Happy birthday Pixie!
Title: Defying Gravity
Author:
jelazakazone
Fandom: Merlin
Pairings/characters:Freya/Merlin, Arthur/Merlin
Rating: G
Word Count: about 1,500
Warnings: canonical character death
Summary: Merlin attempts to protect Freya and discovers some things about himself
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am not intending to profit from them
Author’s notes: Thanks to
dorkathus and castmeaway for beta help! This is a birthday fic for kleinefee92 which got started when she wrote I am Become Death. We got talking about it and I said, It would be interesting to play with a story where she and Merlin did leave Camelot and he was able to not only protect her, but also appreciate her beast as much as she does. (*attempts to put plot bunny in your lap and run*:) . It nagged at me and then I realized Pixie’s birthday was coming up, so I asked if I could write it and here is what happened. Happy birthday Liebling:D equal_to_k has a lovely picture here .
Merlin curls around Freya, protective and in awe. He cannot keep himself from watching her sleep, feeling her flanks rise and fall against him, and then transforming into a ragged vulnerable maiden. In the morning, she will bump him awake, irritated that he’s so sleepy. He loves her as strong beast and frail girl equally.
Their escape from Camelot had been hasty, but planned. Merlin had tired of hiding his magic. Frustrated with Arthur and entranced by Freya, he’d impulsively decided he could and should protect her. He appreciated that he could be fully himself and she needed him. They would be just fine on their own he reasoned.
“I’m tired of hiding my magic and there is no one I’d rather be with. I don’t care where we are, as long as we are together.”
“Merlin,” she had giggled, “you really don’t know how special you are.”
He looked at her, pleading. She acquiesced.
“We'll need supplies. Food, water.”
“All right. I'll try to get horses, and we'll need blankets, but that's all we'll need.”
Unable to get horses they don’t really need, they flee with what they can carry on their backs. They make camp later that night to leave themselves free to roam.
Basking in his large winged reptilian form, Merlin flies high over Freya as she skims across the field, reveling in the speed. Skin engineered for the race bends the wind; they defy gravity in their pleasure of the hunt.
Freya’s enhanced senses detect a deer at the far edge of the clearing. She lands, stills, then like liquid, she flows across the ground. Nearing the placid animal, she tenses her legs and waits. Certain that it has not caught her scent, she springs from the ground, muscles flexing to leap into the air and onto the back of the animal who is killed instantly.
With his bird’s eye view, Merlin appreciates her grace and skill. She is death in a sleek black winged package -- nearly all beast, but no less beautiful; Merlin’s heart fills. He circles down to share in the prize. Bestial appetites satiated, he curls his large reptilian body around her feline form, protecting her until morning.
As the sun rises, Freya stretches thin pale limbs. Merlin touches her silky skin as though it were brand new and she smiles, covering his own hand with hers. She turns in his embrace and kisses him lightly, communicating her desire through movement alone.
Merlin beams at her, as though he is the fiery body in the sky and she the floating ball of water. He takes her hand as much to guide her as to enjoy the contact with her. They walk in silence for a long time.
“Merlin, where are we going?” Freya finally asks.
“Mmm? Oh. You know. You said you wanted to go live near a lake. I know the perfect spot.”
Freya thought she’d been cursed. Changing into a bastet every night, forced into a bestial shape to hunt and kill, has separated her from her people, her family. Meeting Merlin has changed her mind.
Filled with emotion she cannot express verbally, Freya surges ahead, running, almost as she’d done last night, but now in human form. She is more prey than predator and aware of her frailty. She had never been one for idle chatter, but it seems the beast has taken away some of her facility with speech. She almost doesn’t mind any more, knowing she will not hurt anyone ever again; when she loses herself in the beast every night, she is safe under Merlin’s aegis.
Catching himself up on a tree, Merlin pants. “Let’s stop here. I’m tired. We can eat and rest.”
She smiles up at him, unable to refuse, and follows him to the base of a tree where a thick root protrudes providing a skinny bench. They eat in silence, enjoying the smell of the pine needles on the forest floor and the chirping of birds they cannot see in the canopy. Merlin reclines against the thick bark of the trunk and is soon fast asleep, Freya in his arms. When they awaken, it is dusk. It takes Merlin a moment to process the light.
