a/n: *dodges rotten vegetables that you are probably throwing at me* I'm really reeeeally sorry that's this is so late :c

Sooo, this chapter is dedicated to all the lovely readers and reviewers who haven't given up on me! Seriously, I appreciate every review and every favorite. It makes my day to see that someone is enjoying what I wrote!

About the chapter, I wasn't quite sure how to write Elyan and Percival. They're not in the show as much as some of the others so I didn't know their personalities very well, (besides y'know brave, noble, and general knight stuff). I tried my best though. Also if you catch any errors let me know, I proofread it but have feeling I missed something.

Disclaimer: It's just for fun! I don't own any of it!

Elyan was having a terrible day.

First, he got sent out on patrol to find poachers. Not so bad in itself, but it's painfully boring to look for poachers when there are absolutely no poachers to be found.

Then Gwaine went missing. Which meant someone had to go look for him. And then that someone had to go missing as well. Although really, volunteering Leon, the most accident prone of the group had perhaps been a poor decision. Regardless, it meant that he and Percival had to split up and continue the search. Lucky them.

He realized though, as the sun lowered, that the rest of the search might have to wait until tomorrow. Night was falling fast. In fact had gotten so dark that he couldn't see his feet—

CRASH.

Several startled yelps brought him back to his senses and he responded eloquently with a similar startled yelp. Ouch. It felt as if he'd fallen off a cliff onto a pile of really weird rocks.

"Who goes there?" asked an uncannily familiar voice from directly below him. Wait. Directly below him? He rolled off what was definitely not a pile of rocks and squinted into the dark.

"Arthur?" he asked.

"Elyan?" responded three other familiar voices. So that's where Gwaine and Leon had gotten to.

"Yeah, it's me," he replied. " But where are we?"

"At the bottom of a hunting trap."

"Fantastic."

Elyan was having a terrible day.

Percival looked everywhere for Gwaine and Leon but came up with nothing. It was as if they'd vanished from the surface of the world. All light had faded by now and every night sound set him a little further on edge. He wasn't scared per se, but the forest at night was not his preferred place to take a stroll either. He mostly felt jumpy, as if something really, really unfortunate was about to happen.

When he came upon the hunting trap he was immensely glad he'd spotted it before falling in. That could have been bad. It was so deep he couldn't even see the bottom with moonlight streaming through the trees. He decided to light a torch to try to see if there was anything there. He struck his flint, but at that very moment a gust of wind blew through the clearing.

A spark landed on him instead.

Camelot knight's cloaks are thick, warm, and well made. They are also, as Percival discovered just then, excellent fire-starters.

He swatted and flailed as it spread, but to no avail. Then he remembered what he'd been taught as a child.

He stopped, dropped and rolled. And rolled. And...CRASH.

Lancelot felt much better than yesterday. He'd had such a bad cold he had stayed back in Camelot while several other knights were out on patrol. He did feel a bit guilty of course, but tromping through the woods wasn't easy when you sniffled, coughed, or sneezed every thirty seconds.

He trailed out of his quarters and down to the kitchens. As he walked he wondered why the castle was so quiet. Having not arisen particularly early it seemed that there should be the sounds of more knights clanking about or at least Arthur yelling at Merlin. He saw several knights, but none of the ones who went out yesterday.

Odd, he thought, munching on a piece of bread and making his way to the practice field. Had they not returned? When none of them were at the practice field he began to worry. Surely someone would notice that the king of Camelot had gone missing.

As he discovered when he ran into Lord Agravaine in the hall, the king's absence had not gone unnoticed. And cold or no he was expected to fix it.

Lancelot hitched up his horse feeling slightly exasperated. He'd always had to play mother to these children in chain-mail. At least whenever he was around. Ah well. At least it was shaping up to be a nice day. Only a few clouds rolled in to block the sun and keep him cool.

By midday a few more had appeared and the sky grew ominous where he could see it between the trees. Then the rain began. It pounded down, coming through even the thickest parts of the canopy. He sneezed, his cold enjoying the hideous weather.

"Okay, men," said Arthur. "As humiliating as it is, we need to be rescued. Preferably by someone competent."

Several members of the party looked rather offended at this, but allowed him to continue.

"I have devised a brilliant plan," he said. "We are all going to yell for help as loud as we can until someone finds us."

After a miserable hour or so, Lancelot noticed an unusual sound. It started out as quiet, so quiet he wasn't sure he could hear it at all. Especially over the driving rain. But eventually it grew too loud to ignore. It was the sound of many people yelling for help.

Forgetting his own discomfort, he hurried toward it to offer assistance. But it emanated from far off the path. He regretfully tied his horse to a tree and patted her comfortingly before heading toward the source of the ruckus.

The yelling grew louder and louder until he could make out distinctive words. Those words were mostly "help" with an occasional "down here" and "anybody" thrown in for good measure.

"Merlin? Arthur? Is that you?" he called, by now sounding awfully congested.

The yelling petered off.

"Sir Lancelot?" cried someone who wasn't Merlin or Arthur, but was someone he knew just as well.

"Sir Leon!" he called back. "Where are you? I can't see you at all!"

Rain poured into the clearing in buckets, drenching his clothes and dripping into his eyes. Even so he would surely be able to see Sir Leon from how close he sounded.

"We're down here! Don't you dare fall in! That's an order!" cried King Arthur's voice from...somewhere.

"Fall in wher—"

Lancelot came to a sudden halt at the edge of a large pit.

He wobbled.

He waved his arms.

He leaned left.

He leaned right...

And regained his balance.

The trapped group breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, their relief was short-lived. The rain had softened the dirt around the trap and turned it into slippery mud.

Lancelot began to slip over the edge, and try as he might, found no purchase on the slick ground.

He slid down into the pit with the rest of them.

"Well," said Gwaine. "That's certainly unfortunate. But at least you've got plenty of company down here."

King Arthur was not amused.

Thanks so much for reading! I don't know when I'll update next because I'm about to move and start school. Just a heads up, the next chapter will probably be the last one. We're nearly there folks!