Fic: Masked Part I (c)
What Merlin doesn’t realize when Gaius agrees to train him, is that the older man has the heart of a drill sergeant. True, he looks like a kind, genial old man, (and okay, he is a kind, genial old man) but beneath that he is sharp and demanding and has massively high expectations. More than that, he has the soul of an old warrior, one long out of the game who has never forgotten the look of war. He is an excellent teacher, endlessly patient and beyond capable of explaining things so that Merlin can wrap his tiny brain around them, but he is also ruthlessly demanding, and he knows when Merlin is slacking off. He has an innate sense for it, the kind that stretches over miles and allows him to call Merlin at the exact moment that he is neglecting his training for some escapade with Will.
Nor does Gaius let up on any part of Merlin’s life. Merlin doesn’t slack off at school-because these are A-levels and if he doesn’t do well his mother will kill him-but when he mentions cutting down on training just a bit until the end of school Gaius gives him a look. He tries to explain that this is insane, because he has school five days a week, his weekends belong entirely to Gaius except for the hours he spends on homework, and the rest of his time is spent training. But Gaius folds his arms and tells him: “You have to learn how to balance this life with the rest of your life.” And Merlin sighs and nods and tires not to complain, because he did ask for this.
The training regime that Gaius comes up with is threefold: part physical, part mental, and part magical, and it fills every last second of Merlin’s spare time.
One day a week he heads into Albion to visit Gaius at the university, where Gaius piles book after book on him, ranging from works on magical history to myth and legends to heavy volumes on the more current legal issues regarding magic users. He gets quizzed on his reading after he finishes it, and then he and the professor have long in-depth discussions about the subject matter.
The most important of these conversations is about the Regulation Council, the driving force behind what is referred to as “the Great Purge of magic from Albion”. (Technically, the council’s official title is actually The Council for the Regulation of Magic and the Restriction of Masked Fanatics, but even people who have nothing to do with magic know it as the Regulation Council.) Whenever they get to this topic Gaius’s mouth goes tight, and Merlin sometimes wonders if it is simply because the Regulation Council is responsible for destroying people’s lives or if there is something more personal there. Whatever it is, the professor leans forward, his eyes intent, and speaks in a quiet voice. “If you learn nothing else, Merlin, know that the Regulation Council is your greatest enemy.”
Merlin bites his lip. “Gaius, I’m not even sure I understand what the Regulation Council is,” he admits, and hastens to explain when Gaius gets that reproachful look of I told you to read that book in his eyes. “I mean, I read the book. I got that they’re responsible for all of the anti-magic sentiment in Albion and the rest of the country, and that they’re behind ninety-eight percent of the legislation against magic users. But I’m not sure what they are.”
Gaius leans back in his chair, sighing. “The Regulation Council is composed of very powerful individuals, most of them corporate leaders. They are very wealthy, powerful, and they control the city. They can build or destroy political campaigns, they have virtual control over the police-they are the true rulers of Albion.”
“And their major goal in life is to arrest everyone with magic,” Merlin says, half-question, half statement that sinks into him. Gaius nods shortly and he sighs. “Great.”
Beyond the mental training-sometimes it feels like he goes to school twice-there is also the physical. Gaius drills into his head that “as a Knight, you can’t just rely on your magic. Your magic cannot make you a faster runner or make you any less clumsy-you have to train that into your body yourself”. His solution is a grueling physical regime including weights training, cardio, and an obstacle. A bloody obstacle course which he builds in Merlin’s back garden. Or, to be accurate, that Merlin builds in the back garden, Gaius directing him while Will makes snarky comments from the side. (The snarky comments only last until Gaius glances over at him and says mildly “William, why don’t you go and fetch the rope from the front”. Will nods and goes and it takes him until he comes back around the corner for him to realize that he’s been conned into helping. The look on his face is priceless.)
