Made of Wood, and Evidently Stupid
Title: Made of Wood, and Evidently Stupid
Beta: nightrider101
Rating: PG
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Summary: Later, Merlin would blame the fact that he had lived all his life in a society that would murder him for using magic for his lack of practice in the practical use of magic.
Later, Merlin would blame the fact that he had lived all his life in a society that would murder him for using magic for his lack of practice in the practical use of magic. After all, how was he supposed to know? It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Brilliant, in fact.
While he was running through the forest after the other members of the hunting party, he blamed Arthur. He blamed Arthur for the fact that his boots were dirty, his feet wet, his hands cold and he was out of breath. He blamed Arthur because Arthur just had to have another hunting trip, despite the lousy weather and the fact that free time could be spent in so much more comfortable ways.
Alternatively, Merlin could have blamed the Mercian delegation that failed to arrive in Camelot in time and gave Arthur an unexpected afternoon off, or the king for having raised his son in such a way that Arthur had no idea whatsoever what to do with himself when there were no duties to fulfil or monsters to fight. Because this, Merlin was convinced, was the reason Arthur liked hunting so much - it was somewhat similar to what he did all day anyway, and the only free time activity he had ever been shown. (Possibly for the very same reason.)
He stuck to blaming Arthur, though, because blaming Arthur was something he was really, really, really good at.
So he was wet, cold, out of breath and full of resentment for the prince who had dragged him out into the freezing, cold afternoon as he was running after the others, who for some reason all were very much better at running than him. Even those in chainmail and armour. Merlin had to wonder about that, and not for the first time: what was the use of Arthur changing into his dark and practical hunting clothes when he was accompanied by a bunch of men in klonking armour and bright red cloaks?
He wasn’t going to complain though, because secretly Merlin happened to really like Arthur’s hunting clothes.
Another thing he had to wonder about was how he could run so fast and for so long if he had to save Arthur, but not if he had to keep up with a group of knights who thought he was an incompetent weakling anyway - and let him carry all their equipment.
Hunting usually was more fun than this. Because usually they didn’t run so much. But right now they were following a trail, trying to catch up with whatever they were out to kill this time before it got away, and that required running. For decidedly too long a time.
Arthur was jogging at the front of the group, only occasionally visible to Merlin when the wall of red cloaks before him parted, and showing no sign of exhaustion. Merlin, on the other hand, was ten metres away from falling on his face because he couldn’t lift his feet high enough any longer. Which was the point when he got his brilliant idea.
Why waste his energy for running, he wondered, if his magic could do the running for him?
It was a risk, but one easy to justify. Should, for example, a terrible mythical beast break out of the trees all of a sudden (as it happened on occasion), Merlin would not be able to protect his future king if he was lying on the ground fighting for breath. Also, since everyone was ahead of him, no one was looking at him, and so no one would notice his lips moving to whisper magical words drowned out by their footsteps and the noise of their armour.
Coming up with the right words to make his boots do all the running on their own wasn’t difficult. Not all magic of Merlin’s worked without the aid of a spell, but he had found that when it came to simple things like this it wasn’t very hard to invent a spell if he didn’t know the right one. Now, like so often, it was as if the words just appeared in his mind, and he simply had to speak them.
So he did.
One second later, Merlin couldn’t stop the surprised yelp that escaped his throat when his right foot was jerked forward without giving the rest of his body the chance to follow. Flailing his arms wildly to keep his balance, he threw away everything he had happened to hold in his hands, until his other foot was pulled away from beneath him and the fight for balance was lost.
His repeated yelps finally drew the attention of the knights (and Arthur, oh, he would never live this down!) who turned to watch with empty confusion written on their faces as Merlin stumbled a few very long and very fast steps forward while spilling equipment in all directions, before his upper body completely gave up its attempt to keep up with his legs. Merlin would have landed on his backside, but was saved from that by another overly enthusiastic step of his boots which threw him forward, and so Merlin landed on his face instead. At a rather high speed. And down a slope, as his boots were running stubbornly on in a straight line, without keeping to the path. It resulted in him somersaulting and rolling down the slope in what he supposed was a spectacular fashion, until he finally came to rest on the crushed remains of his backpack.
For about a second he believed himself safe.
Then his legs jerked again as the boots continued to move. Without ground underneath them they were treading the air, violently, then they found the ground and tried to run on with the rest of him lying flat. It twisted his ankles in a rather painful way, but Merlin barely noticed the pain over the thought of how utterly stupid he had to look right now, in front of everyone and Arthur.
He was a lot slower now, but moving forward none the less. His shirt was dragged up as he was pulled over the wet leaves covering the ground. Up on the path Merlin could see the knights staring down at him while he was pulled further and further toward the thorny bushes in front of him.
There was no way to stop it. Even if Merlin had been able to come up with the right words - and right now his mind was inconveniently empty - he could not have said them in front of everyone’s eyes. It would have been slightly suspicious if he’d shouted a random, incomprehensible phrase and his obviously cursed boots stopped moving. Oh no. Even Merlin could recognize a bad idea when he saw one.
His cursed boots reminded him that he was being delusional.
