MISGUIDED GHOSTS

A/N: Hello, my wonderful readers! Yes, I have returned with Misguided Ghosts! Now, my New Year's Resolution is to make promises to you guys and actually keep them (easier said than done) so I'm going to update once a week. I might fall behind, though, and I'm really sorry I can't update every two or three days like I did with Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Quick reminder: the pictures of the characters are on my profile. I changed some of them, so you might want to take a look even if you did at the beginning of Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Another thing I hereby promise you: I WILL reply to every signed review. I PROMISE. Oh, and I have a message for two of the reviewers of Every Rose Has Its Thorn (they left unsigned reviews so I couldn't reply).

Sid: Thanks for the note about the spells; I use an online translator (Google) so I just wrote what it told me. I really wouldn't know the difference, but thanks.

RubyLove717: STOP. STALKING. ME. I know where you live... yeah, the room down the hall. :P So, thanks for actually reading the story... and, yeah, my characters cuss. I learned half of my "vocabulary" from you! Anyway, swearing aside, I hope you like Misguided Ghosts as much! (I have a beta now, Ruby. Quit pointing out my mistakes every time you talk to me about my writing.)

Anywho... I hope the rest of you enjoy Misguided Ghosts! It's sad entering 2011 still not owning Merlin. Nor do I own "You Are The Only One" by Emily Osment. This chapter is pretty short, it's mostly to get the ball rolling. It was about one page on Word, and the other chapters are all four and a half pages (about) so the others will be much longer. Oh, and don't bother reading any more if you haven't read Every Rose Has Its Thorn. None of this will make sense, I can tell you that right now. One last shout-out: Without being sappy, Kitty O, I want to thank you for everything you've done for this story, including reviewing, beta-ing from chapter 21 of Every Rose Has Its Thorn to now, and continuing to message me even when I go off on these random rants about stupid things... thanks. :)

Now, without further ado, I give you... Misguided Ghosts.

1. You Are The Only One

Two weeks after Aven had left… that was when the nightmares began.

Merlin only got a fortnight of dreamless (albeit restless) sleep without Aven in the castle. It was weird, but it was as though his subconscious was fully aware that a part of him was missing… that a part of him was a four-day's journey away.

Other than Merlin's somewhat sleepless nights, life in the castle had been relatively normal since Aven's departure. It had been so quiet, it was almost… boring. Rena Pendragon had left about a week after Aven did. She went back to her home kingdom, Revasia, leaving her cousin Arthur and her love Xander behind. It was probably safest there for her in Revasia, anyway. She was magic, and if the people of Revasia found out… well, at least she wouldn't be sentenced to death, like she would be in Camelot. Uther had never liked his niece, anyway.

Aven always said that Uther was executing hundreds of innocent people while two powerful witches and the most powerful warlock to have ever lived were right under his nose, practicing magic under his roof whenever they saw fit. Of course, Rena always got upset whenever Aven's rather dry sense of humor became evident, saying that joking like that was inappropriate. But that was how Aven saw the world.

And, to be honest, it didn't bother Merlin one bit. Whether he'd just gotten used to it because of the ungodly amounts of time he wanted to spend with Aven or he just accepted it because he loved her so much, it didn't bother him at all. At the same time, though, Merlin didn't tell her this, because he'd only just managed to convince her that love existed. For the longest time, she'd been completely against it, having never seen it herself.

Now that she did, Merlin didn't even know if he was ever going to be able to be with her. She was a princess, after all. It was easy to forget that, since she certainly didn't come off as one. Merlin had always seen her as his beautiful, magical girl from the forest. Naturally, she was so much more than that to him, but that was how he generally thought of her.

Arthur had noticed a change in his manservant recently. He seemed very… distant. He didn't make his usual quips whenever Arthur ordered him around, and the prince had no idea why. Neither Merlin nor Aven had ever mentioned their forbidden relationship to anyone but Rena, since they didn't know how it would be received. Merlin thought that maybe Arthur would understand, since he was in love with Gwen, but the warlock was a little bit worried about Aven's protective older brother Xander. Xander was one of Arthur's knights, and Merlin knew Xander would never really hurt him, since it would hurt Aven, but he was still a little wary of the knight. No one knew better than Merlin that love made you do strange things.

So he figured he was imagining things as he lay in his bed (once again late bringing Arthur his breakfast), and he heard a voice he'd been waiting to hear for what had seemed like an eternity.

"Hi there, stranger."