what you don't know about richard wilson is, he is surprisingly good at table tennis.
O HAI YOU GUYS. Laptop still dead, but now dead and actually gone, which is to say that the nice men from the insurance company came to pick her up and hopefully (?) I'll find out in the next few days whether I get a shiny new one or not. If not, I...literally don't know what I'll do. My stepdad lets me use his from time to time, for homework theoretically, which does mean I'm about a bit and can occasionally even read my fpage (though rarely comment), but it isn't ideal. And yet, somehow, I have still managed to write fic - in the drafts folder of my hotmail account, fyi - instead of doing my English coursework. I hate myself! :D
Title: Bookends
Fandom: Merlin
Summary: Another strange little character-study type piece, concerning Merlin and Arthur; no gayer than the show, although the show's pretty freaking gay, so take that as you will.
A/N: Still not the fic I wanted to write, afgh, but there you go. I'm sure the next one'll be a sword-and-sorcery epic or a good old-fashioned cracky AU instead of this rambling bollocks, but until then, here we are. Love and thanks go to strangeumbrella, as ever, for being endlessly wonderful.
When she arrives, she's roughly your age - or perhaps a little older - but imbued with the natural maturity of girls that makes you feel as if there's years between you. Apparently you've met before. You don't remember.
She's freckly and scornful-looking, but her eyes are red-ringed and she won't let go of your father's hand, which makes you jealous, because you haven't held your father's hand since you were tiny, and maybe never. So, when she turns away, you stick your tongue out at the back of her head and stay like that until your wet nurse catches you. She gives you a firm tap on the back of the head and says Arthur Pendragon put that horrible thing away right now or so help me God I'll chop it off, and you glare at her, but stop.
(A month from now, this woman, who has cared for you since your birth, will have a long and difficult day doing jobs that are not hers to do and, at the end of it, catch you being cruel to a serving boy. She'll discipline you, perhaps a little over-harshly. You'll cry. Your father will sack her. Nobody takes her place, and it will be a very long time before anyone else bothers telling you to stop treating servants like objects or toys - but someone will.)
At the dinner table, the girl sits on one side of your father and you sit on the other, and he proposes a toast, to Morgana, my new ward. May she be made most welcome in this court. Morgana tugs on a dark plait and shuffles in her seat and doesn't look at anybody, but your father doesn't notice and, when he sits down, it's you he hisses at under his breath to sit up, Arthur, please. The heir of Camelot must show poise and grace in all that he does - even awaiting a meal.
It will be a very, very long time before nobody tells you how the heir of Camelot is supposed to behave; slightly less before people stop telling you not to fidget.
When you are almost finished eating, the nice doctor comes to the head of the table and says something very quietly. Your father nods - you've never seen him refuse the physician anything - and the two of them disappear off together into the corridor. In spite of all the other people in the room, the warm fire, the flickering candles, you suddenly feel as if you are utterly alone with the scrawny, awkward-looking girl on your right. You think very carefully about what to say and, after a moment, settle for: I neither want nor require a sister.
Morgana looks sideways at you and her face is very still; people keep saying that she is incredibly pretty, but you can't tell the difference either way. Still. Even though you are only eight-almost-nine, your voice is very strong and serious and quite arresting: you suppose that she is busy thinking about how impressed she is and will probably leave at any moment, back to wherever she came from.
And I do not require a brother, she says, equally calmly. Especially not one as foolish as you, Arthur Pendragon.
You frown at her. Quite wittily, you reply, Morgana, your voice is funny.
Not where I'm from it's not, she snaps, then amends, was from, and looks very much like she wants to cry. Before my father died, she adds.
You blink a few times; then you swallow your mouthful of bread and push your plate away. Hmm, you say. Then you say, Do you want me to show you where the good places to hide are?
She considers this. Yes, she says. Yes please.
When Uther returns to the table, there is no trace of either of you: just two empty plates and two tucked in chairs.
Sitting in the big oak that night, towards the eastern corner of the grounds, you mutter something about how you don't have a mother, and Morgana replies that, no, she doesn't either, which makes you feel very sad for her. One parent between us, you say, oh well. I suppose we'll just have to share. And she smiles at you then, properly, the first time you've seen her smile since she arrived. And suddenly you can see that, yes, she really is very pretty after all.
