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Post by Zoicite on May 12, 2008 5:28:40 GMT
(*glomps back* Yay!)
He nodded in recognition of everything she was showing him. "Mab." This was to be a standoff. An odd one, at that, but it made no difference. "I see you've made yourself comfortable in Camelot." Apparently, neither of them were moving fast enough for the recently departed Morgan. She let out a sigh, and gestured to Excalibur. "One of you is going to win, and one will die. We alweady know that. I don't undewstand why you can't just weave each othew awone. If you weally want to fight, then huwwy up and get it ovew with.
(>__< I love Dead Morgan, but writing with a lisp is hard. )
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Post by himiko on May 13, 2008 2:21:32 GMT
Mab's eyes had already fallen on the sword in Merlin's hand, even before Morgan spoke.
"Ah," she said, quietly, "I see. That's why you've come here." Merlin blinked a moment. He thought about nodding, but realised he was wasting precious time. Instead, he lifted his sword. Rather than attempting to fling him aside already, her eyes had shifted to her deceased former ally.
"And you," she muttered, somewhat more venom in her voice than there had been when speaking to Merlin, "Tell me, which one of us were you hoping to kill through this. Me? Or Merlin? Or didn't it matter?"
Morgan's spirit glowered slightly. Mab glared back at her.
"Lord Idath will come for you soon enough, girl. In the meantime, I suggest you run along to your lover, and keep out of my sight. I will not kill my son..." She trailed off, slightly, as Merlin ran at her with Excalibur.
"But he will kill you," Merlin snarled finally, angrily. He had walked here, knowing it would probably be to his death, he had expected a fight, he had wanted to die fighting, dammit, the gods knew there was precious little to keep him alive for. The elemental kings he had spoken with had mused over his ideas, and continued to do so, but without Arthur, without Nimue, surely he should be allowed to give up. So why wouldn't Mab attack him, and let him take her to the grave with him?
Mab's magic struck him, sent him sprawling to the floor. He managed to keep his grip on Excalibur, and pulled himself hurriedly to his feet, expecting Mab to strike again. Instead, she watched him, head tilted slightly to one side, that look of interest on her face. For a moment he fancied that she looked almost sad, but the moment passed, he shook it off and told himself that he must be wrong.
This time he approached more cautiously, cursing that he wasn't better at wielding a sword. Mab sighed and struck out again. Merlin parried with his own magic, clumsily. His powers were still far weaker than Mab's, and even though the blast hadn't been at full strength, it still knocked him off balance with it's force. However, despite this, he still plunged the sword forward. He didn't know whether it was more to Mab's surprise or his own that the blade punctured her magical shield, pushing further still so that it pierced her shoulder..
Merlin's body froze in place. Mab stood watching him, her face pale. As Merlin's eyes lingered on the point of the sword, Mab stepped backwards, leaving a tear in her dress, and a trickle of blood running down the sword's blade. Still facing her son, she loosened the spell that kept him frozen enough so that he could talk.
"Why did you come back?" she asked tiredly, "You could have left, could have got away. Instead you've started something that could end in catastrophe for all of us, and now you've come here, to Camelot, to Mordred. You've walked straight into a death trap, Merlin." Merlin blinked slightly.
"Why do you care?" Mab didn't answer his question directly.
"I have no intention of killing you," she went on, "And you certainly have a minimal chance of killing me, even with that precious sword of yours. If I let you go now, will you leave, for good?" Merlin considered lying, but he knew it was pointless.
"No," he replied frankly.
"I thought not." Had that been the ghost of a smile he had just seen, Merlin wondered? "Then I'll have to keep you out of sight."
Merlin struggled against the spell holding him, "What do you mean?" he snarled, "If I have no chance of killing you, Queen of the Old Ways, then fight me." Mab rolled her eyes, blinked again, and a moment later, Merlin was flying through an open door, into a small chamber- small, and dark, with only one small window to let the light in, but it would suffice for now.
Mab considered taking Excalibur with her, for a moment, before the sound of a familiar voice echoing down the hall took her mind from it. Closing the door, leaving her son locked inside for the moment, Mab waved a hand over the door, and watched as it vanished, leaving only a patch of wall where it had been. She would decided what to do with him on a more permanent basis later.
