EAD Excerpt 3 - Untitled - wingedwolf121 - BBC Merlin
Title: Untititled
Author: wingedwolf121
Fandom:BBC Merlin
Word Count: 2385
Primary Character/Pairing: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, Merlin/Nimueh
Rating:T
Content Warning Dub-con, Underage, Character Death
*note: none of the warnings occur in this excerpt
Leon led Merlin away from the guarded doors, down a new staircase. Merlin wondered how anyone kept this palace straight in their heads. The door at the bottom of the stairs was bright gold, twinkling even in the dim light. There were no windows here, and the air was stuffy.
“The king is here?” Merlin asked uncertainly, as Leon reached for the door. The handles were carved in the image of spitting snakes.
“No.” Leon said. “You will wait in the vizier’s chambers until you are summoned.”
He flung open the door and gestured for Merlin to enter. Merlin hung back. “We were told the matter was of some urgency-”
“You will wait until you are summoned.” Leon repeated. Instead of gesturing, he put a hand on the sword buckled at his left side. A ring of keys hung off his other hip. Merlin’s eyebrows slowly rose. “Please.”
“Right.” Merlin stepped into the vizier’s chambers. “Do you know how long-”
Leon shut the doors behind him. Merlin heard lock tumblers falling into place. He let out a long exhale, and turned to examine the room.
An enormous tank rested in the center of the room. Merlin stared. It was circular, and easily twenty feet across the middle, three times the size of his own sleeping cell. He approached it, fascinated, stepping over stacks of books and around tables piled high with herbs and odd glass vials.
Merlin crouched in front of it, staring into the cloudy glass walls. The liquid within was opaque. He pressed a palm flat against the glass. It was thick and clung to his hand.
Merlin started back, heart pounding. An immense form was shifting in the dark liquid. A tentacle slapped against the glass, the fleshy pale underside pulsating with hundreds of round suckers. More writhed in the water as the globular center of the octopus inside rolled, churning in the water. It was too small a tank for the beast to splay against the wall but it tried, gigantic body straining against the glass toward Merlin.
A rheumy orange eye blinked at him through the water. Merlin settled back into place, curious. The eye was the same shade of orange as the sunset, but flakes of white hung from its heavy brow ridge, and grey cataracts spiked the pupil. Merlin pitied it.
“What have you done to it?!” A strident voice demanded. Merlin jumped to his feet as an old man hurried toward him, trying to navigate the clutter. His hair was bright white, his robes a dingier red. “How dare you upset the creature!”
“I didn’t!” Merlin protested. The old man halted next to him, panting. “I swear!”
“Likely story, it hasn’t moved that much in years…” The old man peered into the tank.
“I haven’t done anything to your octopus!” Merlin snapped.
The old man spun around to glare at Merlin directly then froze, looking at Merlin’s face. He seemed to sway in place for a moment. Merlin carefully held out a hand, in case he was going to faint.
“No, of course no.” The old man said. He put a hand to his head. “I…I was being foolish, how could you?” He looked Merlin up and down. “You must be the priest that Uther summoned. We thought you’d be older.”
“I’m a full priest.” Merlin said. He plucked at the shadowcloak.
“And I’m the vizier, Gaius.” Gaius tapped a gold chain around his neck. It must have said office. “How old are you, your worship?”
“Twenty.” Merlin said slowly. He stepped away from Gaius. Gaius continued to watch him, eyes narrowed. “Where did you get an octopus?”
“She was here when I came to the office.” Gaius said. He looked at the tank, sadly. “I imagine she will be here when I die and leave it.” His eyes swung back to Merlin, still suspicious. “I haven’t seen a true shadowcloak in twenty years. I thought the art had gone extinct.”
“I sewed it myself.” Merlin said.
Gaius paused. “Did you ask the House of Death to send you here?”
Merlin shifted. “I, er. It was decided for me.” He had longed to come to the seat of the old oligarchy for sure, but never asked outright. If the Death god had realized that in his choice, then it was only the gods being good.
“Doesn’t answer my question.” Gaius kept scrutinizing him.
“No.” Merlin said firmly. “I didn’t.”
“Hm.” Gaius made no comment. Merlin’s stomach was tense, waiting to see if Gaius asked something about his parentage. “The King is ready for you.”
