Merlin Fic: The Goose Girl 2/4

Sep 13, 2010 22:30

Title: The Goose Girl

Characters: Full series one cast.

Rating: Teen.

Betas: eponymous_rose, lalaithlockhart, and significantowl.

Warnings: None.

Summary: Nimueh returns to Camelot. AU after series one.

part one

++

That winter she dreams of a lake.

Not the muddy little duck pond where she spends each day with her geese - a faraway, snow-fed wilderness, huge and mirror still beneath the pale sky and paler mountains. The air is bitter cold, but the lake does not freeze. In her dreams Bess stands at the shore, pebbles hard beneath her bare feet, and looks down into the water.

Two faces look back at her, haloed by the green reflection of winter trees and the grey sky above. They are both her own.

Not yet, the lake says. But soon.

++

“You’ve been avoiding Merlin,” Gaius says one wet afternoon. They’re playing cards, a fast game with a complex set of rules that was all the rage at Uther’s court two decades before and is now entirely out of fashion. Gaius is winning.

“I’m not avoiding anyone,” Bess says. She squints at her cards. “Stop trying to distract me.”

“You distract yourself well enough without my help,” Gaius says. He takes a sip from his mug of tea. “Well, if you’re not avoiding him, it’s a strange coincidence indeed that you’ve lived in the same castle for months and never met.”

“We’ve met,” Bess says. She plays two cards, somewhat hesitantly. “He spilled a bucket of water on me, once.”

“Not exactly a formal introduction. Nor, I suppose, an unusual one, given Merlin’s typical grace and poise.” Gaius lays his cards down on the table with a smile. “I win. Again.”

Bess glares at him. “Cheater.”

Gaius gathers up the cards and begins to shuffle. “You think everyone cheats. To a mind like your own, it is the only acceptable explanation for why you’ve lost.”

Twenty years ago, Bess would have stormed out of the workroom in a fury. Now she just shrugs. “Losing sucks.”

“Yes,” Gaius agrees, his voice dry. “Well said.” He deals two new hands in silence, and they listen to the rain against the windows. For long minutes, the room is quiet.

“I would have thought,” Bess says carefully, “that you’d want me to avoid Merlin.”

Gaius raises an eyebrow. “Were you planning on telling him who you are?”

“I didn’t plan on telling you.”

“You hardly needed to. I’d recognise your pretty scowl anywhere.” He sits back in his chair, his cards abandoned on the table. He scratches his chin. “You’re right. I do want you to avoid him.”

“Because you think he’ll recognise me.”

“On the contrary - I want you to stay away because I am sure he will not.” Gaius smiles, but there is little happiness in it. “He only knew Nimueh in her last years, Bess. He saw the monster she became, not the woman she was.”

Monster, he says, like he’s never done wrong. Like his hands are clean. Bess bites into a biscuit, trying to hide her flash of rage. Gaius sees anyway, of course.

He sighs, his eyes tired. “So many died in the name of her revenge, Bess. You know I’m right.”

“I do,” Bess says through her teeth. “That’s why I’m angry.”

Gaius reaches across the table and touches her clenched fist, his fingers light against the white skin of her knuckles. Neither speaks, and slowly her hand opens, fingers loosening until her palm rests against the wood of the table.

“Guilt is a selfish emotion,” Gaius says softly. “It does nothing for those we’ve harmed.” He’s silent for a moment, his fingers warm against hers. “Still. Better to be selfish than to forget.”

They play three more games, and Gaius wins every hand. After the third game Bess finishes her tea and slips out the door, a few biscuits tucked safely in her pockets.

Merlin hurries in minutes later, babbling about dents in the prince’s armour. He never notices the deck of cards still sitting on the table.

++

On the night before Bess’ fifteenth birthday, the Great Dragon calls to her again.

“Feeling a little lonely?” she asks, settling on the edge of the precipice. She pulls her blanket close about her shoulders and lets her legs swing in the air. “Or did you just want to wish me happy birthday?”

“Happy birthday,” the Dragon says, smirking. “I hope you don’t expect me to sing.”

“That depends,” Bess says. “Do you have cake?”

