to catch a monster

oh myyyy

imigination — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:34:50 GMT

well hello darlings ♥

it's been a while, so before i write the obligatory "this is my life post" i thought i'd start things off with a meme:

Comment on this post with a simple pleasure -- something small and ordinary that makes you happy. I will then ask you five questions. And you can either take them back to your journal and repeat, or just answer them here!

conversely, you can ask me five questions in the comments if you'd prefer not to open your journal up to such, and i'll answer them here. any topic, i don't really care; just trying to get my gears greased up and working again ♥

imigination — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:40:28 GMT

first i just want to say thanks to everybody who's been leaving really thoughtful and compassionate comments on some of my recent entries. idk what's up with me, because usually i can cope with revisiting and replying to everything, but lately it's been tough. so if i didn't write back, i am still beyond grateful for your positive thoughts and vibes for me, my family and my family friends. ♥

I MENTIONED a little while back that my mom just got engaged. well, she asked me to be her maid of honor, which is super cool ... even though her only other bridesmaid is the little sister, lol. the only two groomsmen are going to be my little brother and her fiance's son. i guess the idea is to make a cute little quasi-blended family up at the alter. i have no strong feelings about this and am mostly trying to be supportive of what she wants to do, but one distinctly positive outcome of this whole situation (beyond the impetus to get in [better] shape and also find a date for an event nine months from now) is that i get to wear an awesome dress ... and my mom seems not to mind me looking super hot and awesome in her wedding.

i went home two weekends ago and she took me to try on a couple bridesmaid dresses spur of the moment. olivia and i aren't going to wear the same thing since we're 12 years apart, but i found pics of the top two contenders ... and she seems to be down with me picking the one i prefer. they're both $200, which is completely reasonable, and both really pretty. my mom still has to settle on color, but we (livey and i) will both either be in cream or taupe.

the first is vera wang by david's bridal (and i don't think the sash has to be that way), the second is priscilla of boston.

thoughts? idk i like what i like, and i'm not going to place my order until my mom orders her dress in october, but i like playing dress up and fashion time.

and even if you have no thoughts i hope u well ♥

so this is kind of awesome

imigination — Sat, 21 May 2011 01:46:54 GMT

this is silly and braggy, so i am giving myself a smack on the hand already, but ...

i have talked (a while ago) about the fact that my aunt (my mom's first sister) is an actress/director with her own production company. she's had a pretty good career as far as people in film and tv go, and because she's been working so long she is good friends with a lot of actors and industry people, and has been an invaluable resource to me.

anyway, so one of said close friends is viola davis who has done a lot of great work over a long period of time, and was nominated for the best supporting actress oscar i think two years ago. i first met viola when i was super young, bc she and my aunt we're pals as soon as roz (the aunt) came out of yale, and she's come around to a lot of family stuff in the fifteen years or so that have passed. i haven't had a big interaction with her maybe in the last six ... but she's been off getting famous and making hella cash and being fantastic, so it makes sense.

ANYWAY, on my birthday last friday, roz made a little birthday video for me, my uncle mike and my mom (the uncle and i share a birthday, my mom's is the next day). she posted it on facebook, and viola commented ... which already had my heart a little fluttery. THEN, to my utter surprise, she friended me the next day(!!!).

OK SO i am so over facebook and basically only check it when it occurs to me to (ie every couple months/once a year), and facebook has become such a meaningless mechanism that i know this kind of shit is no big deal and we've known each other a long time, even if we haven't really talked to each other in a very long time.

BUT i still got all excited bc 1) i can see her friends, many of whom are a very big deal and 2) it's still cool JUST BECAUSE. between roz and my mom (who somehow knows a lot of actively working writers in hollywood through her last job), i realize i am connected to many more people that i might otherwise be and i am grateful and also a little star struck sometimes.

HALP

imigination — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:25:43 GMT

... so i missed my best friend's birthday a couple days ago. we haven't talked in a couple weeks because every time we do, she asks when i'm moving to LA (not soon) or when we're going to go party in vegas again (in a while). i get sick of having to answer every question in the negative, esp because these particular questions just remind me how cushy her job and how little money i have. however annoying that may be, i am still a shitty pal for messing up on this one.

since she does live way on the other side of the country, i figure i have a window to buy my way into an apology by getting her a really good gift and a well timed, very long catch-up letter. any ideas, flisties? she likes video games, food, science fiction & booze. my idea (a really good mixologist's guide) was already co-opted by her sister.

(apologies to those of you who i've already bugged for ideas ♥)

imigination — Mon, 09 May 2011 01:31:37 GMT

HOORAY, there is no greater excuse for updating my long-dormant journal ♥

according to both science and my mother, i'm going to be 24 this coming friday.

at first i met said news with the requisite angst; i don't dig the idea of getting older. i'm not happy that my career plans are basically non-starter at this point since i got distracted by all that "oh shit, i have to lead a real life" stuff, and when i permit myself, i get sad that my most recent potential relationship was derailed by a move to beijing. i'm not in the town that i want to be in (at least for now), i make less money than i would like, and i still get hung up in my family drama.

but i did realize this evening that, though there's a lot i have to do to change my circumstances, i am fairly content with entering this new ~mid-twenties phase of life. i think 24 is going to be a good year ... perhaps misguidedly. and tomorrow i can blame alcohol, good food and today's mood to listen to bounce-fest music. but today, i started to piece together how nice it is to begin to feel settled with who i am in a way that i certainly didn't when i was in high school, or a college freshman, or that moment when i graduated and all i wanted for an entire year was to be back in school.

i won't pretend that i am immune to constant insecurity and the deceptive sway of depression. every time i get into a rhythm of shit that makes me feel good (working out most days, on my meds, etc), i have a nasty habit of abandoning those elements since "i'm fine." i don't dare think that i am above or beyond pulling that same shit again since it's happened so many times before. but i think - in this middle-phase where i am right now - i can also see that i am growing in a way that, while criticism and the usual bullshit from the inside still hurts, the stuff from the outside does less. i'm not tripped up by external voices so much. and though while it sounds small, it feels big.

i don't mind attributing the positives to 24. and when it gets here at the end of the week, i'll keep chalking the good stuff to that number. better that than getting hung up on my one ~~gray~~ blonde hair.

vintage holly jolly

imigination — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 13:30:48 GMT

holidazzzzeeeeee

imigination — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:26:59 GMT

I've been at work nearly an hour and a half now, and all I've managed to do (aside from arranging and rearranging the things on my desk) is spend way more money than intended on my little brother, whose 17th birthday is tomorrow and has every expectation of a bevy of presents under the tree on the 25th with his name on them.

Have you done your holiday shopping yet, flisties? Are you giving presents? Any suggestions for a dad? The only characteristics I assign to my pops are "doctor" and "nerd," and I am sick of giving him slippers every other year.

♥

last night conversation

imigination — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 13:41:47 GMT

Lil' Sis: So ... when do you turn 24?
Mig!: *collapses in a fit of tears*

oh shit!

imigination — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 06:09:01 GMT

it's just after 1 o'clock ... again

i wish i were doing something exciting with this time, but i think i should force myself to sleep right. now.

unfunny business in potter fandom

imigination — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:48:24 GMT

As though the clusterfuck that is now the House of Representatives weren't enough, I came across something deeply troubling ... in a very LOLWUT way.

The Pepsi Refresh Project is this excellent grant program which awards money on a monthly basis for ideas to fund great ideas. These ideas are aimed at ideas for making a positive impact in one's community, awarded on a monthly basis and voted on at the Project's website.

There's a write up at Unfunny Business. But short story short: Harry Potter fandom's Fiction Alley wants $25,000 to update their site and servers.

... Now I love me some HP, and back in the day I was all over FA. But. ... But.

But.

I just took five minutes to vote for some actually-community-oriented ideas at the $25,000 giving level (they award $5k, $50k and $250k) - like build a no-kill dog shelter to rehabilitate abused dogs on some lady's land, start an aquaponics program to grow lettuce for healthy school lunches, and bring art to children with visual and hearing impairment. If you have five minutes, I'd highly encourage you to browse and cast a couple votes as well.

Basically every idea on that site > getting grant money to run a fansite. :/ Prioritesssss~

it ain't over 'til it's over

imigination — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 03:07:26 GMT

♥ ;D

/hiatus?

imigination — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:41:48 GMT

So I accidentally hiatus ... ed. So much personal drama, so much lyfe. I will be much more attentive my darling friends. ♥

In apology, this (merci beaucoup pally). It's making me crack the hell up, but maybes I'm weird:

uno: fandom, quit exhausting me
deux: life, quit challenging me
three: everything else, please be awesome

no tea for me thanks

imigination — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:05:40 GMT

Living in Washington usually ain't no thang, but when I rolled onto tumblr this morning i was most excited to be greeted by this:

Colbert | Stewart

I am so there.

Fic: What Grew Inside Who

imigination — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:39:09 GMT

Title: What Grew Inside Who (1/5)
Author: imigination
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana, Uther, Tom, Lancelot, Arthur/Gwen, minor Gwen/Lancelot
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 46,000
Warning: Modern AU/Canon crossover, based loosely on Lost in Austen.
Disclaimer: I have few Earthly possessions, and Merlin certainly isn’t one of them.

Summary: When a modern day Gwen takes a tumble through her crawlspace door, she discovers what truly lies on the other side of the looking glass.

Art Link: The incredibly talented shan_3414 made graphics and an accompanying fanmix for this story, and I couldn’t be more grateful. You can find them here; please, show her some love! ♥

Author’s Notes: No amount of words I could put here would do justice to the thanks that are due to so many people, so please take a moment to peek here to see those to whom I owe infinite gratitude. My love and appreciation to shan_3414, _autumncolours, goobalicious, and especially to kepp0xy, who went above and beyond the call of duty as an alpha, beta, sounding board, and friend. ♥ Special thanks to the_muppet for organizing such a massive undertaking.

Title shamelessly stolen from How My Heart Behaves by Leslie Feist.

Dad had called her a smart girl, had full faith she could sort out whatever mess she managed to get herself into.

All those years acquainted, and he’d never quite cottoned on to her habit of making the wrong choice.

There were, of course, the poor decisions she’d made that her mates could list: by nature, she was a saboteur of relationships; frequently – and conspicuously – ‘unavailable’; had a very poor sense of direction.

Her boss didn’t much like that she chose to consume her lunch in store. At first, Matilda’s objections fell on deaf ears; eventually, the sound of her manager’s lunch-hour quickies caught up with her. Behavior amended: she took to eating her sandwiches on the bench at the corner, rain or shine.

She took back less-than-worthy-exes (well, at least one) and politely excused herself from any conversation that took a turn toward the ephemeral. She had little time for things like dreaming, or desire, or decisions. She was wrong – flat out wrong – more times than she cared to admit, and what was worse … she was doing it again.

Such were Gwen’s thoughts at the present, as her knees ground into cool, wet concrete and she peered into the sliver of light that etched white lines into the space before her.

The flat was still foreign to her. She’d been there just over a month, enough time to learn the ins and outs of an efficiency. But the little door – hovering suddenly and strangely above her tub – was a revelation, discovered during a leisurely bath. And since she didn’t much like the idea of a stranger coming into her flat through strange passageways, Gwyneth had given the handle a sharp tug to see if it would gave way. The panel creaked open, and she was greeted by a rush of warm steam … and then a shocking cool breeze. Like the air at the back of a laundromat.

There was no explanation for her compulsion to squeeze her torso in, holding the towel around her chest. Just a peek, begot further curiosity, and soon she was wriggling her hips forward with one foot anchored safely on the ledge of the entrance.

Just one look.

There were voices. She could hear them, muttering and mumbling – not at all the delicate howls of her neighbor, who was given to screeching tirades at this hour. Nor did it strike her as the brutal banter from the four lads who lived upstairs – and by all measure never did laundry to begin with. No, whoever these people were, they were whispering … urgent, as though expected.

Her palms crept forward, sliding as she stretched her legs long enough to get as close to the grate as she could. But before she could find purchase, something started, a faint tingle on the sole of Gwen’s foot. Like a storm wind, it grew, until the rustling was a gust that blew the towel covering her bum up to her waist and curls swarmed her face. She was pushed, urged forward until only her toes remained in her own bathroom, gripping feebly as Gwyneth twisted, struggled … and was finally tossed roughly forward. She rocked forward, straight down, until her forehead met the metal grate with a painful smack.

“Fuck,” she groaned against the floor, squeezing her eyes tight as tears collected in the corners of her eyes and she gritted her teeth against the pain.

When she’d recovered enough to manage a backward glance, she looked down her body and into darkness. She’d lost her foothold, and now the sole of one foot was pressed flat against the closed crawlspace door. Experimentally, she kicked it – ignoring the pain in her dinged knee – once, then again … and again. Metal rang out against its hinges in protest, but it did not budge.

“Of course,” Gwen grunted.

Propping herself up on her elbows, she cast a now weary look forward at the other door, the one that had been so irresistibly tantalizing moments ago. She was sure to make fast-friends this way half-dressed, falling out of secret doors into laundry rooms … or, heaven forbid, someone else’s flat.

The wind did not feign docility this time, though she was pressed flat now against the floor, stretched in the impossible distance between two apartments. It was picking up from behind her once more, growing strong, fast. Unappealing though the prospect of walking out a wall and into someone else’s conversation whilst wrapped in a towel was, the prospect of head trauma sounded far worse. Gwen had developed a healthy respect for the fragility of the human body in her day. As quickly as the air began to swirl at her ankles, she crawled forward, despite the ache in her leg and the pain of grit against her elbows, and the hair slick against her face, obscuring her view.

Not hasty enough. As she came upon the grate, another furious gust of wind fell her. She was knocked off her knees, head first into her only way out.

She would’ve sworn, but the assault on her body was too sudden and too violent for her to manage more than a swift BRACE YOURSELF!

Gwen tumbled out, head first, as she crashed into the feeble grate. It gave way instantly, and she spilled out, an awkward jumble of arms and legs and one suddenly very bare arse.

Her cheek – the other, spared the first assault – smacked into the ground first, her free hand unable to prepare properly for the sudden fall as she held fast to her towel and dignity. Tears welled in her eyes immediately at impact; the laundry room could do with linoleum, because whatever this was, it fucking smarted. Gwen flailed blindly to tuck her towel back beneath her thighs.

Lying there, drawn into a neat little ball as she bit down hard on her lip and hissed the pain away, Gwyneth noticed two things: the first was that the voices which had been so tempting, beckoning her forward, were no where to be found. The second was that her surroundings looked nothing like any laundry she’d ever been in.

She blinked. … And then once again.

The world was on its side. The view from the floor was nice, far nicer than anything her landlady had shown her upon initial inquiry. Gwen’s tour of the building weeks back had been brief but had struck her as conclusive. Modest, slightly over priced for the size of her economical little flat, but such was finding a place so close to the Tube.

Absent from that first look around had been these intimidating corridors, slick gray stone from ceiling to floor. There had been no velveteen tarps fixed to the wall, crimson cloak behind fixed sculptures that could’ve been the remnants of antiquity.

Feeling suddenly very dry – as one might feel as a trespasser in someone else’s home without invitation – Gwen ignored her burgeoning headache and the pain in her knee and elbow and scrambled to stand. The new view did little to afford her better perspective; out the window – which she took only a split second to observe – Gwyneth saw only rolling hills … not the pub where Lance and the lads preferred to hang out or the building where she knew her mate’s boyfriend lived.

She nodded again, decisively, and focused her still-teary vision on the floor once more.

“Right,” mumbled Gwen, righting herself as she turned right – presumably toward the door, and the hall that would take her back to her own flat, “This has been grand.”

Before she could make a move, the sound of dull heels on the floor and the clatter of metal steeled her step. A faint, midday shadow confirmed it as dull, dark figured eased their way up the hall in her direction; men marched toward her in perfect rhythm.

Panic-stricken almost immediately – what excuse was there fore breaking and entering whilst standing in a bath towel? – Gwen turned on her heel back toward the crawlspace she’d fall out of. There was a handle, still, just left of the bird statue, whatever it was. With a quick, determined inhale, she tugged with all her might, both hands pulling as best she could.

But it wouldn’t budge. And all the while, the footsteps drew closer, like a metallic march headed straight for her—

With barely a moment to think, Gwyneth turned and reached blindly to the other side of the hallway, watching for sign of her approaching neighbors. With scrambling fingers, she clutched another handle, turned and jerked it open … stumbling inside just as she caught a flash of brown leather and auburn beard out the corner of her eye.

With a heavy grunt, Gwen threw all her weight against the door, shoving it shut behind her. Chest heaving, she dropped her forehead against the wood panels; there seemed to be no hope, no moment to catch her breath as she listened, fearful for the inevitably suspicious knock.

But a beat passed in silence – seconds, though it felt like forever – and sure enough she heard the footsteps pass her sanctuary by.

“Good God,” sighed Gwen, slumping against the oaken frame, staring down at her bare toes as she racked her mind for a good plan. There was a door to the hall somewhere, and then she could skip home and forget about this whole stupid affair. Nevermind that the light around her was bright, white … day. … Rather suspiciously like day when she could’ve sworn she had been in the middle of her evening shower.

For the third time that night – the first, purposefully – she hit her head against a hard surface. If this was a dream, she was quite ready for it to end. “… You’re always making things worse, stupid,” she mumbled reproachfully, exhaling as she refocused her mind at the task of waking from her lucid dream. “Why must you always make things worse?”

Perhaps her tongue had something to do with it.

… Two steps, and a pair of feet planted behind her. She could hear them, clear as day, and even see the tip of one dark brown boot … leading, no doubt, to a leg, and then a person … a very cross person who would turn what had to be Gwen’s worst dream to date into an indisputable nightmare.

With what dignity she could muster, Gwen turned slowly to find herself eye to eye with the tip of a gleaming sword.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice was soft but firm … as dangerous as the point hovering at eyelevel.

Gwen worked her mouth, but no words came out, not as she looked for the right way to say ‘Hi, just trespassing, no worries,’ or ‘I’m your new neighbor,’ or ‘Do you have a cup of sugar?’ Nothing came out, even as she tug her nails into her own palms, already raw from their rough treatment upon coming through the crawlspace. There was nothing, except her silence and a dangerously real-looking blade.

Whoever he was, the young man tried again, forceful. “Who are you?”

Her heart pounded so loudly in her ears, she could barely think. It had been night only minutes ago, hadn’t it? Perhaps she was suffering a concussion. Or something worse, like—

“Answer me now, or it’ll be your death.”

‘Death.’ A word she knew well. And dying in dreams felt just as shitty as dying in real life. Focus, Gwyneth! Your name! That’s all he wants.

Her bloody mind. She racked her brain, scrambling for the proper answer. Your name, Gwyneth! All he wants is your name. She focused, the word ‘Gwen’ forming upon her lips.

Her mind had something else in mind. “… Don’t kill me!” she blurted.

Gwen found it difficult to look past the blade directed toward her, but slowly, she forced her gaze to crawl up the silver line to the hilt. Bare, a hand unclenched its grip just slightly before tightening once more. “Where have you come from?” the voice snapped once more, as whatever progress Gwyneth had made clearly had not transferred to her captor.

Slowly: “Just next door … through that little door over there. Across the hall. … I’m sorry to inconvenience you—”

“Some sort of witchcraft—”

There, a line that had yet to end well through the ages. “No!” she blurted. “Just really, really lost.”

The sword – who kept swords? – fell an inch or two, still directed dangerously at her throat. Still, for the first time in what already felt like an age, Gwen exhaled as he took a careful step away from her, giving her life a little distance from the blade.

“That’s a lie,” he snapped, eyes narrowed.

What audacious temper could persist in such a precarious situation flared beneath all her fear, and she straightened against the smooth oak door. “It’s not!” countered Gwen immediately, “If I were a witch … I wouldn’t be here.” Perfectly timed, a sharp pain shot through her leg as she accidentally agitated her wound. The gash at her knee was still bleeding, staining her shins. “I could’ve prevented that.”

He held her gaze a moment longer before relenting, sweeping his sword down in a beautiful arch until the tip rested between two cracks in the stone floor.

For the first time, her eyes abandoned the weapon and focused upon her captor. He was a young man, hardy older than her by the look of it. Blue eyes and a mouth pursed in something like skepticism – with the faintest hint of humor – stared down at her knee as he cocked his head to one side and surveyed the damage.

His eyes flicked up to her face once more, and – caught staring – he blushed, never mind that he was the one still standing with sword in hand.

“You’re hardly convincing,” he muttered, even as he turned to seek something behind him. With one last wary glance, he stalked off toward the table in the center of his room. With what seemed, at least temporarily, like his trust, Gwyneth hobbled after him toward an unoccupied chair. Wise to her in an instant, his blade was aloft again, pointed at her before she had the chance to object.

“Do not move.”

She wanted to snap a quick retort, but his tone was a good deal less threatening than it had been moments earlier, and Gwyneth counted that as a good sign. “Fine,” she mumbled, holding her position awkwardly.

Satisfied, the young man began rifling through a table top of foreign, metallic objects. Gwen tried to remain steady as she watched him poke about, her mind slipping into a haze. Only his slightly irritated tone drew her back to the present: “I believe I asked you where you’re from.”

“You didn’t,” she corrected, focused on the boar’s head fixed to the opposite wall. Between her and the table, his shoulders tensed. “… But if you had,” Gwen amended, “Well, it’s actually a laugh, really, because I was taking a bath—”

“… A bath.”

“Right, yes, because I’d just bought this new curtain, and I noticed this … door thing, which I hadn’t seen before—”

“Answer the question.”

“I am,” she huffed as he whirled around to look at her, holding a roll of white fabric in hand. “So there was this door, and I’d never seen it but I thought it was like a vent or something … very … ‘follow the white rabbit,’ ‘do you know about the Matrix,’ do you know what I mean? And when I looked there was this light, and I know you’re not meant to go toward the light, but I guess I thought, ‘bugger, I’ll do it anyway—’”

“You’re rambling.”

Her cheeks were hot. “… The point being that I did a very stupid thing, and my landlady is going to kill me, and it seemed like maybe you were going to kill me, but this has just been one very stupid accident and I’d be very much … obliged if you and everyone could just take it easy. Because lesson learned, I won’t do it again.”

His frown gave way to the pout once more, and his eyes narrowed enough for Gwen to wonder if she should just get on with it, impale herself and wake up. She tensed as he took a careful step toward her after a long interval.

He licked his lips. “Your knee’s all bloody.”

“Right,” she agreed, evaluating her wound. “But it’s not that bad.”

When she looked up, he was staring – resolutely – past her shoulder, pale skin gone impressively red. Before she could think of a proper, probing question, he’d made a sharp turn toward his wardrobe, disappearing from sight briefly, leaving her to wait. When he reemerged, his blush had only worsened, and his eyes were trained on the garments in hand.

“If you could put these on.”

The young man handed the clothes over, careful that their fingers didn’t meet. Gwen glanced down at her now-dry towel; it wasn’t exactly modest attire, hardly appropriate for this Renaissance Fair if this bloke’s behavior was any indication.

Clearing his throat deeply, he walked past her until he was just an inch from the door, his nose practically grazing the spot where she’d been resting her forehead when she’d first bombarded his chambers. He tapped his sword against his boot, giving her a moment.

Not that she needed it. Gwen was modest, but she was also an adult. He, on the other hand, stared into his own door with the focus of an awkward fifteen year old changing in a locker room.

Unable to move much more, she draped the towel carefully over her shoulders as she slipped into the trousers – loose and itchy – and his tunic – dark blue and practically to her knees.

“Okay,” she drawled, trying out her most winning smile. He waited another long moment before turning to catch her out of the corner of his eye and, satisfied that she wasn’t actually stark naked, sighed a breath of relief.

Back still quite rigid, he approached again, a bit more confidently this time, and held out a hand for her. Whatever hesitance crossed her face, he offered a little warmth: a slight upturn of his lips. “The knee.”

Gwen slipped her hand neatly to his grip and instantly regretted it. She shivered at the touch, light as it was, and her gaze was met by a pair of startled blue eyes. What hint of a smile had been emerging gave way to a suddenly tight set jaw. After a couple aided steps, she extracted herself, collapsing gracelessly onto his trunk.

It was her turn next; heat filled her face as she watched him – this strange lad – lower down in front of her until he was crouched in front of her leg. Licking her lips, Gwen pulled up the fabric carefully to expose her injury.

“… What’s your name?”

She breathed a little easier. Simple questions, she could handle. “Gwyneth,” came her easy answer, and she trained her eyes on the roll of white fabric he set against her skin, working it around and dabbing at the blood as he went. When he remained silent, an afterthought: “My mates call me Gwen.”

His brow was set, furrowed as he worked, and she winced as he tied it off, unsanitary and uncomfortable. The pain was real, and when she experimentally bent her leg, it felt no better than before, just cut off.

He looked back up at her, stilling the silent complaint on her lips.

“’Gwyneth the Witch’? The Sorceress?”

“Having a bit of trouble listening, are you?” she muttered under her breath, pulling at the weight of her britches.

But the young man grinned openly. “About as much as you seem to have with the truth.”

“I’m not a ‘witch,’ just an idiot. A mad, dreaming, ready-to-wake-up, certified nutter.”

“… Right, back to ‘next door.’”

With a little effort, Gwen stood and experimentally took a few steps on her bandaged leg. As painful as the wrapping had been, balancing – and walking – finally felt a bit easier. One look at his self-satisfied smirk, and the word of ‘thanks’ died upon her lips. “Home to Hammersmith.”

“I know all the corners of Albion.” He, too, stood and followed at a leisurely pace as she hobbled back toward the door.

It was the sort of statement that should’ve made her mind spin, but Gwyneth felt nothing but dim recognition of a word she so rarely heard. “‘Albion’?” she repeated, skeptical as she reached for the knob.

“Indeed. And I have never heard of your ‘Hammersmith.’”

“Right, well no one can know every corner of merry olde England,” insisted Gwen, staring resolutely at a crack in the wooden door. “And Hammersmith would be one you simply don’t.”

With two hands, she pried open his bedroom door and peered out into the empty corridor. There was a small puddle where she’d fallen before, just in front of his door, beside the strange eagle statue. But the opposite wall was smooth, unblemished by doors or hinges or knobs. Nothing but large swaths of stone … and a window high above, looking up and out at the sky.

Her stomach dropped like an anvil. There was nothing, nothing where she’d come from and nothing to suggest that there was anything beyond the opposing wall other than ‘outside.’

Nothing but madness.

Behind her, he had the nerve to chuckle. “What’s stopping you?”

Gwen leaned against the threshold. “It’s gone.”

“What is?”

“The … door.” Her mouth went dry.

Gwen turned to find him staring past her, openly amused, and what little patience she previously nurtured had long abandoned her. “Oh, just stop.”

“Me stop?”

“Yes, stop! Stop, and just … let me figure this out.”

Her words seemed to hang in the air, and for a split second she thought she might’ve pushed him too far. It was only his kindness that had failed to push this surreal dream squarely into nightmare territory, his even acceptance of her oddities that stilled the hand she would use to hurry up and end it all herself, if necessary.

Gwen held her breath as he approached, already regretful for her outburst. Instead, he passed close – very close – brushing by her shoulder as he stepped into the hall, unafraid. Blond hair shook as he jerked his head left, then right before turning back to meet her gaze again.

“… Well, Gwyneth-from-Hammersmith. I don’t see any door.”

She stepped back, giving him the space to re-enter. Any other person might have collapsed under the weight of this very bad dream. Gwen could only nod, staring blanking into his chest as he shut his own door behind him, standing just opposite her. “There’s got to be another way out, then,” she conceded.

“And we should find it fast, before anyone catches wind of the nature of your … condition.”

“What would happen? If someone did?”

“Death is the consequence for sorcery.”

A jolt of terror shook her. “You would do that to me?”

“No,” and he dared to smile at her. Gwen’s heart skipped a beat. “But my father would.”

Gwen took a step toward her newfound ally. “But you wouldn’t.”

“Not yet, anyway.” He paused, glancing down at the trousers hanging sloppily off her. “You’re injured. It wouldn’t be right.”

He held her gaze evenly, something curious and indecipherable passing behind his eye. Flushed and eager to clear her mind, and clear out of this … Albion, Gwen stepped back and extended her arm. “Then let’s do this again, yeah? Gwyneth Leodegrance, pleasure to meet you.”

Hardly a moment passed before he’d caught her hand in a firm grip. “Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon.”

But Arthur’s eyes fell to Gwen’s bare feet before finding the skeptical slant of her mouth once more. Starry-eyed disbelief had taken hold, however briefly. Whatever dream she was trapped in, so was he. “Then, Lady … de Grace. First you’ll be in need of some clothes.”

*

“Just don’t look at them,” instructed Arthur, his voice so soft Gwen barely caught it above the sound of her own heartbeat, reverberating in her ears. The steps, too, gave, Arthur’s words cover; her two tapping lightly across the stone floor for his every one. Whatever peace she’d made with this young man wouldn’t translate to every bloke she happened upon, and Gwen didn’t have the energy to the whole explanation-for-her-life again.

“Yes, well … they’re looking at me.”

Indeed they were. The pair of men, each equipped with a spear and a grimace, marched straight toward them. Whatever Arthur’s earlier confidence, he’d left that sword in his chambers, defense be damned.

Still, out the corner of her eye, Gwyneth watched his chin lift defiantly as they walked, daring the guards to stop them. “They won’t speak if you aren’t suspicious … so stop looking the part.”