“Good.” Merlin said, trying to sound resolute and priestly.
“A word of advice, boy.” Gaius said. He leaned toward Merlin and lowered his voice. “There are more spies in this palace than grains of sand in the desert. Keep your secrets to yourself, if you have them.” He stepped back. “Follow me.”
They did not go to the King’s rooms through the upper corridor. Gaius took him through a private door, one linked to the vizier’s chamber by a tight spiral stairwell. As the old man labored up them, Merlin wondered if Uther treated all his servants so poorly.
Uther received him in what could only have been the King’s own bedchamber. The sheer size of it was enough to take Merlin’s breath away. Natural light poured into the room through wide windows overlooking the desert, greater space and light than Merlin had ever seen.
“This is the priest?” Uther demanded.
“It is, your majesty.” Gaius bowed at the waist.
“He’s young.” Uther said. His hard grey eyes went to Merlin’s smooth chin and unlined eyes. Uther’s own face was rough with wind and age. He stood braced above an unlit brazier, his arms crossed. The royal signet ring, a brilliant ruby with a golden dragon curled atop it, shone on his index finger.
“I’m a full priest.” Merlin said. He looked at Uther, his eyes cold. “I was approved by my elders.”
“Maybe young eyes will be better suited.” Uther said. He took a step toward Merlin, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. Merlin frowned.
“Perhaps you should sit, your majesty.” Gaius said gently. Uther scowled at him.
“What’s wrong with you?” Merlin asked, his head tilting slightly to the side. He could see nothing wrong with Uther. The man had torn down a thousand-year-old oligarchy in a single night, and seized power for himself and his heirs evermore, and he held himself like he could do it again, grey hair and sagging jowls be damned.
Uther was silent. Gaius sighed. “It will be easier to show you, your worship.”
“Of course.” Merlin said. He waited.
Uther shifted in place, fists clenching and unclenching. He glared at Merlin. “If you speak a word of this outside this room, boy, you’ll meet your god in person.”
Merlin looked back at the King, and said nothing. Uther should have picked a different threat.
“The priests keep their silence, your majesty.” Gaius reminded him. “They always have.” Uther made grunting noise and reached up to his shirt. As he pulled it over his head, Gaius spoke to Merlin. “We’ve spoken to a Priestess de Nati and a Priest de Voluptate. Neither could help. I’m an alchemist myself, when I have the time, and I’ve no idea either.”
“Your people know more about anatomy than both Houses combined.” Uther said. Bristling grey hair covered his chest and his bloated stomach. He turned around. “Well?”
Merlin made a soft noise of astonishment, and moved closer. Uther’s back was like nothing human. It was pitted with sores as wide as Merlin’s palm. Sickly yellow flakes peeled off the edges, and spread in patches from the King’s buttocks to his shoulders. When Merlin brushed his knuckles across the skin, shreds of yellow skin detached and fluttered down his fingers. They were light as feathers, dry and dead.
Yet it was the sores which made Merlin softly instruct the King to kneel, so Merlin could crouch and examine them more closely. The edges of the lesions rose up in grey ridges, hard as stone beneath his fingers, and the insides were spongey, greyish, flesh that excreted yellow fluid when Merlin touched it.
“Did that hurt?” He asked, as the liquid spurted over his fingers.
“No.” Uther said grimly. He was still as stone as Merlin examined him.
Merlin sniffed his fingers. The excretion was thinner than pus, and smelled almost like urine. Gaius silently offered him a bowl of water, and Merlin rinsed his fingertips. When he pressed his thumb into Uther’s back again, the open sores yielded to pressure. There were five of them already spotting his back, and a line of raised grey skin which looked ready to crack open and form a sixth.
“When did this appear?” Merlin asked, as he probed.
“Not six months ago.” Gaius said quietly. “First just strains of raised grey skin, then the sores and then the dead skin.”
“What else?” Merlin asked.
“Exhaustion comes easily.” Uther’s shoulders tensed. “Headaches. My joints ache. I am…” Merlin thought he heard the King’s teeth grind. “Unable to perform as a man.”
“Impotence?” Merlin bit the inside of his mouth.
“You dare?” Uther asked furiously, wrenching his shoulders from Merlin’s care. Merlin took a step back, suddenly afraid. In his rage, Uther filled the room, his mountainous body heaving with fury.
