Merlyn's Only Hope

The Dragon's Call P1

The smell of mixed spices was in the air. Merlyn couldn't help but smile as she stumbled through a game of tag, two girls giggling as they collided with her, falling to the mud with bright smiles. She looked around, amazed at the genuine sense of happiness on seemingly everyone's faces as she struggled through the babbling crowds. Everywhere she looked, hope brimmed to the surface, only faltering at the hollow, repetitive sound of drums. A strange silence fell over the people as their attention shifted to a rather regal looking man as he strode to the edge of a balcony overseeing the peasants below.

Uther.

Her eyes flashed gold in contempt as she watched the aging man begin to speak. His voice was that of a king, strong, firm, merciless. Hateful. It was then she noticed the victim of his words, a broken man, his clothes torn, his pale flesh covered in scars. She could feel it, the magic beneath his skin. Anger almost overwhelmed her; she stared blankly at the disheveled body of the sorcerer slumped no more than a hundred paces away. He didn't want to die. Merlyn didn't want him to either, and yet, with all of her power, she could do nothing to stop the axe coming down on his neck. She winced, watching blood spray the front line of the somber crowd. Once again, she heard childish squeals of delight purging the silence that had overcome the square, only this time, it appeared much more sinister. The noise broke the people from the spell that seemed to have fallen upon them and the crowd started dispersing, as if this occasion was ordinary, nothing to fear.

Until a shriek which could have put terror into death itself ripped through the air.

"I promise you that before these celebrations are over, you will share my tears. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son for a son." a strange woman glared at Uther, her promised punctuated by the dark winds around her. Merlyn shivered. The air seemed to have grown colder, goosebumps forming on her arms. Before the guards could apprehend the old hag, she had disappeared darkened shadows. Shaken, Merlyn left the courtyard, eventually finding her way to Gaius' chamber with the help of a friendly guard.

"Hello?" she asked as she peered around the door, admiring the array of bubbling potions set up on long work benches dotted around the room.

"Hello?" She said again, a little louder than before, spotting an elderly man at the top of some rickety steps, clutching at a shelf of books.

Merlyn cleared her throat. Startled by the sudden noise, the frail figure whipped around, breaking through the rotted rail and began to fall.

Time slowed for the witch. Her normally sea-blue irises switched to gold when she spotted the bed, forcing it under the elderly man to break his fall.

Winded but uninjured, the man simply stated wide-eyed at her. "What did you just do? Tell me."

Merlyn couldn't believe it. She'd been in Camelot for all of 5 minutes and, already, she was caught. She was fucked.

"Well... I, uh, I don't know. It wasn't me, I swear I-"

"I know what it was," exclaimed the old man, "I just want to know where you learnt how to do it."

"I don't... I've never studied magic or been taught." she stuttered, knowing that this wasn't quite true. She had learned a little from his father, who didn't particularly like to talk about magic, but what she had just done was instinctual, something her parents had never understood.

"Are you lying to me girl?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"The truth!"

"I was born like this!" Merlyn managed to stutter. It was true after all; the few spells she did know were rather minimal compared to what her father had wanted her to learn. She never used them anyway: nothing in her book was any more useful than what she could do without it. At once, the feeling that she'd felt upon arriving, her hope, was gone. This man, presumably Gaius, clearly didn't know who she was, nor why she was like this.