[fic] The Ivy Crown, 5a/9

[da_ya_ri]

Part 5
Of Truces and Trials


What the sorceress doesn't know is that the connection between them works both ways.

When she bound him, he'd thought she would leave, retreat back to wherever she came from and watch her enchantment unravel from afar, but she didn't. He can still feel her, a brittle, flickering presence shut away in the darkest recesses of his forest, her magic like the jagged edge of a knife embedded deep within the earth. It feels like splintered light and tastes like smoke, and it's nothing like the magic that buried him in the forest ages ago and stretched his soul until it embraced the trees.

He does not know why she stayed, but he sees no reason to chase her away with the howls of his hounds and the ravens' hoarse caws. Maybe she has nowhere else to go, or maybe it's just that the unbending will he felt in her has finally given way.

She does not move much. The days have grown warm enough for her to sleep beneath the trees, curled so close to the ancient roots that she wakes with moss in the black tangles of her hair. She drinks from a nearby stream and eats what she shoots, her marksmanship still perfect despite the bone-deep exhaustion that her mind emits.

Sometimes she dreams. Images rise from her subconscious mind, drifting lazily like bubbles of air floating towards the surface of still waters, images of golden curls and dark eyes, intent and calm and almost smiling, and it is usually her own screams that wake her. Her magic lashes out then, unfettered and raw, imploding with a tangible wave of power that he feels with every inch of his new skin.

The smell of burned earth and scorched wood accompany her sobs deep into the night, but when she wakes next, grass is once more gleaming in the morning sunlight, the bark of the trees as healthy and hale as they were at nightfall.

At first he grew angry with each crackle of untrained power that pulsed from her in her sleep, angry on behalf of his forest, not caring about the pain that came to his mortal body with each eruption, painting a whiplash line of fire down his spine. But he has spent months under her command, nestled as closely to her mind as she would probably never allow if she were aware of it, and little by little, he has come to understand.

He pities her, mad with unnameable grief as she is, well aware that she can no longer control the black, hopeless rage that oozes out of her in billowing waves. It feels like smoke, acrid and burning as it brushes the countless places where his consciousness is wrought into the grass and the trees.

They say that flames burn the brightest just before they gutter out, after all, and he is not all that surprised to find that she doesn't bother shutting him out of her consciousness, let alone concealing her presence from him. She is not the first sorceress to underestimate him, to think she knows the limits of his power after perusing books of folklore and songs. But in a way, he understands; in her mind, there is no room for failure.

She has given him a task to complete, but he is no longer as constrained by her command as he used to be, now that Sir Gwaine of Caerleon has given him a loophole. The thought of testing him, of sampling the youthful, exuberant strength that sung to him like a siren's song, makes his blood run faster, his foreign heart beat out a quicker rhythm against his ribcage. And test him he will, now that the lad has stepped up and boldly faced his challenge with an unquenchable thirst for adventure in his eyes.

For now, though, he has returned home to lie low and wait. Having worn countless disguises even in his lifetime, it is easy to rearrange this mortal shell to better suit the task of enlisting the help of other trusted allies. His hawks protested, as did his deer—hadn't they served him faithfully for centuries, and hadn't they done a marvelous job at keeping an eye on the golden prince and his entourage?—but at the same time they knew that some things, they cannot do.

The druids know of him, they've remembered his tale through countless generations to be memorized in song, and he can think of no one better suited to the task at hand. The once and future king is safe with Emrys, but the others, led by Mægen and Sōsfæstnes—or Sir Percival and Sir Elyan, as they're called by mortals—are not, and neither is the lady who is roaming the lands in search of a man.

He will do his best to guard them to safety in these hostile lands, although through the druids. The disguise will serve him well, as will the house. There is nothing to do but wait, wait for his challenger to come to him, heralded as he will be by Emrys' magic blazing a beacon of light through his forest.

In this, at least, the past centuries have served him well; he is nothing if not patient.





The rabbit's little nose twitched as it munched on a patch of particularly juicy grass. Morning mist was hovering in the small glade, obscuring the treetops overhead although the dawning sunlight was valiantly trying to push its rays down into the clearing; still, the billowing fog seemed to be enough to make the rabbit feel safe. Its ears turned this way and that, listening for any disruptions of the forest's waking sounds, but it had burrowed deeply into the dew-covered grass, as if for a languid, unhurried meal.

Well, Arthur thought, shifting a little where he was crouched low in a patch of soggy undergrowth, the rabbit would soon realize how wrong it had been to feel safe at all. He moved to realign the crossbow, very slowly in order not to cause so much as a twig to snap under his weight. He'd been waiting for what felt like forever for something red-blooded and edible to show up, but he'd still waited a while when the rabbit had appeared a few minutes ago. Now seemed like the time to act, though—the rabbit was in his sights, his view of its little brown body unobscured by leaves. It was early enough for no other hunters to be around, and Arthur shifted around until the butt of the crossbow was securely braced against his shoulder, his finger itching to pull the trigger.

