A/N: blah blah blah hope I didn�t confuse ya�ll too much.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Camelot moved along well enough. The knights watched over Camelot well enough and did as their queen would do to watch over the land. Merlin, meanwhile, had begun to worry greatly. Where had she gone off to? The knights were worried as well, for their queen was supposed to be in charge, not them!

A light caught Merlin�s eye. His mirror was summoning him from his desk. He walked over and picked it up and looked into it. The image of Amber replaced his own and smiled faintly at him. �Hello, Merlin. It seems we have to talk once again.�

Merlin nodded to her. �Hello, Amber. What news do you bring me, hmm? Is everything all right in Hogwarts?�

�Well enough, I suppose,� said Amber with a sigh. �We had couple of people come in. I think Donovan may have brought them here, but he�s not talking and they don�t have a clue how they got here. One is named Arturia and the other is Cuchulainn. Do these names ring a bell?�

Merlin sat down and leaned back in his chair. �So my suspicion was right. She had gone off after him and she is at the school.�

�Yes, and she attacked us too. We can�t get her to talk to us. We�ve tried, but she simply remains silent and unresponsive. We put her in one of the empty classrooms until we know what to do with her. Cuchulainn is recovering from serious wounds and trauma. His arm was ripped off, his leg cut off and one side of his face is mauled and his eye missing. We�re getting him some prosthetics to use, but it�s taking a little bit to do, since Astra�s only ever done the advanced stuff for Ed.�

Merlin frowned deeply. Arturia had attacked Cuchulainn for running away and had attacked the teachers when she saw them, probably because she felt they were keeping her from her target. She really never was one for talking her way out of a situation. �I see. Thank you, Professor.�

�Please use the portkey to come here as soon as you can, Merlin. We would like you to get a good look at what�s going on and, if need be, take a message back to your people over there from Arturia. I�m sure the people are restless because of their queen�s disappearance, but� we can�t let her or Cuchulainn leave until we know they aren�t going to start another great big nasty war that could potentially destroy everything over some stupid reason.� Then, the mirror went blank and he saw his reflection in it once more.

Merlin stood up and picked up his Hogwarts portkey. Then, he waited the appropriate amount of time before he watched his surroundings disappear in a colorful display of light.

Merlin eyed Tom and smiled faintly. �It�s good to see you, professor Riddle.�

Tom stood up, his height like a giant to most everyone around him. Merlin wasn�t that tall to begin with, however. The man had not aged one day since he was his professor back when Merlin was a child! His handsome face was as though he were stuck in time as a man of possibly twenty-five!

Tom held out a hand and shook Merlin�s in greeting before walking out of the room they had been in and into the hallway. �This Arturia Pendragon is most interesting, Merlin. She�s very similar to Avalon in her very silent demeanor.�

Professor Avalon Elric was someone Merlin had few dealings with. She was the divination professor and tended to stay away from everyone. She hand picked her students and taught them in the art of divination only if she felt they had any potential. Another took on the task of teaching the masses that wanted to try their hand; a centaur that was in the employ of the school. He was always a chosen one from the small colony of centaurs living in the woods, sent as a sort of ambassador to Hogwarts to keep relations between the humans and centaurs on a decent level. After the small centaur rebellion a couple hundred years back, the professors of Hogwarts made a treaty to keep the peace so that both sides could live without too many problems. Their previous centaur divination teacher had died two hundred years prior, having lived for so long; none could tell how old he truly was. Firenz was an icon to those who came to take the job, as he successfully made peace with the humans and showed that both centaurs and humans could work together.

His dealings with Avalon Elric were few and far in between because she never felt he had any potential, or, if she did, she simply didn�t feel like helping him. When she did, it was brutally without remorse. He knew he could prophesize to an extent, but her teachings were far too grueling for his stomach, so he learned on his own. Perhaps that was why she was so hard on him.

He also understood the comparison between Avalon Elric and Arturia. Avalon was known for being very quiet and reserved, of staying away from everyone save her own family because her gifts were so extreme that merely being in the same area as a human or an animal would cause her great pain. She would see the entire life of the person in the blink of an eye and feel it all as if she were the person. It was so extreme that you could hear her screams of agony from across the school if she made contact with someone who was either going to have a very bad life or had led a terrible life prior to meeting her. Yes, the comparison of Arturia and Avalon was quite accurate. Both wanted little to do with the outside world and hid behind a great frozen shell. Both barely said a word except what needed to be said to get their point across. Both could be alone and seem as though talking to them was intruding on their solitude. How Avalon�s husband had managed to get through her thick shell and love her was a complete mystery to Merlin and now, as he thought of it, caused Merlin a bit of distress as his pupil quite possibly would never get married due to her unnatural antagonistic nature toward everyone.

