Merlin: A Chuisle (1)
Woo! It is finally done and ready to be posted! To be posted in five chapters, ideally once a day~ As a note, Jen is amazing and awesome and contributed greatly to this story, both with proofreading and brainstorming. <3 I could not have done it without you~
For the record, "a chuisle" means "my heart" or "my pulse" in Gaelic. I admit I got the phrase from a horrible boyslove book a read a while back, but it was Gaelic and that meant I had to use it for a Merlinfic! I'll probably translate the rest of the Gaelic in the story in the last chapter, just to keep it all together.
Rated probably PG-13 overall, ~26,000 words. This chapter is 5,234 words.
A Chuisle: Chapter 1
It wasn’t a spell that Merlin knew; the words hadn’t been pre-planned or rehearsed. In fact, he could very well claim he hadn’t really been in charge of all (or any) of his faculties at the time. All he knew was that, as he watched Arthur single-handedly face down a group of attackers with all the stupidity and tenacity of which he was capable, Merlin couldn’t allow it to end like this.
The hunting trip had gone well - spring was in the air and the bite of winter had begun to diminish, leaving the ground soft and fertile and the wildlife abundant and daring. And indeed, by mid-afternoon Arthur had sent his fellow knights back to the castle with their kills, saying that he and Merlin would scout deeper into the forest and return the next night.
But things hadn’t turned out quite as planned. Merlin had been woken in the night with a knife at his throat and threats whispered into his ear; he’d been pulled from his bedroll and bound and gagged, left at the far end of the clearing he and Arthur had picked as a resting place and he’d watched, with wide eyes and a racing mind, as a group of five shadows had descended upon the sleeping prince.
But Arthur was a more formidable opponent than these bandits had thought - he’d sprung into action as they neared, leaping out of his blankets and facing them down, anger and rage in his blue, moonlit eyes. Merlin felt a surge of something flare in his stomach as he watched, immobilized - it was an indistinct feeling somewhere between relief and terror. Arthur would save him and all would be well once more… or Arthur would die, and nothing would be right ever again.
And one of those options was clearly not acceptable.
But what could Merlin do, bound and gagged as he was? He could speak no spells without the use of his mouth, and though he could move objects and pause time for an instant, it did him no good in the end. He fought desperately, wordlessly, even as Arthur fought valiantly, his sword a silver streak of lightning in the moonlight. But they were outnumbered and Arthur was clearly ill-equipped for battle. He’d taken down two men, now lying dead in the dirt, but three were still very much alive, and angrier than before.
“Who are you?” Arthur asked for perhaps the third time, breath coming heavily as he kept a wary eye on his circling attackers. The point of his sword followed their every movement, but Merlin couldn’t help but notice that it wavered where once it had not. Arthur was tiring.
“No one you need concern yourself with,” the largest of them said. “But your body will fetch an impressive price from our master, little prince.”
And then he leaped at Arthur. Merlin’s heart skipped several beats; there was a scuffle, a shout, and Arthur and his attacker went over into the dirt. Then suddenly there was silence. The moonlit forest stood perfectly still.
Merlin’s eyes were so wide he felt like they might burst from his head; he could hear his heart in his ears, beating a frantic rhythm against his ribcage, and a low, keening whine escaped his throat. Was Arthur all right? Had Merlin just allowed, through his ineptitude, his prince and his destiny to be killed?
He knew the truth a moment later, when the bandit stood and wiped his sword on his sleeve.
Merlin felt sick, felt too hot and too cold all at once. He felt something lurch and twist in his stomach - grief - and the world seemed to spin and grow black around the edges. In an instant his mind was no longer filled with sane thoughts, and then there were no thoughts at all - only grief, sickening grief, and loss.
Then something else lurched within him - magic, pure and raw and with a mind of its own, burning up through him like a pillar of light. It burned him from the inside out, until he was encased in a shining cocoon; it burnt away his clothing - and with it, his bonds. The gag dissolved from his lips and without a thought of his own Merlin’s eyes locked onto Arthur’s attackers - Arthur’s murderers - and he spoke.
“Ar thine!” he cried, screaming the words into the night.