The high caw of a hawk sounded overhead, echoing in the clear morning air, and Arthur let out a soft curse as the rabbit darted away, its bobbing white tail disappearing into the shady forest. He lowered his crossbow and rose, relieved for the chance to finally stretch out his legs—wetness had seeped through his trousers, making him uncomfortably cold down in the shade beneath the trees.

He stepped out into the small clearing, looking up at the sky, and sure enough, there were hawks circling above the treetops, calling their shrill cries into the still morning air. Arthur should have been expecting them, really—the inhabitants of Maneshale prided themselves on their falconry, after all—but he'd thought that he'd ventured deep enough into the forest not to be disturbed in his hunting.

With a sigh, he ducked back underneath the trees, preparing himself for another long trudge through the thick, dew-covered undergrowth before he could set his sights on the next unsuspecting forest animal. Sure, they were staying in a tavern, and it wasn't required of him to hunt, least of all on the morning after Beltane. But if they were going to impose on the innkeeper and his wife for another few days until the packhorse's leg healed, Arthur was determined to have their group pull their own weight, to help top up the dwindling supplies.

The forest was quiet around him, only just waking up, although the birds were belting out their songs as though hell-bent on rousing the woods for the new day. He tried to silence the noise he was making, every snapped twig sounding too loud in the hush—even his careful footsteps were probably loud enough to scare any and all game away. Somebody else usually did that for him, though, and Arthur found himself smiling absently at the thought of what Merlin would say if he could see him now.

Merlin. Arthur let out a sigh when he felt his mind catch on his manservant like callused fingers on finely-woven fabric, as inevitably as a thrown stone plummeting back down to the ground. To his own surprise, Arthur had slept like a log when he'd finally made it to bed the night before, but his mind had more than made up for it when he'd woken at the first gray light of dawn. He'd hoped that hunting would quell the tumultuous thoughts that tumbled around in his head like stacks of parchment knocked off their shelves, but so far, the results had been less than satisfactory.

It wasn't even that they had argued again what really bothered him—or well, it wasn't just that. He'd known all along that they couldn't even talk to each other in a straightforward way anymore without one of them—usually Arthur—snapping and shouting and finally storming off. But it had been different last night. First Merlin had followed him to the trees, looking drunk, of all things, and then he'd been the one to shout at Arthur, the one to look so frustrated that Arthur still wondered distantly how Merlin had managed to keep from resorting to violence to knock some sense back into his head.

It wasn't how these conversations had used to go between them, and last night the break in the routine had stoked Arthur's anger, spurred by Merlin's insistence that Arthur just had to listen to him. He had listened before, and he hadn't liked what he'd heard, and he'd thought that it was his right to walk away, but apparently Merlin had disagreed.

Carefully picking his way through a patch of gnarled tree roots, Arthur sighed again. It was bad enough how things had gone between them the night before, but even now in the light of the new day, the memory simply wouldn't leave him alone. It was like an itch at the back of his consciousness that Arthur just had to scratch, no matter how hard he tried to steer his mind away from it.

Of course this wasn't the first time since Merlin's confession that Arthur's thoughts had circled the issue like a hawk, but this time there was nothing to distract him, no council meetings to attend and no father to keep calm. A woodpecker started its day's work somewhere in the forest, quick staccato bursts of rapping that echoed through the quietude. It was rather cold under the trees, and Arthur was glad that he'd taken along his coat—he could already tell that the day would be warm, but the morning air was crisp and chilly, now that the sun hadn't yet ventured above the treetops.

He'd thought himself brave, benevolent even, when he'd invited Merlin to talk. Remembering that moment still made him pause; he had thought that it would be everything Merlin had been hoping for these past few months, and only a little bit of his resolution had been born of a residual grudge towards Lancelot. He'd intended to prove to Merlin that he could listen too, better than Lancelot, in fact, but of course Arthur had forgotten to take Merlin's tendency to babble into account, let alone his own temper. He'd found his anger rekindled before it had properly cooled down, and he hadn't known how to keep it from exploding at Merlin again.

Out here in the forest, it was easier to admit than it had been even under Leon's gently inquisitive gaze the day before—but after all those weeks, Arthur was just tired of it all, though he couldn't stop his own cringe at how pathetic that sounded even to his own ears. He wanted it to stop, he wanted things to go back to normal between them, and most of all he wanted Merlin to stop giving him wary looks whenever anyone mentioned magic in their general vicinity. He wanted to stop converting his lingering feeling of betrayal into anger just because he didn't know what else to do with it. It was a pretty good indicator of just how fed up he was with the whole situation that Arthur could admit, if only to himself, that he missed Merlin—missed his idle chatter and his eyerolls, missed how hopeless he was at the simplest of tasks, his complete disregard for propriety, and his friendship.