“Your majesty, he meant no disrespect!” Gaius inserted himself, wrinkled hands raised in placation. Uther’s eyes flashed between the two of them. “Your majesty, the boy is in your service at your summons, and wants only to heal your injury.”
“The boy had best watch his tongue, or I’ll rip it out myself.” Uther snapped, and Merlin believed him. But he could not bring himself to bow his head and apologize, when the question was pertinent.
“I need a blood sample.” Merlin cleared this throat. “To test, if I’m permitted.”
“I’ll fetch a vial.” Gaius said, backing into the hidden stairwell. It left Merlin and Uther alone in the room.
Merlin studied him, this man who had built an empire. He paced, no matter that Merlin was sure he lied about the pain. His hair was thin and his stomach bloated. He walked like he was grinding his enemies down beneath every step.
“Your people.” Uther flung at him. Merlin shut his mouth. “You dissect corpses, don’t you?” Uther didn’t wait for an answer. “I know you are the only ones who still enter the Necropolis, who hold the secrets of the old city.” He looked at Merlin, eyes cold. “Clinging to the relics of an era the gods themselves declared dead and buried.”
Merlin met his gaze. “We learn with what tools the Death god gives us.”
“There are some who say that the gods blessed my victory over the oligarchy.” Uther said, his voice a warning. Merlin dropped his eyes, afraid of what Uther might see. “What your tools have given you, the knowledge belongs to me.”
Merlin bowed his head lower. “Did the other Houses tell you anything of use?”
“No.” Uther said. “If they had, I wouldn’t have gone to the worms.” He continued to pace. “I take pleasure only in its House, as your gods decree. Leon and Gaius would not admit a sick man to my presence. In twenty years, I have never so much as coughed.” He turned on his heel, glaring at Merlin. “You fix this, boy. The city needs me.”
“I’ll do what I can, your majesty.” Merlin said. He had never, in truth, seen anything like the King’s affliction. And he was well familiar with the rumors that Uther’s health was blessed, and that his coup was by the grace of the Desert god. He was familiar also with the body of thought which pointed out that not a drop of water had come from the sky since Uther took power, and said his corruption was overtaken only by his cruelty.
Gaius appeared again, vial in hand. Merlin wondered at how long it had taken the man to fetch it. But his face gave away nothing as he handed the vial to Merlin.
Uther submitted his back to Merlin’s hands again with ill grace. Merlin held the vial in one hand and drew his knife, short and silver and kept always beneath his robes, with the other. He slid it into a sore just below Uther’s left shoulder blade, searching for a vein.
A spongey piece of flesh popped from the lesion. Merlin grimly worked on, trying to clear it. “Have you tried oils, your majesty? Or salt baths?”
“I did not summon a priest for this foolishness.” Uther growled.
“Yes, your worship.” Gaius said. “It did nothing.” He hesitated. “We attempted open air as well, and I believe the sunlight only exacerbates the condition.”
Merlin paused. “Sunlight makes it worse?”
“Yes.” Gaius frowned at Uther’s back. “But this is hardly a sun burn.”
“No.” Merlin agreed. He kept whittling at Uther’s flesh. He wondered for an instant if cutting away the infection would do, then his knife stuck something hard, and Uther hissed. “Your majesty?”
“Yes, I felt the damned knife.” Uther spat over his shoulder. “Hurry up with it.”
Merlin transferred his knife to his other hand, holding it between his fingers, and began to scrape at the wound. The flesh fell away, and this time he caught a whiff of rot beneath the sludge. He cleared it further. “Water.”
Gaius gave him the bowl. Merlin poured it over the lesion, unmindful of how the King hissed and swore. Red liquid and clots of black and yellow poured down Uther’s back. The King cursed loudly and constantly as Merlin inspected the cleared wound.
A chunk of flesh, slate-grey, protruded from the center. It looked almost as if Uther were growing a scale.
“What is it?” Uther demanded.
“I have no idea.” Merlin said honestly. The protrusion was cold as stone and unyielding beneath his fingers. “I’ve never seen a disease like this.”
“I wouldn’t summon a priest de Mortia for the godsbedamned halfpenny plague!” Uther snarled. He shook Merlin off his back. “Gaius, get this boy from my sight.”
“I need time, your majesty.” Merlin said.