White-hot power engulfed the hapless bandits where they stood, burning them to ash in seconds, with only their cut-off screams left behind them. The light that had flared was gone; Merlin’s gaze fell upon the ground, to the body that lay there cooling, and despite the searing heat of the power flowing through him, his eyes filled with tears. A lump in his throat swelled until he was sure he would never speak again. Sadness overcame him, sadness stronger than the magic, and as the last of it burnt itself from his body, he heard himself say, “Anamchara a chuisle mo chroí!” into the darkness as it engulfed him and swallowed him whole.
*
“Merlin.”
There was a voice, calling him. It sounded very far away; it did not concern Merlin much. He was someplace warm, someplace where everything was at peace, and he did not want to leave.
“Merlin!”
The voice grew more insistent; Merlin frowned as it began to unravel the edges of this place, pulling him back to somewhere he had been, back somewhere cold and uncomfortable. Slowly, sensation returned. He was sore, and his body ached as he shifted.
“Merlin, I know you can hear me. Wake up, you idiot.”
Merlin blinked and the remainder of his dream dissolved from around him; he was lying on the forest floor, cold and uncomfortable and very, very naked. The sun was just rising in the east, hidden by the trees, and the sky was a brilliant pale orange streaked with blue. Arthur was leaning over him in the growing light, features ashen but wry, and his mouth now twisted into a bemused half-smile as he saw his manservant wake. There was blood all down his front, and a tear in his shirt at heart-height. But he was unharmed, save for a few bruises and scrapes that were hardly life-threatening.
Merlin suddenly remembered the night before and thought he might have gone to heaven, except that wouldn’t explain the tree root digging uncomfortably into his side, or the nakedness, or the cold.
“There you are,” Arthur was saying, rocking back on his heels as he leaned over Merlin, balancing with hands on his knees. “Now, dare I ask why you are sleeping over here, naked as the day you were born, while I clearly had to do all of the work? God, I feel like death warmed over. I must have driven the rest of them away.” He looked over his shoulder to the two corpses on the ground.
Merlin blinked slowly. “You must have.” The words felt strange in his mouth, like his tongue and lips were dry and parched and swollen. He felt confused, it was difficult to breathe and his thoughts were moving about too quickly in his head for him to hear them properly.
Arthur’s face suddenly came into view, blocking the morning light and looking concerned, as though a particularly unpleasant thought had just occurred to him. “Merlin,” he said quietly, any humor gone, “did they…” He glanced down at Merlin’s nakedness with uncharacteristic worry, and Merlin felt his face begin to heat.
“No!” he said, and tried to squirm away from Arthur a bit, feeling distinctly embarrassed by what Arthur was implying despite the prince’s concern. He was suddenly aware of how exposed he was; of course, he’d seen Arthur naked before, but Arthur had not seen him -
The relief on Arthur’s face lasted only a fleeting instant before the wry humor was back. “Well then, don’t expect me to give you my pants,” he said primly, as his face grew thoughtful. Then, after a moment, he picked up Merlin’s rumpled blanket and tossed it over to his manservant. “You’ll just have to wear that.”
Merlin stared first at the brown wool blanket in his lap, then at the prince standing in the growing light of morning, his hair a blonde halo and his lips twisted into a smirk. “Why thank you, sire,” he said, and wrapped the blanket around him until he was reasonably satisfied that it wasn’t going to fall off. Arthur had gone to look at the bodies of the men he’d dispatched in the night, crouching over them as though they could tell them their names and purposes in death as they had not in life.
Once Merlin was clothed (or at least as passably covered as he was going to get), Arthur stood and looked around the clearing. “Let’s head for Camelot,” he said. “I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
Merlin could not agree more. The broke camp and made for home; the journey was a slow and uncomfortable one for Merlin, having no shoes and still carrying their amassed things on their back while trying to keep the blanket wrapped about him. Arthur kept glancing at him as they walked, his expression opaque and unreadable, but he said little. That was just as well for Merlin, whose thoughts were racing as he tried to put together what had happened last night. He could only remember pieces, as though something had burnt holes in his memory. But he remembered the attack, remembered feeling guilty and helpless, remembered Arthur being overpowered. And then he remembered white-hot light, and words he didn’t know ringing in his ears, and then he’d known nothing until this morning. All he knew was that he felt relieved and worried at the same time, and his stomach seemed content to tie itself in knots.
