"Just stare into the surface like you were trying to look through water in a lake at a fish that twisted in the deep." Branwen's voice was steady as he hunched over the wooden bowl of water, squinting. "What am I supposed to be looking for?" His voice was in the raw stages of the change from boy to man and he desperately wished it didn't squeak at the ends of his sentences like it did. He'd been with the drwyds for four years now and was practicing what was supposed to be basic. He'd not done very well at his last review and he wasn't surprised that he'd been sent to drilling again.
Brisen and Gwyn had tried to comfort him but kind words could only do so much when you were a thirteen-year old boy studying with the new students who were now ten years old. He squeezed his eyes shut in frustration, fingers itching to knock the bowl over and storm off. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to be here, listening to Branwen. Arlan had taken over the older students' training and the three hadn't seen Branwen much, which was just as well, in Merlyn's perspective.
He'd never been completely comfortable around her. When he reopened his eyes he met her sharp gaze, bright green against the fading autumn grass. The look in her eyes was admonishing though she didn't say anything. He lifted his chin. "My father grows weaker in the sky, so too shall I," he proclaimed, trying to look imperious. A snort escaped his instructor and he trampled down his outrage.
"Try that on someone else, student. I am fully aware of who your father is, and he is not the god who shines above us. He's the court drwyd in Camelot, miles away. Your sire might be shedding his light upon us now but not your father. And you can't just claim that lineage when it suits you and ignore it when it doesn't. Either cast it off and think nothing of it or grasp destiny by its shoulders, child."
She gestured to the bowl, expectant. Merlyn shifted his gaze back to the water, sullen at being called a child and dismissed so readily. He glared at the water that stubbornly refused to show him anything more than the reflection of the sky. "Damn it!" he shouted, startling a sparrow out of the tree nearby. The bird shook its feathers and alighted in the next tree over, preening against the Ash tree's bark. Unbidden, words from years ago came to him again.
You have one foot in this world, and one foot in the other. The sparrow tittered at him and took flight, vanishing from sight. During the heartbeat of a moment Branwen had said nothing, merely watched him watch the bird, eyes missing nothing. "Calm yourself, Merlyn. You're trying too hard. Whatever that bird-sign meant to you, think on it while you look. Something is holding you back in your lessons. You were progressing marvelously and now look, you're stalling, returning to child's play the moment you get to actually enter the trance-states and learn to speak to the spirits. You could be leading the rites to the gods by now, you know?"
Her voice held a note of pleading that didn't slip unnoticed by Merlyn. He growled, peering at the water. "I know, I know. It's just..." He trailed off, looking into the water. "I'm worried about what I might see." He sighed, ruffling his hair. Branwen chuckled darkly, standing. She brushed dirt off her skirt and stared down at him, expression unreadable. "So do we all," she said bitterly, turning to walk away towards the other clearing a few hundred feet away where the actual students were studying. Merlyn was alone with his bowl of water again and couldn't think of any other thing he would rather not be doing right now.
He'd rather be home pulling weeds from the potatoes than doing something like this. Home. He sighed again, conscious suddenly of how he must appear. Dark haired, disheveled. Gifted with the opportunity to study with the drwyds in his father and uncle's footsteps but acting like a child when he needed to be the man he was becoming. If thirteen could be called a man. He stared at the water in the bowl, wondering if he stared hard enough it would reveal its secrets to him. A beam of sunlight filtered through the trees landing on the soft loamy soil covered by fallen leaves. Father, he thought bitterly.
"Some help you are," he said aloud, staring up at the splotch of sun visible through the rapidly falling tree cover. "Some gift you've given me, other than life. Cursed me, more like. With strange dreams and even stranger feelings. I don't want to move past this mark because not of just what I'll find in the water, but because of what I'll find in myself. You've made me a stranger in my own body and mind more than just growing up will do!" He beat the ground with his fist in frustration feeling the crunch of fallen leaves give way to the damp soil beneath.
Quite unsurprisingly, the sun didn't answer him. No god in glorious robes descended along the shaft of light to bless him or curse him. There was just the twitter of birds in the trees and the feeling of dread that clung to him. Merlyn flung himself backwards, feeling damp soak lightly into the back of his tunic. The merest hint of it whetted his undershirt but he didn't care. The air chilled the water more than he would have liked but he didn't sit up or even move. The discomfort was satisfying in a way. Proof that the world didn't really care much about him, and that the spirits that whispered on the edges of his vision now didn't want him to do anything.
Couldn't force him to do anything. Oh gods, what is becoming of me? He had to find out what was going on. Otherwise he'd be an old man surrounded by children, a forever student. Brisen and Gwyn would move on, fading into sweet memory. They'd go across the land to their own villages and farms and people that would need them. They would travel to a village that was without a drwyd and the only time Merlyn would see them would be when the grove met for the high rites and holidays. He swallowed thickly, thrusting the thoughts back into his head where they belonged. No. He couldn't afford to think like that. Merlyn frowned, sitting up and directing his eyes once again on the bowl of water in front of him.
Miraculously it hadn't overturned when he'd fallen backwards, and he stared at the reflection of the tree branches in its surface. Nothing. He didn't blink. It was only when his eyes had started to water too unbearable and he was just on the verge of blinking did he see it. The image of the fae he'd met in his initiation vision. Puck. The faery was sitting on the branch of a tree behind him, waving. A cheeky grin spread across their cheeks when he noticed them and he stared harder. They hopped off the tree and vanished. But the images didn't. A sword thrust through a stone. Blood on rich fabric, dying it more permanently than any stain. His feet stumbling over roots and stones, sliding through mud and underbrush.
A bundle of fabric with a tiny fist clenched in the air protruding from it. A baby's cry. A young man, eyes piercing, astride a light brown warhorse, plate armor like polished silver. The images floated before him, rippling as the breeze disturbed the surface of the water. Then he blinked and they were gone. He sat back, thinking of what he had just seen. Whatever it meant wasn't simple. And whatever it was wasn't something a thirteen year old should be dealing with. He pushed the thought aside. "Branwen!!" He called, standing. No one answered so he edged closer to the main clearing where the other students were sitting. He'd gone into the thicker part of the forest and found a space between two trees. It wasn't far. "Branwen!" He called again, a little worried. "Merlyn?" Her voice, drifted back to him, making him relax. His shoulders still tense, he broke through the underbrush.
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