Rating: R

Word count: ~ 14000 (The brevity fairy was overly generous with me when handing out her gifts, and I'm trying to train myself out of it.)

Warnings: Gratuitous abuse of Arthurian legends, myth!porn, and several self-indulgent fix-its.

Summary: "See anything?" Jack asks, and Ianto should, he's been a hunter for more than a thousand years, but he can't. It isn't time yet; Arthur still sleeps and their fates haven't converged. But soon. Very soon. (Crossover with Merlin)

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

(Longass) A/N: The very first thing to be said needs to be a huge thank you to my beta, Angstosaur, whom I'm sure I drove very much nuts with my constant bombardment. She's brilliant and patient and knows just where to nitpick, and this story would be half the monster it turned in to without her. Secondly, thanks again to morwencath for looking over my Welsh and grammar—greatly appreciated!

I must acknowledge that I deviate wildly from Merlin's canon at the slightest provocation, or whenever I like the legend better. That being said, in writing this I tried to stick with the show's AU of the Arthurian legends, and adapted the other stories I used in light of that. Mabon ap Modron is actually a fairly minor character, though versions of him seem to pop up in every major story I can think of. The main basis for this fic is the tale Culhwch ac Olwen, which is where Mabon makes his biggest appearance. This story should be understandable without knowing the tale, but it's very interesting to those who'd like to Google it. Again, please be aware I've altered these legends quite a bit to suit my tastes, and if that's going to offend you, please don't read it. If it won't, please enjoy this monster-thing. I certainly had fun writing it. :)

Edit: There are now notes for this story up on my LiveJournal account, if anyone would like a little more explanation. (The link is black-k-kat. livejournal 34343 . html. Just remove the spaces and you're golden.)

Storm Descending

There are church bells ringing in the distant city, and the smell of spring is on the wind. The air feels green, like growth, and the sky is clear and blue. Ianto walks along the hilltop with loose, easy strides, and the grass springs up from each footprint even stronger and more verdant than before.

There are birds in the sky above him, dipping and rising as the wind ebbs and swells. They're hawks and falcons, mostly, with the odd eagle rising above the rest—goshawks and red kites and kestrels, peregrines and gyrfalcons and merlins, a golden eagle's feathers catching the warm rays high up and burning like burnished copper. Farther away, out of range of the falcons' interest, are the other birds, storm petrels and gannets and terns, doves and swifts and swallows, bright-feathered kingfishers and dull-drab finches. Ravens and jays, rooks and crows all add their harsh-voiced calls, joining with the sweet songs of the thrushes.

But there is no competition between them, no fights to be seen. A brave pied flycatcher flutters and dips beside a fierce osprey, and a dove coos and warbles with a sharp-eyed buzzard.

Ianto watches all of them, and he smiles, because they're beautiful and free and so very, very fierce, from the largest gyrfalcon to the smallest nuthatch. He shakes the sleeve of his leather coat down and then raises his arm, though his steps never pause.

From the blue, a silver shape descends, and a merlin plummets to land on Ianto's forearm. It's a male, relatively young, with white and tan-speckled chest feathers and clever golden eyes. Ianto chuckles as it preens itself, and dares raise a hand to gently stroke its breast. The small falcon permits it, though Ianto can tell he's only just allowed; if he were anyone else, he'd be missing a few fingers already.

"Thank you," he tells it politely, before raising his arm. The bird launches itself away from him, rising with remarkable strength and speed to join its kin, and Ianto shades his eyes to watch it go.

"A merlin. Well. That time already?" he remarks to no one in particular. "Either it's early this turn or I'm falling behind."

The wind picks up around him, carrying a faint bite of metal. Ianto can't tell if it's copper or steel that he's smelling, though certainly neither is entirely welcome. Blood or blades—there's always a choice to be had, and never a good one.

In the distance, the trees are rustling, oaks and birches shaking their branches. The new leaves are still fresh and brilliantly green, and the moisture in the air carries the tangy earthiness of moss and old leaves. There are rowans somewhere nearby, as well; Ianto can feel them like a bright splash of color in the surrounding greenery. Holly and beech are making their presence known, too, as light as laughter amongst the stately, sturdy oaks.

The forests stretch all the way down to the sea, to where the waters leap and dance and the waves are crowned with foam like the white hair of the water sprites. Ianto pauses at the crest of the hill, where the land slopes away to the shore, and breathes deep.

It feels as though he never has the opportunity to do so, lately.

A fox streaks past his foot, brilliantly russet, followed by another. They tumble, tussle, fall end over end as they hurtle down the hill and then vanish back into the woods. Deer lift their heads from where they sleep in the bracken, and then lower them again, assured that there is no danger here and now. Wild dogs, feral cats, sleek polecats, and curious weasels slip in and out of the shadows, winding through the trees.

Ianto watches them all, listens to the absolute absence of human sounds in this spreading refuge, and at long last allows himself to relax. He breathes, and the world breathes with him. The earth thrums beneath his feet and the ocean rolls with the beat of his blood and he can feel every animal, every plant, every heart that has ever beat upon this land.

Somewhere far away, there is a song, a lament. Ianto closes his eyes and listens to it, tries to make out the words, but he cannot. It rises and falls with a breeze, gets lost between the ocean waves and whispering boughs, and Ianto turns away from it soon enough, looking back out at the grey-blue sea.

There is an island in the distance, shining white spires and green sweeps of land clothed in silver mists. Ianto's eyes are very, very good, and he can just make out the silvery-white rush of waterfalls, the curves and sweeping lines of a lazy river, a high white wall and the glitter of diamond-cut glass.

"Ynys Avallach," he murmurs, as the merlin streaks across his line of sight and rises again, vanishing out over the sea.

A cloud drifts slowly over the face of the sun, a long shadow falling over the quiet hill and languidly sliding away.

When it clears, Ianto is alone on the hilltop. The birds and animals have vanished, and the scent of metal is gone from the wind. Only the faint rustling of new leaves remains of the previous peace, as the stillness is shattered by the distant groan of traffic, the lofty whine of an aeroplane, and a thousand other faint, human sounds that Ianto has grown accustomed to in his life.

With one last look back towards the ocean, once again void of that beautiful, shining island, Ianto resettles his coat, turns on his heel, and strides away.

The merlin dips and wheels behind him, tracing a path from land to sea before it, too, vanishes into the light.

Ianto is gone.

He's been gone a lot lately.

Jack leans on the railing overlooking the main floor of the Hub, frowning a little. Usually, Ianto isn't the one he worries about, since the Welshman is grounded and steady and as practical as they come, especially compared to Owen and Gwen, who are relatively high-strung. Even Tosh has her moments of drama, and gods know that Jack himself is hardly levelheaded, but Ianto always is. Without doubt, without fail, Ianto is the rock Torchwood Three is tethered to, and they need him to stay sane.

But lately, that rock has been drifting a bit, and Jack can't make out why.

Something to do with him, maybe? He has to wonder, sometimes, how it is that Ianto can care for him, can love him—and Jack knows he does, just the way he know that he loves Ianto, for all that neither of them has ever spoken the words—when Jack was the one to order Lisa's death, when Ianto spent so long sliding around him and hiding his true self even when they slept together. Surely it's not healthy for Ianto to go from the first woman he ever seriously dated—the woman he planned to spend the rest of his life with—to the man who killed her.

Surely it's not healthy for Ianto to love Jack, who is old but eternally young, a fixed point in time and space that will never, ever change.

Far above, the sun is shining through a thin layer of wispy clouds, and Jack looks up, making little effort to shake himself out of his grim thoughts.

Then the haze parts, and the cog door rolls back, and Ianto walks in. He smiles at Jack, gorgeous and sweet and a little awkward, even after they've been together this long—longer than Jack's been with anyone in years, if he's going to be truthful—and the clouds cease to matter at all.

There's only sunshine, and Jack is happy.

"Four car wrecks in the past week, all at the same spot and all just after sunset." Jack drops a pile of incident reports in the middle of Ianto's desk—by virtue of it being clearest and closest—and looks around the Hub. "Ideas?"