The obstacle course includes a straight running course with hurdles (his eternal nemesis), an eight foot high wall with a rope, an army crawl, and the tallest tree in the garden affixed with a flag at the very top. After they finish building it Gaius makes him run it. Three times. Without magic. (Except for that part the second time through where he slips climbing the tree and uses magic to keep from splattering to the ground, which is probably why after he finishes it and stands panting in front of Gaius all he gets is a “again”. He glares, mentally calls Gaius a tyrant, and goes through it again.) Gaius orders him to run it once a day, and recruits Will to make sure that he does it.
Will, of course, takes an unholy delight in it and shows up with an actual whip that he cracks menacingly. Merlin glares at him and runs the course, waiting for the satisfying sound of his friend inevitably hitting himself with it.
And then there is the magic.
The first thing that Gaius has Merlin do is give a demonstration of his magic. His specific words are “Show me what you can do.” Merlin blinks in reply and shifts his weight, before asking: what do you want to see?. A bit of surprise slides across Gaius’s expression, before he shakes his head and tells Merlin to do whatever he can. So Merlin raises his hands and sends objects flying through the air around them, changes the color of his shirt, sets fire to a patch of grass and then with a pass of his hand grows new life from the burnt ground. Gaius surprises him, pulling out a handful of golf balls and chucking them at him-he freezes the first, explodes the second, and conjures a shield to block the last.
Afterwards, Gaius looks at him and nods, his expression unreadable. “Okay,” he says.
The training from there is a lot of fine-tuning. Concentration, focus, accuracy, learning spells-when Gaius hands him an old, heavy book of spells, he tilts his head and says “I’ve never had to use a spell before.” To which Gaius raises his eyebrows and replies: “That’s because your control over your magic is entirely instinctual. You think of the outcome you desire and merely extend your magic to make it happen-there’s no real control in it. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I suspect it might take more energy ultimately. I’d like you to know the spells.” So he learns the spells. He learns how to use the smallest amount of magical energy, how to change objects, how to enchant, how to use magic to change his surroundings. Eventually Gaius adds another element to the obstacle course-targets and magical obstacles.
It’s hard. Most nights he comes trudging into his house, covered in sweat and dirt, and he collapses onto his bed, sleeping straight through the night until he wakes the next morning to repeat it all. But, over time, it gets better. He feels his body grow stronger and he adjusts to the stress of the different factions of his life. He still never has time, but he can manage more easily. And his magic-he becomes super-aware of his magic, of the way it pulses insides of him, of the way it swirls in the air around him.
Slowly but surely, he feels himself turning into a Knight.
+
But when it comes to the superficial part of being a Knight, Merlin mostly feels like a giant idiot. He knows, realistically, that the aliases Knights take up are to protect their identities, and that their costumes have sensible purposes, but that doesn’t really make him feel any better when it comes to creating his.
He and Will fight for months over first the name, and then the costume. Will throws out all shades of ridiculous names-“Count Magic, Merlin. Really. It’s awesome.” “Have I told you recently that you’re out of your bloody mind?”-while Merlin tries valiantly to find something that doesn’t make him sound like: a) the biggest prat in Britain, b) a little boy wearing a sheet as a cape, c) someone who listens to his idiot best friend (especially when Will comes out with “Enchanter Man”, because seriously, where the hell does he get this stuff from?), or d) someone who picked a name from an online superhero name generator (which he may or may not have spent a good three days hitting the ‘generate’ button on, hoping it would come up with something decent).
In the end, it’s actually the dragon who gives him the name. He’s sitting across the table from Will one morning, going through a list of names that he has come up with and rejecting the ones that Will offers, something that has become commonplace since he started this venture.
“You are ridiculously picky, Merlin,” Will drawls, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve given you pure gold.”
Merlin glares. “You wanted to name me the Curse Ninja, Will.”
“That’s a damn cool name. Clearly you are unworthy of it.”
“Clearly I’m not an idiot.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Why is this so hard? I just want a name that isn’t stupid. Something simple that actually works.”
