✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

CHAPTER FOUR

MERLIN'S BLESSING

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

RANDVI WOKE UP WITH A START. Her violet eyes glanced around the canopy of leaves, the wind breezing which made a ruffled noise as the leaves danced around each other overhead. Randvi slowly sits up on the grass, feeling the dampness under her fingers. Her clothes were soaking wet. It must have rained while she was knocked unconscious, for how long, she was unsure.

She then pushed herself off of the ground, testing her weight on her ankle. When Randvi doesn't feel any pain, just a light pressure, she decided to put more weight on it. It's not pain free but bearable enough to walk through the forest. Randvi studied the surrounding woods until her eyes landed on a clear path through the trees. She wasn't sure which way the path would lead, either back to Dewdenn or somewhere else entirely.

Right was always a good option to go with, Randvi thought to herself and started walking down the trail. The forest was rather quiet but there was something . . wrong in the air. The magic flowing in the air was strong, it was darkening with malicious intent. Randvi could feel it in her soul. Twisting around it's prey before it devours it whole. The further she walked down the path, limping ever so slightly to not agitate her ankle, something strange began to fill her ears.

The howling of the wind rustled through the leaves above, and then she heard the noise again. Something heavy was making this sound that Randvi had never heard before, but then a low groan followed afterwards. Randvi took a sharp intake of breath as her eyes rapidly searched through the dark forest while she paused her walk. She couldn't see anything but that didn't mean nothing was out there.

Randvi then closed her eyes and listened to what the forest wanted to tell her. Her mother always told her that the forests surrounding the fey villages were magical and alive. That sometimes if you listened close enough, they would whisper back at you. She heard the howling from the wind, the snaps of branches underneath the feet of a nearby fawn, and then the same strange sound bouncing off of the trees.

Randvi knew she shouldn't of walked in the same direction of the sound, but she could not help her curiously when it needed to be fed. She thought about it, second guessed herself. Her inner conscious telling her to go towards the sound, but her mind told her to turn around. Once she got closer to the sound, it got louder and more clear.

Randvi peered from behind a tree and her eyes gazed upon the scene in front of her. Wolf carcasses littered the ground, most of them had been beheaded. Randvi walked towards the large rock in the middle of the wolf massacre, when she heard the noise from before. She raised her head to look into the forest before making her way towards the sound.

A few feet away from the wolves, was a man twisted in a mess of gigantic roots that had been raised from the ground. Randvi's mouth opened wide in shock as they stretched around him, making a creaking noise echo throughout the woods. Randvi watched as the roots circled around his body, around the red cloak he was wearing. This was caused by magic.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a body move on the ground. Randvi immediately turned her attention to the young woman laying on her back, her fingers twitching as her body began to wake from whatever she had endured. Randvi could only assume that the young woman was responsible for the roots, and when she took a step towards her, she could see the blood splattered over her face.

Randvi picked up her ruined skirts and bent down on the grass when she heard the sharp intake of breath. The girl's eyes fluttered open as her mind started to wake, and Randvi gathered her hair away from her face. "Hey, are you alright?" Randvi whispered under her breath while checking the woman for wounds.

The fey girl caught her gaze once her sight became less blurry. When their eyes connected, her blue eyes widened in shock. Randvi watched as the girl scrambled away, her eyes looking for something on the ground as she put distance in between them.

Randvi put her hands in front of her, silently telling her that she meant no harm to the young woman. "I'm not going to hurt you." Randvi spoke with such softness in her voice that it made the girl's shoulders slide down a little. "Born at the dawn . ."

The young woman in front of her opened her mouth slightly in realization that she was a fey born. " . . to pass away in the Twilight." she then studied the woman in front of her, blood seeping from what seemed like her eyes, as she didn't see any other wounds on her face. "I'm Randvi."

"Nimue." The girl told her, and then looked around when the sound of roots twisting around the body behind her, echoed throughout the forest reached her ears. "Where's my sword?" she questioned her to which Randvi shook her shoulders in response, but began to look around for the asked object.

Randvi's violet eyes found the object she had asked for, and began to walk towards the piece of metal hidden underneath the wrapped cloth. It's when she began to hear a faint ringing start in her ears but Randvi shook it away and reached for the sword. The second her warm hand touched the handle of the sword, her eyes turned white and she lost her sight.

Randvi couldn't see a thing. There was only darkness until a streak of light in the shape of a cylinder, shined through the opposite side of what looked like a room to her. Randvi reached for it with her hands, only to notice her hands weren't exactly her own. Randvi's feet began to move forward without her wanting to. This wasn't her body, she quickly realized.

Randvi's mind turned into a haze before more light shines into her eyes, blinding her with a white light until her eyes settled with the new found brightness. She was on top of a tree, a large branch used as a walking cane in one hand, and a sword in the other. Her hand reached forward to put the sword onto an altar in front of her, and beside it, laid a babe wrapped in royal blue cloth. A tuft of colored hair was all Randvi could see poking above the cloth as she babe slept soundly.

"You've seen the future, Merlin?" A woman called out but Randvi could not see her face under her hood, just a blackness where her facial features should be.