There was very little conversation until they finally crested the hills above Camelot and the castle came into view. The journey had taken most of the day, and the sun was fat and red just above the western horizon. It was then that Arthur glanced back over his shoulder at Merlin, and that wry expression returned. “I’m going back first. You wait twenty minutes and then follow me.” He paused. “I don’t think I’ll need your services until the morning.”
Merlin sighed. Coming from Arthur, he supposed that was an attempt to spare them both any rumors that would arise from Merlin’s current state of dress, and the evening off was not unwelcome. Though, he mused as he watched Arthur’s back recede in the distance, he wasn’t sure how much rest he was going to get. He had a feeling that Gaius was going to want an explanation and, knowing the physician, he wouldn’t let Merlin rest until he’d gotten it.
And, of course, Merlin was right. He’d barely closed the door of Gaius’ workroom when there was a shuffling of papers and the old man’s voice asked, “Good lord, Merlin, what happened to you?”
Merlin trudged over to the workbench and collapsed bonelessly onto a stool, letting the pack fall from his shoulders before he chanced a look up at Gaius. The physician’s eyes were locked on his, one eyebrow raised in an expression with which Merlin was quite familiar - it was the look Gaius always gave him when he knew that something magical had happened, and that it had clearly been Merlin’s fault.
“Merlin…” he said, but his voice held less warning than concern. “Tell me what happened.”
“I’m not entirely sure, myself,” Merlin admitted tiredly, but before he could think about it too much he’d launched into the entire tale, starting with being woken by the bandits until he and Arthur had crested the last hill before Camelot. He tried to fill in as much detail as possible, as much for himself as for Gaius’ benefit. But reliving the events through the telling wasn’t any more helpful, and he was still vague on what were likely the most important parts.
Gaius listened silently until Merlin was done. “That’s quite a tale,” he said finally, and his expression now held nothing but concern. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” Merlin said, taking a drink from the cup of water Gaius had poured for him halfway through his tale. “Burnt out, sort of.”
“I should say so,” Gaius murmured, searching Merlin’s face as though his features held the rest of the story. “I’ve never heard of magic doing something like that before… But then,” he smiled faintly, “you are a sorcerer the likes of which the world has never seen. And you say you don’t know what spell you used?”
Merlin shook his head. “I don’t even remember the words.” He’d been trying; he felt like they were on the tip of his tongue, at the edge of his memory, but the harder he tried to think of them, the farther they were from his mind’s reach.
“Hm,” Gaius hummed, tapping a finger on the table. “Well, it is clear that whatever happened, you saved Arthur’s life, and he does not suspect that magic was used. I suppose we ought to be thankful for that.”
Merlin nodded, by now too tired to feel much relief, and lifted himself stiffly from the stool. “I think I’m going to get some sleep,” he said, and Gaius nodded, watching the boy disappear into his room. Once the door was shut it was all Merlin could do to unwind the blanket from around himself and fall, facedown, onto the bed. In the next instant he was asleep.
*
Things proceeded normally for the next week or so, with neither Arthur nor Merlin speaking to each other about what had happened. Arthur had of course told Uther about the attack, but his version involved the daring rescue of his kidnapped manservant and Arthur’s having sent the bandits running in fear. Merlin supposed that he could let Arthur have this tale, seeing as his version would only get him an appointment with the executioner. A band of knights was dispatched into the surrounding territories to try to flush out whoever might have hired the bandits, and in Camelot life went on much the way it always did.
Until Arthur had his first attack.
It hadn’t been a comfortable day for Merlin, to begin with. The spring tournament was set to begin that afternoon, and he’d been cleaning and polishing Arthur’s armor all week until it shone brighter than the sun. Arthur had called him in early that day to check and re-check each piece before it was placed upon him, but finally Arthur was dressed and armored to his satisfaction. Merlin handed him his sword, bowed his head, and wished the prince luck.
And then there had been the waiting. Arthur had won the previous year’s tournament, and so he was not to fight until most of the competition had been eliminated. Merlin watched from the sidelines, eyes following each opponent as a hawk might follow its prey. This was the same tournament at which, a year ago, Valiant had tried to use an enchanted shield to kill the prince. Merlin would have no such thing happen again.