“Like the Dragonlord?” Will asks softly, and Merlin manages to not flinch when he says it. Mutely, he nods, because that is what he wants, something as strong and elegant as his father’s name, something that will live up to his father’s reputation. He wants a name that will be said one day with the reverence the name Dragonlord receives, not something that will be mocked. He closes his eyes, and when he does so he thinks of his father, of the Dragonlord, and then of himself. And what comes to mind is the dragon, looking down at him and calling him young Warlock and saying I call you what you are.
His eyes open with a flash and he stares across at Will. “I’ve got it.”
And thus he becomes Warlock. (Which, even Will has to agree, is a hell of a lot better than ‘Curse Ninja’.)
Then comes the costume. He and Will pour over hundreds of comic books and the internet and dozens of fabric samples. Gaius gives them the eyebrow and drags Merlin off to train while Will tags along, hands full of clumsy drawings and fluttering pieces of gaudy cloth.
“Spandex, Merlin. Either spandex or leather, your choice.”
Merlin folds his arms. “Why the hell can’t I wear jeans and a shirt?”
The open-mouthed look of disbelief Will gives him is priceless. “Have you ever seen a Knight wearing jeans and a shirt? You would be the worst superhero ever.”
“I believe the term is ‘masked fanatic’ these days,” Merlin says, but Will is already going off about spandex and leather and the pros and cons of both.
Hunith makes no comment other than to stick her head into the living room and say: “Merlin James, if you think you’re going to prance around Albion in nothing but a skin tight suit….”
Merlin looks pointedly at Will, who doesn’t seem to see any problem with that. “She said in nothing but a skin tight suit, Merl. Clearly you need armor over the spandex. You’re not buff enough to pull it off by itself. Now, what colors do you think?”
They argue back and forth, Will wanting the flashier colors like a bright shiny blue or metallic gold, Merlin plaintively asking what the hell is wrong with a nice dark brown or black, and they keep going until Gaius walks in and looks at them with his best you’re both idiots expression. Will finally makes a scoffing noise in the back of his throat, grabs a swath of cloth from Merlin’s hand and disappears into the loft that he has appropriated as his “laboratory”. (Only once does Merlin say “Don’t you have your own loft?” and gets a “I can’t very well put together things for a superhero in my loft, now can I?” in response.)
He refuses to let Merlin into the loft after that, saying “I’m working on it, you’ll get to see when I’m done”. Merlin shakes his head, wonders if he’s going to end up wearing a rainbow costume, and lets it be.
Part I (d)
Nor does Gaius let up on any part of Merlin’s life. Merlin doesn’t slack off at school-because these are A-levels and if he doesn’t do well his mother will kill him-but when he mentions cutting down on training just a bit until the end of school Gaius gives him a look. He tries to explain that this is insane, because he has school five days a week, his weekends belong entirely to Gaius except for the hours he spends on homework, and the rest of his time is spent training. But Gaius folds his arms and tells him: “You have to learn how to balance this life with the rest of your life.” And Merlin sighs and nods and tires not to complain, because he did ask for this.
The training regime that Gaius comes up with is threefold: part physical, part mental, and part magical, and it fills every last second of Merlin’s spare time.
One day a week he heads into Albion to visit Gaius at the university, where Gaius piles book after book on him, ranging from works on magical history to myth and legends to heavy volumes on the more current legal issues regarding magic users. He gets quizzed on his reading after he finishes it, and then he and the professor have long in-depth discussions about the subject matter.
The most important of these conversations is about the Regulation Council, the driving force behind what is referred to as “the Great Purge of magic from Albion”. (Technically, the council’s official title is actually The Council for the Regulation of Magic and the Restriction of Masked Fanatics, but even people who have nothing to do with magic know it as the Regulation Council.) Whenever they get to this topic Gaius’s mouth goes tight, and Merlin sometimes wonders if it is simply because the Regulation Council is responsible for destroying people’s lives or if there is something more personal there. Whatever it is, the professor leans forward, his eyes intent, and speaks in a quiet voice. “If you learn nothing else, Merlin, know that the Regulation Council is your greatest enemy.”
