Cycles of Love (Second Cycle: Bleed)
-><-
The servant bent down to his knees. The body was small through its partial charring.
Oh no…
He breathed hard, trembling fingers beginning to press-
“Merlin!”
The servant turned around. She stood in the doorway, soot lining her cheeks.
“Mirabelle?”
Tears were falling from her eyes. Her auburn hair was messily out of its bandana.
“It’s not her Merlin.
It’s not Gwen.”
He asked with shaking voice.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
That was enough. His heart leapt. Oh thank heaven, the old religion, all natural and mystical creation.
Carefully making his way through the damage and loss of life, Merlin moved to where the woman stood. She was a bit older than Gwen, and him too of course. Neither he nor Gwen considered her much a friend, but right now he hung on this woman’s words.
“How do you know it’s not her Mirabelle?”
Near fresh tears, Mirabelle answered with choking shivers. “Because she was not wearing her apron. Stella, the new girl, she had none and was frightened she would stain her dress, making her lady angry about her poor state so…Gwen…she lent her hers.”
Merlin sighed painfully. The girl had only started this week her service. She was barely fourteen years of age. Gwen had so kindly taken her under her watch, like Gwen was prone to do, remembering probably how she had started even younger herself.
Merlin looked back heavily. “So that was Stella then?”
Mirabelle felt her composure faltering. She had never witnessed something so ghastly in all her years of working in the palace, not even anything conjured by sorcery. “Yes…”
She grasped at Merlin’s familiar brown jacket.
“Oh Merlin, I’ve been so awful to Gwen! I didn’t mean it…the first time she came here I tricked her into going into the prince’s room. I’ve-
He cut her off. He knew all the stories. They were in the past. The present was more important.
“Where is she now Mirabelle?”
The auburn haired woman shook her head. “Gwen normally would take the station next to mine. As soon as the shaking…oh the horrible shaking Merlin…it was so awful!”
She was probably half in shock. Gently the sorcerer held at her waist.
“I know…I know it was terrifying. But it’s over now.”
He hoped at least. It was said that sometimes when one came, others would follow, sometimes tiny, sometimes not so much.
“Where was Gwen when it started Mirabelle?”
“Next to me. She yelled for all of us to get out and…”
The woman’s sobs strengthened. “Gwen, she didn’t have to. I would have been too cowardly to. She grabbed my arm, making me go with her when I couldn’t move. There were those who thought it would be better to stay, but as we fled we could see it. The ovens…the fires broke out from them.
People started to burn Merlin…screaming for God’s mercy, screaming in agony…”
It was horrible what she was telling him, but for one thing. “So…Gwen is alright? She got out, yes?”
Mirabelle began to cry anew.
Merlin had to fight to not shake the sobbing woman. She was upset of course, but time was not kind right now. “Mirabelle…PLEASE! Where is she if she got out-
“She did get out, and she made me go with her down to the furthest hallway, but then she noticed that Stella hadn’t followed and Adelaide and…oh…Adelaide is that her over there Merlin?”
As Mirabelle noticed the badly burned body now, the sorcerer had no choice but to hold her tightly. “Yes…that’s her.” He stroked her hair. “It’s alright. Just tell me what Gwen did.”
It took too many long moments before Mirabelle lifted her head. “She saved me and two others…the flames were so strong Merlin. The last I saw was her returning to the kitchen to get more.
I couldn’t stay. It was too fiery.
I didn’t see her again Merlin.
I never saw her come out...”
Broken, Mirabelle sobbed into his jacket.
Merlin stood with hollow eyes.
This was…
hell.
-><-
It was as the now not crowned one, the young man rushed to get out, that he noticed it, her.
She was shaking viciously in a corner.
He couldn’t just leave her like that.
Sir Hadrian never would have.
Arthur bent down to his knees, held at the young girl’s hands. She was one of their bunch of newer servants to replace some recent elderly ones. He had no idea anything personal about her.
“What is your name?”
He asked the question as he untied it.
Her tiny voice came out in unsteady vibrato. “R-rr-Rose…S-sire.”
