Yeah they are. :) I guess my hope to keep to a 5,000 word limit for each chapter didn't happen. :o But I wanted to move things along, so this is the result. And I was going for a theme...fathers, brothers, blood; so I had to keep everything in.

Thanks. I wanted to get some background in on Merlin's uncle as early as I can. But I didn't want to reveal what the deal is with the gloved hands (need to save something for future parts ;)). There are hints though at least.

I couldn't resist inserting some Doctor Who references what with all the timey-wimey stuff going on. But then honestly, I'm not positive if Bran would've watched Doctor Who since he lives in rural Wales and everything...but I'm sure he would have at least been aware of it. Since it was the Tom Baker era of the show in Bran's time, I just had to get in a reference to it either way. *nods*

Poor, poor Arthur. *pets him* He's going to go through a lot. :( Yes, Mordred appearing is never a good sign. I have some interesting developments involving Mordred. The reason I made him the same age as Bran was to put them on more equal footing (and make that scene in the alley a bit less worrying because they were the same age). Bad son vs. good son, something like that.

Thanks for reading and reviewing. Sorry for the long reply. :O