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The Mage was out gathering herbs in the small canyon that ran behind the caves. As much as she appreciated the rebels willingness to send someone out and fetch the herbs for her, she wasn't as willing to trust that they necessarily got the right ones. She and Merlin had foraged for their herbs on the sides of roads her entire life. While there may have been some small holes in her education as she aged, herbology was not among them.

She had a handful yarrow when a scuff of movement echoed through the rocks. Holding the herbs in one hand, she picked up the edge of her dress in the other and crept down the narrow canyon so she could see who had come behind her. She stilled when she saw Arthur standing no more the fifty feet away. He was turned however so he wouldn't catch her out of the corner of his eye unless she drew attention to herself.

He was holding Excalibur in his hand. It was the first time she had ever seen him choose to take up the sword of his own volition. He twirled it through the air expertly, swinging his wrist as though he were getting a feel for the weight of it. He stopped and looked down at the blade in his hand and then raised it up. The afternoon light glinted off of the steel, throwing rainbows across the rock.

Even from this distance she could feel the pulse of the magic. Even dormant the sword was truly a power in itself. She couldn't imagine what it must feel like holding it when it was active.

Taking several deep, centering breaths Arthur lifted his other hand to the hilt. She tensed, waiting to see what would happen. Before the Dark Lands, he had passed out every time he took the blade in two hands. Sometime on his journey something had changed. She wondered if the necessity of facing the dark creatures there had brought about the change in him.

Arthur closed his second hand around the hilt. His eyes flashed a frosty blue and his body shuddered as the power hit him. His muscles clenched as though he were bracing against the magic and he ripped his second hand off the hilt as though it burned him.

The Mage looked away, She wasn't sure how to help him. In the Dark Lands he would have seen what bound the power, and understood that it was his to claim. It would have forced him to face it, or he never would have returned. But here, still he fought the magic, as though it were the enemy and not a partner or a tool.

She wondered if he would allow her to explain. She felt self conscious as she considered explaining her relationship with magic. It was something incredibly personal. Thus the reason a close relationship between Master and Apprentice was so important. There had to be absolute trust in order to make oneself vulnerable enough to learn.

Her and Arthur...their relationship wasn't like that. It was something else, something she couldn't quite define. The trust between them hung like the delicate strands of spider silk. She was hesitant to test it.

Arthur slammed the blade into the ground and scrubbed his hands over his face. Sweat was dripping down his brow and made his linen shirt cling to his chest. Whatever he was fighting inside, his body thought it was very real. She wondered if it hurt to fight magic that had been forged specifically for him.

Mages didn't often struggle with accepting their magic. They were born and raised knowing they could manipulate and command it. Arthur had been raised thinking he was nothing more than the bastard son of a prostitute on the streets. He had recently had a lot thrust upon him in a short amount of time.

Since his return from the Darklands Arthur had embraced his birth right, if not the magic that accompanied it. He was a natural leader, but that would not be enough to fight the combined power of Vortigern and all of his men. They needed Excalibur, and Arthur was the only one who could wield it.

Arthur snatched the sword up in one hand and stalked out of the canyon. The Mage tucked her gathered herbs into the pouch at her waist and climbed down the rocks to follow him. She moved slowly down the path, giving him time to compose himself. Emotions were private things, and Arthur hadn't chosen to expose his to her. She wouldn't betray what little trust existed between them.

When she caught up to him he was standing knee deep in the water of the nearby stream. His shirt was resting in the sun on the bank, drying, she presumed. He bent down and splashed water up on his face. The water soaked his hair and ran down his bare chest. She swallowed and looked down at her feet with more concentration the navigating the gentle slope of the bank required. She sat down on the grass beside his shirt and drew her knees to her chest.

Despite his current misgivings about the sword, Arthur kept Excalibur close. He had slammed it down into the creek bed beside him. It's hilt rose out of the water that rushed around it. The Mage locked her eyes on the way the water and the afternoon light glinted off the blade and made a point of not watching Arthur as he washed away the sweat from his upper body.

"Pick it up," she called to him.

Arthur froze, although she doubted he had failed to notice her approach. Very little escaped the Future King's notice. He glanced over his shoulder to where she sat.

"You pick it up," Arthur shot back. He was surprised it took the mage so long to follow him. He hadn't realized she had been in the canyon at first, but when he had put both hands on the hilt of the damn sword he had felt her presence. The sword gave him an awareness different from his other senses and let him feel her in a way he couldn't quite explain. She wasn't the first he had felt through the sword, but her presence was so different than anyone else. She felt like a blazing hearth fire at his back.