"Car wrecks?" Tosh spins around in her chair to face him, frowning. "Sure, it's a high number, but school's out for the summer. Couldn't it just be reckless teenagers?"

Ianto rolls his eyes, if surreptitiously, at Jack's dramatics and picks up the four files, riffling through them. "Not teenagers, though," he counters. "Forty-seven year old man, twenty-three year old woman, fifty year old man, thirty-six year old man. No connections that the police could find, except for using the same route home."

"Well, that's it then!" Owen scoffs, throwing up his hands. "The bloody coppers say there's nothing to it, they must be right. What are four more dead, anyway?"

"Git," Gwen snaps at him, coming over to take the files from Ianto. Ianto surrenders them easily, having already noted the names to run a search of his own.

"Ideas?" Jack repeats, folding his arms over his chest and regarding them all with the exaggerated patience of a primary school teacher.

Tosh obediently spins back to her monitor. "I'll run a check, see if anything similar has happened before. Ianto, can you check incident reports in the non-digitized section of the Archives?"

Ianto is tired and still a bit sore from a close call with a Weevil the other night—no matter what the others think, he and Jack do actually hunt Weevils when they say they do. Mostly. But Torchwood marches ever on, and it's a Tuesday. That's reason enough to hurry and get it over with.

Nothing good ever happens on a Tuesday.

(Ianto knows this from experience; this time last Tuesday, he switched places with a version of himself from an alternate reality, and had to spend six hours as the Chief Engineer of a clockwork-powered airship hunting down sky pirates over Wales, all while fending off the advances of a Captain Jack Harkness who was even more randy than the normal version. Ianto will never look at his stopwatch the same way again.)

Muffling a soft groan, Ianto levers himself to his feet. "All right, I suppose I'll have to brave the Archives alone, then. If you lot are still so scared of that alien jack-in-the-box—"

"Hey!" Owen protests, even as he snags the medical reports from Gwen. "We all know how you are about alien monsters hiding in dark corners, tea boy, but the rest of us—"

"Enough, Owen," Jack cuts in, clearly amused by the bickering. "I want you going over those coroner's reports with a microscope for anything that doesn't fit. Gwen, backgrounds. Go talk to the families, friends, anyone. I want everything there is to know about them. Find me a connection. Let's treat this like an alien attack until we know it isn't."

"Oh, yes," Ianto mutters, scrounging in his desk drawers for a torch and a spare light bulb. One of the furthest lights has been flickering, and regardless of his words to Owen, there are things down in the Archives that he doesn't want to be trapped in the dark with. "Because that worked so well with the cannibals. Which, might I remind you, was also a Tuesday."

Nevertheless, he carefully drapes his suit jacket over the back of his chair, pockets the torch, and heads down to look through nearly two hundred years' worth of Torchwood's paper records.

It's not the most auspicious start to the morning, but Ianto's had worse.

Perhaps predictably, there's nothing in the Archives that screams coincidence, not even two hundred years back. Ianto surrenders gracefully after six hours of squinting at tiny print and deciphering nearly illegible handwriting—a good portion of the latter belongs to Jack, and even familiarity doesn't breed ease of interpretation there.

Tosh is hunched over her keyboard, glasses sliding down her nose, forehead wrinkled. The others are conspicuous in their absences, leaving the Hub echoingly silent. High up in his nest, Myfanwy stirs and settles, one bright-dark eye following Ianto as he makes his way to the cog door.

"I'm off to the station," Ianto calls back over his shoulder—not because he thinks Tosh will hear him, but so there's a record left if Jack checks the security cameras. It's a leftover neurosis from the incident with Lisa, perhaps, and the time when he was betraying Torchwood with every step he took for her sake, that he feels the need to mark his presence and intentions whenever he goes off on his own. "Want to have a look at those wrecks before they're shipped off."

Tosh hums in vague acknowledgement, lifting a hand. Ianto shakes his head, silently amused, and heads out, trying not to laugh when the door alarm makes her jump and glance up. He waves as he steps through the opening, and has to force himself not to hum a tune while the elevator takes him up to the garage.

One of the stray cats that frequents the area is perched on the bonnet of Ianto's Audi, cleaning her paw. As he approaches, digging out his keys, she looks up and chirps a greeting, pinning him with brilliant green eyes.

"Prynhawn da, little queen," Ianto returns with amusement. "You're looking well today. How run the mice?"

A curled lip and a dainty sneeze are answer enough. Ianto laughs and digs a cat treat from the inner pocket of his coat, offering it to her with his fingertips. "I'm sorry I can't offer a mouse, but I've no time to hunt myself today. Will this suffice?"

The black cat surveys him for a moment, studies the treat, and then lazily gets up, stretches, and allows him to lift her down from the bonnet and give her the biscuit. Her chirp is one of absent thanks as she crunches it between her teeth.

"You're welcome," Ianto tells her, stroking a fingertip down her spine before straightening and heading for his car.

The smell of metal is in the air again, but this time it's comforting, nostalgic. Ianto breathes it in and thinks of campfires and drowsing horses, men in mail seated around a blaze in the darkness with only their good humor and tall tales to keep away the night.

It's a good memory, as distant as it is.

Ianto sits in his car for a moment and closes his eyes, as though wishing can take him back to that time. For all the hardships he faced—for all the hardships they all faced—it was a time of legends and heroes and brotherhood that never wavered. Ianto misses it more than he likely should, being as he is, and how that time had a severe lack of plumbing and other modern conveniences.

But he starts the car regardless, steels himself to face a world that isn't entirely his own, and pulls out of the garage with a soft sigh.

The traffic is fortunately light—or as light as it ever is, mid-afternoon in Cardiff—and he makes good time to the police station. The woman at the front desk is cheerfully helpful, and within half an hour Ianto is standing in front of three of the four wrecks.

It only takes a single glance to know that no simple crash caused this amount of destruction. The cars are crumpled, with the damage radiating out from a single spot that differs on each, as though they were struck hard by some great force. Deep gouges decorate one car, and there is blood splattered over the interior of all three. The sheer amount of it tells Ianto that, without a doubt, whoever was in these cars didn't get out under their own power.

"Nasty business," the constable accompanying Ianto murmurs, studying the cars.

Ianto nods in agreement, pulling on a pair of gloves and bending down to inspect one of the long gouges. It almost looks as though someone took a vast knife and attacked from the side. Two parallel cuts, slightly offset so that they don't begin or end in the same place—there's an itching at the back of Ianto's neck, a thought he can't quite seem to grasp.

There are traces of whatever did this, actually. Ianto frowns and leans closer, carefully swipes his fingers over the edge of the torn metal and comes up with a few coarse brown hairs, unlike any alien he can think of.

Sitting back on his heels, he glances at the constable, who's watching with unconcealed interest, and asks, "Can you put a hold on these for Torchwood? I think our tech needs to run a few tests on them."

The constable nods, cheerfully enough. The people here tend to like Ianto, especially when he brings them coffee, and as long as they can pretend that he's not related to Captain Jack Harkness in any capacity. "I'll make a note," the man promises. "Really, you lot are welcome to them. We can't make heads or tails of it, ourselves."

"Neither can I," Ianto agrees wryly, rising to his feet. "Thanks. And if there are any more incidents like these—"

"We'll let you know, Agent Jones."

Small comfort, really, that it's sincerely meant. There's a twisting certainty in Ianto's gut that says there will be more, and that they'll come soon.

It also says, unequivocally, that Ianto has the answer to this mystery, if he could just connect the pieces that he has before him.

By the time Ianto has finished with the cars and gotten back to the Hub, twilight is creeping into night and the others are gone. Ianto passes Owen in the hallway, but the doctor seems lost in his own thoughts, something that's been happening more and more lately. Ever since the five of them woke up in the conference room with two days worth of memory missing, he and Tosh have acted differently around each other. Tosh has a little more confidence now, even outside of work, and Owen looks at her with a touch of surprised admiration, as though he's startled to realize that his coworker is female—and even more startled to find her attractive.

Ianto is pleased for both of them, truly he is. But their mooneyes are a bit distracting, and he really doesn't want to come in to find that they've done the deed somewhere that he'll have to clean up after them.