And well, in retrospect it did seem a bit naive that Arthur had thought himself capable of fixing it all just by commanding Merlin to talk.

He wanted him back, as simple as that, and maybe he'd subconsciously been aiming to invite Merlin back to his side since the feast when he'd told him to attend him. But now he realized for the first time that it wouldn't be easy, and that the whole ordeal had hurt Merlin, too. Arthur had thought himself generous when, time and time again, he'd swallowed down the furious storm of questions and accusations that he'd been itching to unleash at Merlin all this time. In retrospect, though, he wondered if his silence hadn't been even harder to bear for his manservant.

Maybe that was why he'd run to Lancelot before, a voice from the back of his mind supplied helpfully—with Lancelot, Merlin had been sure that he wouldn't be pushed away. And it seemed outright foolish to think that after all this time, a treacherous part of Arthur had expected Merlin to come running back to his side as soon as he so much as crooked a finger.

He knew that certain people had thought him to be little more than an overindulged brat not too long ago, but Arthur hated, hated the thought that being the crown prince of Camelot might have spoiled him enough that he could be truly astonished when there was something—or someone—that eluded his grasp. He knew how to best any opponent in tournaments, he knew how to plan battles and spend endless nights poring over maps in search of strategical advantages—but he did not know how to fight to get back into somebody's good graces, least of all his manservant's.

Merlin had called him out on what Arthur still cringed to even think of as jealousy, and although the thought made him feel sick, he couldn't help but wonder if Merlin had been right to call him entitled.

A hawk's shrill cry pierced the stillness of the air, and Arthur flinched, startled out of his thoughts by the sound—it wasn't usually like him to get so lost in his own mind, especially when he was supposed to be hunting.

He frowned at himself, unable to feel something more acute than weary annoyance at the fact that Merlin was now occupying his thoughts when he wasn't even there, and put a conscious effort into focusing his gaze on the trail. The forest was thinning ahead of him, the treeline receding noticeably even though thorns still snatched at his trousers and he had to brush away a stubborn cluster of twigs before he stepped out into another clearing.

Shafts of morning sunlight pierced the treetops, glossing over the mist that was hovering in the air with a sheen of gold. The undergrowth rustled in the faint breeze that stirred Arthur's hair as though called up by his arrival, and he caught sight of something furry and brown on the other side of the clearing.

He was crouched low in the grass before he fully comprehended what he'd seen, instinct gratefully taking over and erasing all other conscious thought from his mind as he ducked beneath a tangle of bushes. Trying to keep as quiet and still as possible, Arthur lifted his head just enough to peer through the long stalks of grass that swayed in front of him, resting the crossbow on his thigh. Wetness was soaking through the knees of his trousers once more as his eyes searched out the patch of color he'd seen, but he remained where he was, his heart beating a little faster with excitement, the weight of his previous thoughts all but forgotten.

It was a doe, brown fur matted down with droplets of dew—it had probably been there for quite some time, picking its way through the clearing in search of the juiciest patches of grass. One brown ear was turned in his direction, but as Arthur watched, it flickered forward as the doe continued to graze undisturbed, and he knew he hadn't been seen. He lifted his weapon without even looking at it, keeping his gaze on the doe, silently thrilled at the prospect of bringing the innkeeper finest venison in exchange for his hospitality.

The press of wood against his cheek was all too familiar when Arthur carefully shifted the crossbow until the sight was aligned with the shift of muscle in the doe's shoulder. He was sure that he hadn't made any sound, but some hidden instinct must have been tickled by a shift in the air, because the doe lifted its head at last, turning around in the process, and Arthur saw that it was pregnant.

His finger paused on its own accord, slipping off the cool metal of the trigger in the face of the soft roundness of the doe's belly. But what startled him even more was the pair of brown eyes that suddenly locked gazes with his, fathomless and dark under long lashes that blinked slowly and without any hint of fear.

For a long moment, Arthur and the doe just stared at each other. Arthur forgot to duck back down into the grass, and it seemed pointless anyway, since the doe had already seen him. But it didn't dart away into the forest, and neither did it lower its head to graze some more. It simply looked at him, its gleaming eyes calm and alight with a foreign sort of intelligence, as though it knew that Arthur wasn't going to pull the trigger.

He only realized that he'd lowered the crossbow when the cool wood was pressed to his thigh once more, and a distant part of his mind rolled its eyes at the sheer sappiness of the action—he'd never had a problem shooting any woodland creature before, big with young or not.

But there was something in the air that stilled his hands now, a strange shift in the atmosphere that rendered him incapable of doing anything but sitting in the grass and holding the doe's gaze, and for a moment he felt reminded of the moment in the lake near the beginning of the journey. There'd been a doe watching him, too, although it had been too far away for Arthur to tell whether it was pregnant.

