Traveling to the Waterfall
Posted on Wed Sep 9th, 2026 @ 11:07am by Narrator & Hayden Davis & Maeve MacKenna & Jennifer Bryant & Drew Williams & Casey Severide
9,801 words; about a 49 minute read
Mission:
Episode 8: Shadows Over Avalon
Location: Avalon
Timeline: March 28, 1992
The X-Men returned from their watches with several important discoveries about the dangers surrounding the cave and the forest. The first was the grim fate of the missing S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Every clue pointed to them having been dragged into the cave and devoured by a creature known as Vorathra, the Queen Mother, an enormous predator with a brood of hungry offspring lurking in the darkness below. Joey had detected the unmistakable scent of silk and chitin. The kobolds Kennedy and Skjoldr encountered had spoken fearfully of a great crawling monster, while Jennifer and Hayden had discovered firsthand the horrifying fate that awaited the Queen Mother's victims in a corpse drained of every fluid until nothing remained but a twisted, desiccated husk. Taken together, the evidence painted a clear picture of a colossal spider and her offspring that ruled the cave, and even the creatures of Avalon were careful not to disturb her domain.
The rest of their scouting had revealed something equally unsettling. Avalon was alive with unseen eyes and unheard voices, all keenly aware of the newcomers' arrival. Some of the beings they encountered had been little more than curious observers, such as the playful forest sprites that Madi and Cain had met or Meggan who had conversed with Alaric. Others, however, were far more threatening. The Hollow Mother lingered somewhere within the woods, and the kobolds had proven that not every intelligent creature in Avalon welcomed strangers. Whatever forces governed this enchanted realm already knew the X-Men were there, and it seemed only a matter of time before word reached Morgan Le Fay herself.
Unfortunately, their first night had produced more questions than answers. They still didn't know where the missing children had been taken, why they had been brought to Avalon, or what role Morgan Le Fay truly played within the realm. One thing, however, had become abundantly clear: the cave held no answers, only certain death at the fangs of the Queen Mother and her brood. The ancient castle had also been described as a place to avoid at all costs. That left only the two remaining landmarks they had discovered upon arriving in Avalon; the waterfall and the village.
The team agreed to divide their efforts. One group would investigate the waterfall while the other traveled to the village, with both parties returning to the clearing outside the cave to rendezvous. Each journey was expected to take several days, so they settled on returning after four days. If six days passed without the other team's arrival, those who had returned would begin searching for their missing comrades.
Because the waterfall lay much farther away, the X-Men capable of flight or rapid travel were assigned to that expedition, while the rest made the journey on foot toward the village. Although one group possessed a significant advantage in mobility, both routes were expected to require roughly the same amount of time, allowing them to reunite on schedule with whatever information they uncovered.
The journey to the waterfall proved long despite the team's ability to bypass much of the forest's tangled undergrowth. After everything they had experienced, openly soaring above the canopy seemed an unnecessary risk that would only draw attention from whatever watched the skies. Instead, they traveled cautiously, using brief scouting flights while the rest advanced below through the dense woodland, careful to avoid announcing their presence. It was nearly midday on the second day before they finally reached their destination.
The waterfall towered above them in breathtaking grandeur, cascading from the mountain heights with a roar that echoed off the surrounding cliffs. Fine mist drifted through the air, coating the jagged rocks in emerald moss and thick ferns, while sunlight refracted through the spray to form a brilliant rainbow stretching across the basin. At its base rested a vast crystal clear lake whose tranquil waters offered a welcome contrast to the dark, oppressive forest that had seemed intent on swallowing them with every step.
Maeve had stopped knowing whether she was tired sometime during the first day.
There had been too many miles beneath them and never enough proper ground to rest on. Ravines had forced them into long detours. Twice, the forest floor had begun shifting beneath her senses without anything ever breaking the surface. They had slept beneath trees that creaked when there was no wind, and Maeve had woken at every scrape of claw through soil, every burrowing thing nosing through the dark below them.
When the others moved faster, she had pushed herself along on low shelves of earth and stone, dragging them beneath her boots in rough, gliding bursts. Avalon made it possible. It did not make it graceful.
By the second morning, her legs ached from holding herself steady and the muscles across her back felt pulled too tight. She had eaten because someone had put food near her and slept only when exhaustion finally beat worry into silence.
Amelia and Saoirse kept her moving.
Every time her body suggested stopping, their names answered.
The first glimpse of the waterfall almost made the journey feel worth it.
Maeve emerged from beneath the final line of trees and stood very still.
Water poured down the mountain in a vast white curtain, breaking sunlight into colour where it struck the lake below. Mist hung over the basin and caught in her hair, cool against skin already damp with sweat. Ferns crowded the rocks in thick green folds, while moss softened every ledge untouched by the falling water.
For several breaths, Maeve only stared.
“Christ,” she murmured.
Achill had taught her that water could be beautiful without ever being gentle. Storm seas breaking against cliffs. Rain sweeping sideways across the island. Sunlight setting the Atlantic on fire before sinking beneath it.
This was different.
Too perfect, perhaps.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, a little louder.
Her eyes narrowed upon the lake.
“I still don’t trust it.”
The waterfall’s roar filled the basin so completely that Maeve could feel it inside her ribs. Beneath that came something far worse.
The earth.
She had felt Avalon from the moment she arrived, pressing against her senses with far more force than anything at home. In the forest, it had been a thousand separate movements. Feet over roots. Bodies through burrows. Stone disturbed miles away and carried to her as faint, nagging pulses.
Here, the mountain struck her all at once.
Tonnes of water hammered the rock beneath the falls. Each impact travelled through the basin, down into buried faults and back through the soles of her boots. The lake pressed against its stone bed. Loose gravel shifted below the shallows. Water forced itself into narrow cracks inside the cliff, wearing at places sunlight had never touched.