So for lack of any other option, Merlin did the only thing that could still save him.
“Somebody help me!” he cried, in a panic that wasn’t completely acted. “Evil sorcery has infested my boots!” His boots kicked the air for confirmation.
Up on the path, Arthur barked an order to his knights, before jumping down the slope to Merlin’s side. The knights followed, forming a circle around them with their swords drawn, ready to defend them against any evil sorcerer that might show up while Arthur fought a brave battle against Merlin’s feet. He gained some kicks from the right one before he managed to pull off the left boot, and Merlin already knew there’d be some retribution to pay for that later - by him, naturally. Right now he only cared that he was half freed and even ignored that it probably made him look twice stupid. At least the knights weren’t staring at him anymore. They seemed nervous as they kept their eyes fixed on the trees, and Merlin might have felt guilty for scaring everyone, had the state of their nerves not been the least of his concerns.
Arthur had to trap Merlin’s struggling leg between his tighs and use both his hands to tear at the boot. When it came off, the prince nearly fell over, only barely escaping landing on Merlin. Perhaps that would have been for the better, as it would have spared Merlin the sight of the boot in question joining its impatiently hopping counterpart, and together they took off into the woods without him.
Immediately Arthur pulled out his sword to join the others in their watch for the evil sorcerer. The evil sorcerer, meanwhile, climbed to his feet, wincing at the sensation of naked toes sinking into the cold, damp earth.
“We’ll return to the castle immediately,” Arthur ordered. “It’s not safe to stay with the sorcerer around or to hunt for him unprepared.”
“Uhm,” Merlin dared to mention. “I don’t think the sorcerer is too dangerous. After all, he could have killed us all, and only cast a spell to make me look stupid.”
You are stupid, his cold, wet feet seemed to whisper to him. Shut up! We’re cold and wet and want to go home.
Arthur didn’t even take the time for a full glare, but sufficed with a brief glance over his shoulder. “I didn’t know you needed a spell for that.”
No, but it helps, Merlin thought, wisely keeping his mouth shut.
They quickly made their way back to the castle, the knights and Arthur on edge and jumping at every branch breaking under their feet. Merlin, meanwhile, wondered if it would be too much to ask for a short break so he could pick an appropriate tree and bang his head repeatedly against the trunk.
-
They arrived at the castle without another incident. The first thing Arthur did after they entered the city walls was send Merlin home to get some new footwear and have Gaius take care of the various cuts the idiot kept complaining about. (Arthur was certain it wasn’t as bad as Merlin made it out to be; if all his manservant had said were true, half of his toes had frozen off by now and were strewn all over the path. He was exaggerating, as all his toes were still attached to his feet and only slightly bluish. Arthur knew - he’d checked. Twice.)
There were two more things he needed to do, both being utterly unavoidable. While Arthur could hardly wait for one of those things to happen, he knew he would have to, as the other came first. So he pulled himself together a little longer and went to do what duty and necessity commanded him to do now: tell his father of the incident.
He didn’t look forward to it.
The conversation, when it came, turned out exactly how Arthur had expected it. The moment the King heard the word Sorcerer, he insisted on Arthur going out to find them. The argument that the sorcerer in question was obviously a harmless idiot Arthur didn’t bring in the end - he could very well imagine his father’s response to that.
Since night had fallen while they talked, Arthur was dismissed with the order to ride out with his knights at first light the next day and not return before they had the sorcerer in chains, or, alternatively, his head on a stick. Uther was flexible in that regard.
Once he had given the order to prepare for everything to the two knights accompanying him, Arthur could finally take care of the third thing he had to do. It was something he would have liked to get out of his system before talking to his father, but there had been no time for it. While Arthur had enough practice in swallowing things like this until he was on his own - and the king’s presence always helped greatly - he still cursed Merlin for getting him into this situation.
He hurried to his rooms, though just slow enough to make it seem like he wasn’t actually in a hurry. His expression remained appropriately serious, as would be expected with a dangerous creature roaming the woods around the city, while the incident in the forest played over and over in his head.
Once he had closed the door of his room and locked it, Arthur fell onto his bed and buried his face in the pillow to muffle his laughter.
-
As soon as he’d been alone, Merlin had walked back to the edge of the forest to send a recall spell after his boots. Since he had made the spell up on the spot and his boots had gotten quite far by now and possibly off a cliff or into a river, he had no way of telling if it had worked. Merlin tried anyway - his collection of footwear wasn’t very large.
Gaius, mercifully, hadn’t been home when he returned to their chambers. Unfortunately the physician came back before Merlin had found a good place to hide, and naturally he had heard of the sorcerer rumoured to be the cause for the current ban on leaving the city. And just as naturally, the first thing he did upon entering the house was asking Merlin if he happened to know anything about it (in this manner of his that really meant ‘I know it was you, so don’t deny it, for even if you do deny it, I’ll still know it was you. I do not approve.’)
So Merlin told him what had happened, and found out in the process that there was no way to make this story sound heroic, dramatic, or any less pathetic.
