Entry: OC02En04

Title: The Elemental Knight

Word count: 9,964

Theme and/or Prompt/s: Fairytale

Rating: PG

Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Gwen, many visitors from Camelot

Spoilers: None

Disclaimer: Merlin belongs to Shine and the BBC.

Summary: This is not your typical fairytale and this is not the Camelot that we know. Gwen goes on a journey where she is the one who must save all of Camelot.

Author’s notes: This story is a retelling of The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson. I really wanted to make Gwen the focal point of this story. I could have used several thousand more words, but I made due with the limitation, as best as I could.

There was a loud knock against the door of her small room. Guinevere flung her eyes open and vaulted from the bed in a start. She wrapped one of her robes over her tunic – it was all she wore to bed last – and answered the door.

It was Sir Alex. He was older than her by a year, but she was his captain.

“Lady Guinevere, a messenger has sent an order from the King. You are to return to Camelot at once,” he said.

“Did he say why?” She asked still drowsy.

“It is the Prince.” The young man stiffened then continued to say, “He is missing.”

Gwen felt a heavy dread overtake her. She dismissed her knight and prepared to return to her King. All the while random thoughts entered and floated from her mind. She washed and dressed quickly, pulling on her trousers, boots and tunic. Her cloak she folded, placing it neatly inside her satchel. She tucked her hair back into a messy plait and slid her gauntlets down her hands; they tightened around her wrists.

“I do not know if or when I will return, Sir Alex, but as my second, I leave all my duties to your care.”

He nodded. It was not a difficult assignment. The far outpost had already been wiped clean of all threats; Gwen and her men won that distinction for her King sometime ago. He had begged her to return so that she might be properly celebrated by the kingdom and rewarded for her deeds. Instead, she begged him for leave to remain stationed here.

Gwen had already ridden much of the day. By nightfall, she would be back inside the castle. She patted Montego’s neck, as the horse sought a drink from the peaceful stream. The quiet moments like these made her think of Arthur and her dreams, like the one she had last night. They were always the same. Not dreams really but memories, old memories of a time when she could call him friend and he could do the same.

She mounted her horse and began riding again crossing the stream into the sparse forest and down to the open, green meadow where you could just make out the towers of the castle. This is a familiar place. She came here once every season just to look at her former home and wonder if she should return.

Would he be different? She thought.

She didn’t know but it had been nearly two years since she last step foot inside the castle walls and she knew if she were to return to find him still not himself then that would be too much hurt to bear.

***

“Your Majesty, the Lady Guinevere, knight of the First Order, commander of the armies to the west,” the man announced to the King’s court. There were mournful applauses. The people smiled at her with tear-stained cheeks and clapped so hard that Gwen thought their palms might begin to bleed. They loved their Prince and their most faithful knight had return to retrieve him from whatever treachery had befallen him.

“Lady Guinevere.” He said cupping her cheeks. This is not the way most kings greeted their knights but Gwen had been a part of Uther Pendragon’s family since she was a little girl. As daughter of the Royal Blacksmith, she spent almost all of her life inside these castle walls. Playing as a child with Arthur, stealing cookies from the kitchen with him and together they would throw apples at the other little boys that would blow kisses at her. Even then it was as if their union was meant to be.

“Sire, I came as quickly as I could.”

“I knew you would.” He had tears glistening in his eyes. Gwen was unsure if he had missed her so much or if he were just glad that his son might be rescued.

“Your Majesty, your messenger said that the Prince has gone missing?”

He nodded. “Yes, he is missing.”

A part of being a knight is being observant. Instinctively Gwen’s eyes scanned the room. She saw the faces of the people drop and a few even shook their heads as to disagree with the King. What is this she wondered?

“Where was he last seen?”

“By the great river to the east,” Jonas said. The King’s advisor moved next to the older man and held him by the arm, leading him back to the dais where he sat. “He has been gone for some time now.”

“Perhaps he has just gone for another day of a hunt or down to the caves of Cheviot. We…,” Gwen started. “…he often went there after hunts.”

“He has been gone since the winter,” he replied.

“What?”

“I am sorry. It was my fault,” the King, now nearly weeping.

“Your Majesty,” Jonas continued. “Let me speak with the Lady Guinevere. You should take a walk and survey the lands from the eastern towers.”

Uther nodded and dismissed the court. The King left the grand hall with his servants trailing behind.

In a small room just outside the hall Gwen asked, “Jonas, what is the meaning of this? How could I have not been told that the Prince has been missing for so long?”

“That was my fault. The King has been so frail since it happened. No one wanted to bring him false hope.”

“False hope?”

“We believe the Prince may have drowned in the river.” Gwen swallowed and her head bobbed from the shock of his revelation. She wanted to scream ‘No’! To cry out and then just cry but the man kept speaking. “All of his belongings were found by the bank but nothing of him, not even a trace. The King refuses to see reason.”

She could understand her King’s feeling. “So why call me now?”

“It was the only way to prove to the King that he is gone. If you, his greatest knight, could not bring him back then he will see the truth and we may all grieve and move on.”

Gwen doubted that she could do any of that.

“I am sorry. I know you and the Prince were close once.” Once, she repeated to herself. “Here is all the information we have collected. It has been two months but we have kept searching.”

She examined the items on the table. Arthur’s belt with his sword, his satchel. “You said he’d gone hunting, where are his bow and arrow?”

“We found the arrows floating upstream. We presumed he took the bow with him to the bottom.”

Gwen shut her eyes and tried to suppress the horrible feeling bubbling up inside her as she imagined Arthur falling deeper under the rush of water. Suddenly, her eyes sprang open. “Where did you find these?”