Merlin bites his lip. “Gaius, I’m not even sure I understand what the Regulation Council is,” he admits, and hastens to explain when Gaius gets that reproachful look of I told you to read that book in his eyes. “I mean, I read the book. I got that they’re responsible for all of the anti-magic sentiment in Albion and the rest of the country, and that they’re behind ninety-eight percent of the legislation against magic users. But I’m not sure what they are.”
Gaius leans back in his chair, sighing. “The Regulation Council is composed of very powerful individuals, most of them corporate leaders. They are very wealthy, powerful, and they control the city. They can build or destroy political campaigns, they have virtual control over the police-they are the true rulers of Albion.”
“And their major goal in life is to arrest everyone with magic,” Merlin says, half-question, half statement that sinks into him. Gaius nods shortly and he sighs. “Great.”
Beyond the mental training-sometimes it feels like he goes to school twice-there is also the physical. Gaius drills into his head that “as a Knight, you can’t just rely on your magic. Your magic cannot make you a faster runner or make you any less clumsy-you have to train that into your body yourself”. His solution is a grueling physical regime including weights training, cardio, and an obstacle. A bloody obstacle course which he builds in Merlin’s back garden. Or, to be accurate, that Merlin builds in the back garden, Gaius directing him while Will makes snarky comments from the side. (The snarky comments only last until Gaius glances over at him and says mildly “William, why don’t you go and fetch the rope from the front”. Will nods and goes and it takes him until he comes back around the corner for him to realize that he’s been conned into helping. The look on his face is priceless.)
The obstacle course includes a straight running course with hurdles (his eternal nemesis), an eight foot high wall with a rope, an army crawl, and the tallest tree in the garden affixed with a flag at the very top. After they finish building it Gaius makes him run it. Three times. Without magic. (Except for that part the second time through where he slips climbing the tree and uses magic to keep from splattering to the ground, which is probably why after he finishes it and stands panting in front of Gaius all he gets is a “again”. He glares, mentally calls Gaius a tyrant, and goes through it again.) Gaius orders him to run it once a day, and recruits Will to make sure that he does it.
Will, of course, takes an unholy delight in it and shows up with an actual whip that he cracks menacingly. Merlin glares at him and runs the course, waiting for the satisfying sound of his friend inevitably hitting himself with it.
And then there is the magic.
The first thing that Gaius has Merlin do is give a demonstration of his magic. His specific words are “Show me what you can do.” Merlin blinks in reply and shifts his weight, before asking: what do you want to see?. A bit of surprise slides across Gaius’s expression, before he shakes his head and tells Merlin to do whatever he can. So Merlin raises his hands and sends objects flying through the air around them, changes the color of his shirt, sets fire to a patch of grass and then with a pass of his hand grows new life from the burnt ground. Gaius surprises him, pulling out a handful of golf balls and chucking them at him-he freezes the first, explodes the second, and conjures a shield to block the last.
Afterwards, Gaius looks at him and nods, his expression unreadable. “Okay,” he says.
The training from there is a lot of fine-tuning. Concentration, focus, accuracy, learning spells-when Gaius hands him an old, heavy book of spells, he tilts his head and says “I’ve never had to use a spell before.” To which Gaius raises his eyebrows and replies: “That’s because your control over your magic is entirely instinctual. You think of the outcome you desire and merely extend your magic to make it happen-there’s no real control in it. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I suspect it might take more energy ultimately. I’d like you to know the spells.” So he learns the spells. He learns how to use the smallest amount of magical energy, how to change objects, how to enchant, how to use magic to change his surroundings. Eventually Gaius adds another element to the obstacle course-targets and magical obstacles.
It’s hard. Most nights he comes trudging into his house, covered in sweat and dirt, and he collapses onto his bed, sleeping straight through the night until he wakes the next morning to repeat it all. But, over time, it gets better. He feels his body grow stronger and he adjusts to the stress of the different factions of his life. He still never has time, but he can manage more easily. And his magic-he becomes super-aware of his magic, of the way it pulses insides of him, of the way it swirls in the air around him.
