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If Neav had not had someone to follow, he would have been lost in a moment. He was not familer with the castle at all, and all these twisting turning ways made his head spin. He kept having to break into a skittering trot to keep up with the long legs of the Prince, and kept glancing back over his shoulder because he was afraid they would be followed.

And then suddenly they were outside. Night-time sounds and smells washed over Neav senses. The breeze danced in his hair as if to welcome him and scold him for hiding away inside. Neav closed his eyes and sighed. He would never go into a stone room again as long as he lived.
Then he had to run to catch the Prince once again.

It was only a moment before they were standing outside the stables. Each horse, either sleeping or awake, knew he had arrived. Their whispering greetings ran through his mind.
Neav's breath caught in his throat as he realised that he would have to leave all his friends.
But not quite all. For the Prince, in his same strange expressionless voice, ordered him to take one.
Neav stared in shock and it was a shock with three parts. At first he was shocked because not only was the Prince letting him free, but he was also allowing him to take - to steal, in fact - one of his precious horses. Second he was shocked because how, oh how could he possibly choose one from the many? It was like asking a mother to choose her favorite child. Impossible.
And the third shock... the third was because he realised that it was not impossible at all. In fact, the was only one horse that he could possibly choose.

Neav placed the things he carried on the stable floor. Then he lightly ran to a stall at the end of the stable. Inside stood a palomino mare.
"Celendine," Neav whispered her name. Some of the horses were older than he was. Some he had seen being born, had gentled them and taught them to understand the language of the riding knights. Some, like Gillyflower, he had saved from a certain death.
Celendine, named such for her butter-gold coat, had been with them only a week. She was naturally nervous and shy and though she trusted Neav she still believed every human to be a predator... Neav was what would happen to her if he left her here. Those stable hands would try and beat the understanding into and Celendine would never learn that was, and then she would be labled 'bad' and killed for meat.

He opened the door of her stall and she followed him out. Neav needed no saddle or bridle. He paused where he had left his things and fastened the heavy traveling cloak. Then he grabbed a travel-pack from a shelf and placed the food and water inside.
And then he stood very still. Every horse was quiet now. They knew something was about to happen. Neav closed his eyes. He knew he did not have long.
I am going. He told them through his magic. I am going... I must join another herd. But you shall be protected. And he detached small threads of his magic, connecting one to every horse in a silver spiderweb. If they were ever in trouble or pain, he would know.

There was no time for anything more. He walked from the stable and Celendine followed, shimmering like a ghost in the moonlight.

Neav watched Merlin step closer, somewhat wary. He still did not know why Prince Arthur's manservant had come to talk to him. Could it really just have been to check he was ok...? Why would he do such a thing? Neav remembered how Merlin had tried to stop the guards from arresting him... why?

Neav listened, fasinated by how angry Merlin seemed to be. He was glaring at the cell door as though he was the one who was captive. Neav did not understand. Why did Merlin care so much? Neav was nothing to him, surely. Just the stable-boy...
And now he was offering to help him escape! Neav stared, eyes like saucers. Merlin would really do that for him? Risk his own life to help a boy he hardly knew? It seemed too good to be true but Neav was not in any situation to refuse help. He opened his mouth to say of course he wanted to escape when the meaning of Merlin's last sentance suddenly hit him.

"You know what it is like?" he whispered. "You know..."
Neav suddenly scrambled to his feet. The shock of learning that Merlin also had magic had jolted his fear off sideways. The walls stopped moving threateningly closer and stayed where they ought to be. Neav's mind was whirling, puting two and two and two together and easily making six....
His grandfather had told him that Emrys was in Camelot. He had told him the stories and the prophecies, that a warlock with magic greater than any ever known would guard the life of the Pendragon prince....
Arthur's manservant. Merlin. Emrys. It had to be.

Neav suddenly smiled through his tears, smiled up at Merlin.
"You are Emrys," he said. "I did not realise..." there was no need to be afraid. If Emrys would help him, he was safe.

The silence seemed to streatch away forever. Neav stared at the floor, stared at the Prince and his terrible expression and then back at the floor again. He did not guess that the Prince might feel betrayed. Neav did not see that he had done anything to harm anyone; he knew he had broken a law... but as he had said before, he was breaking that law anyway simply by being alive.
Once again he looked up, still somehow hoping for a flicker of compassion, but there was none.

"You shouldn't have come back."

And with that last statement, the Prince turned and left. He did not look back once.
Now he was alone again, surround by cold unfeeling stone... and the walls began to press in on him again. Neav crouched on the floor, curling himself over his knees. He pressed his hands against his eyes. He was going to be killed. He was going to have his head cut off or be slowly burned alive...
"Vaari... " he whispered to himself. "I am so sorry... I should have listened. I should have listened."

Everyone is so nice!! ^__^

Merlin: Oh yes you do! All the time. And the nearest town is a half-hour drive away... longer on a bike, because I cannot drive! But there is sure to be a library and I will come and say hello whenever I get time. I am sad also that I only knew you a so short time.

Wolf: Hei kaveri!! Olet todella ystävällinen.

Raven: I will miss to too, so much! I never really played with you but spend so much time talking!! I will certainly tell those horses that you say hi.

Aatos: I will have fun, thanks! And will miss you too.

I will miss everyone. Have so much fun playing here!

How could anyone live inside walls of stone? Neav continued to shiver, eyes squeezed tight shut as if he could block out the feeling of the dungeon. But the walls still pressed on him, seeming to grow colder and closer and closer...