“By the old forge…,” She knew it. “…where he always goes hunting,” he finished.

“The river is placid there. There is almost no swell at all.” She thought about how they would always end their hunting trips there and ate fruit from the nearby orchards and waited for the sun to set. “Happier times,” she whispered.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she answered him. He looked at her questioningly. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“The King has prepared your room. You still remember where it is, don’t you?”

Gwen nodded and left him to his thoughts. She sat reading the reports on the Prince’s strange disappearance. All of the accounts said he went to the Blanchland Woods for his usual hunt and never returned. Arthur was a great hunter and he knew those woods well enough that nothing and no one could catch him off his guard.

He was skilled at a many things, swimming included. She sighed forcing all the breath out of her lungs in a smooth motion and began pulling the plait from her hair. Her unruly curls fell out onto her shoulders. Another memory: Arthur had always teased her about her hair ever since they were children playing together in his mother’s rose garden. Gwen loved those roses. They would bloom like nothing she had ever seen before.

She stood and looked at herself in the mirror. Not much of her had change. Not much of this place had changed. She stepped outside of her chambers and walked down the corridor.

“Enter.” The King responded to her knock.

“Your Majesty, I know that it is late–”

“Nonsense, my child,” he interrupted. “Please come in.” She smiled at him and he returned it but it was forced, distracted. “I should have called you sooner but I knew that this would hurt you just as much as it hurts me, if not more.”

“It is all right, Sire.”

“Jonas thinks he is dead. Everyone does, but I cannot think it, Guinevere. I cannot lose him too.” She held his hand. The King had lost his wife years ago, before they were old. In truth before they were even young. She disappeared days after Arthur’s birth. Uther searched for her for years until there was no hope left. He turned all his attentions to his son then.

His eyes met hers. “I am not mad.”

“I do not think that, Sire.”

“A part of me knows that he is gone,” he said.

She held his hand as the strong King tried his hardest not to cry. It was difficult for him but he fought with tremendous vigor. Sleep waged a similar war with her. She woke having only rested for no more than an hour or two at best. All night she thought about a life without Arthur. Truly without Arthur; not the one that she had lived where she removed herself from his changed company. It still puzzled her. It was as if overnight he just became a new person, like he had fallen under a spell.

Not even Uther could understand it. He searched for months for some sort of bewitched root under Arthur’s bed or a poultice beneath his pillow that could explain his son’s strange and unforgiving dark mood.

In the end though, it was all too much for Guinevere. She loved Arthur very much but after that day, she no longer recognized the man. It was not difficult for Uther to understand why she could not return.

***

Gwen looked out at the great river. It was wide, the banks stretched far between the two sides of the forests that the water had carved into the earth to form its home. Her eyes caught sight of a small man sitting by the shore next to a boat. She clutched the hilt of Arthur’s sword. She had told Jonas and the King – herself too – that she had taken it for added protection. How silly, she thought. She tucked her other hand underneath her cloak and urged Montego on.

“Hello, good Lady,” he said. “Might I interest you in the use of my boat for the day? It is only a small fee.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen gold pieces.”

“Surely you jest. That is robbery; ten gold pieces and no more.”

He opened his palms and looked around. “I don’t see any other boat merchants here, do you?”

Gwen scoffed and got off her horse carefully. She whispered in Montego’s ear and the beast turned and trotted back in the direction of the castle. With her back still facing the man she said, “I shall have your boat for twenty gold pieces but get another, I may not return today.”

He said nothing. She turned to look at him. He was smiling broadly, watching the horse now far off in the distance. “The boat is yours,” he said.

The man distracted himself with untying rope from a clutch of reeds. Gwen threw a pouch filled with gold coins that landed by his feet. He dropped the rope and dove for the sack, opening it and pressing his dirty fingers into the bumps of each piece.

Gwen stepped into the boat. “Where are the oars?” She asked.

He spun around. “Those will cost you another twenty pieces, lovely lady,” he said snickering wickedly with black and yellow teeth grinning back at her. Gwen sat in the middle of the boat, straddling the center plank. She lifted her hand, twisted her wrist and motioned two fingers up and then forward. At once a torrent of water sprung from behind her, flying over her head and landing on the man, drenching him with a loud splash.

“You, you are a knight of the First Order,” he said. He cocked his head and eyed her carefully, looking between the slight smirk on her face and the leather gauntlet on her wrist. “But you were said to be in Skeldergate; gone for good. You are Lady Guinevere.”

“You’ve heard of me?”

“Yes, who hasn’t?”

“Then you know what I will tell you next.”

The man nodded profusely. “I will go away and never swindle another sole, My Lady. I swear it.”

She watched him standing, trembling from fright and likely too, she conceded to herself, from the river water still cool in the early spring.

“Very good,” she said.

Moving to the front of the boat, she settled herself in, flicking her fingers again. The boat began to push off of the muddy shore and out into the still river leaving the man watching as the water carried the boat by the will of the female knight.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” she told him.

He nodded again and ran into the forest. She sighed and then turned to look down the river. There was nothing on either bank except all the things that should be there: bees, dragonflies, a couple of badgers swimming on their backs, a fawn and its mother came for a drink. She untied her cloak and balled it into a pillow, nestling it at the head of the boat.

She looked up at the sun beating warmth down upon her. It was bright and it made her eyes squint. She refocused them to look at her hand that tried to shield the fierce rays and then at the gauntlet that she had just used to summoned the water. It and her arm came down to her lap and she loosened the strap that tied the long piece of brown leather together. The boat stopped its progress. She repeated the steps for her other hand and placed them and Arthur’s sword onto the plank.