Admirably bold, but it was enough to get Gwen impaled.

Still, with a retort resting on her tongue, Gwyneth remembered once more that Arthur was her ally – her only ally – in this dreadfully confusing scenario. And she was wearing his clothes. With those two critical reasons not to argue in mind, Gwen mimicked his cool nobility, the way he strode forward, utterly defiant … and set her gaze on the door at the end of the hall.

A helmeted guard cocked his head to the side, giving her a conspicuous second glance. Gwen’s heart raced so fast she wondered if it was a sign of oncoming cardiac arrest.

Arthur’s gaze, priceless in its haughty arrogance, never wavered.

They crossed paths without a single utterance.

It wasn’t until the men behind them turned the corner, without a backward look – Gwen knew, as she could not help but stare over her own shoulder – that she sagged with relief. “My God!” she hissed, suddenly riding a crest of adrenaline, “I thought for sure we were done.”

“Not yet,” muttered Arthur, and though his brow remained set, tense, there was a chuckle in his voice … present enough to indicate similar satisfaction.

Hardly out of the woods, Gwen assumed her previous assumption of despair; no time to celebrate yet, Gwyneth, she scolded as they came to a stop before yet another heavy door, secured with a dark iron handle. “We should get you out of here,” mumbled Arthur as he gripped the handle, “Before dinner, if possible.”

“I don’t disagree.” She continued to watch over her shoulder with a complete disregard to subtlety, listening to the soft sound of Arthur working a key in a lock. Her attention snapped back to the presence only at the feeing of a sudden rushing breeze, and the creak of a newly opened door.

The room was not unlike Arthur’s in its utter unfamiliarity … from dusky windows to the dirt collecting in the corner, to the finery draped about, like a portrait one would find in a museum … or a brochure.

But that’s to be expected at this point, Gwen. Keep up.

Instinctively, she slid in, dragging her feet as she peered through the threshold and at the fabric draped about, a marvelous heap of color on table and chair and in basket. A shock of vibrant green and blue and gold into stone sanctuary.

It took her a moment to realize Arthur had not followed. He remained outside, his hand still clutching the door handle. “I’ll guard the door,” was all he offered, and before Gwen could come up with a proper response other than a weakly uttered ‘Thank you,’ he was gone and she was alone among the confection of clothes.

She’d barely taken a step toward the largest collection of bundled fabric before a wave of guilt swept over her. These weren’t her things, now nor ever. She had no right to them.

… Still. She barely needed glance down to be reminded of her current state; donning too-large men’s clothes and traipsing about in a medieval nightmare. Those first guards had passed her by, but how many would back down at a haughty look?

Gwen thumbed through the fabric, passing by obviously torn and tattered garments until she came upon a cream colored dress without obvious damage. The material was light, nearly weightless between her fingertips, and fine. A little … long for her, but she had no place to be picky.

She was still dressing, shifting the silken material awkwardly about her, wondering how fabric fell so elegantly in her hands hung off her like an over-large jogging suit, when the voices started outside the door.

A woman’s words, muffled and indignant, drowned out what Gwen dearly hoped were Arthur’s protests. She had only a moment to hold the sagging front of her dress to her chest before the chamber door flew open, revealing her to onlookers.

But there were only three. Arthur, with less of an eye toward propriety than before, peered in and sagged, relieved to find her in a dress (be it an ill fitting one) over, presumably, his own clothes. And at his side, a woman. She stood, back rigid though her lips were curled into something of a smirk. Dark waves cascaded down her back and into the deep violet waves of fabric that fanned out behind her. Less than a second passed before she followed Arthur’s gaze, turning her clear, curious gaze upon Gwen. Behind the pair, caught mid-argument, hovered a young girl in a drab yellow dress.

For a long moment they were at a stand still, until Arthur’s raven-haired friend broke the silence

“… Has Grace gone?”

For a moment – one stupid moment – Gwen was back in Hammersmith, confronted by a customer with an incomprehensible question. “… I’m sorry?”

Arthur, back pressed against the doorjamb, inched into the room. “As I told you,” he grunted, jaw working furiously against his nerves, “The seamstress is out, and her chambers occupied.”

“You’ll one day understand that merely saying something does not make it so,” dismissed the woman, her gaze fixed on Gwen, who held what excess room she had in the dress to her chest. She wanted to speak, to offer a clever and convincing explanation, but she couldn’t. She felt only guilt, guilt and something not unlike dread under the other woman’s scrutiny. … Beautiful eyes, narrowed not in anger … but wide with an unknowable shock, though her voice remained perfectly neutral.

Her gaze said it all: she knew.

Arthur, thankfully, was not troubled. He turned his back to Gwen completely, proving himself once more to be an invaluable new friend.

“Surely you’re acquainted with Lady Gwyneth,” he surmised, a hint of court-appropriate disdain in his voice.

The woman continued to stare through her. “I have not had the pleasure, no.”

“Gwen,” interjected Gwen. “And I haven’t been here long, so … it’s to be expected.”

Arthur’s shoulders tilted just slightly in her direction, enough for Gwen to know he didn’t appreciate her help. Not that she cared much, or could help it. She did as much good as a statue as a statue did as a person.

Whatever his reservations, he stood on ceremony. “May I present the king’s ward, the Lady Morgana.”

It was perhaps customary to curtsey; at least that’s what Gwen gathered from the rather flabbergasted look on Morgana’s maid’s face as she hovered in the doorway behind her lady. Belatedly, Gwen bowed her head.

“You have no help,” observed Morgana, taking a cautious step forward, an illusive smile ducking and darting from her lips, showing itself fleetingly as she tipped her head to take in Gwen’s state. “That is a beautiful gown.”

Arthur twitched but did not turn to look. Gwen nodded dumbly. “Thank you … Lady Morgana.”

“Pardon me, but have you visited Camelot before?” Dark rimmed eyes narrowed, even as she distracted herself with the mess of ribbons on the table nearest Gwen, untangling absently as her gaze twitched about, searching. After a beat, she added: “I feel as though I have met you before.”

The ‘no’ died on her lips as the word ‘Camelot’ rang in her ears. Arthur saved her the trouble of coming up with a decent answer.

“You should give Lady Gwyneth her privacy,” he insisted. Morgana did not spare him a second glance.

Instead, her hand raised in a beautiful arch, like the gesture of a statue. The girl hovering just behind hurried forth.

“What kind of hospitality would that be?” quipped Morgana. Then she added, pointedly, and before Gwen could find nerve enough to offer that she truly needed no help, that she could manage quite well on her own, “… And you have less place here than me.”

“Sir … Arthur’s been fantastic help. It’d be a shame to just … send him off …” her words were swallowed up by silence. Lady Morgana’s hollow gaze gave way to bemusement. Then, as an afterthought: “Wouldn’t want to be rude.” She was tugged backward just slightly, as a pair of small hands began to work at the soft folds of fabric hanging off her.

Morgana, for her part, was already ushering Arthur from the room, her hand extended wide and imperious as he sulked through the door. “Nonsense,” she dismissed. “Miriam and I will take good care of you.”

“I’m to escort Lady Gwyneth to the banquet—”

“She will be just as well in my hands, and I know your father seeks your presence as we speak.” Gwen looked on as Arthur whirled around, one final protest on his lips. But Lady Morgana beat him to the punch. “Wouldn’t want to be rude.”

Gwen’s heart fluttered as Morgana’s servant tugged something tight around Gwen’s waist, sucking some of the air right out of her. So she had no breath on which to answer Arthur’s telling last glance as it disappeared behind the door swinging shut.

*

Her breath did not quickly return. Lagging a half-step behind Lady Morgana, Gwen silently struggled to calm her now racing heart.

From bad to worse indeed: outside, the sun had set, and as they hurried down the stairs, she caught sight of an unfamiliar sky through the odd passing window. Supper had been a more critical deadline than Gwen previously imagined. It was not simply that this was no place for a half-clothed woman from Hammersmith; no, the bevy of voices ringing out down the hallway, their words muffled behind the heavy double doors of what had to be the great hall told her that her audience was to be more than just Arthur and Morgana. A whole host of guests were to be spectators to the downfall of Gwyneth … a painful death and release from this torturous, endless nightmare.

The last thought, at least, helped ease some of the tightness in her chest. If this is a dream, and this goes badly – and it will – then I’ll wake up, and be home in bed … probably soaked in wine. And then I can shower and cook some bacon and everything will be fine again. An errant hand pressed flat against the constraint of her corset. Lots of bacon.

After all, she deserved it.

“Lady Gwyneth?”

Gwyneth came to a stop just short of careening into Morgana, who was looking back at her, quietly amused. At her side, Miriam was far less impressed with Gwen’s antics.

Careful not to tear anything as she stepped off Morgana’s train, Gwen forced a smile. “Yes?” she asked, her voice high and foreign to her own ears.

“You needn’t worry,” Morgana assured her, unexpectedly reaching for the hand on her stomach. “This should be routine for you, no doubt.”

“’Routine,’” she repeated, her voice now unexpectedly loud. Morgana squeezed her hand, and Gwen’s manic grin eased into something like gratitude for this show of kindness before the ritual burning that was almost sure to follow. The flickering candelabra on either side of the door, flanked by another duo of sour looking guards promised as much. Inside, a little jovial music played, the sort she heard on some BBC period drama every once in a while.

So very routine.

“Of course,” agreed Gwen, looking Lady Morgana up and down: every bit the medieval princess, from the diadem on her head to the blade Gwen was certain she kept in her boot. “Nothing to be concerned about.”

With one last, curious smile, Mograna turned and nodded to one of the guards.

Before Gwyneth seized the opportunity to bail, to turn and run her arse out of the castle and straight back to Hammersmith, her sanity be damned, the doors creaked slowly open … like the reveal in an old movie.

And what a reveal.

Words were stopped in her throat once more; her mind ran suddenly blank, confronted by the beauty and scale of the hall before her. And though her face, limbs, everything felt numb, the part of her that demanded survival inched her forward so that she might follow her dark-haired companion over the threshold and into the banquet.

Servants hurried about, clutching pitchers and platters to their chests. The minstrels, wherever they were, played on as they entered, and a pair of pages stopped to bow respectfully at Morgana.

There were many, many men, most draped in long crimson capes that swept the floor even as they sat, working on wine and reveling in apparent good cheer. The women, scattered throughout, were dressed in similar splendor to the king’s ward.

“Do you see the other members of your party?” asked Morgana not with the same teasing and flighty air of nobility she had used on Arthur earlier, even as she turned on her smirk again. Her voice fell quiet enough that only Gwen could hear.

She shook her head dumbly, still in awe. “There are none,” she mumbled, “Only me.”

Once more, Gwen felt Lady Morgana’s eyes upon her … but this time, she had no excuse to offer, no lie resting on the tip of her tongue. It was hard work, all the deception. Each fabrication, however necessary, did leave a bitterness in her mouth, and if being caught in Arthur’s clothing with no reasonable explanation of their acquaintanceship, being generally elusive and dim weren’t enough to tip the scale against her, then this little nugget of truth couldn’t hurt.

… Proven right. Whatever the question she wished to pose, she simply nodded toward her table and continued on. “I must take my place.” Gwen’s eyes involuntarily sought out the head of the table, and the empty seat to the left of a high-backed throne.

The king. It was a wonder she had not picked him out sooner; adorned by nothing but the dark cloak of a villain and his crown, he held court with enough authority to turn Gwen’s stomach. Arthur’s earlier words on the danger of discovery echoed in her mind.

His expression – caught ambiguously between smirk and scowl – turned briefly light as Morgana caught his attention at Gwen’s right. Without hesitation or word of farewell, the Lady slipped away, moving silkily up the table and toward her seat. Boisterous conversation turned to murmuring as all eyes fell upon her. One pair, notably, did not.

He had been smiling. Not even the haze of candlelight could hide the crinkle around his eye or the lines that had formed in his cheeks, now frozen as he caught sight of her from his vantage point at the king’s other side.

Earlier, he’d been adorned only by the golden hairs on his head, not the crown he now wore, setting him apart, far apart, from those he broke bread with. The resemblance between father and son was vague, but there was no denying his status.

The sound of Arthur’s chair scraping against the floor sent the men scrambling to attention. They rose, with more or less grace, as Morgana continued her approach. But few took note of the way their prince stepped away from the table, cloak billowing behind him as he made his way between tables and toward Gwyneth herself.

Gwyneth, who had never felt more awkward … hovering in an uncomfortable dress in a room full of cloaked blokes and bejeweled ladies … accompanied in by the most beautiful of all. She was only grateful that Lady Morgana commanded the attention as she did.

Whatever smile he had been sporting moments before, only tension read in his face as he furrowed his brow and hesitated before her.

His eyes fell to the hem of her dress before they found her eyes once more. Wonderful, thought Gwen as Arthur’s mouth fell open and he searched for the proper beginning. None came.

“What’s that you said to me earlier?” she whispered, doing her best not to move her lips too much, “About not looking guilty?”

He let out an abrupt breath, a small puff of air … and with it, some of his fears. Though her stomach continued to churn, Gwen permitted herself a slight smile. She was not yet caught.

Squaring his shoulders, Arthur bowed his head just slightly. “My lady,” and out of nowhere, a proffered hand.

“Um.” Gwen had never been called upon to curtsey in her life, and somehow – rather inconveniently – her every memory of the Bennett sisters were far from the front of her mind. She bent her knees, slightly wobbly, and refused to check for amusement in his face.

“I can show you to your seat.”

He opened his palm a little wider, enough for her to catch the hint. And with an inaudible ‘Oh!’ Gwen slipped her hand into his grip once more as he turned and led her down a row of seats.

Arthur cleared his throat as she walked, slightly stiffly, beside him. “I see you survived Morgana’s company.”

Gwen’s eyebrows shot up nearly immediately, and she was pleased to find him smirking more than anything else. “Survived because of it,” she corrected.

He grinned outright. “I’m not so sure that’s true. … Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given your … nature.”

“You didn’t stick around to teach me how to put on a corset.”

To her delight – stupid delight, she would scold herself soon after, as she failed to notice the attention that soon fell upon her, with Morgana seated and the meal resumed – Arthur’s face became flushed. His grin, however, turned cocky. “No, only promised you safe passage from death.”

“No you didn’t. … Though since as you neglected to mention the crown thing, your … prince-ly-ness,” Gwen whispered, teasingly, “I see how that could’ve also slipped your mind.”

His smile was genuine, and for a fleeting moment, Gwen felt … normal. As though she had done this before.

She couldn’t dwell on the thought; Arthur was turning toward her, releasing her fingers and tugging out a chair. “Lady Helena and Sir Marylebone,” he murmured into her ear as she slid past him and into the space beside her seat. “He’s deaf, and she’ll complain about the food if you give her an opening.”

Perfect dining companions for a woman from Hammersmith.

Gratitude was on her lips, sweet and sincere, when a voice cut through the din.

“And who is your companion?”

The question was vague, but his meaning was clear. With a stiff back, bent at the waist as she lowered herself into her seat, Gwen froze. The sound of Arthur’s shuffling feet as he turned righted her, caused her to stand with her head bent respectfully, even as nervous eyes sought out the king’s face, just a table away.

Arthur’s voice was blessedly free of fear. “Father,” he began, edging over to give her room beside him. “May I present Lady Gwyneth de Grace.”

“Leodegrance,” mumbled Gwen.

“Leodegrance,” he repeated. And with what little flourish she could manage, she sank into a brief, if fluid, curtsey.

The king leaned forward in his chair, reaching for his goblet with the entitled grace of a monarch. “I wonder why you should send her off to the side when you clearly have such a … rapport.”

Whatever impulse Gwen had to answer for herself died in her throat. Similarly, Arthur said nothing.

But the wine was flowing and laughter kept up. For all the severity of his look, Arthur’s father’s lips curved into the hint of a smile. “Come, be seated here.”

“… Sire, there is no space—”

“Then we will make some,” he replied, and all discussion of the matter was over. A lazy gesture had the knight seated beside Arthur on his feet, half-full plate be damned.

*

Already, Gwen had become weary of surprises. Yet every corner she turned there were more, more of the unexpected, more that gave added weight to her quickly diminishing fear that this was just another nightmare to be endured … the consequence of too many late night snacks and renewed anxiety over her father’s death. Grief, the priest had told her at the funeral – when she’d been only half paying attention – was the kind of thing that could sneak up on you always, could deceive the mind and turn it to rot. And oh how she wanted that to be true, to be the simple explanation of this inside-out world, where she fell through doors and met princes and dined with kings … but the wall was solid and cool beneath her palm, and Arthur’s body in front of her was warm and everything felt so damned real.

Like this very room.

A fire was already blazing, though the weather outside was hardly objectionable. It crackled affectionately as the prince stood aside and made way for Gwen to pass through the door behind him. She surreptitiously shut it behind her, allowing her fatigue to show only once she’d blocked the rest of the castle out.

Arthur’s back remained to her as he crossed the bedroom, placing the candle he held on a bedside table. “These accommodations should satisfy for the time being,” he remarked off-hand, as though Gwen had any sort of standard. A bed and her life were enough for now; between traveling through time and putting on airs, she’d accumulated enough exhaustion to sleep the rest of the week.

With no further attention toward propriety, Gwen slumped back against the chamber door. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, and Gwen could hear the note of surprise in his voice. He turned to face her, a playfully smug smile tugging at his lips. “No retort?” Arthur teased, reaching up to take the crown off his head.

Gwen watched as he turned it in his hand. … Like it meant nothing. Like the weight of that one object did not stand between his father and her life.

“You could’ve mentioned that sooner,” she offered, pushing her weight off the door. She gathered the blush silk of her dress in one hand and kicked off one slipper, then the other.

“Mentioned what?”

“That you were the king’s son.”

“And is that your objection?”

She padded across the room toward the chair in front of her bare vanity. “Why not,” muttered Gwen, gazing down at her aching, blistered feet.

For a long moment, her new chambers remained quiet, void filled only by the soft sound of burning embers. Arthur’s silence was deafening, left her surprisingly uncomfortable for so new an acquaintance. As much as she longed for sleep, she wished he would keep rambling, would tease her … cajole her into continuing … anything to stifle the loneliness that night – or a nightmare – in a foreign land was certain to bring.

Loneliness she knew all too well.

Once again, it was his boots in her periphery that drew her eyes up. Arthur’s gaze was fixed upon the ruby studded crown still in his hands when he began to speak.

“Crown prince or not, my father’s law stands. You heard it yourself: all who are caught practicing magic within Camelot’s borders are condemned to death without exception. There is no … loophole, no objection to be made—”

“Not even for people who do it for the right reasons?” asked Gwen, frowning openly. She wasn’t entirely certain why the objection rose from within her; Gwyneth believed in magic no more than she believed in fairies, or Father Christmas … or Freddy Krueger himself. But she knew history had a fairly liberal definition of what ‘magic’ was.

Arthur grimaced, glancing up from beneath his furrowed brow to catch her eye. “Not even for ‘the right reasons.’”

“If you knew how to save your own family.”

“Not then.”

“… Or save somebody else’s family. From death or disease.” In her weariness, her mind brought an image to the forefront – one she so rarely permitted: Tom, dad, reclined in his hospital bed. What she would’ve done for even another minute …

“… Not then, either.”

“And what if it’s not magic at all?” Gwen balked, standing and more than slightly outraged. “What if it’s being at the wrong place at the wrong moment? Or just being lucky?”

“There’s—”

But, as she was wont to, Gwen rambled on. “People exist on a spectrum, Arthur—”

“But the king is absolute,” he interrupted, firm. “And given your … condition—”

“’My condition.’”

He cut his gaze away, hints of the arrogant prince making a quick resurgence. “You don’t make being tactful particularly easy, Gwyneth-the-Sorceress-from-Hammersmith.” To make matters worse, he smirked.

Somewhat infuriating. Slightly endearing.

Gwen was too tired.

Before she could decide on a proper response to the self-amused prince stationed before her, the door flew open without warning. Nudged slightly aggressively, it swung inward, revealing the same dark-haired young man who had muttered in Arthur’s ear and refilled her goblet at dinner. Handsome, she had noticed, but with a peculiar look in his eye. Unsettled.

The same he turned upon her now, even with his arms full of linens, lavender and red and gold … even from a distance, more fine than anything Gwen had ever been privy to in her entire life.

“Merlin!” Arthur’s voice held a note of high-pitched surprise.

The boy turned on his heel to face Gwen and Arthur on the far side of the room. “I got the laundry like you wanted me to.”

“Yes, very good. Go ahead and make Lady Gwen’s bed.”

Entirely unnecessary. “… I can make my own bed,” she offered, stepping forward immediately.

Merlin was already by the foot of the mattress, tugging up the corner of the tucked blanket. But even as he worked, his eyes were set upon Gwen, his half-hearted smile set peculiarly, inscrutable.

“Nonsense.” Arthur waved Gwen off, setting the crown askew on his head once more. “Merlin likes work. Don’t you Merlin?”

Gwen smiled openly at Arthur’s servant, embarrassed. “I’ve got this, go on.”

“I’m happy to help, my lady.” Merlin was unsmiling now, and when Gwen’s own face fell, he turned his funny gaze upon the fabric at the foot of the bed, yanking a sheet from between the folds. Gwen held her place – awkwardly – beside a suddenly tense Arthur whose smirk had fallen into a full-on scowl as Merlin worked away.

“Where did you say you were from, Lady Gwen?” asked Arthur’s manservant, flicking open another thin quilt.

Whatever was troubling Arthur suddenly left Gwen’s own mind on edge. “Um … Hammersmith?”

“Hammersmith,” repeated Merlin. He paused, his palms splayed across the velveteen top blanket. After a beat: “Never heard of it.”

“Thankfully the world does not work according to what you know. If it did, there would be nothing left,” snapped Arthur. Merlin grimaced. “That will be all.”

Before Gwen could mount a defense of Hammersmith, or her bed-making skills, or anything, Arthur had turned to face her once again, hands clasped respectfully at his sides. She straightened, watching as Merlin exited without acknowledging her or his prince. Not that she would’ve, had their places been swapped.

Arthur cleared his throat. “I train in the mornings. They expect me early, and I am occupied until lunch.” The cool blue of his eye flicked down, and then up with fleeting affection. “I do not know your plans, but I hope you’ll stay close to … here.”

“No, I’ll be … cool. … Er, fine.”

Gwen watched him carefully, constructing a short thank you – for everything – in her mind. But before she managed one word, Arthur had cast a glance backward at the still-open door and Merlin hovering just outside. When he faced her again, his lips were pressed closed. He inclined his head. “Sleep well … Gwen.”

But even swathed in darkness, the warmth of a burnt out fireplace lingering throughout, sleep was not gentle with her.

Hours later, when the sky was a pretty shade of blue … promising dawn and morning and a new day, the birds began to sing. And Gwyneth’s eye misted over, until the tears drew a warm, wet line over the bridge of her nose and pooled into the pillow beneath her.

This was not home.

Part Two

Fic: What Grew Inside Who

imigination — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:33:58 GMT

Title: What Grew Inside Who (2/5)
Author: imigination
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana, Uther, Tom, Lancelot, Arthur/Gwen, minor Gwen/Lancelot
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 46,000
Warning: Modern AU/Canon crossover, based loosely on Lost in Austen.
Disclaimer: I have few Earthly possessions, and Merlin certainly isn’t one of them.

Summary: When a modern day Gwen takes a tumble through her crawlspace door, she discovers what truly lies on the other side of the looking glass.

Art Link: The incredibly talented shan_3414 made graphics and an accompanying fanmix for this story, and I couldn’t be more grateful. You can find them here; please, show her some love! ♥

Author’s Notes: No amount of words I could put here would do justice to the thanks that are due to so many people, so please take a moment to peek here to see those to whom I owe infinite gratitude.

Tap-Tap-Tap.

There it was again. Too warm and round to be nothing, but then what did Gwen knew about acoustics? She had been a double major at Uni: history, with a focus on Apartheid South Africa and Latin; at best a waste of money, at worst, a waste of time.

Given that neither discipline suggested much in the way of parsing out the sounds of secret rooms off corridors, Gwen was willing to stack her money on the latter possibility. Even a rudimentary higher-level education should’ve taught her the impossibility of parsing out portals between worlds through stone.

She’d been at it for an hour, deftly managing to avoid extended chit-chat with the castle staff as they looked upon this new Lady in the yellow dress with an odd penchant for walking very close to the wall. She’d heard nothing from the Lady Morgana, who had better uses of her time than to spend it toiling away with a nutter like herself … nor had she caught sight of Arthur. She hadn’t exactly been expecting it; he warned her that training occupied his time until midday.

“Lady Gwyneth.”

The surprise address took the wind right out of her, and with it, a strangled – yet audible – “Yes!” The exclamation was not the neutral acknowledgement she’d worked on perfecting as she laid in bed that morning, thus proving that those hours of studious work – when she’d focused on accepting that she’d gone a bit mad and was actually trapped in medieval Albion, and that she needed to adjust accordingly … or at least stop acting so bloody shocked at every which thing – was utter bollocks.

And, as though she needed help in painting the portrait of a noble mental-case, she whirled around a beat too late, her face surely contorted into some kind of anticipatory wince-of-discovery.

Yet again Arthur’s manservant, whose reception had been prickly at best, appeared before without the slightest hint of warning. This time, he clutched an armful of armor … a helmet, and a pair of cuffs, and something that looked a lot like a horseshoe crab.

“… Hi,” Gwen tried again, smiling her best smile as she gave the wall a bit of room.

Merlin, too, smiled. The gesture, however warm in expression, did little to ease her nerves. “Hi,” he repeated, a cool stillness in his gaze as he evaluated her.

An awkward beat passed between them before Gwyneth could summon up something not-entirely-stupid to say. “… Merlin, was it?”

“Yes, Merlin.” He shifted the curved metal in his arms. “You remembered my name.”

“Well, it’s a memorable one.”

He was a curious bloke, that much she could tell. He seemed friendly, amiable in the public avenue of the corridor. And he grinned at her with the familiarity ofa woman he already knew – had long known. He was tall, but slight, not much older than she … and just as awkward. And, much in the way that he must’ve been taking her in, she couldn’t tell if his grin was that of the supremely dim or because he could see right through her charade.

She managed to look away first, her eyes finding the floor as she stepped around him, so she could lean – awkwardly – on the windowsill behind him. “Thanks, by the way,” rambled Gwen, dragging her toes on the ground as she walked. “That made-bed was … pretty grand.”

“You’re welcome. I trust you slept well?”

“Very.” A lie. “All thanks to you.”

Merlin lifted the armor up against his chest. “Well, the Prince’s word is my job.” With the slightest nod of acknowledgement, he took a few slow steps away. “Then, you would know that, my lady. Given how,” he paused, searching. Then, “How close you’ve become.”

He was prepared to walk on – or at least it seemed as much – and foolishly, Gwen chased after him. “We’re not mates, you know,” she remarked rather loudly as she kept pace with his stride, taking a few extra light steps to match his long-legged gait.

“Of course not,” agreed Merlin, his eyes trained ahead as they wound back around the corner Gwen had traced earlier, passing a set of tall windows that overlooked the courtyard, bustling with lunchtime life.

Good. Gwen nodded once, pleased that she had managed to correct him without much getting lost in translation. Princes likely didn’t keep mates; her answer was probably the right one. Merlin continued to look at perfect peace as they climbed the stairs side by side, Gwen holding the front of her gown as she’d seen Morgana do the night before.

Some people, it seemed, were not to be deterred. “… How did you manage to make the prince’s acquaintance so quickly?” Piped up Merlin not a moment later, his voice laced with nothing but the easy curiosity of a boy trying to make conversation.

How heavy a question. “I don’t know,” blurted Gwen unthinkingly, her neck craned toward the ceiling as she searched for an answer as they walked. Her mouth, unfortunately, continued to run. “Just luck, I suppose.”

“Luck.”

They slowed at the top of the steps, at the end of another long corridor, indistinguishable from the last. “Luck,” repeated Gwen, turning a wary eye down the unoccupied hallway. “It’s not every day you meet a prince.”

Merlin’s smile was undeniably fixed at this point, what light in his voice having long left his eye. “Not every day, and certainly not your first.”

Frustration flared in Gwen’s stomach where alarm should’ve blossomed. “It was purely by chance that I met him.”

The next charge came under his breath: “Yet so quickly did you earn his affections—“

“What are you implying?” snapped Gwen, her voice dropping low to a register rarely sought out. She stood perfectly still, held her ground. If it was the prince’s propriety Merlin worried about, he had no need; things between them had remained properly … square. Medieval rules.

Whatever passed through his mind, status got the better of him. He bowed – just slightly – and excused himself with an easy, “My lady.”

He was not two steps away before Gwen caught him at the crook of his arm, tugging him to a stop once more. She didn’t need him blabbing to someone else with his concerns. “Merlin—”

“Lady Gwyneth—” He outright rolled his eyes.

“Mer-lin!” came a firm rebuke from a few feet below.

The pair of them jerked back, each making space as Arthur ascended what steps remained between him and the oncoming row. He stepped into the pool of light at the top of the stairs, cast by the high sun.

Even flustered, Gwen admired – and appreciated – the prince’s arrival. He hadn’t been lying about training, so much was evident; his hair was slick against his forehead and cheek, face still flush from exposure or the exertion. She still felt a bit stupid for not putting things together upon their meeting. Who else lived so grandly in a castle? In a well-worn undergarment and chainmail, he was presently the warrior prince. Yesterday, with his initially disdainful gaze and easy swordsmanship, he had been the lazy one.