�She�s been doing very little except eating when we give her food and sitting silently with a book when she requests something to read. She won�t tell us anything pertaining to what happened to cause her and Cuchulainn to come here and she won�t tell us how she managed to get into this school in the first place, though I have a suspicion that I�ve yet to get proven.� Tom turned a corner and pulled his wand out, he flicked it quickly and the door unlocked.

�It would take something outside of magic to get into this school,� said Merlin, �This school has wards that even you have trouble dealing with.�

Tom grunted softly and looked away, sulking a little. Merlin smirked faintly in amusement at his former headmaster. He was far too proud for his own good sometimes. �I apparate fine within the school and out, but from a long distance away it would be far more difficult,� said Tom.

�And that is the key problem,� said Merlin with a faint smile toward his former headmaster. �She and Cuchulainn had to be fairly close to Camelot for her to have caught up with him. That is too far to be able to apparate from there to here.�

They walked into the room Tom had unlocked and in the center, sitting in a chair, was Arturia with a book in her lap. �This is a very strange book you have let me borrow,� she said before glancing up at them. �Ah, Merlin, I see you have arrived. I need you to tell Emiya and my knights that it seems I can not leave this place for a while. Tell them I am vacationing or something.�

Merlin frowned faintly at Arturia and walked over to her. �What did you do? Why have you come here?�

�I have already told these people several times, I don�t need to repeat it again. I do not know why I have come here, but that I am here now and that is all I have to me now. Since it seems I can not leave, nor can I do anything else that I wish, I don�t want my knights to think I have become imprisoned. The journey north alone would kill them all and I don�t wish for an invasion.� She spoke down at her book, not even looking up at him or acknowledging him other than to speak to him!

Merlin�s patience was being tested once again. She didn�t do it often, but when she did do it, it tried his will a great deal to keep from hitting her to get her to talk to him like a normal human being. �What did you do to make them think you need to be kept locked up?�

She sat silently with her gaze toward the book, but she did not turn a page, nor move her head. She was simply trying to look as though she was ignoring him to keep him from asking more of her.

�Arturia, I know you have attacked these people and you have attacked Cuchulainn. Why did you attack the man? I thought you liked him!� Merlin was rewarded with more silence on Arturia�s end. He sighed and moved away. �I will tell your people that you have been detained from traveling for a while. Gawain will be worried, as will Bedivere, but as they are the most senior of your knights, they will run Camelot with my aid. Is that your wish?�

�Yes, Merlin,� she said softly. Whatever the reason, her silence was a sign to him. Whatever had caused her rage was gone for now and replaced with a great emptiness that disturbed him.

He walked out and rubbed his face. Tom eyed him for a moment and closed the door behind him, locking it. �She�s been that way ever since we forced her to stop trying to attack. I think it was because we were in the way of her original goal.�

�What do you mean?� asked Merlin tiredly.

�She kept asking where her �toy� had gone. When we referred to the great bloody mess of Cuchulainn, she asked us where we took him and when we wouldn�t allow her to go through, she attacked to get through. At least, that�s my take on it,� said Tom.

Merlin sighed and looked away. Tom put his wand away in his robe and put his hands in his pockets. �What I don�t understand is why she attacked him in the first place, why she would jeopardize her country like that. Why would she attack Ireland�s king? What had he done to her that made her so angry that all her care for her own country flew away like a bird?�

�To answer that, you will have to ask her,� said a familiar voice. Donovan Elric was in the hallway, his hood drawn up and gazing at them through his hair, similar to how his own mother tended to gaze at people.

�We have tried talking to her, Donovan, and it doesn�t work,� said Tom, looking rather irritated as he eyed Donovan.

�Then, you won�t know. However, I will tell you this. It was I who brought her here, Mr. Riddle, but my reasoning is mine alone,� said Donovan before disappearing.