*
It isn't in the job description, but sometimes they just - sit together. Arthur will be sparring with thin air, aiming the point of his sword at the hearts of invisible men, while Merlin is slumped on the grass nearby, polishing buttons or shields and secretly squinting into the sunlight to watch the movements of the blade. These hours belong to the dead days of Camelot life, days when nothing really happens, hours when there is no call on Arthur's time but practice and no call on Merlin's time but Arthur. These afternoons - where the only sounds are Arthur's footsteps, his shallow breathing, that whistle-quick noise metal makes when it slices through air - belong to them.
And there are times when Merlin gives up all pretence of working and just cheers him on, or shouts encouragement, or even joins in; when Arthur throws his sword down on the dry grass and says, "Come on, Merlin, I'll teach you how to defend yourself," and the centuries of noble combat become simply two boys, scrabbling in the mud and laughing.
Or the mirror image. There are times when Arthur sighs, grows bored, throws his sword down on the dry grass and says nothing, but sits beside Merlin into the evening, watching the careful movements of his hands across weaponry or the leather of saddles. Merlin, for all his clumsiness and his two left feet, has thin, dextrous fingers - on one level, Arthur had been quietly surprised by the gracefulness of them and, on another, he had been surprised by his lack of surprise. Nothing about Merlin is really how he would have expected it to be.
Occasionally, when there is a lot to be done, Arthur will mutter, "Here, give that to me," and lift the muddied shield or scuffed sword from Merlin's grip, ignoring the eyebrows raised at him in startled incomprehension. They do not talk about the times when Arthur helps. Ever. In fact, they do not talk about these quiet times at all. The hours just occur, Merlin and Arthur sat quietly below the immensity of the sky, and every once in a while there are not even chores or practice to be done, there is nothing at all between them: just the two of them, and the fresh air, and that is what they are doing.
(Arthur thinks these times might be his favourite hiding place of all.)
*
You don't have a single memory from your early childhood that doesn't, in some way, involve magic. The most vivid dates from when you were about three, trying to help your mother cook by telekinetically chopping the carrots - the sound of her screaming when she came back in to the room, and the way she used to look at you before she came to terms with what you are. She thinks you don't remember. But you remember everything. You remember the feel of her hand in yours, coarse palms, stubby fingers, and you being unable to explain to the other children why you didn't have a father. You remember Maonirn, from the dwelling beside yours, kicking you hard in the shin and saying, bastard, and you, five years old, too young to know what it meant.
You remember how proud your mother was once she'd realised you were good, basically, but powerful. Talented. Gifted. She sang to you until you got too old for songs, and stroked your hair until you got too old for comfort, and chased the other boys away with no more than a well-placed look. You never got too old to think she was brilliant. You still do.
Eventually, Maornirn and his friends got bored, mainly because you became too good at taking beatings and answering back to be an easy target anymore. However, you did remain the smallest, scrawniest, flightiest-looking boy in the whole village of Ealdor until quite recently, making other children like you by being faster and smarter and, yes, perhaps even slightly naughtier than any of them dared to be; not real naughtiness, not anything that mattered, but the adults all let you away with murder because they thought your father had denied your birth with his absence, and also you had sad eyes. (You thought you were just good at getting away with things. When your mother told you the truth, it gave you something of a complex about lying, which you've found difficult to shake.)
A week ago, and days before your fifteenth birthday, you shot up basically overnight, suddenly tall for your age, and wondered for all of about five seconds if you'd done it with magic. You very quickly realised you didn't care either way: among young boys, height is a kind of power, and one at last that you wouldn't have to work at keeping quiet about. You like being Merlin the Defender. You like looking out for the tiny, skinny baker's daughter, with matted hair and small eyes, whose older sister ran away to Camelot a month ago, and who all the boys tease for not being pretty enough to go with her. You like being able to stand between the young eccentrics and outsiders of Ealdor and their tormentors, a force for good.
Merlin.
You look up.
Merlin, says your mother, you appear to have been reading that same page for half an hour.
She's sat facing you, with her sewing resting in her lap, squinting in the firelight. You close your book and say, with a smile, yes, sorry, I was thinking. Is everything okay?
She nods, but looks sad; eventually, and quite out of the blue, she asks you whether you're happy with the life the two of you share in the village.
Of course, you tell her. I've never known another home.
