The Green Glade

Eilonwy looked back at where the Horned King's castle had stood a mere hour ago. Before that short span of time, all hope had seemed lost for her, for her friends and for all of Prydain. Despite their best efforts, the King had managed to obtain the awesomely powerful Black Cauldron and use it in his destructive bid to rule the world. Thankfully, that was all stopped when Gurgi had given up his life to quash the cauldron's power and end the King's plans, but even then the cruel necromancer had not been deterred. He tried to reactivate the cauldron and confronted Taran. That proved to be his undoing as he was forcibly drawn towards the cauldron and was brutally devoured by the very thing he had utilised in his conquest for power.

Then the Horned King's castle, upon the death of its master, started to collapse around them. Luckily, she, Taran and Fflewdur escaped in time to the shore where they encountered the Witches of Morva and, through a deal struck by Taran and encouraged by Fflewdur, Gurgi was restored to both body and life.

She looked down at the furry little creature holding Taran's left hand as the four of them began the journey to Taran's home at Caer Dallben. But as they went along their chosen path, her eyes wandered upward to the young man she had come to trust, care about, and believe in.

And she remembered the kiss. Her heart fluttered as the feeling of the touch of Taran's lips on hers surfaced to memory. Although it was Gurgi who instigated it, the kiss had felt like something she wanted and had been wanting for a while. Like it had been entirely her and Taran's idea all along. And maybe, she thought, it was.

:*:

The four journeyed on until they arrived at a magnificent glade that Taran had somehow missed when he was taking Hen Wen, the oracular pig, to a safe haven to protect her from being found by the Horned King. Eilonwy found herself enchanted by the immense beauty of the glade. The sun sparkled through the trees, making them look like golden-tipped emeralds. The pool of water in the middle glistened so clearly that the layer of smooth pebbles and rocks that made out the floor of its basin could be seen. The grass, a vivid shade of green like the leaves above it, was soft and soothing to the soles of her feet.

Taran looked at the effect the place had on her and smiled. "Let's rest here a while," he suggested. "Get some of our strength back."

"A good idea," Fflewdur nodded. "This charming location is a wondrous inspiration for music making."

Gurgi agreed happily, jumping up and down and scampered off to the climb the trees, searching for his 'munchins and crunchins'.

"Gurgi," Taran said after him in a warning tone.

"No, Master. Gurgi not cause trouble. No no."

Taran shook his head in amusement and turned around to face the clear pool of water. Eilonwy was sitting on the shore, looking inwards at the shining white pebbles and rocks. He came down near her and sat down. She glanced towards him. That same feeling he had experienced in the brief moment that they had kissed washed over him again. He held his hand out to her. She looked at it, smiled, and took it in hers. She moved in closer to him and knelt her head to rest on his shoulder. Taran blinked in surprise but soon welcomed the sensation of her being so close to him.

Far behind them, Fflewdur watched the two young ones and suddenly thought up a new idea for a piece of music. He moved his fingers against the strings of his harp. For once, the usually argumentative instrument didn't disagree with him.

:*:

Hen Wen trotted about her farmyard home as happy as she could possibly be. The Horned King was gone. His ruffian forces of brutes and thugs were in disarray. The Black Cauldron's power was destroyed. Now all there was was for Taran and the others to come home, and everything would start being fine again. At least, that was what it seemed it was going to be. Although he had shown that he was glad and pleased Taran had done well, Dallben became quiet and withdrawn, much to the confusion of her and the little bearded fairy Doli. Even now she sensed him buzzing around Dallben's head trying to get an answer out from him as her keeper and protector scanned through his scrolls and books.

The feelings Dallben was having was so strong and getting stronger that they were starting to get to her. Like she was feeling it also. Like she was-

Oh no!

She squealed as a new set of visions began to trouble her and she scurried about the ground. Dallben and Doli came hurrying out of the house towards her. Dallben looked as though he had been expecting her to have another fit. The depth of her visions sent her running from them as she could see only what she was being shown.

The Black Cauldron surfacing from the water where the Horned King's castle had stood.

The cauldron being taken by the Witches of Morva back to their hovel in the marshes.

A green mist emitting from the cauldron.

Orddu, the witches' leader, crying out, "It is not possible!"

A deep, cold and cruel laughter boomed from within the cauldron. A thicker mass of the mist came swirling up. The laughter was coming from it. Slowly but surely, the mist took on the shape and form of a man.

And it became that man.