By the way his eyes narrowed as he took in their equally guilty looks, he was about to be the king of cross.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded, his attention already set on his manservant.

Merlin, not quite contrite, shifted ever so slightly toward Gwen … a half-arsed attempt to ease the tension between them. “I was just bringing your things to your room.”

The set of Arthur’s brow left no room for misinterpretation; Gwen could only begin to wonder what he’d heard. “It was just a little disagreement.”

For all his sidling up to her, Merlin did not meet her halfway. “’Little,’” he muttered under his breath.

Arthur crossed his arms. “On the nature of Lady Gwyneth’s visit, I take it? Or did I mishear?”

Intimidated was not the proper word, as Merlin did not shrink under Arthur’s imperious gaze. No, he stood his ground, even as the prince worked on a severe pout, his frustration channeled almost entirely onto his attendant. “… You did!” offered Merlin, and he showed off the same cheeky smile that got Gwen into the conversation in the first place.

“Did I.”

“You did,” blurted Gwen in agreement. Merlin blinked.

Arthur's surprise was as visible on his face as it felt in her own heart. She owed Merlin nothing ... and yet stood to gain nothing by turning his master against him. Never mind that his suspicions were not entirely off base.

The prince loosened his arms, turning just slightly toward her. “Camelot does not treat its guests that way,” he began, seeking some understanding in her eye. His gaze lingered a beat longer than necessary, conveying his exact meaning: Nor can we permit you to be. She appreciated the sentiment, but his kindness would be the nail in her coffin.

“We have entertained guests before that have proven to be … less than worthy of your faith, sire.”

Arthur's voice took on a new edge. “Lady Gwyneth is not one of those people.” He caught her eye again.

“You were not so able to recognize them before—”

The kindness with which Arthur looked upon her was promptly crushed under a wave of ego. “What are you saying?” he snapped, turning back toward Merlin. His warning was clear. “You’ll want to think carefully about this.”

For a long moment, each of the three held their tongue, silently exchanging gazes and considering the consequences. Merlin’s lips formed a word but made no sound. Arthur’s eyes narrowed.

“Well,” reasoned Merlin, armor jangling in his arms as he cocked his head to the side, injecting what little diplomacy he could into his accusation. "The lady is certainly enchanting."

Arthur’s tone was withering. “I know you’re familiar with the stocks, Merlin. But I did not know you had such an affection for them.”

“Well now, that’s a bit much,” chuckled Gwen. And almost at once, upon uttering her objection so brazenly in front of Merlin, did her eyes grow wide. She didn’t put much stock in it, but a servant certainly would … disagreeing with a prince as she had.

And of course, it was too much to think that Arthur might wave it off; the silly utterance of a woman unfamiliar with the procedures of court. No, for the first time since their first moments together did he turn something resembling anger upon her. He glared, caught between his apparent anger at Merlin and the surprise of how casually she dismissed his threats. “What’s that?” he asked, challenging.

What hint of a smile lingered on Gwen’s face faltered, not in fear but frustration. “Obviously you’re not going to put him in the stocks for this,” she reasoned calmly.

“Merlin exhibits enough cheek in an hour to warrant such a punishment for days,” snapped Arthur, turning his hard glare on his servant once more. “I could not begin to tell you, Lady Gwyneth, of the leniency with which he’s treated.”

Merlin was certainly a fickle enemy. He looked to Gwen for retort immediately; clearly curious as to whether she would bolster his defense. Truth be told, she didn’t want to … not with him actively, obviously seeking to turn the prince against her.

… Then again, she couldn’t help herself. “You don’t need to,” she replied evenly, stepping into the corner of Arthur’s vision again. “Cheek or not, who gets put in the stocks for having an opinion? This isn’t the bloody Dark Ages.” Wrong again, Gwyneth.

Arthur blinked, bewildered. “Merlin’s behaves like an idiot and you defend him?”

“Glad to know I’m appreciated—“ he muttered under his breath.

“You don’t have to insult him,” Gwen grumbled.

“Not one minute ago you were going on about the right to opinion—”

“Yes, but you’re not going to be put in the stocks for showing your arse.”

Arthur exchanged a wary glance with Merlin over Gwen’s shoulder; peculiar, but hardly enough to offset her growing anger. “No,” he continued, face pulled in an ugly scowl, “Because he’s the servant and I’m his prince.”

“When did ‘prince’ become an acceptable excuse to act like a prat?” she flared, inserting herself fully between the two boys.

Whatever covert message he’d been sending Merlin – no doubt something along the lines of, ‘agree with her and it really will be your head’ – her last statement drew Arthur’s full attention back to her. His mouth fell ever so slightly open, obviously shocked at her impertinence. Gwen held her ground; there was no taking it back now, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. After all, he had pressed the issue. She would’ve let Merlin’s accusations fly, let the afternoon proceed as it should’ve. As he knew it needed to. She did not need to call more attention to herself by getting into an argument with the prince.

… An argument that was clearly not her fault. But prince or not, she wasn’t going to let Arthur get away with being a complete git.

Already, Arthur’s scowl had calcified into a pronounced pout. “You demonstrate uncommon manners,” he muttered, fastening his hands behind his back. “Such gratitude for an attempt to defend your honor.”

Gwen gripped the fabric of her gown on either side, clenching the material in balled fists. For that, she had no quick answer … only the knowledge that on this matter, she was right.

He saved her the trouble of thinking up a diplomatic – and decisive – retort. He bowed, stiffly, and met her eye only briefly upon looking up. “Dinner will be at the same hour,” Arthur snipped, and without a second glance he strode off, with Merlin trailing on his heels soon after.

Dinner.

As though she could stand it.

*

Night fell, and somewhere in the castle the king, Uther dined with his son and his ward and the courtiers who clamored for his ear and his company. There was food and much merriment to be had for the nobility if yesterday’s banquet was any indication. There would be men to fawn over Morgana, and princesses to fall all over Arthur, and none would be the wiser that the mysterious Lady Gwyneth of Hammersmith neglected to attend.

Who had she been kidding, that inside the castle was better than out? Maybe she had gone mad, but the characters of her own fever dreams turning on her was too much to bear. Perhaps Arthur would find her hastily scribbled note of thanks; the way he looked at her that afternoon, she doubted he would care. She was a thorn in his side, an inconvenience, Gwen knew. And as fed up as he was with her, she was with that bloody castle, the center of her endless, period nightmare.

“This is for the best,” she affirmed under her breath, clutching the insides of her borrowed cloak tight, clinging to what warmth and respite from the rain it offered. With the hood pulled low, she could see only a few steps in front of her at any moment, just enough to avoid knocking into a man or woman hurrying for shelter as a few errant droplets evolved into something a good deal more troublesome.

Night settled upon Camelot unexpectedly quickly. When she slipped through the castle gates, bypassing the guards without a second look, sunlight lingered over the distant hills even though its brilliant visage had disappeared behind the forest. Gwen was not halfway down the path into the town that lay at the palace’s feet when the dark clouds blocked out the stars and the sky, a black fog that promised nothing but trouble.

And how it delivered. She trudged on, even as shutters snapped shut as she passed houses and taverns, their welcome signs flapping in the wind.

Gwen chanced a backward glance, not that anyone around her would understand her stubborn mission or judge her for her doubts. The rain continued to come as she backed under someone’s straw awning; fleetingly, returning seemed like a good idea, the wisest idea. You’re a smart one, Tom would say to her. Work it out.

Another voice, hard and bitter, offered a definitive challenge. What is there to return to?

The heels of her boots were sinking into the ground. “Better get in, love,” came a voice, kind and firm at once, with all the warmth of a woman who had been a mother to many. Sure enough, Gwen turned just in time to catch a gray haired lady shut the door behind her, leaving Gwyneth on the outside.

Still outside. And all alone.

Suddenly there was naught but the rain, and the darkness, and her.

Her heart was racing before she took her next step back into the downpour. She was on a road to no where, but it was the path she had chosen, and she followed it, hurrying and picking up speed until she was running, running though her feet could not have felt heavier with every step further away from the castle. She ran, without light or sword or anything to help her feel safe. She ran because if she managed to escape heartbreak before, then she could slip from the grasp of loneliness again.

It was only until she stumbled through what had to be the city perimeter, stone walls built up and unguarded, which revealed little more than more dirt road and a winding way into the woods.

Gwen paused, bent over and panting in the darkness. Step one: run away. Accomplished. The dread in her stomach – that she was doing the very opposite of what she was meant to, that she was being reckless and spiteful and a little more than stupid held her dead in her tracks. Dizziness sent her head spinning.

The castle glowed like a beacon from so far away now, a light at the end of the tunnel. Death awaited her there; Uther’s discovery, the nonexistence of Hammersmith, or the misery of realizing there was no door waiting: it could spell the very end of her.

But Arthur wasn’t really so bad. Especially given her circumstances.

Gwen stiffened, even with her hands on her knees and her head bent low. “MOVE!” a voice bellowed, punctuated with the snap of a whip. She looked up just in time to see a man driving a cart, his horse leading at full gallop, guided by his master’s forceful hand.

She stumbled back, back further as horse and cart stormed past her, wheels swinging dangerously close … back until she realized that she was on a precipice, the edge of a slick green slope and she had lost her footing.

Her arms flapped wildly as Gwen threw her body forward, scrambling to find purchase as her treadless boots proved no match for wet grass.

“Help,” she shrieked instinctively, gripping a few weeds as she slipped. Gwen held fast, her stomach now pressed against the sopping wet ground. But it was dark and night, and nobody was coming. Already the horseman’s steps were lost to her, replaced by the sound of running water, churning and splashing somewhere below. Though she gripped with all her might, until she knew she would come away with bloody palms from the reed’s jagged knuckles, Gwen still felt it all giving way.

She wanted to cry out, but who was there to scream for? She’d seen this in a movie once, and it had not ended well.

Gwen gasped as one of the branches in her grip snapped, and she drifted another few feet south, gripping her fingers into matted blades as she disappeared over the ledge and careened toward the running water below.

This time, she skidded to a stop not by the force of her own grip, but with a painful crunch against rocks, invisible in the shadows of the trench. Her ankle was caught between two as she extended her leg, braced for the impact. Gwen’s knee collided with the slope with a stomach-churning smack.

“Fuck,” she gasped, her fingers and cheek still buried in grass, half-standing, half-braced against any more damage. The rain continued to pour, drawing trails down her forehead and cheeks, down her neck and into her clothes. At least she had no need for real tears. “Fuck,” she mumbled again, muffling the words into her first, “Fucking bollocks.”

There were no other words. Gwen had done this to herself.

But then, it seemed somebody already knew that.

“Gwyneth!” a voice cried from high above, far out of sight. Even in the dark – and the rain – there was a most welcome flicker of flame, illuminating the tracks her boots had made on the way down.

“I’m here!” she shouted. “I’m down here!”

For a moment all she could see was a figure in silhouette, shoulders too narrow to be Arthur’s. The torchbearer set down his instrument, shining light on him and her at once. The rain poured; his flame burned.

“… I fell.”

Merlin nodded, evaluating the situation. “I can see.” A beat. “Are you hurt?”

Gingerly, Gwen rested a little weight on the caught ankle, bending the bad knee. The pain was instant: “Only a little.”

In an instant, Merlin was flat bellied on the ground above, extending his long arm down toward her. “You’ll have to reach me.”

“Don’t you have any rope?” On the tiptoes of her good, untwisted foot, her arm stretched high above, there were still a few good feet between them. They both clawed at the grass, though it did nothing to close the gap.

Merlin exhaled slowly, the strain in his face easing as he quit stretching for her and rocked to his knees. “I didn’t know I would find you in a trench.”

“So I’m stuck.” She trembled as the water beneath her splashed over the nonexistent bank, soaking the back of her legs.

For a moment there was only the sound of her breathing; little puffs of air ruffling the grass and troubling the dew. Merlin’s breathing, too, was labored. Perhaps he’d imagined he’d come upon the mad lady wandering in circles by the gates, or throwing back a pint at the tavern. Not halfway up a creek without a paddle.

“You have to trust me.” Merlin’s voice shook, took on the very edge that coursed through her body.

Gwen looked up into yellow eyes.

*

“Nearly there,” grunted Merlin, holding Gwen’s hand a little tighter as they summated the stairs, the both of them panting heavily as they edged their way the final few paces down the corridor and toward Gwyneth’s room. She bit down her response, which was a hearty curse, well tired after her adventure into the woods and back again.

Rain and sweat mixed in her eyes, until she could no beyond the salty mixture of tears and sopping wet tendrils that collected in the corners of her eyes and caught her vision.

She could hardly complain, Merlin’s state was no better. They were both soaked through, covered in mud with enough bruises to keep them in bed for a week. They limped in perfect step to her door, and as soon as she had a wall to rest against, Gwyneth relieved him of her weight, half-collapsing against the stone.

Though they were just on the other side of the door, only feet away from a bed and a chair and – heaven help them if they were quick about it – a warm fire, Merlin, too, took a moment to catch his breath.

She gazed up at him from beneath her lashes. He was a dark boy … darker than she knew. Gwen was not the only one with secrets in Camelot.

Merlin caught her eye, and she was too tired to look away. “Let’s get you in before someone sees.”

“Sees what?” huffed Gwen, even as she relented, pushing off the wall and catching Merlin’s free arm as he pushed open her door, prepared to hobble inside.

“This court trades in gossip,” he grunted, “A sopping wet Lady stumbles home? They’ll have at you for a week—”

But the room they stumbled into, while still Gwen’s, was not unoccupied.

Arthur stood hastily, shocked out of his reverie by the sudden entrance of his sopping servant and similarly wet guest. He had been seated on the corner of her mattress, staring into the fireplace, recently prodded to life. However sour his face as he watched the flames, he schooled it into a mask of perfect neutrality as he stood, locking his hands behind him.

“You made it,” he observed evenly, still planted by the bed.

For the moment, his eyes remained on Merlin. Gwen extricated herself from the sorcerer’s grip, finding awkward balance inches away, enough to regain a bit of dignity in light of Arthur’s presence. She had no words.

Merlin did. “Did you think we wouldn’t?” he asked, his voice devoid of malice. Gwen chanced a glance to her left, at him, for she had. Then again, everything had felt sort of hopeless … in the dark, in the rain. A return to the castle felt as hopeless as the prospect of finding London at the other end of the road; as hopeless as finding reconciliation with her one friend in this town.

Arthur was, at best, inscrutable. At worse he was still angry.

“The nearby forest is treacherous, and to venture into them at night reckless, especially given the conditions.” His spine stiffened as he spared Gwen a glance. “I would’ve expected Lady Gwyneth to know as much.”

“How would I ‘know as much’?” she asked softly, her quiet belying renewed anger.

He squared his shoulders to her. “I would’ve assumed you wouldn’t choose such a reckless course of action without knowing the potential consequences. And since you did not ask me,” Arthur glanced away from her and into the fire, “I assumed you had other sources that might’ve misled you with regard to the dangers of such a ridiculous plan—”

Merlin interrupted. “Maybe this is a conversation for another time … sire. Lady Gwyneth is injured.”

Only a second passed before Arthur looked upon her with new eyes, brow furrowed in a different kind of concern. “What happened?”

“I fell,” she paused briefly to catch his manservant’s eye. “And Merlin appeared at the right time.”

For the first time, his eyes fell to her left leg, balancing weightlessly on bent toes. She shifted under his scrutiny and, when he said nothing, looked back to Merlin for an interjection into the silence. He was beginning to prove increasingly good at those …

He caught her meaning. With remarkable vigor, he turned to look at Arthur once more: “Perhaps we should call Gaius!”

“Perhaps we should not,” he disagreed, reaching for her as he had that first day. “If her injury is not serious—”

Merlin got to Gwen before Arthur was able. He slipped a still damp arm around her waist and bore most of her weight as she walked, with the occasional wince, to her bed.

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted through gritted teeth, though the current pain in her ankle suggested otherwise. With what strength remained, she eased further back until she leaned awkwardly to the side, half-burying her face in the pillows.

Even with both eyes closed, Arthur’s sudden proximity near the bed was clear. “Fetch a wrap,” he snapped at Merlin, no doubt fixing him with some sort of severe look.

“Yes, sire.” Gwen’s eyes were focused on naught but the darkness on the back of her lids, but in her mind’s eye she watched Merlin give a gangly bow and stride through her chamber doors, shutting them firmly behind her. For a long moment, there were no other sounds, only her shallow breathing as she thought of everything but the discomfort in her leg … and the sound of the fire crackling away.

She opened her eye a moment later to see the prince fixated on the floor, his arms crossed sternly over his chest as he trudged through his thoughts, no doubt divided on where blame was due between Gwen and Merlin for her apparently … ridiculous disappearing act.

Now’s as good a time as any, she reasoned, and opened her mouth to speak.

“Were you attacked?”

Gwen blanched. She was safe, enclosed in the castle’s protective walls. Even still, she saw those eyes – amber and unexpected – staring down at her, reflecting like gems even in the absence of light. “No.”

“Still,” Arthur remained decidedly uneasy for a crisis that was, for all intents and purposes, over. He cocked his golden head to the side, gazing off left-toward the fireplace. “You must’ve been frightened.”

Brow knit at his apparent concern, Gwen distracted herself from his sudden onset of empathy by fiddling with, and untying her cloak. “No more than I was facing Camelot’s court. A bit easier with Merlin at my side.”

A beat passed between them, without Arthur making a snide remark about his servant’s relative usefulness, or his own unspoken necessity to Gwen’s survival … or rebuke for leaving the castle to begin with.

When their eyes met again, Arthur pressed his lips into a thin line. “May I sit?” he asked evenly, hands behind his back once more as he rocked nervously forward on the balls of his feet.

She wanted to be cross with him, still. She could not help herself.

“Yes.”

Head bowed, Arthur turned and settled at the opposite end of the bed by her feet. His gaze, when he found hers after a few moments of silence, was weary. And Gwen, still wet and a tad uncomfortable, just as tired as she had been the night before, pushed off her pillows until she was sitting upright once more. “Arthur?” she murmured, prodding him to speak.

He looked to the door, hands clasped in his lap. “I take it Merlin demonstrated particular fortitude in the face of whatever … challenge you faced,” he began, glancing out the corner of his eye for affirmation.

She looked into her own lap. For all the accusations of witchery that had been thrown at her, Gwen held only one image in her mind: her, freezing and cold and alone and his manservant extending a hand to help her. Whatever his means, Merlin operated with a good heart. And however good a man Arthur seemed to be, he was beholden to his father’s laws. Merlin was not like Gwen, a fleeting apparition. This was his home, and she would not betray him.

‘Particular’ fortitude.

“Exceptional,” Gwyneth murmured a correction.

“In that case,” he began, nodding in understanding, “I ask that you keep my servants more peculiar gifts to yourself.” Arthur paused, before continuing humbly, “You remember the king’s attitude on the talents of people like him.”

She stared at him, her leg forgotten. Brief awe succumbed to suspicion as quickly as it arrived. “You could command me,” Gwyneth remarked, thinking back on the subject of their previous row.

“No,” replied without bristling or balking, his tone was clear as day. “I’m asking.”

“Well in that case,” replied Gwen softly, “Of course.”

“You will not repeat Merlin’s … indiscretions.” He sounded slightly disbelieving.

Though she wanted to prolong his anguish, if only for repayment of the deceptively dismissive treatment of his manservant earlier that day, Gwen’s response was quite immediate. “It would help if he wasn’t so keen on exposing mine, but he saved my life. There isn’t much to debate.”

He did not crack a smile, but his eyes shone warm and grateful. “He is an asset to Camelot,” agreed Arthur, relieved.

“He must be.”

He exhaled slowly, eyes wandering down to the floor once more. Gwen, too, sighed some relief. In one-way or another, she was vindicated in her point. Perhaps Merlin did not require her defense as she thought he did.

With these thoughts on her mind, Gwen shifted to resettle against her pillows, drawing her legs up to cross them. She halted, having barely moved, hissing in pain.

Arthur did not jump to her aid, but snapped out of his reverie immediately. “Why are you jostling about?”

He clearly did not hold her goodwill in any regard, so quickly did Gwen’s new affection for him threaten to diminish. “I’m not ‘jostling’—”

“What did you say happened?” he interrupted again, looking down at the booted and britched leg.

The heat flooded Gwen’s face immediately. “I got startled … and I fell.”

“Just fell?”

“Badly.”

He had some nerve. Arthur’s lips curved into something of a smirk, clearly taking a wild guess at the cause of her injury. “What startled you?”

Lie, Gwen. “A horse cart,” she muttered, telling the honest to God truth.

“I’m sorry,” he offered, swallowing whatever smile or laugh he wanted to let out in the wake of her revelation. She felt a wave of anger … not enough to stand up and storm off again, perhaps enough to practice a bit of the silent treatment. Before she could decide, he had twisted where he sat, facing her more fully, his smile only better illuminated.

Gwen gritted her teeth. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Almost as bad as you,” he replied. Yet and still, the smirking prince managed genuine empathy. “The physician is shrewd; he will suspect you. But I’ve had every injury you can imagine.”

“Clumsy are you?” snipped Gwen, still slightly embarrassed as her mind replayed her tumble over and over.

“Training does not come without its consequences.” He lifted his eyebrows at her.

She granted her consent with the slightest of nods, still wary in light of their recent disagreement. But her leg was hurt, and one way or another, it would need to be dealt with. With some effort, she reached awkwardly to tug at her muddied boot, only able to get it so far off her foot before she could hardly reach anymore.

However much it hurt, she couldn’t reach without bending her leg. Slowly, Gwen pulled her knee toward her. The pain was immediate, burning right beneath the joint. With a sigh, she laid it flat again.

“Let me help,” said Arthur, gripping the heel and tugging the leather from round her ankle … tugging her trouser leg up as he did.

Gwen drew back, resting her hands on the quilt as she watched Arthur, with nimble hands, carefully roll her trouser leg, exposing inch after inch of skin. He did it maddeningly slowly: first her red ankle, and then the trail of blood that snaked its way down her shin from beneath the bandage he’d wrapped around her knee when they first met.

Surprisingly gentle, Arthur cupped her ankle in one hand, squeezing experimentally. “Does that hurt?”

“Not really,” admitted Gwen.

He glanced up to meet her eyes. “It’s swollen,” he admitted, and then – with the slightest upturn of his lips – “But not broken.”

“You’re sure,” asked Gwen dimly, watching as he lowered it to rest warmly on his thigh.

Arthur rolled his shoulders, perhaps acquiescing to his lack of expertise. But his words were firm. “I think you’d be screaming. Or at least in greater discomfort.”

After a beat, he shifted just enough to turn his ministrations to her aching knee. The white bandage he had wrapped when she first fell in the hall was stained dark red, drying brown at the edges. Similarly dirty streaks of blood curved around her calf, now crossed with a fresh red stain. Arthur didn’t have to untie the gauze wrap to know the answer. “And this—” he lifted the bottom of the strip of fabric and bent his head to peer beneath it, “—you simply reopened.”

“Good,” Gwen replied, forcing a weak smile. She kept her eyes trained on Arthur’s face as he re-exposed the wound; the sight of too much blood made her nauseous. When he looked up again, finished with his unwrapping, Gwen focused her attention on the fire.

Arthur fared no better. Even with her gaze trained elsewhere, she could see him glance about for a suitable distraction. Carefully, he replaced her leg on the bed and kicked to his feet and took a few long steps across the room to her sitting table.

“As undesirable as it might be,” he started, fiddling with the dying flowers resting in a vase there, “You might consider putting any further escape attempts on hold, at least through tomorrow. Allow yourself time to heal.”

Though his back was to her, Gwen could read the point written all over his face. “I didn’t go because I was mad at you—”

“Didn’t you?” Holding his left hand stiff behind his back, Arthur scooted a nearby chair over a couple inches unnecessarily, angling himself just enough to watch her out the corner of his eye.

There was an objection prepared on her lips that she couldn’t give voice to. Instead, Gwen fiddled with a loose thread in her tunic. “Well … I didn’t go because I wasn’t grateful for your help.”

Like a child, he glanced up at her beneath wounded brow. Wonders never ceased to amaze. For all his prattish behavior, he was not an uncaring man. He cared for Merlin.

And he tended to her.

Familiar warmth crept up Gwyneth’s neck, flooding her cheeks as he gazed upon her. She shifted a little in her seat, and almost attempted a lame joke. But before she could get it out, Arthur snapped out of whatever thoughts preoccupied him … an d looked toward the door.

“Honestly, could he be any slower?” muttered Arthur. With a stiff incline of his head, he excused himself, leaving Gwen alone with her thoughts.

*

Solitude was a suitable punishment for the injury she’d sustained, but it would’ve been nice if she had a copy of Cosmo or Sense and Sensibility to help her pass the time.

With the prospect of a quick return to Hammersmith on hold – not that she had much success finding her door, or any other door leading anywhere other than another grand and empty room – thanks to her stupid ankle, Gwyneth passed the morning by staring at the canopy of her four poster and watching the clouds pass by her window.

She tried thinking about a number of things. She thought about Lance. They weren’t together – not anymore – but he was dutiful and good to her, and Gwen knew he’d be worrying. She thought about her landlady. The rent wasn’t due for another two weeks, but Selena suffered from a serious case of maternal nosiness when it came to her tenants, and she surely would’ve taken note of Gwen’s lack of coming and going by now.

She thought of work. She was probably fired … which was just as well. Come winter, there would be no more taking her lunch out on street corners.

More than anything, and much to her chagrin, she thought of Arthur.

Guilt, in the wake of her unanticipated escape attempt, was unexpected.

He knew as well as she did that her intention was to go, to get out … to run home and never return. But the hurt in his eyes last night had been the same she felt in her heart when they’d rowed, had propelled her to add one more line to her list of dumb decisions.

And he was good to her. Unequivocally.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the sharp sound of knuckles on her door. Reclined and beneath a thin blanket in her bedclothes, Gwen was in no state to receive visitors in what she gathered was a modest era.

“Ummm,” she propped herself up on her elbows, searching for a robe of some kind. There was the trunk – from some kindly anonymous donor – of clothes that rested at the foot of her bed … and of course Arthur’s now muddy trousers draped over the back of a chair. Not that she could’ve jumped to get any of it. “Just a minute!”

Before she could roll out of bed, her door creaked open. In stepped Merlin, smiling with a small bundle of yellow wildflowers clutched in one hand.

“Good morning!” he greeted her brightly, snapping his heels together even as he nudged the door closed behind him with an elbow.

Gwen, with one hand dangling over the mattress as she struggled to turn and lower her bad leg to the floor, froze in place. “… Hi—”

“Oh, no, don’t get up.” He took a few hesitant steps toward her, but Gwen waved him off.

“Is it really still morning?” she groaned, falling back into her pillows.

“Not even lunch yet.”

A beat passed between them. Gwen fumbled, awkwardly and unnecessarily, with the bandage holding her now numb knee in place. Merlin’s toothy smile became a closed-mouth grin as his eyes searched the room. Still, he recovered quickly enough. “These are for you.” He raised the flowers eye level, arm stiff as he presented them to Gwen.

“Pheasant’s eye,” she remarked, a twinge of pleasure laced in her voice. The summer flower bloomed in spades near dad’s old home. She used to put the blossoms in her hair.

Gwyneth turned the bouquet in her hands as she received them, taking the time to feel the individual petals beneath her fingertips … velvet soft and well-colored. Wherever they’d been picked from, the soil was rich. “Who are these from?”

Merlin’s eyebrows shot up till they nearly disappeared beneath his fringe. “Me,” he chirped. Another slow, knowing grin curved his lips. “Who else would they be from?”

Indeed, who else, Gwyneth?

She tamped that down immediately. “Thanks.”

Whatever was passing through his mind at the moment, Merlin tucked the thought away. “I wanted to say … I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

She blushed. More than one … regrettable deed would haunt her all day. Merlin may have been conspicuously uncompromising in his reserve initially, but he’d just about saved her life. “I’m sorry, Merlin—”

“… If you have magic,” he interrupted, folding his hands behind his back, “You are very bad at it.”

Her cheeks flushed warm as she replayed the previous night’s events in her mind; her, clutching to a hillside, Merlin high above. “Well, I don’t. So I’m not.”

Before she could find another suitable excuse, Merlin took another step toward her, his head cocked to the side as he reasoned aloud. “Perhaps … an enchantment?”

“Not at all.” Gwen clicked her tongue and shrugged. “Just … one horrible, long fever-dream.”

Merlin looked upon her with pity, but for the wrong reasons. “You can tell me the truth, Lady Gwyneth. I can’t imagine our circumstances are all that dissimilar.”

She turned away from the sympathy in Merlin’s eye, focusing her gaze instead upon the yellow flowers she cradled in her hands. She was misread, but what was the point of arguing? Enchantment was as good an explanation of her current circumstances, as any other. Princes and princesses, fairy tale characters and ladies in fables … they were enchanted, held in a limbo not of their choosing, unable to extricate themselves from the circumstances, however strong their wishes.

Maybe ‘enchanted’ was the perfect word.

When she looked up again, Merlin’s smile had once again turned coy. “… So who else did you think the flowers might be from?”

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “No one.”

“You sure?” He reached for them, and with a frown, Gwen acquiesced, watching as he headed toward the nearby vase. “What’s one more secret between us?”