He nodded his head, removing it from his shoulders now. Taking the cloak, his last bit of real royal insignia, he wrapped it around her trembling arms.
“Nice…here.”
She didn’t look like she was physically harmed. It was an emotional state. He couldn’t stay and yet he couldn’t leave yet with her in such a frightened condition that could actually result in physical malady, beginning shock. “It’s alright now. You’re safe.”
He looked up anxiously. All around everyone was tending to an injury or a crying soul. He had to go.
Finally spotting a guard walking by, he caught at the man’s arm.
The guard stared for a moment with bewilderment, before realizing the dirtied disheveled man was his prince. “Sire!” He let out with respect.
Arthur shook his head. “This girl…keep her warm.”
He lifted up to his feet, whispering into the guard’s ear. “She’s going into shock. Stay with her.”
The guard looked like he wanted to argue the point, but he wouldn’t dare do so with the prince. “Of course Sire.”
The trembling fingers clenched at his hand.
As it happened the guard noticed Arthur’s other hand that was noticeably still bleeding. “You’re hurt Sire!”
The prince didn’t care for the shards of pain. They couldn’t compete with the pangs of his heart.
“I’m fine.”
It was the girl’s fingers on his good hand, grasping so tightly.
Sighing, Arthur moved back down to his knees. “This guard will stay with you. It’s alright now. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
She smiled just an inch.
It was enough.
He pushed back up to his feet, leaving the guard to tend to the girl. As quickly as he could get through the traffic of injured humans and destruction, the prince finally vacated the room.
As he did, what in medieval time was not fully understood, came it…
The first aftershock.
-><-
“AAAAAHHH!”
Mirabelle screamed.
Merlin held tightly to her. It lasted thankfully only a few seconds before the earth steadied fully again. It was jolting and yet not too much damaging.
At least he hoped. “It’s okay…it’s over. It’s done.”
He pulled away from her now.
Her news was unwelcome, but not the final seal on any of this. Gwen still had yet to be found. He would scour that kitchen if he had to, if her fate was the worst, but for now, there was the chance she was somewhere on the outside, alive.
The kitchen did have a back way that some might have found the time and bravery to escape to, even as the ovens burned so threateningly.
Rapidly Merlin made his way down the opposite hallway.
Mirabelle had to run to keep up.
Meanwhile the knights that the king had sent, came to the kitchen’s ghastly entrance.
-><-
He breathed shakily, but it stopped before he could find a place to duck for cover. It was just one quick jolt, and then it was over. It wasn’t a series like before.
Arthur rushed through the empty hallway, getting to the stairs. He started to race down them, but then screeched to a halt as he noticed that two near the end were mostly crumbed away.
It was not just the one stair damaged now, but another that had ruined thoroughly with the just felt aftershock.
Arthur gripped at the marbled railing with his good hand, and leapt far.
His balance off, stone blocking the last landing, and his hand still throbbing with pain, he failed to land on his feet.
It took him longer than usual to regain his footing. It felt like his leg had some harm from that sloppy jump, but he paid it no heed.
With a slight limp now, and a hand that needed full mending, the prince hurried to the lower hallway.
-><-
Merlin reached the outside area of the castle that was at the kitchen’s rear. The back door led to here. He looked around frantically at those who were crying, moaning, bellowing…
Thanks goodness these had survived and yet…
No woman in lavender with dark wayward curls.
Where was she?
She hadn’t been in that kitchen. She couldn’t have been.
Gwen was strong.
After all, she was the woman who once dragged the prince away from one of Lord Sigan’s evil creations. She knew how to fight with a sword better than Merlin did, for sure. She was the one person, maybe other than him, who could tell the prince what he needed to hear, and get the man to listen.
She came to him in the stocks that very first time, introduced herself with that friendly smile.
She was one of his closest friends.
He began to question the workers.
-><-
The prince felt callous just passing by the injured people, but then he saw how the knights were there at its entrance. His father had sent them. Thank heaven. He noticed particularly the knight who had been in service to Camelot for many years, and who this particular evening had kept his father safe. He even was one of the very few who survived the first dragon’s attack. He was a man of valor and dignity.