Hen Wen squealed in panic as Dallben finally got her and held her securely in his arms as he took her back inside the house. As he would soon find out, the man she was seeing meant a greater danger to the world than the Horned King could ever have been. Because the face of that man was the same as the one etched onto the surface of the Black Cauldron. As Dallben divined her visions, fear spurted forth from his heart as he discovered what he had been suspecting and hoping would never occur. He put his hand on his aging face as he recognised the one that was forming out of the mist. Sighing, he brought his hand down and knew he couldn't deny the truth.

Arawn had returned.

:*:

Eilonwy opened her eyes and quickly surveyed everything around her. She was still at the shore of the pool but now she was lying back down on the grass. She sat up and yawned lightly, turning to her left. Taran was next to her and was sound asleep. She giggled quietly behind her fingers and looked for the other two. Fflewdur had dozed off where he had been sitting and was muttering unintelligibly. Gurgi too was sleeping, sprawled out along a tree branch. She giggled again at the relaxed state of her companions. Then she stopped as her eyes noticed something she had overlooked.

On the other side of the pool was a vibrantly multi-coloured thing she could not put a name to. It looked like a door. She blinked to clear her eyes. Now it looked like an archway. She rose slowly from the ground and walked past Taran and around the pool until she reached the mysterious object. It definitely had the shape of an archway, but there was nothing to show that it was actually that. There was no stone, no wood, nothing at all to border it. The archway was just there. Curious, she reached her hand towards it.

:*:

Taran opened his eyes in a flash as his resting body finally delivered the message to his mind that Eilonwy was no longer next to him. Anticipating danger, his hand instinctively went to the magic sword that was no longer hanging from his belt. He growled, considering himself a fool for not remembering, and leaped to his feet. Almost immediately, his eyes fell on Eilonwy and the strange archway she was approaching.

"Eilonwy!" he shouted.

His exclaiming her name failed to reach her, but it roused both Gurgi and Fflewdur from their slumber. Gurgi saw Eilonwy and the archway first and yelped in terror. He took a wrong step and fell to the ground. Then Fflewdur saw for himself what was going on and gasped.

"What devilry is this to plague us now? She is bewitched."

That remark registered in Taran's mind and he shouted her name even louder. This time, she seemed to listen. She had stopped.

Then all hell broke loose.

Four men burst out from the treeline at the side of the glade. Taran's eyes and attention darted towards them. Each was armed. The two at the middle held swords, the one on the far left had a battle axe, and the one on the far right handled a spear in both hands. He recognised all of them as members of the Horned King's brutes. Unfortunately, they recognised him as well.

"Pig boy!" one of the swordsmen barked gutturally, pointing his weapon at him.

The four men roared and charged. Everything happened at once. Defenceless, Taran prepared for death. Fflewdur and Gurgi rushed to his side, the former nervously and the latter loyally. From the shadows where they had entered the glade earlier that day, two hooded men came rushing forward and jumped headlong into the conflict. The taller of the two strangers drew out a longsword and engaged one of the swordsmen. The shorter stranger threw to Taran a longsword of his own and armed himself with a short sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left. The axeman swung at the stranger. The stranger blocked with his sword and cut at the pole of the axe with his dagger. The brute with the spear, seeing the sword in Taran's hands, broke off from the other swordsman and angled to attack Gurgi and Fflewdur. He thrust his spear at Gurgi first. Gurgi jumped onto the spear and then again onto the brute's head. Locking his legs around the man's skull, Gurgi turned his tiny paws into fists and started battering on the crown of the head. Fflewdur grabbed the spear in his hands, twisted it away and threw it far from the fight.

Taran faced the remaining swordsman, the same one who had blurted out his identity, and readied his new sword defensively. Unperturbed, the swordsman attacked.

Unbeknownst to any one of the combatants, a short space away, Eilonwy fell under the spell of the archway once more and walked inside it, disappearing from view. The archway itself slowly vanished.

:*:

The moment the archway closed behind her, the trance put on Eilonwy by its appearance ceased. Her eyes widened as she became aware that she was not by the pool, or at the glade, or even anywhere in the forest for that matter. The place she was in now appeared to be surrounded completely by darkness with the only the circular floor she was standing on as indication that there was anything else. She looked down at the floor. In the centre was a very bizarre symbol, one that she didn't recognise from any text or language that she had read. Around this symbol were thirteen small circles. In all but the fourth and thirteenth ones, there was a single figure of a young girl or woman, beginning with a girl around Eilonwy's age that had black hair, warm brown eyes and was in a dress of indigo blue and flowery yellow and ended with the thirteenth circle where there were two figures instead of one. One figure had white blond hair and wore an icy blue dress while the other had ginger hair and wore a dress that was largely coloured in dark green. Eilonwy guessed from the eyes that the two were sisters. She took more notes of all of the figures, wondering who they were, and found her attention drifting back to the fourth circle.