She had given him space, which he appreciated. She always seemed to know when to push him and when to wait. There was never an awkwardness to the silence between them, he found sitting with her quietly strangely comfortable. He liked that about her. In the time they had spent together he found there were a lot of things he liked about her.

She sat on the bank of the stream, her knees drawn to her chest. The sunlight shone in her dark hair, showing strands of red and gold in the dark depths he had never noticed before. When her eyes met his, a blush colored her cheeks and she looked away quickly. He couldn't help a self satisfied smirk. It wasn't often he was able to push the little mage into being out of sorts. In fact it had practically become a hobby of his. She was shrewd and tough to rattle. Turns out all he needed to do was take his shirt off.

There had always been a wildness about her that peaked his interest, a wildness to which he now added an element of innocence. It surprised him a little. She was always so in control and seemed older than she looked. He wouldn't have guessed she might still be innocent in that way.

He splashed water on himself once more and her eyes flickered over his chest as the water dripped down the defined muscles. He had never been particularly vain. He grew up where beauty was only worth as much coin as could be paid for it. He had certainly been propositioned enough times that he knew he could have been a wealthy man, but he had never had any interest in selling himself in that way. All he had ever had control over was his body and himself. Instead he had worked his body and learned to fight. Turning himself into a weapon instead of a thing of beauty. By the time he was eighteen he had too many scars to be propositioned any more. It made him more pleased than it should that he had the mage staring. He had to work to keep the smirk off his face.

She seemed to notice in that moment and cleared her throat, composing herself quickly. "Pick it up with both hands," she ordered him, unwilling to let him see her embarrassment. She hadn't pushed him like this in all their time since they had returned from the Darklands. She had stayed back, giving him space to find his own way. But he was struggling, and she wouldn't stand by silently any longer.

Arthur shot her an incredulous look and shook his head. Water droplets flew and he ran a hand through his unruly hair.

"Did you see all that you needed to see?" she asked him after a few beats of silence hung between them. He had never really answered her question. He had evaded it and given her the brush off. At the time she had felt guilty over sending him into the Darklands, but they didn't have time for him to be evasive any more. The time was coming for him to confront his uncle and he would need to power of Excalibur to retake the throne. 

"Where?" he asked.

"In the Darklands," she clarified.

Arthur suppressed the shudder just thinking about that place. She hadn't been wrong. He no longer had nightmares about his parents. Now he had nightmares about that place. He pulled the sword out of the stream and moved through the water towards her.

"Have the dreams stopped, or did you look away?" She asked.

Arthur shook his head and turned away from her, something that might have been shame flickered in his eyes.

The Mage leaned forward. It was so rare for him to show any kind of weakness, any kind of true emotion. She might be able to use it to reach him. "You want to know why you still can't use it."

"Why don't you tell me," he snapped impatiently.

The Mage shifted her weight back at the flare of temper in his eyes. She wasn't afraid of Arthur, but there was power there and she would be foolish not to respect it. "I think you already know the answer. You faced it, but you have not accepted it. You will accept it when it's worth it to you."

His back stiffened and he half turned his head. "All you do is speak in riddles," he said exhaustedly.

The Mage nodded in agreement. It was a habit she had learned from Merlin. It was all part of the mask. It protected her, made her seem powerful. "Don't get me wrong," she told him. "I look away, we all look away, but that is the difference between a man and a king."

He exhaled and nodded to himself. She didn't push him anymore. She left it at that. He was stubborn and if she pushed too hard, she sensed she could push him too far and he would go back to resisting them. At least now he was willing to work with them.

Arthur scoffed and dropped down onto the soft grass beside her. The sun was warm and it wouldn't take long for the water to dry from his skin. He leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the sky.

"Is that what you think I am?" he asked after a few long minutes of silence. "You see a King when you look at me?"

The Mage turned to look at him. Sitting beside her in the sun, with his hair wet and mussed he looked too young and carefree to be a king. But there was an underlying power to Arthur. There was something about him that made everyone turn and look when he entered a room. It made people stop and listen when he spoke. She didn't know if it was something that he had been born with or if it was tied into his connection to Excalibur.

"Yes," she said after a moment. "When I look at you, I see a King," she told him honestly. "Otherwise I would not be here."