Suddenly the cell door swung open. The hinges rasped and Neav jumped to his feet. He did not know if it was the movement or the sight of the Prince that made his head spin.
Neav watched with haunted, hunted eyes as Prince Arthur paced the cell. He quivered like a captured animal, watching and waiting...

"You are to be executed at first light tomorrow."

Neav's eyes widened but he said no word. Of course he had known that would be his fate, but it somehow seemed so much more terrible to have it announced from someone you thought you could trust...
The stone walls pressed closer and Neav longed to cry and crouch on the floor... but he would not been seen to be such a coward. If he was going to be killed, then he was not going to cry like a child about it.
Instead he just waited, a small and silent ghost, for the Prince to leave again.

But he did not. Instead he stopped his pacing and looked directly down at him for the first time that day. Neav stared back with eyes like chits of ice. He saw the anger in the Prince's face; anger at his breaking the law, he thought.
"If you had the power..." Neav began carefully, consentrating hard to keep the tremble from his voice. "If you had the power to save your Lady Morgana, would you refuse because you know you might be murdured for it?"

It was not a direct answer to the question... and nor was it the answer of a child. Those words denied the terrified, shivvering body of a child and whispered of the wisdom of his race.
"Even if I had refused to help my mare... I am breaking your law simply by being alive. My mother was not human. My Grandfather..." Neav lifted his chin with a kind of terrified pride. "My Grandfather is Anhora, Keeper of the Unicorns."

Neav flinched as two guards moved forward and caught his arms. The boy looked at the Prince and again met those stern, expressionless eyes.
He really does not care, Neav realized. As the guards began to haul him away he gave Merlin one last, desperate glance -- but he had his eyes lowered, obedient now after his sudden out-burst.
There is no one who will help me.

Neav was marched to the castle, looking smaller than ever between the armored guards. His face was death-pale.
They dragged him through the maze of the castle and Neav was lost almost at once. Stable-boys did not often enter into this place.
It was not long before they reached an empty cell, the guards wordlessly tossing him inside. Neav staggered, tripped and fell in a scattering of damp hay that he would never let come in a mile of his horses.
Then he was alone.

Neav crouched near the back wall. There was a bar-slit window to let the light in but it was so high that he could not see out...
He began to shiver. This place was all stone, all cold hard stone... he could feel it pressing in on him. Neav had never been long in any building expect the stables, which was so open and airy it hardly counted. He had the forest in his blood, his mind sang with the wild winds... and they had shut him in this cold dark place to be smothered by stone. Neav gave another violent shiver.
"I am not sorry," he told himself through gritted teeth. "They can kill me a thousand times over and I will not be sorry! Not for saving Gilly or any of the others."

If he had not been tired and cold and numb with shock, perhaps he would have considered breaking out. He might have managed it. His magic might have let him... or perhaps he would not have thought of it, for when you have been obedient your whole life it kind of becomes a habit.

It might have been eternity or only a few seconds before Neav heard the tell-tale marching of guards. His mind seemed to have stopped working. He could not quite believe what had happened... Could not quite believe that the Prince would arrest him. Neav had worked for the Prince with unquestioning loyalty and all he had done was heal Gillyflower's wounds. Surely it would be alright? Everyone said that they horses moved so much better in fights since Neav had worked with them... surely he could not be killed?

Neav felt sick as the tramping guards filled his stables. He was sure he would be sick if he stood and so he stayed kneeling by the sleeping horse, white as death. The Prince was with them. Neav gazed up at him, ice eyes pleading... but he was met with nothing but the flat order for his arrest.
But before Neav could say anything, someone seemed to leap to his defense. Someone pushed through the guards and spoke for him. Merlin. The Prince's manservant, Neav knew. How did he dare... and why did he dare? Of course Neav knew him - Prince Arthur seemed to be always sending Merlin to muck out stables. But it was not as though they were close friends.
Shakily, Neav got to his feet. He did not want to seem as though he were cowering on his knees behind a servant he hardly knew.
"I - I didn't..." he whispered, so soft it could hardly be heard. "I was not bad. I only made her well again...."

Neav glanced behind him in time to see the knight smile and wave. Neav took an easy, unconserned hand off the reins to wave back and then did not look behind again.

Soon they were outside the castle walls. Neav knotted the reins and let them rest on Sher-Fore's neck, guiding the horse with his legs and his thoughts. He spread his arms out like wings. Wind whipped his ragged hair and he laughed for joy.
The boy and horse raced and danced over the grass as though they had known each other forever.

- THE END -

Neav was too deep in winding the bandage around Folly's leg to even flinch when his 'brother' knelt down beside him.
"Aatos..." he repeted the name as if half in a dream. "My name is Neav," he added because he knew he had not told it before.
Soon enough, the bandage was finished. Sheer Folly turned her head to gaze at his work. Neav grinned at her.
"You sleep now," he murmured. "And we will get on to Camelot tomorrow."
The boy turned back to the leg one last time. He touched it with a gentle finger... and though he did not know it, though it may not have been seen in the dim light, his eyes flashed sliver as magic was drawn from him.

Unaware of what he had done, Neav got to his feet. He grinned at the mention of food.
"Yes, please," he said, suddenly finding that he was too hungry to protest about the cost.
Neav notice Aatos walk, and suddenly stop as though he had seen something. He felt fear twist in his stomach.
"What is it... Aatos? Is something there?" he asked nervously, in a way that a trained fighter never would have. If there was anyone out there, they might guess now that they had been seen.


Notes: It is fine for you to have you sister join us.