Unlike any of the others, it was empty.

Then, as she turned around up to the blackness, she spoke the question she had been wanting to say.

"Where am I?"

In answer, a beam of light shot through the darkness and came to land on the floor, coating her in its brightness. She held up her hand in front of her face as the blaze of it pierced her eyes. She blinked twice, adjusting to the light and brought her hand down.

"Welcome, Eilonwy," a heartening voice greeted her.

"Who- who are you?"

"That doesn't matter right now. I'm sorry for pulling you away like that."

"It's fine. I'm sure you have your reasons."

"Yep."

"Where am I?"

"You're in a place called a shared universe. Before now, I have brought thirteen others here to offer them to be a part of something good."

Eilonwy glanced at the circles again.

"You got it," the voice answered.

"And they all said yes?"

"Not all of them. About five of them I had asked once before. The funny thing is they all said yes on the second time. I'm wondering if you will do that also."

"Say yes the second time?"

"Yes."

"But," Eilonwy stammered in confusion. "I wasn't even asked a first time."

"When recruits leave, whether they say yes or no, they forget ever coming here."

"Why?"

"It's the price of being able to travel to different universes. Here or any other universe than your own, you will remember everything, but once you are returned to your universe, you will forget until you are needed again."

"Needed? Needed for what?"

The voice explained. "This universe, the one I have brought you to, is bigger than you realise. It serves as the balance point of all the universes. If anything was to happen to it, all the worlds, even yours, would be thrown into tremendous chaos, more than any foe you have met so far could ever create. It is my fear that one day something could rise to threaten just that. There are many warriors and heroes throughout the universes who could fight such an evil, but there are only so few with pure hearts capable of restoring the damage."

"I see," Eilonwy replied. "By why is it I still do not remember the first time you've asked me, and why did I say no?"

"You were a bit miserable at that time. It was after your disagreement with Taran after your escape from the Horned King's castle. Because of what he said to you, you assumed yourself to be useless and asked for the memory of our meeting to be removed entirely from memory. Although I did so, I realised my timing was chosen poorly and I decided to ask you again another time. That time is now."

Eilonwy, recalling the argument she and Taran had had by the river and how cut she had felt by his words, nodded. Having her answers, she then thought of everything the voice had said to her. The travelling to universes, if the need arose. Protecting all of creation alongside the girls and women pictured in the circles around her. Now she understood.

"Yes, I will join your…movement."

Beneath her feet, the bizarre symbol glowed. A red and blue medallion ascended out from it. It rose up into the air until it came to a halt in front of her face.

"Take the medallion," the voice instructed.

She did so, taking note that the bizarre symbol on the floor was replicated and embossed in gold on the surface.

"Eilonwy of Prydain," the voice spoke. "Do you promise to have trust in those that you love and those that you fight alongside with?"

"I promise."

"Do you promise to have faith that no matter how dark things get, everything will turn out alright?"

"I promise."

"Do you promise to be loving and caring and never be forced away from those who love and need you, even when it is they who say to do so?"

"I promise."

"And, do you promise that you will remain pure of heart and that you will never stray into darkness of your own free will?"

She nodded with complete certainty. "I promise."

The medallion in her hand swiftly turned into energy and flowed inside her body. The colour of the energy faded away.

"Then, Eilonwy, welcome to our ranks. Welcome to the Disney Princesses."

"Thank you," Eilonwy replied, bowing down in the light.

"No, the thanks are mine. This moment feels like it has been a long time coming."

Behind Eilonwy, the archway appeared again. She turned towards it.

"Farewell, until the next time we meet," the voice said.

She revolved back around to the light. "You sound certain."

"Because I am. But before you leave, I have one more thing to say, which I will let you remember in some way."

"Yes?"

"The third part of your oath."

"Loving and caring and never be forced away from those who love and need you, even when it is they who say to do so?"

"Yes. When you return home, you will need to adhere to that more than ever. Although the Horned King is gone, there are even darker times ahead for Prydain, and you and Taran will be at the forefront of it. He will need you. Be his sound listener. Be his voice of reason. Support him when he doubts himself or the good that he is doing."

This request she had an unhesitant answer to.

"I will."

The voice laughed gently for a moment. "And why did you answer that so quickly?"

Eilonwy smiled in reply. "I think you know."

:*:

"Get this demon off of me!" the disarmed spearman yelled out as his head received further pummelling from Gurgi's fists. Taran ignored them as he blocked and clumsily parried a blow from his opponent. Already his muscles were being worn thin from using all of the strength they could muster to keep up in the intense pace of the fight. He was beginning to regret that his previous sword was magical as the use of it made combat too easy.