Mineral seams ran through the mountain in bright, painful lines only she could feel. Stone rested upon stone under impossible weight. Hollows and fractures overlapped until Maeve could no longer tell where one ended and another began.
She swayed.
One hand caught the nearest rock before her knees could follow.
The instant her palm touched it, the sensation sharpened. The entire mountainside seemed to crowd into her skull, every buried layer demanding to be noticed at once.
Maeve tore her hand away.
“Bloody hell.”
She pressed her fingers against her temple and breathed through the sudden nausea. It was not pain exactly. Pain would have been simpler. This was too much information arriving without shape or meaning, the world shouting in a language she understood one word at a time.
For a moment she remained hunched beside the rock, jaw clenched while the mist cooled the back of her neck.
Then she straightened.
The waterfall remained magnificent. The rainbow still hung over the lake. None of it cared that she could barely think beneath the noise.
Maeve looked along the shoreline and then towards the water crashing down from above. Somewhere here might be an answer. A trace of the children. A path towards her sisters.
She was not going to let the mountain frighten her away from it.
“Give me a minute before anyone goes near the water,” she said, her voice rough with fatigue. “The ground under this place is... loud.”
Maeve crouched at the edge of the basin without touching the stone again. She closed her eyes and tried to let the sensations come in smaller pieces.
The lake first.
Then the cliff.
Then whatever might be hidden behind all that falling water.
Her breathing slowed, but the earth beneath Avalon did not.
It kept shouting.
Hayden stepped from beneath the trees and forgot, for just a moment, everything that had happened over the last few days. What she saw before her was breathtaking. White water thundered down, filling the air with cool mist that clung to her face and hair. A rainbow stretched across the basin while the lake below reflected the surrounding cliffs like polished glass.
She couldn't remember ever seeing water like this. Her fingers twitched unconsciously, feeling it's familiar pull. Water had always felt comforting and familiar to her. Every instinct urged her to step closer, to let her senses sink into its currents. "I like the way it feels," she said, pulling more of the mist around her.
Then she remembered the cave and the corpse. Avalon had a way of wrapping danger in beauty. So Hayden stayed where she was. Then after hearing Maeve's warning, she froze. "Take all the time you need," Hayden said gently.
Her eyes drifted back to the lake, studying its unnaturally calm surface. Normally, she could feel the rhythm of moving water almost instinctively. But this...
Drew was stunned for a moment when he first laid eyes on the waterfall and the lake before them. It was the most remarkable natural site he had seen in his life. It was beyond beautiful. He started forward, but stopped upon remembering Alaric's warning that nothing here should be taken at face value.
He looked at the lake and then to the others, gauging their reaction. He then looked back at the forest they had spent a day and half traveling through to reach this point. He remembered the encounter with the Hollow Mother the first night at the cave. He turned back to the lake and wondered what lay beneath the surface of the lake. He settled his gaze on Maeve. She was the leader of this expedition. It would be her call as to their next course of action.
Hayden took one look at Maeve and saw the difference between exhaustion and overload. "Hey..." she said softly, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn't add to the chaos already pressing against the other girl. "You don't have to take it all in at once."
Technically, Hayden wasn't planning on going near the water, she was going to bring the water near to her. She extended one hand toward the lake. The surface rippled before a narrow stream peeled away from the basin, winding upward like a translucent ribbon. Hayden guided it carefully through the mist until it hovered a few feet from Maeve, spinning slowly in the air. The water remained connected to the lake by a thin, twisting strand.
"I don't know if this will help... but water carries sound and vibrations," she said. "Maybe try to focus on something smaller?"
Maeve kept her eyes on the ribbon of water Hayden had drawn from the lake.
It did not quiet Avalon. Nothing seemed capable of that. The mountain still pressed against her from beneath the soles of her boots, every buried fracture and mineral seam arriving with equal insistence, while the waterfall struck the basin hard enough to send a constant shudder through the stone. But Hayden had given her something smaller than a mountain to pay attention to. One twisting strand of water. One movement. One rhythm.
Maeve matched her breathing to it until the worst of the pressure eased.
“Aye,” she said eventually, her voice rough with fatigue. “Keep that there a second.”
Her eyes followed the slow turn of the water rather than closing again. Reaching too far into Avalon was proving less like listening and more like opening a door onto a crowd all shouting at once.
“Thanks, Hayden.”
When Maeve tried again, she did it carefully.
Not the mountain. Just the ground beneath them.
She let her awareness creep through the wet stone around the edge of the basin, following the places where the lake met rock. The falls muddied everything, filling the cliff with constant impact and vibration, but slowly she began to separate one sensation from another. Solid stone. Loose gravel shifting beneath shallow water. Cracks driven deep into the cliff by centuries of pressure.
And space.
Maeve frowned and looked towards the waterfall.
“There’s somethin’ behind it.”
She concentrated for another few seconds, careful not to let herself fall into the whole mountain again.
“More than a crack. Feels like it opens up back there.”
Whatever else the hollow contained was harder to make sense of. The constant battering of water against stone distorted everything. There were movements somewhere beyond the falls, faint enough that Maeve could not tell whether they belonged to feet, flowing water or something shifting against the rock.
She straightened, rubbing at one temple.
“Could be worth havin’ a proper look before anyone goes charging in.”
Then Hayden’s suspended ribbon trembled.
Maeve’s attention snapped towards it.
The movement was subtle, a ripple travelling through the water against the direction Hayden had drawn it, beginning somewhere in the lake and climbing through the narrow strand towards them. It passed once, then again, each pulse almost too deliberate to be part of the waterfall’s constant vibration.
The surface of the lake remained perfectly still.
Behind the falls, nothing moved that Maeve could see.
Then a voice came through the water.
Soft and feminine, though Maeve could not have guessed the age behind it. The words seemed to travel through the lake rather than across the air, carrying a faint, liquid resonance beneath them, almost as though several quieter voices were speaking the same words from somewhere much deeper below. “You have walked a long way.”
