Prologue
"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others." - Anne-Sophie Swetchine
A lady signed into the mist, shivering as the cold water scratched her bare arms.
It was the most unbearable day in the history of her life, which was saying a lot, since she was centuries old.
King Arthur was dead.
Yes. Dead.
It wasn't known how or when, but when Merlin walked into the same place where she stood now, he found the great warrior lying on the ground, his nemeses laying ten or so feet away from.
The Light had won again against the forces of the dark, but had suffered a lot of casualties on the way. King Arthur's round table was reduced to three brave warriors, a lot less since a few decades ago, where the round table held at least twenty knights of valor. The citizens were the hardest to see killed. So innocent, yet the armies of Mordred slaughtered them mercilessly. She could hear the screams of little children as baby dragons were let to swarm them. She could hear the swords cutting across the sweet flesh of the men. She could see the what was left of the swarmed cities, bones laying scattered, pieces of flesh laying rotting in the moonlight, for there was no light in the rule of the dark. She could see everything in stark clarity as if it were laying right before her eyes.
The Lady of the Lake signed into the mist, shivering as the cold water scratched her bare arms.
"Quite the irony isn't it? We have won everything, yet we lost everything." spoke a voice from behind her.
The Lady smiled at the humor of the statement, "You are quite a strong lady, Guinevere."
"A Queen has to be strong for her people, Riha." came the reply.
Riha grinned at the arrogant, yet wise reply, and turned to face Guinevere. She was brought to see a young girl which had just passed her twenties with sparkling purple eyes and long, silky raven black hair. Guinevere was clad in a simple black robe, yet she shone with beauty.
"Let's walk back, " Riha told her new found friend.
Back at Avalon, the new house of the Order of the Light...
Lancelot smiled at the small six-year old who had entered with Gawain, Hope.
"Hey, princess." He smiled a rare, real, smile.
Hope squiled and ran up to play with her two uncles.
It shouldn't be like this, thought Merlin. Hope was just what her name meant, Hope. She was one of the last young girls to survive this war in Scotland. Also saying that only so few boys were there in Scotland, Merlin calculated that Scotland will never reach the height in population for a couple of centuries again.
Centuries.
Everything was counted in that order now. The war against the Dark was so treacherous that only a few thousand lived to tell the tale.
The strongest survive, the weak die.
Again, one of the lines that Merlin hoped not to come true, had. The ones to live were the ones to think quickly, and to fight strongly and bravely. The ones who couldn't died; the harsh truth of life in the Dark Age.
Arthur.
Merlin smiled at his new, now dead, friend. When Merlin met Arthur a few decades ago, he could see the power radiating off Arthur unlike anything he had seen before. Merlin took him in and started traing him in the arts of magic he himself had learnt a few years before. Arthur picked it up quickly, and soon enough at the age of eighteen, Arthur could challenge Merlin and equal him in a duel. That was when, Merlin decided to show Arthur the wonder of the outside world.
Excalibur. The beacon of the Light.
It came quite a surprise to Merlin to see Arthur one day with a sword on his back, returning from hunting for some deer.
"Hey, Merlin, look what I found!"
Merlin just looked at the sword glowing with pure knowledge.
"What's wrong?"
"You are the new beacon of the Light!"
It was then Merlin understood why Arthur held such power. He was the messenger, beacon, or whever you call it, of the light.
Arthur was no king, officially. The people just called him that. Arthur was the son of a bronze smith from northern Scotland. Up there, he was known to be kind and generous, at the same time tough on rules.
Mordred.
No one knew where this monster or his army had come from, but Merlin speculated that he came from the dark islands north of Scotland. Azkaban. Yes, that's what they call it. It is now rumored that whoever was struck by Mordred's sword, turned into a foul creature who was calded in ripped robes and floated upon the ground. It fed on happiness. Merlin believed that such powerful magic could never exist, but no one could be sure now. Merlin had seen the day being ripped out of the sky by the night. Clear blue-green water turn into a dark navy-blue, so contaminated, that one drop could give you the fever, which would last for months.
The two swords, Mordred's and Excalibur, disappeared after the last battle, never to be seen again. But, Merlin knew where they were, with Fate, who was waiting for the right messengers of both Light and Dark.
July 31, 1981...
Avalon...
It was happening, Hope didn't know why, but it was happening.
Merlin's staff was glowing.
Excalibur was back.
The heir of the Light was born.