The Dragon sighs. “I did summon you for a reason, Sister. But if you’d rather make foolish jokes-”

“I would,” she says. “Definitely. If I get a choice, put me down for foolish jokes over pompous mumbo jumbo any day of the week.”

The Dragon grins, showing his many teeth. “Funny. You once put great store in my so-called pompous mumbo jumbo.”

Bess rolls her eyes. “I also used to tie feathers to my head and call it a hairstyle. I was obviously not at my best.”

“You were the most powerful sorcerer this land had ever seen.”

Bess notes his use of the past tense. Oh, Merlin, she thinks. What have you been getting up to? “Powerful or not,” she says, “that still doesn’t excuse the pseudo-dreadlocks.” She pauses. “Or the killing people.”

“Casualties of war,” the Dragon says carelessly, and Bess wonders how such a beautiful creature can suddenly look so ugly.

“Not my war,” Bess says, her voice like iron. “Not ever again.”

The Dragon’s long neck stretches across the chasm between them until his face is a few short feet from hers. “You have forgotten the Old Magic, Sister, but the Old Magic has not forgotten you. Do not think to escape your destiny - you will fail, and all the suffering of your long life will seem a blessing in comparison to what will follow.”

“Wow,” Bess says, her eyes wide. “Your breath is terrible. Like, really, really bad.”

“I’ll give you terrible breath,” the Dragon rumbles, and Bess only just makes it out of the cavern before the fire scorches the edge of her blanket.

++

That spring Bess falls in love with Prince Arthur’s horse.

He’s a steady, unexceptional looking bay roan with a taste for sour apples and the curly ends of Bess’ hair - a strange horse for a prince, Bess thinks. In her experience princes prefer fire and height and speed in their mounts, not sure feet and keen, intelligent eyes. It makes her wonder.

Bess offers the roan another apple, cupping it in the palm of her hand. He lips the sleeve of her dress instead, as if chiding her for thinking ill of his rider.

“I was making a generalization,” Bess tells the roan. “There’s no need to get huffy.”

“He does that,” a voice says from behind her. “He’s very sensitive, for a horse.”

Arthur Pendragon stands in the open door of the stables, his pale hair lit from behind by the early morning sun. He’s dressed for riding in trousers and a simple shirt, a long brown coat thrown over one arm, and he still looks a little sleepy about the eyes. Bess drops into an awkward curtsy.

“Sire,” she says.

He smiles. “Sorry to startle you. I didn’t expect anyone to be here this early.”

“I was just-” She stops, grasping feebly for an explanation. Oh dear, she thinks. Were his eyes always that shade of blue? “I was just saying hello. To your horse.” She turns and waves to the roan. “Hello!”

The roan definitely does not roll his eyes at her. No, definitely not.

“How very friendly of you,” the prince says, and though she can tell from his voice that he’s laughing at her, she can also tell that he’s trying not to be mean about it. He walks over and smoothes his hand down the soft hair of the roan’s nose. The roan whuffs into his palm. “How’s it going, mate?” the prince says softly. “Why the long face?”

The roan presses his huge head against the prince’s chest and shoves him away. The prince laughs, delighted.

“You deserved that,” Bess says.

The prince rests his elbows on the top railing of the stall door and grins. “Well, I can see where your loyalties lie.” He shakes his head, watching as the roan presses his nose to the curve of Bess’ neck, sniffing for more apples. “He’s an incorrigible flirt, you know. A girl in every stable. He’ll break your heart.”

The prince winks at her, and Bess fixes her eyes on the roan’s forelock, fighting a blush. “What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t have one.” The prince swings the stall door open and steps inside. “Could never find one that suited him.”

The roan’s eyes are large and dark and delicately lashed - he tilts his head and stares at Bess as the prince takes a brush from the wall and cleans his back and girth with long, sure strokes. Sunlight streams through the open door, chasing away the morning chill, and Bess can see specks of straw and dust floating in the air. They glow gold in the light.

The roan’s breath is warm against Bess’ cheek. “He should have a name,” she says.

The prince returns the brush to its hook on the wall. “Names are important. I don’t want to give one lightly.” He lifts the saddle onto the roan’s back. “Anyway, there’s still time. He’s young yet.”