Maeve was in touch with the ground of this place. Hayden was in touch with the powerful waters. Maeve with these grounds. As beautiful as the wilderness was, as the waterfalls were, Jennifer was very out of her element. There was a little background charge everywhere in the world, but low and weak. There was lightning, but in this calm, peaceful weather. She felt out of her element as she watched the others.
A low fog spilled from the mist rising around the waterfall, tendrils of white vapor curling across the ground with an eerie, deliberate purpose. Rather than drifting aimlessly, it crept toward the gathered X-Men as though drawn by their presence, winding silently around their boots before slowly rising to envelop them in its cool, damp caress.
“Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.” The voice emerged from the waters once more, calm and dreamlike in its tone. “It has been such a very long time since I have seen your kind in Avalon.”
Drew had heard the warning that denizens of Avalon would use promises of benevolence to hide malevolent intentions. Maeve and he had been subjected to something that had used mimicry to gain their confidence. Something about this voice was different. He tried to remember what little he knew of Arthurian Legend. He took a step forward then paused. This voice was not making sweet promises. It seemed curious about them, not hostile. He started forward again and came to the shoreline. He remembered a scene from the movie Camelot. "Are you...are you the Lady of the Lake? The one who gave King Arthur the magic sword Excalibur?" He was taking a big risk approaching this close, but sometimes a person had to take that leap of faith. This felt like such a moment to him.
“I am happy to hear that my name has not been lost to the sands of time.” The voice that emerged from the lake carried a soft, almost musical quality, touched with quiet amusement. As the final words faded across the water, the silvery fog surrounding the X-Men began to recede. It curled backward in delicate tendrils before dissolving into the air, vanishing with the same inexplicable magic by which it had appeared.
For several heartbeats, the lake returned to stillness before a few bubbles broke the placid surface. And then, several meters from the shore, the water suddenly churned.
A froth of white foam erupted from the depths, spreading outward in rippling circles as something rose through it. Water streamed upward rather than falling, twisting and coiling around an emerging figure as though the lake itself were shaping her from its own depths.
A woman slowly rose from the water, emerging without disturbing the surface beneath her feet. Her form taking shape as though she had been summoned rather than born. Dressed in a gown of luminous white, it shimmered like sunlight dancing across a summer lake, every movement sending tiny flashes of silver and blue across the fabric. A thick waterfall of sleek, midnight dark hair cascaded around her shoulders and down her back, still glistening with droplets that seemed to defy gravity.
Her features were undeniably feminine, beautiful in a way that felt almost impossible for a human face to achieve. Yet there was something subtly wrong about her. An ageless quality rested behind her eyes, something ancient and unknowable that served as a quiet reminder that the woman standing before them was not human, she was something far older and something belonging to Avalon itself.
“I am the same,” she said, her voice carrying effortlessly across the water. “Mother to Lancelot, ally to Arthur, and captor of the wizard known as Merlin.” The woman began to walk toward the shore. Her bare feet touched the surface of the lake, yet she did not sink. Each step landed upon the crystal clear water as though it were solid stone, sending only the faintest ripple outward.
The Lady of the Lake approached the assembled X-Men with a small, benevolent smile.
“And now,” she continued, “I find myself host to a band of travelers from a land I had thought long lost to Avalon.”
She stopped just beyond the shoreline, regarding them with an expression that was both welcoming and quietly curious. “Tell me,” she said, “why have you come to my lake?”
Hayden had read and studied many of the Professors books about water myths and legends in different cultures over the last year and a half. That information had helped when she and Nightcrawler and Quicksilver went on their underwater excursion.
This was almost the same thing, legends come to life. As soon as the woman confirmed who she was, Hayden gasped and covered her mouth. It was at that point that she felt a little shame at pulling the water up from the lake.
"Lady Nimue!" she exclaimed softly. "Please forgive me for disturbing your lake. I... I didn't mean to wake you."
Hayden looked at the twisting ribbon of water that was still connected to the lake. She held her hand up and gently guided it back to the rest of the water.
“You are gifted with water in ways I have not seen in a very long time.” The Lady of the Lake regarded Hayden with genuine wonder as the water responded to his command. “There is magic within you that is unfamiliar to me.”
Casey stood back from the edge, just looking at the scenery. Looking down in the dirt and grass, he noticed what looked like footprints; it was clearly a well-used trail for both humanoid and animal alike. He squatted down and ran a finger in the print. It was a day or so fresh. "Weird..." he said loudly enough that the others could hear. Still squatted down, examining the tracks.
Her attention shifted toward Casey, and a faint smile touched her lips. “And I see that you are clever as well. You are correct, not everything in Avalon is as it first appears.”
Drew stood a little over a meter away from The Lady of the Lake. He wasn't entirely sure if he should consider her an ally or an enemy. She might have information they could use. "We came to Avalon looking for Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve. They were lured here and we're currently looking to find them and bring them back home." He gestured to Maeve. "Two of the Daughters of Eve are younger sisters to my friend. We would appreciate any information you have that could help locate and free our friends."
Jennifer was more than a little stunned as she watched all this transpire. She turned to Casey and then back to the Lady of the Lake. Like in the stories. After the vampires....She didn't know. It was a little surreal. She looked between Drew and Maeve a moment.
“I know nothing of missing sisters,” the Lady of the Lake admitted, a touch of remorse softening her voice. “I keep to my lake and protect those who dwell upon its shores. I have heard whispers of such things. To me, they are little more than hearsay.”
She fell silent for a moment, her gaze drifting across the tranquil waters as memories from a distant age stirred within her. Avalon had known the Sons of Adam before.
It had known their ambition, their violence, and the blood they had spilled upon its sacred soil. Long ago, when their kind had last walked these shores, war had followed in their wake. In time, the people of Avalon had drawn the veil closed, severing their realm from the world beyond it in an effort to protect themselves.
