Chapter four

My consciousness slowly started to return to me and I was finally able to pry open my eyelids which felt like they were glued together to take my first look at my surroundings. I was left breathless by what I saw.

I seemed to be lying on a bed made out of grass in a cage made out of interlocking branches. Surrounding me was a forest unlike any I had ever seen before. It was filled with a variety of flowers, trees, bushes and vines. Each leaf and each petal a vibrant bright color that turned the surrounding into a mural more beautiful than the greatest painting and to top it all off every plant in the entire forest seemed to posses some form of bioluminescence, everything around me was softly glowing in the darkness created by the thick canopy overhead making the scene even more surreal.

From the largest tree to the smallest toadstool, everything combined to make a vista so amazing that it literally robbed me of breath, I actually forgot to breath for a couple of seconds. Even the cage I was in was a part of a living tree , it's interlocking branches glowing a very faint brown.

With some difficulty I stopped gawking at the local flora and looked around searching for my captors. I couldn't find them so I used my power to find the knowledge of their whereabouts and to my surprise they were all around me, disguised as plants , rocks or even insects. It seemed that the fay weren't going to show themselves so I decided to do research on them while I waited for Jules ,who was still laying on the ground unconscious, to wake up.

Using my God's sight I found out that the fay were a numerous and varied bunch. They took care of the forest and the forest took care of them. Each fay had a function in the forest from the dryads that cared for the trees to the fairies that helped pollinate the flowers. Once I had enough information about them I started to search for information on why they were in Merlin's realm and why they captured us. The answers came to me in the form of a story, the tragic story of Morgan le Fay...

...Morgan le Fay was born from the love of a human and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the royalty of the fay. Such relationships were forbidden by both the humans and the fay because of the tension between the two and so Morgan le Fay or simply Morgana was born in secrecy to her human mother, her fay father was an important courtier of the light court so he was unable to be there for his daughter. Morgana grew up not knowing her father or the fact that special blood flowed in her veins, her mother was a peasant girl so Morgana also lived the simple life of a peasant.

All of this changed when a young wizard came strolling through the peasants quarters with a few coins to buy the famed sweet buns that were being baked in a small bakery that the whole city was talking about, he was intrigued that a poor baker was making a pastry that was rumored to be better than the fancy confectioneries made by the palace chefs. He made it to the bakery only to find a long line outside of the door. He doubted that he would get any of the famous buns if he waited at the end of the line so even though his teacher had told him to never use magic for frivolous purposes he performed a minor cantrip that allowed him to cut in line without anybody noticing.

Feeling quite satisfied with his little trick the young wizard entered the shabby looking bakery with his stomach growling in anticipation as if it was demanding to be fed the sweet buns but as soon as the young wizard laid eyes upon the beautiful lass behind the counter his stomach fell silent, his mind went blank and his heart started beating like drums. He felt like he had been struck by lightning.

Everything about the girl enchanted him, from her long silky raven black hair to her dark blue eyes, from the arch of her eyebrows to the arch of her neck. He had always wondered what love felt like but now he didn't need to wonder any longer, he knew exactly what it felt like.

For a few minutes he could do nothing but stare at the willowy girl. Eventually the bewildered girl spoke with concern in her voice,

"Sir, are you alright?"

The young wizard scrounged up all his will to reply,"I'm fine."

The girl didn't seem convinced but she continued, "That's good. What can I get for you sir?"

The young wizard tried to answer but he couldn't for the life of him remember why he was there in the first place.

For the next few minutes he stood mute and unmoving until the girl got a little bit of everything in the shop and handed it to him before pushing him out of the door so that she could serve the next customer.

And that was how Merlin and Morgana first met.