Uther turned to him, looking like a monolith. “You’ll have it, boy.”
Author: wingedwolf121
Fandom:BBC Merlin
Word Count: 2385
Primary Character/Pairing: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon, Merlin/Nimueh
Rating:T
Content Warning Dub-con, Underage, Character Death
*note: none of the warnings occur in this excerpt
Leon led Merlin away from the guarded doors, down a new staircase. Merlin wondered how anyone kept this palace straight in their heads. The door at the bottom of the stairs was bright gold, twinkling even in the dim light. There were no windows here, and the air was stuffy.
“The king is here?” Merlin asked uncertainly, as Leon reached for the door. The handles were carved in the image of spitting snakes.
“No.” Leon said. “You will wait in the vizier’s chambers until you are summoned.”
He flung open the door and gestured for Merlin to enter. Merlin hung back. “We were told the matter was of some urgency-”
“You will wait until you are summoned.” Leon repeated. Instead of gesturing, he put a hand on the sword buckled at his left side. A ring of keys hung off his other hip. Merlin’s eyebrows slowly rose. “Please.”
“Right.” Merlin stepped into the vizier’s chambers. “Do you know how long-”
Leon shut the doors behind him. Merlin heard lock tumblers falling into place. He let out a long exhale, and turned to examine the room.
An enormous tank rested in the center of the room. Merlin stared. It was circular, and easily twenty feet across the middle, three times the size of his own sleeping cell. He approached it, fascinated, stepping over stacks of books and around tables piled high with herbs and odd glass vials.
Merlin crouched in front of it, staring into the cloudy glass walls. The liquid within was opaque. He pressed a palm flat against the glass. It was thick and clung to his hand.
Merlin started back, heart pounding. An immense form was shifting in the dark liquid. A tentacle slapped against the glass, the fleshy pale underside pulsating with hundreds of round suckers. More writhed in the water as the globular center of the octopus inside rolled, churning in the water. It was too small a tank for the beast to splay against the wall but it tried, gigantic body straining against the glass toward Merlin.
A rheumy orange eye blinked at him through the water. Merlin settled back into place, curious. The eye was the same shade of orange as the sunset, but flakes of white hung from its heavy brow ridge, and grey cataracts spiked the pupil. Merlin pitied it.
“What have you done to it?!” A strident voice demanded. Merlin jumped to his feet as an old man hurried toward him, trying to navigate the clutter. His hair was bright white, his robes a dingier red. “How dare you upset the creature!”
“I didn’t!” Merlin protested. The old man halted next to him, panting. “I swear!”
“Likely story, it hasn’t moved that much in years…” The old man peered into the tank.
“I haven’t done anything to your octopus!” Merlin snapped.
The old man spun around to glare at Merlin directly then froze, looking at Merlin’s face. He seemed to sway in place for a moment. Merlin carefully held out a hand, in case he was going to faint.
“No, of course no.” The old man said. He put a hand to his head. “I…I was being foolish, how could you?” He looked Merlin up and down. “You must be the priest that Uther summoned. We thought you’d be older.”
“I’m a full priest.” Merlin said. He plucked at the shadowcloak.
“And I’m the vizier, Gaius.” Gaius tapped a gold chain around his neck. It must have said office. “How old are you, your worship?”
“Twenty.” Merlin said slowly. He stepped away from Gaius. Gaius continued to watch him, eyes narrowed. “Where did you get an octopus?”
“She was here when I came to the office.” Gaius said. He looked at the tank, sadly. “I imagine she will be here when I die and leave it.” His eyes swung back to Merlin, still suspicious. “I haven’t seen a true shadowcloak in twenty years. I thought the art had gone extinct.”
“I sewed it myself.” Merlin said.
Gaius paused. “Did you ask the House of Death to send you here?”
Merlin shifted. “I, er. It was decided for me.” He had longed to come to the seat of the old oligarchy for sure, but never asked outright. If the Death god had realized that in his choice, then it was only the gods being good.
“Doesn’t answer my question.” Gaius kept scrutinizing him.
“No.” Merlin said firmly. “I didn’t.”
“Hm.” Gaius made no comment. Merlin’s stomach was tense, waiting to see if Gaius asked something about his parentage. “The King is ready for you.”
“Good.” Merlin said, trying to sound resolute and priestly.