The Lady of the Lake had once helped Arthur rise to the throne, believing him worthy of the crown and the destiny that awaited him. But even Arthur’s allies could not ignore the dangers that came with unchecked ambition. When Merlin’s hubris grew into a threat, she had imprisoned the great sorcerer rather than allow his power to endanger Avalon.
Morgan La Fay had warned them of all of this. She had spoken of the evils of mankind, of their hunger for power and their endless capacity for destruction. With Merlin’s fall, the Lady of the Lake had come to understand that Morgan’s warnings had not been without merit. In the end, she too agreed that the veil must remain closed to their kind.
Now, the Sons of Adam had returned. And if the disappearance of their kin was what had brought them here, the Lady of the Lake could not help but wonder what else might follow in their wake.
“I may not know the rumors that travel through every corner of this land,” The Lady of the Lake finally said, “but I have friends who do.” Her eyes shifted past the X-Men, toward the dense woodland behind them. “Meggan,” she called, a hint of amusement entering her voice. “I know you have been following them. Your curiosity always does get the better of you.”
A cobalt blue wren fluttered from the trees and landed upon the moss-covered trunk of a fallen tree. It cocked its tiny head toward the group before suddenly shimmering with an otherworldly light as feathers became fur.
The wren transformed into a tufted-eared red squirrel, which scampered along the length of the trunk with its bushy tail held high. When it reached the end, its form shifted again. Fur became tawny hide, paws became slender legs, and the little creature became a delicate doe, its coat dappled with pale spots.
The deer stepped gracefully from the trees and toward the water. Then, as its hooves touched the edge of the lake, its shape changed one final time. The doe stretched upward, its body twisting and reshaping until a woman stood where the animal had been.
She was barefoot and seemingly without a care in the world, her sunkissed skin glowing against the pale fabric of her simple clothing. Long, flaxen hair cascaded down her back in wild, untamed curls. Her brown eyes were distinctly almond shaped, framed by delicate features, while her ears came to a noticeable yet elegant point.
“Lady Nimue, I am sorry for imposing.” The woman dipped into a deep, respectful bow. “I was merely watching the strangers.”
“It is nothing to worry about.” The Lady of the Lake chuckled softly. Changelings were wild things, free spirited creatures of the fae who were nearly impossible to keep in one place. Trying to restrain Meggan's curiosity would have been like attempting to tie down a cloud with string. “Can you tell us about the Sons and Daughters who have gone missing?”
Meggan's expression changed and she hesitated, suddenly looking far less carefree than she had moments before. One hand rose nervously to her hair, and she began twisting a strand of flaxen curls around her finger.
“I... I don't know if we should trust them.” Her gaze moved cautiously toward the X-Men. “The men in black, the soldiers who came before them, they were not kind.” Meggan swallowed, her expression troubled by memories she clearly wished she could forget. “They reminded me of Arthur's men.”
Hayden's eyes settled on Meggan, and she could see the fear that had replaced the woman's earlier curiosity. She didn't blame her, not really. After everything they'd seen since arriving in Avalon, Hayden wasn't sure she would trust a group of odd strangers either.
She slowly lowered herself to the ground in front of Meggan, sitting cross-legged rather than remaining standing over her. She kept her hands where they could be seen and made no attempt to reach for Meggan. "I don't expect you to trust us," she said quietly. "And I'm not going to tell you that you should. You know, in this situation...I don't think I'd trust us either."
There was no defensiveness in her voice. But there was a small, reassuring smile on her face.
"Those men in black weren't our people. They came here before us, but aren't part of us. We're strangers who came into your home looking for people who are missing."
Hayden's expression softened. "But we're not here to take anything from Avalon that doesn't belong in Avalon."
She hesitated before adding, "You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to. You don't even have to come any closer. But if you know something that might help us find them, we'd be grateful if you'd tell us."
Maeve had remained quiet from the moment the woman rose from the lake.
It was not because she had nothing to say. Quite the opposite.
The Lady of the Lake had belonged to stories long before Maeve had ever imagined there might be any truth behind them. Her name changed depending on who was telling it, as did half the details. Nimue. Viviane. Sometimes a benefactor, sometimes something far more dangerous. The sword given to Arthur was always remembered because men liked stories about swords, but Maeve remembered the rest too. Lancelot raised beneath her care. Merlin bound when his power became something that needed binding. A woman of Avalon who helped kings when she chose to, and stopped powerful men when she chose to do that instead.
Seeing her standing upon the water made those old stories feel suddenly inadequate.
Maeve had listened while Drew spoke, while Hayden offered reassurance and while Meggan finally stepped from the trees. She had noticed the change in the other woman immediately. All that easy movement from bird to squirrel to deer had disappeared the moment the missing people were mentioned.
That mattered more than whether Meggan trusted them yet.
At Maeve’s boots, several rain-dark pebbles trembled against the ground.
She did not notice.
One lifted first, no larger than the end of her thumb. Another followed, then a third, drifting a few inches above the moss around her ankles. They moved slowly, almost lazily through the mist as Maeve’s attention remained fixed upon Nimue and Meggan.
She waited until Hayden had finished before speaking.
“Lady Nimue.”
Maeve dipped her head. It was not quite a bow, but there was genuine respect in it.
“We had stories of you where I grew up too. Never the same story twice, mind.” The faintest warmth touched her expression. “But I don’t remember any where strangers wandered up to your lake and started tellin’ you what you had to do.”
Her eyes moved briefly across the water before returning to the Lady.
“So I won’t.”
Maeve shifted her weight, and the hovering pebbles moved with her without ever touching her boots.
“You said you’ve heard whispers. That they’re only hearsay.” She paused. “That’s still more than we had yesterday.”
There was no challenge in her voice. If anything, the fatigue of the last two days had taken the sharpness from it.