When a messenger arrived to tell Merlin that he was supposed to accompany the prince and his knights at dawn to find and take out the sorcerer, Gaius merely snorted and went to sleep. It told Merlin to take care of the mess he caused himself better than words ever could have.
Night was short for the young warlock. He sneaked out of the city long before dawn, to sit down and wait in the cold for his boots to return. He had to wait for a log time. So long, in fact, that he nearly came too late for the leaving of the sorcerer hunters, as his boots had arrived in a pitiful condition. After trying to find them beneath all the dirt they had gathered, Merlin decided to use magic on them one more time in the safety on his home, getting them so clean they looked like they had never been worn before. Unfortunately, Gaius had seen it.
The day had barely started, and already Merlin could tell that it was not going to be any better than the one before.
“I don’t understand why I have to be here,” Merlin complained as they walked through the still mostly dark forest. “I’m not a fighter. I couldn’t possibly be of use to you.” And his bed certainly felt lonely and abandoned after he’d been away for so long, and without warning on top of it. Perhaps it thought he had affair with another person’s bed and was getting jealous. It would explain its recent crankiness. (As would its age, but Merlin preferred the jealousy idea, because there really was a bed he would have liked to sleep in every night, and he didn’t even feel guilty about it.)
“Isn’t it obvious?” Arthur asked. “The sorcerer attacked you the last time. Only you.”
Merlin thought about that.
“So I’m the bait,” he realised. “Great. I’m glad I can be of use to you, your highness.” Knowing that there was absolutely nothing out here threatening his life didn’t stop Merlin from feeling insulted.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Arthur said, sounding like he meant it. “I’m going to protect you.”
“How sweet.” It would have been even better with the ‘You are a useless damsel in distress who needs protecting, by me, the brave prince on a white horse’ grin. (Arthur could pull it off even without the horse.) “And how are you going to defend me against magic? Last time we didn’t even see the sorcerer. How will you fight something that is invisible and can attack us from a distance?”
They had fallen behind the other knights, and Merlin noticed for the first time that Arthur seemed remarkably relaxed for someone on a potentially deadly mission. Before, while he had been trying to figure out how to stop this search before every tree in the forest had been cut down and burned to take out potential hiding places, it had slipped his attention.
“Merlin,” the prince said, wrapping an arm around his servant’s shoulder, “I am absolutely sure that neither you nor any of us has anything to fear from this sorcerer.”
“Oh?” Merlin didn’t move away from his touch. “And why is that?”
“Because evidently this sorcerer’s an idiot.” Arthur let his arm drop, and while he wasn’t looking at Merlin, the warlock could hear the eye-roll in his voice. “I don’t know what he was trying to accomplish when he cast a spell on your boots, but it certainly wasn’t making you jump like a drunken donkey, entertaining though it was. So I’d say he’s pretty incompetent. Incompetent, idiotic and useless, unable to accomplish even the simplest task without making a fool of himself. Wouldn’t you agree?”
No, Merlin wouldn’t agree at all. There were plenty of spells he had done just perfect, most of them used to save Arthur’s life, and he was about to point out just that when Arthur’s words finally sank in.
“Uhm…” he said. And then, “You know, I -”
“I don’t know anything,” Arthur snapped, the shift in his mood so sudden that Merlin jumped a step back. “I only know that there is a stupid but very real sorcerer out here, and that everyone and their dog know this as well, which means that we cannot return to the city without the corpse of a sorcerer to show, else my father will never calm down. Do you understand this?”
Merlin said nothing, staring at his boots instead. His polished, flawless if by now slightly dirty boots.
Arthur looked down as well. “I see you found new shoes,” he said, his voice perfectly neutral again.
Merlin was lost. “It was either buy new ones or borrow a pair from Gaius.”
“They look remarkably like your old ones.”
For someone who knew nothing, Arthur was unexpectedly perspective. Merlin refrained from pointing that out in favour of making the slightly confused statement “I didn’t know you paid so much attention to my feet.”
“Sometimes your feet are a welcome alternative to your face.”
“Like now? Is there something wrong with my face? Because you are staring at my feet pretty intently.”
Arthur sighed in a mixture of annoyance and exasperation. “There is so much wrong with your face I wouldn’t know where to start, Merlin. One of these things is that it’s still nearby. I know because I can hear it talking to me.”
“My feet in front of you might be an indication as well,” said Merlin, who wondered if he was going to have his face removed forcefully sometime in the next minute.
“You know, it’s only fair that you have to get out here with all us fighters. After all, it’s your fault we’re here. If you hadn’t been attacked, there would have been no need for all this.”
“If you hadn’t run so fast, I wouldn’t have been attacked.” Merlin was still trying to figure out where this was going, even as Arthur threw him a long-suffering glance.
“I don’t know how it happened, Merlin, but somehow I got used to your presence. I would even go so far as to say that I like you. Therefore I feel the need to point out to you that what you just said made no sense at all.”
“Right.” Merlin decided to keep quiet until he knew exactly what was expected of him right now. Arthur was always expecting something of him.
“I took you along because you are our best hope of luring out the sorcerer.”
“… right?” This was the point where he was supposed to do something. Merlin blinked.