The tall hooded stranger was faring better in his fight with the other swordsman. Unlike Taran who was getting forcefully pushed backwards, he remained on top of his adversary.

The other stranger continued to infuriate the axeman as he repeated the same defensive moves over and over. Block the blade of the axe with the short sword and cut at the pole with the dagger. The axeman growled, lifted one hand away from his weapon, and grabbed the stranger's left arm. Unamused, the stranger scowled and lashed out at the axe with his short sword. It met with one of his deep cuts, cleaved easily through the wood, and came out another one of his cuts. The head of the axe fell to the ground. Stunned, the thug let go of his arm in horror and fled. The stranger watched warily as he ran through the treeline and then turned to the rest of the fight. He was greeted with a peculiar sight as Fflewdur tripped up the disarmed spearman and Gurgi flung himself off of his head as the brute ran headfirst into a tree and fell back onto the ground with a dull groan. Then as he focused on the two swordfights, he witnessed Taran being shoved to the ground. Shaking his head, he sheathed his dagger and dashed forward with his short sword at the ready. Before the swordsman could land a deadly blow, the stranger met it with a parry of his sword and a thrust of his dagger. Taran got back up and joined in the barrage of attacks.

To their left, the tall stranger dealt the other swordsman a mortal wound.

The remaining swordsman backed away from Taran and the short stranger upon seeing his ally fall. Then he saw the spearman unconscious by the tree and that the axeman was nowhere to be seen. Taran and the two strangers closed in on him, holding up their swords in a defensive stance and waited to see whether he would fight or flee.

He chose to fight.

The ruffian raised his sword and uttered a loud war cry before charging at the opponent he believed to be the weakest. Taran. The tall stranger dove right in his path and swung his blade, cutting him down. The battle was over.

The tall stranger placed his sword back in its scabbard. The shorter one returned his blades to theirs and held out his hand for his longsword. Taran gave it back gratefully.

"Thank you," he said.

The stranger gave a grunting reply. "Hasn't Dallben taught you how to use a sword properly yet?"

The familiarity of the voice rang in Taran's ears but it was a voice he had not heard since his childhood.

"Coll?"

The stranger removed his hood, revealing the warm friendly face of the old friend of Dallben's who, like Taran, also lived and worked on the farm, but had vanished years ago and never returned while on a quest for Dallben.

"It's been a long time, Taran."

Taran was about to answer that it certainly was when Gurgi yelped again, pointing to the other side of the pool. The memory of everything that had happened just before the battle came rushing back.

"Eilonwy."

He turned. Both Eilonwy and the strange archway were gone.

"No," he exhaled in denial and he shut his eyes.

"Master!" Gurgi shouted a moment later. "Look!"

Forcing his eyes back open, he saw what Gurgi had spotted. The archway reappeared. Eilonwy stepped out from inside it. Tears clouded his eyes as he saw that she was safe and he ran towards her.

"Eilonwy!"

"Taran?" she asked, looking as though she did not have a clue as to what had just happened.

He came to her, throwing his arms around her shoulders. She reacted startlingly at his abrupt show of emotion but gradually relaxed and she encircled his form with her arms.

"Taran, I'm all right," she said comfortingly.

"You disappeared. I thought I lost you," he sobbed tearfully.

A seemingly familiar voice inside her head spoke to her. "Be his sound listener. Be his voice of reason. Support him when he doubts himself or the good that he is doing."

She listened to that voice and patted Taran softly on his back. "I can't remember what happened after the archway appeared, but I do know I'm not hurt."

The two of them stayed that way until Taran eventually calmed, and they walked around the pool to rejoin their friends and the two newcomers. There, Coll explained that his vanishing was part of his quest.

"We didn't want the Horned King to know what we were doing. Dallben was of the belief that the royal family that ruled Prydain before the lich usurped the throne were still alive," he had said.

"Were they?" Taran asked.

"Only one of them. Prince Gwydion."

"And, did you find him?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Coll grinned as he turned towards his still-hooded companion.

Before the eyes of everyone there, the tall stranger revealed his face and cracked a smile.

"Taran, Eilonwy, Gurgi, Fflewdur," he addressed each of them in turn. "I am at your service."

The four smiled and bowed in respect. Coll snorted in laughter at the exchange.

"Well, now that the introductions are done, shall we head for home?"

He was answered positively with five cheerful nods. The six turned away from the glade and began their renewed trek to Caer Dallben. Unbeknownst to them, the archway remained open. The source of the voice looked at them all from within, but his eyes lingered especially on Eilonwy. He smiled warmly.

"A long time coming, indeed."

In memory of

Susan Sheridan

1947 - 2015