“What have you heard?”
Only then did Maeve look towards Meggan.
She did not move closer. Hayden had already done the sensible thing by making herself smaller and leaving space between them, and Maeve had no intention of undoing that by crowding someone who had just admitted she was frightened of them.
“If those soldiers hurt people here, then you’ve every reason to be wary of anyone who comes after them.” Maeve glanced towards the trees Meggan had emerged from. “And you’ve been watchin’ us for a while, so I suppose you know enough to decide for yourself whether we’re exactly the same.”
Her voice softened.
“We’re not here for Avalon. We don’t want your lake, or your magic, or anything that belongs to the people here. We came for the ones taken from our world.”
For the first time, something more personal slipped through.
“Two of them are me sisters. Amelia and Saoirse.”
Saying their names made her throat tighten. Maeve swallowed it down rather than pretending it had not happened.
“I don’t expect that to make you trust me.”
A pebble had climbed almost to her knee now. Another turned slowly beside her shin, turning over and over in the damp air as though Avalon itself had forgotten that stones were meant to fall.
Maeve still had not noticed them.
“But if you’ve seen the children, you don’t have to tell us where they are. Not yet.” Her gaze remained on Meggan, steady but gentle. “Just tell us what you saw.”
Maeve left the question there rather than filling the silence for her.
“We can start with that.”
Meggan looked around her, first at the leaves whispering overhead and then into the shadowy depths of the surrounding woods, before her gaze settled on the waterfall. She stared at it for a long moment, almost as though she could feel the weight of what lay hidden behind it. It seemed almost cruel to ask a wild creature like Meggan to sit still and contemplate matters so heavy and dangerous. Even now, she seemed restless, her feet itching to move, to run, to feel the freedom of the forest beneath them once more.
“I don’t know if we should talk here, and I don’t know if I should betray the Queen.” Meggan lowered her gaze to her toes, her posture betraying the conflict twisting inside her. Yet there were clues in her words, small revelations that hinted at answers to the questions the X-Men had been asking. “It isn’t fair to judge her for her anger or her desire for revenge,” she continued softly. “Not when you don’t understand why things are the way they are.”
Meggan turned toward the Lady of the Lake, the ancient guardian of these waters and the secrets hidden beneath them. “Can I show them?” she asked. “Can I take them to the sisters?”
The Lady of the Lake drew a slow, contemplative breath as she considered Meggan’s request. The X-Men could tell from the silence that followed that whatever Meggan was asking was no small matter.
“I don’t know…” the Lady finally said. “It has been such a long time since they have seen Sons of Adam and I think the past still hurts them.”
Her gaze drifted toward the waterfall, and Meggan followed it. The Lady of the Lake remembered another time, another loss, and the terrible emptiness left behind when Lancelot had abandoned her. Some wounds never truly healed, the ache of losing someone you loved, the ache of missing family, could linger for centuries.
“If you can part the waters and reveal the path, you may enter,” she said at last. Her voice carried a quiet warning as her eyes returned to Meggan. “But be cautious. This place is sacred and it is fearful of your kind.”
The words settled over them like a final warning, whatever waited beyond the waterfall had been hidden for a very long time and it had no reason to welcome them.
Drew thought about what the Lady of the Lake and Meggan said. He also considered everything that had transpired since their arrival. He turned to the Lady of the Lake. "Are you able to determine the true nature of a Son of Adam? Can your powers do that? If so, you will see that all we were sent here to rescue the innocent. We aren't here to obtain power."
Meggan’s words held Maeve more completely than anything else around the lake.
Not all of them. Just a few.
Betray the Queen.
Maeve’s expression changed before she could stop it.
“Which Queen?”
The question came out quicker than she meant it to, sharper with interest than anything she had said since arriving at the waterfall. For a second she looked almost annoyed with herself, then glanced towards the water and drew a breath through her nose.
Morgan’s voice was far too easy to remember here. All those soft little promises and certainties, speaking to Maeve as though she already belonged to something she had never agreed to.
She looked back at Meggan.
“Sorry. It’s just...” Maeve hesitated, choosing the words rather than spilling everything behind them. “You said her anger. Her revenge.”
That mattered.
Maeve understood anger well enough. Understood wanting somebody to hurt because they had hurt you first. She was not about to stand in the middle of Avalon and decide someone was wicked simply because they were furious.
“I’m not askin’ you to turn against her,” she said. “And I’m not sayin’ she’s wrong when I don’t even know what happened.”
Her eyes stayed on Meggan.
“But if whatever happened is why the children were brought here, then we need to know enough to make sense of it.”
Then Meggan asked about taking them to the sisters.
Maeve went quiet.
There were stories from home that had never cared much about borders. Irish stories bled into Welsh ones, Welsh into Breton, old Christian names laid over things much older than Christianity. Avalon had always belonged somewhere in that muddle, an island beyond ordinary reach, apples and mist and women with power enough that kings came to them rather than the other way around.
Nine sisters, in some tellings.
Morgen among them.
Maeve looked towards the waterfall.
“The sisters...” Her brow pulled together. “There’s nine of them, isn’t there?”
She did not explain why she knew that. Not yet.
Her attention shifted when Nimue spoke again, particularly at the warning about how long it had been since they had seen Sons of Adam.
Maeve glanced around the group.
Drew. Casey. Cain.
Then Hayden, Jennifer, Gwen and herself.
Something in all of this had been bothering her since Meggan first spoke about Arthur’s men, and now it finally had enough shape to ask.
“Lady Nimue... when you say they’re frightened of our kind, d’you mean all of us?”
Maeve looked back towards her.
“Or men?”
There was no accusation in the question. Just a growing suspicion that they might be walking into an old wound without understanding whose face Avalon remembered when it looked at them.
“Meggan said the soldiers reminded her of Arthur’s men. You keep sayin’ Sons of Adam.” Maeve gave a small shrug. “There’s Daughters of Eve here too.”