Randvi could see a few people gathered around the altar, like a summoning was taking place but she could not see any faces. Just blackness.

"Prophecies written in the clouds that cannot be reshaped, I'm afraid." The man's voice rung in Randvi's ears and realized that the voice had been hers. The voices that came from the others gathered around where distant, a few feet away but this Merlin . . . his voice was loud and wanting to be heard by her ears.

"Then you must bless this child with the sword's power, our creation, or all of us is doomed."

This man, Merlin, then shook his head while looking down at the small infant wrapped in a cloth, an innocent in this terrible and unforgiving world. The babe would soon learn of the world's hatred and its nature of taking, and taking without giving anything back, and they wouldn't be able to prevent it.  They have hid for centuries, Merlin knew this, but they could not hide any longer.

"You would give this child the sword's curse without a second thought of the consequences of what this power could do to a innocent child? It might eat her from the inside out―!"

And Merlin fought with her. He knew that whatever power this sword could give the child, it would turn into chaos, something the child couldn't control in the future, if the child could even control the sword's power suffocating it's tiny soul.

Randvi saw the swell of magic in the air, thick and suffocating as the woman in front of her suddenly rose her hand in the air and reached for Merlin's throat. Her fingers closed around nothing but air, but Merlin's walker tumbled to the ground as he began to choke on his own air.

"You are treading on thin ice, Merlin. May I remind you: you stole the sword from us and we did not go looking for it. You will bless the child with the power from the sword and when the time comes, she will be there to turn their weapon to her side."

Merlin choked on his own salvia, his face turning red with the deprivation of oxygen flowing into his lungs. "I—"

Merlin spat out with the little oxygen he had left in his throat and his words had let the magic seep back into her own hands, the threads holding Merlin captive then released him. Merlin kneeled forward onto his knees as he dropped, gathering himself with both palms against the wood of the tree.

"The sword has dark magic inside—" Merlin fought with her, gazing up at her through his eyelashes.

"The magic will save us all in due time, Merlin. Do this, now." The woman then looked away as Merlin rose on his heels, feeling a hint of defeat as he took a glance at the small babe. He took a small pity on the young one, at the magic that it was going to endure could either devour her whole, or it would become something no one has ever anticipated. Merlin conjured his magic, a hot crackling power coming from the clouds above that roared as his magic came to life.

He started to say incantations under his breath as the thunder roared around the tree, and the onlookers began to look nervous from the amount of lightning conjuring around the altar. Merlin looked towards the sword, knowing that if he went through with the ceremony, the sword would take with the child, slowly becoming one with her, filling her up with wrath and greed. The whorls he would put upon this child would burn it from the inside out, but he was forced to put this upon the child.

Merlin took a different direction, he grabbed the hilt of the sword and raised it towards the angry clouds above, and the crack of lightening trailed down to touch the metal, blinding everyone around the altar. Merlin looked towards the small babe, his white eyes widened as he started to whisper words until his own magic began to consume the baby. The crackling lightening building a silhouette of white magic around the tiny body, seeping into it's eyes until it was the color of his own― blackening its soul with the same power the sword gives him.

Randvi pulls her hand back from the sword's handle as her vision returned. Her fingers tingles with power and unknown magic, leaving her mind feeling lost and hazy, like she had just woken up from a vivid dream. The sword clanked on the ground as it slipped from her fingers. From behind her, Nimue threw up the contents of her stomach behind her after she saw the roots squeezing the life out of the Red Paladin.

Randvi thought the girl has fire but she had a weak stomach for violence. Randvi didn't blame her though, she was now feeling completely sick to her stomach. She had all these questions that she didn't have answers to. What exactly did she see inside the sword, and why did it show her these things when it touched her flesh? This young babe she saw in the middle of the altar seemed familiar, but she didn't know why.

Randvi glanced down at the sword again, and she hesitated with reaching for it once again. The dream she had, seemed so real but it was before her time. That she was sure of. Randvi let go a shaky breath before her hand wrapped around the hilt of the sword. Mere seconds later, symbols written down the shaft of the sword started to illuminate an orange color and her hands strangely began to feel lighter, more powerful, and Randvi wasn't sure if she liked that feeling.

There was this feeling of something burning her from the inside out. Making her insides feel like a volcano, threatening to explode.

Randvi slid the sword into the scabbard and then started walking towards Nimue. The poor girl was retching up her stomach, and she was shivering from the cold as Randvi approached her from behind.

"I found your sword." Randvi told her, holding out the sword that she wrapped back in the cloth. Nimue glanced behind her shoulder and a small appreciative smile graced her face. Randvi noticed that the girl had put some of her guard down around her, but Nimue was still watchful around her.

Randvi watched as she young woman gathered herself, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve and holding the bottom of her stomach. Randvi grabbed onto the nearby branch, smearing some of her own blood onto the bark as she waited. She watched curiously as Nimue turned back around, avoiding the right side of the forest, where the vines she called upon.

"Better him than you," Randvi pointed out to clear the silence hanging over them. Her violet eyes studied the way Nimue's posture tensed immediately once she brought up the Red Paladin. "the way I see it, he probably deserved it."