Maybe it was the same doe, a corner of his mind wondered, and then just shook his head at himself, wondering where that ludicrous thought had come from.

Something made Arthur look up when he stood slowly, trying not to make any fast movements, but the doe seemed utterly unconcerned. Then he tilted his head back on a whim to glance up at the sky, squinting against the increasingly bright light, and wasn't entirely surprised to see a small flock of hawks, thrown into sharp contrast against the soft blue of the sky.

He counted four of them circling overhead, and tried to keep his eyes on the doe and the birds as he took a careful step out of the bushes he'd crouched down in. The doe still didn't seem at all afraid of him, but the hawks just kept circling high above the clearing, calling out to each other in shrill caws that sounded faint and far away. It was almost as though they were watching Arthur, or maybe protecting the doe, sharp beady eyes tracking his every movement warily.

Arthur shook his head again, and forced himself to avert his gaze back down. He'd woken up with a surprisingly clear head this morning in spite of how little sleep he'd gotten, but maybe these weird trains of thought were an indicator of his mind finally calling for the rest it had been denied last night. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and sternly reminding himself that he'd wanted to hunt, not get sappy over pregnant animals and birds that seemed obsessed with a certain clearing.

And sure enough, when he opened his eyes again he was alone. The doe must have bounded away into the forest without so much as a rustle of leaves, and a glance at the sky confirmed that the hawks were gone as well.

The feeling of being watched lingered, though, like the dew that had seeped through his trousers and made them cling damply to his skin. He couldn't shake off the memory of the doe's intent gaze, alive with an undeniable intelligence that had seemed to assess him thoroughly, only to deem him unthreatening despite his weapon in the end. It hadn't even been an unpleasant feeling, but Arthur hadn't exactly liked it either. He shouldered his crossbow, and decided that although he hadn't actually shot anything yet, it was time to return to the village—it wouldn't do to have the villagers come looking for him.

Merlin probably would have smiled at him if he'd been there, with that proud, curiously soft expression that stole over his features whenever he thought Arthur had done something unexpectedly noble. As far as Arthur was concerned, there was nothing noble in not bringing anything home from a hunt, but he knew of Merlin's ridiculous soft spot for any and all animals that Arthur so much as pointed his crossbow at. He was sure that Merlin would have approved.

And so he was back to square one. Arthur sighed when the distraction melted away, once more leaving his thoughts free to circle around his manservant much like the hawks had done earlier—he'd thought that the hunt would clear his mind, not spur it into brooding even more.

Still, the memory of the previous evening refused to be dislodged when he followed the trail back into the shadowy woods. Merlin would wake up soon enough along with the others, probably with a blinding headache, his body unused even to diluted wine. Maybe Arthur would arrive back at the inn just in time to sit down with them for breakfast, and he and Merlin would studiously avoid looking at each other, pretending that nothing had happened until one of them figured out what step to take next.

The mere thought tired him, but Arthur had no idea how to diverge from the path he saw ahead of them—a path that would be riddled with hidden traps and careful steps once more, until they were both sure their tempers had cooled enough to risk another attempt at whatever it was they were trying to fix between them.

He hated lying low, he was a man of action rather than of useless waiting, but Arthur didn't know how to hurry along the slow, superficial reconciliation that he knew lay in store for them. And so he just sighed and pushed those musings away, trying to concentrate on finding his way back to Maneshale.

Even more than his astonishment at Merlin's anger, though, the memory that clung to him was his touch. He still remembered the way Merlin's hands had fisted in the front of his shirt, his grip surprisingly strong for all his apparent intoxication when he'd whirled Arthur around to face him, as though to get him to listen by sheer physical force. That notion was somewhat laughable in and of itself, given how scrawny Merlin was, but even amidst his confused outrage, an unconcerned part of Arthur's mind had wondered at the strength of his grip, even more than the determined spark in his eyes.

Merlin had used to touch him all the time, if only just to help him dress and brush wrinkles out of the shoulders of his tunics, but until the moment when he'd felt Merlin's knuckles dig into his collarbones, Arthur hadn't realized how much he'd missed that. It had been another shred of normalcy, warped though it had been by Merlin's insistence and his own anger, and in the solitude at the heart of the forest, there seemed no point in pushing the memory away.

Despite the fact that he had no idea how to go about it, Arthur would have to work to get back into Merlin's good graces, just as Merlin had to do with him, and Arthur snorted at the thought, faintly amused despite himself. Not too long ago he would have laughed at the idea of trying to win back a servant's friendship, and in hindsight, he figured that it had probably been necessary for him to reach the end of his tether like this.

He never would have let his mind dwell on the issue for so long if he hadn't been so tired of it, but by now he was almost grateful that he'd allowed those thoughts to run its course. There was nothing he abhorred more than helplessness, after all. And although Arthur still wasn't quite sure what to do, at least he'd been able to admit to himself that he wanted things between him and Merlin to go back to normal, whatever that would entail.