She nodded towards Hayden, Jennifer and Gwen.
“If it’s the lads they’re frightened of, then maybe we don’t all need to go stompin’ through there together.”
That seemed obvious enough to Maeve. They had spent days trying not to frighten or antagonise everything they met. There was little sense ruining that now simply because they had finally found a door.
Her eyes returned to Meggan.
“If you can take us somewhere we can talk without puttin’ you in trouble, do that. I’d rather hear what happened from someone who was here than guess at it.”
Maeve’s gaze drifted to the roaring sheet of water. Nimue had already given them permission. Whatever waited beyond it was another matter entirely.
“If I could see into the hearts of men and know their true intentions, history would not have been written the way it was.” The Lady of the Lake gave a small, sorrowful laugh. “And yes, there are nine sisters. Maidens who became witches because of Arthur and his men. They were welcomed here in Avalon at one point in time. I even gifted Arthur Excalibur, believing he would use it to unite his people.”
Her expression grew distant, her eyes seeming to linger on memories far older than any of them.
“But when war came, destruction followed. The gentle creatures of this land learned what hatred could create, and innocence was not so easily recovered. I still believe that betrayal was what hardened Queen Morgan. She was innocent before that. She believed in her half-brother, Arthur, in his kingdom, in the promise of a better world. What happened to her changed her.”
The Lady of the Lake shook her head when they suggested the women might be the safer choice.
“The daughters of Eve have played their part in our heartache as well,” she said. “Guinevere promised that her shepherd would provide eternal joy if you simply believed in him. It was an idea that made Arthur forget his past…and one that caused me to lose my son forever. Words can be weapons too, you do not need blades to wound.”
Beside them, Meggan shifted restlessly. Her feet seemed almost to move of their own accord, drawn by the wind that whispered through the trees. It called to something wild within her, urging her to let go of the past, to forget the terrible things that had happened here and to allow Avalon to carry its own burdens. But forgetting felt wrong this time.
“Queen Morgan La Fey is one of those nine sisters,” Meggan interjected. “Her blood resides behind that waterfall. They hide there because she betrayed them too. Speaking of them, remembering them…that is no longer done here.”
“But there is no one who knows her better,” The Lady added, looking toward the waterfall. “No one who knows her heart, her fears, or the dreams she once held. If you want answers, the sisters will have them.” The words seemed to cost her something. Her expression tightened, and for a moment, the ancient sorrow in her eyes became impossible to hide.
“But I am hesitant to let you enter their refuge,” The Lady of the Lake admitted. “Not because they are dangerous, but because they have already suffered enough. They do not deserve to be hurt again.” She paused, her gaze settling on the waterfall. “They never deserved what Arthur did to them and they never deserved what Morgan did to them either.”
"Words can also heal," said Hayden, "or at least encourage. They won't return innocence to the creatures of this land, but it could be an important first step. Is there something we can do to show you and the others that not all of our kind are full of hatred?" She looked at the others around her. "We face hatred in our own land, too."
She stopped, unable to finish her thoughts as memories of death and destruction and experimentation surfaced. A few tears began to roll down her cheek. She instinctively rolled them off and dispersed them into the mists.
“Sweet child, your tears speak far louder than your words.” The Lady of the Lake offered a soft, remorseful smile. “While I may not be able to see into your hearts, I know what genuine emotion looks like.”
With an elegant sweep of her hand, the waterfall parted like a pair of silken curtains, revealing a long, narrow passage between the towering rocks. Far beyond it, another forest stretched into the distance, bathed in an eternal moonlight. Its colors were entirely different from the spring-green forest they had spent days traversing. Deep purples and midnight blues dominated the landscape, giving it an ethereal beauty that seemed almost too perfect to be real.
“Meggan will be your guide,” the Lady of the Lake continued. As she spoke, a series of smooth stepping stones rose from the surface of the lake, forming a winding path toward the newly revealed passage. The magic that surrounded her was ancient and profound, woven so deeply into the natural world that it was difficult to tell where the Lady's power ended and the lake, trees, and stones began. “Walk with peace, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.”
With a final shimmer of water and a flash of silver-blue light, the Lady of the Lake vanished.
The X-Men were left standing in stunned silence on the serene surface of the lake, staring toward the passage she had revealed. Beyond the waterfall waited an entirely different forest, one that seemed to belong to yet another world.
“Oh, goodie! You get to come!” Meggan clapped her hands, her earlier sorrow melting away beneath a sudden burst of excitement. Without another thought, she bounded onto the first stepping stone and began hopping from one to the next with carefree enthusiasm, barely bothering to check whether anyone was following.
“Come on!” she called over her shoulder. “Let’s go!” The cheerful invitation echoed across the still water, an almost absurd contrast to the solemnity of the moment they had just left behind.
Jennifer took a deep breath. She felt very lost. But she pressed through the waterfall.
Drew inhaled sharply and let his breath out in a long sigh. He followed Jennifer, hopping from stone to stone as Meggan had. He caught up with Jennifer as the emerged at the edge of another forest as different from the first one like night and day. He glanced at Jennifer. "This place is full of surprises."
Maeve watched the Lady disappear into the lake with considerably less certainty than either Jennifer or Drew seemed to possess.
Beyond the opened waterfall, moonlight lay across the unfamiliar forest in colours that belonged more naturally to dreams than anywhere Maeve particularly wanted to put her feet. Nine sisters. Morgan’s blood. Women who had suffered first at Arthur’s hands and then at Morgan’s. None of that made them enemies, but after several days of hearing Morgan whisper inside her head, Maeve was not exactly eager to meet a collection of ancient women who knew the woman better than anyone alive.
Jennifer and Drew apparently had fewer reservations.
Maeve watched them disappear through the passage before muttering, “Grand. Suppose we’re doin’ this, then.”
Hayden had not moved yet.
