First Watch: The Cave - Alaric and Gwen

Posted on Mon Aug 3rd, 2026 @ 8:20am by Narrator & Alaric Thane & Gwendoline “Gwen” Osborn

2,464 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Episode 8: Shadows Over Avalon
Location: Avalon
Timeline: March 26, 1992

As the team made camp and settled in for the evening, Alaric and Gwen volunteered for the first watch at the mouth of the cave. Behind them, the bustle of pitching tents and preparing dinner dulled some of the oppressive unease that clung to the place. Even so, the cave's dark entrance seemed to radiate a quiet menace as its lightless depths were impossible to ignore. Whatever might be lurking beyond that threshold remained unseen, making it more than worthy of a vigilant watch.

Alaric moved a stump over to sit on rather than the ground. Much easier to get up and be ready to fight. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the fire and the nighttime preparations. They were a good bunch and he had to get them home safely; them and the children.

He looked over to Gwen with her red hair, horns, and tail that reminded him of Kurt's. "You're a hard one to miss."

Gwen looked back, her gleaming eyes standing out from her backlit silhouette. "Thank you? I haven't really gotten to meet anyone yet."

Gwen studied him in turn, poring over his features; the silence stretched out for several seconds.

"Well in that case, officially, I'm Alaric," he said, as she studied him. "This is quite the introduction for your first mission as an X-Man. How are you holding up?"

"Fair enough, it's just exhausting to keep up with so many people. I don't know how you do it." Gwen replied as she stifled a yawn and did her best to try and stay awake.

For a time, the sounds of camp pushed back the silence. Laughter drifted between tents. The sharp snaps, loud pops, and soft hissing of the burning deadwood filled the area. Metal clinked against metal as cookware and plates were cleaned. Ordinary sounds. Comforting sounds.

Alaric had spent his life in Limbo. He knew what it felt like when a place had a soul, old magic, or a history steeped in death. Yet, those ordinary comforting sounds didn't quiet the concern in his corrupted soul.

Eventually the sounds of camp died down as the team attempted to sleep, leaving Alaric and Gwen to watch the cave with only the noise from the enchanted forest to keep them company. It didn't take long for Gwen to succumb to the fatigue that she had been fighting and she too drifted off to sleep while Alaric continued the watch. Solo guard duties were not uncommon for the Prince of Hell and he felt bad for the young mutant, so he let her sleep while he kept watch.

He found himself studying the cave without meaning to. It was not the corruption of Limbo. That he would have recognized instantly. Nor did it possess the cold malice of demons lying in wait. This felt...older. The magic woven through Avalon seemed to gather around the cavern like mist around ancient ruins. Patient and watchful as if the mountain itself remembered things no living soul should. The sensation settled across his shoulders, not as fear, but as the quiet certainty that some places were never truly empty.

His hand drifted unconsciously toward his chest from where he normally manifested the Soulsword. Then he stopped. Drawing it here, without cause, felt less like preparation and more like an insult to whatever ancient power slept beneath the stone.

Even the guy raised in Hell treated this place with respect.

As Alaric stood and surveyed the cave, an uneasy sensation crept over him. The darkness felt crowded somehow, as though unseen eyes were studying his every movement. He searched the shadows, letting his gaze linger on every jagged outcropping and narrow fissure, but there was nothing, only an endless wall of black.

Then he felt it. A slow, warm breath brushed across the nape of his neck. But before he could spin around to catch it, the looming threat gave itself away.

"What are you looking at?" The words came in a soft, almost musical voice, whispered directly into his ear.

Alaric spun around and found himself face to face with a smiling young woman who had appeared without making so much as a sound.

Long blonde hair, tousled by the wind, framed a sunkissed face that spoke of countless days spent beneath an open sky. She stood barefoot upon the cold stone, utterly unconcerned by the dangers that lurked within the forest, wearing the effortless confidence of someone who belonged here. At first glance, her features were impossibly delicate, untouched by age or hardship. Yet the longer he looked, the more an unmistakable strangeness revealed itself. Her warm brown eyes were wideset and almond-shaped, carrying an ancient, playful intelligence that seemed to look through him rather than at him. Slender ears swept gracefully to elegant points beneath her windswept hair. She was beautiful, but not in any human sense, she was unmistakably fae.