Tom grunted in irritation before ruffling his hair. �That one is a great deal like his mother. All he lacks is the domination fetish.�

Merlin smiled in a strained manner, remembering the screams of Avalon�s husband echoing through the hallways whenever they had one of their little �alone times�. Screams of �Mistress!� and �Lash me again!� were a common occurrence when it came to the hallway near Ravenclaw tower where their chambers were located.

Tom took him away to the infirmary where Merlin saw a man he almost didn�t recognize. A relatively tall young man of possible twenty-five or so sat on a hospital ward bed. His oddly cropped blue hair was tied back as it usually was in the back, the top of his hair cropped shorter and left to look wild. His face was scarred on one side of it, covered by a black eye patch that was simply made. He was shirtless with a tattoo of a wolf or a dog snarling across his left shoulder and over his shoulder blade, many lines and swirls coming from it in a typical pattern seen among his own people, another tattoo on his arm with more swirls and lines ran down it to the middle of his forearm. Merlin was certain that if he had both arms, the other would be decorated with the same pattern in the same location. Unfortunately, the man did not. Instead, the man had a metal arm that looked like his arm was encased in some form of armor. He was wearing trousers and had his left leg hidden from him, as he had his back to him, though he could see the port of where he would have a metal leg like his arm. This man he saw in front of him had been the great hound of Ulster, the great hero of Ireland, Cuchulainn. Now, he simply didn�t resemble the young man he had seen upon occasion, whose bearing was of a goodly gentleman soldier, used to being in the company of men on the field and in the company of women in bed.

�Lord Cuchulainn, I presume?� asked Merlin as he leaned on his staff slightly.

Cuchulainn turned at his name and attempted to look over his shoulder at him, but had to turn all the way simply because the eye was not present to look with. He smiled faintly and waved with his real arm before turning back. Merlin saw what the hero was trying to do and cringed internally at the thought. He was trying to pick up a ball, but his hand only moved so well and then stopped. The look of frustration on the hero�s face was so disheartening that it made Merlin almost want to weep for the young hero. To lose a limb was a devastating infliction. To have to relearn how to do what you once knew you could do was beyond frustrating and tried the patience of the user to an extreme. Merlin had seen boys and girls who had lost limbs from failed battles against raiders and bandits, boys and girls who were either knights of Hogwarts or apprenticing for the job who had hearts as big as the world and wills of iron and steel, reduced to frustrated tears for days and depression for weeks because they simply could not work the prosthetics like they could their natural limbs.

Cuchulainn picked up the ball unsteadily and then dropped it. He caught it with his natural hand and threw it across the room with a snarl. Eva, one of the school�s nurses since the days before the Great War, had to duck to keep from being hit. �Watch it! You almost hit me!� she shouted. She spotted Tom and Merlin after a moment and then smiled brightly before jogging over to Tom and hugging him. �Tommy!! How�s my little Tommy, hmmm?�

Once again, Tom seemed to sulk silently as he was assaulted verbally with goofy pet names as though he were a child. �I�m not your little Tommy, Eva,� he said a little more gruffly than he probably intended.

Eva giggled before moving away and slapping the back of Cuchulainn�s head. �What have I said about throwing things in the infirmary, Cu? Now either behave or I have to be very nasty to you.�

Cuchulainn looked away silently and gripped the bed sheets with his prosthetic hand. �I�m sorry,� he said.

Eva sighed and patted Cuchulainn on the shoulder before transfiguring a cup into a ball for him. �Try again, Cuchulainn. I know it�s difficult, but this is the only way you will be able to train yourself to use them. Astra, how�s the advanced stuff coming?�

�Slowly,� said the familiar white haired elf in the nearest corner to him. Merlin smiled faintly as he saw his old history professor. Her hair was pulled up and her hands were full with screw drivers and a soldering iron. �This shit�s hard to reproduce, that�s why I only do it for Ed, but I gave Necia the plans so she could do it herself. She had to go back home so she could tend to her kids and her customers, which leaves me to do this shit myself,� she grumbled.

She pulled the goggles up on top of her head and looked over to Merlin. She grinned and ran over to him, hugging onto him tightly. She laughed as she stroked his hair affectionately. �My you look so handsome still,� she said, smiling brightly at him still.