“Sir Leon!”
Arthur called out, his leg increasingly bothering him, and his hand’s injury still releasing vital fluid.
The knight turned away from the kitchen’s grisly and yet equally mysterious state at the sound of his name.
A man with disheveled hair, sweating forehead, a sharp limp, and a bloodied hand was hurrying to get to him. Sir Leon’s eyes widened as he realized that even without the cape and crown, the man was his most noble prince.
The knight ran forward with haste to assist.
“Sire!”
Arthur felt a hand hold at his arm just as another jolt hit.
-><-
The servant/sorcerer circled around another useless time before hitting the wall.
“Blasted!”
There was no visual sign, no word.
Nobody knew where she was.
Others too saw her go back in…
And then…
Nothing.
Mirabelle kept crying.
It was irritating Merlin horribly.
Gwen was nothing like that. She rarely cried much about anything.
She would never give up.
He couldn’t.
“I’m going to find you Gwen. I swear it.”
Mirabelle’s crying turned to a scream.
Merlin felt the second jolting aftershock as the stone underneath his feet reclaimed its violent dance.
-><-
It was another fast one.
Arthur removed his good hand from the wall as the trembling ceased.
“Prince Arthur?”
Sir Leon frowned heavily. The unsteady earth was horribly frightening, but being a knight he had faced many other awful unexplained things, like tricks of evil sorcery. His concern was mostly for his prince, who looked to be growing pale in face.
Perhaps it was all the shaking, making things in his view appear to be twofold at times. Dizzily the prince tried to focus hard on the knight, before regaining his mission in his mind.
He rushed, unsteadily.
“The kitchen. The survivors?”
Pushing back at his red toned hair, the knight followed Prince Arthur’s shaky lead. “Only those who got out survived, Sire. At least it seems to be that way.”
Arthur’s eyes dulled to disbelief as he was fully before it now. The room was littered not with just pots, pans, dishes, cups and…
“Oh Heaven’s Mercy.”
But also the barely distinguishable remains of those who had not…
Escaped.
The knight gasped as he noticed a scarlet stream starting to flow on the floor. “Your hand…Prince Arthur!”
Sir Leon ripped at his tunic. Arthur was fearless in battle, a leader who protected all those in his stead. He was the kind of prince who fought valiantly, and now he was injured without even asking for care.
The knight gently wrapped the torn cloth around.
Arthur barely felt the caring pressure. The room was sickeningly warm. Tears threatened his eyes.
But would not leak.
“Prince Arthur, you must-
He looked away from it, the charcoaled pit. The fire was gone, extinguished fully.
“Have you seen Merlin?”
Finished wrapping the cloth around, Sir Leon shook his head, grimacing. His prince wasn’t even standing straight. He needed the court physician.
“No Sire. I thought he was upstairs when all this happened. I saw him with Gaius.”
The knight continued what he had wondered at since first coming to the kitchen, as the rest of the knights helped the injured up to the safer level of the banquet hall.
“It’s strange.”
Arthur turned, noticing how Sir Leon was entirely focused on the room now. “What is?”
“Not a single one of us put this fire out, Sire. The servants were too hurt and frightened to have done anything themselves. We’ve yet to find one who said they even tried to end it. Those who talked about it, said the fire was up to the ceiling and that the room was torridly hot.
So how are the flames completely gone?”
Sir Leon received no answer.
His noble prince had already limped away before the question could be asked.
-><-
The servant headed across the courtyard. He had left Mirabelle with the others. They were all huddled together outside, taking comfort from the cool evening air and the closeness of each.
No one wanted to be alone.
The servant’s head was lowered.
The reality was darkening grimly in his mind…
His heart.
“Merlin!”
The call came from the opposite direction. Turning around, Merlin saw...
Without any hesitation, the servant/sorcerer raced to meet him, his master, his friend, his protector, his burden…
His...
Pratful destiny.
The man looked nothing like a prince now, sweat pouring down his face, stone dust staining his clothes and hair, and what looked like a seriously injured hand. He wore no crown and no cape.