In the main part of the Hub, Jack is up in his office, bent over his desk. Ianto studies the line of his back for a moment, judging, and then goes to the kitchen and puts the kettle on. Coffee is all well and good, and something that Ianto would never have survived Torchwood Three without, but there's also something intensely comforting about a good cup of tea. Once the pot's been brewed, Ianto measures out two mugs, one with milk and sugar and the other with just milk, then carries them up to the office and raps his elbow on the doorframe.

With a faint start, Jack looks up, and a brilliant smile breaks out over his face, stuttering Ianto's heart to a halt before kickstarting it into a double-time rhythm.

"You're back," Jack says warmly, rising to his feet and coming to relieve Ianto of the sugared tea. "Another twenty minutes and I might have started to worry."

Ianto leans forward on his toes to steal a kiss, and the brief but fervent slide of lips does more to warm him than any hot drink or hearty meal. By the time he manages to convince himself to pull away, they're both breathing hard, and there's a look in Jack's eye that tells Ianto dinner will come second to dessert today. "Heaven forbid," he drawls, stretching the vowels that Jack so loves just for the pleasure of seeing the Captain's gaze darken further. "Is there any way I can make it up to you?"

The two mugs are set deftly on the floor, and by the time Jack straightens up his hands are already around Ianto's waist, reeling him in. "Oh," Jack purrs, grin turning wicked as their bodies slide so perfectly together. "I might be able to think of a few ways."

The vague thought Ianto had put to ordering Italian vanishes forthwith beneath the onslaught of Jack's lips and tongue and teeth, and Ianto is hardly sorry to see it go.

Tonight the moon is a thin, weary crescent in the sky, nearly overwhelmed by the light of the stars. The lack of light turns the rocky shore treacherous, but Ianto makes his way steadily enough, familiar with this oft-trodden path after years uncounted of walking it in all conditions.

The ocean seems calmer at night, the waves subdued. They whisper and creep, not quite daring to reach Ianto's toes, and then retreat again. He leans down and traces his fingers through the cool surf, inhaling the scent of brine. The seawater feels like silk against his skin, soft and smooth, and when he raises it to his lips it tastes like joy.

Far out, at the edge of the horizon, the island once again rises from the swells, pale and shining, spires catching what moonlight there is and capturing it, enhancing it. Like a spear of light from the darkness, Ianto thinks, and his fingers twitch closed around the remembered weight of a long spear, which flew unerringly from his grasp but was guided by a greater hand than his own. He doesn't have it anymore—like him, it's waiting, bound inexorably to time and place, to a certain person who will spark a certain chain of events at a certain moment, and set them all free.

Ianto stands in the darkness, at the edge of the sea, and has to admit—if only to himself—that he can't quite imagine when that day will come. Years, decades, centuries already he's been waiting, and it's happened once, briefly, only to end in the same mess of tragedy as before.

This time, Ianto swears, will be different.

This time, he will circumvent fate.

Or he'll help someone else to do it, he thinks, and smiles to himself a little.

A sharp cry breaks the night's stillness, and with a flutter of powerful wings, the merlin from before alights on Ianto's shoulder. He puts an absent hand up to steady it, watching the play of starlight on the water. Ynys Avallach is a beacon to his heart, a desire that he can't quite put into words—not yet, in any case, though if it's already this close, then doubtless the time is almost upon them.

"One man," he murmurs to the merlin. "Everything hinges on one man. Will it come to pass this time, or are we doomed to wait forever?"

The falcon chirrups and sifts its fearsome beak through Ianto's hair, tugging gently. It's an admonishment, and Ianto laughs, startling in the hush.

"Of course," he says in amusement, reaching up to free his hair from the merlin's grasp. "Forgive me, I'm being dramatic. Too long spent with Captain Jack Harkness, I'm afraid. I've an over-developed sense of the theatrical."

With a sound very much like scoffing agreement, the merlin hops from his shoulder to his elbow, and then down to his wrist. It looks Ianto straight in the eye, clucks warningly, and then launches itself into the air to disappear among the shadows.

Even as it goes, footsteps crunch on the rocky shore.

Ianto doesn't have to look up to know who it is.

"We're kin, you and I," the woman says, coming to a halt beside him.

"We are," Ianto acknowledges, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. She's young and lovely, with long dark hair and equally dark eyes, dressed all in purest white. "But you're a long way from Myddfai and Llyn y Fan Fach, milady."

Her smile is a little sad, a touch wistful. "You heard of that? He was a beautiful boy, and I loved him well, but he had three chances and wasted all of them. So it was back to the lake for me, I'm afraid. I'd not be here now, but the time is approaching, and we'll all be needed shortly."

There is a song drifting over the ocean, a battle hymn sung softly but growing louder as it approaches. Ianto tips his head to listen to it, and nods. "Yes," he murmurs, and wishes for his spear, his bow, his sword, longs to take up any and all of them and follow that melody back to its source. "It's been a long time coming. But…the twenty-first century is when everything changes, or so I've been told."

The lady's smile is brilliant, and her laughter is like golden bells. "I suppose," she says. "Is that another thing that Captain of yours is always saying? He's a fine figure of a man, isn't he? Reminds me of Culhwch, a bit. Brave and bold and steadfast, even when it might be better to surrender."

Ianto laughs too, remembering the radiant, dazzling, overwhelming man he left just an hour ago, asleep in their bed and dreaming peacefully. "More like Gwaine, at times," he admits, though it's hardly a bad thing. "A loveable fool, and I the greatest fool of all for loving him as I do!"

She lays a hand on his arm, cool and elegant, as smooth as clear, deep water. "Not a mortal, though. He has that much in his favor," she reminds him, and her voice is bittersweet with remembered tragedies. "Sometimes I envy the others, reborn to this life rather than existing in such a permanent state as ours. At least they have the chance to live as the rest of humanity does, once in a great while."

"But can you imagine it?" Ianto crosses his arms tightly over his chest, though the breeze is warm and the night far more balmy than Cardiff should be. "To come into this world lacking something, and to never find it, no matter how you search? To be a thread in a tapestry that you cannot understand, and that no one else is even aware of? We're fate-touched, milady, the lot of us, and if such a thing is hard to bear when we know of it, I can't contemplate what it must be like to feel the same way and never know why."

Far away, the bells are ringing again. Ianto and the lady both turn to look, and the night sky is suddenly dimmer, the city's light blocking out those of nature.

"Ah, well," the lady sighs, though when Ianto glances at her, she's smiling. "I suppose no night can last forever, regardless of how we wish." She turns back, and there is a lake before them, stretching out blue-green from their feet. Mist is rising, thick and melancholic strands of pearlescent haze, but the lady parts it with a flick of her fingers and steps into the water. No ripples rise, even as she wades further out, white gown drifting and billowing around her. Her hair floats in the water like a dark cloud as she glances back over her shoulder to give Ianto a last smile, and then vanishes beneath the surface without a sound or sign.

The lake and its reed-lined shore are swallowed by the mist and slowly fade from sight.

Ianto glances back out at the empty sea one more time before setting off up the beach, back towards Cardiff and the Hub.

(Jack rolls over in the bed—a bigger one that they found in one of the storage rooms, since Ianto spends almost every night here in the Hub now—

Or at least, every night that he can manage to remain in bed.

It's not that Jack thinks Ianto is cheating on him, going out to another lover in the middle of the night. Ianto is nothing if not loyal, truly to a fault, and Jack can hardly think of anything more ridiculous. It's also not that Jack's never had a sleepless night himself. He has, many of them, and for little or no reason at all.

But Ianto has been going wandering so often that it's almost like he can't bear to stay in bed with Jack, and that…

That hurts, in a way nothing, not even dying, has hurt in a very long while.

Jack throws an arm over his face, covering his eyes, and waits—hoping, hating himself for it—for the inevitable sound of the door alarm going off, and Ianto coming back.)