"I thought you were here to finish some grand quest and get your approval to be a sorceress," he pushed.

She made a noise in the back of her throat. "I suppose that is how it started, but I would not leave you now. Not until we stop Vortigern."

"Save all the Mages then," Arthur said a little wryly.

She shrugged her shoulders elegantly.

"Are you so sure I will make things any better for them?" Arthur asked.

The Mage turned and rested her head on her folded arms. She let herself stare into Arthur's blue eyes. "You are a good man," she finally settled on saying. "You have allowed me to stay at your side. You don't seem to mind Mages. You protect your people regardless of who they are."

Arthur snorted. "My father couldn't protect his people," he said looking down at his hands.

The Mage went very still. She had never heard Arthur speak of his father before. She had heard stories of Uther Pendragon from Merlin and Bedivere and Bill, but they were all colored with what amounted to hero worship. She had never heard a single one of them speak of the King's failings. She had never had the gift of foresight in the manner that Merlin did, where she could see events as they were unfolding, but she knew when to trust her instincts and she kept quiet, waiting for Arthur to continue.

There had always been an interesting juxtaposition in the Future King. For a man who often talked at length without taking a single break, he rarely said anything about himself. He would talk and get others to talk, but he rarely allowed people to see what he was truly thinking or feeling. He didn't trust many, Arthur. It would serve him well if they managed to win him the crown, but it would be a lonely road. The thought made her heart hurt.

"The dreams...the visions," he shook his head as he struggled with what to call them exactly. "My nightmares," he settled on and he lifted his gaze to meet her's. "I did see it when I was in the Dark Lands. I put that cursed blade onto the alter like you said and it showed me the whole thing. It forced me to relive it. I couldn't look away."

The Mage felt badly about forcing him to face what had troubled him his entire life. But they didn't have time to work through things the slow way.

"I was boy, couldn't have been much older than six," he said. "My father was holding me, we were trying to escape. Camelot was burning. There was fighting all around us. I remember seeing the spear. It went straight through my mother. Her eyes, they were so blue," he said shaking his head.

Arthur had gotten his eyes from his mother.

"She stared into my eyes as she fell. My father turned to check on her, but he couldn't protect her. Even with that damn sword. When my father turned to look at my mother I saw it for the first time. I thought it was a demon. A monster riding a black horse. My father turned back and put me down. He drew the sword and fought the monster. He lost the sword, it tumbled across the ground towards me. I picked it up by the blade and held it out to my father." Arthur opened his hands and looked down at his palms.

The Mage leaned towards him to see what he was looking at. She frowned and reached for his hands. The tips of her fingers ghosted over the scared lines on his palms. Arthur suppressed a shiver as her warm fingers barely ghosted over his skin.

"It is no wonder the sword calls to you. It bisected your life lines when you were just a boy," she said in wonder as she skimmed her fingers over the lines. "You fed the magic your blood."

Arthur closed his fists. He held her fingers briefly in his own before he released her.

She froze as Arthur's fingers closed over hers. She could feel the strength of his hands, but the look in his eyes reminded her more of the boy he had been when he had faced the monster.

"My father fought the monster, but he couldn't beat him. The monster stabbed him through the chest and the last thing my father did was yell at me to run. So I did..." Arthur let out a shuddering breath. "Before the Darklands that is the last I would ever remember. It's when I would always wake from my nightmares."

"And now?" She asked gently.

"Now..." he shook his head and looked away. "It was my uncle. He used magic somehow to give him power. He killed my father to try and take this blasted sword. When he was dying my father threw the blade into the air and it pierced his back, turning him to stone," Arthur scoffed. "I didn't even know it, but he is that stone I pulled the damn thing out of."

The Mage could hear the pain in Arthur's voice and she reached out and closed her hand over his forearm. His skin felt cool although the water had dried. He lifted his eyes to meet hers. There was nothing she could say, nothing to make any of it better. She didn't blame him for looking away. Such a traumatic event at such a young age was horrific to think about. He had watched both his parents die. She wished she could make it better for him, but all she could offer was her support and a reminder that he wasn't alone now. He closed his other hand over the top of hers. He squeezed it and nodded to her. They sat together in companionable silence until the sun started to sink low on the horizon.

"We better get back," Arthur said moving to stand. He climbed to his feet and shrugged on his shirt. He picked up the sword and rested it over one shoulder and offered the mage his other hand. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. He rather liked holding her hand, but he knew she wouldn't appreciate it and he released her as soon as she began to pull away. She hadn't denied him the help however. It was progress.