Merlin held at his arm with care, looking down just slightly. Arthur was definitely more of brawn, but Merlin had a slight height advantage.
The years had started to form it, what the first dragon had told him would come. Yes, Arthur still had plenty of attitude, but he was a man too of such conviction, strength, pride, and humility.
He learned the last from her.
Arthur was relieved to finally see him. He would know.
Merlin came to him a silly idiot, and a boy who was honest to the hilt. He was so honest that he even told him when he thought he was a…prat, a royal one.
Merlin held rarely to any kind of simple obedient yes and no answers. Merlin could be stupid, and brave.
“Where is she Merlin? Did you find her?”
Arthur looked down now, saw the blackened piece of material in his servant’s hands.
“Merlin, where is she?” He demanded.
The servant’s answer felt too frustrating and fragile, but it was the truth.
“I don’t know.”
His voice was a weakened whisper, raw from emotion.
“I couldn’t find her Arthur.”
The prince looked unsatisfied with that answer. “You put the fire out, didn’t you? How else would there not be a single flame now? How else would you have gotten…that?” He pointed with a shaking finger to the charred apron.
Merlin shook his head. “It wasn’t soon enough My Lord.”
The prince grabbed for the material now, crushed it into trembling fingers. His other hand burned with pain. His leg was throbbing angrily at his mind’s ignorance.
“Don’t you tell me that Merlin.”
The servant felt a tear escape. He pushed it away. His prince rarely tolerated strong emotion.
“Mirabelle told me that she tried to save more.
Gwen went back in Arthur.”
The Crown Prince frowned. “What do you mean she went back in? That means she got out, right?”
Merlin nodded darkly. “Yes, she did get out, pulling Mirabelle and others with her. But when she noticed that Adelaide, one of the newest girls Stella, and more, were still trapped inside, she rushed back to help them.”
Arthur’s breath held. It sounded just like her. During the second dragon’s surprise attack, he himself had pulled her away from a dangerous situation, the one with the kids in harm’s way. Yes, he had saved those children for the most humane reason, but also because the woman who he
…
Refused to leave them.
“Mirabelle never saw her come out.”
Dully, Merlin finished his explanation.
She got out…
And she went back in.
The prince’s heart felt like a building earthquake, getting ready to rock with violence.
He shook his head though adamantly, stubbornly, furiously. No. Merlin was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. His idiotic answer was no truth, only tied into his sometimes stupidity.
And emotional overkill. Merlin gave into it too often, and that was why he was pretty useless in battle except for one thing.
Merlin’s sense on this though was entirely skewed.
She was somewhere waiting to be found and they were wasting time.
She kissed him, he the prince, in that tent. She pushed him against a post, pressing her luscious lips against his. She made him quake with awareness just like…
It was another one of them.
It came right at this moment of questions, fear, and ominous rings of ugly fate.
An aftershock.
Arthur didn’t hold to the wall even as the servant did. He didn’t move.
She kissed him in that tent to make one thing clear.
She was it.
She was the one woman who made his heart shudder.
Made it bleed.
“Where is she Merlin?”
He insisted an answer, a right one, not this ugly inane one.
It didn’t matter that Merlin was more. Arthur would have laughed it off before, any such notion of power coming from the skinny man, until that event came.
A second dragon who had hid from the Dragonlords, who had been protected by one of them, came back to get its vengeance. It nearly killed the prince’s father that fiery night, and then when that didn’t work out it later pursued the son.
That was when Arthur learned it, away from the castle’s walls, inside a dark vast cave, that his servant was not so…
Ordinary.
And for some reason that he alone held in his soul…
He never revealed the secret.
Instead he made it an ally.
The most awesome thing had been to see him become…
Mere ordinary Merlin fully evolve into…
The deep throated Dragonlord.
He was that magical.
He ended the fire, so come on now!
He had to know where she was.
That’s why he sent him…
To save her.
Merlin always spoke the truth though.
“I don’t know where she is Arthur.”