“A word of advice, boy.” Gaius said. He leaned toward Merlin and lowered his voice. “There are more spies in this palace than grains of sand in the desert. Keep your secrets to yourself, if you have them.” He stepped back. “Follow me.”
They did not go to the King’s rooms through the upper corridor. Gaius took him through a private door, one linked to the vizier’s chamber by a tight spiral stairwell. As the old man labored up them, Merlin wondered if Uther treated all his servants so poorly.
Uther received him in what could only have been the King’s own bedchamber. The sheer size of it was enough to take Merlin’s breath away. Natural light poured into the room through wide windows overlooking the desert, greater space and light than Merlin had ever seen.
“This is the priest?” Uther demanded.
“It is, your majesty.” Gaius bowed at the waist.
“He’s young.” Uther said. His hard grey eyes went to Merlin’s smooth chin and unlined eyes. Uther’s own face was rough with wind and age. He stood braced above an unlit brazier, his arms crossed. The royal signet ring, a brilliant ruby with a golden dragon curled atop it, shone on his index finger.
“I’m a full priest.” Merlin said. He looked at Uther, his eyes cold. “I was approved by my elders.”
“Maybe young eyes will be better suited.” Uther said. He took a step toward Merlin, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. Merlin frowned.
“Perhaps you should sit, your majesty.” Gaius said gently. Uther scowled at him.
“What’s wrong with you?” Merlin asked, his head tilting slightly to the side. He could see nothing wrong with Uther. The man had torn down a thousand-year-old oligarchy in a single night, and seized power for himself and his heirs evermore, and he held himself like he could do it again, grey hair and sagging jowls be damned.
Uther was silent. Gaius sighed. “It will be easier to show you, your worship.”
“Of course.” Merlin said. He waited.
Uther shifted in place, fists clenching and unclenching. He glared at Merlin. “If you speak a word of this outside this room, boy, you’ll meet your god in person.”
Merlin looked back at the King, and said nothing. Uther should have picked a different threat.
“The priests keep their silence, your majesty.” Gaius reminded him. “They always have.” Uther made grunting noise and reached up to his shirt. As he pulled it over his head, Gaius spoke to Merlin. “We’ve spoken to a Priestess de Nati and a Priest de Voluptate. Neither could help. I’m an alchemist myself, when I have the time, and I’ve no idea either.”
“Your people know more about anatomy than both Houses combined.” Uther said. Bristling grey hair covered his chest and his bloated stomach. He turned around. “Well?”
Merlin made a soft noise of astonishment, and moved closer. Uther’s back was like nothing human. It was pitted with sores as wide as Merlin’s palm. Sickly yellow flakes peeled off the edges, and spread in patches from the King’s buttocks to his shoulders. When Merlin brushed his knuckles across the skin, shreds of yellow skin detached and fluttered down his fingers. They were light as feathers, dry and dead.
Yet it was the sores which made Merlin softly instruct the King to kneel, so Merlin could crouch and examine them more closely. The edges of the lesions rose up in grey ridges, hard as stone beneath his fingers, and the insides were spongey, greyish, flesh that excreted yellow fluid when Merlin touched it.
“Did that hurt?” He asked, as the liquid spurted over his fingers.
“No.” Uther said grimly. He was still as stone as Merlin examined him.
Merlin sniffed his fingers. The excretion was thinner than pus, and smelled almost like urine. Gaius silently offered him a bowl of water, and Merlin rinsed his fingertips. When he pressed his thumb into Uther’s back again, the open sores yielded to pressure. There were five of them already spotting his back, and a line of raised grey skin which looked ready to crack open and form a sixth.
“When did this appear?” Merlin asked, as he probed.
“Not six months ago.” Gaius said quietly. “First just strains of raised grey skin, then the sores and then the dead skin.”
“What else?” Merlin asked.
“Exhaustion comes easily.” Uther’s shoulders tensed. “Headaches. My joints ache. I am…” Merlin thought he heard the King’s teeth grind. “Unable to perform as a man.”
“Impotence?” Merlin bit the inside of his mouth.
“You dare?” Uther asked furiously, wrenching his shoulders from Merlin’s care. Merlin took a step back, suddenly afraid. In his rage, Uther filled the room, his mountainous body heaving with fury.