“Freya! It’s almost dark. We must make haste. We covered a lot of ground yesterday, but we are still within the border. If you are to be safe, we must leave Camelot.”
Still a little groggy with sleep, they fumble with their knapsacks before walking. After a few hours, with the moon shining full in the sky, Freya throws her head back and howls. Fascinated, Merlin watches. Distracted by her magical shape shifting, he doesn’t notice men with furling red capes in the forest until there is a “zing” of an arrow and then the shaft is protruding from Freya’s breast.
Merlin howls his own grief and the men dissolve back into the woods, afraid of what they’ve seen, not understanding that Freya is dying.
Holding the slim woman in his arms, tears dripping from his eyes, he tells her, “I'm going to make you better, Freya.”
She reaches up to caress his face lightly, pity in her eyes. “No, Merlin, the wound’s too deep.”
How can he let her go? He loves her. She is magnificent in either form. He picks her up -- she weighs virtually nothing. He wanders until he comes to a small lake.
“You remembered.”
“Of course.” Merlin kneels by the shore, holding her on his lap. Caressing her hair, he continues, “There must be something I can do, some way to save you.”
“You've already saved me. You made me feel loved.”
“I don't want you to go.”
With her last breath she says, “One day, Merlin, I will repay you. I promise.”
Merlin gently settles her into a small boat and lights the pyre when the craft is far from the shore. Still blind with grief and tears, he wanders the woods for days, not caring or noticing what he eats or where he sleeps. He curses Uther for banning magic in Camelot and rants to the trees about how special Freya was and how she didn’t deserve to die.
“Merlin?”
A beloved familiar voice startles him from his ravings.
“Merlin? What’s happened to you? You look awful. Your hair is a mess. Have birds been nesting in it?”
A hand touches his shoulder, then quickly recoils. “You stink! When is the last time you had a bath? Come on. Back to Camelot with you.”
Merlin plants his feet. “No.”
“Merlin, what nonsense are you talking now? You belong in Camelot and clearly, you need someone to take care of you as well.”
The sorcerer finally registers that Arthur is standing in front of him, holding a flask of water and bread. Bread. He grabs the bread and stuffs it into his mouth greedily.
“Arthur,” he mumbles through a mouthful of bread, “What are you doing here? What? How did you find me?”
“Merlin, I have been hunting for nearly all my life. One of the far patrols reported back a few days ago. I realized that the man they described must have been you because I kept going down to the tavern to look for you, and you were never there.”
Merlin’s jaw drops a little. “Of course I wasn’t there, you clotpole. I’m never at the tavern.”
“What? You spend loads of time there.”
“Do not.”
“Well, now. I can see you’ve come back to your senses. It’s time to go back to Camelot. How have you survived here in the woods for over a week? I mean, you do look half-starved, but that’s actually no different from usual.”
Arthur tugs on Merlin’s hand, trying to induce him to follow. “Come on. We can share my horse.”
“No. I’m not returning.”
“You are an obstinate mule, but I’m stronger than you and you are a starved twig anyway.” Arthur tackles Merlin and carries him over his shoulder to the horse. He ties him across the horse muttering, “This is for your own good.”
Merlin must have passed out because the next time he looks up, he sees Camelot.
“Bwa? How have we reached Camelot so quickly? I had gotten far away.”
“You were walking in circles for days, idiot. Circles that brought you closer to Camelot, which is a good thing as you were flirting with death there.” Arthur lightly cuffs Merlin across the back of the head.
“Ow! What’d you do that for?”
Arthur lets out a puff of air. “Merlin! You’ve got to come to your sense. You are my manservant. You may be shabby looking, have appalling manners, and be extremely forgetful, but you are my manservant and I like it that way. I’ve gotten used to you. “
Something clicks inside Merlin at this. He is Arthur’s. While he loved Freya and completed her, she did not complete him. He could be fully himself with her, but she was not the other side of his coin. Merlin knows that Kilgharrah is right. Arthur may be an idiot and a prat, but he can see that Arthur has risked his life for him again and again, just as he will always do for Arthur.
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