Hurriedly, she waved a hand over her shoulder. She felt none of the familiar rush of magic running to heal the wound, clearly that was another of this weapon's traits. Instead she waved her hand, fixing the tear in her dress. At least the blood wouldn't show on black material. And she was unwilling to divulge Merlin's presence to Mordred, yet, for the last thing she needed was to either have her son dead at Mordred's hands, or foster resentment in Mordred for not allowing him to do so.
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Post by Zoicite on May 13, 2008 4:39:08 GMT
Morgan, however, had refused to leave. She still stood where she had watched the entire fight. "If you must know, I don't weally want him to win. Peace is so boring." With that, she moved her attention to Mordred, glaring at him instead as he entered the room.
Merlin was, quite frankly, exhausted. Everything had once again failed. Well, not everything. He had managed to hurt her. But now what? He sighed, and leaned against the wall, preparing to take a much needed rest, summoning up his power as he did so. It never hurt to have extra, just in case.
(*wonders how much she can get away with....*)
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Post by hilloneko on May 13, 2008 10:37:07 GMT
(please be kind, I am so bad at writing but I thought I would try and give it a shot. Please no tomatoes *ducks*)
As Merlin was resting he was unaware that the room was filling up with water. Only when the water came up to his neck did he notice what was happening. His first reaction was to call for help but he knew no help would come to him. Panicking climbed up to the window and used the sword to cut through the glass but to his horror the sword did nothing. Now he really began to panic, Merlin knew deep down that he really didn’t want to die and as the water went past his head Merlin closed his eyes cursing Mab.
When he opened them again he found himself in a familiar place. He stood up to see the Lady of the Lake looking at him. “Hello Merlin”
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Accolon
Merlin's Apprentice
Posts: 259
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Post by Accolon on May 14, 2008 17:47:50 GMT
She was indeed the Lady of the Lake, but something had changed about her. She seemed more radiant, more alive. The last time Merlin had seen her she had looked tired and worn and sad. Furthermore, her fish necklace was gone, replaced by a silver cross. A golden glow emanated from above her head.
"I'm sorry for what I am about to do, Merlin. But it is..." She hesitated, and looked at Merlin with great sadness. "....necessary. I must cut the tie that binds you to my enemy. She must be made to submit, or she must be destroyed."
The Lady then produced from beneath her sleeve a golden knife, 9 inches in length, glowing with a soft radiance. Merlin reflexively recoiled in horror. He had just had a near death experience... he still had no desire to die.
----------------------------------- Queen Mab, defender of the old ways, stood in her purple crystal chamber, studying thirty images in thirty crystals simultaneously, while trying to reason out a solution to her problems. Her mind was quicksilver, more powerful than any mortal, more learned than any scholar, working through and rejecting hundreds of schemes and plots. A plan was beginning to form, she just had to work out the details, people would have to be manipulated just so, terrible sacrifices would have to be made, but in the end it would bring about peace AND the survival of the old ways.
Suddenly she was stabbed to her very core with a horrible pain. A pain she had not felt in several mortal generations. A pain she had not felt since her last champion had fallen into the dark, never to return. Her mind was stunned, reeling. Logic fled, leaving her with only emotion. Sadness, anger, fury. Her clouded mind could come to only form one clear thought, conceive only one possible explanation. Merlin must be dead.
---------------------------- "I tells ya, that waz no natrural storm, I reccon," said Hank, a common handyman at Camelot.
"Youze wills gets no disgreement from me, I say. My cousin's house was flooded and fell into the river. They lost their little baby girl," said Mary the serving girl.
"Itza always da little people that lose in da end," replied Hank, wiping his hand across his brow, leaving a black muddy mark on his forehead.
"I heard they also had trouble in the castle." said Billy the stableboy. "A whole room was flooded. I heard they found a body."
"I'a 'eard it was bloated and stabbed and gutted 'orribly," whispered Mary conspiratorially.
"I heard the face was so cut up and stabbed over and over that they couldn't identify him," said Billy, nodding in agreement.
"I don't know nothin about that, but I does knows that was not no natural storm. There are bad things acomin," concluded Hank mournfully.