The scene of the attacks—if that's what they are, and Ianto is fairly certain that it is—is at the edge Coed-y-Felin Woods, outside of Lisvane. There is a place where the road curves around a fairly dark stretch of trees, and the undergrowth is particularly thick. Ianto can see the skid marks that go straight across the tarmac, the dark splotches that are either blood or motor oil. The newest wreck—called in this morning at six, when a commuter finally noticed the battered car off in the bushes—still smells of overheated, torn metal and too many bodily fluids.

Owen is grim-faced as he pulls the door open. Emergency crews have come and gone, but none of them need to ask what the result of this was. Whoever was driving this car died, likely quickly.

Ianto suspects that's the only bright point they'll find in this mess, somehow.

Tosh immediately pulls out a handheld scanner and leans over the most damaged section of the car—gouges, again, like the one wreck the police had brought in. Owen is occupied with the interior, and Gwen is hovering over both, looking uncertain. Taking advantage of their distraction, Ianto slips back a ways and simply studies the scene. It's an instinct that he hasn't used in an age or more, but the bulk of what happened is easy enough to reconstruct when he can see the whole picture. Something emerged from the far side of the road, out of the trees, and struck the battered Toyota full on, pushing it across the opposite lane and into the trees. To hit a swiftly moving car, the thing itself had to have been very quick, and to do this much damage—

Ianto winces. Whatever did this must be very, very strong, and unafraid of using that strength.

The sheer brutality of the attack, the depth and severity of the scores decorating the metal, speak of a killing intent that is entirely realized, Ianto is sure. This was no mindless animal that did this, however angry. It was either human or similar in nature, although Ianto can't quite imagine the how.

"See anything?" Jack murmurs unexpectedly from his right, and Ianto manages to stifle a flinch before looking up at the Captain and shaking his head.

"No," he answers, and while that might be a simple answer for Jack, for Ianto it's much more complicated. At one time, he was the greatest hunter to ever walk the land, and while those instincts mostly lie dormant and waiting, enough of that person remains in Ianto that looking at a scene like this should immediately tell him what happened. But he can't see any prints, and he can't mark a trail, and somehow, whatever did this is big and quick and brutal and able to hide itself entirely from his sight.

Jack makes a dissatisfied sound in the back of his throat and heads to where Tosh is having the others sweep the area with her devices. The tech might look sweet and innocent, but she's a slave driver—within moments, Jack is kitted out with his own scanner despite his obvious attempts to escape, and she directs him to another stretch of trees.

Ianto prudently makes use of his camouflage skills and detours to the other side of the road, where the attacker emerged. He's got nothing against Tosh's tech, but in this case he feels his own abilities—stunted and quiescent as they currently are—might be of more use.

But there's no trail to follow, even though Ianto knows this is where the attacker was lying in wait. There are no signs of a creature resting in the undergrowth, no tracks leading to or from the deeper woods, not a single bent branch or ruffled blade of grass hint at a direction. Ianto crouches low to the ground, tries to feel what the earth is telling him, but can't. He's too weak as he is now, too human for all that he can never die.

(And really, he'd have thought Jack would have noticed at some point, like when the Cyberwoman in Lisa's body threw him hard enough to snap his neck, and he still got up and kept fighting. Though, as far as that goes, Ianto suspects that Jack's own immortality has skewed his sense of what wounds are mortal and which are survivable.)

There's no way Ianto can track the beast like this.

Nevertheless, he slips deeper into the trees, footsteps silent as he listens to the forest sounds. Whatever did this is likely long since gone—all of the attacks have occurred just after sunset—but there's still a slight chance, and that's good enough for Ianto to take a risk like this.

There's no trail to follow, so any direction Ianto picks is pure guesswork. Once, he could have tracked whatever did this without the need for physical signs, his mother's hand guiding him the same way it guided his spear. Now, he walks blindly, and he has to wonder if this is how his more human companions always felt, traveling with him.

A step, another, and in the space between two seconds the forest around him has shifted, changed. It is wilder now, and darker, and the trees creak and shift under the weight of their vast ages. But there is a path now where there was none before, a line of moss-covered stepping-stones that twist and turn through the green dimness. Ianto follows them, because this place is familiar, for all that he hasn't been here in an age or more.

The stepping-stones lead to a twilight-dim circle of trees, a tiny, perfectly round clearing open to the night sky, though Ianto knows it was morning when he walked away from the road and the rest of Torchwood. In the center of the clearing sits a tall, rounded stone with a hole carved through it, surrounded by a ring of smaller, squarer stones gone green with age. And in the middle of the hole, a blackbird with a white breast is perched, watching Ianto with bright-dark eyes as sharp as those of any wise man.

Ianto pauses three paces away, considering, and then bows his head to the bird. "Ousel," he acknowledges. "I haven't been to Cilgwri in a very long time."

The blackbird cocks her head at him and makes a chuffing sound. "My favorite eternal prisoner. You're far from your time, Mabon ap Modron. Is the great hunter lost in the woods?"

"The age of my birth is long behind me," Ianto agrees. "But I pledged my life to Arthur when he rescued me the first time, and I won't go back on that oath."

With a huff, the Ousel of Cilgwri resettles herself, shifting from foot to foot. "And a long life it is indeed," she scoffs. "What would Arthur have said if he knew that, Mabon ap Modron? Emrys of the Old Religion as his manservant, and the son of a goddess as his Huntmaster! A fool of king, was he not, never to see the treachery in his ranks?"

Ianto bristles a little, because the truth of it rankles a bit, even after all this time. Arthur was no fool, and one couldn't simply say that he was too trusting, but there were certainly elements of blindness in his nature, especially to things like magic. His sister, his manservant, his physician, his most faithful knight, his favorite knight, the prisoner he rescued from Caer Loyw—they were all of magic in one way or another, and Arthur never saw it. Merlin, especially, had been rather blatant about it; Ianto hadn't had to be near him for more than a week before he saw just what the façade of the bumbling servant boy hid.

"Never traitors," he informs the blackbird, bitingly polite. "Not a one, except for Mordred, and he was driven to it by forces beyond our ken. We'd any of us have given our lives for his in an instant—more so because of our magic, even. Never doubt that, Ousel, or you're not the wise one I've always taken you for. Arthur is the Once and Future King, and you'd do well to remember that."

With a choking laugh, the blackbird flutters her wings, beckoning Ianto over to her. "Peace, Knight of Camelot!" she chuckles. "I mean no harm. But time and fate are converging right now; are you prepared, Mabon ap Modron? Your divine mother will not guard you, not when this has been written in the stars since your birth."

"It's hardly the first time," Ianto says dryly, rocking back on his heels. "As you've said. I'm the eternal prisoner, am I not? For this tale to start, I have to disappear, and Arthur has to find me. There's nothing to be done about that, and I've long since accepted it, no matter how long it takes to come about."

The blackbird settles again, ruffling her feathers and looking well pleased. "Indeed," she murmurs, and the circular clearing shimmers around them, as though suddenly covered by a heat haze. "Once and Future, forever repeating. Fare you well, Mabon son of Modron."

The clearing fades, and Ianto is once more standing in Coed-y-Felin Woods, with the morning sky bright and bold above him.

The drive back to the Hub is mostly silent. Ianto has a feeling—vague, unproven, but nevertheless present and persistent—that Jack isn't speaking to him. The Captain isn't really speaking to anyone, and that alone is cause for concern, because Jack is a cheerful, communal creature, and for him to be taciturn and withdrawn is both rare and unsettling.

Perhaps it was foolish to go alone into the woods, and perhaps Jack was right to call him on it when he got back to the rest of the team, but Ianto has been alive far longer than Jack has, and the vast majority of that time has been spent in woods and forests just like Coed-y-Felin, or more dangerous wilds. He's hunted manticores and dragons, has chased the White Stag on foot from the Scottish Highlands to where the River Tamar meets the sea and then run the beast to ground, driven wyverns from their lairs and brought their heads back to the villages they had terrorized. Even if he can no longer speak the tongue of the earth or feel it breathing beneath his feet, he's far from helpless, or even vulnerable.

Of course, Jack doesn't know any of this, and until Arthur once more walks the land, Ianto is physically unable to speak of it, however much he wishes to.