The corner of the prince’s mouth rises in a small, elliptical smile, and Bess is sure that he is thinking of the years to come, of the crown and the weight he will bear. Arthur is young yet, but he knows how swiftly time passes - one day the young prince will be an old king, and his horse will still be without a name.

Arthur ducks his head, straightening the leather straps of the saddle, and the strange smile is gone as quickly as it had come.

“You’re so like your mother,” Bess says.

Arthur’s hands go still.

Bess covers her mouth, mortified. “Sire, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

He turns to her, his back ramrod straight and his face carefully blank. “I don’t see how you could possibly be in a position to know. The queen died twenty years ago, and you’re - what?” He gives her a hard look. “Twelve years old? Thirteen?”

“I’m fifteen,” Bess says quietly.

“You don’t look it,” Arthur says, as if he means it to hurt. It does, a little. “Either way, you’re too old for foolish lies.”

“I wasn’t lying,” she says. “I - my mother, when she was young, she was a handmaiden here at court. She told me stories.”

Some of the horrible blankness leaves Arthur’s face. “Stories about my mother?”

“Yes. She was very fond of her.” Bess knots her fingers together behind her back, the lie sour and strange on her tongue. “I mean, they were friends. In a servant and her mistress sort of way.”

Arthur nods, as if this makes perfect sense; Bess is pretty sure it doesn’t. He turns back to the saddle, tugging at straps and stubborn buckles. “What sort of stories did she tell you?”

His tone is careless, conversational; Bess swallows and looks away, trying not to see the poorly hidden want in his face.

“Happy ones, mostly,” she says, her voice a little hoarse. “Feasts and dancing and tournaments. Lots of hairdressing. That sort of thing.”

“Oh,” he says.

Bess closes her eyes at the undisguised disappointment in his voice. She tries not to remember the pained blue of Igraine’s eyes, her iron grip as she held Nimueh’s hand to her swollen belly and said, You’ll help him, won’t you? You’ll keep him safe?

Yes, she’d said. I will. I promise.

Bess opens her eyes. “The queen set the Great Hall on fire, once.”

Arthur’s head jerks up. “What?”

“It was meant to be a joke. Her friend - not my mother, someone else - invented these…well, they were little bags filled with herbs and such, and when you lit the bag on fire it set off sparks and released this awful smell.” She pauses, her nose wrinkling. “It was disgusting, really. Particularly in enclosed spaces. Don’t know what she was thinking.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, the queen hid them under the tables in the Hall before a feast, and then she set them off just as everyone started to eat.”

Arthur stares at her. “My mother set off stink bombs during a royal feast.”

“It would have been funny, but one of the tapestries caught fire. There was a lot of smoke and screaming and running about.” She purses her lips. “It was still a bit funny.”

“I don’t believe you.” He does, though - Bess can see it in his face. In the eager set of his jaw. He abandons the half-buckled saddle and leans against the stall door. “My father would have been furious.”

Bess dismisses that with a wave of her hand. “Oh, he was in on it from the beginning. That was their arrangement - she could pull whatever pranks she wanted as long as she let him in on the joke ahead of time.”

“Got his permission, you mean.”

Bess laughs. “Your mother never asked anyone’s permission for anything. She did exactly as she liked.”

Arthur frowns. “And she liked to set the castle on fire.”

“Only on special occasions,” Bess says. Arthur’s frown deepens, his forehead creasing, and Bess feels something twist in her stomach. She holds tight to the stall door, and the rough wood grinds into her palms. “No, it wasn’t like that. The fire was an accident and she felt terrible about it. Most of her pranks worked out quite well.”

Arthur rubs his hand over his face. “It’s just…” His jaw tightens. “It’s hard to imagine. I always pictured her - different, somehow.”

Bess’ only memory of her mother is watching her die. Bess cannot imagine her otherwise, cannot see her face without its sheen of sweat or hear her voice unless it is rough with pain. Arthur has nothing to remember, and all that remains of his mother is a reverent silence, cold and untouchable.

“You thought she was perfect,” Bess says, and Arthur flinches.

“No.”