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Post by Zoicite on May 15, 2008 4:01:20 GMT
(Lol, random villagers XD)
For a moment, Morgan and Mordred ceased their glaring contest, and looked around the room, both confused, and appropriately wary. "Now what could that be?" Mordred drawled, seeking comfort in his own voice. Without waiting for an answer or comment from his dearly departed mother, he strode in the direction of the main hall, shouting as he went. "Auntie Mab! Auntie, where are you?" Morgan rolled her eyes and walked, rather than floated, behind him.
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Post by himiko on May 17, 2008 2:20:16 GMT
Mordred found himself staring into space, deep in thought. He'd been doing that a lot these past few days, and considering he'd always been far more fond of actions than words, this was significant indeed.
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy being king. It was very satisfying indeed seeing not only those in his immediate circle, but everyone he encountered, scuttle out of his way, and hanging onto his every word. Well, except for Auntie Mab, and now his idiot mother's ghost, who seemed to have taken it into her head to spend the remaining time she had in the World of Men making herself a damned nuisance to her son. What he didn't like was not being in control, and it seemed that this was precisely the situation that he found himself in. First it had been Auntie's far more irritating brother informing them of some impending doom involving Mab's other siblings, and that accursed wizard, and then this mysterious storm and it's aftermath.
Mordred recalled the events briefly. Rain hammering down around the castle, lightening flashing in the sky. Water trickling bizarrely from a wall, despite the fact that it hadn't been an exterior wall. Mordred had thought it odd at the time, but he had been somewhat distracted, both by glaring at his mother, and the sudden cry that had accompanied Auntie Mab's arrival. She'd soon solved the mystery of the water, by waving her hands and making a door reappear in the wall, that then flew open, forced by the weight of the water that had flooded the room behind it, only to bring another mystery in the form of the corpse that floated out of the room, gutted and bloated and utterly unrecognisable.
The strange noise that followed- an odd, whimpering noise- could surely never have been identified by Mordred as belonging to Mab had he not seen her face. It had seemed odd at first- Mordred had never seen his aunt as the type to be disturbed by blood and gore. Then he noted the man's clothing- the long coat, the feathers- and realised just who this unfortunate individual was. His glee at Merlin's apparent death hadn't lasted long, though, as he'd watched his precious aunt kneel beside her son's body, rest it on the now ruined face, her expression gradually change from anguish to confusion.
"It's not him..." she murmured to herself, "Not him... and the sword's gone..." And with these cryptic comments, she had vanished. Since then, she had been perfectly doting and adoring towards Mordred, as always, but had said not one word to him about the strange appearance of the man- that-wasn't-Merlin, nor how she had known that he was in Camelot castle, right under Mordred's nose, nor what was happening about it now. And this just made Mordred downright seethe.
Still, he thought to himself, darkly, at least these days he had the power to order people to be executed on his whim- that usually cheered him up. Perhaps he would order one of the irritating knights that fawned after his favour to have his throat slit. He turned to the servant standing next to him.
"Go to the executioner," Mordred ordered him, "Tell him to prepare for an execution later today." The man stared at him blankly. He was a fairly dour, cheerless sort of man, with a slight streak of madness of his own, but he did seem to share Mordred's thirst for killing, something Mordred approved of wholeheartedly.
"You have no executioner, Your Majesty," he replied expressionlessly, "You had him executed yesterday." Mordred frowned for a moment before remembering.
"Ah, yes. I did," he replied carelessly, "Very well, then. You're now my executioner. Go and prepare!" he snapped. The man gave a small bow, and walked away, looking marginally more cheerful in his misery. Mordred wished he could say the same for himself. Even death just didn't seem to be cheering him up the way it usually did, and he couldn't help wondering where precisely his aunt was at that moment.
---
"Is this how it starts?"
Mab's voice sounded rather more strangled than usual, whether from anger or confusion, or even embarassment at having to have gone to her brother for help, noone knew, least of all the Lord of Fire himself.
Mab continued, "I remember wars between the elemental kings before, Loke, and this is not a common move. Oh, our sister's always been more cunning than her sweetly pure facade would suggest, but why take Merlin? He would have helped her willingly, and she has either killed him or cut the bonds that bind his blood to mine, which would have made him suffer. It makes no sense to do that to an ally. And why has our brother made no move yet, when it was he who Merlin approached in the first place?" Loke frowned for a moment- a very out of character expression.
