I thought I would take a longer break from writing after Amddiffyn but the plot bunnies attacked, and what can I say I had to write or they would have taken my virtual cookies that I baked for my reviewers! and I couldn't let that happen.

Well anyway enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin

His breath was ragged as his feet pounded against the forest floor, his heart frantically breathing from fear and exertion. The only sound in the forest was the clanging of his five companions armor and the breaking of twigs and crushing of leaves under the feat of the five knights, the manservant, and the twenty or so bandits chasing them.

Merlin wondered how they always managed to get into these kinds of situations. It was only a year ago that he and Arthur had run from a different group of bandits in this same part of the forest. The only difference was that this time there were four other knights being chased with them. Why couldn't any of these patrols ever go as planned?

It was supposed to be a nice easy patrol to give Arthur a break from his new duties as king, hunting wasn't a productive enough excuse to leave the court according to his advisors. So the newly crowned king, stepping in for his mentally ill father, had taken his newly appointed and must trusted knights on a patrol to investigate the bandits chasing them now.

Their job had only been to locate the bandits camp and return to Camelot for back up, but Merlin had tripped on a tree root, that he could have sworn wasn't there a minute before, making a large enough noise to alert the nearest bandit to the intruders.

So now he, Arthur, Perceval, Lancelot, Gawaine and Elyan were running for their lives. Merlin could only hope that this time turned out better than the last time he had been chased in this part of the forest.

Arthur led the way through the trees and suddenly Merlin stopped as he saw two familiar wooden statues appear out of the thicket. The statues were so huge Merlin was barely as tall as their feet, the statues carried swords faced down and had crowns on their heads.

He was back at the entrance to the valley of the fallen kings.

"Arthur" Merlin said

"What Merlin?" Arthur asked exasperated as he and the other knights slowed to a stop.

"Did we not establish that this place is cursed the last time we were here?"

"It is not cursed Merlin!"

"Stop being such a girl Merlin," Arthur yelled as he pulled Merlin through the archway "We will hide in a cave and wait for the bandits to go."

Reluctantly Merlin followed Arthur into the valley of the fallen kings as he heard the bandits approaching.

The six men ran. They ran where Arthur had fallen a year ago with an arrow in his back. Passed the place where Taliesin had cured him.

Merlin continued running, pushing back all of the memories that this place tried to resurface, and looked for a suitable cave to hide in. There were many caves along the narrow ridge but they need one where the bandits couldn't see them enter.

Merlin finally say the perfect cave as the turned a bend. It was close enough to the turn that the bandits wouldn't see them enter and looked big enough to hold all six men and five suits of armor.

"This way!" he called as he ran into the cave. He heard his companions following him in so he went in as far as he could, expecting to have to squeeze a little.

Merlin doubled over, hands on his knees so he could catch his breath. When he finally started breathing regularly again he looked around him.

First he looked to make sure that all the knights were with him in the cave. Once he was assured they were all safe he looked around the cave.

Hundreds of crystals illuminated the large cave. Each one had a slightly pink tint and seemed to call to Merlin to be looked at.

Merlin groaned as he tried not to look into the crystals. When he had looked at these crystals before, the visions they had shown him had brought him nothing but misery. He had learned that nothing good can come from looking into the crystals.

But despite his efforts to ignore the beckoning crystals, Merlin glanced into a small one close to the ground to his left.

"Your destiny young warlock." The dragon's voice filled his ears as he saw him in the crystal, still chained in the bowels of Camelot.

Merlin gasped and turned his head away in the opposite direction from the crystal only to be faced with another crystal.

"Look into the Crystals Emrys, Look." Taliesin was pointing to the crystals behind his head during his first visit to the crystal cave.

Merlin gasped again as he closed his eyes tightly.

"No," He whispered. He would not look again.

"Leave it to you Merlin to choose the girliest cave possible." Arthur said as he patted Merlin on the back.

"The bandits have passed sire. I suggest we wait here a little longer and then head back to Camelot." Elyan said

Merlin couldn't see Arthur nod since his eyes were shut but he heard him agree with Elyan.

The two voices from his past kept ringing through Merlin's head making it difficult to follow the conversation.

"Young Warlock…."

"Look Emrys…"

"Your Destiny…."

"Into the Crystals…."

"Destiny…."

"Look!"

"No!" Merlin shouted as he placed the palms of his hands on his eyes, trying to block out the words of the Great Dragon and Taliesin from the crystals.

Suddenly there was a loud rumble, and Merlin opened his eyes just in time to see rocks from the ridge fall right in front of the entrance to the cave so they were trapped.

"Destiny…"

::::

Arthur stared at the rock in wonder.

Only a minute before Merlin had called them into the cave, a cave he hadn't noticed until Merlin pointed out, and he had though they were safe. But somehow rocks from the ridge had fallen exactly in front of the entrance to the cave, sealing them in.

Right before the rocks had fallen Merlin had yelled out "No!" and after they stopped falling he swore he heard him whisper "Destiny".

Now his manservant was sitting in the corner of the cave, as far from the crystals as he could get, with his hands covering his eyes and his knees pulled up to his chest.

"What the hell just happened?" he wondered out loud

"Why I thought it was simple your highness," Gawaine said in his typical I'm not taking this seriously manner "Rocks fell and now we are stuck in a cave full of pretty pink crystals."

Arthur glared at him "Well I know that. What I want to know is how those rocks fell."

"Maybe someone pushed them from the top of the ridge and they happened to fall in front of this cave?" Perceval offered

"Perceval my friend, you are the only person in all of Camelot with the strength to push rocks." Elyan said

Perceval crossed his arms stubbornly "Maybe they used some kind of contraption?"

"It doesn't matter," Gawaine interjected "I don't care how those rocks got there, but I just want to find a way out of this bloody cave so Elyan you come with me and we'll see if there's another exit down that way. The rest of you can start trying to push the rocks out of the way."

Gawaine and Elyan took their swords and went to explore the cave while Perceval and Arthur started arguing over which rocks to try and push first.

Lancelot on the other hand went to sit next to Merlin who still hadn't moved from his corner.

"Merlin," Lancelot whispered. Merlin jumped at his voice "Merlin, did you do that?"

"No, well at least I don't think so," Merlin replied "But I do think I had something to do with it."

"Well then do you want to tell me why you're sitting in this corner covering your eyes?"

"This place is called the Crystal Cave. I'm told this is where magic was first created." Merlin began "The crystals have special properties. A powerful enough sorcerer can use them to see the past future and present."

"And I'm guessing a warlock is powerful enough to use these crystals?"

"Yes, but I cannot control what I see. I've looked into crystals from this cave twice before and both times it only brought me misery. One time I almost caused the death of the king because of what I saw."

"So what does that have to do with the rocks falling?"

Merlin took a deep breath before he responded "I'm not exactly sure. Right before the rocks fell I looked into the crystals for only a moment and I saw two moments from my past. One was the great dragon telling me about my destiny and the other was a sorcerer named Taliesin telling me to look in the crystals. Then I said no and the rocks came down."

Lancelot thought for a moment before saying "I think the crystals want you to look into them."

"No," Merlin said firmly "I will never look into those crystals again."

Well what do you think? Please leave a review and I'll give you a virtual cookie that I saved from the plot bunnies!