The humble servant possessed with that dangerous magical secret, echoed his earlier answer.
The prince lifted his head.
Looked up to…
The dark night sky.
It seemed so calm.
Even if its ground was definitely restless tonight.
A night similar to this one, he had grabbed hold of her hand, escaped with her to that spot he taught her how to swing a sword years ago when they were just tender children. Kissed her until…
He was not in love with Ysmay.
He was not engaged to Ysmay.
He loved only one.
And yet she…
“Where is she Merlin?”
He couldn’t stop asking it.
The servant said nothing this time.
Arthur viciously turned away, hurling back to the entrance, to the kitchen. His leg was so bad that once inside the hall, he stumbled across some of the fallen stone, landing hard on his knees.
Merlin gasped, ran to his prince.
Arthur’s hand was wrapped in cloth, but it didn’t seem to fully be stopping the thick scarlet stain. Even now as the man attempted to get up, his legs wobbled of their own shaky ground. Yes, they had to find her, even if it was just what was left of…her, but it was becoming obvious to the servant/sorcerer…
His friend/master was not alright.
“Arthur?” Rarely Merlin called him Prince…rarely did the prince demand it. If it were possible with all the boundaries of royalty, they could be called friends.
The prince ignored the physical pain, the heart’s trench deeper.
He wanted her.
He loved her.
Nothing was easy about this kind of love though that society decreed a sinful atrocity, a punishable crime. If it was found out she could be put in treacherous state. Everything was wrong about a servant being with a prince. That was why she shunned him away just a year ago. Nothing would ever change, she told him, no matter where their feelings turned to. He was what he was, a man who would one day become king of his people. She had her lower standing as one of those people, nothing in its label ever to allow her to be queen.
She was servant.
He was prince.
That was bad enough, harsh enough answer to let all this go. There was more though of course. That too became fully clear just one year ago.
He only thought of her…
She thought of…
It didn’t matter.
He couldn’t demand anything or insist. She practically pushed him into Ysmay’s long thin fingers. He played the game, the façade, the illusion, the…
Trick of sorcery that mere humans could create.
It was hell to pretend.
And hell to face what was real.
The earth could shudder all it wanted.
He wouldn’t stop until…
Arthur pushed away from his servant, got back up to his feet.
They were alone.
The knights were out of the room and most vacated from the hallway. They were taking the live servants away.
None of them saw her.
Merlin knew. He had asked all before.
Arthur knew. He asked everyone on his way to his servant.
Not a single breathing person had an answer to where…
She was.
He dragged her by her hand into that cove of trees and kissed her until she pushed at his chest…that night. She told him under a sparkling moon it could never be. He was right before. It would never be allowed.
When he became King Arthur…
She would not become his queen.
She would not even be his princess.
She rushed back in.
No one saw her come out…this night.
Maybe she screamed.
Maybe she screamed for him to come.
Maybe she was silent, brave.
Merlin never found her.
None of the knights saw her.
The last thing he had seen was her lavender skirts brush by his eyes, past. She barely looked at him.
No joy for his birthday celebration because of what each advancing year meant.
It was believed she never departed the kitchen.
It was believed she was…
-
-
-
“GUINEVERE!”
-
Dead.
Merlin heard the heart wrenching scream. He raced forward. Arthur always hid it. So many times Merlin would catch him look at her longingly. He knew if the world could be kind, she’d already be…
His Princess.
His once and future Queen.
No one saw her come out. The room was a mess of charcoaled debris, and too well burnt…
Bodies.
“GUINEVERE!”
He screamed again.
All surrounding him was the torched kitchen, the lifeless cage of macabre. His fingers violently gripped the wall, whitening to the shade of mortality.
This was not happening. He didn’t believe any of this ugliness. She was locked in his heart, into a place so deep it stabbed him when it had begun to position itself jarringly there.
He had to ask it again. He had to hear a better answer. He needed it.
Even if he had to beg his servant, he would on his knees, down on the hard unyielding floor on his knees he would weep for a kinder truth. He’d plead for mercy to open up the gates of something that was sustainable to hear.