When your mother doesn't respond, that same pensive look written across her features, you continue, You aren't thinking of sending me away, surely? She picks up her sewing and says nothing, and you, in your childish nervousness, are too afraid to repeat the question.
But in the weeks to come, you'll climb to the tops of trees in order to gaze at Camelot, a glamorous speck on the horizon, and catch yourself wishing you'd had the courage to ask her again.
.
Title: Bookends
Fandom: Merlin
Summary: Another strange little character-study type piece, concerning Merlin and Arthur; no gayer than the show, although the show's pretty freaking gay, so take that as you will.
A/N: Still not the fic I wanted to write, afgh, but there you go. I'm sure the next one'll be a sword-and-sorcery epic or a good old-fashioned cracky AU instead of this rambling bollocks, but until then, here we are. Love and thanks go to strangeumbrella, as ever, for being endlessly wonderful.
When she arrives, she's roughly your age - or perhaps a little older - but imbued with the natural maturity of girls that makes you feel as if there's years between you. Apparently you've met before. You don't remember.
She's freckly and scornful-looking, but her eyes are red-ringed and she won't let go of your father's hand, which makes you jealous, because you haven't held your father's hand since you were tiny, and maybe never. So, when she turns away, you stick your tongue out at the back of her head and stay like that until your wet nurse catches you. She gives you a firm tap on the back of the head and says Arthur Pendragon put that horrible thing away right now or so help me God I'll chop it off, and you glare at her, but stop.
(A month from now, this woman, who has cared for you since your birth, will have a long and difficult day doing jobs that are not hers to do and, at the end of it, catch you being cruel to a serving boy. She'll discipline you, perhaps a little over-harshly. You'll cry. Your father will sack her. Nobody takes her place, and it will be a very long time before anyone else bothers telling you to stop treating servants like objects or toys - but someone will.)
At the dinner table, the girl sits on one side of your father and you sit on the other, and he proposes a toast, to Morgana, my new ward. May she be made most welcome in this court. Morgana tugs on a dark plait and shuffles in her seat and doesn't look at anybody, but your father doesn't notice and, when he sits down, it's you he hisses at under his breath to sit up, Arthur, please. The heir of Camelot must show poise and grace in all that he does - even awaiting a meal.
It will be a very, very long time before nobody tells you how the heir of Camelot is supposed to behave; slightly less before people stop telling you not to fidget.
When you are almost finished eating, the nice doctor comes to the head of the table and says something very quietly. Your father nods - you've never seen him refuse the physician anything - and the two of them disappear off together into the corridor. In spite of all the other people in the room, the warm fire, the flickering candles, you suddenly feel as if you are utterly alone with the scrawny, awkward-looking girl on your right. You think very carefully about what to say and, after a moment, settle for: I neither want nor require a sister.
Morgana looks sideways at you and her face is very still; people keep saying that she is incredibly pretty, but you can't tell the difference either way. Still. Even though you are only eight-almost-nine, your voice is very strong and serious and quite arresting: you suppose that she is busy thinking about how impressed she is and will probably leave at any moment, back to wherever she came from.
And I do not require a brother, she says, equally calmly. Especially not one as foolish as you, Arthur Pendragon.
You frown at her. Quite wittily, you reply, Morgana, your voice is funny.
Not where I'm from it's not, she snaps, then amends, was from, and looks very much like she wants to cry. Before my father died, she adds.
You blink a few times; then you swallow your mouthful of bread and push your plate away. Hmm, you say. Then you say, Do you want me to show you where the good places to hide are?
She considers this. Yes, she says. Yes please.
When Uther returns to the table, there is no trace of either of you: just two empty plates and two tucked in chairs.
Sitting in the big oak that night, towards the eastern corner of the grounds, you mutter something about how you don't have a mother, and Morgana replies that, no, she doesn't either, which makes you feel very sad for her. One parent between us, you say, oh well. I suppose we'll just have to share. And she smiles at you then, properly, the first time you've seen her smile since she arrived. And suddenly you can see that, yes, she really is very pretty after all.
*
It isn't in the job description, but sometimes they just - sit together. Arthur will be sparring with thin air, aiming the point of his sword at the hearts of invisible men, while Merlin is slumped on the grass nearby, polishing buttons or shields and secretly squinting into the sunlight to watch the movements of the blade. These hours belong to the dead days of Camelot life, days when nothing really happens, hours when there is no call on Arthur's time but practice and no call on Merlin's time but Arthur. These afternoons - where the only sounds are Arthur's footsteps, his shallow breathing, that whistle-quick noise metal makes when it slices through air - belong to them.
