Magic in Camelot

The Witchfinder

 Well into the summer months, the servants of the castle started making pilgrimages out to the nearby forests to gather wood for the castle in preparation for winter. Of course, not all the servants had to go out, The royals' personal servants and the important kitchen staff had to stay in the castle to keep it running. Since Arthur has two personal servants and Morgana has Gwen, Merlynn volunteered to go out with the group this year.

The group she went out with hitched a cart to a horse and went out for a two-day trip, longer if they hadn't filled the cart yet. They went out and marked felled and dead trees. Then some of the stronger, more experienced male servants would carefully cut down or free the trees they needed and cut them into logs that would fit into the fireplaces. Once they set up camp and had a few piles of logs ready, Merlynn and some of the servants would pick up as much as they could carry and bring it to the cart where one or two more servants would pick up the logs and stack them carefully into the cart. After about an hour, the carrying groups would switch out. She wasn't sure how often the other groups switched, but she saw people constantly coming and going from the camp.

It was close to evening, the fires for dinner had been lit, and Merlynn was starting to feel the exhaustion of the work wearing on her. She was carrying her last load before they stopped for the night and half the logs rolled out of her arms. She looked around to make sure no one was around before bending down to the fallen logs and used magic to re-stack them on her arms. She brought her stack to the pile that was accumulating by the cart and carefully dropped it. She wandered around the camp for a while, seeing if there was anything she could do to help. When everyone turned her down, she went to sit out away from camp, up a hill a little so she could look out at Camelot and see the great castle. She sat for a moment with her hands touching the ground next to her, just letting her magic flow from her to the earth.

Being in Camelot for about a year and a half now made her realize just how connected she'd been to the earth back home in Ealdor. She only visited the Castle once a year, and only for a very short time, so she never felt the longing to get out like she did here. After visiting the Druids, Merlynn spent more and more of her free time with Morgana to study and practice magic, especially nights when the rest of the castle was asleep. As they studied, Merlynn felt her magic pull her towards the natural world that surrounded the city more and more. Merlynn even went so far as to volunteer to fetch Gaius' herbs from the forest, just to have an excuse to get away. She had considered asking Gaius why her magic was suddenly acting like this, but she was afraid of the answer.

Merlynn felt her wild magic settle within her and looked out towards Camelot. Though she was starting to feel restless in the city, she couldn't deny that this was her home and her heart swelled. A column of smoke rose from one of the fires down the hill towards their camp, blocking her view. Magic still buzzing in her fingertips, she reached her hand out and whispered a spell, turning the smoke into a horse and watching it walk a few paces before letting it dissipate into the air around it. Merlynn smiled at the beauty of the magic, before the bitterness settled as she remembered once more that such magic would never be appreciated within Camelot. She turned to look for herbs, figuring she would bring some back for Gaius since she had nothing else to do for a little while longer.

She felt something tug on the back of her jacket and turned to find a frantic looking woman clutching onto her.

"Did you see it?" the woman asked, panting. "The smoke? Did you see it?"

Merlynn shook her head. "No, I saw nothing."

"Are you blind, you were right here. It was magic I tell you, there's sorcery here. We must tell the King."

The woman ran off towards the city ignoring Merlynn as she tried to call after her. Merlynn chased after the woman, meeting up with her in camp. Given how late it was already, Merlynn insisted that the woman stay in camp with them for the night and she would escort the woman to camelot the next morning. The woman and Merlynn's group agreed.