My new Merlin story! I am SO excited about this, there aren't even words. Actually there are, but they're loud and sort of obnoxious and more than a little difficult to put into writing. Enjoy!

Pairing: Possible Merlin/Morgana in the future.

Chapter 1: Plans

The girl whirled, bringing her blade up to parry her opponent's blow, then spinning to deliver one of her own. Her black hair writhed around her but somehow managed to never obstruct her vision. Her blow was blocked and she stepped back, still on guard, and looked at her opponent from the first time since the beginning of their sparring match.

The tall lanky boy was bent over, gasping for breath. He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes and stood up straight, sending mock glares in his opponent's direction. "Pretty good Morgana," he said. "Much better than last time, at least. I can see you're improving."

She smiled in mild amusement. "I don't think I'm the one that needs improvement, Merlin. Whatever shall you do if you are set upon by bandits?"

He laughed, picking up his sword and going to clean and replace it on its rack. Morgana followed suit. "I can always use my magic instead," he said. "Nimueh says that it's my best asset anyway."

Morgana scowled at the mention of their mentor and guardian. "I do wish that she would tell us what is going on. It's always implied that we will do something soon, but nothing ever happens."

Merlin didn't respond. He didn't really want to leave their home on the Isles of the Blessed. Their older sibling, Morgause, had been sent away some years before but Nimueh had kept Merlin and Morgana with her. In the strictest sense perhaps Morgause was not their sister. She was Morgana's older half-sister and Merlin was completely unrelated by blood to either of them, but they had been raised as a family so that was how they considered themselves. The three children had, at least. Merlin sometimes felt left out of Morgana and Morgause's games, and he was not nearly as close to someone as they were to each other. This was not helped by the priestess either. It was often that Merlin had caught Nimueh in a lie, playing them off each other and manipulating their small, but no less important, feelings. Though she was all he had ever known as a mother he distrusted her to his core, and took everything she said with a grain of salt, searching behind it for ulterior motives.

Nimueh told them when they were very young that they all possessed great magical power and had been threatened at birth by those who feared their gifts and what they might do with them. She claimed to have saved them all, and raised them in secrecy so that they might fulfill their destinies, assigned them hundreds of years before. In all his twenty-plus years of life, Merlin had never once seen a sign that his teacher aged. She remained perpetually young, beautiful and slender. In fact, by this point she looked barely older than her wards.

"I think something's actually happening now, Morgana," Merlin said, trying to calm her fiery temper. "Nimueh has been gone more often than usual, and for longer periods of time. Plus, she's been looking at us differently."

"Well, she certainly hasn't let us in on it if something is happening, which she really ought to do. After all, all she does is go on about our destinies and never give us anything to do but stupid exercises and lessons."

Merlin led her into the hallway and down a set of stairs that led to the underground city. Most of those who had been to the Isles of the Blessed (admittedly, not many) assumed that some great war had destroyed the city and that it was uninhabited. This was untrue. The city had been destroyed by a great war, but it was by no means uninhabited. While the city above was beautiful, tragic, and provided nothing needed to live a semi-comfortable life, the underground portion of the city certainly did. It had not been destroyed either by war or time, and was where their strange little family lived.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned left, into a small armor. He laid his blade on a table and reached for a rag. "Why do you want to leave here so badly Morgana?" Merlin asked, rubbing the sword down.

His foster sister copied his actions. "Don't you think it's just a little boring here? We've been hearing about our destinies since were were children, for as long as we can remember. Nimueh raised us on a diet of magic and secrecy. Morgause left years ago. Shouldn't we also leave? I want to do something that matters!"

"We leave for competitions and tournaments."

Morgana rolled her eyes. "Merlin, we have never been more than an hour's ride from the Isles of the Blessed. Surely you want to see more of Albion and help our cause, the cause of our magical kin."

Merlin shrugged. "It sounds dangerous out there for magic users, especially in Camelot."

"But our people are being oppressed and killed. Don't you want to do something to help? Don't you want to make a difference?"

Merlin had no chance to respond before a shape appeared in the doorway, wraithlike and unclear, formed vaguely like a human. "Meet Lady Nimueh in the Hall in twenty minutes," it said in a thin, quavery voice, then faded away, dissipating into the air like mist under the sun. It was a messenger, sent by their mentor to summon them to her presence. Merlin had never liked it, mostly because it meant that the priestess wouldn't bother to get them herself. Almost like they were below her in some way, despite her ardent protestations that they were equal in all but knowledge and experience.

"I guess we'd better get cleaned up," Merlin said instead of responding to Morgana's veiled accusations.

Morgana didn't reply, but stalked from the room instead to change her clothes and ensure she looked appropriate. It was something Nimueh required of them, claiming that good habits were excellent things to have regardless of social class or the theoretical future use of such habits. Merlin put his and Morgana's swords away and left as well, trying to decide how late he wanted to be.