She was spared the burden of explaining that, No, she had not been thinking of the prince, nor any other well-wisher … that she had been asking out of politeness, Yes, politeness. Nor did she have to tell him that he would do well to stop with that smug look, since it did him no favors. Someone else knocked at her door, though this next visitor waited politely for her permission to enter.

Gwen drew the blanket once again up to her chest. “Come in!”

Unlike Merlin, Miriam peered around the door before inserting herself fully in Gwen’s chambers. She recognized Morgana’s maid immediately by her weary eye, even as she presented the her with a perfunctory curtsey. “My lady.” Briefly, she cast an uneasy glance in Merlin’s direction.

“Just … changing Lady Gwyneth’s flowers,” he shrugged, his face a mask of perfect innocence.

Gwen rolled her eyes and turned her full attention back on Morgana’s helper. “All right?”

Miriam respectfully ignored Gwen’s greeting. “Lady Morgana extends an invitation for you to join her tomorrow.”

Merlin cast a glance over his shoulder. Gwyneth scooted into a sitting position, stalling as she racked her mind. “What sort of invitation?”

Morgana’s maid did little to hide her reticence. “She would like to go for a walk.”

“… A walk?”

“Lady Gwyneth is injured—” interjected Merlin. “I doubt she’ll be up for walking.”

“One does not turn down an invitation from the king’s ward; my lady rarely extends them. Whatever troubles you cannot be enough to avoid this … most generous offer.”

Gwen nodded dimly. Best not to ruffle any feathers.

Studiously avoiding Merlin’s eye, she flexed her ankle and offered Miriam a weak smile.

*

For a fleeting moment, she could feel the king’s eyes upon her. Even from such a distance, it was no less frightening, left her blood no less cool than it did that first moment at the banquet, when her mind went blank and all she could see was that coolly appraising smirk. Her grip on Lady Morgana’s arm, light and awkward – quite unused to the protocol of walking – turned briefly tight as Gwyneth resisted the urge to turn her full gaze up toward the balcony where he stood. Instead, she focused her attention on the proceedings happening on the other side of the fountain.

“What’s going on?” blurted Gwen, and immediately she rebuked herself. Was this another one of those things she should already know? Something common not just to the court of Camelot, but all the courts throughout Albion? Was Hammersmith expected to have a court? So much for her newly adopted policy of blending in …

But Morgana did not bat an eye at the question, nor did she glance toward the left at the dozen or so men and women bound at wrist and ankle, congregated between a quartet of guards. “The king pays well those who are able to apprehend those who defy Camelot’s law,” she replied evasively, though there was no mistaking the venom with which she remarked on her own sovereign’s rule.

Arm in arm, the fabric of their gowns billowing in the wind, Gwen and Morgana passed the crowd. The king’s ward ducked her head, shielding the face she pulled from Uther’s vision high above; Gwyneth craned her neck to watch the prisoners as they were urged forward, up the stairs and into the castle. For a fleeting moment, she nursed a vision: she among them, bound and without recourse.

Morgana squeezed the lavender fabric that hung loosely at her companion’s wrist. “This troubles you?”

She dared to meet the lady’s gaze. There she found not condemnation, but compassion. Even still, Gwen chose her words carefully. “… Well, they were caught practicing magic, right?”

A dark look crossed Morgana’s features. “Yes.”

“And they will be punished for it?”

She gained no response. Just as well, as far as Gwen was concerned; she already knew the answer too well, even if she did not know Morgana’s feelings on the topic.

Gwen kept pace with the king’s ward, careful not to place too much weight on her still-sore ankle. Whether by Miriam’s warning or Merlin’s magic, she had healed remarkably quickly, quick enough not to do Lady Morgana the disservice of turning down her invitation. Nervous though she was, Gwen was grateful for the invitation.

For the first time, once beyond the gates and the darkness that proceeded in the courtyard, she was able to take in the beauty of the castle in daylight. Just steps beyond the drawbridge, Gwen slowed unconsciously, turning once more to marvel at the turrets and ramparts. Though made of stone, the palace sparkled in the sunlight, like a thing from a fairy tale.

Morgana shifted just enough beside her to catch her eye. “You find it beautiful?” she asked earnestly, pausing just long enough to glance back up at the structure herself.

Gwen nodded dimly, turning her attention back on Morgana. “It’s magnificent.”

She was met by a sad sigh. “A relic of a greater time, now long gone.” Without hesitation, she took Gwen’s arm again and urged her further down the dirt path Gwen had navigated mere days before. A breeze rustled the grass on either side of their road, completing the pastoral picture of a kingdom without darkness in its corners, despite the constant weariness in Morgana’s eye even as they descended into the town.

They passed into the village in companionable silence, crossing the invisible border from the stoic nobility of the castle proper into the heart of Camelot where men and women bustled about, getting on with midday duties. Don’t gape, Gwen, she reminded herself inwardly, even as she watched a man lead a pig down the road just in front of them, waddling in perfect rhythm with his pet.

“Is Hammersmith much different?” asked Morgana, a serene smile taking root on her face once more. Behind her, a pair of ladies with baskets of baked goods in hand paused just long enough to curtsey politely.

“A little bit,” breathed Gwen, unable to help her wandering eye. She had been to a Renaissance fair … once, on a school trip. She’d visited Austenville on two separate birthdays, and her Heath Ledger phase guaranteed A Knight’s Tale a prominent place on her bookshelf. Those experiences combined could not account for the experience of walking through the village, immersed in living history, visceral and vital.

Whatever wonder there was in her expression must’ve been exceedingly obvious to Morgana; she laughed softly at Gwen’s fascination. “I wonder what it’s like, that you should find this preferable.”

It was in its way. But Gwen grinned and forced herself to play the part as best she could. “Not preferable,” she disagreed playfully, taking her turn to squeeze Morgana’s hand. “Just … very, very … new.” Another man, closer to Gwen’s age, paused as he crossed their path and bowed his head respectfully. Gwen blushed. Very different indeed.

“Tell me,” insisted Morgana, gently guiding them around a corner and down an adjacent road.

Gwyneth pursed her lips, buying time as she searched for a neutral way to describe things. “… Well, Hammersmith is big.”

“The palace?”

“Not the palace, the whole place. There are a lot more people from what I can tell,” she paused and added, “Not that I can tell about your whole town from here.”

Morgana grinned and waved her off. “I have no stake in Camelot’s relative size to other kingdoms. I leave that trouble to Uther and Arthur.”

A small sigh of relief passed through Gwyneth’s lips, and for a moment she allowed herself to fully relax into Morgana’s easy grip and unburdened attitude. Whatever trouble haunted her in the castle walls, she could surely enjoy herself here, out amongst the people. People who were simply people, with work to do and lives to lead and more purpose than the few she had observed at court.

They turned down another road. “I only find it surprising that your kingdom should surpass Camelot in size … and yet I have never heard word of it.”

“Well, we like to keep it a secret,” replied Gwen rather boldly, and she even managed to smile at those shopkeepers who lingered in the window to take a look at the pair of them. “It’s good business, you know? A trump card.”

“What’s a ‘trump card’?”

She leaned into Morgana’s arm, less inhibited by the minute. “The ace in your back pocket … the one that wins the game.”

The lady laughed, taken by the novelty of such a concept. “This ‘trump card’ sounds like an invaluable asset, given that our nation has never quarreled with yours. I take it that Hammersmith’s illusive nature enables this …”

Her fingers squeezed Gwen’s wrist tugging her forward gently. But Gwen’s feet were suddenly lead-heavy, her ears filled with cotton. Whatever words followed, she did not hear him.

He first appeared in the periphery of her vision, like a flash of light … the flicker of a mirror’s reflection or the beacon of a distant ship at sea. His form was a mirage, a corporeal ghost. He was a feeling – must’ve been – no more, no less.

Yet there he stood, now at the center of her eye. He had the audacity to lift a hand and wave to a neighbor, to laugh at something that Gwen herself could not hear, and to give all indication of life.

Before she knew what she was doing, Gwen extricated herself from Morgana’s grip, coming to a halt on the opposite side of the road, some distance away, afraid to go any closer. Because there was Tom Leodegrance, with the same graying hair and Gwen’s own grin, stretching a flap of leather hide between a pair of wooden beams.

“Lady Gwyneth?” Morgana’s voice reached her like an echo.

Feel nothing. Feel nothing. Nothing, Gwyneth. Feel …

And at first she did. She felt nothing: not the pounding of her heart or palms that were hot and heavy, or tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. She felt none of the things that a daughter should feel upon seeing her deceased father, reincarnated as a man dressed in the humble clothes of a medieval stranger. She gaped, her mind as flat as the line that told her unequivocally that he was dead, gone from her with that damnable, damned pitch. When the doctor said she was sorry and someone came to escort her out.

The anger came flooding back; her mind was a cruel beast.

Lady Morgana tried again, inserting herself between Gwen and the object of her vision. “Gwyneth?”

Though it pained her to look away, she forced herself to meet Morgana’s eye … and even try to smile, unconvincing though it was. “Yes?” she breathed, barely audible over the din of the street.

“Are you all right?” The concern was evident in her voice. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

Laugh, but her body did not obey. Instead, she was helpless not to crane her neck and peer around the other woman, turning her sights back on her father, however much it broke her heart to see him here.

The words came before she could evaluate the consequences. “That man,” asked Gwen darkly, “Do you know him?”

“… I have not met him myself, no. But I’m aware he has fashioned more than one sword for Arthur.”

There might be time for apologies later, if she made it through the day alive … a goal that she very much so doubted she would be able to accomplish. Gwen had the decency to bow her head as she turned and abandoned Morgana where she stood. “My lady.”

*

Ignoring what pain stirred in her ankle as she began to run uphill, back toward the castle proper, Gwen’s mind began to race.

It was a nightmare.

What fantasy had she been nursing about this place? Despite herself, she’d found an easy and comfortable rhythm in mere days, so much so that she allowed the darkness of it to creep up on her like a sinister stranger.

It had been more than a year, but she regarded the memory like it was yesterday. She sat in her chair – in her father’s – chair, staring stiffly down at the half-consumed platter of hors d’oeuvres. Gwen had no mother to play the part of the grieving wife, and so all the attention, or at least what attention there was to spare was turned upon her: the broken daughter, surely wrecked by the loss of her only remaining parent.

It was true: she grieved. But not in the way the other guests seemed to desire of her. Gwyneth sat silent, a room away from the closed casket as coworkers and friends filed past to offer once more their condolences. Someone had the audacity to remind her that this was not a dream and that she would have to cope.

And she had coped. But there was nothing, and no one, in the world who could prepare for such a vision.

She was about to turn left and head back toward the courtyard when the sound of steel meeting steel caught her attention. From below, she could see blades meeting in friendly battle, affirmed by the laughter that accompanied it.

Gwyneth climbed the steep, slightly curved staircase to the grassy knoll above where the knights of Camelot parried and dodged, sleek and silver in the sunlight, ducking as many blows as they attempted on their partners. They fought with vigor, genuine vigor, as men who needed to be prepared for battle.

Her stomach lurched; she had been so wrong about all of it.

“Lady Gwyneth!” exclaimed Merlin. She turned just in time to catch him toss down the boot he’d been polishing, a smile on his face as he rose to meet her. Just as quickly as he took in the look on her face, his expression fell. “Has something happened?”

She could at least take pride in the evenness of her tone. “Is Arthur here?” Gwen asked, coming close to Merlin and lowering her voice. “I need to speak with him.”

“He’s in his tent,” replied his servant, gesturing over his shoulder to a crimson and gold striped canopy on the opposite end of the pitch. “What do you need him for?”

Her lips could hardly form the words, and so she only stared at him in silence before taking off in stride, keeping close to the perimeter wall as she bypassed Arthur’s men without second glance. Only the sound of Merlin’s hurried footsteps and quiet protests cut through the chaos of her mind. Whatever agreement they had come to, whatever mutual acceptance they had reached … Merlin was not the one she knew she needed to speak to.

Despite the eyes on her back, Gwen threw open the flap to Arthur’s tent, chest heaving as she near-skidded to a stop in the shade of his makeshift quarters.

He had been removing his armor, and tossed one cuff to the ground beside a breastplate and helmet. Whatever he had been expecting at such an intrusion, one look at Gwen had his mouth set in concern.

“Gwen?”

For the first time, tears threatened to well in her eyes, and she fought them with all her might. Instead, Gwyneth held her breath, held everything back … at a loss now that she had reached him.

Merlin looked cautiously between them before speaking. “Arthur—”

“Do you know what’s happened?” he demanded, squaring his shoulders with his manservant. From beneath eyelashes that stung, Gwen watched as Arthur abandoned the fastenings on the other cuff and fixed Merlin with a dangerous glare. As though he were responsible for her current state.

She wanted to smile and rebuke him, if only teasingly, for taking such a tone. She wanted to laugh at the defensive hands Merlin threw up. But as much as it hurt to keep this unexpected anguish in check, she imagined the pain of smiling to be that much worse. “… He didn’t do anything,” she managed, and Arthur’s eyes were on her again, his head cocked to the side, slightly disbelieving.

A moment passed before the prince acquiesced. “Leave us, Merlin.”

Behind her, Gwen noted the shallowest bow she’d seen anyone muster yet. He slipped out the tent without another word, leaving Gwyneth and Arthur alone, the pleasant sounds of day at their backs.

He was waiting for some cue, some kind of opening. But what words did she have? I saw my dead father a couple minutes ago and now my head’s completely fucked. As much as Gwen knew she needed him, knew she needed someone she could trust to cling to, she was afraid to begin.

When her silence became too much to bear, Arthur took a cautious step toward her, clearly fearful of causing further upset.

“You won’t understand,” she blurted, prompted by the shorter distance alone. “… You won’t, because you can’t, and I don’t blame you for it.”

His eyes widened in alarm. “Right.”

Gwen ducked her head, preferring to focus on his shoes. It made the confession that much easier. “Where I’m from … I’ll never return. Will I?”

Her stomach burned instantly, ashamed at her own stupid question. What business did she have asking him? Arthur was a product of this world, this horrible, fabricated … too bloody real world that she knew was a deception and she was now reluctantly a part of.

She knew the answer better than he did.

Chancing a look to his face once more, Gwen saw that his eyes, too, fell to the grass between them … to the space she desperately wished that he would close so that he – perhaps more worthy than anyone – could tell her that it was all right, that this might be a horrible, terrible dream … but he was real beneath her fingertips and would not trick her. She wanted him to say that yes, the apparition was a cruel joke, a mind game, but he would hold her until it was over and until she could forget again. She wanted – for once – reassurance that did not come from within.

Arthur licked his lips painstakingly slowly and met her eye once he had tucked most of his bewilderment away, though not so far gone that she could not see it. “Gwen,” he implored, searching her face for something she refused to give. “Tell me what happened.”

She shook her head. “It’ll sound mad.”

“It wouldn’t be the first.” He inched forward another step.

“I see now,” she muttered, “Whatever … bollocks the world’s gotten up to, I can’t undo it. I’m trapped in this nuthouse and I want to go. But I don’t think I can.”

Arthur’s frown deepened. “Is this because we haven’t found your door?”

Her door. The thought sickened her now. “It’s because my dad died. Is dead. And I went on a stroll through town, like I bloody belong here, and … then, plain as day, I saw him. Like any other man.”

As the revelation had minutes ago, Gwen’s words seemed to hit Arthur like a stack of bricks. His mouth fell slightly agape, his eyes wide. Searching or accusatory, Gwen couldn’t tell … but a furious hot and bitter wave coursed through her, another swell of regret. She had earned his trust, but this kind of madness to the limits of his mind …

What other conclusion was there but ‘witch’? And not the sort of sorcerer that Merlin was, no. One who brought bad omens, and trouble, and the dead back from the grave.

She raised a trembling hand to his elbow, the greatest plea for reassurance that she could muster. And though Arthur ducked his head low, so that they were suddenly very close and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her temple, he held back, stilled by the immutable facts Gwen had shared.

He jerked back at the first sound of the tent’s flap rustling again, and Gwen let her hand fall. Her mind was racing too fast, swirling with too much feeling, with black loneliness stalking her from behind. Swallowing her need and her fear, she turned away from Arthur and back to Merlin, who was poking his head through the opening.

“I told you to get out,” warned Arthur, his voice low.

“I know,” he sighed, as pained to be involved as ever. “But … your men, they’re looking for you, sire.”

Gwyneth was sure Arthur was looking at her. But Gwen was already collecting herself, raising her chin to regain some dignity.

“… I’ll only be a minute—” instructed Arthur.

But Gwyneth spun around one more time to curtsey, ever better than the last, though she did not met his eye. “No, I’m going to go.”

“Where are you going?”

She was already backing her way out of the tent, ready to run again. Her answer, at least, remained honest: “No where.”

Part Three

Fic: What Grew Inside Who

imigination — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:33:10 GMT

Title: What Grew Inside Who (3/5)
Author: imigination
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana, Uther, Tom, Lancelot, Arthur/Gwen, minor Gwen/Lancelot
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 46,000
Warning: Modern AU/Canon crossover, based loosely on Lost in Austen.
Disclaimer: I have few Earthly possessions, and Merlin certainly isn’t one of them.

Summary: When a modern day Gwen takes a tumble through her crawlspace door, she discovers what truly lies on the other side of the looking glass.

Art Link: The incredibly talented shan_3414 made graphics and an accompanying fanmix for this story, and I couldn’t be more grateful. You can find them here; please, show her some love! ♥

Author’s Notes: No amount of words I could put here would do justice to the thanks that are due to so many people, so please take a moment to peek here to see those to whom I owe infinite gratitude.

She saw a portrait of it once: Camelot in its golden age. There, dead center, stood a castle populated by loyal knights, a just king and a beautiful queen. They were not in the picture, but even a young girl of six knew certain things to be true. Such palaces were home to the brave and glorious, those who took devastating news in stride and did not bat an eye at the complexities in life as she did now. There were matters of greater import when a nation had to be run. Dead fathers, aberrations of time and space, were not the concern of courtiers.

But that was not this Camelot. This was a place populated by prisoners and peasants, and a tyrant king. There was no queen, only a prince and his manservant, a girl … and ghosts.

Gwyneth could see the sunset from her bed as it appeared in that picture from her storybook. She stared, vision half-blurred as she crushed her face into velveteen blankets, curled inelegantly into a crescent moon atop them. She had not shed a tear because there were no tears to be shed; Gwen had spent them months ago, and even exhausted, she knew she had nothing left to give. She fought the burning at the back of her eyelids and throat like a warrior and willed herself to harden, impervious to whatever damnation condemned her to confusion at the present.

But as the sun dipped beneath the horizon, a few errant droplets coasted their way across the bridge of her nose and into the mattress, pooling beneath her cheek. And Gwen knew there was no escape.

The knocking was so soft at first that she barely heard it. But whoever was at her door remained persistent, and after a moment and a deep breath, Gwyneth lifted her head and peered through the flickering candlelight toward her would-be intruder.

“Who is it?” she asked, her voice raspy to her own ear.

No response came. Fixing the folds of her wrinkled skirt, Gwen slid to the edge of her bed until bare feet fell flat against the floor. A fleeting image passed though her mind: Miriam, vexed as ever at the disrespect Gwen had leveled at her mistress earlier in the day. If that was the case, she was steeled to take it like the Lady she was meant to be. Perhaps that was the way to healing: acceptance of her new, damned life by learning not to fight the inevitable truths of her circumstance.

She took her time padding across the floor, rubbing her face blearily as the fist on her door started up again. But when she opened it with what smile she could manage, she found herself eye to eye with Arthur’s raised fist, his golden head bowed as he bided his time.

“Oh!” gasped Gwen, and what pretense of contentment she had mustered fell almost immediately, “It’s you.”

“Indeed.” He took a half-step back and straightened, drawing the knocking fist behind his back as he evaluated Gwen darkly. Immediately, she felt the blood rush to her face as she involuntarily replayed the panic with which she went to him earlier and the broken confession she gave. He’s here to tell me to beat it, her mind warned, and Gwen raised her chin high … as he himself had taught her, even as she attempted to swallow her fear.

But Arthur remained awkwardly silent for a beat … and then two, until Gwen’s troubles ebbed just slightly, giving way to curiosity as the prince stood before her at a loss for words.

Eventually, he glanced up again and caught her eye. “… May I enter?”

Oh. “Of course.” She stepped to the side, making way for Arthur to pass through the threshold and into her chambers. Without a second glance to any potential onlookers in the darkened hallway, she closed the door behind him, turning just in time to see him raise a pewter flagon eye-level between them.

“I thought you might need this.”

She eyed the pitcher wearily. “Unless you’ve got gin there—”

Under less grave circumstances, Gwen would’ve smiled at the way Arthur’s brows flashed up under his fringe and fell just as quickly. “I don’t know what that is,” he interrupted, untroubled, “But I bartered Morgana for wine from her stores.”

A new wave of nausea sank Gwen’s stomach.

“I suppose you didn’t tell her who it was for,” remarked Gwen offhand as she watched from the door as Arthur made himself familiar quickly and quietly, drawing goblets from beside the room’s otherwise untouched decanter.

She watched as he rolled his shoulders, as though he had not one care in the world. “Of course not,” he remarked, pouring two healthy glasses. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Are you going to sit?”

Gwyneth eyed him, and then the empty chair with equal parts suspicion and envy. “She didn’t ask?”

“She asked—” Arthur, pompous and handsome, took his own chalice and sipped deeply as he leaned against the table. “—She asked after you, and I told her you were feeling unwell and not to be disturbed, and then asked about the wine and I told her I was well and not to be disturbed either.”

Gwen’s gaze fell to the floor as she took a cautious few steps toward her drink resting beside him. “So she just gave it to you?”

“Cashed in on an old bet.” Arthur studiously focused his attention elsewhere as she finally closed the distance between them, reaching for her goblet in the end with eager hands. She took the smallest sniff before tasting; like burnt berries and over-ripe fruit, Morgana’s wine was dark and welcome on her tongue.

One thorough gulp left Gwen flushed. She reached for the pitcher beside Arthur’s hip, refilling her glass before it was near empty. “I hope that bet didn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Of course not,” he remarked, turning to watch as she poured. “It had to do with me.”

“Mmm.” Uncertain what to make of such a reply, Gwen turned and shuffled to the edge of her bed … but not before catching Arthur’s unsuspecting eye. And though he redirected his gaze in that split second, taking a moment to stare into his goblet once more, she caught the pity that welled beneath the pool of blue.

That wouldn’t do … not with her new outlook. She called forth the image of Lady Morgana that had captivated so many the night of that first banquet. Gwyneth stood tall, forced her shoulders lower and her neck high as she slid across the room, placing her wine down on her bedside table. “I’m sorry I caused such a fuss earlier,” she began, injecting what calm she could manage into her voice.

Gwen turned before Arthur was able to school his expression into something resembling detachment … or at least neutrality. No, at the present he pouted, furrowed his brow, crossed his arms cradling his drink against him. “’A fuss,’” he repeated, disbelieving.

“I … panicked.” Gwen smoothed damp palms on the front of her corset. “It must’ve been too much sun or … something.”

“Too much sun does not bring about visions of ghosts, Gwen.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Have you come looking a confession of witchcraft, then?”

Arthur put down his goblet and squared his shoulders toward her, not angry but defiant. “I don’t believe you’re a witch.”

That would be a hell of a lot easier. Gwyneth, reached down and took another swig of wine, daintily wiping at the corners of her mouth as she fiddled with the stem of her cup. “Maybe I am,” she muttered, and cursed him inwardly for smiling at her offhand remark. “… This is serious, you know.”

“I know. So I don’t know why you’d lie to me.”

When she said nothing, Arthur sank onto the mattress as, clearly seeking to reason with her. Reasoning, when there was nothing she wanted less than rationality, when there was nothing more she craved than the fantasy that would save her from the absurdity of this day. “So you deny all that you said earlier.”

Gwen’s face flushed. “… And if I do?”

“Then I take you at word, Gwyneth.” He craned his neck, the unspoken plea in his voice clear. “I don’t presume to know you better than you know yourself.”

She shifted awkwardly beneath his gaze, her stomach tightening at the possibility of acknowledging the truth yet again. “That’s a big commitment.”

“It’s a promise I’ve made once before,” replied Arthur pointedly, “And not one I’m afraid to make again.”

An unexpected wave of shame overcame her, and Gwen briefly thought of Merlin. How terrifying it must’ve felt to spill his secret to his master, son of the king whose duty was to his country first and foremost. Though she was not present for the occasion, it played out clearly in her mind, mocking her that she should sit here, evasive with a man who had proven his trustworthiness twice over already.

Gwen reached for her goblet once more, taking a sip before scooting closer to pass it to him. Arthur, too, sipped, his eyes fixed neutrally on the candles that burned on the table before them. When he was done, he set the chalice down by his feet.

Emboldened as she would ever be to share her half-concocted plan, Gwen rose from the bed to fetch the pitcher he’d brought. “I’m prepared to stay here.”

“… In Camelot’s court?”

Gwen turned on her heel, holding the flagon flat against her belly. “That’s the only place for a ‘Lady Gwyneth.’”

What grin threatened to curve his lips upward stalled when she did not return the smile. His brow sank into a vexed line. “You can’t be serious.”

But she was as adamant as she had been upon making the decision an hour – or hours – ago. “What other option do I have? I can do it, or I can wait until I look like a real idiot and get burned at the stake.”

“I won’t let that happen,” he mumbled after a moment, at a loss.

Flattered though she might have been under different circumstances, it was plainly obvious to her now that Arthur was a bit foolish, if not a fool. Familiar heat stung at the corners of her eyes, and Gwen’s heart began to break all over again. “Not even you can undo the law,” she murmured, drumming her fingers against the bottom of the pitcher, punctuating her meaning. “You told me as much yourself.”

He rose from his seat, feeling his disadvantage in this disagreement. “But you want to go home,” Arthur persisted, taking a tentative step toward her, and then another, stalking her with a dark and knowing gaze.

Home. As though such a place existed anymore. Lance, kind-hearted and ever available could not take the place of her father, reincarnate. Nor did she have any place pursuing an innocent man here, in this ageless, golden time where there were princes and kings to speak of. Home was neither place, and Gwen knew it.

She swallowed her remaining bitterness and forced herself to meet his gaze, even though he would not understand her meaning. “Of course,” she replied simply.

But suddenly, he was close – very close – and though she could not see his hands while she watched his expression keenly, Gwyneth felt him. His fingers grazed her knuckles and coaxed her grip loose, extricating the pitcher from her desperate hold. Carefully, Arthur reached around her, his arm grazing her shoulder as he placed the flagon down by her hip.

“As long as you’re here,” he began, his voice notably lower than before as he withdrew, regaining enough space to look into her face properly, “You’ll be safe. Whatever you want. Whatever you need. All you need do is ask, Gwen.”

He was unwavering in this instruction, this commitment, not that she would’ve doubted him for a minute. No, she felt suddenly distracted by the new tightness that tugged at her stomach … and relieved that he turned his back on her presumably to fetch their abandoned goblets.

“Why are you doing this for me?” she blurted, her voice a little strange to her own ear. She caught the hint of a grin as he glanced back at her over his shoulder as he crouched down and fetched the golden cups.

Gwyneth would not be deterred by an admittedly charming smile. “… You’re going through a lot of trouble,” she observed, seeking to restore some control by fiddling absently with the pitcher brim beside her. “And I’m not injured anymore, so don’t use that as an excuse.”

Arthur stood upright again, searching for an answer somewhere above her head as he crossed back to her and placed down their glasses. “Since you’re not a witch—” he turned and leaned his hip on the table as well, perfectly parallel with her, “—This doesn’t seem like a particularly fair predicament for you to be in.”

He smiled outright, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Gwen felt like laughing. She held it in, if only for her own dignity. “I’ve sorted through worse things than this, I’ll have you know.”

“Presumably.” Arthur dared to glance down at her outfit, and added: “But not how to wear a corset.”

This time, the giggle burst forth, unable to be contained behind the sadness that had sagged her shoulders all afternoon. Affectionate light came into Arthur’s eyes as he watched her shoulder’s shake against her will, and a full smile curved her lips until she had to cover her mouth with one hand. And when she was done, she turned to face him fully, skeptical. “So it’s fairness.”

Arthur glanced down at the space between them. When he found her eyes once more, his had taken on the darkness of the room, his lips having settled into an unknowable line. “Not entirely,” he mumbled.

Crown prince of Camelot, thought Gwen distantly, even as her heart suddenly began to pound very hard in her chest and she felt herself taking a careful step toward him, until there was barely any space left and the hem of her skirt grazed his boots, Owner of everything in the land and he’s bashful about his feelings.

His feelings.

… And what were hers? He had saved her. Then he infuriated her. He’d shocked her with his kindness and threw her with his reserve, and through all this, she knew he was the only one she could turn to … the only one she sought.

She moved before she found the words. A hand, not trembling but clammy, she was sure, reached for the wrist that had settled on the back of a chair. He withdrew it almost immediately, his hand finding his hip out of surprise more than anything else … but at the look in his eye, she pursued, slid her fingers down the small sweep of skin until her fingers laced with his thumb and his belt, tugging with no urgency but a sudden, uncertain need.

Unlike her impulsive, insistent movements, Arthur’s were slow and deliberate. With whatever permission she granted with her gaze, his hand, heavy and warm found exposed shoulder … curled around brown skin until the pads of his fingertips sank into the wisps of hair at the nape of her neck and his thumb sank into the slope of her collarbone.

