AN: I admit, this seems like a pretty pointless chapter, even to me... You see my muse for this story still enjoys her holidays, so I am quite alone *sniff. Still I'm sorry, that I made you wait for so long (supposing you still wait). I hope you like this chapter though and give me some reviews. I love reviews, you know?

Chapter 5

Gwaine was, in fact, leaving the counsel. After all he was a very important man now – as Arthurs 'second-in-command'. The knight snorted. As if! As if there was any difference between an attorney, which was the position Sir Leon held, and a 'second-in-command'. Of course he had only been appointed, because Arthur hardly would have said: "And this is Sir Gwaine, some random knight, but I just couldn't come up with someone more important to greet you, so let's get some tea, will you?" Still Gwaine stubbornly believed, that this was a conspiracy founded to fulfill the designation of forcing him to take some responsibility.

While he pondered over the way all the world had conspired to make him settle down, rather than about the new threat for Camelot – the letter sounded far too florid to be taken seriously in his opinion and after all Arthur and Merlin had defeated every other magical threat too – Gwaine obviously didn't watch his way.

He wasn't the only one. When he bounced into something hard it was plain obvious, that the 'something' was a person. So he made a step back and grinned, while he opened his mouth to apologize. Unfortunately he had bumped into the very one person he had not wanted to meet. Still she had an extraordinary effect on him: his grin vanished and the words didn't seem to have any inclination of coming out of his mouth.

Rowenna raised an eyebrow. "I see you have a problem with greetings now, as well as with goodbyes.", she said and added, with a bitter undertone: "You are a man of surprises, as it seems."

Meanwhile Gwaine held his hands up in defiance. He felt quite unwell under the lasting stare of these furious green eyes and so he came up with the best he was able to come up with in the moment, which was not very inventive, but still... He said: "I can explain!" It was only then, that he thought about the way, he would explain.

The princess of Powys raised her eyebrow even higher (if that was possible, maybe it was just his imagination). "I am sure you can.", she answered sarcastically and now the newly-made knight felt, that his honour was under attack. "I can!", he stated. That apparently got the princess furious. "Yes, I know you can!", she cried, causing a passing courtier to get away much faster. "But I do not want to hear, as ALL YOU EVER TELL IS LIES!"

And with that she turned around and left the way she had been coming. Now she's the one having a problem with goodbyes., the knight thought huffily, but he wisely did not say anything about it, supposing that Rowenna may come back then and ask him, how exactly he would explain and that he still had to work out.

Arthur sat at his desk, a blank paper lying in front of him. Merlin bustled behind him, doing chores he normally never did (partly because they were as good as non-existant) and gazing at the paper as often as possible. Which was why he was doing all that in the first place.

The prince growled at him. "Merlin, leave!", he ordered. His manservant flinched, but he answered with his usual cheerfulness, when he said: "You are the one, who always says, that I'm not payed for being lazy. And now you don't let me doing my chores." He actually managed to sound offended, regardless of his real feelings.

And he felt quite a lot. The message, that some sorcerer would be attacking the city had been a shock, but well, things like that had to be expected. Sometimes he wondered, how Arthur had managed to stay alive, before he had reached Camelot. What had shocked him, was that the sorcerer called himself Emrys. Although he had never quite related to that name he felt offended, that somebody used it to fight against Arthur. The villain of the day clearly had not apprehended the prophecy in its full extent.

Also the message filled him with anxiety for the future. How could he ever reveal his destiny to Arthur, when the prince fought against an Emrys now and against his claim to rule Albion. How would he ever be able to explain Arthur, that he was destined to make the same claim?

So he was anxious to see, how Arthur would deal with this problem. He had followed him, when his prince had restrained to his room and he had been trying to look busy in the background, while Arthur worked on a message for Emrys' sorcerer to carry back. It seemed that such an answer was quite important for the old knights and Arthur himself, because otherwise they would have acted unchivalrous, while Gwaine had been proposing something along the lines of: "Message your ass and let's get all the soldiers there are, so we can kick this Emrys into his magical backside!" Merlin had approved of that very much, but Arthur insisted on the message, whose content Merlin was quite anxious on.

"Leave!", Arthur insisted. "I cannot write this damn thing, while you look over my shoulder the whole time!" Merlin knew, that fatigue and stress spoke of his prince, but he still felt offended, when he finally left the room and strolled through the castle in order to think about the man who had apparently stolen his name.

He didn't even dare to ask himself the most dreadful question there was: had Kilgarrah been wrong? Had everything he had done these three years – protecting Arthur, Camelot and even Uther – been wrong? The young warlock shuddered, but he was awaken out of his sinister thoughts by a loud cry. Something along the lines of "LIES!"

Around the next corner he met Gwaine who stood there a bit sheepishly. "Um... What's wrong?", he answered cautiously. "Something about a woman?", Merlin supposed, as he was quite sure, that it had not been the knight, who had been screaming (for that he would have had experiencing a nasty breaking of the voice). His friend turned around and somehow managed to produce a broad grin. "You're right about that, mate.", Gwaine answered and added: "I need an ale now, I think. You care to join me?" And somehow Merlin cared very much about that. Forgetting his sinister thoughts about destiny, evil sorcerers as well as his dreams about Morgana and having a little fun with Gwaine seemed to be a very good idea. And on the way he could get some explanations about the screaming woman...

Once again Morgana sat at the bed of her sister, thinking about what to do with this Emrys. Here she could finally retreat from the hectic of what she called her court in the moment. While of course it was a mess. The people would not yield to her, the nobles buckled, but searched for a way to throw her down all the time... Sometimes the witch felt, as if everything was hopeless.

Sighing she pressed Morgauses hand one last time and then stood up to face the dreads of the day once again. Just as she had turned around, she heard a voice whisper her name. At first she thought, that she was wrong, that she had imagined it, that it was a hallucination of her fatigued mind, but nonetheless she turned around and looked straight into the beautiful brown eyes of her sister.

"Morgana..."