As their eyes met, she smiled at him and wiggled her finger in greeting. “Hi.”

Alaric pivoted immediately, years of combat taking over before conscious thought. His fingers instinctively twitched to prepare an attack, but he stopped. She'd made no hostile move.

She had crossed the distance between them without disturbing a pebble, a blade of grass, or the air itself. Even in Limbo, only the most dangerous beings moved with that kind of silence.

He studied her briefly, taking in the differences. The realization that she was fae was more unsettling than comforting. Demons have rules. Fae have...different rules.

"Good evening," he replied without actually answering her question. "I was beginning to wonder if Avalon intended to introduce itself."

“Oh! I'm not Avalon!” the fae woman replied with a bright, musical giggle. With effortless grace, she sprang onto a nearby boulder and began skipping from rock to rock along the cave's rim. Her bare feet seemed completely unbothered by the jagged stone beneath them, as though the sharp edges simply didn't exist.

“I'm just Meggan,” she said cheerfully. “I live here in Avalon, just like everyone else.”

She paused mid-step, tilting her head as a new thought suddenly occurred to her. Her eyes widened with curious interest before she lightly hopped down onto another rock, to study him better.

“Say...” Meggan began. “Are you like those men who came here before? The soldiers all dressed in black?” She once again invaded his personal space and began to examine Alaric from head to toe, "You don't look like them..." Meggan sniffed his neck "And you don't smell like them either."

The whisper and sudden closeness caught him off guard, but he resisted the instinct to retreat. When her nose brushed the air near his neck, however, he finally conceded a single step sideways. Not backward and away, just offsides a bit.

"Then it is a pleasure, Meggan," Alaric said. "So, who were these black-clad soldiers? Did they harm you?"

“Oh, I don't know. They just showed up one day.” Meggan wandered toward the stream, idly kicking at the water. Each careless step sent sparkling droplets dancing through the air, like a child with more energy than sense. “They were loud and mean but they didn't hurt me. They also didn't listen to the forest... and they didn't listen to me either.”

“You've been loud too,” Meggan added with disarming bluntness, glancing back over her shoulder. “But so far, no one's been mean, so I suppose that counts for something.”

Her gaze drifted to the dark mouth of the cave, and a faint, almost affectionate smile touched her lips.

“You're lucky, too. The Queen Mother is well-fed, and her children are happy.” Meggan said it as though she were commenting on pleasant weather. “The men who came before you filled a great many empty bellies.”

That didn't sound good at all. But Alaric understood what it was like trying to speak of your home to people who had no idea what it was like or that it even existed. He still spoke of Limbo matter-of-factly. So he took the information to heart and nodded. 

"Then we are indeed lucky," he said. "I have learned a great many things in my short lifespan. One of those things is to heed the words of those who call a realm home that is unfamiliar to me. . What did you and the forest tell these men that they did not listen to? Other than not being loud."

"For starters?" Meggan said with a bright, musical laugh. "Don't go into that cave.”

She held up a finger as though she were imparting the simplest lesson in the world.

"And never, ever go to the castle on the mountain." Her smile widened with mischievous delight. "Oh, now that's asking for trouble. Morgan would skin any man alive who wandered through those gates without her permission."

Alaric looked at the cave mouth. "Understood, don't go in the cave. I'll pass the word to the others in the morning." He turned back to see Meggan's finger raised and heard her warning. "Stay away from the castle on the mountain, unless Morgan has given you permission to enter the gates." It wasn't exactly what she said. "Who is Morgan? Is she like you," he asked, nodding towards Meggan and pointing at his own ears. "Or is she like some other one who lives in Avalon that we haven't met yet?"

"Like me?" Meggan echoed, as though the very idea were absurd. A peal of bright, melodic laughter spilled from her lips, light enough to make the leaves of the trees rustle in response.

"Oh, no. Morgan le Fay isn't like me at all." She waved the comparison away with a carefree flick of her hand. "She's much too serious and too mean and too cranky." Meggan wrinkled her nose. "Though, I suppose she wasn't always that way..."