Bess reaches across the stall door to touch his sleeve. “She wasn’t. She was vain about the size of her nose and composed awful limericks when she was bored - which, to be honest, was most of time. She was proud and stubborn and sarcastic, and she set off stink bombs and put salt in the sugar bowl because she wanted people to laugh at themselves. Wanted them to remember that they were small and human and silly, and no different from those who lived in the city below.” Bess smiles a little, a sad quirk at the corner of her mouth. “She wasn’t perfect, wasn’t even always good, but her responsibilities as queen, her duty to Camelot and its people - nothing was more important.” She pauses. “Nothing except you, of course.”

Arthur stands very still, watching her face with bright eyes. Then he steps back, the fabric of his sleeve slipping out from under her fingers. “Your mother told you this.”

“Yes,” Bess says. “She was very specific. Detail-oriented. You know.”

“I see.” Arthur lays one hand against the roan’s neck, and the horse leans into his touch. They stand quietly for a moment. “Thank you,” he says. “For saying I was like her.”

“I meant it. And not just because you have her nose.”

Arthur’s eyes narrow. “There is nothing wrong with my nose.”

“Never said there was, sire.” Bess glances at the stable door. “Well, would you look at the sun. I’d better get to work. Those geese won’t herd themselves.”

“You’re very odd,” Arthur says.

“Thank you, sire.” Bess curtseys. “Enjoy your ride.”

Arthur waves her off. “Enjoy your…whatever it is you do. Try not to get into too much trouble.”

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else,” Bess says. She tosses Arthur the last of the sour apples from her pockets. “Here. Hengroen likes them.”

“Hengroen?” Arthur turns to the roan, and the horse delicately snatches the apple from his fingers.

“It means old skin,” Bess says. “An old name for a young horse.”

“Hengroen,” Arthur says again, his brow furrowing as he watches the roan chew. Bess slips out the stable door and into the sunlight.

As she leaves she hears Arthur say, “You know, Hengroen, I don’t think I even know how to make a stink bomb.”

Which is probably for the best, really.

++

One day Bess looks down into the rushes by the bank of the duck pond and sees a boy in the water.

The summer sun is hot overhead, the sky a clear, brutal blue, but in her reflection she sees clouds, dark trees, and a boy’s face where her own should be. He has pale, delicate features and night black hair, and though he can’t be much more than ten years old, something in his unblinking stare grips her like a chill, like a sudden submersion in ice-cold waters. An invisible hand seizes her throat and she falls to the ground, choking, her fingers clutching at the empty air.

The boy smiles and disappears.

Bess collapses back against the grass of the bank, breathing hard. The heat of the day returns, seeping into her clothing and skin, and she closes her eyes against the sunlight.

A shadow falls across her face, and a goose nips at the collar of her dress. Bess lifts her head to complain and gets a mouthful of feathers. She coughs, dragging her hand over her mouth. “What are you trying to do - finish me off?”

The goose gives her an imperious look and waddles away.

Bess sits up and touches the bruises forming at her throat. Perfect. Gaius is going to have questions, and she’ll have to make up a story about a homicidal goose or scullery maid assassins with garrote wire. She certainly won’t tell him the truth.

The boy knew her - knew precisely what she was and that she would not fight back - but she did not know him. The Druids are powerful, true enough, and the boy’s touch reeked of their magic, but there was something else. Something she cannot give a name to. Something familiar.

Her hands are still shaking.

Bess hears a shout from across the duck pond, and she looks up to see the largest, meanest gander in the flock standing beneath the old willow tree at the water’s edge. The gander is staring up into the branches of the willow, his long neck poised to strike - a fat feathered tiger stalking his prey. Bess sighs and pushes herself to her feet.

The gander hisses at her as she approaches, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Yes, yes,” she says, “I’m terrified. I tremble at your feet.” She tilts back her head and looks up into the branches, expecting to see a trapped stable boy or one of the more mischievous girls from the kitchens.

“Uh, hello,” Merlin says from his perch on a tree limb. “Are you quite sure that’s a normal goose?”

Bess folds her arms over her chest. “As opposed to?”

He grins sheepishly. “Some sort of murderous mythical beast disguised as a goose?”

Bess looks down at the gander and considers this. “Well, it would explain a lot.”