Merlin smiled warmly at his old teacher before nodding toward her. �And you look as pretty as you did when I left school at the age of seventeen.�

Astra moved away from him and went over to Cuchulainn. �You don�t need to think about it so hard, Mr. Cuchulainn,� she said, her old American southern accent making Merlin feel as though he had come home.

�How would you know, hmm? You have two perfectly normal arms, lass,� said Cuchulainn sullenly.

�I�ve got a husband whose been doing this a lot longer than you, honey, and I know he managed to work his limbs within a year. It was hard and he strained himself a great deal doing it, but he did it so he could get on his feet and work toward getting his arm and leg and his brother back to normal when they were only children,� she said as she checked his arm. �The advanced arm and leg will give you feeling in your limbs again as if they were your natural arm and leg. However, this takes a great deal of time to make, since the materials have to be specially made. I�m not a blacksmith nor am I a neurosurgeon. Winry knows how to connect the nervous system and so does Necia, but one is dead and the other is away, so again, you�ll have to wait on them. In the mean time, you�ve got these babies to work with and these are quite handy.�

Cuchulainn grunted and shoved her away from him with the metal hand, not thinking about it as he did it. �Please leave me be,� he said. He stopped and looked at his hand and blinked. �It did what I wanted.�

�I told you it�s not as hard as you think it is. Simply willing it to do what you want isn�t going to make it move. Doing things without thinking is how you make it work, because you don�t truly think about moving your hand to catch a ball or doing other things, do you?� She grinned at him and patted his shoulder before getting up. He caught her by the wrist and Merlin almost couldn�t see her move her hand when she circled her hand and slipped her wrist from his hold. �Ah, sorry, old habits die hard,� she said with a sheepish grin.

Cuchulainn smirked faintly and caught her hand instead and kissed it. �Thank you for working so hard on me and my stubborn self,� he said.

Astra�s ears turned pink before she giggled self-consciously and moved away. �Ah, it�s not a problem!� Then, she nearly ran into the bed as she tried to make a quick get away.

Cuchulainn smiled faintly and went back to working on his arm. Merlin gazed at him for a moment nodded. �You were attacked by Arturia?�

Cuchulainn picked up the ball and started squeezing it. �Aye, she did this to me. Ripped me apart for no good reason.�

Merlin frowned faintly. Arturia always had a motive for the things she did. She may not say what the reason was, but she would always have a reason for attacking someone or saying something. It wasn�t in her nature to simply do something without thinking ahead.

�Donovan tells me that in order to know why she did this, we would have to ask her. Unfortunately, she�s not very willing to speak and the teachers here wish to keep you and Arturia here until things are resolved,� said Merlin softly.

Cuchulainn grunted and squeezed the ball so hard that he crushed it. He eyed it a moment and tossed it over his shoulder. Astra walked over to him and kneeled down in front of him. �This is going to hurt, Cuchulainn,� she said as she held up a prosthetic metal leg.

He braced himself and let her hook the contraption into the port on his leg. He grunted and twitched for a moment before sagging. She stroked his hair a moment before walking off back to her little table. Cuchulainn stood up slowly and wobbled for a moment before taking a few steps. �This one is easier than my arm,� he said.

�That�s because walking is more of a necessity than your hands are,� she said, �You do it more naturally than you do working with your hands.�

Cuchulainn nodded and started walking slowly around, limping as he did so. �Hurts a bit still,� he said.

�It�ll go away with time,� she said softly, watching him. �It is the correct length, so it can only be the pain and the odd feeling of using something that isn�t naturally a part of you that would cause you to limp.�

Merlin leaned on the wall for a moment as he watched the Irish king walk. �I need to go back so I can relay Arturia�s message to her people. Do you wish me to give a message to yours, Lord Cuchulainn?�

Cuchulainn stopped and scratched his cheek for a moment, looking away. �Aye, tell them that I�m mouring my wife alone and that Fergus is allowed back in Ulster and to rule Ireland as my steward.�

Merlin raised his eyebrows at Cuchulainn. After a moment, he nodded and smiled faintly at the Irish king. �Very well, your majesty.� Then, he walked out with Tom back to where the portkeys were kept.

Meanwhile, Cuchulainn was left to think about what was happening. If they couldn�t get an answer from Arturia, then what on earth made them think he could? He had given the woman what she had wanted and left to go see to his wife. Then, she came after him and nearly killed him. What devil had possessed her to do this when he had done everything she had wanted?