want a report."
Mithian rolls her eyes. "They'll want much more than that, Merlin. Don't be daft."
"What do you mean?" Merlin asks, his eyes crinkling, mouth frowning.
Confused. Mithian hasn't had many opportunities to see that expression on him before. She relishes the moment. And then, knowing what comes next, she marshals her memory about her to freeze in time these next moments.
"Well, Lord Merlin," Mithian says, "They'll want you to ask for a blessing from the king and queen first."
Merlin's frown deepens. "For what? For crossing their lands to pursue–"
"No, silly," Mithian says fondly, rolling her eyes. "To marry me."
Merlin's mouth falls open. Gwaine and Galahad both laugh heartily at the warlock's face, his stupid, stunned surprise.
Mithian steps forward lightly, closing the distance between them. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, then follows with another on his lips. When she pulls away, already turning back to her mount, she sends him a wink.
"King Merlin. I think that has quite a ring to it, don't you?"
"King–King?!" Merlin shouts, and even as he does so, his fingers travel to his lips, chasing her touch.
Mithian climbs easily and gracefully onto her horse and bestows a shrug on him despite the smile tugging on her lips.
"King Emrys, then."
Merlin sputters.
"Come, now, my Merlin," the princess chastises, tone teasing. "We have a wedding to plan. Surely that trumps camping in the woods?"
She turns her horse around and kicks it into a trot, leaving Merlin sputtering in the clearing and the knights still laughing.
"She's something, all right," Gwaine says, watching the princess's horse disappear into the trees.
"She's," Merlin begins. He blinks rapidly as if trying to clear something from his vision. Then, with fervent disbelief, he says, "She's going to be my wife?"
"Gods help you," Gwaine replies. "She's so far out of your league it isn't even funny."