Randvi smiled back at her once Nimue cracked a chuckle. Nimue felt a little better about this whole situation with Randvi being around. It was nice to not be totally lost in this world, she had already lost Pym. A cold wind breezed past them which made Nimue shiver, and Randvi furrowed her eyebrows once the girl began to brush her forearms back and forth to conjure some warmth. "You're freezing. Here, you need this more than I do."

Nimue watched with widened eyes as Randvi unclasped her royal blue cloak from around her shoulders, and handled Nimue the fabric but Nimue shook her head in response. "I possibility couldn't."

Randvi pushed the cloth forward and into Nimue's hand before she could protest again, "I run quite warm, trust me, I won't need it."

Nimue took it hesitantly and felt the fabric under her fingers. It was still damp but had a strange warmth to it. Nimue put it around her shoulders and smiled back at her. "I know a stream not to far from here, we should be able to clean up there." Nimue told her as they began to walk together, Nimue leading the woman away.

──────⊹⊱✫⊰⊹──────

Father Carden's boot poked the nose of a wolf's severed head, and gazed around at the carcasses of dead wolves that littered around a large rock. The Weeping Monk slowly made his way towards the scene, taking note of every detail laid out before him. "I appears some Fey swords eluded our net," Father Carden spoke, his voice low and rough.

The Weeping Monk walked around the bodies of the dead wolves, and saw something on the ground and he kneeled down quickly, touching his fingers to the ground. Father Carden glanced in his direction, and immediately grown interested in what the Monk had found. "Found something?" He questioned, as the two figures in red followed behind.

"Only one set," the monk replied, "Fey girl by the size of them," he added on and began to study the ground around the prints. His icy blue eyes gazed upon another set of tracks further away, and immediately walked towards them, bending down to study them.

"An abomination," Carden whispered, looking around at the blood that stained the ground. "this was no ordinary sword."

"She might of had help, there's another set of tracks." The Weeping Monk informed him, reaching down to put his finger against the print in the raised dirt. He knew that there was another woman that had escaped his own hands, but he couldn't be sure of whose prints they belonged to, but whoever it was, the print was smaller than a mans.

The Weeping Monk was quickly brought out of his thoughts as the cries of the brothers reached his ears. "Father! Father!" The paladin called out, and he was quick to rise to his feet, while the three of them quickly made haste to follow the paladin.

The grey monk was quick to observe the several brothers, on their knees and mouths to the ground while they prayed under their breaths for their savior to save them. The Monk's eyes traveled to a thick weave of branches and felt his jaw tense at the sight in front of his eyes.

One of his brothers laid at the top of the woven branches, while the roots weaved around his body. The Weeping Monk looked away in disgust and towards the other Paladin's behind him.

"Get up," Father Carden commanded his Red Paladin's and kicked at them, rushing them to rise. "Shame on you," he spat out, as he glared at the monks. "Look at it!" he pointed towards the man, his other fist balled at his side as he sneered.

"This is the enemy!" he yelled, as he turned to face the paladin in the branches. Father Carden watched as the paladin struggled to take a breath, and his brow rose on his forehead when he noticed the man was still alive.

The Weeping Monk's eyes traveled around the forest until he spotted a spot of blood smeared on the bark of a nearby tree. His fingers touched the bark, and he rolled the blood between his fingers. The grey monk closed his eyes for a second, then saw violet ones staring back at him.

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, and turned his head to the side as he opened his eyes once again. "Fey blood," he breathed out, and then slowly peered down at the footprints in the ground. Father Carden's head snapped towards the Weeping Monk as he advanced towards him and examined the blood and the tracks, "Let me find her, father."

At those words, Carden glanced back at the vines squeezing the paladin, "I need you to kill every fey in this wood." he commanded him and then waved his hand at one of the Paladin's dressed in red, "You, cut him down."

The man nodded and unsheathed his sword, traveling around the stump of branches, as he began to try and cut his brother out. "We're looking for one Fey maid with a large sword. Take this description to Hawksbridge, Sheep Heard, and Burned Pass. Tell them . . that anyone harboring this wolf-blood witch . . will burn with her." he commanded his faithful Red Paladins.

The Weeping Monk turned on his heel as his hand mindlessly traveled to the hilt of his sword. Father Carden turned his head to watch the monk in grey mount on top of his black horse, and he nodded towards him.

What they both failed to realize that the mere fey they were hunting was one that was about to flip the very plans that Carden had for the future. The Weeping Monk would truly transform his morals at the words of a mere woman, destined by fate to change the tides.

A/N: Helloooo and Merry Christmas Everyone! I'm hoping you guys are enjoying the story so far. I'm really excited to get further into the plotline, and get more lancelot x randvi scenes up in here. Randvi won't be following Nimue around, besides it wouldn't be safe for her to go to hawksbridge anyways. girl sticks out like a sore thumb.

I hope you guys have an amazing Christmas to those who celebrate, and if you don't, then I hope you have an awesome Friday! Here's to knocking 2020 out of our lives and hopefully, a better year is ahead of us.