Now in the middle of the river, its natural tide took her downstream. She lay down and closed her eyes and tried to think. How could he have fallen in? She looked up and saw her items where she had left them. The gauntlets, not the sword, were her protection. They looked simple enough but they commanded the six natural elements and allowed its most skilled, most learned wearers to connect to the essence of all living things; what the elders called, the mystical sense.

There were not many of them left in this world and even fewer who could truly wield all of their forces. She closed her eyes again, sighing and thinking she would give them and their powers to these waters in exchange for Arthur’s cold body. At least then we could all try to move on, she said to herself.

There was a loud splash and she jumped. She felt dizzy from having been under the sun for most of the morning. It was at the very top of the sky now and she was still in the middle of the river though much farther downstream. She looked over to the plank and cursed to herself. The gauntlets, Arthur sword, they were all gone.

She knelt, grabbing hold of the side of the boat. She stared into the water as if she could see through it, she couldn’t but she moved to the other side, hoping to see perhaps a glimmer of light from the shiny metal. The boat rocked with her movement.

She cursed again but this time out loud and primal. Pounding her fist into the plank and then dropping her head onto her hands, sobbing. How could you have been so careless she asked herself, almost at the top of her voice. Another voice answered her.

“You care very much, Lady Guinevere,” it said. She picked her head up slowly and looked around to see if anyone was there. She was alone.

“Who said that?” She asked, trying to convince herself that she had not gone completely mad. There was no reply. She could feel herself wanting to cry more now that it seemed she really was going mad.

“You should never weep, my Lady,” the voice spoke to her again. She wiped her face and steadied her body and the boat as she stood.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am the trickle, from high in the mountain. I came down to the stream and cut open the earth on my way to the sea.”

Gwen shook her head but it was so quick, so slight that it would have been barely noticed had anyone been there to see it. “You are the river?” she asked.

“I am,” it replied. “And you have asked me for something that I do not have to give.”

“My gauntlets and my sword,” she said remembering her wish from before she had fallen asleep. She was so thrilled to hear that the river had them that it took her a moment to realize what the river’s answer to her question meant. “So Prince Arthur did not die here then?”

“I have taken many Princes and many Arthurs in my time, a few of them have even been both, but I do not have the one you seek.”

Gwen could feel the small smile creep across her lips. The boat was moving faster down the river now and closer to the bank too. “Do you know where he is?” She asked with too much hope.

“I do not but he visited me often, as did you not so many years ago. You loved him and he loved you.”

“You must know what happened to him. It happened here, did it not?” The water didn’t answer. The boat was almost near a shallow bank in front of a pretty little red cottage. “Where are you? Answer me,” she screamed.

The birds’ chorus was all that was returned. The boat smacked softly into the mud. Her hands swung out beside her to keep her standing. “Where are my gauntlets and my sword you water thief,” she yelled.

“Oh you should not yell at him, dearie. He will become cross and send you out to sea.”

Gwen spun her head around to see an old woman smiling back at her. “You know the river?”

“All my life,” she said.

“You speak to it?” The woman nodded. “And it tells you what it knows?”

“Well don’t be silly, child. It’s only just water; it can’t actually speak.” Gwen straightened her back and shifted her face. She felt foolish after the woman’s chiding and now she was thinking she might be crazy again.

“Come here, my dear,” the woman said sweetly. “Would you like something to eat? I have some soup and cookies inside.”

She was hungry and she hadn’t planned on being gone this long and this far away from the castle. Lunch could not hurt. After a quick bite, she would return to the boat and speak to the river again and persuade it to return her belongings or live up to its end of the bargain.

“You look so beautiful, my dear. It has been a long time since I have had any visitors, especially ones like you.”

The old woman pinched her cheek. Gwen bit the inside of her cheek to block out the pain delivered by the old lady’s grip – her eyes watered. She blinked to try and see again. The soup was almost gone from her bowl and she had already had two cookies by the time the woman had returned from the room in the back of the house. She patted her head.

“You have such lovely hair. May I brush it?” she asked.

Gwen looked over her shoulder at the woman to see the brush in the hand of the ever-smiling old lady. “Oh, I have to be going soon. I need to return to the boat.”

It was as if the woman were deaf or perhaps she only heard a ‘yes’ where someone had spoken a ‘no’. The woman’s skinny, wrinkled fingers were already halfway up her plait, untangling her curls. She felt her will give just a little. The brush made contact and her limbs relax at once. A tiny yawn escaped her lips and her eyes wandered over to a mirror in the side of the room.

The old woman started to hum. It sounded so pretty, she thought. She noticed her reflection in the mirror but she was like a child again and the woman’s hair was like the color of a raven, long and shiny and her skin like porcelain. She looked down at herself. She was the same, dressed in her tunic, trousers and boots. Her eyes returned to the mirror and her little girl face and wild hair sat looking back at her.

She thought for a brief instant that Arthur may have had cause to tease her about her curls all those years ago. Pushing that argument aside, she looked at the old woman again still young, showing all her beauty in the reflection. Their eyes met and she smiled at her.

It was the last thing she remembered before waking in a small bed. She looked around the room and saw all the treasures that little girls coveted: dolls, tea cups, pretty little shoes and frocks. She had a thought about her own children. She shook her head and the image from it and pulled her little body from beneath the blanket, swinging her tiny legs off the bed where her small bare feet landed on the cool stone. Something was wrong. She looked at her hands. They were smaller than usual.

“Sweetheart, it’s time to wake up.” The door opened and the woman from the mirror, not the old one but the younger one, was standing inside the threshold. “You look so refreshed, my dear,” she said. “Did you sleep well?” She asked turning her head and smirking with a knowing delight.