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Will you go already? Lure him out, you idiot!”
“But Arthur, there is no -”
“I’m counting on you, Merlin. Else we’re going to sleep between trees for a very long time.” And with that Arthur simply sped up his steps to catch up with his knights, and Merlin was left standing there, still blinking.
Eventually he sighed, and disappeared into the undergrowth to find a sorcerer for killing.
-
“In the end, the sorcerer took out himself. There was nothing left but a burned carcass.”
The king didn’t look convinced. “How do you know it was him then, not another victim of his?”
“Because the corpse we found wasn’t entirely human. It had a human shape, but it wasn’t made of flesh and blood.” Arthur’s face, as far as Merlin could see it, remained professionally blank. “The skin was more like…” - for the first time, he stumbled a little - “…wood.”
Uther frowned down at him, and Merlin, and everyone else in the room. “Wood?”
“It was badly burned, but it definitely was not burned flesh,” Arthur explained, standing straight beside the table Merlin would have liked to hide beneath right now. “It turned to ashes when we tried to lift it off the ground.”
“And you think the sorcerer did this to himself? Why?”
“I wouldn’t know. Maybe he was stupid. Apart from another sorcerer attacking him, it’s the only explanation I can come up with.”
Still frowning in disbelief, the King shook his head. “Search the woods again tomorrow, see if there is any trace of another magic user around. The curfew will go on until we can be certain the forest is safe again.”
With that, they were dismissed. Merlin hurried after Arthur as he walked to his room with long steps. Freed of the king’s presence, he was finally able to breathe again.
“Attacked by another sorcerer? You just had to say that, didn’t you?” Merlin barely waited until the door had fallen shut behind him. “Now everyone’s going to be locked in the city even longer, except for lucky us who can run through the forest some more.”
“I would appreciate it if you stopped thinking my father was an idiot unable to reach that conclusion himself,” Arthur snapped back. “Seriously, Merlin: wood? A sorcerer made of wood?”
This conversation was going to be hard considering all the things Arthur insisted on not knowing. “Well, he was evidently magical, and had conveniently burned himself to a crisp before we could catch him. It wasn’t the worst possible outcome.”
“No. Some people might even say it was the best possible outcome. Especially those who keep drowning women suspected of sorcery because witches are supposed to float. A sorcerer evidently made of wood will be like a dream come true.”
Merlin, already drawing breath for a reply, snapped shut his mouth. He hadn’t thought of that.
Maybe Arthur was right and he really was an idiot. In the end, he’d only made things worse for people like him.
Staring down, Merlin heard the sigh, but only registered it when he felt a hand slap the back of his head with so little force it was just a breath away from ruffling his hair.
“Not that they needed any confirmation to go on before,” Arthur said, wandering over to his bed and flopping down on it. “In the end, I don’t think anything changed at all. Let’s just hope the next days go by without any magical incident, and things will return to normal pretty soon.” If Merlin hadn’t known better, he might have thought the prince was trying to comfort him. Which was just weird, because Arthur Pendragon didn’t comfort people.
Strangely, it was actually working.
“I’m sure nothing out of the ordinary will happen,” Merlin promised. “So, do you, uhm, require me for anything else?” Like burning at the stake? Merlin didn’t say it for he knew Arthur wouldn’t do that, but it would have been a good way to start the conversation Merlin felt they desperately needed to have.
The very same conversation Arthur seemed determined to avoid. “No. Go to bed. It’s late, and you need to get up early tomorrow. Again.” He lay back and covered his eyes with his arm, obviously tired.
“Yes, sire,” Merlin sighed, unhappily. He turned and the closed door looked like an enemy. “Don’t forget to take off your boots before you fall asleep.”
A pillow hit the back of his head. Merlin picked it up. “And this you’re going to need as well.”
Arthur groaned. “You’re still here! I never knew you were so desperate to help me undress.”
“I live for that moment,” Merlin said drily. And then he added, “My bed thinks I’m having an affair.”
Arthur blinked at him.
“Because I’m gone so often,” Merlin explained.
“You’re weird.”
“Ah, yes. I am. You figured it out.” It started to rain. Merlin heard the sound of the raindrops on the window. “Are you going to sack me for it?”
He managed not to hold his breath as he waited for the answer.
“I haven’t sacked you so far, have I?” Arthur thought for a second. “Not for long, I mean.”
“Yeah, but you might not have known just how weird I was just then.”
“You’re Merlin,” Arthur said, and there was, without doubt, some truth in that. Merlin wasn’t sure he knew what kind of truth it was, or if his truth differed from Arthur’s truth, but it made him feel warm all of a sudden, in the cold room. “That hasn’t changed at all, and that’s all I need to know about you.”
The temptation to tackle and kiss his prince was pretty strong. Instead Merlin broke into a wide, happy grin. “Thank you, Arthur.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“For. You know. Being you.” Merlin shrugged. “And all.” It gained him a snort.
“You won’t be thanking me tomorrow, should you fail to show up on time again. Now get out. I’m tired.” Merlin made it so far as to open the door before Arthur called, “And give me back my bloody pillow!”