Which, all things considered, was quite enough thinking for the day. Arthur stepped around a tree that stood in his way, dodging a faceful of damp leaves in the process, and winced at the slight twinge he could feel starting up in his temples. Judging from how things had been going between him and Merlin during the past months, they were in for hours of silence, if not more—just because he'd decided that things couldn't go on like this didn't mean Arthur would know how to break it.

But maybe it would get easier as time wore on, or Merlin would see as well that last night hadn't been quite as large a step backwards as he'd thought. And maybe then Arthur would figure out how to dispel a little more of the tension, and somewhere along the line he might be able to take Merlin up on his offer of talking, since he seemed so keen on explaining himself.

How to go about that without losing his temper, though, Arthur didn't know. But well, he was nothing if not stubborn once he'd set his mind on something, and in spite of how crestfallen and submissive Merlin had been all this time, last night had shown that he could give as good as he got. If they needed to shout at each other every step along the way to reconciliation, then Arthur was finally sure that they could both take it.





When they set out to leave Maneshale two days after Beltane, Gwaine had a hangover.

Well aware that glancing up at the sun would just make the pain in his temples worse, he kept his head down when he stepped out of the protective shadow of the inn's doorway. Being rudely prodded awake around noon by a disapproving Lancelot had just aggravated the headache he'd gone to bed with the night before, and Gwaine didn't even know what he'd done last night to deserve the pounding in his skull.

He couldn't still be suffering from the massive hangover he'd woken up with the morning after Beltane. He'd attempted to cure it with another round of drinking last night, and although that usually worked quite well for him, it had just made things worse this time. His eyes felt like they'd been sandpapered, something slimy seemed to have crawled into his mouth and died when he'd slept, and to top it off, the sight of breakfast had been enough to turn his already sensitive stomach.

Leon's glances of mingled pity and thinly-veiled amusement didn't make it better either. Gwaine grumbled under his breath as he stumbled across the yard to where their horses were tied in a neat row, waiting to be saddled and laden down with luggage. Of all his traveling companions, only Merlin had had the decency to check up on him after Lancelot had left him to ready himself for the day's ride. Gwaine had felt touched, right up until the moment when Merlin had pounced on him, pinched his nose shut and forced a foul-tasting concoction down his throat that he claimed would cure his ailments within the day.

Merlin had dodged the pillow that Gwaine had thrown at him, and ducked out of the room laughing. Apparently he had forgotten just how pathetically hungover he had been the day after Beltane—but well, come to think of it, maybe Gwaine deserved his revenge, what with how much he'd teased Merlin for his nonexistent abilities to hold his liquor.

When he reached the others, Lancelot announced, in an unnecessarily loud voice, that he'd generously brought Gryngolet out of the stables for him, although only under duress. Gwaine just nodded, very carefully, lest his head would actually fall off—it certainly felt like it was about to. The sound of Lancelot's voice and the occasional snort from the horses seemed to reverberate through his skull, plucking at his sensitized nerves like a harpist clumsily tuning his instrument.

Both Leon and Merlin were courteously silent when Gwaine joined them, though, and he found himself grateful. Arthur was still at the inn trying to press some money on the innkeeper and his wife, and Gwaine figured that one had to appreciate small favors, since he was sure that Arthur would have teased him mercilessly as well, had he been there.

When he laid eyes on Gryngolet, though, any and all benevolence he might ever have felt towards the prince evaporated. It was all he could do not to trip over his own feet as he squeezed his eyes shut and stumbled back with a pained groan. Somebody snorted behind him, perhaps Leon, and even through the haze in his mind, Gwaine easily identified the exasperated sigh as Lancelot's. He probably thought he'd had it coming.

He'd known that Gryngolet was a white horse, of course, but Gwaine felt like he'd never truly appreciated that fact until now. He hadn't known true pain until he'd caught sight of the white stallion, his fur a spot of blinding brightness in the sunlight; the afterimage seemed permanently burned into his lids, a vague outline flickering through his vision even with his eyes closed.

Before, he'd thought that Arthur had assigned Gryngolet to his care to test Gwaine's strength of will, but now he was sure that this was the real reason why the prince had given him this particular steed for their journey. Of course he knew that Gwaine liked to drink, and he must have counted on a sunny day such as this to make his life even more miserable throughout a hangover by way of Gryngolet's color.

"You are the bane of my existence," Gwaine told his horse when he'd finally managed to pry his eyes back open, although he took great care to only peer through the protective fringe of his lashes. Someone had saddled and bridled him already, and Gwaine silently thanked whoever that had been, relieved that he wouldn't have to bend down to retrieve the saddle.