Maeve noticed the last trace of wetness on her face, however quickly Hayden had tried to send the tears away into the mist. She moved closer, keeping her voice beneath the waterfall’s roar and away from the others as much as she could.
“Hey.”
Maeve touched Hayden lightly between the shoulder and upper arm, nothing more than enough to let her know she was there.
“You did well.”
Her eyes flicked towards the path Nimue had opened.
“I mean it. We wouldn’t have that without you.” Maeve gave her arm a small squeeze before letting go. “And cryin’ in front of an ancient magical woman apparently works better than half the clever shite we’ve been tryin’, so I’m callin’ that a win.”
The humour was gentle, offered more to take some of the sting out of being seen upset than to make light of it.
Maeve’s expression softened.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about it, Hay. What she was talkin’ about...” She glanced towards the place where Nimue had stood. “Some of it hits a bit close.”
She left it there. Hayden did not need Maeve digging through whatever had brought those tears out, especially not in front of half the team.
Hayden listened, still trying to process everything that had just happened. Lady Nimue. The Lady of the Lake from the stories she'd read about in the Professor's books, was real. And she'd actually spoken to her. And then there was Maeve's reassurances.
She knew she'd treasure this moment for the rest of her life. A small smile touched her lips before she got up and stepped onto the first stone to follow Meggan through the waterfall. "Thanks, Maeve," she quietly.
When Hayden was ready, Maeve turned towards Cain and Casey. The two men remaining on this side suddenly mattered more after everything Nimue had said about Arthur, the Sons of Adam and the wounds still festering beyond the falls.
“Cain. Casey.”
Maeve nodded towards the stepping stones.
“You two go ahead of me.”
There was no bravado in it. She had been given charge of this group, and whatever waited beyond the waterfall had already been frightened enough by people from their world. Maeve wanted to know everyone had made it across before she followed, and if something happened on this side while the others were through, she trusted the ground beneath her feet more than she trusted any retreat through enchanted water.
“I’ll come last. Just want to make sure nobody gets left over here if the Lady decides she’s had enough of us.”
Her gaze returned to the passage.
Meggan’s excitement had not done much to reassure her.
If anything, the contrast made the hairs along Maeve’s arms rise beneath her sleeves. Somewhere beyond that curtain waited women who had hidden themselves even from the rest of Avalon, women whose name had apparently become something people avoided speaking aloud. Women who knew Morgan before betrayal and revenge had twisted whatever she once was into the voice now haunting Maeve’s thoughts.
That was exactly why she had to go.
Maeve waited beside the water until the others had started across, watching each of them move towards the moonlit opening before finally stepping onto the first stone herself. The mountain still thundered through her senses, but she kept her attention narrow this time, feeling the solid rock beneath each foot rather than reaching for everything around it.
At the last stepping stone she stopped and looked back.
The lake was serene again. The forest they had crossed stretched green and bright beneath the Avalon sun, almost ordinary from here despite everything that lived inside it.
Then Maeve turned towards the impossible night waiting beyond the waterfall.
“Right,” she murmured to herself.
Whatever Morgan’s sisters had to tell them, she suspected she was going to want to hear every bloody word.
Maeve stepped through last.
Drew looked around in awe. "This is the most beautiful place I have ever seen."
"And a little scary," Jennifer added softly.
“Oh, it’s not scary at all!” Meggan said with a touch of laughter, as if she had never been afraid of anything in her carefree immortal life. She began walking down the stretch of tunnel that would lead them into the moonlit forest.
As the X-Men followed the changeling, a soft, timid voice drifted from a darkened path that branched away from their destination. “Hello? Hello? Is, is there anyone out there?”
“OooOooh… that is Merlin.” Meggan’s voice carried a note of cautious curiosity as she peered down the dark corridor from which the voice had emerged. “He is a prisoner of the Lady of the Lake.”
Merlin was no ordinary wizard. He had been the prophet, sorcerer, and advisor who had guided Arthur Pendragon from an uncertain boy into the king who would unite Britain beneath the banner of Camelot. Some stories claimed Merlin had known Arthur’s destiny before the boy himself could even speak of it. Others said his magic had been taught to him by the ancient powers of the world and that he was part mortal and part something far older. Whatever the truth, Merlin’s knowledge had always come at a price.
“He knows things he should not know,” Meggan continued quietly. “Things about the past and the future. He has lived through ages that are now only remembered as stories.”
“The Lady of the Lake did not kill him. That would have been too easy.” Meggan lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Instead, she imprisoned him where the mortal world cannot reach him. Because here this is no kingdom to advise or a king to serve. He will never have students to teach, just endless darkness and the sound of the water.”
The punishment seemed especially cruel for a man whose entire existence had been devoted to shaping the destiny of others. The wizard who had helped place a crown upon Arthur’s head was now condemned to spend eternity in the cold and darkness, separated from the world he had once helped shape.
“Do you want to go and talk to him?” Her eyes brightened with unmistakable mischief at the prospect. “He has not seen his kind in a very long time,” she added. “He usually does not speak to the fae who walk this path, perhaps he will speak to you.”
Maeve stopped when Meggan named the prisoner.
“Merlin? As in the Merlin?”
Her attention went immediately to the darkened passage. By now Avalon had dragged enough old stories out of childhood and put flesh on them that disbelief barely lasted anymore, but Merlin was different. He sat somewhere near the beginning of almost everything they had been hearing since they arrived. Arthur. Camelot. Morgan. A man who, depending on the telling, had known what people would become before they had any idea themselves.
That thought should have made Maeve wary.
Instead, it drew her.
No.
Maeve froze.
Morgan had whispered to her plenty of times before, sometimes amused, sometimes coaxing, occasionally angry, but this was different. The word arrived with enough force that Maeve felt it through her rather than simply hearing it. Her shoulders tightened and something cold seemed to close briefly around the back of her neck.