Even as Gwen’s hand found the crook of his elbow, and his head tilted in a way that made Gwyneth hold her breath, he found room for propriety.

“Do you want me to go?” asked Arthur, eyes half-lidded as he searched her face.

She inched even closer, until the low swell of her stomach grazed his tunic and she could feel the warmth coursing through him. “Why would I want that?”

His mouth worked silently before breaking into a self-effacing grin. “I don’t want do you any … dishonor, Lady Gwen.”

Her lips curled into a smile – a genuine smile – for the third time that night. She was suddenly too close, and the room too dark, for her to see very much. A natural consequence as his nose brushed hers and his eyes trained on the curve of her cheeks. His other hand had found her back; she could wait.

Resisting all temptation to bring their mouths together, to give in to what she wanted – for so long, it felt suddenly, despite the bullshit and the bollocks that had tainted the intermediate time – she stroked his exposed forearm with delicate fingers. “Lady Gwen,” she mumbled. She couldn’t be certain if it was his heart or hers that was pounding away against the other’s chest. “… That’s the first time you’ve called me that.”

The fingers on her neck slid up to her cheek, caressed her jaw, drew a delicate line from the dip beneath her bottom lip to her chin. “That cannot possibly be true.” He was teasing her, with hand and voice, and it was working.

And so stalwart Gwen gave in first, closing what sliver of distance remained.

She had kissed blokes before. Many blokes, many times in fact. There had been that first timid kiss outside school when she was fifteen, so brief it was difficult to count at all. There had been her first love, an awkward gangly boy called William who looked like he slept in a pig sty but smelled delightful and was sweet if quiet. Two years of uni brought its charms … and then there’d been Lance. Lance, the ever patient, ever affectionate. The boy she loved before she knew him and liked once she did.

But as she ghosted her lips across the corner of Arthur’s mouth, granting him permission to get on with it, she could not remember being so thoroughly warmed by just a kiss before … overwhelmed by the simplest gesture.

He pulled her into him as he captured her top lip, the elegant point of his nose drawing a slow line across her cheek as he tilted his head, coaxing her mouth open. Gwyneth’s eyelashes finally fluttered shut as she pulled herself up, her arm sliding across broad shoulders until she half-sat on the table behind him to return his ministrations with equal vigor.

His tongue was hot, and sweeter than expected. Full lips tasted of wine and iron, and Gwen whimpered in pleasant surprise as he withdrew from her mouth to taste the underside of her jaw, the base of her neck, the place where flesh disappeared beneath her neckline of her gown.

Swallowing a soft moan, Gwen had enough remaining wherewithal to urge him back, to give her space enough to slide off the creaky table and onto the bed behind them. Where Arthur tried to sit, hazy gaze still dark with desire, Gwen collapsed onto him, knocking him backwards as she hitched her skirt and eased a knee between his legs as they fell flat against the mattress, kissing again, sharing heated breaths as he buried his hands in the mess of curls that fanned around them and she took purchase against his chest, shifting her way up to his mouth once more.

In as instructive a gesture as she had ever given – more than one over-familiar bloke took a kiss to mean a free pass to her knickers – Gwen found Arthur’s hand in her hair and slid it just beneath the swell of her breast, along the nipped in curve of her waist to settle at her hip … and held her there. She took control and her mouth drifted from his, warm and swollen, toward his cheek and then his ear, nipping the space where his jaw ended.

He groaned an inaudible word into her temple, pulling her closer as he struggled to sit up right … to scoot back with her an awkward burden in his lap.

Whatever self-control he’d been trying to inject crumbled as Gwen inadvertently rolled her hips against him, trying to settle, to catch her breath and keep kissing him all at once. The hand holding her flinched tighter as she gasped into neck, gripping his shoulders. She caught sight of dark eyes, swimming with desire. Gwyneth leaned toward him again, sinking into his embrace and experimentally twisted and flexed, pressing her full weight down ...

And then her stomach growled, loud and unambiguous.

Gwen was already too flushed, her mind too fogged, to feel the head of embarrassment even as she felt Arthur’s grin bloom against her mouth.

“… When did you last eat?” he asked, pulling back just far enough to see her face.

Inelegantly shifting her weight off him and onto the bed so that she might concentrate, Gwyneth recounted the day in her mind’s eye without lingering on its more unpleasant moments. There had been a bit of bread and fruit, which she hastily gobbled before running to catch Morgana; waking without an alarm clock was not her strong suit.

“Breakfast,” she replied. Her stomach punctuated her claim with another loud fit.

“Well that won’t do,” chuckled Arthur, and he bowed his head to press his lips into her upturned palm. “I’ll send Merlin to fetch us something,” he mumbled into the crease of her lifeline, and Gwen’s heart fluttered again.

But her mind had regained some clarity. “Merlin?”

“Mhm. I believe you’re acquainted.”

He tilted his head to look up at her properly when she failed to agree. “It is his job—”

“And could just as easily be yours or mine.” Arthur looked ready to scoff, but she was hardly in the mood to start a row. “I’ll go,” Gwyneth continued, “Point me in the direction of the kitchen, would you?”

Arthur was on his feet before she was fully upright. “I’ll do it,” he groaned, adjusting the hem of his shirt. “But you and I are going to have to have a talk.”

She raised an eyebrow as she stood, similarly smoothing the front of her dress. With the slightest smirk to match his, Gwen agreed, “Indeed, my lord.”

He smiled winningly at her. “That’s the first time you’ve called me that.”

*

Gwyneth arrived at the Lady Morgana’s door the next day with flowers in hand.

She knocked twice – politely, she hoped – and took a step back, careful not to trip over her own train.

The door creaked open a moment later, wide enough only for a familiar face to evaluate her lady’s visitor. Miriam’s eyes narrowed perceptibly. She knows, thought Gwen, and smiled empathetically. “Hi,” she began, and made no attempt to peer around the younger girl. “Is Lady Morgana receiving visitors?”

“Not for those who deign to waste her ladyship’s time,” she snipped, withdrawing enough to close the door between them.

But Gwen scooted forward, catching it with her own fingers before her hand was slammed in the threshold. “Miriam, look. I brought her flowers.” She held up the yellow and lavender bouquet eye level with Morgana’s servant, who released her grip on the door handle enough for Gwen to ease it open so that they stood a little closer. Miriam’s cool gaze and taut mouth relaxed ever so slightly as she examined Gwen’s gift. After a moment of tense silence, she sighed and looked her mistress’ new friend up and down before settling on her face once more.

“They match your dress and hair,” added Gwen gently, holding the bouquet out to her, “You can say they’re from you, if you like.”

There: an upward twitch at the corner of Miriam’s mouth, which she schooled away quickly as Gwen’s own smile continued to bloom. When she spoke again, her voice took on a different kind of edge, one that Gwen had heard from Merlin not so long ago.

“These are from the royal gardens,” Miriam observed, raising her eyebrows.

Gwen pursed her lips and hesitated. “There are royal gardens?” There had been too much variety for all that she found to be considered wildflowers, but then, “You’d think someone would be … guarding them, or something.”

Miriam sniffed, but grinned outright. “They must do things quite differently in Hammersmith.”

“They do. … Worse, might I add—” and a faint blush crept into Miriam’s cheeks. “—It does not begin to compare to Camelot in splendor.”

Though her smile quickly faded into its impassively disapproving line, she took the flowers from Gwen’s hand, careful not to bend the stems. “I do not like picking flowers,” she confessed, sucking in a deep breath, “But my mistress loves them. So you have spared me one turn.”

Gwen sighed in relief at this new accord. “I could pick them forever for you, if you wanted.”

Again, the hint of a genuine smile. “Ladies of the court have better things to do.”

“But I do not.” She dared to reach out and squeeze Miriam’s free hand.

She made a small non-committal noise, and though skepticism lingered in her gaze, Miriam withdrew enough to allow Gwen to pass into Morgana’s chambers.

At first she did not see her. The room felt still, and quiet, uninhabited as compared to Arthur’s chambers. Sheer white curtains were drawn back to reveal a primly made and perfectly empty bed, and while an open window allowed the breeze to pass through, almost nothing shuttered with the breath of life.

Oblivious to Gwen’s sudden trepidation, Miriam bypassed her, blond curls bouncing as she fingered the petals of Morgana’s bouquet. “My lady,” she called, coming to a stop in the center of the room, her attention focused on a point past which Gwen could see. She held her spot near the door, awaiting permission to proceed further.

“Lady Morgana—”

“I have a visitor?” the lady’s smooth lilt rang out, and before Miriam was able to continue, she had stepped plain into view, tall and beautiful even with bleary red eyes.

“Is this a bad time?” Gwen asked, jerking a thumb back at the door, “I can return later—”

But Morgana smiled and beckoned her forth, the white folds of her sleeping gown in stark contrast with the waves of her dark hair, so that she looked at once ephemeral and eternal. “This is as good a time as any, I simply wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

Miriam had turned her back on them long enough to replace the dried out stems in a nearby vase. “She brought you flowers, my lady.”

Something in Morgana’s smile faltered as she looked at Gwen, who had taken a few tentative steps forward. Perhaps she’d forgotten why she would have cause to be angry with me, and Gwyneth’s own cautious warmth gave way to the profuse apology she’d meant to give straight away. “I’m so sorry, Morgana,” she began, folding her hands nervously against her thighs. “I was terribly rude yesterday—”

Lady Morgana stilled her lips with another wave of the hand, and though the strange look did not leave her eye, she graciously gestured toward the chaise by the window. “Miriam, would you be so kind as to fetch us lunch from the kitchens?”

Gwen shuffled by a curtseying Miriam and sank into a seat on the edge as Morgana moved to sit where the red velvet cushion swept up and curved elegantly around its wooden frame. She watched her handmaiden depart as Gwyneth watched her, and turned to face her guest only when the click of a door being shut assured her that they were alone.

First there was silence. Gwen picked at an imaginary spot on her dress, waiting for a proper cue to speak. But Morgana only looked at her … like she was looking straight through her, as she had that day when they first met.

Gwen licked her lips. “I am very sorry, Lady Morgana.”

That seemed to shake her out of some of her reverie. She reached a cold hand and settled it on Gwen’s exposed wrist. “It is really no trouble, Gwyneth”

She reached to rub some heat into Morgana’s knuckles, surprised that they were so chilly given the warmth of the day. That and her eyes …

Gwen shifted, until she’d propped one knee flat against the chaise and could squeeze the other woman’s pale palm between both hands. “Are you all right? Shall I close the window?”

A chuckle escaped Morgana’s lips as she straightened, gently tugging her hand back. “I’m fine,” she replied, near apologetic. “I prefer the fresh air.”

Gwyneth nodded in awkward agreement, though she could not help but to crane her neck and study Morgana’s face as her attention once again seemed to drift to places far beyond the present. “I do too,” she mumbled, debating whether or not this really was a bad time. Whatever was on the lady’s mind, it had a tight hold; not that she could actually extricate herself. Morgana needed her, at least until Miriam returned. And the young servant girl did not seem half as perplexed by her mistress’ state than Gwen was … unless this was some regular occurrence.

“Then we have that in common,” remarked Morgana. She stood abruptly, and Gwen’s sudden imbalanced weight on the trundle nearly tipped her over.

“I’m sorry?” Gwyneth asked, scooting over to Morgana’s previously occupied spot.

“A preference for the outdoors.” Morgana picked up the vase of Gwen’s flowers and turned her attention back on her. “… And flowers?”

Gwen blushed. “Yes, Miriam mentioned that you liked them.”

Even her smile was penetrating, and Gwyneth’s heart began to race beneath the intensity of Morgana’s knowing gaze. “Are you certain you’ve never been to Camelot before?”

“Quite certain.”

The king’s ward turned her gaze away quick enough that Gwen wondered if the amber flare she spied had simply been a trick of the midday light, teasing her mind. But Morgana tilted her head in the same way Gwyneth had moments before, evaluating something that Gwen herself was not privy to, searching for an answer she would be happy to provide if only she did not suspect Morgana wanted to know the one truth she could not bestow.

She straightened, narrowing her eyes. “You held those flowers and felt nothing?”

Gwen’s heart skipped an anxious beat. “… Only that I was sorry to have run away so abruptly yesterday.”

“Lady Gwyneth,” murmured Morgana, “Do not doubt me when I tell you that I understand the cause of your vexation.”

“You do?”

The woman in white sashayed toward her four-poster, placing the vase on her bedside table. When she sank to the edge of her pallet, her smile was laced with pity. “I do,” she whispered, voice so low that Gwen could barely hear it over the sudden ringing in her ears.

She licked her lips again, stalling for time. “How do you know?”

Some semblance of color returned to the Lady Morgana’s cheeks at that, and for the first time since entering Gwen felt quite certain that Morgana was seeing her for her. “Because we’re alike,” she lilted sweetly, placing her palm down on a spot next to her, for Gwen. “I’m like you.”

Though the confession seemed to comfort the Lady, Gwen held her reserve – and her nerves – tightly wound. Arthur had thought her a witch; Merlin believed her to be an enchantress, if there was a difference. To Uther, she’d passed herself off as a lady of the court, and to Miriam, a confusing annoyance. Only she knew her true self: a very lost girl with no door to go home through.

She rose, though her legs felt weak beneath her. “So you’re trapped,” she muttered evasively.

“Aren’t we all?” chided Morgana, running her fingers over the arc of her bouquet. “But this is not the first time you brought me flowers, Gwyneth.”

Gwen was rooted to the spot, brow furrowed. Surely she hadn’t sleepwalked this way before. “… I don’t see how that would be possible, Morgana.”

But her misty-eyed gaze remained fixed on the blossoms, on what they meant to her. “Surely you have dreamt it, as I have.”

Gwen’s lips were dry again. “I don’t dream a lot.”

“And I, often. But rarely has a dream been so pleasant … so telling, that I can actually see.”

“See what?”

Morgana’s smile fell, and she pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth as she turned her attention on Gwen once more. “I saw you.”

The lady rubbed her bare wrist, and she was once more looking past Gwyneth and into some other place, another path. “I saw you with flowers. And though it was now, it was also a different age … and you were known by another name.”

Something like dread twisted in Gwyneth’s stomach. Morgana was seeing past her, but Gwen saw the present. Like Merlin, Morgana revealed her true self, ruminating on something that could not be possible. Camelot was a dream, a fairy tale … and though she accepted it was her fairy tale, it was a story less than seven days old.

Her fear gave way to compassion, the way Morgana’s eyes seemed wet with worry and searching. Despite herself, she hurried to Morgana’s bed, sitting close until their knees were touching and she could hold her hand.

“I have never been known by another name, Morgana,” murmured Gwen, squeezing cool fingers between her own. “Only Gwen.”

What remnants of Morgana’s smile lingered fell into a mouth agape with horror. “You have,” she breathed, her eyes wide and empty, “But you don’t know it yet.” She paused and looked away. “… I’m sorry.”

Though no tears spilled down her cheek, Gwen reached up and wiped beneath her eyes anyway, as she imagined her mother might have once done had she had the chance. “Do not be,” Gwyneth assured, “You should follow your own advice.”

Lady Morgana chuckled, a bitter laugh that did leave one or two of Gwen’s knuckles damp. “What was that?” she gasped, gripping Gwen’s wrist tightly as the other girl smoothed her hair.

Gwen lifted her bum until she could draw enough of her fabric up to dab playfully at Morgana’s chin. She had no apron, but all this dress was good for something. “I understand,” replied Gwyneth eventually, dropping her hem once more and folding her hands in her lap. “I’m different too. Just not like you.”

Morgana smirked, though her expression was not unkind. “You are spared the burden of visions.”

“Oh, I have visions sometimes,” admitted Gwen, glancing toward the window. “But … not in dreams, no. I’m not magical.”

Out the corner of her eye, she saw Morgana flinch at the term, and Gwen reached for her hand once more. “You have committed no crime.”

“Uther will see me no differently than the others,” countered Morgana, her dark brow falling into a disappointed arch as she looked away from Gwen’s face. “The women in that line yesterday? Led into the castle in chains …” she shook her head. “I would be among them.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Gwyneth admonished, and she meant it with her whole heart. “As long as your king feels that way about magic, your secret is safe with me.”

Morgana’s eyes searched Gwen’s face once more, and after a long beat she sighed some of the tension between them away. She bit her lip before confiding, “You did not know.”

“Of this? No.”

“Now nor then. Then, you cared for me—” the Lady Morgana shifted and looked at the flowers once more. “—But you did not know.”

Whatever powers she possessed, the allusion was lost upon her; so Gwyneth waited, patient and silent, for the lady to come back to her. But Morgana was gone once more, one or two lines etched in her brow as she remembered … or imagined. Her speech had turned to murmurs. “If only I could remember your name …” and once again she disappeared into thought.

Gwen drew her back with a question. “I understand sorceresses are powerful,” she remarked, leaning toward Morgana conspiratorially. “What can do you?”

The grin of delight was immediate and breathtaking. She had never been asked such a question before, and a sudden strange joy bloomed in Gwyneth’s heart and hands as Morgana gripped her. “Lots of things.”

But before she could make shadows dance on the walls or conjure diamonds out of dust, Miriam returned, empty-handed and with a grave look on her face.

*

Gwen descended the stairs from Lady Morgana’s chambers, curiosity piqued that the king’s ward’s presence was so urgently desired that she barely had time to dress let alone lunch.

As she turned and took another set of steps down toward her own chambers, floors below – for such an expansive place, she was learning the maze of the castle’s halls surprisingly quickly – it became clear Miriam was not the only one making haste over some commotion. Two knights strode past the base of the stairwell, nearly barreling into Gwyneth as she stepped down into the corridor. They did not spare her a word of apology, only continued their hurried pace toward the throne room.

Another lady of the court in a cranberry gown – Lady Helena, who she was meant to sit beside at that first feast – scurried by on the arm of some gentleman, her haste sweeping even Gwen’s own hem after them, as though caught in a breeze.

Bewildered, and in the middle of apparent foot traffic, Gwen took a few steps to the left until she stood against a wall, craning her neck to peer past the bodies swarming and into the hall. But she could not see anything from where she was, and though there was nothing to indicate she was invited to such an occasion, worry tickled the back of her neck.

At least one familiar friend was in the midst of the crowd. “Lady Gwyneth!” Merlin drew her attention backwards, and she turned just in time to see the gangly young man jog past a pair of guards.

“Merlin,” sighed Gwen, grateful for his appearance and what clarity he was sure to offer. “Do you know what’s happening?”

He leaned close to her, also craning his neck to see as the flow of people into the Great Hall began to slow. “No idea,” he muttered, “But Arthur went into the council chambers early this morning and I haven’t seen him since.”

Her stomach sank into dread. “Is that a bad thing?”

Merlin cocked his head to the other side, weighing the facts. But whatever he saw of Gwen out the corner of his eye reset his burgeoning frown. “Not necessarily,” he reasoned, “Could be just … the usual business.”

She gripped his arm tightly, forcing him to look down at her. “You don’t believe that, though.”

“We won’t know if we don’t go in.” Merlin nodded toward the doors.

Though nerves twisted her stomach, Gwen nodded her agreement and gripped her skirts primly, as she had seen the other ladies do. She took only three tentative steps forward before she noticed that Merlin was no longer at her side; in fact, he had not moved. “What are you waiting for?” she hissed. They were now alone in the hallway. Whatever was going to happen, it was to happen soon.

“I can’t walk in with you,” explained Merlin, coming just close enough that they would not be overheard. “You go in, I’ll be right behind.”

Gwen’s heart raced. There had not been an occasion where she made herself present without Arthur or Morgana at her side. But she trusted Merlin … had to. “You sure?”

He smiled a toothy, reassuring grin. “I promise.”

She let out a small breath and nodded, and when he gave her an encouraging bow, Gwen had the urge to hug him. But she straightened her back, held her head high and proceeded – very quickly – to the chamber entrance.

Gwen hesitated at the threshold and cast a careful look toward one of the guards at the massive door. His was a face she recognized, and though he studiously avoided her gaze, she saw the corners of his mouth tug into a frown beneath his helmet. Wordlessly, she passed into the hall.

Predictably, it was bathed in sunlight and splendor, grand windows casting light over the golden hardwood and the room’s many inhabitants. It was populated by men, many more men than she’d seen pass her in the hall, all draped with the cloaks that signified knighthood. There were also men in other cloaks and finery, and more of the women that had attended the dinner she had … nobility and courtiers. They faced forward, whispering amongst each other as their eyes remained fixed on a trio of thrones that sat high on a dais, unoccupied but no doubt belonging to the prince, the ward and the king himself.

She slowed beside a handful of young boys and women with their hands dutifully folded behind their backs. One or two muttered something to another, but for the most time they remained silent in their place farthest away from the front of court, a respectable distance that Gwen was not unopposed to maintaining herself.

But, like clockwork, Merlin’s hushed voice came into her ear … as promised.

“You belong in the up there,” he murmured, his own gaze fixed forward as he whispered out the corner of his mouth, “These are servants of the household.”

Wordlessly, with Merlin at her side, Gwen continued along the periphery, looking for a place sufficiently out of range, but when she slowed, Merlin’s hand on the small of her back urged her forward until she had passed a number of the elder members of the court and was one or two rows from the front.

Before she could speak, Merlin had dropped his hand and had weaved his way around the rest of the crowd to join an old man in red without sparing her a backward glance.

A sudden silence enveloped the room, and on her right, she felt the knight beside her fall into a bow. Gwen followed suit, dropping into her increasingly suitable curtsey. From beneath bowed head and long eyelashes, she watched three pairs of feet emerge into view – two pairs of boots and the elegant shine of silken blue fabric. She rose in time with the rest, to find herself staring up at the face of an extremely vexed king.

Uther’s anger was palpable, even so many paces away. He looked out over the crowd, his features drawn into as severe a scowl as she had seen on anyone. The previous times Gwen had occasion to look upon his countenance, he had appeared mildly interested at best, even watching prisoners being brought into his own keep no doubt under his instruction.

But now …

“A traitor walks among you,” the king began, his even tone belying the fury that curled his lip. “I have received numerous reports of a suspicious stranger who dares set foot in my own house. She appears in many forms: bare flesh; clothed as a young man; hunched on the outskirts of the lower towns as an old woman.”

The tittering began again, directed at no one but in solemn agreement with their sovereign no doubt. Gwen wished she had someone to whisper to that she might look more innocent, but she was near certain that her voice had died in her throat.

To Uther’s left, Morgana looked out over the crowd, once again her eyes pulled into the unseeing gaze that Gwen had witnessed many times over. To the king’s right, Arthur stood behind his seat, his arms draped over the back of the chair, falsely relaxed. But his features were drawn tight, and he stared at the ground, flushed and troubled.

“Silence,” snapped Uther, and Gwyneth’s heart rattled in her chest. His word was obeyed at once. In softer tones once more, the elder Pendragon shifted beneath his dark cloak, aligning himself toward Merlin just ahead of her. He knows, and Gwen knew she was damned. What did Merlin have to offer other than evidence against her? Why would he look to his son’s manservant in the first place—

Though she braced herself to hear Merlin’s name – or her own – Uther called upon one Gwen didn’t know. “Gaius,” beseeched the king, “Have you knowledge of such a creature?”

The old man in red heaved a sigh. “I’m afraid not, sire,” he intoned, “Not by those details.”

For the first time since entering, Arthur looked up at his king. “This can be little more than rumor, father. Has the alleged stranger performed any acts that should be deemed a threat to Camelot?”

“Magic itself is a threat to this nation,” retorted Uther, barely sparing Arthur a glance. Instead, he turned his attention on the faces in the crowd. Gwen held her breath as he vaguely glanced past her and further back before he added, “That this intruder is so bold as to set foot past our gate is sufficient evidence against her.”

“That is no kind of evidence,” scoffed Arthur, directing his attention once more to the seat of his throne. “Give my men a chance to question the accusers—”

But Uther’s voice, and anger, overrode whatever objection Arthur proposed. “The knights of Camelot will ride out to the perimeter forests and look for further signs of the witch. And I offer reward to one who can bring further knowledge of her whereabouts.”

Morgana swallowed a pained gasp. And though Arthur had no further words for his father, he gave the lightest nod and looked to Merlin.

As soon as Uther departed, the hall gave way to less-than-hushed whispers, reiterations of the king’s brief speech. Gwen felt three pairs of eyes on her back as she hurried to the exit.

*

Footsteps, light and hurried made a soft patter on the spiral staircase that led closer to the royal bedchambers in the western wing of the castle. Gwyneth’s legs could not carry her fast enough from the throne room and Uther’s promise of vengeance against this ‘betrayer’ of Camelot.

Calm down before someone sees you acting suspicious, was her mind’s only instruction, and as best she could Gwen slowed from taking the stairs three by three in giant leaping steps to the occasional two-for when she could not help herself.

Of course he did not know, or he would’ve called her out. He would’ve had her on the floor there, held down and whipped … or dragged to the cells to await execution. And where once she teased herself that this would be a preferable fate than extending the nightmare that was hiding out, utterly alone in the castle, she knew it to be as real as her skinned knees on the first day … her twisted ankle on the second and Arthur’s mouth hot beneath hers on the fifth. Death would be as real and absolute here as it was in her own time, and she’d be damned if she suffered it.

With that renewed thought, Gwen resumed running up the stairs in as many as she could manage with each step, her dress hitched almost to her knees.

Damn this bloody castle, was all Gwyneth could think as she reached the top level. So much for learning its plan quickly; she stared only into an open doorway that lead to great white ramparts, hardly guarded but with a view of the courtyard. Though she knew she needed to turn and try the other direction – quickly, Gwen – she could not help but step out into daylight, oppressive as it was on her already warm neck and chest, covered with beads of sweat from her upward exertion.

The view was beautiful. This she knew before she even turned to face the kingdom, before she placed her hands on massive white bricks of stone and surveyed all the land before her. From here, high above, she saw horses lined up in the courtyard and miniature red capes flitting about amongst men and women dressed in gray and brown. And in the distance, she could see a forest greater than she had initially imagined … a majestic land … undisturbed England. Had her heart been less overwhelmed with nerves and adrenaline, she would’ve paused for a moment of patriotic pride.

A flint of silver caught her attention out the bottom of her eye, and as a fresh wind rustled her hair and dress, she swept back into the castle’s walls, unsafe as they were now, descending quickly and working her mind to remember how precisely she was to get to Arthur’s chambers.

She held her hand against stone as she spiraled down, downward until her mind was spinning and she was at her starting level once again. She came off the bottom stair dizzy and breathless, the previously occupied hall down the stretch of corridor before her.

Out the window from high above she could see knights assembling, mounting their horses even, preparing to ride. Soon she would be too late; if only she’d bothered to take a moment and ask Merlin—

Except – Gwen pressed her forehead to the class, looking down as she collected her breath – he was there, down there and of no help. He reached toward the bridle of a great dark steed and patted, consorting yet again with the elder man called Gaius. And yet no sign of Arthur.

Collecting her breath, Gwen proceeded – a good deal more slowly – toward the staircase she was certain would bring her ground level. A pair of servant girls confirmed her suspicions, bearing empty platters in their hands, no doubt returning them to the kitchens. From a distance, Gwen followed, looking always to the left and out the window lest Arthur come bounding out the main entrance and down to meet his men.

But then, before she’d made it down half the hall toward her destination, a rough hand – oddly solid and cool – gripped the crook of her elbow, giving a less than gentle tug.

She gasped, apprehended. But before she could do much in the way of fighting, another, bare hand, less heavy than the other was at her waist, urging her away from the window.

Though she jerked her head to the right, a fan of curls blocked her view momentarily, until she was somehow fully submerged in darkness … or at least half darkness, a small stone alcove built into the wall. Gwen was released almost immediately as the sound of sudden shifting metal came to a stop ahead of her, and she blinked twice to adjust her eyes.

Arthur, in full armor, leaned against the back wall, his brow drawn tight as his chest heaved beneath the iron plate on top of it.

Gwen, too, gasped for air … not only from the shock of being found by the one she so sought, but at the urgency of his actions. She had not seen him catch sight of her in the hall; she did not know that he knew she’d heard.

Licking her lips, Gwen found enough voice left in her to cut him off at the pass. “So you’re off to go look for me.”

He winced, and only managed to look as high as the thin line her mouth was set in. “I don’t know who could’ve seen you … you look as I do, as Morgana does—”

“Not when I wasn’t acting stupid,” muttered Gwen bitterly, remembering those first few days. However good impulse felt at the time, she was now three things at once in Uther’s eye … all of them damned. “I’m sorry.”

But Arthur was lost to her, searching the darkened floor between their feet. “Whoever he received word from, the first of it came last night … and more this morning.” He smiled upon meeting her eye, though it lacked any genuine happiness, “I spent the morning trying to convince him he was wrong.”

Her heart sank, not for her but for him, for taking a stand and coming up short … such was the regret in his eyes.

Gwyneth closed the distance between them, reaching a hand to touch his cheek, her nails grazing the place where his hair fell as she drew close. “It’ll be fine,” she assured, even though she was not sure how much she believed her own words. Arthur’s silent chuckle was harsh, sent the breath flying from his chest and beneath her palm with rough despair. “Arthur,” she cajoled, tilting her head to catch his fallen eyes, “Don’t worry.”