Gwen said yes but nearly fell over at the sound of her childlike voice. What is this madness? She wondered.

“I’ve made you breakfast and I want you to see the garden,” she said. “Come with Momma Morgana now.”

She didn’t want to move but her little body refused to stand still. She bolted to the woman who embraced her and led her back outside to the kitchen. She ate as the woman hummed the same song from the day before and flashed her pretty smiles from over her shoulder. Little Gwen returned every one of them.

“You may go play in the garden now,” Momma Morgana said.

Without a word, her body stood and took her outside the door. This was not all terrible as her limbs were heading in the direction of the boat, if she could just learn to control them she thought. The little hand turned the knob on the door and her feet still without any shoes trampled their way out onto the soft, green meadow. There was no chill in the air. The morning had already warmed the slick dew on the grass. Her feet were dancing her around in circles; her body, still moving without her commands pointed her toes and tapped them onto the ground taking turns between both feet. The summerlike sun beat down and a cooling breeze moved from the north to the south.

“How odd,” she said but this time she had spoken the words. She concentrated and marshaled all her strength. It worked. Her little girl body was no longer moving uncontrollably. She walked down to the muddy shore but she couldn’t find the clearing that had been there yesterday. The entire garden was cordoned off by rows and rows of flowers: Daffodils; Peonies; Lilies; Wildflowers. Every sort of flower you could image – except roses.

Strange again she thought. Arthur had given her roses. They always played together in his mother’s garden. It was there she had left him; the last day he was last like himself. He wanted to pick roses for someone special he told her, grinning in his boyish way that always made her tingle with excitement whenever she saw it.

Little Gwen dropped the short distant to the ground next to the tiger-lilies. She felt a flood of emotions overtake her small frame. How could he have become so cruel? Perhaps they could have been together, one day. She started to cry again. “Arthur is gone; he’s dead,” she repeated just above a whisper.

Her little hands covered her face as her tears streamed down onto the grass.

“Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” She heard in a pretty singsong voice. She looked up to see if the old woman had returned to collect her but she was still inside the house somewhere. She lifted her dress at the hem and wiped her faced.

“That’s better,” another set of voices said.

“Who’s there?”

“I’m here. We’re here. Us too.” The voices said from all around the garden. It must have been the cookies she thought. But that made no sense because she had cookies after she went mad and started speaking to the river, she reasoned further.

“Do you see me?” She heard coming from the section of the garden where the narcissus grew. She walked over to it. “Do I look pretty?” They asked.

“Yes,” she answered and the plant danced as if a rush of wind had gone through it. She reared her head back and raised an eyebrow. Looking back at the tiger-lily and the hyacinth bells she asked, “Are you able to speak?”

“Of course I am,” the narcissus answered.

“We can too, you know. It’s not all about you,” the buttercups shouted from behind her.

Gwen eyes widened. The entire garden was chattering around her like a group of restless patrons at a dry tavern.

“You seek him. The one they call Arthur.” She looked down at the spot on the ground where she had just been crying, which at the moment a rose bush was pushing itself up from under the dirt. Gwen took a few steps back with her tiny feet as the bushes sprung up one after another and beautiful full blooms blossomed instantly before her. “You seek him. The one they call Prince Arthur.”

“What?” She asked one particular rose forgetting how foolish this might all seem to any passersby.

“You seek him. The one they call Prince Arthur of Camelot?” It asked her more insistently.

“Yes. I seek him.”

“He is, as much dead as you are a little girl, Lady Guinevere.”

“What do you know of him?”

“I know of him. My mistress has put me under the earth where you could not see me and be reminded of your Arthur.”

“Tell me what you know of Arthur’s whereabouts.”

“I do not know where about he is, but I do know that he is not where I have been.”

Gwen thought that she should be happy but then she reminded herself that it was a rose bush from beneath the ground that was speaking to her and telling her that her Prince Arthur was not buried below the dirt. “How can I trust you? Your mistress has turned me into a little girl and almost made me want for nothing more than cookies.”

The rose stretched itself to touch the side of her face with its petals. It smelled so lovely that Gwen couldn’t help breathing in the aroma. “She is not evil. She only wishes to have a child with her again. You may leave through that gate and you will be yourself again but my mistress will miss you terribly.”

Gwen looked at the gate and then back towards the rose bloom. She started to take small steps toward the exit of the enchanted garden. All the flowers seem to droop with sadness. She unlatched the gate and ran down the little path next to the red cottage. She didn’t stop running until she could no longer see the old woman’s house but now she was lost because she hadn’t really paid too much attention to where she was running before.

It started to get cold. At first just a little chill as it should have been for this time in the spring but then much colder. The rose bush was right. She was herself again but now she was without her cloak and her boots. Her pretty little dress had changed back to her tunic and trousers. The ground became harder under her feet as it hardened from the cold.

It was not normal she thought taking a seat against a fallen log. “As if what has happened to you today and yesterday has been at all normal, Guinevere,” she said out loud and closed her eyes. She had been walking almost all of the day and now in the near dark was exhausted and shivering from the frosty air.

“Is anything truly normal to you, Master of the Elements?”

Gwen refused to open her eyes. This voice would go unspoken to she decided.

“Perhaps you are dead now?” It went on talking. “It’s too bad. You were said to be a great fighter. I would have liked to see you move the earth or make fire with your hands.”

“Shut up,” she said, keeping her eyes closed.

“I never heard that you were rude,” the voice said a little hurt.

She exhaled and opened her eyes. This was madness indeed, and she wished to close her eyes again and pretend she had not seen this. Before her stood a beast, like a panther but he was not covered in fur. His hide shone like black leather in the early moonlight.