And so Merlin watched, heart racing faster as round after round brought them closer to the time when Arthur would fight. He knew Arthur was competent - more than competent, really; he was the best knight in Camelot and Merlin knew it as well as anyone else - but there was something in him that would not let him relax whenever Arthur was in armor. Every time Arthur stepped into that arena of beaten earth, Merlin’s heart would race and his stomach would twist. He supposed, wryly, that if Arthur claimed not to get nervous over such things, then Merlin would do it for the both of them.
In the stands, Arthur frowned, shifting in his chair. Merlin saw him roll his shoulders and make a face. He excused himself and Merlin skirted the arena to meet him behind the stands, thinking perhaps he needed something. He found Arthur in the shadow of the tents that littered the grounds just behind the arena, head pressed against one of the wooden support beams. He was taking deep breaths. Merlin’s stomach clenched.
“My lord?” he asked softly, approaching Arthur as he might approach a frightened doe. “Are you well?”
Arthur’s head snapped up and his eyes glared at Merlin; eyes that were just a bit wilder blue than normal. Merlin’s heart beat a faster pace. “Arthur?”
“I’m fine,” the prince snapped, and took another breath. “Just… bring me some water, Merlin.”
Merlin obeyed, brow knitted with worry, but when he returned Arthur seemed better; the prince drank the water he was brought and watched Merlin for a moment with quiet, dark eyes. “I’m fine,” he said, though Merlin hadn’t asked again if he was. Then he’d stomped back around to take his seat in the stands once more.
Arthur’s opponent was large and well-trained; as he watched them Merlin’s heart was like a stallion racing across an open field, pounding out a rhythm in his chest that quickened every time Arthur fumbled, every time he paused or jerked in a way that broke the flow of the fight. It was a strange dance that Arthur went through, ducking and weaving before stumbling and recovering, and the prince’s body seemed to betray him somehow at the most inopportune of moments. But Arthur won, in the end, and as the cheers went up among the crowd Merlin felt he could breathe once more. As he lifted the prince’s helm from his head afterwards, Merlin saw that Arthur’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes glassy.
“Are you really all right?” he asked, but was answered with only the hilt of the prince’s sword thrust in his face.
“I’m fine. I won, didn’t I?” Arthur asked, and his voice was low and tight and although he wanted to enquire further, Merlin kept his mouth shut and simply helped Arthur remove the rest of his armor. His heart may have calmed, but his stomach was still in knots as he cleaned and dressed the prince for the celebratory feast, and although his job of bringing food and wine to the table was simple, it felt a chore not to trip over his own feet as he tried to watch Arthur all evening. But the prince gave no other outward signs of anything being amiss, and Merlin went to bed exhausted and worried that night, with no answers to a question that he wasn’t even sure how to ask.
When he woke late the next morning, he heard voices beyond his closed door. Rubbing his eyes, he crept to the door and put his ear to the wood, trying to make out the conversation taking place just beyond it.
“… you sure, my lord?” That was Gaius - and there were only two people he would call by that title.
“I can’t explain it much better than that, I’m afraid.” That was Arthur’s voice; Merlin had tumbled out into the room almost before he knew what was happening. Arthur and Gaius froze mid-conversation, their faces blank for a moment before Arthur’s features twisted into amusement and he began to chuckle. “Well, I see that unless I send for you first thing, all you do is lie about all morning. I shall have to see to that, tomorrow.”
Merlin felt his face heat and resisted the urge to scrunch his nose defiantly in Arthur’s general direction. Instead he came down the steps into Gaius’ workroom, the floor cool against his bare feet, and asked, “Is there something wrong?”
Arthur shifted uncomfortably, as though he didn’t want an audience while he described whatever he’d come for to Gaius. Merlin felt vaguely hurt, but sighed and turned back towards his room. “Well, if you don’t want me here, then - ”
“No,” Arthur said, his voice sounding somewhat defeated, “No, it’s fine. You can stay.”
Merlin turned back around and came further into the room, seating himself on a stool by the workbench. Gaius, who had been watching Merlin with one eyebrow raised as he approached, turned back to Arthur with a professional air. “Now, my lord, you were saying…?”