Even in clutching the hand on his chest, as possessive a gesture as she had ever permitted him outside the previous night, he shook his head, doubtful. “It’ll be a day’s ride. I’ll try to keep it no more—”

“Are you kidding?” she laughed softly, her hand falling to the back of his belt once more as she tugged him toward her, “This’ll be a cake-walk.”

Some of the tension left his brow, enough to reassure Gwyneth that he would look none the wiser when they left this private sanctuary. “You are strange, Gwen,” he murmured, finding her gaze with more affection than worry, finally.

She smiled; her heart fluttered, despite the circumstances. “Thanks,” she replied, a bit chuffed.

He reached for her hands, bringing them both to his breastplate once more. “Please be safe.”

“Oh … I’ll go out and … count the cows, until you return,” she teased softly as he brought his face low, low enough to graze her nose with his.

Beneath half-lidded gaze, she caught the crinkles forming around his eyes. “I don’t know if we have any cows.”

“The pigs then.” She chuckled against his mouth, now on top of hers as he pulled her into a protective embrace. “I’ll count those …”

As soon as she sank into his embrace, allowing him to kiss her as fully as he needed to feel reassured, for it was doing wonders for her own confidence … a chorus of men’s voices rang out from somewhere afar and below and Arthur pulled away. “I must go,” he mumbled, taking only enough time to stroke her back once before palming the hilt of his sword in his belt and ease past her.

Flushed and a little murky headed, Gwen followed him out into the daylight, her lips and cheeks pink from their brief exertion. “Bye,” she murmured, so softly she did not think he would hear.

But Arthur paused mid-step and turned back round to face her, every bit the knight … if only for show and her amusement. He smiled at her, timid though it was in light of the circumstances, and bowed, reaching a hand for her. Gwen willingly – and automatically – complied, still slightly set on edge by this new tenderness between them.

Still, she could not deny that her heart skipped a beat as he pressed a chaste kiss into her knuckles, in the middle of the corridor for all to see. It was fleeting, and perfect, punctuated by a generous, “My lady.”

He disappeared down the stairs, and seconds later – as Gwen turned and once again pressed her hands flat against the stained glass to watch – emerged into the courtyard where he was greeted warmly by his men. Gaius had taken his leave, bowed away and was now shuffling back into the entrance. Even as he mounted his horse, tugging on gloves and readying himself to ride, he cast one last glance up toward his vacated spot.

Eventually, though, as he led the horsemen through the gate and across the bridge, out into the wild ‘other,’ Arthur’s eyes left her.

Uther’s did not.

“I see you have developed an affection for my son.”

Gwen resisted the impulse to jump, to shiver or to flinch. Slowly, girl, slowly. She turned away from the window as she imagined Lady Morgana might, planting one heel at an angle behind the other so that she could spin without walking. Her fingertips collected the material of her dress, spread it discretely wide as she curtseyed to the king without knowing his proximity or from where he had watched them. She only knew to bow, to show deference and her steel all at once.

“My lord,” she murmured in greeting, keeping her gaze focused on his feet as they came into view, as Arthur’s had the first time they met. Though he had held a blade to her neck, she had not been filled with the same caution that she felt coursing through her now.

Uther bore no trace of his previous anger, his expression settled once again into its mask of haughty neutrality. He approached slowly, a young man of indiscernible import hovering a few steps behind. “Lady Gwyneth is it?” Gwen nodded in perfect time, not too eager, but certain. The king gestured toward the window. “This is not the first time I have seen you with him.”

Gwen adopted similar neutrality to that her new sovereign displayed. “The prince is exemplary of everything that is admirable about Camelot,” she replied, measuring her words carefully. “It would be … foolish of a young lady not to take notice.”

“Indeed, many have.” The corner of Uther’s mouth twitched: the hint of a dark smile. To his man he commanded, “Leave us,” in the dulcet tones that reminded Gwen of a snake in the grass … a man more dangerous in his quiet than as he raged.

He turned back toward Gwyneth and offered a gloved hand. She had no option but to accept it.

As soon as she slipped her fingers into his grip, their hands hovering at chest height, they were walking. Suddenly her every breath was a study in balance, as though she were counting the beats between them as her mind checked every piece of information she had gathered since the beginning of her stay. She had made Arthur a promise; moreover, she’d promised herself.

Thankfully, Uther spoke before she had need to. “There have been eligible ladies,” repeated the king, his attention directed out the window and up at the clear sky. “Many, in fact. But he has hardly shown one more than a passing interest, before you.”

“… I am … flattered you think so, sire—”

“I know it to be true,” Uther interrupted with a dismissive wave of his other hand. “I am not unfamiliar with the signs of love, and it is his duty to find a suitable match. I merely find myself surprised that it is one I could not have predicted.”

Gwyneth’s stomach plummeted, not at the mention of love, or matching, but for the question she knew was soon to follow. One she did not have a suitable answer for.

“Love is … unpredictable,” she offered weakly; as though she had any business offering truisms on such a thing as love.

But Uther smiled, smiled at her until he was something like handsome and the panic began to set in. What does he know? Gwen wondered, schooling her face into a modest, yet content smile to match. When he did not respond, she settled on saying something true. “I knew Arthur … Prince Arthur was a good man from the start, but I did not imagine that it would lead to … affection.”

Uther smirked disdainfully. “Tell me, why did you come to Camelot, Lady Gwyneth? I have not had the pleasure of hearing your story. But given my son’s attentions, it must be charming.”

The wheels in her mind spun at twice the pace. Silently, Gwen thanked heaven he was wearing a glove; her hand had gone all clammy.

“My party,” began Gwen, slowly again as she worked out her only defense, “We set off in search of goods.”

“Goods?”

“Particular goods. Goods that we do not have … where I come from.”

“And where is that?”

Gwyneth did not dare look at him. She focused only on the steadiness of her voice. “Hammersmith.”

Though she was certain Uther’s face gave nothing away, she could hear a narrowing in his voice. “I do not know the place.”

She nodded. “It is small,” Gwen replied, feigning agreement, “Very small. Of little concern to the … greater nations of the land. Which is why we set out for the goods that we don’t have at home.”

For a moment there was only the sound of their footsteps as they proceeded in what felt very much so like a circle to Gwen. Round and round they went. She pursed her lips, prepared to bring about a more neutral topic, but once again Uther interrupted the silence first. “And what of the other members of your party? I should very much like to know who speaks for you, Lady Gwyneth of Hammersmith.”

Do not look guilty. Though her arm felt heavy in his grip, Gwen straightened, summoned whatever dignity she could as he pressed her. “We were attacked. In the forest.”

“By the sorceress we now seek, no doubt,” muttered the king darkly, slowing their pace as they neared the end of the corridor.

Briefly, Morgana and Merlin flashed in Gwen’s mind. “No!” came her vehement denial. Like a bug attracted to light, Uther’s eyes snapped left toward her. She licked her lips and tried to remain tall under his gaze. “I don’t think so … sire. We were attacked by beast, not a person.”

“But you have been warned, the witch takes the form of whatever she pleases.” He squared his shoulders with her, daring her to disagree again.

The king’s voice held firm, and so Gwen could only nod. “Indeed, sire.”

He held her gaze a minute longer, until the warning in his eye flickered and was then gone. “I take my leave, here.”

The breath she had been holding came rushing out of her just as she fell into a deep curtsey once more, if only in gratitude that she would be left alone again. When she rose, she was not met by Uther’s retreating back, but a strange smile upon his lips. “I look forward to the occasion that we speak again.”

Once again she matched up, summoning all the nonchalance she had available in her body. “The pleasure would be mine, sire.”

Though she held vigil by candlelight, the search party did not return that night. And Gwyneth did not sleep.

Part Four

Fic: What Grew Inside Who

imigination — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:31:31 GMT

Title: What Grew Inside Who (4/5)
Author: imigination
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana, Uther, Tom, Lancelot, Arthur/Gwen, minor Gwen/Lancelot
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 46,000
Warning: Modern AU/Canon crossover, based loosely on Lost in Austen.
Disclaimer: I have few Earthly possessions, and Merlin certainly isn’t one of them.

Summary: When a modern day Gwen takes a tumble through her crawlspace door, she discovers what truly lies on the other side of the looking glass.

Art Link: The incredibly talented shan_3414 made graphics and an accompanying fanmix for this story, and I couldn’t be more grateful. You can find them here; please, show her some love! ♥

Author’s Notes: No amount of words I could put here would do justice to the thanks that are due to so many people, so please take a moment to peek here to see those to whom I owe infinite gratitude.

Once again, the familiar pang of hunger stirred her from distraction … at the present, a book, thin and light and mostly unintelligible from the bowels of her wardrobe. Most of the words meant nothing to Gwyneth, but since rest did not come easily, it was something … a distraction where the sunrise was too slow to entertain.

She felt hunger from deep within her and turned, splayed inelegantly across her bed with the folds of her skirt flipped up around her to cast a long eye at her table’s contents. Over the course of her few days in Camelot, she’d picked through what little had been in her fruit bowl, and the empty plates from her dinner with Arthur had long disappeared. With no servant of her own, she hardly expected food to appear and disappear at her whim, but she had remained stowed away for a reason.

Uther’s apparent cordiality in conversation did nothing to dissuade her of the suspicion she saw in his eye. It served her right; self-scorn was easier to cop to than anxiety, as boredom was to fear. Without the helpful hand of someone who understood her peculiar circumstances, she could do with a little more solitude.

But the first flutter of light across her floor meant that day was only beginning. Outside her door she heard nothing: not the soft muttering of servants, or the patter of feet or the distant sounds of court being held. There was only the quiet before the dawn, and the din, and the castle’s daily business.

There was no harm in taking advantage of the hour.

Stiff from having laid still so many hours, Gwen stretched – all feline – and crawled her way to the edge of her mattress, sliding off backward to plant bare feet on cool stone. There were many things to get used to, the inconsistent and oft-alternating hot and cool of the castle among them. Rubbing tired eyes, she slipped her toes under the edge of her bed until she hooked her shoes.

Indeed, even with the sun crawling its way up over the horizon, lighting the trees and Arthur’s party graciously, the palace remained notably quiet. In the chaos of her time spent there, she had not once been caught utterly alone … even in the beginning the passing guard turned an eye upon her, or a scullery maid, or Merlin. Checking over her shoulder that Uther did not lurk behind some nearby post, she began her descent with the vaguest impression of the castle plan in mind.

Just follow the smell of baking bread, Gwyneth, she reminded herself playfully as soon as her nose caught the blessed scent. It did waft from somewhere … somewhere to the right, and she followed it, like a cloud in the air that beckoned to her, passing things she was beginning to recognize as familiar: the great statue of a griffon, the tarp of what must’ve been the household crest, this one faded and a little frayed in a spot that she doubted Uther or Arthur ever noticed.

She descended staircase after staircase, until she knew, though there were no windows to affirm her belief, that she was passing lower than the banquet hall, or the council chambers, or the courtyard. As the smell grew stronger the warm swaddle of darkness once again enveloped her. The dim and narrow stairwell ended in a light that ended like a beacon, bright and welcoming.

The light revealed a trio of small shoulders sloped in deference to an older woman at the hearth. Nothing about their conversation, the energy of their speech or the speed of their hands as they cooked suggested early morning. No, though the kitchen was not quite as bustling with life as she imagined the staff of a castle this size might require, there was already laughter and the hum of approval as the matron ticked off a mixture of gossip and sound wisdom.

“… Hi,” piped up Gwen after a few moments of eavesdropping, feeling at once like an old friend and a terribly offensive guest for listening in on what was not her conversation. Four pairs of eyes abandoned their work, mid-chop, mid-knead. Four pairs of eyes settled on her, flickering in the firelight. Gwyneth blushed a dusky peach, bathed in the same stuff they worked in. “Pardon me, I’m so sorry.” She curtsied dutifully, apologetically. Deeply.

But when she looked up again, it was the women who remained with heads bowed, craning their necks as they wiped their hands dry on aprons and reached for their skirts. Gwen cringed immediately, increasingly ashamed that she had bothered to interrupt them in the first place. “Oh, no!” she gasped, waving a hand as she took two pleading steps forward, “Please, none of that.”

The eldest rose first, elegant to Gwen’s indiscriminant eye. Her face, though slightly weary, held no trace of anger. “We’re sorry, ma’am—” and Gwyneth’s shame only worsened. The woman by the fire had to be nearly double Gwen’s age. This was no kind of respect she wanted. “—Is there something we might do for you?”

Her heart fluttered in her chest; she was as ready to retreat as she was prepared to make her request at the surprised look she received from the other young ladies, closer in her age. “Um …” Gwen licked her lips slowly, wracking her mind. What did you come for?

Another, like Miriam in stature but with her features pulled into a more genuine smile than Morgana’s handmaiden often had for her, spoke first. “Did you not sleep well, my lady?”

Right. “Yes!” exclaimed Gwyneth, re-struck by her initial idea. “I was just a bit hungry … but I can wait, I don’t want to be a bother.”

“Not at all, my lady,” the girl answered, bowing her head until a few strands of red hair masked her vision. When she looked up again, she smiled, “Will that be all?”

Guilt still tickled Gwen’s insides. “… I can prepare it myself—”

The older woman by the fire could not hold in her shocked huff, and she hid whatever expression came with it by turning her back and returning to her seat by her baking. But the younger girl who spoke to Gwen first shook her head tolerantly. “… I’m happy to do it, miss.”

Discomfort remained in the pit of her stomach. “Shall I wait here?”

“Your ladyship would likely be more comfortable eating in your private quarters. I’ll prepare something straight away and bring it to you, if you prefer.”

Gwen smiled weakly. “I don’t prefer it.”

“But it is … customary.”

Her smile of resignation was small but genuine at the girl’s insistence. “Okay …” her gaze lingered in as expectant a gesture she was ever wont to give. Under Gwyneth’s gaze, she shifted until the silence spoke of her meaning.

“Rosaline,” she supplied, her faint blush apparent even in the firelight.

Gwen blushed no less than her, equally embarrassed by her bumbling understanding of the ‘rules.’ “Thanks, then.” She turned slowly away, watching over her shoulder as Rosaline and the only other that remained standing curtsied – for the third young woman had silently returned to work while the awkward conversation preceded – awaiting Gwen’s departure. But with her foot on the first step, she paused and turned again in time to see Rosaline’s compatriot pass her a platter. “… Do you need to know where I’m staying?”

Rosaline smiled benevolently again and rolled her shoulders, whether amused or a little fed up, Gwen would never know. “No, my lady. I’ll be right after you.”

It would take time, getting used to such treatment. Neither accustomed to nor particularly comfortable with the idea of servants doing things for her – things she was perfectly capable, nay prided herself at having mastered – it took all her will to silence the protest on her tongue. But Gwyneth curtsied away her anxieties for the moment and hurried out before their laugher chased her away, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

I should talk to Morgana, she thought absently as she climbed, peering over her shoulder at the kitchen door as she staged her retreat. The king’s ward would know the ins and outs of appropriate behavior better than anyone, and Gwen imagined it would benefit her just as much to know that she had Gwyneth’s absolute faith.

Pleased with her next plan of action, Gwen hopped lightly up onto the top step and smiled. Under Morgana’s instruction, she could deter Uther’s eye. Lost in thought as to how she might phrase her reveal to her newest confidante, she turned automatically to the right, back toward her chambers … and nearly mowed down another courtier.

With her head bowed, she bumped shoulders with a gentleman. He was taller than her, but not by much, and something narrow and heavy protruded from his grip: sword and scabbard, no doubt. Though it struck her ribs and hurt, Gwen stepped back immediately to apologize. “I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, ignoring the low throb in her side where she’d been poked.

“It’s I should be apologizing, my lady,” came a reply of the warmest baritone, a voice that had more than once lulled her to sleep as it sang and spun tales of nonsense, coaxing little eyes shut with words.

Gwyneth stiffened at once, suddenly pained in a very different way. She watched, slightly horrified, as her father’s salt and pepper head bowed to her, the hint of a smile playing upon his lips as he adjusted the bouquet of swords in his arms.

What comfort she had taken in Arthur’s company, what thoughts she had managed to redirect in concern for Morgana’s kept secret or the king’s suspicion buckled under the weight of Tom’s proximity. Time slowed, and Gwen struggled for purchase – and voice – as she watched him rise again, humbly, and step around her … carrying on his way.

Away from her.

Though there were tears that threatened to come – again, Gwen? Not again – his back was enough to prompt her to speak. She had, after all, imagined such a moment. In the nights after his passing, when she slept on Lancelot’s couch where she could be lonely but not so alone, Gwyneth dreamt of having one more moment with her dad, prematurely taken. In her dreams, he came to her knowingly, said the things to get her to speak, reassured her where he knew she needed his assurance.

“Where are you going?” She blurted her question, sudden heat flooding her face as Tom strode away from her, threatening to step out into the courtyard and away from her forever.

He froze, mid-step, and though her mind was racing too fast to formulate coherent thoughts, a pang of regret forced its way through to the forefront at his weary look.

He thinks I’m going to reprimand him. Gwen’s stomach churned and dropped; she had never felt so low. Beseechingly, she took a tentative step toward him, reaching vaguely toward his bundle. “I could help you carry those.”

In his cheek, a familiar dimple appeared. His smile was slight, generous, and bewildered. “I would never think to trouble you, my lady—”

“It’s no trouble,” she murmured, slowing her approach. She had denied the reality of so much that she had experienced in the castle thus far. Now, for the first time, she was afraid of being correct.

Gwen ran a hand across the stone wall, reassuring herself with the cool, rough surface beneath her palm. In front of her, her father cast a long look back toward the entrance to the kitchens, shifting his weight as he faced Gwen head on. “Is there something I might help you with?” he asked after a moment.

However she might have recognized him, the feeling was evidently not mutual. Rather than further heartbreak, it relieved her to know as much. With trembling hands, Gwyneth extended her arms again, palms upturned. “I bumped into you,” she mumbled, the crinkling between her brows deepening, “I’d like to help.”

He shifted again beneath the weight of Gwen’s gaze. He saw a lady of the court gone daft. She saw the look of a man torn between handing down a punishment for getting cheeky and laughing at the nature of her insolence.

But he wasn’t just her father. He was a man of his century, a blacksmith, and she was a courtier. Tom cleared his throat and hesitantly extended a sheathed sword in her direction. “My lady—” his brow furrowed, a perfect mirror of her own expression, “—I’m just taking these home for some work, and it’s quite early. No doubt you have better things to attend to than the duties of a porter.”

In the same measured tone with which she’d addressed the king the day before, Gwen chose her words carefully … tipping her chin up as she had the first time she asked to borrow his car, and the time she had to accept punishment for returning it home late. “I’m a guest here in Camelot,” she replied slowly, “I do things the way they’re seen fit in my own court.”

With a skeptical look and a relenting sigh, he released the weight of the sword into her open hands. Gwen’s fingers curled around its leather encasing.

When a last lingering look did nothing to undo the determined fashion with which Gwen faced her father, Tom’s shoulders slumped and gave way to protocol. He could turn her away no more than she could allow him to, and so they stepped into the desolate morning courtyard side by side, each holding weapons defensively against their chests. For a long while, their was only the sound of their footsteps … the light patter of Gwen’s slippers and the soft rustling of her gown, still unfamiliar to her ear, and the slightly lumbering cadence of Tom’s boots taking one step for her every two.

They passed through the castle gates without a second look from the two guards stationed there, whose eyes were trained in the direction of the half-risen sun. As fast as her mind was working – speak, Gwen, speak! – her mouth refused to form words … stuck, pursed, afraid to offend him though she’d already pushed his boundaries.

Thankfully, Tom had the decency to speak first. “If you do not mind my asking, what court do you hail from, Lady …?”

“Gwyneth,” she supplied. Though he kept his eyes trained forward as they stepped off the trail of stone and onto dirt road. “And I come from Hammersmith.” Gwen swallowed, paused. “Are you familiar with it?”

He smiled, and for a fleeting moment Gwyneth dared to hope that memories were flooding back to him. Memories of her, or their life together, or his own life … precious as it was. But his warm gaze fell upon her and told her: “No.”

For a second time, wetness pressed against her eyes, though she dared not let it spill over. “You would like it,” she replied softly, forcing herself to look away though she wanted to spend every possible moment watching him.

Tom smiled. “Do they have need of a blacksmith?”

She thought of him as she remembered him, not in Hammersmith but back in Manchester, working on cars, returning home with greasy hands. “No,” she mumbled, shifting the blade between her palms, “But someone with similar talents.”

Whatever note of sadness lingered in her voice, Tom disregarded, chuckling warmly as he urged her to make a turn with a nod. “I do not have many other talents,” he corrected gently, looking down at Gwen with an affection that she had long missed, “And I could not abandon Camelot.”

She had not meant it literally, had no intention of bringing him back with her … if going back was at all a possibility. But her heart sank to hear him say it, to hear that he was rooted to this nonsense and not to her. Though the question formed on her tongue immediately, she spoke it with some measure of hear. “Is it because you have a family here?” asked Gwen, turning as much as she could while they walked.

The pair – father and daughter, centuries removed – rounded another corner … and suddenly Gwen’s vision was awash with sunlight. It scarred her vision, left whatever sadness manifested in Tom’s face a flickering glimmer. When a house blocked it out, his smile was resolute and even. “I do not.”

Gwyneth slowed, tripping slightly over her own hem as she tried to imagine such a lonely life for her old man. Tom, too, stopped short, courteous enough to wait on her.

“I’m sorry, sire,” she started, shaking her head, “I thought you might.”

She anticipated a certain familiar sadness, but what she saw was light. Tom tipped his head skyward as he slowed, allowing Gwen to catch up. “I had a wife. … And a little daughter. But they were both taken from me.”

Her stomach churned. “Taken?”

“As is the world.” Tom straightened his back and cast a long glance toward the awning over what Gwen already could recognize as his home, like something she’d seen in dreams many times, though she had seen it in person only once. “We are not all blessed to know our loved ones forever.”

Her tongue felt heavy as she sought to form her words. “Indeed,” Gwyneth agreed, pausing close to the post in front of the Leodegrance household. It was humble … as their flat had been. The same saddle he’d been working on the day before lay draped over a stool, drying in the daylight.

Her father edged into the space between Gwen and the shade of his doorstep, gazing upon her with something like pity. “I know that look,” he murmured, raising an eyebrow as he leaned his quarry against the wall.

The burst of laughter that escaped her lips was harsh and foreign to her own ear. “Do you?”

“Everyone who’s lost someone knows that look.” Tom plucked a dry, half-formed bud off a hanging bushel of lavender. “But it’s a sadness we all must face one day.”

Eyes burning once more, Gwen gripped the sword in her hands a little tighter. “Sometimes it’s too soon.” As though a day hadn’t passed between them, she deftly avoided his gaze, fixing her eyes upon the hilt resting against her chest.

“Aye, too soon,” he agreed, twirling the dead flower between his fingers. “There’s not a day I don’t miss my wife. … And not a minute I do not regret not knowing my Guinevere.”

Her smile was watery as she watched him place the flower on the ledge between them. Gwen traded him the sword for it, delicately taking it into her open palm. “How do you carry on?” she mumbled, staring at the scratched fabric of his coat. His smile was unfathomable, inconceivable to her. He was alone in the world, as she was.

Tom hoisted the sword onto his shoulder, and once again Gwen sensed him looking at a place far above her, though she dared not meet his gaze. “I remember that I have much more life in me,” he confessed after a moment, earnest. “What is there, but to carry on and live?” He paused long enough to catch the defiant gaze flaring in the corner of her eye. “They do not die that you should spend the rest of your life mourning.”

In her mind’s eye, she saw him once more … not as he was now, but resting, false somber, in his casket. So many people had wept around her. Yet before her, Tom smiled upon her with empathy … and understanding. Living was the difficult, and necessary, option; he knew as well as she did.

A petulant, sour wave washed over her even as Gwen gave him a small smile, sad and sincere. “They make you miss them.”

“The missing is loneliness,” agreed Tom. He slid the blade down once more, until he held it at the center of its weight, teetering it in his palm until it tipped too far one way, and fell against the outer banister. “But there’s room for more than one in the heart.”

She forced a smile, weak though it was. “I don’t believe you gave me your name, sire.”

He shifted his shoulders, laughing deferentially. “You may call me Tom, my lady. Though I’m afraid I would not be known as ‘sire,’ even in your Hammersmith.”

“And there I would not be a ‘Lady.’”

“Yet here, you are. … And I confess, Lady Gwyneth, I’ve got to be getting on with my day.”

As others were. Out the corner of her eye, a pair of front windows snapped open, not quite beckoning but certainly available for business. A gentleman passed into her vision, trailed by a pig. Rosaline had most certainly delivered her food by now. And Tom was bowing … unnecessarily.

“… I’m very interested in your trade,” Gwen announced, too loud, gripping his flower tightly. “I hope you’ll permit me to … come around. Once or twice.”

At least the tilt of his head was curious rather than dubious. “It’s not the business of ladies,” he admitted, “But perhaps things are different where you come from.”

Her chest heaved as she rolled her neck and tugged at her skirts, falling far lower than Tom had. “They are,” she mumbled, unable to distinguish for herself whether those words were heartbroken or happy. Looking back up into brown eyes, alight and amused, she surmised she felt the latter. “Thank you.” Here he was slightly grayer, had the lines of past sorrow etched into his face where her Tom had retained his youth, despite his sudden turn. But he was kind and his voice was a comfort, and he did not seem to find her request particularly disagreeable.

The sun beamed brightly on her back as she traced her retreat.

*

The rest of her day was spent in contemplation. Though she twice considered departing from her chambers to visit Morgana, Gwen could not summon enough will to move, lost in thought over her previous encounter. She nibbled at the food Rosaline brought her: first, breakfast … then dutifully, lunch and dinner, each time with a receptive smile and curious tilt of her lips.

She was grateful not to encounter the king, or anyone else, as the candles in her chambers burned to waxen stumps and she watched the sun fall behind the neighboring forest’s trees. And when she blew them out and fell back upon her bed without taking off her gown – she was still slightly unclear on what constituted nightwear – she fixed her eyes upon the ceiling of her four poster and wished for some clarity on all manner of things … Tom, and her station and her friends, and Arthur.

Hours later, when darkness had spread across her room, enveloping her in the inky blue of midnight, Gwyneth stirred at the sound of horse hooves on cobblestone.

… But then, she had never really fallen asleep. Not exactly. Bent in a misshapen arc, twisted over the side of the mattress with her face buried between two pillows, Gwyneth had allowed herself the slightest reprieve as she continued her vigil. And now, she blinked through the blackness at the moonlight sky as a clamor erupted in the courtyard below.

Arthur and Merlin were among a chorus of riders; that much she could tell immediately. The clatter drew her from her place, unwrapping herself from half-drawn covers, beckoning her to the window. Sure enough, there were two familiar figures amidst the flurry of red capes dismounting from their horses. Without hesitation, the glint of silver took off toward the staircase, disappearing within moments through the main doorways, a slim lad on his heels.

Without hesitation, Gwen stole away from the window, reaching for the corset she’d cast aside hours ago. With little struggle, she eased it over her shoulders and back around her bust, tightening its strings as she padded around in the dark for her shoes. Her conversation with Uther may not have been fruitful, and her encounter with her father odd … but there was comfort to be found somewhere in this world, and she had much to share. Her toe found the soft leather of her slippers, and she slid them on as she tightened the golden outer layer of her borrowed garment.

Soon, Gwyneth was closing her bedroom door gently behind her, careful not to attract too much attention though the hallway outside her chambers remained deserted. Twisting her hair into an uneven knot as she walked, she turned and descended a staircase toward the center of the castle, heading in the direction of Arthur’s quarters. Though her cheeks flushed at the thought, she knew she needed only see him for a moment to feel reassured; in his absence, it felt as though the very foundation of Camelot shifted beneath her feet.

Light footsteps danced their way down the staircase and rounded a darkened corner, passing by rooms whose occupants she did not know until Gwen knew – from the position of the courtyard at her side – that she was walking in the direction of the prince’s chambers. When she rounded another corner and began climbing steps, she passed a pair of guards. For once, she met their eyes … dared to smile. Though they did not return her affection, they bowed their heads and continued on their way.

Better than nothing, she told herself as she hoisted her hem and turned on the middle platform, finishing the stair case until she emerged on Arthur’s floor. Down at the opposite end of the hallway was the statue, familiar to her as any part of the castle … the first thing she had encountered upon stumbling into her strange, new world.

Taking a calming breath, Gwen straightened and turned toward his chambers. She made it no more than three steps before Arthur’s door swung open … and a familiar, dark haired boy burst out.

Gwyneth hesitated. What smile would have blossomed on her lips was immediately frozen by the alarm on Merlin’s lips, evident even in the darkness of night. He looked wildly about in the candlelight … first at Gwen, then in the opposite direction, ensuring that they were alone. When his gaze fell upon her again, it was with pity, though he jogged toward her with some urgency.

Her chest tightened with dread. “Merlin?” she asked as she watched him hurry close, brow knitted pityingly.

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” he hissed, extending a hand toward her as he slowed, glancing over his shoulder once more.

Long fingers curled over her wrist, and instinctively, Gwen dug her heels into the ground. “What happened?” she whispered. Though she kept her voice steady, her heart was off racing in an instant.

Merlin gave the slightest tug, whether pulling her forward or reassuring her with a squeeze, she could not tell. “Arthur is talking to his father—”

“You didn’t find anything out there,” she interrupted, cautious.