“What are you?” She asked speaking every word slowly.

“I am not a what. I am a person like you.”

“No, not like me,” she countered.

“Well no, not exactly like you.”

The animal sat down beside her and raised his paw and began licking it like the cat that it resembled would do. “Well, what are you?”

“My name is Gwaine, but you may call me Sir Gwaine as you insist on referring to me as a what instead of a who,” he snapped.

Gwen could see that he was hurt, looking into his cat like features. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to offend you.”

“No matter now, Lady Guinevere,” he said flatly.

“How do you know me?”

“Are you not well-known?”

“Well, yes-”

“And are you not Lady Guinevere?” He asked more curious than before.

“Yes, but,” she started.

“Then why should I not know you? Are you insinuating that I know nothing of these lands? That I am a know-nothing-nobody? ”

“No, no,” she said quickly having upset the beast again. “It is not that. I just, I have never been to this place. I would not have expected its inhabitants to know of me.”

“You do not give yourself enough credit.” He eyed her. “Are you cold?”

“Yes. Very,” she said.

“I know a place where you could sleep tonight. I can take you there. It is rather nice,” he said. Gwen looked at him skeptically. He stood up on all fours. “Get on my back,” he said.

What’s the worst that could happen she thought? She could freeze here tonight or be eaten by a talking leopard with leather for skin. Either way, she would be dead.

The beast leapt over trees and onto large boulders that were dusted in frost and snow. Although it was getting colder, his body heat kept most of her warm. They broke out of the forest and came to a path that wound all the way to a castle.

“Where are you taking me?” She asked.

“To see the Princess and her new Prince,” he replied.

“New Prince?”

“Yes, he had only just arrived. He was tattered and looked as if he had fallen through hell but he was as haughty as any Prince that I have met.”

Gwen rolled her eyes thinking: of course Arthur would be the one to get lost and roped into a marriage with some strange Princess, but then another horrible thought invaded her mind.

“We are here, my Lady,” Gwaine said.

At the front steps that led inside the castle, she jumped off of his back and they walked together, bare feet and all, into the castle. It was exquisite, even more beautiful than Camelot’s castle.

“Your Royal Highness, may I introduce you to the Lady Guinevere,” Gwaine said. Gwen had been so busy looking up into the immense, round ceilings painted in pretty shades of reds, blues, golds and greens and every other color it seemed that she had not noticed the room of people staring at her.

She looked at the dais to see a beautiful Princess sitting next to a dark-haired man who was not Arthur.

“Hello, Lady Guinevere, I am Princess Elaina and this is my husband Prince Lancelot.”

She curtseyed.

“You do not look well, my Lady. Has your quest been so difficult?”

“I am sorry to say that it has, Your Highness.”

The woman stood and walked up to her. She smiled and took her hand. “You will sleep here tonight. You shall have as much as you can eat and rest as long as you wish. When you are ready to return to your journey, we will provide all that you need.”

Gwen looked at the woman, then at the Prince and then down at Gwaine who smiled broadly at her and then winked. “Thank you, Princess Elaina,” she replied.

It was the second in as many nights that she had slept so well. In the morning, she was shown a room filled with many lovely dresses all belonging to the Princess. She chose a red dress with gold embroidery that twinkled liked stars and donned it with a white cloak.

“Are you certain you will not stay longer, my Lady?”

She nodded. “You have been so kind, as have you, Prince Lancelot, and of course you, Sir Gwaine. But I must be on my way.”

They smiled and Guinevere mounted the white horse that belonged to the Princess herself. “She is my favorite. Please take good care of her.”

She rode out of the castle and down to the path. She came to a fork and stopped. If she went left, it would take her back to the river but with no answers for her King regarding the mysterious disappearance of his son. She nudged the horse and went right.

She kept riding, passing small villages and the blank faces of this realm that had never heard of a Prince Arthur or of the name Pendragon. Impossible, she surmised. Her mind must have been fixed on the curious contradiction because she hadn’t heard the whining of their horses.

“What a pretty horse,” the woman’s voice said.

There was a carriage before her, with a woman and little girl and a gang of men who look intent on robbing her blind. “What I wouldn’t give to have my gauntlets back or even Arthur’s sword,” she said under her breath.

“Momma, she’s pretty. May I keep her?” The little girl asked.

The woman looked at her daughter and then looked at Gwen. She shrugged her shoulders. “She will be your pretty mistress then, my lovely.”

The men rushed Gwen and the Princess’ horse. They grabbed her reins and pulled her from the steed, dragging her to the carriage to sit next to the little girl with long, straight dark hair and brown eyes.

“My name is Freya. What’s yours?” she asked.

“Gui,” she started to say but just caught the intent stare of the woman next to little Freya. “It’s Gwen.”

“That’s a pretty name.” The little girl reached down and pulled a shiny knife from between her skinny leg and her mother’s larger thigh. “You will make a good mistress. Better than the others,” she said holding the sharp end to the elemental knight’s throat.

Gwen nodded. The little girl returned the knife to its spot and resumed her idle singing and dolly hair brushing. Gwen looked at the woman. She thrashed the reins and the horses sped them and the carriage away.

It was dark again by the time they got to the robber’s hideout. They had built a nice little home deep in the forest. Freya walked with Gwen’s hand holding hers and the dolly while the other still held the knife.

The woman, the leader of the gang, seemed too busy counting her spoils for the day to be bothered with Freya. The little girl’s face showed pain and she ate in silence for much of dinner. Gwen didn’t have much of an appetite. She felt helpless, had felt helpless for far too many days now. Without a weapon either of man or of mystics she was just a pretty maid, a mistress to a sad little girl with tired, sleepy brown eyes.