Arthur scowled a bit, looked at his hands. “It’s the oddest thing. I’ve never felt nervous before - certainly not that nervous. Not since my first tournament, and even then I don’t recall it being that bad.” He glanced over at Merlin, then back to Gaius. “It wasn’t even while I was fighting, necessarily. My insides were in knots well into the evening.”
Merlin realized that Arthur was talking about the previous day’s events - he sat up a little straighter, with the air of someone whose suspicions were being confirmed. After all, they were - he’d been so sure that something was wrong with Arthur yesterday, and to hear the prince admit it himself was somewhat gratifying. Or, well, it would have been if it hadn’t made him worry about what might be wrong with the prince all over again.
“Hm,” Gaius hummed thoughtfully, looking at Arthur as though a visual examination might give him some clue as to the ailment. But clearly it could not, and after a moment he waved to the cot in the middle of the room and bade Arthur to sit. “Take off your shirt.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow in Merlin’s direction, and lifted his arms. It took a moment, but belatedly Merlin realized that Arthur expected help with this task. Merlin rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, feeling rather put-upon as he rose from the stool to help tug Arthur’s shirt from his body. “You know, my lord, you do know how to do this yourself. Clearly you got yourself dressed this morning.”
“Mm, but why should I, when you’re right here to do it for me?” was Arthur’s smug reply; Gaius pushed Merlin out of the way before he could scowl down at the prince, and began his examination.
“Any other symptoms?”
Arthur shook his head. “My heart was racing, my hands were shaking… I’m telling you, it just felt like I was nervous, but I don’t get nervous.”
Sure, Merlin thought, but wisely kept his comments to himself after a stern look from Gaius over Arthur’s bare shoulder.
Gaius could find nothing wrong with the prince even after several more episodes and examinations over the following weeks, and could only give him soothing potions to calm his unsteady nerves when such an attack occurred. Arthur’s heart was strong and sure, Gaius said, and showed no signs of weakness or disease that he could detect. In the night, when no one was likely to disturb them, Merlin and Gaius searched the physician’s magic books in secret, hoping to find some spell or curse that might be affecting Arthur so. But they found nothing, no spell that matched the erratic episodes, and were forced to abandon their search.
But it seemed that Arthur was not the only one of them experiencing strange symptoms. Only days after the tournament, Merlin woke in the middle of the night, pulse racing and body painfully aroused. Embarrassed, he tried to quiet his mind and his body enough to go back to sleep, but it was nearly impossible. He could only lay there, taking deep breaths and trying to think unpleasant thoughts, until suddenly his body clenched, climaxed, and relaxed. Ashamed, though he didn’t even know exactly why, Merlin cleaned himself and only then was he finally able to roll over and go back to sleep. He didn’t tell Gaius about it in the morning - after all, these sorts of things happened. Didn’t they?
But it wasn’t a singular occurrence - Merlin found that perhaps a few nights a week, he would wake with the same problem. What was worse, more and more often it would come on the tail end of dreams more vivid than his normally were - dreams of Arthur in the throes of passion, though he could never see clearly the face of his partner. Merlin did not want to have to tell Gaius about how the dream-Arthur’s release would always coincide with his own, too often waking him panting for breath with his heart pounding in his ears and his bedclothes stained. It was embarrassing, to say the least, and profoundly worrying, to say the most.
He’d hoped that such episodes would fade with time, but they didn’t - neither his nor Arthur’s conditions seemed to be getting any better, though the prince had seemed to learn to live, at least somewhat, with his suddenly overactive nerves. Merlin tried to live with his condition just as valiantly, but it was still exceedingly embarrassing and he felt completely out of control of his body. It wasn’t a good feeling at all.
He continued the search on his own, scouring page after page of the book of magic Gaius had given him. But there were no answers to be had, no explanations for the strange episodes affecting Merlin and the prince.
Finally, after exhausting all other avenues of possible understanding, Merlin waited until long after nightfall, when the castle was silent and still, and he crept out of his bed and through Gaius’ workroom to the corridor outside. On feet as silent as he could manage, he crept past the guards and down into the bowels of the castle, past any corridors or passageways that were normally used until he came, at least, to the entrance to the cave that spanned beneath the castle.