“No,” agreed Merlin. He tilted his head, and when he found her eyes once more, his gaze was sympathetic. “But the king has ordered him to arrest you. Guilty of witchcraft.”

She had taken a few stumbling steps forward by his urging, stepping into a pool of moonlight three windows down from Arthur’s door. But she froze, hanging her hand free of any guidance as she stared up at him, horror-stricken. “Why?”

“We’ve got to hide you, Gwen,” insisted Merlin, glancing warily past her and down the corridor. “The guards that don’t know will soon enough, and if anyone spots you—”

But fear gripped her, crushed her heart until it felt like she couldn’t breath. Suddenly something that had felt so possible, even desirable when she thought it was the easiest escape, pressed at her back. Gwen took a small step toward the wall, out of moonlight and into shadow. “… What did I do?”

Though urgency filled his voice still, Merlin took his place in the darkness. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, his eyes yet fixed on a point beyond her. “Arthur went straight to his father, to report his lack of success, but Uther handed down his order straight away.”

Against her will, Gwen’s hand flew to her mouth, fingers curling over her lips. Her eyes darted to the wall, to the place she had stumbled through days before. All she saw was smooth stone, no hint of a door or passageway. She was as damned as anyone.

In the darkness, Merlin found her hand once more. “We’ve go to hide you—”

But already, panic had set in. She strode behind him, proceeding down the hallways as though they had nothing more urgent than a bit of late night business with the prince, but Gwen knew when to be afraid. Her heart was thumping in her ears, making it hard to concentrate even as her eyes darted. “What’s there to gain in hiding?” she muttered, insincerely.

“You don’t need to be handed over,” disagreed Merlin, with a complete disregard for whatever sarcasm was laced in her objection. His grip remained tight as they slowed … something was stirring at the opposite end of the corridor.

Gwyneth had no desire to be handed over, but destiny was sometimes unavoidable. Night pressed against her eyes, granting darkness where she might otherwise have shown her tears or her terror. Merlin halted in front of her, so suddenly that she nearly barreled into him. They collided, though he held his ground, and Gwen peered past him at the shadows of another set of approaching guards, their spears creeping up the well-lit staircase.

But there was creaking, and a rush of fresh air. And Merlin’s hand, warm and dry, clutched hers. “In Arthur’s chambers,” he muttered, drawing her round as he tugged open the door until it nearly touched his nose. Between watching the growing figures of the guards, projected against the wall, and Merlin’s stock-still position behind the door, Gwen hardly had time to object. She whirled around for one last glance of Arthur’s servant, peering around the threshold with wide eyes as she stumbled through the darkness and through the door.

Through. Greeted by light.

She passed through the threshold and down a step, stumbling onto sunken ground where the floor should’ve been level. She blinked – winced – at the sudden onslaught of daylight and caught herself against the wall suddenly right before her.

Behind her, the door slammed shut; Merlin’s doing. Disoriented, she whirled around until her back was pressed against brick only to find herself staring at solid metal where wood should’ve been … painted red, with a “No Loitering” sign tacked to the center, slightly askew. It was the back door of a pub she’d visited a handful of times, once when Lance had gotten into a scuffle with some lads over whatever bollocks boys had to fight about … another when she needed to do a bit of sorrow drowning in the company of a few drunks. It was, at its best moment, a very shitty pub.

A shitty pub in Hammersmith.

On cue, someone on the road beyond the alley honked. Another car honked back in protest. Gwyneth’s chest heaved.

As jarring falling through that little door had been days ago, this felt worse. Moments ago it had been pitch-black sky and the quiet of a castle in slumber. But the heat of midday pressed against her eyes and sounds entered her consciousness: the traffic, someone yelling … laughing. The building next door was all flats, and somewhere far above, a baby cried.

Afraid that it had all been one long dream, a nightmare that secured her a place on the list of the certifiably mad, Gwen cast a long glance down and was relieved to find she was in the same clothes she’d been upon coming out the back door; the same gown she’d put on the previous day, with the golden corset and a hem that skimmed the ground.

With trembling fingers, numb from palm to tip, she reached out and grazed the silver handle. And when she was convinced that it was real – it was all real – she tugged, and pulled it open only to reveal the heavy gray of a working kitchen.

Whatever she had expected, Gwen let go, as though shocked. That quickly, Merlin and Morgana and Arthur were lost to her. Lifting her skirts, she backed away and turned toward the street.

She was not so far gone that it took her more than a minute to recognize her surroundings. It was brighter outside the sanctuary of the alley, probably one or two o’clock, given the number of people with fresh food in their hands. One quick glance into the square, and Gwen knew. Three doors down, Matilda was probably counting cash at the till; in the opposite direction at the corner, the bench she preferred to take her lunch on.

People passed her by, sparing barely a second glance despite her out-of-place dress. When she lowered her hand from her mouth, someone pressed a coin into her palm. As though she were a street performer.

The word that she dared not utter aloud rang out in her mind like a blessing and a curse at once. Home. … Though she had only just accepted that it might be something far different than what she had long imagined. She’d been preparing to adjust, and here she was, thrust upon her world again. Only when another stranger dropped something pityingly into her palm did she snap out of her reverie.

Ten minutes and a few wrong turns later, Gwen was climbing the stairs toward her flat, taking them two at a time as she held her dress high enough to spring without tripping. Beads of sweat formed beneath the loose curls that carved delicate shapes into her brow.

The fluorescent lights – and even the sky, now overcast, visible through the small stairwell windows – all felt utterly unfamiliar, like relics of an ancient age. She slowed as she scaled the last few steps, catching her breath as she approached her own door. She gripped the knob and paused resting her forehead against the paint as she scratched absently at the keyhole and remembered she hadn’t taken anything with her, had nothing more than the clothes on her back.

But she turned it nonetheless, and it gave way, creaking inward and open.

She stood, frozen in the threshold. Her coat hung from the closet knob. One slipper – she didn’t know where the other was – hung by the wall close to the door to the loo. There were no lights on, but she could hear the telly yammering in the living room.

… And at the end of the hallway, Lance looked up at her from his spot, hunched over on her couch. He stared, stupefied and horrified and very, very relieved. He rose slowly, until the angle of the light cast shadows beneath dark eyes, and her heart ached for him.

So Gwen said the only thing she could think of. “I’m sorry,” she announced before stepping through the doorway, the sound of her slippers light and foreign on linoleum.

Even from such a distance, she could see him working his jaw, holding in whatever deserved response he had prepared for something more even. Though she had not thought of him often, Gwyneth was suddenly very glad to see him and his handsome, worried face.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated dully, and before he could speak, Gwen was on him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she pulled herself tight against him and held fast. Her face was buried in his shoulder. As always, he smelled like her favorite soap and the damned cologne she hated so much; Gwyneth could not have been more grateful. “Very, very sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he mumbled, and when she did not let go, his arms wrapped around her back, reached for her hair, stroking the tresses until his fingers curled into the base of her neck.

But everything was rushing at her, the present and the past few days … and the threat that had for a moment been her future, a future being burnt at the stake by Uther or worse. It all pressed against her consciousness, and she squeezed him tighter before pulling back enough to meet his eye. “I really do.”

Lancelot glanced down between them, still holding her at the waist. When he met her eyes again, he looked upon her with the rare hint of anger. “Seventy-six texts.”

Gwen eased her way out of his grip and cast a long glance around her living room. It was full of light, almost precisely as she’d left it, though a blanket was bunched on one end of the sofa and a match was on the television. Her mind was spinning. “How did you get in?” she asked suddenly, and instantly bit her tongue.

His brow furrowed. “Spare key, remember?”

“Oh.” She hadn’t. “Right.”

His lips formed a neat line, and he lowered her to the ground once more. “… Is that all?”

“Yes—” Gwen shifted awkwardly beneath his gaze, wiping her free palm against her dress, leaving a slightly dirty stain on the bodice. “Er, no. … But I really need to brush my teeth.”

Before Lance could object, she’d turned away from him, blew past her bedroom and into the darkened bathroom. Nervously, she fumbled for the light switch, then fixed her gaze on her toothbrush.

Less easily deterred than he often was, he appeared in the door frame – and the mirror – as she ran water over a dollop of Aquafresh and started brushing, furiously, methodically.

“You not going to say where you’ve been?” he asked slowly, gripping the panel as he watched her spit and put more toothpaste on the brush.

Where I’ve been. Gwen spat again. “I wouldn’t know how to explain it.”

“Well you’ve got to say something,” he disagreed, easing around until he flicked the cover of the toilet down and took a seat, staring up at her as she brushed, spat, and added more toothpaste. She had no mouthwash; that was going to be a problem.

When she didn’t answer, Lancelot reached for her dress, giving a gentle tug at her side. “I told your boss you were ill—”

Gwen reached her palm under the running faucet, taking a swig of the fresh water and spitting again. “That was nice of you—”

“Didn’t want you to lose your job.”

She twisted the knob, licked her teeth and hovered over the bowl for a long moment, casting a long glance his way. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“Yeah, well … It’s not every day someone disappears.”

Blushing anxiously, Gwyneth turned away from him, gently pulling out of his grip as she reached for a hand towel to dab her mouth dry. Disappearing was an easy way to think of it … a very easy out. And that was it for him, wasn’t it? She bit down slightly on the fabric, taking a long moment to stare at the wall and think.

She was gone, and now she was home. The perfect end to a very strange story.

It should’ve satisfied her.

The toilet seat creaked a little as Lance shifted his weight, then stood. “You scared me.”

Guilt twisted in her stomach, like a knot. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled into the towel, then turned to face him again. He had more stubble than usual, but then he always put off shaving when he was worried. Gwen glanced out the door and at her regular coat. “If it helps,” she offered, “I didn’t know I was going to be gone so long.”

“It doesn’t really,” he admitted, but when Gwyneth looked upon him again, she saw the beginnings of a smile on his face. “You can make it up to me at the pub, though.”

“The pub.”

“My treat.” He ducked his head and shrugged, still bewildered. “Aren’t you hungry?”

For a beat, she stared at him. Everything was suddenly very normal. She was her and he was Lance, and they had their way around each other. Gwen felt herself nod before she could tell whether the pit in her stomach was hunger or something else. “Sure,” she mumbled, appreciative and ambivalent.

He nodded again, and sidestepped past her through the door. “I’ll … give you a moment. To get changed, or whatever it is you need to do.”

But before she could thank him, or insist that she didn’t need to change, that maybe it was best she had some food and a drink now, or say that she didn’t feel very hungry but it would be nice to watch the match and just think a while … her eyes caught the spot that he’d been blocking where he stood. On the wall, hovering just above the center of her tub, four dark lines creating a small, neat square in the wall. It was the proper size for a child, more than a little tight for an adult. But Gwen had slim shoulders and a penchant for making poor decisions, and she was a little nosy.

How quickly circumstances could overwhelm the mind; how keen she had been to forget.

They would be looking for her.

When she reappeared in the living room, Lance had been flipping idly through the channels, his leg jiggling as he tapped his phone on his knee. It took a moment to notice her silent entrance, and when he looked up at her, he was wide-eyed and weary. “What?”

This is the most reckless thing I’ve ever done. “You’re not going to be happy about this,” Gwyneth announced, her hands balled into fists at either side, a sad smile pressing her lips upward. “… I’ve got to go, again.”

Lancelot blinked. “Where?”

“Back. To where I was.”

“… And where was that?”

“Sort of far away.” She paused, and reconsidered. “Very far.”

Tossing away the remote, Lance sighed and wiped his palm on his thigh, searching for an answer he would never find in Gwen’s face. “Why don’t we just sit down—”

“No,” she replied promptly, and a swell of delirious, apologetic laughter threatened to escape her. “No, there are people who will be looking for me, so I’ve got to be going. Soon.”

“I was looking for you.”

“I know. And I love that about you, and there’s no way that this is … anything less than terribly selfish, and very shitty. You’re … so good to me. But this is something I have to do.”

Confusion gave way to something else, something far sadder between them. Lancelot shifted his weight, glancing at his feet before he met her eye once more. Though she wanted to give him whatever moment he needed, she could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen … time spinning here and there. “… You’re talking like this is forever. Or something.”

Gwen’s lips twitched into a remorseful smile. “I don’t need to be looked after anymore.”

“Gwen,” He approached her, beseeching. “I promised your dad—”

“I made some promises too,” she interrupted gently. “A few more than you did.”

When that seemed insufficient, Gwen turned and ducked into her bedroom. The shades were drawn and the light remained dim, but she went straight for her nightstand, feeling around in the darkness for her mobile. It only had half a battery left, but that was enough … there were no satellites to speak of anyway. With the same familiarity, she reached for her dresser and pulled open the top drawer, bypassing bras and knickers for the small box at the back. Lancelot watched from the doorway as she stuck her mother and father’s wedding bands on her middle finger, stacking them delicately past the knuckle.

She turned back to face him, holding her phone high. “If I have reception,” she announced, closing the door behind her, “I’ll call you.”

“Gwen—”

“Lance.” Without hesitation, she pressed her free palm into his cheek. She was resolved, as resolved as she had ever been about anything, and her heart fluttered wildly in her chest as she rose onto her toes and pressed a long kiss into his cheek. “I’m going to do this,” Gwyneth murmured with as much finality she could summon, and when she pulled back to look at him, he gave no sign of understanding other than remorseful acceptance. “But you should go to the pub.”

He nodded slowly, and she stroked his rough cheek one last time. “So I can’t change your mind is what you’re saying.”

Her heart only raced faster as she shook her head. “No.” When she found his eyes again, they were rooted to a spot on the ground; Gwen wondered if she had ever caused him greater hurt than now. She had put him through the paces, to be sure … but she’d never had cause to lie to him. And where she withheld, he had shared more of himself – had always shared more of himself – to compensate. Gwen cupped his cheeks between warm palms, forcing him gently to meet her gaze. “You changed me forever, you know.” She paused, willing him to understand what she could not tell him. “Do you believe that?”

When no words formed on his lips, she kissed his cheek again and hugged him one last time. “Call Elaine again,” Gwen mumbled into his shirt, and his arms wrapped tighter around her. “She’s clever, and she’s funny, and she likes footie more than me.”

“It won’t be weird?” he asked, disbelieving.

Of this, Gwen was more certain than ever. “Not at all.”

His mouth fell to her hair. “Why should I?” he asked, barely audible as he took what moments she was willing to grant him.

“Because you deserve to be happy too.”

… He said nothing. But she let him kiss her forehead, and promised to call if she could.

And minutes later, she was on her hands and knees, going through the looking glass again.

Part Five

Fic: What Grew Inside Who

imigination — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:30:58 GMT

Title: What Grew Inside Who (5/5)
Author: imigination
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana, Uther, Tom, Lancelot, Arthur/Gwen, minor Gwen/Lancelot
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 46,000
Warning: Modern AU/Canon crossover, based loosely on Lost in Austen.
Disclaimer: I have few Earthly possessions, and Merlin certainly isn’t one of them.

Summary: When a modern day Gwen takes a tumble through her crawlspace door, she discovers what truly lies on the other side of the looking glass.

Art Link: The incredibly talented shan_3414 made graphics and an accompanying fanmix for this story, and I couldn’t be more grateful. You can find them here; please, show her some love! ♥

Author’s Notes: No amount of words I could put here would do justice to the thanks that are due to so many people, so please take a moment to peek here to see those to whom I owe infinite gratitude.

The grit was sharp beneath her palms, dug through the fabric of her skirts and pressed into her knees like sharp little points, far more painful than it had been the first time. With her lips pressed into a thin line, and the light of her toilet at her back, Gwyneth pressed forward, afraid and unwavering.

Before her, there was naught but silence, and light. How quickly morning had come again, golden haze pressing against the outline of her exit.

As Lancelot left her, pleading with his gaze for her to begin to think reasonably, to confide in him as she had never been able to, Gwen realized there was no good reason to go back. Uther saw through her poorly foisted charade; she was transparent to him, as he was to her. She had no good defense, no argument to mount against the quiet tyrant, and for all she knew she was crawling toward her end.

But at least there was an end. She had looked past Lancelot’s face and saw Arthur in her mind’s eye … worried for her, his charge disappeared before he’d had the chance to say goodbye. She saw Morgana, alone with dutiful Miriam, and Merlin left to pick up the pieces. And she saw Tom.

With them in her heart, she took one last deep breath, flattening her hand against the door through which she’d passed once before. Then, strange wind had prompted her to go through. Now the choice was naught but her own.

A good deal more gracefully than her first time, Gwyneth pushed it open and slid through, creeping along the ground until her feet came over the edge and she could hunch beside the statue that blocked her view down the opposite end of the hallway. Rocking back on her heels until she was flat against the wall, she heard her door click behind her … shutting, perhaps disappearing again, forever.

She cast a glance down at her dress – sullied down from her journey there and back again – and attempted to straighten her skirt into something like presentable as she rose off the floor.

Time had once again escaped her. Someone was carrying on below, though it did not sound quite like Uther himself. This time, no guards or servants passed her by or drove her forward. With nervous calm – stillness before the storm – Gwyneth crossed the hall toward Arthur’s door once again, as she had that first day. She pressed her ear against it, though she knew she would hear nothing through the wooden panels. Steeling herself – lest one of the knights, or some other unwelcome person were inside – Gwen raised a steady hand and knocked. Without awaiting a response, she tugged the door open and peered a cautious eye in.

Inside she did not find an alley behind a pub, an entryway back to her own world again. Gwen opened the door and found Arthur’s chambers as they should be, large and warm and welcoming, perfectly neat and quiet. And though she did not see him at first, her eye eventually settled upon a still figure by the window, turning a sheathed sword against the floor as he peered out the window, lost in thoughts unknown to her. The door groaned softly as she pushed her way in, closing it softly behind her.

“I said I didn’t want to be disturbed,” mumbled Arthur just loud enough for her to hear. He sounded sour, not sad, and Gwen was sure that – had she been Merlin – she would’ve gotten an earful.

Unable to think of anything particularly clever, she eased her way in and around his table, pausing with her fingers holding the corner. “I hope that’s not because of me,” she murmured.

He turned in an instant, jerking his head, then his shoulders round until he was facing her fully, his bottom lip still tugged up in as princely a pout as he could muster. Gwen did not smile, did not shift beneath the weight of his gaze. She stood tall and quiet, and for a moment she wondered if he would scold her for returning.

His expression remained unreadable, and for a fearful moment Gwen wondered if she was at the start again, if he had no memory of her, and she had risked all on a misunderstanding of this reality. But he shook his head slightly, gripping the hilt of his sword tighter. “Why did you come back?”

She shrugged her shoulders slightly, her cheeks flushed warm. “I was hoping there was still a place for me.”

“You’d risk your life on hope?” he answered, incredulous, eyes searching. “That’s not very wise, Gwen.”

The corners of her lips tugged upward gently, sadly. “It’s the wisest thing.”

When Arthur did not speak, only watched her with dark, wet eyes, Gwen shifted again and reached out to fiddle with the tusk of the boar’s head sitting beside a bowl of fruit. “You think it was a bad idea?”

“The worst.”

“Well, I think everything will be fine,” she lied, and forced a full smile though she felt ill. “Has it been a day? Things should’ve blown over by now.”

It took only moments for Arthur to cross the room. He set his blade down on the table haphazardly, eyes and hands reaching for Gwen as she reached for him, fisting the material of his tunic as she was pulled into his embrace.

His thumbs swept along the corners of her jaw as their mouths met. Her nose pressed uncomfortably into his cheek as they kissed, and she twisted in his grip, tugging him closer by the belt as she found the comfortable spot and caught his bottom lip between hers, her lashes grazing the delicate skin beneath his closed eyes. Arthur’s fingertips drew delicate lines into her neck as he held onto her, the surprise of her return heating him.

Gwyneth’s mind was swimming, and she knew, as her hands wound their way up his torso, pressing flat into his chest, gripping the collar of his tunic, that she needed to be thinking … they needed to be thinking, rather than doing this. But their short time apart suddenly felt like an age. His head twisted to the side, willing her mouth open as he deepened the kiss, and for a moment, she was lost.

Thankfully, Merlin was happy to draw them back to their senses.

“Oh,” he started, clutching the door handle behind him as he leaned his weight on it, clicking it shut once more. Gwen pulled away from Arthur in time to see him turn and pat it, wincing. “You’re back!” he mumbled into the wood, now pressed against the tip of his nose.

She was out of Arthur’s hands and stumbling toward him in an instant. “I hope this doesn’t feel creepy,” she mumbled, letting her skirts go just as he turned around to face them once more, cheeks red and a dopey smile on his face.

Without hesitation, she threw her arms over Merlin’s shoulders, yanking him close before he had an opportunity to object. “It’s only been an hour, but I’ve missed you,” she sighed, squeezing him until he patted her back, no doubt begging for release.

“Half a day, more like,” he corrected, but not before an obligatory embrace. She pulled back in time to catch Arthur approaching them, a mischievous light passing quietly behind his eyes.

Gwen looked up at him and pressed her fingers to her mouth, still warm and damp from his kiss. She wanted to be bashful, for things to be amusing and all right, but the tension in his brow returned just that quickly, if it had ever left at all. Though her lips were pursed, prepared to ask the obvious, Merlin interrupted her prepared remarks as he eased his way between she and Arthur.

“Sir Leon’s party has returned from a trip around the perimeter of the village,” he began, turning to direct the last of his statement to her directly. “Obviously he had nothing to report.”

She swallowed thickly, withdrawing her hand from her mouth. “They were looking for me?”

Arthur ducked his head, but Merlin continued to look at her straight on. “Your disappearance only fueled the king’s suspicion—”

“On sight, I am supposed to present you to him—”

“Where did you go?” demanded Merlin, squaring his shoulders at her. Gwyneth’s mind raced as she scrambled for a solution to an unsolvable problem. Of course, Uther believed her to be a witch. There was nothing to suggest she was not; she had done more to fuel that notion than the sorcerer and sorceress that resided in his own house.

Gwen shook her head, turning away briefly to put some distance between herself and the pair of them. “Home. … By accident.”

Arthur, too, started back toward the window, arms crossed over his chest and head low. Whatever fleeting joy she had felt at being reunited sank further under the weight of the consequences of her choice. There was no way to undo this damage, no magic she knew of that could convince the king of her veracity. Unbeknownst to himself, Tom was about to lose another daughter.

Merlin followed her direction, imploringly. “I know you don’t have magic, Gwyneth, but you must tell me how you managed it—”

“It just happened!” For the umpteenth time that day, her mind was reeling, her thoughts spinning faster than she herself could follow. “I was here … and then I was there, and I saw the way back and … it seemed like the right thing to do.”

For a beat, they stood in silence, the three of them. The same guilt that had twisted her stomach into knots with Lance worked at her now; she had put them in an impossible situation, impossible to solve and impossible to undo.

Merlin’s voice was soft when he spoke again. “Perhaps … we should hide you. Or send you somewhere safer—”

“We can’t send Gwen away,” disagreed Arthur immediately, and he looked up at her from beneath fallen lashes.

The thought troubled her too; she would prefer to face the consequences than be set out upon this old world alone. She’d chosen Camelot, and for better or worse, she would remain here.

But Merlin objected. “What can we tell your father?”

“I suppose the truth is out of the question,” she mumbled, folding her hands in front of her.

“He’d never understand it.” With a heavy sigh, Merlin sagged and pressed his hands flat against Arthur’s table. “There’s been too many mishaps, too many people who’ve come to court and demonstrated their will against him—”

“Too much magic,” scowled Arthur, though he looked between Gwen and Merlin, contrite. “Anything short of the ordinary is an offense.”

There really is no hope, she thought … and while regret did not rear its ugly head, remorse did. Arthur and Merlin’s faces were drawn into parallel scowls, unwilling to concede defeat and unwilling to accept the inevitable.

Their spirits sat lower than ever before. “This place where you’re from,” wondered Merlin absently, turning Arthur’s scabbard in his hands, “Is it nice?”

“It’s like any old place,” Gwen replied softly, watching him fiddle with the blade … her father’s work no doubt. Truer words had never been said about Hammersmith; it was standard, and she’d led a standard life there … one she could never return to. It was a part of the city as old as anything, and she was not the first or last to look for satisfaction outside its malleable borders.

“It would be better if you were Mercian,” chuckled Merlin darkly, looking to Arthur for agreement. “Or from Cenred’s kingdom.”

He raised his head after a beat, meeting Gwen’s eye squarely. Though there were still lines etched into his face, lines of worry, something new had entered his visage. “I think Gwyneth is right.”

“About what?” demanded Merlin. Her nerves were too tightly wound to object to the disbelief in his voice.

Arthur approached the table again, reaching for the edge as he worked something out in his mind. He glanced up at Gwen with more faith than she had seen from him before. “We should tell my father the truth.”

*

For one blissful moment, she was blind. Lost in folds of fabric as they cascaded over her shoulders, swirling around her neck and torso, swallowing her whole, Gwyneth took a long, deep breath, focusing on the smell of lavender salts rather than the sound of her heart, pounding away in her ears. Dutifully, Morgana tugged gently downward, called upon to a duty she rarely performed for herself.

Their eyes met in the mirror as Gwen reemerged, catching glimpse of her reflection in the elder Lady’s mirror. Without hesitation, Morgana went to work on the ties of her own gown as she tightened it around her ill-fated companion’s waist. Each tug rocked Gwen, sent another shiver down her spine as she strained her ears for the sound of fast-approaching footsteps.

Morgana glanced up at the pair of them in the mirror. Whatever belief she held about her friend’s end, she held it at bay, instead working away at tightening the fitted corset of her white gown. Gwen’s stomach gurgled, impatient and loud, and the calm that she’d worked so furiously to achieve threatened to give way.

“Don’t be frightened,” instructed Morgana finally, reaching steady hands to squeeze Gwyneth’s shoulders. The gesture, while appreciated, did little to calm her nerves, and she was thankful that Morgana busied herself with the drape of the skirt and the way the sleeves fell rather than Gwen’s own doubts.

Out the window, birds sang and early afternoon tune. In Gwen’s mind, all she heard was the metallic slice of Marie Antoinette’s guillotine. Uther’s way of dispatching practitioners of magic was likely far less humane.

Gwen licked her lips. “I’m not.”

Kindly, Morgana did not bat an eye, stepping back to admire her work. “Uther fears everything and trusts no one, but I believe your resolve will see you through, Gwen.”

“There’s not a whole lot to resolve,” she muttered nervously. Instantly, she regretted injecting any pessimism into the day; she needed all the faith she herself could muster, or others were willing to bestow.

When she glanced up again at Morgana, the king’s ward was plucking a still-fresh bloom from the bouquet Gwen had brought her not a day earlier. “I had another dream,” she murmured, pressing the broken bud into Gwen’s limp palm. She closed her fingers around it, sparing the petals any damage, but holding onto the step for dear life. She glanced up at Morgana, unable to speak, but eager for whatever reassuring lie she had.

“It was of you,” she continued, reaching for a pin for her own dark tresses. Gwen watched her reflection as she twisted waves into an elegant chignon, feigning ease where none existed. “You were walking in the sun, midday. Unharmed.”

A bitter smile passed over Gwen’s lips. “Are you sure it wasn’t fire?”

Morgana’s gaze was unwavering. “Certain.”

A loose curl grazed Gwen’s forehead and she shot a little puff of air towards it, until it lifted and curved inelegantly back over her scalp, doomed to fall again. With all the fear in her heart, she wondered vaguely if Merlin had been able to locate the book he promised would be in Geoffrey’s room of record.

But her friend’s hand on hers – long fingers squeezing the right places, begging that Gwen might heed her word. “This was always your job.”

“What was?” she asked, holding Morgana’s grip, though she felt fidgety as she strained to hear the sound of approaching soldiers. Outside the door, Gwen could hear voices, but no commotion. There were also footsteps … and she tensed, still unable to distinguish between a gaggle of servants and a regiment of the guard. But as her heart began to pound wildly, and the patter drew closer, her attention was drawn back to the present with a gentle tug of the hand.

She looked up. Morgana eyed her with knowing pity. “Reassuring us all.”

In those clear open eyes, Gwen saw, and knew.

The knock was perfunctory, hardly gave time for Morgana to call a response. It swung open on its hinges, held back from slamming into the wall by a tall knight’s hand. Inwardly, Gwen jumped, still startled by the sudden intrusion as a bevy of men – some in cloaks and others with helmets – flooded inward … six in total, as though she’d require force to comply with whatever their will might be.

Blessedly, there was no shouting. “We’re here on order from the king,” said the tallest man, after inclining his head toward Morgana, who had stepped forward between the guards and Gwen herself.

“The king has never seen fit to deliver me word by more than his own voice,” snapped Morgana, eyeing them angrily. “And it’s impolite to enter without permission.”

He looked slightly pained, but hardly enough to deter him from doing his job. “Lady Gwyneth is under arrest. We … neglected to search here, but it was indicated that she could be found with you.”

As though she didn’t know. “Arrest for what?” demanded Morgana, regardless. “Her ladyship is a guest in this house—”

“Surely you have heard by now—”

Though she appreciated the defense, Gwen would face her accusers with dignity. Despite the nerves that coiled in her belly, she stepped forward to Morgana’s side with her chin held high. It was as easy as the first lesson she’d received here in Camelot: do not look guilty.