Her voice drifted off as her attention wandered. Tilting her head, she studied Alaric with open curiosity, like a woodland creature encountering something both strange and fascinating for the first time. Her wide brown eyes searched his face as though trying to solve a puzzle only she could see.

"Oh..." she said softly, as if she'd just realized something important. "I think she'd hate someone like you."
The words were delivered with disarming innocence, utterly devoid of malice.

"If I were you," Meggan continued cheerfully, "I'd just go home." She said it as though returning home were the simplest thing in the world.

There it was. All he needed was a name to run by Maeve later. Then he chuckled a little when she mentioned home. "Oh, I wish it were that easy, going home. But I suspect it isn't going to be."

It didn't pass him by that she studied him intently for a moment. "What is it? Why do you think she'd hate me in particular?" Alaric took no offense at Meggan's statement.

“Well, you are a son of Adam, aren't you? That's already a rather large mark against you in her eyes. And you smell like magic... but not our magic.” Meggan's brown eyes narrowed with innocent curiosity as she leaned in, sniffing the air around Alaric like a fox catching an unfamiliar scent.

“It smells like fire... and blood.” Her nose wrinkled. “She won't like that. It isn't our magic, and it isn't her magic either.” She paused, her expression growing oddly thoughtful before a delighted giggle bubbled up into laughter. “And if it isn't hers...” Meggan clasped her hands together, positively gleeful at the thought. “Ohhh, you're going to be in sooooo much trouble.”

Alaric nodded at Meggan's description and the abilities of fae in Avalon. It did, however, give him pause. It wasn't the first time he'd been described like that, but in different ways. He was always between worlds; too human for Limbo and too Limbo for humans. And now Avalon, a realm with its own ancient magic, immediately notices the same thing.

"That is a fair assessment," he replied. "You said she would dislike that it isn't her magic. Does Morgan distrust all magic she doesn't recognize, or only magic that smells like mine?" Alaric wasn't necessarily asking how he avoided getting killed. But rather what the rules of this realm were. It was what he'd said from the beginning; understand the people and the realm. Don't assume Earth rules apply.

"Morgan doesn't trust anyone, especially a Son of Adam, they all betrayed her once upon a time. How do you not know that?" Meggan giggled once more as she skipped and danced near the cave's entrance. "Have you all forgotten so much? Is it because you live such a short time? That is very sad."

Meggan paused again, her attention drifting toward the darkness beyond the firelight. Her fae senses had caught something Alaric could neither hear nor perceive.

"Hollow Mother! You want to meet the Son of Adam too?" she asked brightly, tilting her head as though listening to a distant friend. Her gaze remained fixed on the trees while an unseen voice answered in utter silence.

Alaric stiffened. His hand instinctively returned to his chest, hovering over the place where the Soul Sword lay hidden within him.

When Meggan finally looked back, her playful smile softened into something almost apologetic. Whatever the unseen being had told her, it had made her pity him.

"I'll take you for a walk, Hollow Mother," she said, wandering toward the forest's edge. "We'll find something else to do tonight. This Son of Adam won't play nicely with you."

Another uneasy silence settled over the clearing as the Hollow Mother replied in a voice without sound.

"Oh, gosh." Meggan laughed, shaking her head. "Well, I suppose I can't stop you from coming back. But you really should listen to me once in a while. Why does nobody ever listen to me?" Despite the complaint, there wasn't an ounce of real irritation in her voice, only the lighthearted resignation of someone accustomed to impossible companions.

A twig snapped somewhere behind Alaric.

He whirled toward the sound, every muscle tensing for an attack. The woods stood empty. When he looked back toward the fire, Meggan had vanished as completely as if she'd never been there.

Only Gwen remained, sleeping peacefully beside the dying embers.

Alaric exhaled slowly, but the tension never left his shoulders. Avalon was nothing like Limbo. Its magic obeyed older laws, stranger customs, and creatures that spoke in silence seemed to wander its forests as casually as deer. Whatever the Hollow Mother was, and whatever interest she had taken in him, it was clear this would not be their last encounter with her. With that unsettling thought lingering in his mind, Alaric tightened his grip on his vigilance and resumed his watch, determined that dawn would find everyone alive.

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