After so many years of living, Ianto knows himself fairly well. He's aware of the fact that he's the type to seethe quietly, to let resentment build and build with no outlet until it finally ignites. His explosions are few and far between, but spectacular when they do occur, and as resentful as Ianto is right now—at Jack for not understanding, at Arthur for sleeping peacefully when he's needed here, at Merlin for casting the gods damned reincarnation spell in the first place, at himself for taking out all of these little grievances on Jack when he shouldn't—he still doesn't want to subject Jack, Tosh Owen, and Gwen to his histrionics. As soon as the SUV comes to a halt, he throws open the door and slides out, muttering a quick, "Sorry, have to stop at the store," to anyone who might be listening before he makes a break for it.

He pretends that he can't feel Jack's eyes on his back until he turns the corner.

It's only when he's across the Plass and has lost himself in the crowds that he can pretend it worked.

It's one thing to watch Ianto emerge unscathed from a dark forest containing some unknown monster. It's entirely another watch him bump into a pretty young woman as he makes his way across the Plass and then stop to help her gather her fallen bags, chatting cheerfully.

If Jack didn't know better, he'd mistake that kind smile for something real.

Not that Ianto isn't kind—truthfully, he's probably one of the kindest people Jack knows, for all that he's got a streak of terrifying darkness in him. But he's never needlessly kind. He's the type to be cold to strangers, aloof and polite but forever distant. Jack's managed to get through his barriers, but it's taken time and patience and Ianto nearly getting eaten by cannibals. It's not hubris to think that few others would be able to do the same.

Jack needs Ianto the same way he needs Torchwood. They've become inseparable in his mind, regardless of the fact that Torchwood has existed for centuries without Ianto's meticulous guidance and care. He didn't lie when he said that he came back for Ianto; the young Welshman is without a doubt one of the only reasons Jack survived the Master's attention with even a bit of sanity intact.

But now it seems that Ianto is drawing further away from him, from all of them. It's almost as though he's being pulled away, drawn by some vast force Jack can't even sense, let alone fight.

Maddening doesn't even begin to describe it.

A small hand settles on Jack's elbow, and he looks down to see Tosh standing at his side, looking out across the Plass to where Ianto is just saying his polite farewells to the woman. Then she looks back at Jack and smiles, warm and comforting.

"He's got a lot on his mind," she says gently. "I wouldn't worry about him too much, Jack. Just let him take a bit of space, and support him when he needs it. After all, I get the feeling he's never fully recovered from Canary Wharf, and the anniversary is coming up, right?"

Jack goes still, because he's Ianto's leader, his lover, and he'd never thought of that. He'd seen the problem and immediately assumed that it stemmed from him, from them.

He never considered a why that wasn't the fault of their relationship, that didn't come from the two of them.

What, he wonders despairingly, does that say about them—and him?

It's probably cowardly to hide out in a coffee shop, but Ianto can't bring himself to care. He orders a cappuccino—a rare indulgence, when he normally never buys or makes artisan coffees—and stakes out a small corner table where he's unlikely to be disturbed. The barista drew a crown in the foam, and Ianto allows himself to be darkly amused for a few moments.

Of course, because he's Ianto—and at this point he's entirely unsure whether being Mabon ap Modron or being a part of Torchwood brings more trouble—his peace doesn't last more than a few moments.

The bell above the door chimes, and Ianto looks up as two tall men make their way into the shop, calling cheerful greetings to the barista, who waves back. But it's their faces that give Ianto pause, that make his heart trip over itself in his chest and then begin to thunder.

Gwaine and Lancelot.

Alive once again.

In Cardiff.

Truly, the mind boggles.

It's clear, however, that they don't recognize him. Their glances around the shop pass over Ianto without a flicker of recognition, even as they take the table to his left. Ianto calls himself a fool for getting his hopes up—especially when he knows it's out of the true order of events—and buries himself in his paper and coffee.

And, perhaps, that plan would have worked splendidly if he were trying to ignore anyone but Gwaine, but as long as the subject isn't serious, Gwaine is the type to involve everyone nearby in his conversations. And he's loud enough that shutting him out is nigh on impossible.

"I'm telling you, it's fate," Lancelot insists, and at least he's a bit quieter, although he seems especially invested in this topic. "Haven't you ever met someone and immediately known they were connected to you, that they meant something even if you'd never met before?"

Gwaine scoffs, reaching over to slap the back of Lancelot's head lightly. "You've been deluded by a pretty face," he counters. "There's no such thing as true, fated love, and if you think Gwen's the one for you, I'd say turn around and keep looking. Safer that way, mate."

This is, admittedly, a topic that Ianto has thought on at length, particularly in regards to the pair in question. The story of Lancelot and Guinevere has left him alternately heartbroken and furious for almost a thousand years, and it's probably only Lancelot's good luck that ensures Ianto is in a more romantic mood today. He glances up and over, towards them, just in time to meet Gwaine's gaze as the knight turns towards him.

Ianto freezes, caught, but Gwaine just offers him a bright, engaging grin and asks, "Well, mate? What do you think?"

Slowly, Ianto lays his paper down, giving the two men his full attention. Lancelot looks a bit abashed at pulling a stranger into their conversation, but Gwaine just looks expectant. There's clearly no escaping him, and Ianto glances back and forth between them before he finally demurs, "Well, they're entirely separate subjects, aren't they?"

Lancelot blinks, and then frowns slightly. "What?" he asks after a moment.

Ianto drums his fingers on the tabletop, considering his words, and then explains, "True love and fate. They're entirely different, wouldn't you say?" He takes a breath, and this is probably a little too blatant, a little too much hinting, but if it's enough to change the tragic fate that's been theirs since the stars were hung, then Ianto can't bring himself to care in the least. "Take Lancelot and Guinevere, for example."

Both knights tense a little at the names, but don't otherwise react. Ianto puts it down to a feeling of déjà vu, and smiles a bit.

"That was true love, wouldn't you say? They both knew that being together would only bring them misery, but they did it anyway, betraying every oath they'd ever made. Betraying their king, even. They loved each other through it all, though, regardless of how it went against Lancelot's fate as a Knight of the Round Table and Guinevere's fate as the Queen of Camelot. You can take it as you'd like, but I tend to see it as true love standing in opposition of fate."

Lancelot looks down at his hands, and then looks up with a slightly shy smile. "Against all odds? I'd…like to think our love would go a little better."

Ianto smiles in return, and yes, this is why he's with Jack, no matter what they do or say to each other. It's a feeling in his chest, fluttering and weightless, and a desperate sort of certainty that Jack is the only one Ianto could ever love this much, that he's the only one Ianto would ever want to love this much.

"Falling in love isn't a choice," Ianto says softly, and it's a thousand years of life condensed into a single point of hard-wrought understanding. "That's something we can't ever control, no matter how we try. But staying in love—that's a choice we all have. There's a point after we fall that we can still be driven away, that we can choose to be aggravated by little habits or larger flaws. It's when we decide to stay regardless that it really becomes true love." He glances down at his paper, the now-cold cup of half-drunk coffee, and wonders why he's here instead of with Jack, where he should be.

But that, at least, is easily fixed.

Ianto stands up, folding his paper neatly, and gathers his coat. Lancelot and Gwaine are both watching him, so he nods politely, murmurs, "I wish you luck with Guinevere, Lancelot," and heads for the door.

Jack is doubtless waiting for him, and gods know that Torchwood can't survive without him, either.

Jack is in the Plass when Ianto returns, pacing like a madman in his greatcoat and pointedly ignoring the stares he's getting for it. He's frowning, which is unusual, and he keeps checking his watch like he's waiting for something.

Ianto looks at him and is once again blindsided by just how bloody much he loves this complicated, difficult man who comes from another time and has somehow made himself the center of Ianto's world in just a few short years. He reaches out, and as soon as he's close enough he seizes Jack's arm and pulls the Captain around.

"Jack," he says, and it's suddenly vital that Jack knows what Ianto feels every time he sees him. It's more important than air, or breathing, or gravity, and he leans forward and kisses Jack like he's all three, as though he'll die without Jack to touch him and ground him and hold him in this time.