She touched little Freya’s face. “Perhaps you would like me to take you to your bed now,” Gwen asked.

Freya nodded and held her hand as they went up the stairs to the room farthest towards the back of the structure. The poor child had said good night to her mother but it was ignored.

“It’s all right, Freya,” Gwen told her. She felt pity for her little hostage taker. The girl only seemed to want affection.

“This is my room,” she told her. “I have lots of pets. I have a turtle and a canary and a frog and a lizard that sings to me and bunny rabbits. I have lots of bunny rabbits.”

Gwen couldn’t help smiling at the little girl’s enthusiastic prattling. All about the room were animals stuck in cages. They went from the floor straight up to the ceiling. “Lizards can’t sing,” she heard herself say all of a sudden.

“Mine can,” Freya replied far too proud of her possession.

“I don’t think I believe it.”

“I’ll show you,” she said.

Freya walked over to a large wardrobe that swallowed her up as soon as she stepped inside. Gwen was curious, but she wouldn’t be surprise after having been robbed by a river, interrogated a rose bush and insulted a big talking cat. Today’s events were the most normal of this journey. The little girl reappeared holding a bird cage and a reddish, brownish creature with wings.

“That is no lizard I have ever seen before,” Gwen said.

“Lizard! Lizard!” It squeaked. “I am no lizard! I am a dragon, the last of my kind, young lady.”

“A dragon,” Gwen said actually amazed at this new development. “Dragons have not lived for centuries.”

“Well I assure you that I am alive. My name is Kilgharrah. And who might you be?”

“This is my new mistress, Gwen.”

“Gwen. You do not look like a Gwen,” Kilgharrah said cocking his head as if he recognized her from somewhere.

“Do not be rude, Kilgharrah, or I shall put you back into the box.”

The dragon huffed and a little spark of fire puffed from his nostrils.

“A baby dragon,” Gwen said.

“I am not a baby. I have lived for a thousand years.”

Gwen laughed.

“It is true, Gwen,” Freya said. “And do not laugh at him,” she whispered. “He can be very sensitive about his size.”

Gwen furrowed her brow.

“I am tired now, mistress. Will you tell me a story?”

Freya sat the dragon in front of the wardrobe and then ran to the grown up bed where she struggled mightily to get her feet up and herself onto the blankets. Gwen joined her and they lay in the bed and the little girl cuddled into her as her new mistress told her about a handsome Prince with blonde hair and blue eyes and a crown that he hated to wear.

The little robber girl laughed and said that her mother would steal it from him and save him the trouble. “It would not be too hard for my mother,” she told her. Gwen chuckled and continued the story.

“Do you still love him?” She asked her new mistress.

“It is just a story, little Freya. A fairytale,” she answered looking down at her face. The little girl smiled and then kissed her cheek and snuggled into her chest again before falling asleep.

***

Gwen had fallen asleep too before she knew it, but she woke early. Freya was still next to her but she had tangled herself into the blanket on the other side of the bed. Uther’s bravest, most powerful knight had been away for nearly four days and already three nights. At least that was all the time she could remember but it was like winter everywhere now.

From the window in Freya’s room, she saw nothing but snow and ice. The frost in the corner of the panes blocked everything else. Had she really been gone on this quest all spring and summer and fall?

“It must not be real,” she said.

“You think not?” Kilgharrah said from his cage.

She turned to look at him. Freya was still sleeping soundly. “Why are you so small?” She asked him. “Dragons are not even your size when they are babies.”

“Ah, so you can use reason,” he replied smirking. Gwen thought it was odd that a dragon could smirk. “I have been enchanted, like these lands and soon all of the world.”

“Enchanted? Who would do such a thing?”

“You can free me,” he said. “But she must free you first. She always frees them.”

“Explain yourself, dragon.”

“The little girl is no girl. She has been like that for more than twenty years. You two could be sisters. She was cursed long ago. She is tough, though not as cruel as the woman she calls mother but she is a collector too as I’m certain you can see from all the creatures here. Still she has little desire to hoard people.”

Gwen looked at the bed again and then back down at the singing lizard. “What do you mean?”

“She takes a mistress for a while but then eventually she allows them to leave. It is likely she grows too bored of them.”

“So she will let me go?”

“Yes and you can find your Prince. He is close,” he said.

“You know where Prince Arthur is?”

“I do not know, but I know someone who does. You will have to take me with you when she frees you.”

The dragon was cunning but she was no fool. “Why has she not let you go before?”

“She loves me. I sing to her and keep her company. If I were to leave she would be lonely and all alone.”

Gwen looked at him questioningly.

“It is true,” Freya said from behind her. “I will let you go but please do not take Kilgharrah. He is my only friend.” Freya’s eyes burst with tears. Gwen pulled the bare feet girl into her arms. “I am sorry about your Prince but I cannot be left here alone.”

She hushed the little girl. “It is all right. I will not take your only friend from you. If you let me go, I will continue my quest alone and you can keep the singing lizard.”

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course,” she answered.

“Even after I put my knife to your throat?” she asked.

“Well, we should talk about your manners, but yes, even after the knife incident.”

Freya wrapped her arms around her neck and squeezed her so tight that she thought the little girl could actually kill her without the use of her blade. “When I have found my Prince, I will come back for you,” she said.

“You will?” Freya asked looking at her.

Gwen was just thankful that her words had moved the girl to let go of her neck. She nodded to Freya.

The little girl stared deep into her eyes and then let her go and walked over to the dragon’s cage. She opened the door to free the little beast and handed him to Gwen.

“Take him. When you have found Prince Arthur, then you can come back for me.”