"You're right," he admitted, "This is an odd course of action for our sister, and I can't for the life of me understand her reasons. I have a nasty feeling, though, that we're not going to like them when we do find them out..."
---
Pain, so much pain... blood, light, screaming, a shimmering hand holding a knife...
Merlin lay on the floor, huddled up. A few feet away from him, Excalibur lay gleaming, but he couldn't have picked it up even if he'd tried. He was shaking too much, and he couldn't even move that short distance to it. Everything seemed to hurt, as though his skin had been scraped raw. And his magic was gone- not just vanished gone, it had literally been ripped away from him. Oh, he had got his wish, alright. Mab's blood no longer flowed in his veins. He was no longer linked to the Old Ways by his nature. The Lady of the Lake had taken it away from him. He had trusted her, and she had hurt him.
A shimmering glow announced her arrival in the room where he lay. Merlin couldn't help but try and shrink back from her as she walked towards him.
"You hurt me..." he muttered, "Why?"
"It was neccessary," she replied, in her soft voice, "As I said, Mab must be made to submit, or be destroyed. Isn't that what you wanted, Merlin? And now you are no longer linked to her. Don't you want to help fight against her?"
"I've fought against her almost all my life," Merlin whispered in reply, painfully, "I've never trusted her. And now you've made sure I have no-one left to trust."
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Accolon
Merlin's Apprentice
Posts: 259
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Post by Accolon on May 18, 2008 1:27:07 GMT
While Mab was away consulting with Loke, Loke's assistant Kirf was sneaking through her chambers in the land of magic. He always got the worst and most dangerous jobs. Loke had assured him that Mab would be so completely distracted by her Merlin troubles that he'd be completely safe. And he didn't have to go through the front door of the land of magic, because the Lord of the Earth carried him directly through the ground into the land of magic under the surface, and would carry him out when he was done. Still, Kirf would be glad when this was all over. He was not a brave henchman, and was particularly frightened of Mab. Kirf always wondered how his cousin Frik had managed to put up with her in the first place.
After what felt like an eternity, picking through knick knacks and artifacts and orbs containing souls or spells or some such, Kirf finally found a small chest that fit his master's description under a pile of maps and spellbooks. He opened the chest with trembling hands to confirm its contents, and when he saw the glowing object that lay within, he smiled.
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Post by Zoicite on May 18, 2008 7:37:34 GMT
This was most definitely getting out of hand. At that thought, Morgan surveyed her own, watching the light slowly stop running through it. That was also most troubling. It was getting harder to float. How...odd. She stuck it in the back of her mind, and prepared to make small talk. Even in the best of circumstances that wouldn't be the wisest move, but they were stuck together, and she was admittedly getting bored. "Who do you pwan to have executed, Mowdwed?" It was a good start, hopefully nothing to incite any rage in the temperamental boy.
(lol, Mowdwed. ;D)
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Post by himiko on May 19, 2008 3:33:00 GMT
Mordred gritted his teeth.
"Someone," he snapped, "Anyone. I don't care. What is it you want?" He turned around to face her, glaring furiously. Morgan stared back at him defiantly.
"There's no need to be wude, Mordwed," she replied, putting her hands on her hips, "Didn't I tell you when you were little, being wude was being weak." Mordred raised his eyebrow and peered at her with a kind of vicious scorn.
"Oh, yes, you did indeed," he replied, "Of course," he added nastily, "You also told me that you would sit on a throne by my side as the Queen Mother, and we can all see how well that turned out, can't we, mother dearest?" Morgan glowered back at him, but didn't seem to have a reply to that, yet. Instead she changed topic again.
"What are you planning to do next?" She was genuinely interested in this question, though nobody would tell her anything of what was going on, it was quite clear even to someone as self-absorbed as Morgan had been that something was happening that left Mordred and Mab tense and on alert, and she was curious. Mordred turned back to her once more.
"Well, I hadn't really thought about it," he said, pleasantly, "But now you come to mention it, I think I'll invest some effort in ridding the castle of it's current ghost infestation." And with that, he turned away from Morgan once more, and no amount of effort on her part could make him acknowledge her again. Sighing, Morgan turned away, and began to wander off through the rest of the castle instead.