Gryngolet just snorted, giving him a look that seemed full of disdain. One of the chambermaids had helped Merlin carry their luggage outside earlier, and Gwaine rummaged through the pile to find his things. The saddlebags felt heavier than usual when he lifted them up, and of course Gryngolet took a neat step to the side when Gwaine turned to him with his armful of leather, the detached arrogance in his eyes transforming into a glare.

Gwaine spent a good two minutes prancing after Gryngolet and trying to heave the saddlebags up onto his back. Every time he hefted them up, the stallion stepped just far enough away to get out of Gwaine's reach, snorting warningly. Gwaine gritted his teeth, his temples twinging even more now, but didn't try to stop Gryngolet's antics until he'd backed himself neatly into Llamrei, who had been nosing along the hem of Leon's coat.

Being the trained warhorse she was, Arthur's mare didn't so much as jump when Gryngolet bumped into her. She just gave him a cool look, as though to say, don't you even try, and Gwaine made good use of the moment's distraction to finally throw the saddlebags over Gryngolet's back.

Through some sort of miracle, he stood still long enough for his rider to tie them to the saddle. But when Gwaine turned back around with his arms full of his bedroll, he couldn't help a groan. Gryngolet had stepped out of Llamrei's shadow and back into the sun, blinking at him innocently as though he had no idea why Gwaine was once more grimacing at the bright stab of agony that pierced his eyes.

"You're an eyesore, that's what you are," Gwaine told him, blinking painfully as he tied the bedroll to the saddlebags. "And I'm sure you're enjoying every moment of my torment."

Gryngolet bumped his head into his rider's shoulder, a bit too harshly perhaps, but at least it didn't seem like he'd aimed to make him keel over into the dust. Gwaine rolled his eyes, which sent another twinge through his temples, but he didn't feel quite as cross with the world anymore. It wasn't the stallion's fault that Arthur had used him to subtly show his disapproval of Gwaine's drinking habits and generally make his life difficult.

As if on cue, Arthur finally emerged from the inn, squinting into the bright sunlight for a moment before heading over to them. Gwaine thought he saw the innkeeper in the shadowy doorway for a moment, smiling after the prince with a faint air of triumph, as though he had successfully dissuaded him from paying him an overly large amount of coins for the few days' stay.

"All set?" Arthur asked as soon as he was within earshot, his appraising gaze flickering across the bedrolls and saddlebags neatly attached to their horses' backs.

There was a general murmur of assent, and Gwaine saw Merlin straighten up from where he'd bent down to tie the last straps of the packhorse's luggage. Its leg had been pronounced healed by the blacksmith yesterday, although he'd advised them to keep a light bandage on to steady it. But the horse seemed eager to get back on the road, if the way it kept snorting excitedly into Merlin's hair was any indication.

"We'll ride past Sanbec first," Arthur told them, walking around Gwaine and Gryngolet on his way to Llamrei; Gwaine thought he gave them a smug look out of the corner of his eye, but wasn't too sure. "We'll wait for Percival, Elyan and the squires in Cogeltone and move on together."

There was a creak of leather next to him as Leon mounted his horse, and Merlin did the same, perhaps a little less gracefully. Gwaine saw now that a few of the villagers were standing on their doorsteps or looking out of opened windows. They were probably sad to see them go—they'd seemed thrilled by so many visitors from far away, especially since all of them had been eager to help with the Beltane celebrations two days before.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lancelot wave to somebody before he climbed up into the saddle as well; Gwaine followed his gaze and saw the elderly lady whose house they'd decorated beam back at him. The branches were still fixed to the wall, swaying gently in the breeze that stirred the air, and Gwaine waved at her too, in wistful remembrance of the delicious sweet cider he had refreshed himself with that day.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when Gryngolet stepped on his foot.

The day got progressively warmer as they rode on, heat collecting even under the canopy of trees so that they took off their coats one by one, resting them over their horses' backs. Gwaine wasn't the only one to grumble under his breath when the trail led them out of the woods and into a field of swaying grass. His head seemed to grow heavier the longer they rode through the sunlight, and he suspected that he'd need to cut off his left boot by the end of the day, judging from how hot and sore his toes felt. But there was something in the air that lifted his spirits, and it took Gwaine quite a long time to realize that in spite of his hangover and his throbbing foot, he was happy.

Or well, excited, at least. As lovely as Maneshale had been, it felt good to be back on the road, and he was looking forward to meeting up with the others again. As far as he remembered, Arthur had ordered them to check on the vassals near the border; he couldn't wait to hear the stories of whatever mysteries they had encountered, and of course to share his own. It was a perfect day for traveling, even though they rode slowly to preserve the horses' strength in the heat. Gwaine squinted up into the sunlight although it hurt his eyes, smiled absently when he realized that Gryngolet hadn't tried to throw him off even once today, and began to hum a little tune under his breath.