"Jack," he says as they separate, both breathing hard and a little wild-eyed at the desperate ferocity of it. "Jack, I love you. You know that, don't you? You understand?"

For a long moment, Jack just looks at him, and there's something heartbreaking and heartbroken on his face. Then he reaches up, frames Ianto's face with his big hands, and leans forward to rest their foreheads together. "Yeah," he says, and it's a little breathy, a little gruff. "I know, Ianto. And…"

"I know," Ianto whispers, closing his eyes. They're hot, aching, but he's too happy to cry. "Yes, Jack. I know."

Just before sunset, Torchwood Three sets up in Coed-y-Felin Woods, with monitoring equipment and weapons and far too much complaining from Owen. Tosh and Ianto trade occasional glances as they move quietly through the undergrowth, trying not to remember the disastrous, terrifying outcome of their last camping trip. Jack is drifting around with a goofy smile on his face, and Gwen keeps getting texts from Rhys, and on the whole they're all fairly distracted and preoccupied by the time the sun actually starts going down.

Ianto is the first to notice when absolute silence falls around them.

It's not natural, and that's what draws his attention to it first. With a frown, he straightens up from several monitors and cocks his head, trying to hear the songbirds that had been singing just moments before. There's no trace of them now, and even though several dozen birds and small animals have taken to following Ianto over the past few days, they're not in evidence now. Ianto can't even find any hint of ants on the forest floor, or beetles in the leaf mulch.

"Jack," he calls softly, just as Tosh's motion detector goes mad.

Jack bolts for the road, Gwen half a step behind him and Owen on her heels, with Tosh and Ianto bringing up the rear. There's a car coming up the road, a dummy that Tosh rigged, but what Ianto sees is the huge brown shape, as big as a draft horse, charging out of the trees with its head lowered, long, ivory tusks gleaming like knives in the settling twilight. With a deep, fierce bellow that shakes the ground, the beast slams into the car, its tusks gouging deep slashes in the metal with a sound like a scream, and then tosses its head. The car goes flying, tumbling into the bushes only a few yards from the Torchwood SUV, and the thing turns on the five humans at the edge of the asphalt.

Ianto knows those mad red eyes—still sees them, sometimes, on particularly bad night. He catches his breath but plunges forward anyway, words already falling from his lips in a cry that he's used to draw this very monster's attention once before. "Twrch Trwyth! Look here! Stand and face me! Mabon ap Modron has come for your head!"

Twrch Trwyth spins at the sound of it, whirling to face Ianto with a cry of pure fury, and Ianto raises his gun and fires as quickly as he can, one shot after another, driving the boar back. It's screaming, and the others are shouting, but all Ianto can hear is the great ringing in his ears as he stands his ground and forces Twrch Trwyth into the trees once more. There's no hope of killing the beast, not yet, because that's not how the story goes.

But it's retreating, and for now, for Ianto, that's enough.

As the last poisonous bristle of the boar vanishes into the gloom, Ianto's gun clicks empty. He falls to his knees in the middle of the road, breathing hard, and lets the Glock tumble from his grip as he presses his hands over his face.

It's no longer just a thought, just a suspicion. The time has come. Lancelot, Guinevere, Gwaine, Twrch Trwyth, Ynys Avallach, the merlin—they all speak of fate converging, and while Ianto has considered it, he hasn't wanted to acknowledge it, not when his life had finally settled.

From far away, there is a sound like the baying of a hundred hounds, the beat of a hundred horses' hooves. Ianto knows it, has heard it before when he was but three nights old, and it still hangs in his memory like an old ghost. He raises his head from his hands to look up at Jack, who is approaching with concern written into the lines of his face, and lifts a hand to halt him.

Jack can't change this fate.

No one can.

"Goodbye, Jack," he whispers, and then the Wild Hunt is on him, phantasms with death-pale faces and burning eyes, mounted on spirit-horses with wild manes and no bridles or tack to bind them. Around them, seething like a red tide beneath their feet, are the Cŵn Annwn, the Otherworld hounds, their teeth as white and sharp as bone-knives.

The Hunt lifts him, carries him away with it in the grasp of dead-cold hands. Ianto feels the darkness close around him and knows no more.

*.~.*.~.*

"Oh, this is lovely," Merlin mutters, sprawled next to Arthur in the bushes. "Your cousin from the back woods of nowhere suddenly shows up saying he's cursed to only marry one woman, and that woman just happens to be the daughter of a murderous giant. So of course the king's immediate reaction is to send us on a quest to meet the giant and get Culhwch his bride. Sometimes, I wonder if he even likes you." Catching the look Arthur shoots him, he hastily adds, "Sire."

Arthur rolls his eyes—he's very good at that, Merlin's noticed, though it seems unfair that Merlin is the only one ever on the receiving end—and shoves Merlin's head down into the dirt.

"Be. Quiet. Merlin," he hisses.

Undeterred, Merlin wipes some mud off his face and mutters, "I'm not the one who put us on this stupid quest to kill a great murderous boar that can only be found by someone who hasn't been seen or heard of in centuries. What if this great hunter's not real at all, and Ysbadadden is just sending us on a wild goose chase so that he never has to marry off his daughter?"

Another eye roll, this time accompanied by an exasperated sigh, and Arthur shoves Merlin's head back down. "The talking blackbird was fairly certain Mabon was real," he points out, in that certain long-suffering tone he only ever takes with Merlin. It makes Merlin feel very special indeed. "As was the talking stag—"

"I'm always telling you we shouldn't hunt! Did you see the way it kept looking at you? It could tell!"

"—and the talking owl, and the talking eagle, and the giant talking salmon," Arthur continues, not acknowledging the interruption. "And since the salmon actually brought us here, and I can clearly hear somebody singing something very sad from inside the castle, I'm going to give the oldest animal in the world the benefit of a doubt and assume it's actually Mabon ap Modron in there. And if you would shut up, I could hear when Leon and the others attack the front gate and distract the guards."

"Because six knights of Camelot against an entire garrison is great odds," Merlin huffs, but when Arthur slides out of the bushes with a disparaging shake of his head and starts towards the overgrown tunnel that the Salmon of Llyn Llyw had told them about, he follows close behind. It's a fight to make it into the tunnel through the brambles and ivy that choke the mouth of it, but he only loses a bit of skin getting through. Arthur, of course, has his sword and no regard whatsoever for the people who don't walk around waving big sharp pointy sticks at everything, so he's already much further down the passage, hissing for Merlin to hurry up.

Sometimes, Merlin has to wonder why he even likes the royal prat, let alone loves him.

Thankfully, Leon's distraction is a good one, so there are no soldiers in the halls as they creep through—not that Arthur would ever admit to anything as undignified as creeping, Merlin is sure. Therefore, Merlin feels fairly safe, once they're climbing the tower that holds Mabon ap Modron's cell, in voicing his doubts again.

"How old is Mabon?" he asks, and then has the extreme pleasure of watching Arthur's veins bulge a little.

"Merlin!" the prince hisses, rounding on him. "We are sneaking! That means we have to be quiet. Or do you want the guards to find us in the middle of their castle, on the stairs, with no conceivable way out except to sprout wings and fly?"

"It's a practical question!" Merlin defends, raising his arms to ward off Arthur and the inevitable headlock. "If he's a decrepit old man, I already know who's going to get stuck carting him around while you act all princely and hack at people."

And there, again, is the prince's signature eye roll, though if Merlin identified Arthur to anyone else as "the guy who rolls his eyes so often they should be in danger of falling out," he gets the feeling no one would know what—or who—he was talking about. (And that's actually not a bad thing, when Merlin is in the mood to complain about prats.)

"Merlin," Arthur says wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just climb."

Since that vein is looking sort of dangerous, Merlin climbs.

When they finally reach a door at the top of the stairs, it's clear that this is the source of the weary, mournful lament they've been following since Caer Loyw came into sight. The door itself is locked tight, bound shut with a heavy padlock. But six hard kicks from Arthur's boot splinters the wood around the hinges, and another two knocks it down completely. Arthur steps through the opening, sword at the ready, and Merlin follows a little more cautiously.