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Accolon
Merlin's Apprentice
Posts: 259
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Post by Accolon on May 22, 2008 23:36:19 GMT
Sadness and despair began to wear down on Morgan. Oh, you would not be able to tell just by looking at her. She had the same vacuous yet vicious look she had learned to show to the world. It was a survival trait needed to endure in the "family" of Morgan, Mordred, Frik, and Mab.
But inside, in her heart, there was futility and hopelessness. And she began to sink. Sink. Sink into the floor of Camelot.
-------------------------------------------------- Loke's slave Kirf had successfully escaped the land of magic with the aid of the powers of the lord of the earth. But the land of magic moves like a thought or a dream, and the lord of the earth could only lift Kirf up, straight up. He had no way of knowing where he'd end up until he left the bowels of the earth.
It would take a bit for Kirf to get all his power back; in particular, it would take a few minutes to regain the ability to teleport home to his master and deliver the thing he had stolen from Mab. He was... in a wine cellar. The power of illusion came first, so he changed his clothes to look like a Cluricaun, complete with white shirt, apron, silver shoes, and red cap, and opened up the nearest bottle of wine. "Not bad, not bad," Kirf remarked. The wine restored some more of his energy, enough to sense where he was. "Now where am I?" wondered Kirf, as he sent out tendrils of force to divine his location.
Kirf then uttered an oath so foul and vile that if any mortal had heard it he would of dropped dead on the spot. Well, not really. But it was indeed terribly offensive. I would repeat the oath to you, but there are ladies present, so I regret I must leave it to your imagination. Think of the most vulgar thing you can imagine, said by the crudest villain you can picture. What Kirf said was about twice as bad as that.
"I'm under Camelot... super. Just... super. Hope noone spots me." At that moment, a ghostly figure floated down in front of Kirf from the ceiling.
"Fwik!" exclaimed the ghost of Morgan.
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Post by Zoicite on May 23, 2008 4:23:29 GMT
She narrowed her eyes, and exhaled sharply. "No, you're not Fwik. Who are you?" Her irritation and helplessness at the days events seemed to finally come together. Surprising even herself, she held out a hand at the impostor, and, quite suddenly, he was a frog. She blinked. "Well, that's rather an improvement."
((referring to Morgan LeFay's ability to shapeshift in lore..couldn't think of anything else....))
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Accolon
Merlin's Apprentice
Posts: 259
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Post by Accolon on May 23, 2008 18:16:26 GMT
"Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no..." thought Kirf. "What in the world am I going to do now? I know... maybe my master Loke can fix me. Oh, but when he finds out that I screwed up, he's going to.... oh no, oh no, oh no...."
Morgan looked down on the funny looking frog, and noticed he had dropped a small box. Curious, she reached down to pick it up. Strangely, she succeeded in picking up the box, despite her insubstantial nature. "Hmm, must be magic," mused Morgan. When she opened the box, she gasped in delight. While she had never been any good at actually using magic, she had forced Frik to teach her all the lore and knowledge she could extract from him. And so she instantly recognized the contents of the box. "Oh, won't this be fun!" she exclaimed, giggling impishly.
The frog Kirf, who had been lost in his thoughts, looked up, and noticed the spectral Morgan holding the open box and looking inside it. "OH NOOOOOOOO!!!!"
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Post by Zoicite on Oct 5, 2008 22:54:44 GMT
(*sighs* Okay, I'll try. Though I have no idea, and I don't think anyone but Accolon does... ) Morgan left the way she came, still grinnind madly. Maybe, just maybe, this would giver her an edge in the battle sure to come. If only she could keep it hidden that long..she frowned slightly. Of course she could. Mordred paid her no attention, and though Mab would surely notice...somehow, she always did, she might be too busy with her own problems to pay much attention. Morgan brightened. So, that was alright then. Maybe she'd get what she wanted, after all.
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Accolon
Merlin's Apprentice
Posts: 259
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Post by Accolon on Oct 18, 2008 16:05:42 GMT
(I come from the school of thought on collaborative fiction of "no pre-planning." So I have no idea what's in the box either.)
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