Slowly but surely, he feels himself turning into a Knight.
+
But when it comes to the superficial part of being a Knight, Merlin mostly feels like a giant idiot. He knows, realistically, that the aliases Knights take up are to protect their identities, and that their costumes have sensible purposes, but that doesn’t really make him feel any better when it comes to creating his.
He and Will fight for months over first the name, and then the costume. Will throws out all shades of ridiculous names-“Count Magic, Merlin. Really. It’s awesome.” “Have I told you recently that you’re out of your bloody mind?”-while Merlin tries valiantly to find something that doesn’t make him sound like: a) the biggest prat in Britain, b) a little boy wearing a sheet as a cape, c) someone who listens to his idiot best friend (especially when Will comes out with “Enchanter Man”, because seriously, where the hell does he get this stuff from?), or d) someone who picked a name from an online superhero name generator (which he may or may not have spent a good three days hitting the ‘generate’ button on, hoping it would come up with something decent).
In the end, it’s actually the dragon who gives him the name. He’s sitting across the table from Will one morning, going through a list of names that he has come up with and rejecting the ones that Will offers, something that has become commonplace since he started this venture.
“You are ridiculously picky, Merlin,” Will drawls, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve given you pure gold.”
Merlin glares. “You wanted to name me the Curse Ninja, Will.”
“That’s a damn cool name. Clearly you are unworthy of it.”
“Clearly I’m not an idiot.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Why is this so hard? I just want a name that isn’t stupid. Something simple that actually works.”
“Like the Dragonlord?” Will asks softly, and Merlin manages to not flinch when he says it. Mutely, he nods, because that is what he wants, something as strong and elegant as his father’s name, something that will live up to his father’s reputation. He wants a name that will be said one day with the reverence the name Dragonlord receives, not something that will be mocked. He closes his eyes, and when he does so he thinks of his father, of the Dragonlord, and then of himself. And what comes to mind is the dragon, looking down at him and calling him young Warlock and saying I call you what you are.
His eyes open with a flash and he stares across at Will. “I’ve got it.”
And thus he becomes Warlock. (Which, even Will has to agree, is a hell of a lot better than ‘Curse Ninja’.)
Then comes the costume. He and Will pour over hundreds of comic books and the internet and dozens of fabric samples. Gaius gives them the eyebrow and drags Merlin off to train while Will tags along, hands full of clumsy drawings and fluttering pieces of gaudy cloth.
“Spandex, Merlin. Either spandex or leather, your choice.”
Merlin folds his arms. “Why the hell can’t I wear jeans and a shirt?”
The open-mouthed look of disbelief Will gives him is priceless. “Have you ever seen a Knight wearing jeans and a shirt? You would be the worst superhero ever.”
“I believe the term is ‘masked fanatic’ these days,” Merlin says, but Will is already going off about spandex and leather and the pros and cons of both.
Hunith makes no comment other than to stick her head into the living room and say: “Merlin James, if you think you’re going to prance around Albion in nothing but a skin tight suit….”
Merlin looks pointedly at Will, who doesn’t seem to see any problem with that. “She said in nothing but a skin tight suit, Merl. Clearly you need armor over the spandex. You’re not buff enough to pull it off by itself. Now, what colors do you think?”
They argue back and forth, Will wanting the flashier colors like a bright shiny blue or metallic gold, Merlin plaintively asking what the hell is wrong with a nice dark brown or black, and they keep going until Gaius walks in and looks at them with his best you’re both idiots expression. Will finally makes a scoffing noise in the back of his throat, grabs a swath of cloth from Merlin’s hand and disappears into the loft that he has appropriated as his “laboratory”. (Only once does Merlin say “Don’t you have your own loft?” and gets a “I can’t very well put together things for a superhero in my loft, now can I?” in response.)
He refuses to let Merlin into the loft after that, saying “I’m working on it, you’ll get to see when I’m done”. Merlin shakes his head, wonders if he’s going to end up wearing a rainbow costume, and lets it be.
Part I (d)