The Fire Inside- A Merlin BBC Fanfic

A Devastating Flashback

A blizzard bashed the walls of the small wooden home. Veal was lazily nailing spare wood over their shutters, trying to keep the dangerous cold out of their tiny home.

"Veal! We can't bar up yet!" Elaine yelled at her husband as he started to board up the front door, "Cyra's still out there! She'll freeze!" Elaine clawed at the boards he nailed down.

"She won't survive that storm! I'm just making sure we will!" Veal growled. If Elaine was going to start trouble again they'd die from the cold.

"I'm not going to let her die like this!" Elaine shouted angrily. After all the work for their daughter, Elaine was going to put her foot down on this. Veal ignored her and boarded up the west window.

"Did you hear me? Cyra-" She yanked on her husband's shoulders and he turned and punched his pestering wife, causing her flat nose to lean to the right. She tried to hit back, but blood flowed from her nose and her vision blurred.

"I'll tell you again- if she's out there now, she's as good as dead," Veal warned ominously.

"There has to be something," Elaine muttered weakly, walking to their separate bedroom.

"Scéawung mín cnafa sé æfenléoht sylfum carseld," Elaine chanted, her brown eyes flashing gold.

Meanwhile, Cyra was trapped in a creepy cave up in the mountains. She had hiked up here after her mother had scolded her for staying out late the night before. It was always harder to recover when her mom had yelled at her- after all, without her mom around Cyra would have left by now. She was just glad her mother didn't believe in hitting children as much as her father.

The wind howled as Cyra curled further into the nook of the rock, trying to shield her skin from the bitter cold. She glanced up for a brief second to see a stray sunbeam peaking through the dark clouds, bathing a spot a few feet ahead of her. Curious, she crawled into the beam that seemed to be void of snow. In the light, Cyra noticed it kept away the snow, but not the cold or violent wind. Deciding it was at least a little better, she sat in the light.

But the longer she sat, she started to see the light was edging her forward. The ten year old girl was absolutely amazed, and decided to follow her own little bubble of safety forward.

It took hours, and all the while the storm raged on. Cyra's split lips and half torn left ear were dripping tiny frosted blood drops on to the snow, vanishing in the shifting flakes. Her bare feet tromped through the snow, mindlessly following the light. Her broken shoulder, hastily bandaged with her old sweater sleeve, throbbed in unison with her swollen right eye, causing her limping form to march to an odd beat.

Cyra watched with a horrid fascination as her dark skin started to turn blue, her fingers and toes looking a deep navy as apposed to their normal moss green. She however had long since gone numb and felt nothing anywhere past her knees.

The young girl followed faithfully, but the ice was slippery beneath her frozen feet and she constantly found herself falling. She was halfway down the mountain when a narrow path was so iced over Cyra tripped and slid down the steep slope littered with iced over gravel and snow covered boulders. The ten year old girl tried to scream but her throat was too raw, only a brief screech sounded as she pummelled down the side of the mountain.

Her crushed shoulder dislocated itself, it's wool covering barely preventing the many scratches. Cyra finally landed on a medium sized boulder, the rock cracking her two lowest ribs. She'd been knocked unconscious halfway back up the mountain, but the light still tried to urge her on.

Unable to get the girl to move, the light moved on to try and show her where to go, and eventually abandoning her. So the young girl laid face-down in the snow for as long as the blizzard lasted, which ended up being the next three days.

~

"You will learn to respect me," Veal muttered to his disheveled wife as he let go of her hair and threw her back on to the rickety bed. Elaine sobbed silently as she heard her husband leave the room.

As she tried to recover, her mind drifted back to her young daughter. She still hadn't returned, and the storm had stopped yesterday. If she could escape the deadly talons of her husband she promised to look for the body of Cyra- whether she be dead or alive.

Putting a new dress on, she had stopped trying to repair the ones he tore off her, she tied a lined cloak around her neck and creeped out into the main area to find her husband brewing whatever potion that flooded the room with a heavy black smoke. Seizing her chance, Elaine slipped out the door and headed for the mountains, where her light had shown through days earlier.

She tromped through the deep snow, but as she got to the foot of the closest mountain she stepped on something colder than the snow and slipped backwards. Peering back at what she steeped on, she saw a deep blue green she would recognise anywhere- Cyra had been trapped in the snow.

"Cyra! My baby girl," Elaine clutched her frozen daughter to herself, and was surprised to feel a faint heartbeat as she cried in relief.

Elaine, without thinking, rushed her baby inside their house. Veal noticed her rushed state and stepped into the room after her.

"She's alive, Veal! She survived!" Elaine practically cried with joy. Veal, however, scowled.

"You should've left the worthless piece of trash out there," Veal muttered, attempting to return to his newest potion. His wife, however, was having none of it.

"She is our daughter and you should be glad," Elaine practically spat at him.

"I should be glad?!" Veal yelled as his eyes flashed and Elaine was slammed against the wall. The noise jolted young Cyra out of her drowsiness, and she let out a small squeak.

"I'll deal with you later," Veal told Cyra, using his magic to twist Cyra's only healthy arm back behind her, hearing a loud crack and the girl's scream.

"Don't hurt her!" Elaine yelled out, but Veal was on her in an instant.

"Ácumendlicnes ásprungnes æt bá sé forsacan mec," Veal chanted, his eyes trained on Elaine, "Do you see what happens when you oppose me? You bring this trash into my house and this is what you get for it,"

Elaine pawed at her throat, but it was too late, Veal had slowly severed all her blood vessels until she bled out internally. She locked eyes with her young daughter one last time, and saw guilt in the young girl's eyes. Elaine wanted to run to her, to comfort and save her daughter from her father, but in the next second, she was gone.

"Mother!" Cyra yelled with tears in her eyes. Her father looked to her with rage.

"That's right you little b*tch, and now that your worthless mother is gone, you've got another chore coming," Veal threatened, approaching the young girl and tearing what was left of her sweater off and tossing it away, landing roughly on to the fresh corpse of Elaine.

~

Cyra tossed and turned in her cot in the physician's chamber, her worst memories flashing in her mind. She let out a whimper as she rolled on her damaged wing.

"Woah, woah, easy there," Merlin said as he straightened out his friend's wing once again. The solvent he had applied was still fresh and didn't seem to be furthering the process.

She tossed once again, this time letting out a scream in her sleep. Merlin shushed her as he tried to massage the damaged wing. She just needed more circulation, that was it.

"It's ok, Cyra, we're finally safe," Merlin assured her as he placed a wet rag on her forehead. That was one promise he made to himself in that moment- from now on, he would keep her safe.

~~

Guys I actually really love this chapter, I'm proud of this (probably shouldn't be saying that with all the abuse and damage in this chapter but oh well).

Hope you enjoyed!