And there are times when Merlin gives up all pretence of working and just cheers him on, or shouts encouragement, or even joins in; when Arthur throws his sword down on the dry grass and says, "Come on, Merlin, I'll teach you how to defend yourself," and the centuries of noble combat become simply two boys, scrabbling in the mud and laughing.
Or the mirror image. There are times when Arthur sighs, grows bored, throws his sword down on the dry grass and says nothing, but sits beside Merlin into the evening, watching the careful movements of his hands across weaponry or the leather of saddles. Merlin, for all his clumsiness and his two left feet, has thin, dextrous fingers - on one level, Arthur had been quietly surprised by the gracefulness of them and, on another, he had been surprised by his lack of surprise. Nothing about Merlin is really how he would have expected it to be.
Occasionally, when there is a lot to be done, Arthur will mutter, "Here, give that to me," and lift the muddied shield or scuffed sword from Merlin's grip, ignoring the eyebrows raised at him in startled incomprehension. They do not talk about the times when Arthur helps. Ever. In fact, they do not talk about these quiet times at all. The hours just occur, Merlin and Arthur sat quietly below the immensity of the sky, and every once in a while there are not even chores or practice to be done, there is nothing at all between them: just the two of them, and the fresh air, and that is what they are doing.
(Arthur thinks these times might be his favourite hiding place of all.)
*
You don't have a single memory from your early childhood that doesn't, in some way, involve magic. The most vivid dates from when you were about three, trying to help your mother cook by telekinetically chopping the carrots - the sound of her screaming when she came back in to the room, and the way she used to look at you before she came to terms with what you are. She thinks you don't remember. But you remember everything. You remember the feel of her hand in yours, coarse palms, stubby fingers, and you being unable to explain to the other children why you didn't have a father. You remember Maonirn, from the dwelling beside yours, kicking you hard in the shin and saying, bastard, and you, five years old, too young to know what it meant.
You remember how proud your mother was once she'd realised you were good, basically, but powerful. Talented. Gifted. She sang to you until you got too old for songs, and stroked your hair until you got too old for comfort, and chased the other boys away with no more than a well-placed look. You never got too old to think she was brilliant. You still do.
Eventually, Maornirn and his friends got bored, mainly because you became too good at taking beatings and answering back to be an easy target anymore. However, you did remain the smallest, scrawniest, flightiest-looking boy in the whole village of Ealdor until quite recently, making other children like you by being faster and smarter and, yes, perhaps even slightly naughtier than any of them dared to be; not real naughtiness, not anything that mattered, but the adults all let you away with murder because they thought your father had denied your birth with his absence, and also you had sad eyes. (You thought you were just good at getting away with things. When your mother told you the truth, it gave you something of a complex about lying, which you've found difficult to shake.)
A week ago, and days before your fifteenth birthday, you shot up basically overnight, suddenly tall for your age, and wondered for all of about five seconds if you'd done it with magic. You very quickly realised you didn't care either way: among young boys, height is a kind of power, and one at last that you wouldn't have to work at keeping quiet about. You like being Merlin the Defender. You like looking out for the tiny, skinny baker's daughter, with matted hair and small eyes, whose older sister ran away to Camelot a month ago, and who all the boys tease for not being pretty enough to go with her. You like being able to stand between the young eccentrics and outsiders of Ealdor and their tormentors, a force for good.
Merlin.
You look up.
Merlin, says your mother, you appear to have been reading that same page for half an hour.
She's sat facing you, with her sewing resting in her lap, squinting in the firelight. You close your book and say, with a smile, yes, sorry, I was thinking. Is everything okay?
She nods, but looks sad; eventually, and quite out of the blue, she asks you whether you're happy with the life the two of you share in the village.
Of course, you tell her. I've never known another home.
When your mother doesn't respond, that same pensive look written across her features, you continue, You aren't thinking of sending me away, surely? She picks up her sewing and says nothing, and you, in your childish nervousness, are too afraid to repeat the question.
But in the weeks to come, you'll climb to the tops of trees in order to gaze at Camelot, a glamorous speck on the horizon, and catch yourself wishing you'd had the courage to ask her again.
.