“I don’t believe she has,” she interrupted, holding her ground even as the knight gestured toward her, and two guards stepped out of formation and moved to seize her. She kept her focus on the knight, eyeing him irritably as the men grabbed her by the elbows, yanking her forward. “I hadn’t myself.”

“You’ve fallen under charges of sorcery,” he answered unemotionally. “You’ll be coming with us.”

Morgana was not so easily deterred, despite all that she knew. Gwen could feel her fury radiating at her back, even as she stumbled forth to the center of the group, getting caught on the hem of her dress as she was jerked to a halt in the doorway. “Release her now,” hissed Morgana, “I am the king’s ward, you have to heed what I say!”

Her words went ignored, by the knight and the guards and Gwen herself. She was stumbling again, pulled faster than she could keep her bearings, down the stairs just outside of Morgana’s door. She wanted to curse as she tripped and landed hard on her still-sore ankle, but Gwyneth knew she needed to give them no more fodder. Casting a quick glance over her shoulder as she came down the steps two at a time, she glimpsed Morgana one last time … arguing with the knight that remained in her doorway.

He seemed reasonable enough, and she and the guards flanking her came to the landing, she looked back once more, expecting to wait for him.

But she was jerked forward again, and the hold on the crook of her arm only tightened. “Keep up,” snipped one of her captors, and without their leader, they continued to pull her into the bowels of the castle, out of the light and into the darkness of a corridor in shadow.

“Aren’t we going to wait for him?” hissed Gwen as they turned the corner, away from the second stairwell she knew led to the throne room.

“Orders are to take you directly to the council chambers.”

She flexed her muscles, digging her heels into the ground, astonished. They had come up with a plan, and this was not part of it. “Wait,” she commanded without fear, but anger. “This isn’t the way—”

A different voice, equally male and slightly more displeased in tone piped up behind her. “King’s orders,” he reiterated from behind her shoulder. Even as she tried to hold her ground, her feet dragged forward, betrayed her.

“I can walk.”

Someone had the nerve to give her a slight shove, even though she had straightened enough to proceed without any more pulling. She shot him a glare over her shoulder; that was certainly not Arthur’s standard for his men. “Don’t touch me.”

An insistent grip on the left pulled her attention away again. “Keep up!” he snapped from beneath his helmet.

“Unhand her.”

Arthur’s voice cut through the hall like a knife, and Gwyneth was caught on her hem again as they skidded to a quick stop, the guards on her arms whirling around while maintaining their grip, seeking out the eyes of the crown prince.

Uncomfortable though it was, Gwen twisted in their hands to see him. He stepped out of the dark archway, imperious. His features were drawn tight as he approached, almost silky with his steps, clearly working to hold back some of his fury. His duty was to his country, and she was supposedly a threat. But even Arthur’s best acting could not hide his care for her.

“Release her,” he repeated, his voice low and dangerous, “Now.”

Hands that clutched her elbows became fingertips. “Sire, the King has ordered—”

“I know my father’s orders.” Arthur cast a cool glance? look? between the five of them, sparing Gwen no glance. “Whatever the case, Lady Gwyneth is a lady and is to be treated as such. Save the roughing up for those who deserve it.”

A bearded guard relented first and stepped away from her entirely. “Yes, my lord.”

A chorus of “Yes, sires,” rang out as Arthur closed the distance, coming to rest between the scattered guards and Gwen herself. Though she wanted to reach for her arms, to rub where they had been squeezing and pulling and give him some sort of reassuring smile, her face remained straight and her stance, stoic.

“Thank you, my lord,” she muttered, focusing on the gaze that would not meet her eye.

“Do not thank me,” he replied, looking past her and down the hall. “It’s the King’s forgiveness you will have to beg.”

The words still stung, whatever the circumstances. Gwen did not want her voice to tremble and betray her, so she nodded her understanding and turned to face the end of the hallway once more.

She thought he might reach for her arm, that he might offer some secret, gentle comfort as they walked. But he stepped around her leading with the expectation she would follow. With dignity, Gwen followed at his shoulder, the guards preventing any escape from behind. They walked in silence – all of them – as though they were heading to the scaffold itself.

A steadying breath did nothing to calm her as they descended another flight of stairs. Outside the passing windows she could see the city, bright and wonderfully alive. Light lit up her shoulder, and Arthur’s hair as they walked the twisted staircase … and in watching the town flit in and out of view, she almost missed Arthur’s backward glance, which flickered up past her and landed on her face before he turned to offer a hand off the bottom step.

Gwen resisted the temptation. Whether he could play the part or not, she held her chin steady and clasped her hands in front of her, making a show of her obstinacy. There was nothing amusing about the moment as she landed, flat-footed, on the floor, and out the corner of her eye she could already see the heavy doors of Uther’s council chambers.

But beyond the view of the still descending guards with his back turned toward them, Arthur dared to smirk. And though it was petulant and arrogant and so many things she wanted to dislike, it was as wonderful as the first time he graced her with the look at the banquet … or when he looked upon her and declared her ‘Gwyneth the Witch.’

Deep inside, something swooped and laid warm. She couldn’t bring herself to smile sweetly in return, so she trusted her eyes might say the things she could not speak. … Thing she could whisper to him in the darkness, should she live.

As quickly as the look came over him, it passed, and the placid mask took shape on his features once more. “This way,” he grunted, and strode off so fast that she took a few quick steps at a jog to keep up. He watched the outer wall as he walked, keeping track of her in the periphery of his gaze.

There was no more fear to feign now; she was afraid. She was as afraid as she had ever been – ever had cause to be – and though she did not permit herself tears or pleas for mercy in advance of the king’s company, it took nearly all her will not to run, to regret the choice to face Uther and escape as she always managed to. On this occasion, she would face her demon with head held high, no matter the consequences.

Arthur gave a curt nod to the men at the door who gripped their weapons a little tighter as Gwen approached. At the prince’s signal, they tugged the doors open to reveal a nearly empty room of stone … and the tyrant king, recumbent in his throne.

A cool breeze told her that the guards gave her what space they found permissible as she passed through the threshold and into Uther’s domain, and her legs shook beneath her. A quick survey of the room revealed three or so knights, young but with appropriately scornful scowls upon their faces. Beyond all expectation, Morgana slipped into her seat just as the doors closed behind Gwyneth through a passageway blocked by rock columns. Near the front too hovered Merlin, and the old man he’d stood with once before, his eyes heavy upon her.

‘Afraid’ now felt like a lesser word. She tried to walk with dignity, but the slant of Uther’s mouth already seemed to spell her doom.

Unable to help herself, Morgana’s lip curled though she did not rise from her seat at the king’s side. “What is this?” she muttered with disgust, cutting angry eyes toward her keeper.

Though Gwen could see it plainly, Uther did not catch his ward’s meaning. “You have evaded us,” he began, casting a long gaze at Arthur. “How did you discover her?”

He tensed at her side, gripping his hands behind him. “A more thorough sweep of the castle revealed Lady Gwyneth whereabouts,” he admitted. Though he held steady, Gwen could detect the caution in his answer, though his eyes remained trained on his father.

Her skin was tingling, and she jumped a little as Uther rose from his seat to address her. The dark king’s gray gaze seemed to penetrate her very thoughts, beckoned the truth where she wanted to stick to her pre-reasoned answers.

Don’t be frightened.

“You have been charged with the use of magic to subvert this kingdom,” the king accused silkily. “Do you deny it?”

All eyes fell upon her … even Arthur’s. She was untethered, had no bounds to speak of. But she felt caged.

Gwyneth licked her dry lips and met his eye, holding her jaw tight. “I do.”

The words spilled from Uther’s lips and her mind spun. He extended a gloved hand without looking once at the page who handed him the sheet of parchment. “Since your arrival here there have been numerous reports of a creature manifest within the town’s borders—”

“I … am a loyal servant to you as long as I am a guest here, my lord,” blurted Gwen, heat burning her cheeks red. Though her wrists were not bound, she wished she had something to strain against other than the sound of his voice.

“But you are no guest,” he snapped. Nervously, she looked left at Merlin before meeting the king’s gaze again. She swallowed, unsteady as he took two steps toward her, the brunt of his anger palpable. “There is no evidence of a party from your ‘Hammersmith,’ attacked and left for dead in the woods.”

Her chest rose and fell at a steady pace. “… It was not the whole truth I told you, my lord,” she confessed. The words felt sweet and light on her lips.

Uther nodded, finished. But Gwen, unflinching, continued before he could hand down her death sentence.

“I was not separated from my party, sire,” she continued loudly, drawing his attention back as he turned his back to her. “Hammersmith as I knew it was lost. My home was parted from me, and I from it.”

“That says nothing about the borders of Camelot—”

“I was lost,” she interrupted. One or two sharp looks refocused on her, the king’s included. It was not so often he was cut off, but Gwen felt the warmth of her very life in her tightly clasped hands. “I was lost and I ended up here, and I was lucky enough to fall under the blessed purview of your own son.”

Uther squared his shoulders with her, and to her right, Arthur with him. “You are bold to name your manipulation of the crown prince as your defense.”

Gwyneth did not allow herself to be ruffled by the accusation. This, too, was utter truth: “Arthur treated me with more kindness that a person often finds in the world. … He is everything that is wonderful about this place.”

A beat of silence passed as they remained at a stand off. Uther seemed to be considering her story, but Gwen knew that he might bring the axe down at any moment. When he spoke up again, his voice was soft once more, suspicious. “This is no excuse for magic.”

“That was not magic sire—”

“You have been an apparition in many forms—”

“Father.” Arthur stepped into plain view, ramrod straight his arms still locked behind his back. His scabbard swung gently at his side as he cast one backward glance at her before continuing. “We have had trouble with veracity of witnessed reports before. The Witchfinder himself suggested the … fallibility of claims.”

“Do not let your heart blind your eyes,” admonished Uther. “You are foolish.”

“There is not one claim against Lady Gwyneth that suggests subversion or magic – only that she was suspect. I saw to her clothes myself; that responsibility rests with me.”

Her stomach churned involuntarily as she evaluated Uther’s expression against her mounting defense. The inside of her lip bled as she bit down on it, awaiting a turn in the tide. Out the corner of her eye, more than one knight still gripped the hilt of his blade, tense.

But the king seemed to be weighing something in his mind, sorting some part of her story out as he evaluated this simple, awkward burden from another land within his own borders. She looked past Arthur and held his gaze.

“… Your disappearance upon my call for your arrest is telling,” he grunted, searching for some tell in her features.

At that, Morgana spoke, draped elegantly over her throne still. She had promised to feign ambivalence, or at least a lack of vested interest, but there was no mistaking the penetrating anger of her clear gaze as she spoke. “Lady Gwen was by my side,” she interrupted, gesturing long fingers toward her. “We’ve become fast friends, and we went undisturbed by the guards.”

“My instructions were that the whole castle be thoroughly searched.”

“… But the king’s ward obviously has your full faith.” Morgana tilted her head imploringly, “What need would the guards have had to disturb me in pursuit of a criminal?”

“None,” admitted Uther instantly, earnestly. His head inclined toward the floor as he gripped his belt and agreed with Lady Morgana.

Finally: “… And what of this ‘Hammersmith’?”

Gwyneth held her ground. “My lord?”

He glowered at her. “I know all the corners of this land, and I have never heard of such a place.”

This was the question she had no answer to. Arthur turned, slightly helpless, back toward her … awaiting some response. But Gwen looked to gangly Merlin, whose lips were held tight in a thin line, as though he had discovered nothing … nothing that might save her from the flames at her back.

Then, the old man in red spoke. His growling drawl warmed and shocked her, and for the first time in a day, she had cause to hope. “I have heard of such a place,” he offered, raising an eyebrow at her before he turned to face his sovereign. “But I only know it by its proximity to what was once Caer Troia.”

Uther flinched. “Is this true, Gaius?”

He clasped his hands in front of him and rolled his shoulders. “I had believed it to be destroyed long ago—”

“Not long ago!” blurted Gwen again, unable to help herself. For the first time, her words became pleading, though they remained as sincere as she could manage. “The part of Caer Troia I knew was … just, so very alive, my lord. And though it’s gone now, I had a life there … and so many others did too.”

He remained unconvinced. “And what remains?”

Gaius answered in her stead. “The king was supplanted long ago.” He paused and gave Merlin a telling look as Uther turned his back toward her, weighing his advisor’s words. “… It is possible the city has redefined its borders.”

“It will rise again,” sighed Gwen, and this she believed with her whole heart. “It’ll be great, and beautiful … I believe it. But until then, I have no home to speak of.”

Her thee friends watched her. But she watched Uther and the deepening wrinkle in his brow.

*

Her poor horse.

Gwen had never been a rider, had never had cause to master the art of equestrianism when there were chores to do and after school jobs to attend to. But she’d read more than a few books and seen a fair number of movies in her life, and if she knew anything it was that any rider worth her weight earned her horse’s trust with calm and self-assurance. This horse would sense neither from Gwen, but he behaved well all the same.

“Still too stiff,” admonished Morgana at her left, guiding her charge easily with one hand on the reigns as she evaluated Gwen’s tense posture. Beneath her, the great white beast shifted, edging right over a patch of particularly good looking grass, but did not bend his head to eat. Instead, he waited patiently for her to readjust her position in the saddle and try to guide him again.

With a great sigh, Gwen did her best to slouch a little into her seat, pressing the arch of her feet down against the smooth metal of her stirrups. “Right. Relax.”

“That’s the only rule,” agreed Morgana, chuckling lightly, and her eyes passed over the whole animal, noting the playful flick of his tail. “So patient.”

“He is,” agreed Gwen appreciatively. She dared to let go of the leather strap in one palm long enough to stroke the long neck that arched upward beneath her touch.

The playful, if not teasing lilt of Morgana’s voice nearly made her tense up again. “So are you,” she chuckled, gently urging her own horse to trot forward.

Cantering was too high intensity for Gwyneth still, but trotting she could manage. With a steady squeeze, she caught up to Morgana’s side as they crossed the field in the direction of the stables, the day’s lesson evidently over. “All the credit goes to Arod,” she replied appreciatively. Only four lessons in, and she already felt deeply attached to the horse. His gentle nature betrayed his youthful spirit; that much she could tell already. He was young and liked to run, but he dealt with her all the same.

But when Morgana piped up again, ever the elegant, experienced equestrian, she sounded downright pleased. “True,” she agreed, “But I was referring to Arthur.”

Gwen’s mouth went instantly dry. “I’m sorry?”

“Not many have tolerance for his … tendency toward being an imbecile.” She smirked and looked over her shoulder at Gwen, who had instinctively slowed as she noticed their trajectory back toward the castle. The sound of metal clanging together entered her consciousness where she had been focused on gaining Arod’s confidence before. They were to pass the training grounds; indeed, just before her as they eased down the path were a gaggle of newly minted knights, dodging blows and defending themselves against advances, inevitably under Arthur’s instruction.

“Oh,” Gwen muttered, blanching for reasons beyond her. She cared for Arthur now as she had the moment she arrived in Camelot and the moment she acknowledged her own feelings. Still, as close as they had grown, she had yet to … announce said feelings to Morgana.

But then what secrets could she keep from a seer? Clearly enjoying her advantage, she paused long enough to watch Gwen struggle for a good answer. Morgana laughed, looking toward the training grounds herself. “Heaven knows I didn’t, anyway.”

Gwyneth stalled. “… Arthur and I—”

“Are as plain as day,” finished Morgana, and though the denial was ready on her lips, a stupid smile bloomed instead, much to Gwen’s chagrin. The smile only bolstered the Lady Morgana, who grinned triumphantly in return. “I should’ve known before, when he came to me for that wine—”

Her face was hot, and Gwen almost insisted that they take another way back as she watched Arthur’s figure, gleaming in mail, proceed around the perimeter of the men. “What wine?” she asked dumbly, trying not to get too flustered when Arod again edged right with no intention of running off, but an apparent interest in a patch of taller grass. With a little more confidence, she gave a slight tug at the strap of leather in her left hand and sped up just enough to catch up with Morgana.

Morgana’s hair billowed in the breeze. “He came to me, not long after you arrived, and settled a bet. I made it when we were kids, I barely remembered it, but I figured he was right. Something about someone with the patience for him …”

She still wanted to deny it, but Morgana’s cheeky grin only propelled her to self-effacing laughter.

They crested the hill, side by side, and approached the short stone wall that distinguished the knights’ playground from the rest of the castle’s surrounding field. From the shorter distance, Gwyneth could see that Arthur’s back was to them; whether irritated or riding a wave of ego, he had taken up the sword of one of his men and was now swinging it threateningly at a gangly young bloke, who held up his shield and blocked the prince’s strikes as though for his life.

Merlin, however, noticed them straight away. He had been polishing a pair of boots – always polishing boots – watching the clouds drift overhead. Her and Morgana’s entrance obviously provided a welcome distraction: he dropped the shoes in the dirt and jumped off his bench the moment he laid eyes on them.

“My ladies,” he greeted with a wide grin, jogging lightly around the wall as they slowed (Gwen with some effort) to a stop just by the opening. “Gone for a ride?”

“Lessons,” confessed Gwen, looking wearily to Morgana for affirmation of her lack of progress.

But Morgana was delicate and polite. “A good deal of improvement,” she corrected, meeting Gwen’s eye warmly. “Apparently there is not a prevalence of horses in Hammersmith.”

Gwyneth chuckled and shook her head in Merlin’s direction, grateful to see him already reaching for Arod’s bridle to hold him steady. In Morgana’s grip, Amyr sidled closer playfully. “No, there aren’t,” agreed Gwen, and she stroked the speckled white fur in front of her again.

Unable to resist, she looked up once more toward the men, whose practice regime seemed to grow more vigorous every time she caught it. The poor young boy who Arthur had been advancing on moments earlier was seated to the side, nursing no wounds but certainly a damaged ego. Sir Leon was making far more restrained work of another new lad, who at least had the girth to stand a chance against the senior knight. … And Arthur approached.

Merlin remained oblivious. “Going to ride them in?” he asked, patting Arod’s nose gently. “I know how you love the stables, Gwen,” he laughed. She rolled her eyes and made a note never to complain to her dark haired friend about what stables were supposed to smell like ever again.

Before she could answer, Morgana had taken advantage of Gwen’s admission by default. “Arthur!” she greeted, with the pleasant lilt of a sister about to take the piss. “How wonderful to see you.”

“Morgana,” he drawled in response, drawing out the action of removing his gloves in a manner that would’ve distracted Gwen had she not been so … otherwise distracted. “Charming.”

“I see you’ve broken the spirit of another knight.”

“Can’t build them if you can’t break them,” replied Arthur perfunctorily, and he wrinkled his nose at her before turning his gaze upon Gwen, still perched prettily in her saddle. “Lady Gwyneth,” he murmured in quiet greeting with a smile.

Merlin and Morgana’s eyes fell upon her. She refused to blush.

“My lord,” she replied primly, though her cheeks tensed as she resisted the urge to grin outright.

He was either oblivious, or did not care. Out the corner of her eye, she noticed Merlin’s wide grin as Arthur crossed behind him and toward Arod’s side. “Out for a ride?” he knew how she hated it … or hated how awful she seemed to be at it.

“Lady Gwen is much improved,” interjected Morgana again.

She rolled her eyes. “Better than zero is not much better at all.”

Arthur paused at her knee and offered her a newly bare palm. “I’m sure you have the talent to master this particular task,” he agreed, oblivious to the delight that was surely resonating at Gwen’s side. Even so, and even now after some time, his grin was enough to distract her. She slipped her hand into his, quite ready to dismount after an hour of bouncing up and down and learning the town’s borders.

He helped her down with ease, bearing her weight against his armor and chain mail until her boots were on solid ground once again. She rocked unsteadily against him, still not quite used to the sudden dissonance between sitting on a moving animal and being rooted to the earth. He held her hand long enough for her to get her bearings and relax again, and though she gave him space once she did, Gwen wasn’t particularly eager to let his hand go as she looked up into his face, still flushed from the exertion of working out his men.

Though he watched her for a beat, behind Gwen, someone made a face, and with a small sigh he took a step back. She glanced back over her shoulder at Merlin, who held Arod’s reigns and now held Morgana’s telling gaze.

“I’ll take him in,” volunteered Merlin, holding back laughter. “Goodness knows how much you hate it. … That is, if it’s okay with Arthur.”

Gwyneth was torn between wanting him to say ‘no’ and wanting him to say ‘yes.’ But Arthur’s answer was immediate. “Yes, of course.” Before she could lift an eyebrow, he added, “The Lady Morgana’s too.”

“I’m perfectly capable of handling my own,” she countered promptly, and to make a show of it – sparing Gwen a backwards glance – she sprang off, galloping away at an even clip toward the nearby stables. Merlin, with a smile and a sigh, followed after, moving at a much slower pace as he walked Gwyneth’s horse away, no doubt far more pleased with a mouthful of flowers.

Side by side, they watched their friends depart until distance gave them a little privacy.

Gwen looked to Arthur first, at once shy and wearing a smirk of her own, if only because his strategy remained forever obvious. “Poor Merlin,” she began, tilting her head to one side as she watched him watch his manservant and Morgana off.

“He volunteered,” disagreed Arthur, though the lines in his cheeks and the upturn of his lips suggested that he had more to do with Merlin’s resolve to always create an opening for Arthur than he would like her to believe.

She laughed outright. “Like that means something.”

“A lot, I’ll have you know,” he answered, finally allowing his gaze to settle upon her. “I trust your ride wasn’t too bad.”

Ignoring the two occasions when Arod simply stalled out, like her first car, and refused to walk anywhere … Gwen nodded agreeably. By chance, they’d come upon a couple of farmers who’d been hunting in the forest and made good – and lucky – work of a boar. She smiled, remembering how pleased they had been, despite the initial shock of seeing a bunch of men bearing the weight of a dead animal. “I met some people,” she replied simply, turning to walk beside him back toward the training grounds.

His fingers brushed the back of her knuckles, and when she looked up from the ground again, Arthur was watching her, pleased. “Perhaps tomorrow … we might ride together.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Not in the afternoon! I’ve agreed to visit the baker’s shop.” And before he could object, or complain, Gwen squeezed his wrist and continued, “He promised to make a minced pie out of his share of the pig.” And then, there was the fact that she had held out hope she might visit with Tom …

Were it possible, Arthur’s smile would’ve grown. “Another time then.”

“… Unless you want to come,” she blurted, shrugging her shoulders slightly, “When I said I would stop by, Rolfe seemed pretty happy. I’m sure he’d welcome the opportunity to show off to you.”

Arthur did another one of his long blinks, the ones Gwen was quickly becoming familiar with, as whenever she used a phrase he wasn’t quite certain of. But he beamed away at her, and she remained pleased. “Perhaps I will,” he replied.

They walked a couple more paces in companionable silence, looking over the men. In their instructor’s absence – and even under Leon’s diligent guidance – they’d slowed to a halt, and now seemed to be trading boastful stories instead of studiously practicing their parries.

“Useless,” grumbled Arthur, but Gwen knew there lied nothing but affection beneath his complaint.

She reached up and squeezed his bicep. “Don’t be too hard on them.”

The afternoon sun refracted golden light off his hair and into his eyes, and Gwen felt a low swoop pass through her belly as he turned to face her fully. “They need a shieldmaiden,” Arthur chuckled, glancing down at his hands as he pulled his gloves back on. “Someone to dedicate their lives to that inspires more fervor than … me.”

Gwen blushed. “I’ll have to think about it.” Her lips quirked further upwards as he nodded. “… Dinner might convince me, for the record.”

“We always have dinner,” Arthur chuckled in playful disagreement.

She smirked. “Special dinner.”

It took only half a moment for her meaning to dawn upon him, and his smile became downright inappropriate. Gwen was pleased with herself as she watched him bow and reach for her hand, pressing a kiss into her knuckles. “I’ll see what I can do.”

*

fin

Fic: What Grew Inside Who | Author's Note

imigination — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:05:05 GMT

Title: What Grew Inside Who
Author: imigination
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana, Uther, Tom, Lancelot, Arthur/Gwen, minor Gwen/Lancelot
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 46,000
Disclaimer: I have few Earthly possessions, and Merlin certainly isn’t one of them.

Summary: When a modern day Gwen takes a tumble through her crawlspace door, she discovers what truly lies on the other side of the looking glass.

Art Link: The incredibly talented shan_3414 made graphics and an accompanying fanmix for this story, and I couldn’t be more grateful. You can find them here; please, show her some love! ♥

There were so many people who helped me take this idea from a puny little prompt I hoped to one day revisit to the mammoth this story has become. I'm grateful for every encouraging word, every patient ear, every helpful gesture.

First and foremost, thank you to the brilliantly talented shan_3414, who never once shamed me for my compulsive email habit and endless nerves. Collaborating with her was some of the most fandom fun I’ve had in a long time, and I'm humbled by her talent. Run, don’t walk to her journal and be in awe. ♥

Thank you to _autumncolors for being a fabulous Brit-picker, cheerleader and all around go-to girl whenever I needed to wibble. ♥ Thanks to threemeows, fiiishy, dreamon_dreamer and heather for listening to me complain and worry over a project I'd chosen to undertake, and thanks to goobalicious for being the ultimate person to whip my ass into shape. ;D

Finally, my infinite gratitude and love goes to kepp0xy, who went above and beyond the call of duty as an alpha, beta, sounding-board and friend. Without her patience, support and key eye for detail, this fic would’ve never been seen to fruition. That she gave so much of her attention and energy to my story while writing an incredible piece of work of her own leaves me in awe of her talent. ♥

Last but not least, thanks to the_muppet for organizing such a massive undertaking. And thanks to robinmarian for giving me this Camelot Loves Haiti prompt all those months ago. ♥

this is going to be a spam day, sorry in advance

imigination — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 14:53:10 GMT

Many random things, my loves. ♥

love meme | love meme | love meme

(2) I'm looking for help with an HTML/CSS/coding issue re: lj layouts. Is there anyone out there capable enough to guide this plebe? I'll repay you with adoration and sugar.

(3) In recent weeks I think I've made a whole host of new friends. Hello! I enjoy you. If you're bored, and/or you've got any of the following, feel free to add:

Tumblr
Last.fm
Twitter

(4) onceandfutures. Other people have said things better than I can, and I'm in a good mood so I'm not going to get into it. Fandom should be fun and not shitty, and I'm pumped to hang out in a place where the bar is set high and not low.

(5) After last week's stress and drama, I came home for a week to recharge. Though it looks like I've found a new apartment (!!!), I'm happy to be here in Washington for a couple days just getting my head together again.

My mom and I watched District 9 on the plasma from some streaming rental website, and while we've never had any problems with it before, the subtitles were non-existent. At first I got really mad, but we were bored and she stuck with it ... with me basically telling her all of the aliens' dialogue. Add to that ten minutes about 2/3rds of the way through when she walked out to take a phone call, she came out with a way different picture of what happened than the actual story ... and her interpretation is so sweet and hopeful and Robin-like, I hate to devastate her with the truth. Oh mommy.

(6) I'm trying to catch up on my flist, and am already at skip-70. Do not be surprised by back comments, and I'm sorry I haven't kept up recently. ♥

Tell me something good! Today I'm going to try optimism. ;D

dont waste your time on this post

imigination — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:42:50 GMT

but. my brother's name is keith irving michael douglas. he was named after my dad, grandfather and uncle.

i just texted my dad because i forgot his middle name ... and he said it was "keith."

and then i remembered his real name is errol keith douglas.

MIG'S MIND = FUCKING BLOWN.

PEOPLE STOP PULLING THIS TRICKY BULLSHIT, I GET OVERWHELMED.

eta: and now he's in a room with a patient, so he can't live this complicated experience with me. i hate that crap.

Keith I-Can't-Remember-His-Middle-Name Douglas

imigination — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:57:34 GMT

I'm too proud to give daddy a ring.

But I remember he said that when my blood sugar gets too low it's more worth it to eat a chocolate bar than make some eggs or some shit. When I was at the beach and with my maman, I was way better and ate three full meals plus lots of snacks. Two days home by myself, and I accidentally starved myself through Monday and now Tuesday.

Pray I'm responsible enough to get it together through tomorrow, because it's important.

Look! Ringo. ♥

herp derp in trouble again

imigination — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:16:24 GMT

Apologies for the double update ...

... but I have a strange penchant for making people mad at me. I would like to categorize myself as a most innocent and harmless soul, but somehow people manage to take issue with my lack of availability in one way or another. My mom just called me three times in a row and because I hadn't worked out what to say to her, I didn't pick up, with the intention of calling as soon as a had a good explanation for being so MIA ... within the hour. But now that I've missed her call(s), I know when I call her back she's gonna chew me out, and I'm going to be shit out of luck, which is the kind of thing that puts me off calling people in the first place.

Sucks.

People expect so much and I can only deliver so little.

eta: And of course Robin is always the sweetheart.

Mommy: why r u not picking up ur phone? we need to chat about the beach. r u avoiding me? i miss you, rayma!
Mommy: why not bus down to nyc and catch a ride w/ the Williams [auntie & uncle & wee cousin]

Mig = very shitty daughter.

It's settled, I'm going.

a little more mommy!mig spam

imigination — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:27:09 GMT

Thanksgiving '05. The rest of our family went up to Detroit to see my great-grandma who'd had a fall and couldn't travel. She and I got dinner at the Ritz Carlton ... turkey and lobster. Went home and watched bad tv all night. ♥

My all-time bestie.

robinsky by name

imigination — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 15:54:32 GMT

Mommy by title. ♥