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Twenty-four minutes later he clattered up a set of stone steps, emerging into a wide open hall. The walls were crumbling and all but the strongest of the roof's wooden supports were gone. The sun shone down, casting strange shadows among the ruined walls and tumbled stones. Despite its state of disrepair, it was clear that this had once been a magnificent meeting hall of kings.

Morgana sat at a stone table, her blue dress an unexpected splash of color in the shadows and high gray rock walls. Nimueh stood before her, her tattered red dress detracting nothing from her imposing and unearthly beauty. As always, her feet were bare and her dark hair slightly damp. Merlin rushed across the courtyard and took a seat beside Morgana.

"Is not punctuality a virtue, Emrys?" the sorceress asked, fixing her deep blue eyes on the young man.

"I guess it's my fatal flaw," he quipped back and the corner of Nimueh's mouth twitched against her will.

"I know that you have been greatly desirous of 'doing something', as you so eloquently put it, since your sister left us. And now your time has come. I have a job for both of you. It is of great importance and I will entrust it to no other." She spoke to both of them, although she and they knew the untruth of that statement. Merlin had less than no desire to leave and do something. He was perfectly content to live peacefully on the Isles.

Morgana sat on the edge of her seat, eyes shining with interest. She knew better than to interrupt Nimueh, though, and Merlin could see how she struggled to keep her questions from flying out of her mouth.

"You both know that King Uther of Camelot is bent on destroying magic and anyone who practices it, good or evil. His son, Arthur, is just as hardened against it as his father. I had hoped that the prince might hold promise for a new kind of leadership, but I have thus far been disappointed in what I have observed. He is an entitled brat, set to follow his father and carry on his crusade against magic. You two are to travel to Camelot and seek shelter from the King, claiming that you are nobles chased from your lands by a mad king. He will, of course, give you sanctuary for as long as you need it."

"Why?" Merlin asked, unable to keep the word in.

"Why what?" Nimueh replied, her irritation thinly veiled.

"Why will he take us in? He doesn't know us – we could be anybody, or have any reason to go there."

Nimueh smirked. "Uther does not think that way. He believes that all nobles are honest and pure of heart, and he would never suspect that someone would lie about being noble. It is his flaw, his inability to color outside the lines he has set for himself."

Merlin nodded, still a little skeptical. However, he knew that Nimueh had met Uther more than once and so probably knew him better than either he or Morgana.

"While in the castle, you will poison him and the prince," Nimueh continued, as though they weren't plotting murder and were instead discussing the weather. "The barons and dukes and earls of Camelot will begin a power struggle over the crown, honest men will be turned to soldiers and many will die as battles are begun so one can claim the throne. Then you shall take over, rule Camelot as it should be ruled. You two shall be the ushers of a new era of peace, and I shall rule by your side and help to rebuild our people. Magic will be returned to renown."

Morgana smiled. "When do we leave?" she asked. Merlin was not as enthusiastic as she, but knew that it was his duty to help his people and bring calm to a war-ravaged land. But something about the plan was bugging him – he didn't know quite what it was.

He waited patiently through the priestess's explanation. They would travel as a pair of refugees from the distant land of Arcia, tired and weary, but noble. It's far enough away that Uther had never been there himself, but couldn't dispute their claim; that they had fled from their mad King Pellias, who, after taking over from his father, was bent on destroying everything related to the old king, even his cousins, as Morgana was. Merlin was her good friend and ally, persecuted for retaining his family loyalties and refusing to turn in Morgana. They would keep their names, but Lord Merlin and Lady Morgana rather than as the peasants they were. Or believed themselves to be; Nimueh would reveal nothing of their pasts and they had no way to discover anything.

By the time they were released, Morgana was almost giddy with anticipation. "We're finally going to get out of here!" she said excitedly to Merlin as they left the hall. "We're finally going to actually do something rather than simply training for some unspecified job. Aren't you looking forward to this, Merlin?"

Merlin did not share her bouncing-off-the-walls attitude. Instead he was thinking over the conversation. Something about it bothered him. "I'm ready to play my part, Morgana," he said. "In this great war we must all make sacrifices."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" she asked, turning flashing gray eyes upon him.

"I don't think Nimueh has told us her entire plan," Merlin amended. "She's hiding something from us. Nimueh is not one to hand glory over lightly as it seems that she will. We must be vigilant, Morgana."

"What can she do to us?" Morgana asked, refusing to let Merlin dampen her mood. "We will bring about great change. History will remember us!"

Merlin didn't respond. He knew that she would come around eventually, he just hoped it was soon enough to save them and anyone else who might get in Nimueh's way that didn't deserve to be there.

If you enjoyed it, please review it! If you didn't enjoy it, please review and tell me what you thought could be changed. All opinions are welcome, but flames are ignored. Oh! And spelling and grammar errors - if you catch them, tell me and I'll fix them.