He knew that Arthur was still cross with him for basically having pushed him out of the way at Beltane, and that Merlin didn't understand why he had accepted the Green Knight's challenge so readily. Lancelot kept sneaking him wary glances, as though he attributed Gwaine's high spirits to some leftover alcohol from two nights ago, and was just waiting for Gwaine to realize what an impossible task he had shouldered.

The only one who didn't look at him like he'd gone insane overnight was Leon, but then again, the older knight had always been discreet like that. Gwaine even suspected that he might understand what the others didn't—that he hadn't taken up the Green Knight's proverbial gauntlet out of obligation, or because he wanted to keep Arthur out of trouble, or anything noble and unselfish like that. It had just seemed like a good idea at the time.

When the daylight finally began to fade, they rode until they reached a cluster of trees, seeming wildly out of place in the sprawling flat marshland. It would provide little protection from possible nightly attackers, and the first thing Arthur did when they'd all dismounted was to set up a schedule for watches. Gwaine was just glad to be out of the sunlight at last and off of Gryngolet's back—granted, the stallion seemed to have taken pity on him due to his massive hangover today, but on horseback was not the ideal place to be when your head felt stuffed full with scratchy wool.

Lancelot volunteered for the first watch, and for once Gwaine was simply grateful, instead of battling with the need to tease him for always being so courteous. He gladly agreed to go hunting with Leon in exchange, hoping that some physical exertion would alleviate the dull pounding in his skull. That left Lancelot, Merlin and Arthur to take care of the horses and set up camp, but to his own surprise, Gwaine didn't feel apprehensive about leaving them alone with each other. Lancelot was there, for one, and in spite of the fact that Gwaine's brain had run almost entirely on alcohol these past few days, he'd still been observant.

Something had shifted in the air between the prince and his manservant, although he hadn't seen them talk (or shout, or push each other up against trees, or whatever it was they needed to do to settle things between them). Gwaine couldn't put a name to it, but it gave him hope that they would eventually go back to the close-knit, easy companionship they'd shared before.

And if his gut feeling didn't fool him, they might even go further to being something more.

Gwaine followed Leon out of the trees and into the field of swaying grass, keeping a cursory hand on his dagger although he had no idea what game they could hope to find in such an open expanse of space. He could make out a scraggly patch of dark green on the horizon that looked like a treeline, but it seemed too far away for any forest animals to have come all the way here to graze.

"Oh, now that's just unfair," he remarked to no one in particular when the grass parted abruptly and his boot struck stone instead of soft, springy earth. The road had practically come out of nowhere, but when Gwaine looked left and right, trying to follow its course with his eyes, he found that he couldn't. Grass and lichen were growing between the stones, but the road was still in good shape, although the pavers were clearly bleached by the sunlight of centuries. He also remembered roads like this from Caerleon.

"Honestly," he continued when Leon didn't react, and tapped his foot on the pavement to emphasize his point. "If there are perfectly decent roads like this in the Northern Plains, why have we been following forest trails?"

Leon gave Gwaine a fleeting smile over his shoulder, probably thinking of Gwaine's repeatedly bumped head, courtesy of Gryngolet and his oh-so-inconspicuous affinity for walking close to trees. "We want to keep a low profile, remember?" Leon replied, ignoring the road completely as he plunged back into the grass on the other side, leaving a visible trail. "Being seen by travelers would be somewhat counterproductive."

Gwaine resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but followed Leon anyway, still keeping an eye out for eventual movement in the undergrowth. He wasn't sure why he was even looking—the grass swayed gently, undisturbed by any wildlife whatsoever, and it seemed to him that they would have to eat up the rest of their field rations tonight.

"Besides, we're lucky enough not to have encountered any spies from Mercia as it is," Leon suddenly spoke up again, his voice grave, like he'd given some more thought to what Gwaine had said. "It's bad enough that our patrols keep getting into skirmishes with Mercian soldiers in Cenred's abandoned lands. We don't want Bayard meddling in the Northern Plains too."

Gwaine just blinked at Leon's back in surprise, and it took the words a moment to sink in simply because Gwaine hadn't thought of that. He'd all but forgotten Cenred's kingdom, and rightly so, he felt, since they were obviously not in it—they'd been sent to the Northern Plains to investigate the deaths of prospective vassals, after all.

But Leon seemed to have thought about the skirmishes in Escetia quite a lot. He was usually so quiet that Gwaine couldn't help but be impressed whenever he did speak, since the words were always carefully thought-out. And right now they made Gwaine think back to the early days of their quest, and he suddenly remembered the innkeeper at Treffynnon—the man had spoken of Mercian patrols as well.

"Well, it's not like the Northern Plains are much to look at, are they?" Gwaine replied at last, feeling somewhat out of his depth—aside from his conversation with Arthur on the first day of their journey, this was the first time he was even thinking about anything like this. He had never discussed matters of strategic importance before, at least not on such a large scale. "They're thinly populated, compared to Camelot, and there aren't any goods that Camelot can't produce as well. Who cares if Bayard gets them?"