March 21, 2009
Beta: nightrider101
Rating: PG
Pairing: Merlin/Arthur
Summary: Later, Merlin would blame the fact that he had lived all his life in a society that would murder him for using magic for his lack of practice in the practical use of magic.
Later, Merlin would blame the fact that he had lived all his life in a society that would murder him for using magic for his lack of practice in the practical use of magic. After all, how was he supposed to know? It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Brilliant, in fact.
While he was running through the forest after the other members of the hunting party, he blamed Arthur. He blamed Arthur for the fact that his boots were dirty, his feet wet, his hands cold and he was out of breath. He blamed Arthur because Arthur just had to have another hunting trip, despite the lousy weather and the fact that free time could be spent in so much more comfortable ways.
Alternatively, Merlin could have blamed the Mercian delegation that failed to arrive in Camelot in time and gave Arthur an unexpected afternoon off, or the king for having raised his son in such a way that Arthur had no idea whatsoever what to do with himself when there were no duties to fulfil or monsters to fight. Because this, Merlin was convinced, was the reason Arthur liked hunting so much - it was somewhat similar to what he did all day anyway, and the only free time activity he had ever been shown. (Possibly for the very same reason.)
He stuck to blaming Arthur, though, because blaming Arthur was something he was really, really, really good at.
So he was wet, cold, out of breath and full of resentment for the prince who had dragged him out into the freezing, cold afternoon as he was running after the others, who for some reason all were very much better at running than him. Even those in chainmail and armour. Merlin had to wonder about that, and not for the first time: what was the use of Arthur changing into his dark and practical hunting clothes when he was accompanied by a bunch of men in klonking armour and bright red cloaks?
He wasn’t going to complain though, because secretly Merlin happened to really like Arthur’s hunting clothes.
Another thing he had to wonder about was how he could run so fast and for so long if he had to save Arthur, but not if he had to keep up with a group of knights who thought he was an incompetent weakling anyway - and let him carry all their equipment.
Hunting usually was more fun than this. Because usually they didn’t run so much. But right now they were following a trail, trying to catch up with whatever they were out to kill this time before it got away, and that required running. For decidedly too long a time.
Arthur was jogging at the front of the group, only occasionally visible to Merlin when the wall of red cloaks before him parted, and showing no sign of exhaustion. Merlin, on the other hand, was ten metres away from falling on his face because he couldn’t lift his feet high enough any longer. Which was the point when he got his brilliant idea.
Why waste his energy for running, he wondered, if his magic could do the running for him?
It was a risk, but one easy to justify. Should, for example, a terrible mythical beast break out of the trees all of a sudden (as it happened on occasion), Merlin would not be able to protect his future king if he was lying on the ground fighting for breath. Also, since everyone was ahead of him, no one was looking at him, and so no one would notice his lips moving to whisper magical words drowned out by their footsteps and the noise of their armour.
Coming up with the right words to make his boots do all the running on their own wasn’t difficult. Not all magic of Merlin’s worked without the aid of a spell, but he had found that when it came to simple things like this it wasn’t very hard to invent a spell if he didn’t know the right one. Now, like so often, it was as if the words just appeared in his mind, and he simply had to speak them.
So he did.
One second later, Merlin couldn’t stop the surprised yelp that escaped his throat when his right foot was jerked forward without giving the rest of his body the chance to follow. Flailing his arms wildly to keep his balance, he threw away everything he had happened to hold in his hands, until his other foot was pulled away from beneath him and the fight for balance was lost.
His repeated yelps finally drew the attention of the knights (and Arthur, oh, he would never live this down!) who turned to watch with empty confusion written on their faces as Merlin stumbled a few very long and very fast steps forward while spilling equipment in all directions, before his upper body completely gave up its attempt to keep up with his legs. Merlin would have landed on his backside, but was saved from that by another overly enthusiastic step of his boots which threw him forward, and so Merlin landed on his face instead. At a rather high speed. And down a slope, as his boots were running stubbornly on in a straight line, without keeping to the path. It resulted in him somersaulting and rolling down the slope in what he supposed was a spectacular fashion, until he finally came to rest on the crushed remains of his backpack.
For about a second he believed himself safe.
Then his legs jerked again as the boots continued to move. Without ground underneath them they were treading the air, violently, then they found the ground and tried to run on with the rest of him lying flat. It twisted his ankles in a rather painful way, but Merlin barely noticed the pain over the thought of how utterly stupid he had to look right now, in front of everyone and Arthur.
He was a lot slower now, but moving forward none the less. His shirt was dragged up as he was pulled over the wet leaves covering the ground. Up on the path Merlin could see the knights staring down at him while he was pulled further and further toward the thorny bushes in front of him.
There was no way to stop it. Even if Merlin had been able to come up with the right words - and right now his mind was inconveniently empty - he could not have said them in front of everyone’s eyes. It would have been slightly suspicious if he’d shouted a random, incomprehensible phrase and his obviously cursed boots stopped moving. Oh no. Even Merlin could recognize a bad idea when he saw one.
His cursed boots reminded him that he was being delusional.