The room is startlingly bare, containing only a cot along one wall and a chair and table along another. There is a window, though, even if it is tightly barred, and on the wide ledge sits a man in a simple brown tunic and leggings. He's half-turned to look at them, and his face is calm but slightly wary, his hair as black as Merlin's own and his eyes a shade of blue Merlin has never seen outside of a summer sky. That sharp gaze sweeps over Arthur, flits to Merlin, and then returns to the prince as the man slowly rises to his feet.

"Sir Knight," he says, and his voice is measured, even, for all that his body is tense and ready. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"Prince Knight," Arthur corrects mildly. "I'm Prince Arthur of Camelot, and if you're Mabon ap Modron, you're the answer to quite a few of my problems."

The man smiles, faint but very much amused, and bows his head. "Then, sire, I'm most pleased to be of service, for Mabon ap Modron I am," he says. "Are you here to free me, or kill me? If the latter, I assure you it won't be as easy as you might expect."

Merlin and Arthur trade glances, and Merlin can feel his eyebrows creeping up his forehead. It's on the tip of his tongue to say something that will likely have him in the stocks the second they reach a town respectable enough to have one. Arthur, however, just looks back at Mabon and shakes his head a little, sliding his sword away.

"No," he says dryly. "We went to all the trouble to rescue you; I don't think we'll kill you just yet. My kinsman Culhwch needs your aid in hunting Twrch Trwyth."

Mabon's eyes narrow. "I know that name," he murmurs. "An evil man, cursed to become a murderous boar, as big as a draft horse and fiercer than a lion. You do not pick your enemies lightly, Arthur son of Uther."

"You know of me?" Arthur demands, and his eyes are narrowing in return. Merlin agrees with the sentiment; Mabon has supposedly been a prisoner since he was three nights old, stolen away from his mother's side. That he knows so much of the outside world—and that he's a finely muscled man, and not some frail and sallow weakling—is rather…suspicious.

But Mabon just chuckles at their consternation, and gestures to where the first light of morning is creeping through the barred window. "Peace!" he says reassuringly. "The birds often visit me up here, when the winds are fair, and they tell me of the outside world. A gyrfalcon first brought me your name, Prince Arthur, and the merlins have since kept a record of your deeds. The beasts of this world like you, for what it's worth, and favor you over your father."

It's a long shot at this point, but Merlin crosses his fingers behind his back in the vain hope that Mabon won't mention anything to do with Emrys. If he does, Arthur's mood is bound to be just lovely tonight, and everyone seems to forget that, when he's in a mood, Merlin is his favorite target.

Really, he's such a right prat that sometimes Merlin doesn't know how he hasn't mortally offended some sorcerer or sorceress and been cursed to be an earthworm for all eternity.

Arthur gives a tight nod, glancing out the window before turning back to the gaping doorway. "We should leave," he says, a touch brusquely. "My men are creating a distraction at the gates, but it won't last long. Come on."

He makes to step over the shattered door and leave, but before he can, Mabon takes three long strides across the room and catches his elbow.

"Wait," the hunter says. He looks at Arthur, who stands tense and guarded, for a long moment before nodding just slightly to himself. Then, without fanfare and with great grace, he sinks to one knee and bows his head.

"My life is yours, Arthur of Camelot," he says. "Prince or King, knight or knave or banished noble, I swear to you my sword, my bow, my spear and my arm, until the day our fates are done."

There is power in those words. Merlin can feel it, a bone-deep throb and a shimmering burn and a breathy whisper somewhere deep inside of him. He catches his breath, takes a half-step back, and knows that Mabon notices. Blue eyes flicker to him on their way up to Arthur's face, but they don't linger, and Merlin is glad for it.

In the legends, Mabon is very old and very wise. This man looks young and calm and a little unassuming, but Merlin suspects he'd do well to remember the tales, and be wary of using his magic as freely as he normally might.

Leather sighs over steel as Arthur draws his sword from the scabbard and raises it over Mabon's head. It catches the newly risen sun as it descends, tapping one shoulder and then the other. "Mabon ap Modron," Arthur says formally, "I accept your pledge, and answer it with my own. Never will I turn my back on you. You are my subject and, if you wish it, my knight."

Mabon looks up at Arthur and smiles, and Merlin suddenly thinks he can feel a bit of the same force that is present when Kilgharrah speaks of fates and coins and destiny. "My king," the hunter says, and that too is an oath that Merlin can all but taste.

They're six days into their return ride, Ysbadadden dead and Culhwch and Olwen happily wed, when Mabon pulls Merlin aside as they make their nightly camp. Merlin lets him—there's really no way he could not, if he wants to keep his cover—and doesn't protest when the hunter leads him around an outcropping of rocks. They're out of sight and hearing of the rest of the camp here, but Merlin's fairly certain that if Mabon had wanted to kill him, he could have let Twrch Trwyth do it, rather than stepping in the way of the boar and earning a gouged shoulder in the process.

"Yes?" he asks, when it looks as though Mabon needs help to get started. "Can I help you with something?"

The line of Mabon's spine could be used as a plumb level, and that just makes it straighter. Merlin watched with surprise and a little consternation as Mabon turns to face him, chin raised as though in anticipation of a blow.

That's nothing compared to his surprise when Mabon goes down on one knee before him, just as he did with Arthur.

Admittedly, for a brief moment all Merlin can think is that Mabon must have lost something in the dirt, and has brought Merlin out to help him look. But then Mabon turns his face up to Merlin, and says softly, "I've given my oath to the Once and Future King. Would you accept it as well, Emrys? Two halves of destiny, and I offer you both my unending devotion, and the regard of my mother."

Merlin, unlike Arthur, knows the source of Mabon's name—the Divine Son of the Divine Mother, and in the Old Religion, no one would dare claim relation to Matrona, the goddess of water and mother deity, unless it was true. Gaius will no doubt know a whole ream of things about Mabon and Modron that Merlin can't quite bring himself to consider, especially when the son of a goddess is on his knees before him swearing fealty.

Usually only Arthur has this problem, and he at least has been trained to deal with it.

"I…accept," Merlin offers after an awkward pause. "Thank you, Mabon ap Modron."

Mabon looks at him with a slightly arched eyebrow as he rises to his feet, but tactfully doesn't say anything about Merlin's obvious lack of experience with this kind of thing. Instead, he brushes off his knees and gives Merlin a smile. "How about some food?" he suggests. "The hawks tell me there are rabbits around here."

Merlin thinks back to the Stag of Redynvre, and winces.

Merlin opens his eyes to the sound of traffic and pedestrians and Cardiff in the morning, and buries his face in the pillow with a smile.

A strong arm, ropy with muscle, slides over his shoulder and curls around his side, pulling him back against an equally strong chest. Not a bodybuilder's strength, but a swordsman's, even in a time when there are few—if any—true swordsmen left.

"Mm. What are you thinking of?" Arthur asks, voice sleep-rough and heavy. Merlin decides promptly that he loves this voice, too, just as he's loved all the others so far since their fates shifted, just a bit, into this.

"Mabon," he answers, dropping his head onto Arthur's bare shoulder. "And the first time we met."

Arthur makes an indistinct but dissatisfied noise. "You're really thinking of another man when you're in bed with me?" he demands. "For the first time in how many centuries?"

Merlin rolls his eyes. "Yes, yes, forgive me, sire," he mutters. "I'm greatly at fault and hurl myself upon your mercy."

"You should," Arthur informs him, ignoring the sarcasm completely. There's a pause, and then he says more seriously, "Do you think it's about that time, then? Do we need to find the others?"

There's a stain on the ceiling of Arthur's apartment. Merlin squints at it as he considers the question. "Well," he says at length, "if we're going to be hunting that again, I think it would probably be for the best. Mabon is the only one able to find it."

"And kill it," Arthur adds, and it's clear from his tone that that fact still miffs him, just as it did a thousand years ago. Feeling a laugh bubbling up, Merlin rolls over and muffles it in Arthur's chest.

It wouldn't do for the Once and Future King to see his sorcerer laughing at him. Not this early in the morning, at least.