"He'll surround Camelot from two sides," Leon pointed out. "Three, if the battles in Escetia go badly for us."

"I thought Camelot and Mercia were at peace," Gwaine muttered, squinting idly into the setting sun. His stomach was rumbling—if they didn't find any game to shoot some time soon, he'd drag Leon back to the copse of trees to at least get some of the field rations.

"They are," Leon said, his voice troubled. "Though maybe not for long. The prince—" But he broke off, looking uncomfortable and a bit sad, like he'd just caught himself thinking about something that he'd been trying to push into the farthest recesses of his mind.

"The prince isn't there to keep the king from sending off one too many rudely-worded, paranoid letter, you mean," Gwaine stated somewhat ruthlessly, uninhabited by the sense of propriety that was keeping Leon from speaking his mind.

But at least Leon was honest enough to nod without objection, although he did sigh heavily, like it pained him to not even protest when his king was spoken of in such a manner. Gwaine just shrugged, squinting into the setting sun. For some reason he found himself remembering Beltane eve, and how the Green Knight had addressed Arthur with a honorific befitting a king—now that Gwaine thought about it, he hadn't been too far off the mark.

As if spurred by the thoughts that strayed to his challenger, the grass swayed in a sudden sharp breeze, and Gwaine had barely looked away from the sun when movement caught his eye at the corner of his vision.

There was a whisper of rustling sound, a blurry patch of brown rising from the grass, and Leon's arm whipped up, raising the crossbow within barely a second, reacting on instinct alone. The muffled sound of impact when the bolt found its mark in the deer's shoulder sounded oddly loud in the still evening air.

Gwaine still hadn't stopped walking when the deer hit the ground with a soft thump, and he couldn't do anything but gape at Leon's back in utter surprise for a moment as the older knight walked over to the fallen animal. There were battle-honed reflexes, and then there was reacting as quickly as Leon just had—for some reason, Gwaine found himself thinking back to Beltane eve yet again, and wondered for the first time if Leon and Lancelot didn't share the position of Arthur's best knight.

"A lone deer, so far away from the forest?" Leon mused, his keen eyes tracking the impressive distance to the faraway treeline. There was no trail of flattened grass to mark the path that had brought the deer here—to all intents and purposes, it could have appeared out of nowhere.

"It's food," Gwaine said reasonably enough, jogging to catch up with him. The deer was of average size, its eyes already dulled with death; even within the split-second it had taken him to react, Leon had aimed well enough to spare it the drawn-out agony of a misplaced crossbow bolt. It would definitely make for a rich dinner for all of them, and Gwaine patted Leon's shoulder in appreciation, although he did take care to wipe any and all traces of impressed respect from his features.

They resolved to butcher the carcass only upon reaching camp—the light was fading more and more, lengthening their shadows and washing the color out of the grass until it looked more gray than green. Gwaine could tell that Leon felt just as uncomfortable as he did, out in an open field in potentially hostile lands during nightfall, and they each took hold of one of the deer's hind legs to drag it back the way they had come.

"How do you think the others are faring?" Gwaine asked at some point, more out of absentmindedness than genuine interest; they'd meet up with Percival, Elyan and the squires the next day, and there would be more than enough time to swap stories.

To his surprise, Leon smiled. "Probably honing their swordsmanship by fighting their way through bandits," he replied, and Gwaine imagined Percival laying into scraggly brigands and breaking their necks with his bare hands. "I've been on patrol near the border before, and in my experience the area is riddled with bands of raiders." He hefted the deer up a little, and his expression grew thoughtful. "I thought it would be the same inland, but we haven't been attacked even once yet."

"Maybe some sort of magical presence is holding off the bandits for us," Gwaine said. He just shrugged amicably when Leon raised an eyebrow at him, although he did notice that Leon seemed puzzled rather than instantly on his guard at the mention of magic. "I mean, magic already seems to be at the heart of all this, what with the ivy and all," he continued, when no objection was forthcoming—truth to be told, he hadn't really expected one in the first place. "Why not assume that it might be helping us too, instead of just terrifying some villagers?"

Leon nodded slowly, and this time Gwaine allowed himself to grin with eager surprise at the fact that he was following his train of thought. "Hunting has also been rather easy," Leon ventured, gesturing down at the deer with his free hand. "I thought it would be harder, especially in flat marshland such as this, but this deer practically sprung up right in front of our noses."

"Thank you, mysterious magical presence!" Gwaine called into the still evening air, his voice echoing through the quietude, and a gust of wind seemed to answer him, whipping his hair into his face with the faraway scent of moss and dried leaves, although the forest was far away.

He sent a meaningful glance towards Leon, as if to say, see? I told you so, and although Leon rolled his eyes, he didn't turn away quickly enough for Gwaine not to see his smile.






__________ __________