He’d plead like a dirtied servant did to its master.
For there was no crown upon his head now, no cape wrapped around his shoulders. He was just a man…
Aching for the one thing that made…
His soul come to life.
Aching for…
“Where is she Merlin?”
He turned to his servant, his most trusted ally. He didn’t care that now he wept openly.
It released Merlin’s tears as painfully he touched his master’s shoulder. He had nearly hated this prince at first, thought him just an obnoxious cowardly bully. It hadn’t taken long though to see how much was underneath that cover, the escalating wisdom and gentle heart.
If it was possible for a servant to feel this way about his master…
He loved him now like a brother he never knew he would be surprised with, the weirdest oddest kind of brother.
“I don’t know my Lord.
I don’t know Arthur.”
The prince couldn’t take it. She was somewhere. She had to be. This was not real. He did not scurry under a table as she bur-
‘Where is she?”
His mouth wouldn’t stop saying it. She had not been in this deathtrap of a room while he was holding another woman’s hand. She was not something lying on the ground so disfigured beyond recognition. She couldn’t be. She had to be alive-she had to be.
Oh God…
I will never love another.
Please.
Call to me.
Let me save you.
“Where is she?”
One final whisper.
Begging for an answer.
Begging to see her.
The air held still. No relief came.
And then a disturbance, another shaking, and with its fast tremor that merely rattled a last hanging pot to clamor to the ground, a voice.
One not of the servant.
Not of a knight.
Not of his father.
Not of Ysmay.
Not maybe even of pure friend.
“She is here.”
And yet the voice was so startlingly familiar.
It wrenched the directions of their heads and eyes away from the kitchen.
Merlin’s mouth opened wide.
The prince’s eyes lifted with ironic disharmony through all the stunning of his heart.
The voice insisted strongly.
“She is hurt.
She needs help…
Now!”
It was so strange how relief could start to muddle into the muck of unhappiness at the same time.
She was alive.
In the wrong arms.
The servant was supposed to get there first and pass her onto him. He protected all of his kingdom and yet-
Merlin stared. She was dirtied, her whole dress was blackened. One sleeve of her dress was torn from the fire, her arm clearly burned. Her cheeks were reddened too much. Her eyes were shut. Her hair was a mess of ash.
She was alive though. He made sure of that.
The voice forgot protocol, coming out with urgency.
“Merlin, Arthur, she needs care!”
She was breathing, thank heaven for that.
And yet-
“We must get her to Gaius now or she will…
Die.”
Both of them still had yet to give any verbal response.
The prince’s heart was shuddering, finding a hard time forming back together. She was not in this room, but held now. She was before him, above him, in…
She was not a charred horrifying remain and yet-
What was it?
Some trick of fooling fate?
Some horrible turning of destiny that always did this.
He should be happy and yes somewhere his soul released its joy and yet beyond, it was blackened with storms of futility.
Why was he always too late?
Why was…
“Lancelot…”
Merlin breathed with thankfulness and shock.
Arthur wryly laughed, tears that still stained his face from his crying of before, forgotten.
As his heart still couldn’t fully form, cracks deep inside its shield.
Leaking out the blood.
Every time this happened.
Why did he always beat him?
Why…
She was alive and
Yet…
It was supposed to be his arms around her now. This wasn’t right. He wasn’t supposed to be down on his knees while another man…
This man…
Oh God.
One horridness met by another that ironically took away one pain and replaced it with this irritating one that couldn’t even be justified.
It was more selfish, the prince fully knew, and yet he couldn’t make it fully go away.
It made the guilt prick at his skin.
It wasn’t supposed to be long thin fingers in his when this tempest happened…
But small thickened ones.
He should have run out of that room faster, damned his own fate.
He was too late.
Always too late.
She was okay but she was not…
His.
Never his.
Something always made his fingers not reach.
Something made her never…
His.
“Lancelot.”
The prince dully echoed, brusquely getting to his feet, time too unkind to wait, her recovery all that mattered now.
As hell…
smiled.
-><-
Continued here…
Thank you for reading.