The gander unfurls his wings and lunges for her knees, but Bess dodges and scrambles up into the tree, the gander snapping at her ankles. She sits on one of the wider branches, letting her legs swing in the air. The leafy canopy above shelters them from the sun and it’s a little like being underwater, green and dark and cool. Merlin stares at her, and she stares back.

He looks less like a boy and more like a man than she remembers. A gawky, awkward sort of man, but a man nonetheless. She looks at him and feels nothing - not hatred or anger or even annoyance. She looks at the man who killed her, and if she feels anything at all, it’s gratitude.

“You’re Gaius’ niece,” Merlin says. “The goose girl.”

“Grandniece,” Bess says. “His sister was my grandmother.”

It’s a lie Gaius had insisted on, though Bess had thought it perfectly ridiculous and a little awkward. “If you are to continue to visit me here,” he’d said, “we will need a reason. This court loves gossip as much as it ever did.”

Twenty years ago Gaius and his young apprentice had been the subject of some rather shocking rumours; Bess had blushed a little at the memory. “Yes,” she’d said, “but back then you were only twice my age. Now you’re at least…” She’d frowned, working through the arithmetic. “Hold on. I’ve almost got it.”

Gaius had sighed and said, “Fetch the chalkboard. It’s time we reviewed your multiplication tables.”

Bess shifts uneasily on her tree branch. “That makes him my great uncle,” she adds.

Merlin’s expression is wary, and maybe a little jealous. “I don’t see much of a family resemblance.”

Bess raises one eyebrow.

“Okay,” Merlin says. “That’s disturbing.” He hooks one arm around the trunk of the tree and offers her his other hand. “I’m Merlin.”

She gives his hand a firm, brief shake. “Bess.”

He grins, and it’s almost impossible not to grin back. “I knew a cow named Bess once.”

“Whatever, Merlin.” She smirks. “Bird brain.”

“Oh, so you’ve heard of me, then.”

“I’ve heard the bards sing your praises, yes.”

“And by bards, you mean-”

“The children who wait by the stocks all day hoping to throw rotten fruit at your head.”

He covers his heart with his hand and sighs. “Ah, my adoring public.”

Bess peers down at the gander, who flaps his useless wings and hisses viciously at them. “And I suppose he just wants your autograph.”

“No,” Merlin says, “I’m pretty sure he wants to eat my liver.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single goose feather of the purest white. “I don’t really blame him.”

Bess’ eyes go wide. “And what on earth do you plan to do with that?” She can think of a dozen spells that require a white goose feather, and half of them are love charms. The thought of a warlock with Merlin’s lack of discipline mucking about with the magics of lust and love is perfectly horrifying. And a little amusing, she thinks, but that’s not the nicer part of her nature shining through.

Merlin looks away and stuffs the feather back into his pocket. The tips of his ears go pink. “It’s for Gaius,” he says quickly. “Medicine stuff.”

It might be the stupidest lie she’s ever heard - if Gaius wanted a goose feather, why not ask his fake grandniece the goose girl - but she can hardly accuse him of sorcery, not without incriminating herself. Bess has never and will never practice magic, and so has little to fear from Uther and his purges - unless, of course, she were to be recognised. And for all his goodness and idiot heroism, Bess knows that Merlin would happily watch her burn if he knew the truth. He’s smiling at her now, eyes brilliant blue and somewhat anxious, but she can still remember his face, just before his magic consumed her. He had been so eager for her death.

Merlin hates her, and he has every right to that hatred. She is the villain, the wicked witch, the shadow waiting in the dark. She nearly took his mother’s life.

Bess drops out of the tree and lands on her feet. The gander charges, and she steps aside, giving him a light kick on the backside as he passes. “You can come down now,” she says, not looking up at the man in the tree. “Gaius is probably waiting on that feather.”

She walks back to the duck pond, the sun hot on her back. She doesn’t turn when Merlin calls after her.

Gaius was right. It’s better for her to stay away.

++

“A Druid boy,” the Great Dragon murmurs, his eyes yellow and half-lidded. “Really. Do go on.”

“I don’t know why I bothered to tell you,” Bess says. “I knew you wouldn’t be any help.”