She stared into the corridor.
You will not go to him.
Maeve’s brow furrowed.
That was new too.
Not the warning. The certainty.
She took a step towards the passage anyway.
Or tried to.
Her right foot moved, but the left remained planted against the stone as though it had suddenly forgotten how walking worked. Maeve’s body pulled awkwardly against itself for half a second before she caught her balance. Her fingers curled hard at her sides.
“What the fuck...”
She glanced down at her boot.
Nothing held it.
No stone wrapped around her ankle. No crack had swallowed the sole. The ground beneath her felt exactly as it had a moment earlier.
Maeve tried again.
This time her leg moved, but slowly, fighting a resistance that had nothing to do with muscle or exhaustion. It lasted barely a heartbeat before whatever had caught her released and she stumbled half a pace forward.
Fear came first. Anger was not far behind.
Merlin has poisoned kings with futures they were too young to understand. He has taken frightened children and called the lives he chose for them destiny.
Maeve went very still.
There was history inside Morgan’s voice now. Not the distant bitterness of someone repeating an old grievance, but something close enough to hatred that Maeve could almost feel the shape of it pressing through the connection between them.
He will look upon you and see only what use you might become.
That struck far too near something Maeve had thought herself.
Morgan had spent years doing much the same.
Telling her what she was becoming. Giving her another name before Maeve had decided whether she wanted it. Speaking about power as though every road ahead eventually narrowed into the same destination.
Maeve swallowed.
“And you don’t?”
The question escaped beneath her breath.
Morgan answered immediately.
I know what you are.
Maeve almost laughed, though there was nothing funny in it.
“Right.”
She rubbed both palms against her trousers and looked back towards Meggan before anyone had reason to wonder why she had apparently become stuck to the floor.
“I want to talk to him.”
The answer came more firmly now.
She had wanted to before Morgan objected. After that, walking past became almost impossible.
“If he really knows the past and future and all that...” Maeve hesitated, searching for words that did not sound half as desperate as she felt. “He knew Arthur. He knew Morgan. There’s a chance he knows what’s actually happenin’ here.”
There was another reason.
A far more dangerous one.
Amelia and Saoirse.
If Merlin could genuinely see things that had not happened yet, perhaps he knew whether Maeve found them. Whether the three of them ever stood together again. Whether all this ended with her sisters alive.
She hated how badly she wanted to ask.
And when he tells you that they die?
Maeve’s breath caught.
For one horrible second Morgan’s presence seemed to swell around her, stronger than it had ever been outside Avalon. Maeve felt pressure behind her eyes, the strange sensation of another will pressing against the edges of her own body. Her hand lifted an inch from her side without her meaning it to.
Maeve seized control of it and drove her fist hard against her thigh.
“No.”
This time she said it aloud.
Quietly, but there was no mistaking who it was meant for.
The pressure withdrew.
Not completely.
Morgan remained close enough that Maeve could feel her, almost like standing beside someone without looking at them.
He was my enemy before your bloodline had learned the names of its gods. Do not mistake age for wisdom, Maeve. Do not mistake prophecy for truth.
That was probably good advice.
It was also coming from Morgan le Fay.
Maeve looked towards the dark corridor again.
If Morgan was frightened enough of this conversation to try stopping Maeve from physically taking a step, then Merlin knew something she did not want Maeve hearing.
That decided it.
She turned slightly towards Meggan.
“How far down is he?”
Maeve glanced once at the others before adding, “And when you say prisoner, what sort of prisoner are we talkin’? I’m not lettin’ him out of anything. I only want to talk.”
Her gaze returned to the darkness.
For all the stories about Merlin shaping Arthur’s future, Maeve could not ignore the uncomfortable resemblance between the wizard imprisoned ahead of her and the woman whispering furiously in her ear.
Maybe both of them would try to tell her what she was meant to become.
Maeve was beginning to think she wanted to hear both versions before deciding for herself.
Merlin...wow. Hayden could hardly believe that she'd just heard the voice of another legendary figure. "But...what about the sisters?" she asked. She looked around at the others in the group.
Meggan’s response to the slew of questions was a heavy shrug of her shoulders and a confused look. “I do not talk to Merlin, he is dangerous.” It was the best answer the fae could give them. “And you are not wrong. The sisters will be expecting you by now.”
It was rare for the Lady of the Lake to part the falls for visitors. Most were required to use their own magic to make the trek into the sacred space, making the path they had been given an unusual privilege.
“You could split up?” Meggan suggested, beginning to kick small rocks down the dark corridor that led toward Merlin’s prison. “Some of you could talk to the sisters, and some could talk to Merlin. Then you come back here.”
A brief silence followed before Cain finally spoke.
“I’m not talking to witch women or ancient wizards.” He glanced between the two paths with obvious reluctance. “Tell you what, I’ll stay here and act as a middleman. If anyone gets into trouble in either location, just call out, and I can arrive as backup.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Gwen chimed in. She looked exhausted, as though simply existing in Avalon was draining what little energy she had left. She rubbed at her eyes and gave a weary sigh.“Besides, I’m not sure I have the energy to deal with witches or wizards right now.”
"I'll go to the sisters, then," said Hayden. "If Meggan doesn't trust Merlin, then neither do I." She looked at the fae and nodded. "I'll trust the ones who live here over our own legends any day."
Drew looked between Maeve and Hayden. Part of him wanted to go with Maeve. He then turned to face Hayden. "I got your back Hayden." He glanced at Casey and finally at Jennifer. Maeve and Jennifer had shared a bond during the fight against the vampires. "Watch her six." He turned back to Casey and awaited the young man's decision."
After a moment of consideration, it was decided that Maeve and Casey would speak with Merlin while the rest of the team followed Meggan to meet with the sister. They would reunite later that day for dinner and to sleep, hopefully with more answers about Morgan and her past from the people who knew her best.
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