The Mage followed Arthur and the two of them walked back towards the caves together. Arthur wasn't sure if he would ever be able to face his past in a way that would be helpful to their cause. But he did feel better having talked about it with someone. Other than the mage, he wasn't sure who else he could confide in. None of the others would understand the significance of the magic his uncle had managed, and he knew it would hurt Bedivere and Bill to know how their friend had died.

Perhaps he should have felt guilty for burdening her with the story, but she was strong his mage. She hadn't looked at him with pity, instead she had simply sat beside him until he was ready. He had the impression she would have sat with him all night if he had wished. He wouldn't forget it. She had proved herself countless times to be incredibly loyal and worthy of the trust he had placed in her.

When all of this was over he was going to go about seeing if he could make his little mage blush some more as she had earlier when she saw him without his shirt. He rather liked the way her skin had glowed pink. It made her look even more beautiful than usual. She would probably knock him over the head if she knew he was thinking that way.

"Arthur, Mage," Bedivere hurried down the path towards them. "There is someone here you need to meet," he said, gesturing towards the caves.

Arthur and the Mage exchanged a look of confusion but followed the old knight up the hill into the caves.

"Who is she then?" Arthur asked as they approached the main room. The woman was dressed like a wealthy member of court. She was beautiful, if a little older, with soft golden hair, carefully styled.

"She was the handmaiden of your mother, a good friend of hers...she has remained behind in the castle, feeding us information from within and helping us when she can," Bedivere's admiration was clear in his voice.

"She is very brave," The Mage observed. Although she didn't doubt that it was much easier for a woman to act as a spy than a man. It was unlikely Vortigern had even noticed her presence.

"Maggie," Bedivere greeted with a nod. "I thought we agreed you would never come here."

"This is important," she told him seriously. "Or I never would have risked the journey."

"Maggie this is-" Bedivere began the introductions but warmth flooded Maggie's eyes as she turned to Arthur.

"Arthur," she said with a smile. "You have your mother's eyes," she said.

Arthur nodded stiffly, the comments about his family, as always making him uncomfortable. "I've heard that."

"I suppose you have," Maggie said with a nod towards Bedivere and Bill. "Her hair color too, but you look like your dad," tears swam in her eyes as she remembered her friends.

"Right..." Arthur drew off.

"I was there when you were born," Maggie told him. "I was your mother's best friend."

Arthur glanced at The Mage for help. He wasn't sure what to say in response to that information. 

Maggie immediately realized she had made him uncomfortable and sniffed delicately before she turned her focus to business. It hurt that her best friends son had no interest in hearing about his mother, but perhaps they could talk once all of this was over. They had a Kingdom to win.

"Vortigern is planning to meet with the Barons in Londinium," she told them

"When?" Bedivere demanded.

"Three days."

Bedivere shrugged and turned back to Arthur. "Looks like your plan worked."

"You need to be careful," Maggie warned them. "His power is growing."

"Do you mean political..." Bill dragged off.

Maggie shook her head and for the first time real fear shone in her eyes. "It was small things at first. He could light a candle. But now..."

The Mage frowned and took a step forward. "I need you to tell me, with as many details as possible all you have seen him do with magic."

Maggie nodded. She immediately went into detail about the four times she had seen him conjure fire, ending with the last time when she had witnessed him calling a fireball to his palm with nothing but the power of his mind.

The Mage sat back, chewing on her lip.

"What's that then?" Arthur asked her.

"He is no mage," she told him. "He is drawing his power from the tower, but it is happening faster than anticipated. He shouldn't have this kind of control until the tower is done, unless he has used magic before and has another source."

"Is there anything he could have taken from the mage wars?" Arthur asked.

She shook her head. "There are many things that would allow one such as him to use magic. Excalibur is a good example of just one, but it would take years of dedication and study to perfect it."

"Vortigern studied with the mages long ago. He was a student of Mordred, Merlin and your father," Bedivere told her.

The Mage stiffened. "He was taught magic by mages?" she asked in disbelief. It seemed Merlin had left out a very important detail about their enemy.

"Yes, does that change things?" Bedivere asked carefully.

"Yes, he already has an understanding of the craft. It will make him a formidable opponent."

"Well have to act quickly then," Bill suggested. "And not miss."

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