So for lack of any other option, Merlin did the only thing that could still save him.
“Somebody help me!” he cried, in a panic that wasn’t completely acted. “Evil sorcery has infested my boots!” His boots kicked the air for confirmation.
Up on the path, Arthur barked an order to his knights, before jumping down the slope to Merlin’s side. The knights followed, forming a circle around them with their swords drawn, ready to defend them against any evil sorcerer that might show up while Arthur fought a brave battle against Merlin’s feet. He gained some kicks from the right one before he managed to pull off the left boot, and Merlin already knew there’d be some retribution to pay for that later - by him, naturally. Right now he only cared that he was half freed and even ignored that it probably made him look twice stupid. At least the knights weren’t staring at him anymore. They seemed nervous as they kept their eyes fixed on the trees, and Merlin might have felt guilty for scaring everyone, had the state of their nerves not been the least of his concerns.
Arthur had to trap Merlin’s struggling leg between his tighs and use both his hands to tear at the boot. When it came off, the prince nearly fell over, only barely escaping landing on Merlin. Perhaps that would have been for the better, as it would have spared Merlin the sight of the boot in question joining its impatiently hopping counterpart, and together they took off into the woods without him.
Immediately Arthur pulled out his sword to join the others in their watch for the evil sorcerer. The evil sorcerer, meanwhile, climbed to his feet, wincing at the sensation of naked toes sinking into the cold, damp earth.
“We’ll return to the castle immediately,” Arthur ordered. “It’s not safe to stay with the sorcerer around or to hunt for him unprepared.”
“Uhm,” Merlin dared to mention. “I don’t think the sorcerer is too dangerous. After all, he could have killed us all, and only cast a spell to make me look stupid.”
You are stupid, his cold, wet feet seemed to whisper to him. Shut up! We’re cold and wet and want to go home.
Arthur didn’t even take the time for a full glare, but sufficed with a brief glance over his shoulder. “I didn’t know you needed a spell for that.”
No, but it helps, Merlin thought, wisely keeping his mouth shut.
They quickly made their way back to the castle, the knights and Arthur on edge and jumping at every branch breaking under their feet. Merlin, meanwhile, wondered if it would be too much to ask for a short break so he could pick an appropriate tree and bang his head repeatedly against the trunk.
-
They arrived at the castle without another incident. The first thing Arthur did after they entered the city walls was send Merlin home to get some new footwear and have Gaius take care of the various cuts the idiot kept complaining about. (Arthur was certain it wasn’t as bad as Merlin made it out to be; if all his manservant had said were true, half of his toes had frozen off by now and were strewn all over the path. He was exaggerating, as all his toes were still attached to his feet and only slightly bluish. Arthur knew - he’d checked. Twice.)
There were two more things he needed to do, both being utterly unavoidable. While Arthur could hardly wait for one of those things to happen, he knew he would have to, as the other came first. So he pulled himself together a little longer and went to do what duty and necessity commanded him to do now: tell his father of the incident.
He didn’t look forward to it.
The conversation, when it came, turned out exactly how Arthur had expected it. The moment the King heard the word Sorcerer, he insisted on Arthur going out to find them. The argument that the sorcerer in question was obviously a harmless idiot Arthur didn’t bring in the end - he could very well imagine his father’s response to that.
Since night had fallen while they talked, Arthur was dismissed with the order to ride out with his knights at first light the next day and not return before they had the sorcerer in chains, or, alternatively, his head on a stick. Uther was flexible in that regard.
Once he had given the order to prepare for everything to the two knights accompanying him, Arthur could finally take care of the third thing he had to do. It was something he would have liked to get out of his system before talking to his father, but there had been no time for it. While Arthur had enough practice in swallowing things like this until he was on his own - and the king’s presence always helped greatly - he still cursed Merlin for getting him into this situation.
He hurried to his rooms, though just slow enough to make it seem like he wasn’t actually in a hurry. His expression remained appropriately serious, as would be expected with a dangerous creature roaming the woods around the city, while the incident in the forest played over and over in his head.
Once he had closed the door of his room and locked it, Arthur fell onto his bed and buried his face in the pillow to muffle his laughter.
-
As soon as he’d been alone, Merlin had walked back to the edge of the forest to send a recall spell after his boots. Since he had made the spell up on the spot and his boots had gotten quite far by now and possibly off a cliff or into a river, he had no way of telling if it had worked. Merlin tried anyway - his collection of footwear wasn’t very large.
Gaius, mercifully, hadn’t been home when he returned to their chambers. Unfortunately the physician came back before Merlin had found a good place to hide, and naturally he had heard of the sorcerer rumoured to be the cause for the current ban on leaving the city. And just as naturally, the first thing he did upon entering the house was asking Merlin if he happened to know anything about it (in this manner of his that really meant ‘I know it was you, so don’t deny it, for even if you do deny it, I’ll still know it was you. I do not approve.’)
So Merlin told him what had happened, and found out in the process that there was no way to make this story sound heroic, dramatic, or any less pathetic.
When a messenger arrived to tell Merlin that he was supposed to accompany the prince and his knights at dawn to find and take out the sorcerer, Gaius merely snorted and went to sleep. It told Merlin to take care of the mess he caused himself better than words ever could have.
