Mad Mistletoe

Failure

In a dark, wet cave miles away from the Castle of Camelot, stands a lone figure clothed in black, wild, dark hair cascading down her back. The drip of water can be heard behind her, along with the eerie sound of a cave breeze against the rock walls confines. The woman stands, gazing into a fountain of water as images play over it. She's watching the happy reunion of a servant and his master, and is utterly repulsed.

This was not supposed to happen. The boy was meant to die so that he could no longer meddle with her plans to claim her throne. The crown was hers, and she would have it! The boy, Merlin, would not stand in her way. She was the rightful Pendragon heir, and she craved her title. She hungered after it like nothing else.

And again her plan had failed!

Someone would pay. Someone who had not accomplished their task...their quest. A specific someone with specific, precious orders that should have been carried out flawlessly...but weren't. A woman. Her own loyal follower, trying to please her mistress. A beautiful pseudo maid servant had to pay for her failure, it was the only justice for letting Merlin live, no matter how well her orders were carried out...She had failed.

Merlin lived, so she must die.

The figures in the fountain changed form from the happy scene to one of blurred images and a beautiful women running, trees flying past in her haste to flee an unseen force. The woman in the cave watches her for a few minutes, watches how the leaves shadows play over the woman's panicked face, hoof-beats sounding in the distance.

Morgana Pendragon did not have time to deal with failures. She smirks, this would be fun.

A flash of golden eyes and a growl permeate the cave as miles away a shrill shriek is heard, and a lifeless body falls to the ground, limbs ripped in odd angles unexpectedly by an unseen force. Gruesome in contrast to her serene, pale face.

Morgana slaps the surface of the water, ripples flying over the edge as she yells her frustrations.

She wouldn't be stopped again.

Merlin would die.

∆∆∆ ∆∆∆

Minutes after he wakes up, Merlin once again falls back to sleep beside me from exhaustion and pain, his hand warm and limp in mine. Gaius had managed to get some water down his throat, along with the awful smelling tincture from earlier, before his eyes had slid shut and his hand had slackened its grip in mine.

"Gaius?!" I ask worried.

"It's okay Arthur, he just needs to rest and heal." Gaius, along with Gwen, Lancelot, and Gwaine all stare at me with slightly amused expressions adorning their faces from around the cot. "He's sleeping, only sleeping."

"Only sleeping," I repeat softly, rubbing a soothing circle onto the back of Merlin's hand, nodding my assent. "Right...good."

"Oh Princess has it bad - Ow! What was that for Lancelot?" Lancelot looks at Gwaine fiercely, one fist still raised from where he had just hit him in the arm.

"Leave him be." Lancelot replies defensively.

"Yeah Gwaine, Arthur is being sweet, don't ruin it." Gwen replies from next to Lancelot, both of her hands holding one of his.

I blush and drop my head, blond hair hanging like a curtain in front of my eyes. "Shut up . . . I can be sweet."

"We know Arthur." Gaius says from his perch at the head of the cot where he's smoothing another damp rag to Merlin's forehead, where the fever has just started to break. His breath still stutters harshly in and out, and the blisters still mar his pale, lithe body, but Gaius had claimed he would recover.