The Dragon lifts his head. “You are frightened, Sister, and I do not blame you. Your rejection of the Old Magic has left you vulnerable to those who would be your allies. It has made you weak.” He pauses, studying her. “You have never been tolerant of weakness, in others or in yourself.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Bess says. “I love being weak and boring and useless. It’s delightful. I get to have a lie in on festival days and alternate weekends and no one tries to assassinate me in my sleep.”

“Except little Druid boys hiding among the cattails,” the Dragon says.

Bess frowns, touching the bruises at her throat. “I don’t think he wanted me dead,” she says. “I think he just wanted me to see.”

The Dragon tips his head curiously to one side, about to ask a question when he suddenly stops, swishing his tail back and forth in the air like a housecat about to pounce on a bit of string. “Oh dear,” he says. “How awkward.”

“Awkward?” Bess says, and then Merlin comes hurtling out of the entrance to the cavern and slams into her back. She falls, skidding across the rock, and then slips off the cliff edge into the abyss.

Merlin’s magic catches her by the shoulders, and the smell makes her nose itch. He lifts her gently until she’s on solid ground again, her skirts tangled around her legs. Merlin stares down at her, slack jawed with confusion and horror. “I am so, so sorry,” he stutters. “I didn’t mean to-”

The Dragon gives a wheezing laugh. “I believe some introductions are in order. Bess, this is the young warlock Merlin. Merlin, this is Bess.” He laughs again, and smoke curls from his nostrils. “Thank Merlin for saving your life, Bess.”

“Thanks ever so,” she says, and sneezes into the crook of her elbow. She sniffs. “Of course, if he’d been looking where he was going-”

That seems to snap Merlin out of his shock. “I didn’t exactly expect him to have guests!”

Bess stands, her knees still a little shaky. “And why not? You’re down here every five minutes, aren’t you?” She pitches her voice into a ridiculous falsetto. “Oh Great Dragon, some terrible sorceress has given Prince Arthur a hang nail. Whatever shall I do?”

“I do not sound like that,” Merlin says. He appeals to the Dragon. “Tell her I don’t sound like that.”

Bess holds her hand to her forehead in a dramatic pose. “And the state of his cuticles, Great Dragon! However will Camelot survive?”

The Dragon seems to be fighting a grin. “That’s enough, Sister. There’s no need to be rude.”

“Sister?” Merlin’s eyes go wide and he raises a finger to point at Bess. “You’re a witch!”

Bess scowls. “I’m a goose girl.”

The Dragon leans forward until his face looms above them. “Bess has knowledge, young warlock, but lacks ability. Her power is stunted, and she is incapable of true sorcery.” Bess glares at him, and he grins. “She is not a witch, but a scholar.”

Merlin looks her up and down, his expression sceptical. “Aren’t you, like, twelve years old?”

“I’m fifteen,” Bess says through gritted teeth. “And I am not a scholar.”

The Dragon taps a claw against the stone beneath him. “Weak though she may be, Bess is the weapon you now seek. It is her counsel you must rely upon, young warlock, not my own.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “The arrow strikes the killing blow, but it would not fly truly if not for the steady hand of the archer.”

Bess covers her face with her hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Wait,” Merlin says, frowning. “I’m the arrow and she’s the archer? Or is it the other way round?”

“You’re going senile, aren’t you?” Bess gives the Dragon a gentle, mocking smile. “You can tell us, you know. We won’t judge.”

The Dragon opens his wings and stretches to his full height, and Bess suddenly feels very small. His teeth glint sharply in the torchlight, and when he speaks she can feel his voice echo in her bones. “I have been patient with you, old friend, but the time draws near and that patience runs thin. It is your destiny to aid Merlin and the young Pendragon, and no man can escape his destiny - nor, for that matter, can annoying little girls.”

Merlin glances between them, his eyes darting from the ancient creature of enormous power to the plump girl with clenched fists and dirt smudged across her cheek. “Okay,” he says. “Maybe we should all just take a moment and-”

“My destiny,” Bess says, “can bite me.” She smoothes her skirts and releases a puff of dust into the air. “Now if you don’t mind, I have chamber pots to clean.”

She turns on her heel and walks away, leaving Merlin and the Dragon to stare after her.

++

part three

fandom: merlin, fic

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