“Your majesty, he meant no disrespect!” Gaius inserted himself, wrinkled hands raised in placation. Uther’s eyes flashed between the two of them. “Your majesty, the boy is in your service at your summons, and wants only to heal your injury.”
“The boy had best watch his tongue, or I’ll rip it out myself.” Uther snapped, and Merlin believed him. But he could not bring himself to bow his head and apologize, when the question was pertinent.
“I need a blood sample.” Merlin cleared this throat. “To test, if I’m permitted.”
“I’ll fetch a vial.” Gaius said, backing into the hidden stairwell. It left Merlin and Uther alone in the room.
Merlin studied him, this man who had built an empire. He paced, no matter that Merlin was sure he lied about the pain. His hair was thin and his stomach bloated. He walked like he was grinding his enemies down beneath every step.
“Your people.” Uther flung at him. Merlin shut his mouth. “You dissect corpses, don’t you?” Uther didn’t wait for an answer. “I know you are the only ones who still enter the Necropolis, who hold the secrets of the old city.” He looked at Merlin, eyes cold. “Clinging to the relics of an era the gods themselves declared dead and buried.”
Merlin met his gaze. “We learn with what tools the Death god gives us.”
“There are some who say that the gods blessed my victory over the oligarchy.” Uther said, his voice a warning. Merlin dropped his eyes, afraid of what Uther might see. “What your tools have given you, the knowledge belongs to me.”
Merlin bowed his head lower. “Did the other Houses tell you anything of use?”
“No.” Uther said. “If they had, I wouldn’t have gone to the worms.” He continued to pace. “I take pleasure only in its House, as your gods decree. Leon and Gaius would not admit a sick man to my presence. In twenty years, I have never so much as coughed.” He turned on his heel, glaring at Merlin. “You fix this, boy. The city needs me.”
“I’ll do what I can, your majesty.” Merlin said. He had never, in truth, seen anything like the King’s affliction. And he was well familiar with the rumors that Uther’s health was blessed, and that his coup was by the grace of the Desert god. He was familiar also with the body of thought which pointed out that not a drop of water had come from the sky since Uther took power, and said his corruption was overtaken only by his cruelty.
Gaius appeared again, vial in hand. Merlin wondered at how long it had taken the man to fetch it. But his face gave away nothing as he handed the vial to Merlin.
Uther submitted his back to Merlin’s hands again with ill grace. Merlin held the vial in one hand and drew his knife, short and silver and kept always beneath his robes, with the other. He slid it into a sore just below Uther’s left shoulder blade, searching for a vein.
A spongey piece of flesh popped from the lesion. Merlin grimly worked on, trying to clear it. “Have you tried oils, your majesty? Or salt baths?”
“I did not summon a priest for this foolishness.” Uther growled.
“Yes, your worship.” Gaius said. “It did nothing.” He hesitated. “We attempted open air as well, and I believe the sunlight only exacerbates the condition.”
Merlin paused. “Sunlight makes it worse?”
“Yes.” Gaius frowned at Uther’s back. “But this is hardly a sun burn.”
“No.” Merlin agreed. He kept whittling at Uther’s flesh. He wondered for an instant if cutting away the infection would do, then his knife stuck something hard, and Uther hissed. “Your majesty?”
“Yes, I felt the damned knife.” Uther spat over his shoulder. “Hurry up with it.”
Merlin transferred his knife to his other hand, holding it between his fingers, and began to scrape at the wound. The flesh fell away, and this time he caught a whiff of rot beneath the sludge. He cleared it further. “Water.”
Gaius gave him the bowl. Merlin poured it over the lesion, unmindful of how the King hissed and swore. Red liquid and clots of black and yellow poured down Uther’s back. The King cursed loudly and constantly as Merlin inspected the cleared wound.
A chunk of flesh, slate-grey, protruded from the center. It looked almost as if Uther were growing a scale.
“What is it?” Uther demanded.
“I have no idea.” Merlin said honestly. The protrusion was cold as stone and unyielding beneath his fingers. “I’ve never seen a disease like this.”
“I wouldn’t summon a priest de Mortia for the godsbedamned halfpenny plague!” Uther snarled. He shook Merlin off his back. “Gaius, get this boy from my sight.”
“I need time, your majesty.” Merlin said.
Uther turned to him, looking like a monolith. “You’ll have it, boy.”