She took the creature and hugged the little girl. She grabbed Princess Elaina’s warm cloak, climbed out of the window down the ivy that all the other maidens used for their escape. The robber’s gang was still asleep and Gwen tiptoed through the camp and out into a clearing.

“Where do we go now?” She asked Kilgharrah. The dragon flapped his wing and took off from her hands. He had only gotten to the tops of the trees when in a flash he grew into the proper size of for his breed. He came to rest before her and lowered his head. “Come, we have a warlock to see.”

***

The dragon landed before a waterfall splashing down into the pool where the water spilled. “Merlin,” he shouted. Gwen couldn’t believe her ears. First a dragon and now the most famous Dragonlord of them all; this was quite something indeed.

The dragon stuck his head inside, taking his neck and Gwen with him. She was soaked through.

“Kilgharrah!” She shouted. “A little warning next time, perhaps?”

“Well, how else did you think we were going to enter?” He said trying to look up at her as she struggled and tried to look down at him.

“Can I have no peace, Dragon?” Merlin said to them

They both looked over at him. He was not the old man that she had expected. He was thin and a little pale but not sickly. His hair was dark and his cheeks were rosy and rather prominent she thought. “You are Merlin?” She asked. “But how can that be you are as old as this thing is.”

The dragon reared back, splashing Gwen again and then jerking forward to send her flying in the air to land on the soft patch of grass in the corner of the cave.

“Ow,” she yelled.

“Well, perhaps you will not be so rude in future. Young people,” he scoffed. Gwen only looked at him.

Merlin walked over to her and offered his hand.

“Do not mind him. He is cranky and old,” he whispered, to which the dragon reminded both of them that although he might be old, he was certainly not deaf.

They ate and she told the legendary sorcerer of her troubles while the Princess’ dress hung out to dry. She supposed it was not odd for a sorcerer to have a tunic, trouser and boots that fit her perfectly. He is magic, she told herself.

“Will you not help me?”

“I know where your Prince is, Lady Guinevere.” She tried her best to contain her excitement. “He is in the halls of the Snow Queen.”

“The Snow Queen,” she said. “But surely that is legend.” Gwen could have slapped herself if it wouldn’t have made her look more foolish. To call something legend while in the company of a sorcerer of legend and a dragon was simply ridiculous.

“You must take this to the Lady Finn. She lives closest to the Queen. She will tell you how to defeat her. Kilgharrah will take you.”

Merlin opened a piece of cloth and presented her with a ring with a large ruby stone.

“Is this some sort of payment for her?” She asked

“No. It will let her know that you are a friend and that you are who you say you are.”

“Thank you, Merlin,” she told him.

“Is there nothing else you might offer her, Merlin?”

Merlin eyed the dragon then stood and went over to his kitchen. In a cupboard he rifled in the back, throwing bowls and cups past his head that Gwen had to dodge. “Here they are,” he said.

He turned and handed her her gauntlets. “Where did you get these?” She asked.

“The river sends me all of his tokens.”

“Do you have the sword?” She asked.

“The sword does not belong to you. When you have retrieved the Prince, return and he shall have Excalibur again.”

“Excalibur, what’s that?”

“You are right, Kilgharrah; she can be a little obtuse at times.”

Gwen narrowed her eyes at him and then shot a glare at the dragon. They left the cave and the sorcerer of old and flew north where it only seemed to get colder. They landed outside of a small house just after nightfall. The winter air was too much for the fire-breather. He promised to return to visit her and the Prince in Camelot then wished her well and flew off into the distance.

She watched him go and then turned to face the wind. It was strong and whipped like ice across her face. This was all the doings of the Snow Queen as Merlin had said. She knocked at the door and it creaked open, inviting her inside.

It was dark inside. She closed the door and shut out the cold. With her left hand she summoned fire and the hearth and all the candles in the room came to life in an instant. The house was empty but it was quite well taken care of. There was a handwritten note on the table:

“I shall be home some. Merlin only sends me the most important of guests. Please make yourself at home.”

She dropped the paper back to the table and surveyed the room. There were flowers, roses to be exact, everywhere. They always reminded her of the Queen’s garden but these even more than usual. She walked to the back of the house and found a large tub next to the bed, in the corner hung Princess Elaina’s dress and her cloak. The water was still warm in the tub and she decided it was too tempting.

A few moments later she was up to her chin soaking in the bath. It felt good to relax again. If the rose bush was right and Arthur was still alive and if Merlin, the great wizard, spoke the truth and Arthur was only minutes away from this house, then soon she would see him again, alive.

She tried not to get too hopeful. Wrapping a large cloth around her wet body, she dressed quickly. The aroma of rosemary and chicken began to fill the air. She pulled on her gauntlets and turned the knob on the door of the bed chambers.

“You found your clothes I see,” the woman turned and said. She was beautiful. Her hair was like long, golden waves and her eyes were as blue as the skies over Camelot.

“Yes. Thank you, Lady Finn.”

She smiled. “Come eat. You must be starved.”

“Thank you again, but I have a more pressing matter.”

“Of course,” she said.

“I must find the prince, Prince Arthur of Camelot.”

“I know. Merlin said,” Lady Finn told her. “He is with the Snow Queen. She captured him and brought him here to serve her.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She is not a sound woman.”

“Merlin said you could tell me how to defeat her.”

“He did?” She asked surprised.

Gwen felt her heart fall. “He did,” she said back to the woman.

“I am sorry but I am afraid I do not know how.”

Gwen’s head dropped and she closed her eyes to try to concentrate. “Perhaps this could help you?” She said pulling the ring from her finger and handing it to the woman.

