The Man in The Cave

Chapter 33

The woman in front of her still had a smile in her face while her eyes looked at Morgana in curiosity. The girl was trembling as she looked around, still trying to take in the new place where she found herself stuck. She would have recognized if she had been there before; but everything, from the size of the gladiolus and the waterlilies in the lake where people seemed to be resting to the way the streets were arranged was entirely unfamiliar to her.

Many pairs of eyes were focused on her and even if she hadn't been able to see it, she would have felt it. Her entire attention was in the woman in front of her whose hair was tightly held in a lot of small braids and held one of Morgana's hands in her own. Her blue eyes were almost calming the girl. Morgana couldn't focus on that and pulled her hand from the woman's grasp.

"This is unbelievable," she exclaimed, excitement ran through her voice, she clasped both her hands together. Morgana's eyes turned in another direction as she took a careful step back, "It's not unprecedented, but dear Gods, I didn't expect my son to reach adulthood, let alone have such a beautiful daughter. Aren't you the most precious girl in the all the known worlds." she smiled, her hands reaching to grab Morgana's cheeks. Morgana barely dodged her hands, staring at her with eyes wide and trembling hand. The woman almost seemed sad at Morgana's rejection, but her expression shifted into understanding.

"Your son?" Morgana managed to stammer.

The woman nodded. With a movement of the hand the people around her and Morgana returned to whatever they were doing before, "I left him in the human world almost forty human years ago, the poor boy was very sickly, it was unlikely he would survive for a long time, changing him pained me, but it had to be done,and now you are here and those blue eyes... they are simply unmistakable."

Morgana's eyebrows furrowed; her heartbeat quickened, "Who are you? Where am I? What is this place?"

This time, it was the woman who took a step back looking at the girl, mouth turning into a line, "You don't know any of that? How did you get in here?"

Morgana's bottom lip quivered, the tears she had been holding since her argument with Uther falling down after the woman's questioning, "I don't know..."

Maybe she shouldn't have tried to confront Uther on what he had done to her family. It was unforgivable, of course, but maybe what she should have done was take what little belongings she could carry with herself and run away to Regina or Viola's home in the hopes the parents of one of them would be kind enough to give her somewhere to stay. She could still send letters to Emrys for what was worth, and she would no longer have to bear that nausea that idea of seeing Uther again gave her.

Instead, she was a place she didn't know, with a woman who claimed to be her grandmother and she didn't have the slightest idea of how she had gotten there or how she'd leave.

Before she realized, the woman was grabbing her arms rubbing them tenderly, eyes soft. Morgana trembled, unable to look at her straight to the eye, "You poor thing, you must be so confused, it's only natural I suppose, with your father being a Changeling, I can't assume he would remember everything about his time here, why don't you come with me? I'm sure I can explain everything to you, welcome to Avalon dearie, my name is Derys, may I ask your name?"

She hiccupped, "Morgana."

"Such a lovely name." Derys smiled "and you have the family eyes, did your father pick the name or did your mother?"

"I don't know."

"How is that?"

Morgana's eyes focused on the end of her skirt, "They died a long time ago."