Night was short for the young warlock. He sneaked out of the city long before dawn, to sit down and wait in the cold for his boots to return. He had to wait for a log time. So long, in fact, that he nearly came too late for the leaving of the sorcerer hunters, as his boots had arrived in a pitiful condition. After trying to find them beneath all the dirt they had gathered, Merlin decided to use magic on them one more time in the safety on his home, getting them so clean they looked like they had never been worn before. Unfortunately, Gaius had seen it.
The day had barely started, and already Merlin could tell that it was not going to be any better than the one before.
“I don’t understand why I have to be here,” Merlin complained as they walked through the still mostly dark forest. “I’m not a fighter. I couldn’t possibly be of use to you.” And his bed certainly felt lonely and abandoned after he’d been away for so long, and without warning on top of it. Perhaps it thought he had affair with another person’s bed and was getting jealous. It would explain its recent crankiness. (As would its age, but Merlin preferred the jealousy idea, because there really was a bed he would have liked to sleep in every night, and he didn’t even feel guilty about it.)
“Isn’t it obvious?” Arthur asked. “The sorcerer attacked you the last time. Only you.”
Merlin thought about that.
“So I’m the bait,” he realised. “Great. I’m glad I can be of use to you, your highness.” Knowing that there was absolutely nothing out here threatening his life didn’t stop Merlin from feeling insulted.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Arthur said, sounding like he meant it. “I’m going to protect you.”
“How sweet.” It would have been even better with the ‘You are a useless damsel in distress who needs protecting, by me, the brave prince on a white horse’ grin. (Arthur could pull it off even without the horse.) “And how are you going to defend me against magic? Last time we didn’t even see the sorcerer. How will you fight something that is invisible and can attack us from a distance?”
They had fallen behind the other knights, and Merlin noticed for the first time that Arthur seemed remarkably relaxed for someone on a potentially deadly mission. Before, while he had been trying to figure out how to stop this search before every tree in the forest had been cut down and burned to take out potential hiding places, it had slipped his attention.
“Merlin,” the prince said, wrapping an arm around his servant’s shoulder, “I am absolutely sure that neither you nor any of us has anything to fear from this sorcerer.”
“Oh?” Merlin didn’t move away from his touch. “And why is that?”
“Because evidently this sorcerer’s an idiot.” Arthur let his arm drop, and while he wasn’t looking at Merlin, the warlock could hear the eye-roll in his voice. “I don’t know what he was trying to accomplish when he cast a spell on your boots, but it certainly wasn’t making you jump like a drunken donkey, entertaining though it was. So I’d say he’s pretty incompetent. Incompetent, idiotic and useless, unable to accomplish even the simplest task without making a fool of himself. Wouldn’t you agree?”
No, Merlin wouldn’t agree at all. There were plenty of spells he had done just perfect, most of them used to save Arthur’s life, and he was about to point out just that when Arthur’s words finally sank in.
“Uhm…” he said. And then, “You know, I -”
“I don’t know anything,” Arthur snapped, the shift in his mood so sudden that Merlin jumped a step back. “I only know that there is a stupid but very real sorcerer out here, and that everyone and their dog know this as well, which means that we cannot return to the city without the corpse of a sorcerer to show, else my father will never calm down. Do you understand this?”
Merlin said nothing, staring at his boots instead. His polished, flawless if by now slightly dirty boots.
Arthur looked down as well. “I see you found new shoes,” he said, his voice perfectly neutral again.
Merlin was lost. “It was either buy new ones or borrow a pair from Gaius.”
“They look remarkably like your old ones.”
For someone who knew nothing, Arthur was unexpectedly perspective. Merlin refrained from pointing that out in favour of making the slightly confused statement “I didn’t know you paid so much attention to my feet.”
“Sometimes your feet are a welcome alternative to your face.”
“Like now? Is there something wrong with my face? Because you are staring at my feet pretty intently.”
Arthur sighed in a mixture of annoyance and exasperation. “There is so much wrong with your face I wouldn’t know where to start, Merlin. One of these things is that it’s still nearby. I know because I can hear it talking to me.”
“My feet in front of you might be an indication as well,” said Merlin, who wondered if he was going to have his face removed forcefully sometime in the next minute.
“You know, it’s only fair that you have to get out here with all us fighters. After all, it’s your fault we’re here. If you hadn’t been attacked, there would have been no need for all this.”
“If you hadn’t run so fast, I wouldn’t have been attacked.” Merlin was still trying to figure out where this was going, even as Arthur threw him a long-suffering glance.
“I don’t know how it happened, Merlin, but somehow I got used to your presence. I would even go so far as to say that I like you. Therefore I feel the need to point out to you that what you just said made no sense at all.”
“Right.” Merlin decided to keep quiet until he knew exactly what was expected of him right now. Arthur was always expecting something of him.
“I took you along because you are our best hope of luring out the sorcerer.”
“… right?” This was the point where he was supposed to do something. Merlin blinked.
Arthur rolled his eyes. “Will you go already? Lure him out, you idiot!”