Lady Finn gasped at the sight of it, taking it from her hand and clutching on to it tightly.

“It is yours,” Gwen said at the same time she came to the realization.

“It is,” she said looking up at her with tears welling in her eyes. “It was given to me by my husband, Uther.”

It should have been obvious. He looked just like her. “You are Queen Ygraine?”

“I was, but I am afraid that was a long time ago.”

“No,” she said sitting next to her Queen. “The King, he loves you still. You are not forgotten by him or your son Arthur or all of Camelot.”

Ygraine smiled sadly. “That is nice to hear.”

“You must return with us.”

“I cannot. The Snow Queen keeps me here.”

“I will defeat the Snow Queen and I will save Arthur and return you both to my King.”

She hugged the woman and the woman hugged her back. “You are his one true love,” she said to Gwen.

“What?”

“You are Guinevere. You will marry my son. It is as Merlin says.”

She smiled. It hurts her terribly to think it because for so many years she had believed it too but Arthur was someone else now. She couldn’t bring herself to deny the woman of her assertions by telling her the terrible truth of the matter.

***

She headed towards the Snow Queen’s palace, now in plain sight set against the dark night sky. The wind persisted and now there was snow everywhere not just on the ground. Gwen’s boots stomped onto the soft fluffy mounds of powder that coated the ground. She approached a large set of gates that were left ajar.

“The Queen fears no one. No one troubles her,” Ygraine’s words danced in her head.

She pushed through the narrow opening and proceeded inside the courtyard. The pathway that led to the entrance was lined with trees of snow that had icicles for leaves that hung low and swayed gently in the stiff breeze; another oddity.

The snow before her began to grow thicker and above the steps the flakes seemed to be gathering into a giant ball that grew larger and larger still and then it paused and darted towards her like a swarm. The Queen’s Snow Bees, she thought.

They shot tiny pellets of stingers, hard as glass, in her direction. She lifted her right hand pressed her open palm forward and the tiny daggers froze, then she slammed her hand towards the ground. They followed and fell into the soft snow below.

The army of winter white bees kept coming. This time with her left hand, she swung her arm from left to right bidding the wind to cut through their numbers and thin the pack before they got too close. A few more moments she thought and then she pressed her palm forward again sending fire into their ranks. The Queen’s army melted into a shower of rain.

She ran up the steps just as a new swarm of snow bees were amassing. She headed deeper inside the castle, which seemed to be one long passageway that stretched towards the back with dark, narrow passageways at a few intervals on either side. There was a bright light at the end of the main artery and that was where she knew she would find Arthur.

The doorway was solid ice but that proved to be no challenge at all for the Master of Elements. She melted it and then created a barrier of wind around herself so this time she would not get wet before freezing it again to lock out any of the Queen’s bees.

Inside of the bright room, which was not as much a room as it was a massive hall with a frozen lake for a floor, there were blocks of ice shaped into what seemed like giant jigsaw puzzle pieces. In the middle, there was a large throne of ice and before it stood a man that she scarcely recognized.

“You have come to steal my trophy,” the Snow Queen’s voice echoed around her. “You cannot have him,” she yelled.

Gwen covered her ears as the rush of wind and flakes of snow blew over her. “He does not belong to you.”

The Queen laughed in a cold cackle. “Oh but he does, Lady Guinevere.”

“You will release him to me.”

“He may go with you, same as he could have gone every day since he came here.”

Gwen walked nearer to them, stepping delicately towards the Prince who was blue but not shivering from the cold. He seemed transfixed on the pieces of ice before him and he was muttering something to himself.

“Well then, you should allow me to take him without the use of any force.”

“He cannot leave without solving the puzzle and if you were to take him from this lake he would die before you could leave this room. His heart is frozen and only I know the secret that can free him.”

Gwen moved closer to the Prince, to where she could finally grab him by his hand. He was like a living being carved from solid ice yet he could still speak and his eyes stared doggedly at the puzzle pieces.

“I have to spell ‘Eternity’ then I may go home,” he said.

“Arthur,” she said. He turned to look at her but she only received his perplexed stare. She touched the cold icy skin of his cheek. The icy feel stung her fingertips. “Arthur, it is me, Guinevere. Do you remember me?”

The Snow Queen laughed again, soft and wicked. “I must leave you now, Lady Guinevere. There are greater things that I seek. I have so very much enjoyed my time with your Prince. I can hardly wait until we meet again.”

In a flurry of wind and ice and snow, the woman disappeared out of the arched ceiling of the hall leaving Guinevere with her Prince. Lost for answers, she could not believe that she had come this far, only to fail all the people she loved. She started to cry looking down at her hand able to hold on to his only by the grace provided her through the warmth of the fire element. Her shoulders slumped as the chill within her grew more erratic and the air escaping her quivering lips froze as it exited her body.

Arthur’s troubled eyes blinked away from her and returned to stare down at the ice pieces. He began to mumble to himself again.

The Snow Queen’s words echoed inside her thoughts, over and over again. Her head fell defeated, weighed down by despair and indecision. She moved to stand before the frozen man that she had believed so strongly was still alive and had searched with such determination to find. She thought of Lady Finn and of King Uther and all the people of Camelot too who wanted so much for this quest to not end in vain and in sorrowful mourning.

The puzzle was impossible to solve. The pieces, if they were letters, only held a particular shape to his eyes for to her they took no discernable shape. She looked to just beyond the edges of the lake, wondering if the Snow Queen’s threat would indeed hold true should she take Arthur from his perch.

A long moment passes. Devoid of all hope, she closed her eyes and allowed the tears to flow freely down her cheeks as she stood before him deciding finally, that if he would die on this night, at least he would die in her arms.