This time, at least, the view is better. Instead of an endless grey sea, there is a forest outside of Ianto's window, and the birds amuse themselves by bringing him bits of leaves or flowers. Ianto thanks each one, accepts the gifts and listens to the news of the outside world that they bring him. It's very much like it was before, except for the change in location, and Ianto tries not to be wearied by that fact.

Every morning, a silvery peregrine falcon brings him a stone from the river winding below the tower.

Ianto has fifteen stones already, piled neatly on the window ledge.

Admittedly, fifteen is a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of days that he endured before, but it's still an unbearable amount, especially when Ianto has become accustomed to a life that holds more than the four walls he can see now. He misses Jack, and the rest of Torchwood—even Owen, loath as he is to admit it.

But most of all, Ianto hates that he must wait now, wait for others to fulfill fate and come to his rescue. Being helpless is truly abhorrent.

Fifteen stones become twenty, and nothing has changed.

When there are twenty-five stones piled up in neat rows, Ianto rages against his invisible captors for an entire night.

When twenty-five grow into thirty, he sits still and silent by the window, and does not speak even to the birds that flutter worriedly beyond the bars.

At forty, it takes everything Ianto has not to despair.

It has just gone morning, weak sun barely breaking through the lowering clouds that threaten rain, and Ianto can see the blue and tawny shape of the peregrine falcon carrying him the forty-third stone, when something happens.

First, there is a strange hush, as though someone has dropped a thick cotton blanket over everything. Ianto can't see more than the bit of forest outside of his window, but even so, he can feel the bone-deep vibrations racing through the air, driving up a huge group of falcons from the trees. They whirl around Ianto's tower, screeching and shrilling, and Ianto rises from his seat with his head cocked and a name upon his lips.

"Arthur."

There is a ripple in the air, like the concussion right after a blast, and the door shatters into a thousand splinters that rain harmlessly down at Ianto's feet. Ianto raises his eyes to the tall, broad man standing in the doorway, and he smiles, because Arthur Pendragon is certainly just the same as he remembered. Perhaps he wears Kevlar now rather than mail, but Excalibur is shining in his hand and there is a golden light about his brow, like a ghostly crown come to rest in his hair. Behind him, at his right hand, Merlin is smiling in return, and he's different than he was a thousand years ago, but it's a good difference. This Merlin knows himself to be the embodiment of magic, the lord of the Old Religion, and it shows in every inch of his bearing.

Ianto drops to one knee before the pair of them and murmurs, "My king, Emrys. You came for me."

Arthur strides across the small room and offers Ianto a hand, pulling him to his feet with ease. "I promised, didn't I? And besides, we're not the only ones. Made some friends in this time, have you, Mabon?" He grins, wide and easy and every inch a king, and pulls Ianto forward into a hard, fierce hug.

Jack, Ianto realizes, feeling something tighten in his chest, and returns the embrace. "You always told me I spent to much time alone," he manages to counter. "I was just following your advice, sire."

Arthur releases him, and Merlin steps forward to take his place, smiling wide enough to take in his ears—and, as ever, he's got ear to spare. "Mabon," he says cheerfully as he pulls back, slapping Ianto's shoulder. "You've no idea how much easier it is to rescue you when I can use magic. It makes me regret not telling the great prat the first chance I had." With the ease of long practice, he rocks away from the head slap Arthur directs at him, and then ducks out the doorway. "Come on, boars to kill. And we only just beat those people of yours into the castle, so we might want to leave as soon as possible."

Footsteps clatter away down the stairs, and Arthur looks at Ianto and shakes his head despairingly. "A thousand years," he mutters. "A thousand years, and he still can't understand that I'm the king, not him. It's enough to drive a sane man to tears."

But he follows his sorcerer anyway, and Ianto follows him.

The knights are waiting by the front gates of the castle, mounted on horses and carrying the weapons Ianto remembers. Seeing his look, Gwaine laughs, and tosses Arthur the reins of his white mare. "Percival owns a stable," he explains, jerking his head at the big knight, who offers Ianto a quick nod in greeting. "And Elyan is his blacksmith when he's not busy being his—eyah!"

Elyan casually steps away from where Gwaine is flailing to redo the girth on his rapidly slipping saddle, and offers Ianto an easy smile. "Mabon. It's good to see you again."

"And you," Ianto returns, chuckling. People always look at Percival as the dangerous one of the pair, but in truth, Elyan is the sly and cunning one, and far more dangerous for it. Behind the others, Leon raises a hand, and Lancelot guides his bay to the front to offer Ianto a hand.

"Thank you," he says softly, meeting Ianto's eyes with such sincerity that it's hard to look at him. "Because of your words, Gwen and I are happy now, together, and…" He trails off, but his glance at Merlin and Arthur says more than enough.

"Savor it," Ianto returns, gripping his hand. "Cherish it. It's a precious thing, what you have."

"Mount up!" Arthur calls, and it's the voice he uses on the battlefield, sending a thrill of remembered adrenaline down Ianto's spine. "We're hunting Twrch Trwyth today! Let's run him to ground!"

There is no cheer, but a low growl of agreement from six throats.

Merlin urges his horse to Ianto's side, and hands over a package wrapped in plain brown cloth. But the moment Ianto takes hold of it, he knows.

The wrapping falls away to reveal an unstrung bow, a full quiver, a sheathed two-handed claymore, and a long spear carved with runes. Ianto takes a breath, and it's as though his lungs suddenly work again after ages of being half-paralyzed. He strings the bow, slings the quiver over his shoulder, wraps the sword belt around his waist, and hefts the spear, and it's the first time he's felt whole in a thousand years.

When he looks up, the other knights are watching him. He gives them a fierce smile, raises his head to the breeze, and takes a deep breath.

The air sings.

The earth murmurs.

Far away, Twrch Trwyth feels it and bolts out of the trees.

Another breath, and Ianto leans low to the ground, feeling it hum under his bare feet. The birds are clamoring in the distance, raucous joy, and the beasts of the land are adding their voices to the din.

It's all there in Ianto's senses, vivid and so very, very beautiful, and it's his. He's himself again.

From the edge of the castle's grounds, a cry rises, and Ianto lifts his head to see Jack come barreling over the rise, the rest of Torchwood just behind him. But right now, with the blood singing in Ianto's veins and a hunt before him, he has to turn away. His first oath was to King Arthur, and his second was to Emrys, and they both need him now. Twrch Trwyth must be stopped, for Torchwood as well as Arthur, and Ianto is the only one who can do so.

"Ride!" Arthur cries, lifting his hand, and Ianto leaps forward into a run, the horses behind him and the earth whispering Twrch Trwyth's path beside his ear. His spear is a sure and comforting weight in his grasp, long missed and even longer remembered, and the falcons fly before him as a deadly herald of his course.

Mabon ap Modron hunts again.

They drive Twrch Trwyth into the sea in Cornwall, as they did once before, and then part ways, at least momentarily. Arthur Pendragon might be reborn, and his knights might walk the land once more, but until there is need of them, they all have little purpose. It's not yet time for King Arthur to reclaim his throne; that waits for a time when all hope has been lost, and the land cannot survive without it.

For now, they separate, to keep watch and wait until there is another enemy only Arthur and Merlin and their knights can defeat.

(Ianto is certain that he is not alone in the hope that it will be soon.

He also finds it rather telling that Arthur and Merlin ride of, quite literally, into the sunset together. Gwaine and he have a good laugh about it, at least.)

He lets himself back into the Hub, half-surprised that his access codes haven't been changed in the forty-five days he's been gone, and then heads up the stairs to Jack's office, where a light is still shining.

It's not a surprise to see that Jack is waiting for him, paperwork abandoned for the moment and pen put to the side. What is surprising is the relief on the Captain's face as he rises from his chair, hand reaching out automatically. Ianto takes that hand, lets Jack pull him close and bury his nose in Ianto's hair, and at long last Ianto allows himself to relax.

"Are you going to tell me what that was all about?" Jack asks at length, but truthfully, he doesn't sound as though he really cares.

Ianto closes his eyes and tips his head to rest against Jack's, smiling. "That depends," he says. "How well do you know your Arthurian legends?"