“But Arthur, there is no -”
“I’m counting on you, Merlin. Else we’re going to sleep between trees for a very long time.” And with that Arthur simply sped up his steps to catch up with his knights, and Merlin was left standing there, still blinking.
Eventually he sighed, and disappeared into the undergrowth to find a sorcerer for killing.
-
“In the end, the sorcerer took out himself. There was nothing left but a burned carcass.”
The king didn’t look convinced. “How do you know it was him then, not another victim of his?”
“Because the corpse we found wasn’t entirely human. It had a human shape, but it wasn’t made of flesh and blood.” Arthur’s face, as far as Merlin could see it, remained professionally blank. “The skin was more like…” - for the first time, he stumbled a little - “…wood.”
Uther frowned down at him, and Merlin, and everyone else in the room. “Wood?”
“It was badly burned, but it definitely was not burned flesh,” Arthur explained, standing straight beside the table Merlin would have liked to hide beneath right now. “It turned to ashes when we tried to lift it off the ground.”
“And you think the sorcerer did this to himself? Why?”
“I wouldn’t know. Maybe he was stupid. Apart from another sorcerer attacking him, it’s the only explanation I can come up with.”
Still frowning in disbelief, the King shook his head. “Search the woods again tomorrow, see if there is any trace of another magic user around. The curfew will go on until we can be certain the forest is safe again.”
With that, they were dismissed. Merlin hurried after Arthur as he walked to his room with long steps. Freed of the king’s presence, he was finally able to breathe again.
“Attacked by another sorcerer? You just had to say that, didn’t you?” Merlin barely waited until the door had fallen shut behind him. “Now everyone’s going to be locked in the city even longer, except for lucky us who can run through the forest some more.”
“I would appreciate it if you stopped thinking my father was an idiot unable to reach that conclusion himself,” Arthur snapped back. “Seriously, Merlin: wood? A sorcerer made of wood?”
This conversation was going to be hard considering all the things Arthur insisted on not knowing. “Well, he was evidently magical, and had conveniently burned himself to a crisp before we could catch him. It wasn’t the worst possible outcome.”
“No. Some people might even say it was the best possible outcome. Especially those who keep drowning women suspected of sorcery because witches are supposed to float. A sorcerer evidently made of wood will be like a dream come true.”
Merlin, already drawing breath for a reply, snapped shut his mouth. He hadn’t thought of that.
Maybe Arthur was right and he really was an idiot. In the end, he’d only made things worse for people like him.
Staring down, Merlin heard the sigh, but only registered it when he felt a hand slap the back of his head with so little force it was just a breath away from ruffling his hair.
“Not that they needed any confirmation to go on before,” Arthur said, wandering over to his bed and flopping down on it. “In the end, I don’t think anything changed at all. Let’s just hope the next days go by without any magical incident, and things will return to normal pretty soon.” If Merlin hadn’t known better, he might have thought the prince was trying to comfort him. Which was just weird, because Arthur Pendragon didn’t comfort people.
Strangely, it was actually working.
“I’m sure nothing out of the ordinary will happen,” Merlin promised. “So, do you, uhm, require me for anything else?” Like burning at the stake? Merlin didn’t say it for he knew Arthur wouldn’t do that, but it would have been a good way to start the conversation Merlin felt they desperately needed to have.
The very same conversation Arthur seemed determined to avoid. “No. Go to bed. It’s late, and you need to get up early tomorrow. Again.” He lay back and covered his eyes with his arm, obviously tired.
“Yes, sire,” Merlin sighed, unhappily. He turned and the closed door looked like an enemy. “Don’t forget to take off your boots before you fall asleep.”
A pillow hit the back of his head. Merlin picked it up. “And this you’re going to need as well.”
Arthur groaned. “You’re still here! I never knew you were so desperate to help me undress.”
“I live for that moment,” Merlin said drily. And then he added, “My bed thinks I’m having an affair.”
Arthur blinked at him.
“Because I’m gone so often,” Merlin explained.
“You’re weird.”
“Ah, yes. I am. You figured it out.” It started to rain. Merlin heard the sound of the raindrops on the window. “Are you going to sack me for it?”
He managed not to hold his breath as he waited for the answer.
“I haven’t sacked you so far, have I?” Arthur thought for a second. “Not for long, I mean.”
“Yeah, but you might not have known just how weird I was just then.”
“You’re Merlin,” Arthur said, and there was, without doubt, some truth in that. Merlin wasn’t sure he knew what kind of truth it was, or if his truth differed from Arthur’s truth, but it made him feel warm all of a sudden, in the cold room. “That hasn’t changed at all, and that’s all I need to know about you.”
The temptation to tackle and kiss his prince was pretty strong. Instead Merlin broke into a wide, happy grin. “Thank you, Arthur.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“For. You know. Being you.” Merlin shrugged. “And all.” It gained him a snort.
“You won’t be thanking me tomorrow, should you fail to show up on time again. Now get out. I’m tired.” Merlin made it so far as to open the door before Arthur called, “And give me back my bloody pillow!”
March 21, 2009