A/N: I do not own anything from King Arthur, etc. etc. Except for the characters I create, etc. You guys know the drill, right? Not mine, unfortunately, not mine. So please don't sue!

Chapter 1: Taken

Two little girls raced across the rich, green land. Clasping hands, they rolled and tumbled down the hill, laughing in a whiling dervish of skirts and braids. As they stood, they beheld a small town; it's brown, circular huts cropping up against the cliffs and rocks that led to the fierce ever-changing sea. The gulls cast their haunting cry across the skies, calling for their loves lost to the ocean's depths. Home.

Entering the brown, wooden meeting hall, the girls separated, looking for their respective fathers. The hall was one long room, with two stairs on each of far sides, leading up to a balcony for matter of a more private nature. Glancing about the room, the russet haired, green eyed girl jumped when she heard her father's usually quiet, lilting voice raised in anger.

"You fight for freedom, yet you come to take our own?"

Beckoning to the honey haired girl with sea colored eyes across the hall, she slowly and silently crept up the old wooden stairs as an unintelligible guttural voice murmured his response.

The final stair creaked, and the two eight-year olds hung their heads in shame at being caught. Their father's looked up sharply, eyes widening at the sight of their daughters standing windblown and solemn in the doorway. The third man slowly turned around. He was draped in heavy furs, his face already showing the lines that connoted wisdom. His brown hair and beard were a wild tangle about his face, strange dark blue markings showing through. Strangest of all, however, was his skin; it was tinged a strange, silverfish blue.

He crossed the small balcony and knelt before them. Staring into their eyes, he nodded and said

"Yes. These girls will do nicely."

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The blonde girl watched her mother turn from the window with angry tears in her eyes. The russet haired girl took her by the hand and they began to descend onto the beaches.

"Well," the red-head said as they plodded along hand in hand, "it will be a bonny adventure, that's for sure."

Smiling slight at this, the blonde's spirits lifted slightly until they reached the little boat where their fathers and the strange man waited. She went to her father, who knelt before her. He pressed something into her closed hand and kissed it. Uncurling her fingers, they revealed a shiny conch shell no bigger than her smallest finger. Placing it to her ear, she smiled as she heard the crash of the sea.

"Never forget, lass. You belong to the sea. Eyes like yours . . . the sea claimed us as its kin long ago. Keep a piece of it with you and you'll be safe." He said, tears in his eyes.

The red haired girl hugged her father long and hard. She attempted to smile bravely at him and he chuckled softly as he ruffled her hair. She swatted his hands away as he poked at her gently.

"Da, stop it!"

"Ah, fine then, ya little motherless beggar. Ya know I love ya." He replied with a fond smile, before picking her up, knowing that he held his daughter in his arms for the last time.

With hardened faces, the two fathers placed their brightest jewels into the small boat.

"Your names?" the strange man asked.

"Isolde" the blonde girl replied softly, her sea eyes never leaving his.

"Elaine" the titian haired girl replied as she opened her hand to see her father's last gift, a stone carved four-leaf clover pendant on a chain.

As the boat began to float away to lands unknown, the girls watched their fathers grow small, yet still straight and proud, on the shore. Isolde's father's voice carried across the wind to them,

"You're taking two of Ireland's finest daughters away with you to Britain. Never forget her sacrifice, Merlin."