“Dragon!” he called, and he waited. There was a moment of silence, and then the cavern was filled with the sound of mighty wings, and undercut with the clanking of chains as the dragon descended before him. He perched on a large rock just out of Merlin’s reach, as he had many times before, and watched the young warlock with ageless, unreadable eyes.
Merlin would have to begin this conversation; he’d expected that. “I’ve done something,” he said. “Arthur was injured, and I think I may have…” he paused, and then the rest of the words came out in a rush. “I think I may have brought him back to life. But I can’t remember the spell I used, and I can’t find it in Gaius’ books.” He paused, drew a breath. “But something isn’t right with Arthur now, and” he felt his face growing warm, “something’s not right with me, either. Arthur’s never been nervous about much before, but now his nerves grip him at the strangest times. And I… I’ve been having dreams,” he finished quickly, and hoping that he wouldn’t have to say much more than that.
The dragon watched him for a long moment, and Merlin began to wonder if perhaps he wouldn’t know the answer, after all. Perhaps it was too much, assuming that the dragon would be able to help, when he likely hadn’t given him enough information to formulate much of anything. But Merlin didn’t know much more than that - if he knew what he’d done, those weeks ago in the woods, he wouldn’t be here now.
“What you have done is beyond any spell written in any book, Merlin. Surely you understand that.”
Merlin frowned, the torchlight casting flickering shadows across his face and the dragon’s. “But what have I done? If you know, I need you to tell me!” His stomach churned
The dragon chuckled; it was nothing like when Arthur chuckled, this was a cold, knowing sound that echoed in the caves below the castle. “You have given the prince what he needed. I thought that much was clear.” He shifted on the rock, talons flexing beneath him. “You have given him that which dead men to not possess. You have bound yourselves together, and with a power greater than even destiny can wield.”
“I still don’t understand!” Merlin was feeling desperate, and moreso as the dragon began to flap his wings, once more. Merlin got the feeling that, had he been human, the dragon would have been smiling.
“You will, young warlock. You will.”
And then he was gone.
Merlin, still feeling more than a little nervous and now quite worked up, all but stormed back to his room, only just barely evading the guards and thankful that Gaius was not a light sleeper. Back in his room, he pulled the battered magic tome from its hiding place beneath the loose floorboard and spread it upon his bed as he had done countless nights before.
“Something that dead men do not possess…” he whispered to himself, turning the pages though he knew the dragon had said no such spell would be written there. Whatever Merlin had done, it apparently went beyond the magic in this - or any - book. But how could he have bound himself and Arthur, and how did it pertain to what was happening now?
He was ready to give up his search after an hour; his candle had burned low, and Arthur would surely send for him first thing in the morning. Merlin flipped back through the pages, eyes skimming the words, trying to make himself remember.
He nearly missed it - he’d already gone on to the next page by the time he’d realized that something on the previous page had caught his eyes. He flipped frantically back, eyes staring at the ink on the page until it seemed to blur before him. He blinked, rubbing his eyes, and looked again.
It was a simple spell, nothing powerful at all. It was half poem, perhaps part of a sonnet or ode lost to time, as some of the older incantations seemed to be. It had not been the spell he’d uttered that day - it was nothing close to what he’d said, of that he was sure.
But there was one phrase buried within it that stood out from all the others - one phrase that, as Merlin murmured it to himself now, sounded familiar and heavy on his tongue. He looked to the notes scrawled at the bottom of the page, in a script too old to be even Gaius’. And there he finally found what he was looking for.
Merlin’s heart nearly stopped, before picking up at a faster pace than before. He licked his lips. What dead men did not possess, the dragon had told him. Something stronger even than destiny.
And something far simpler, it would seem.
“A chuisle,” Merlin read aloud into his darkened room. “My heart, my pulse.”
Suddenly things began to fall into place. Merlin was nervous enough for both of them, after all. And Arthur had only had attacks when Merlin might have had cause to be nervous: at banquets and tournaments and that time, last week, when Gwen had asked him on a picnic. The pieces began to make a whole, and suddenly Merlin wasn’t sure he liked the way it looked.
For now he saw just what he had done, and something like horror washed over him. Destiny was just a word, after all - just an idea. This was real, solid, and it meant something far more profound than the prophecies of a dragon chained beneath a castle.
And he knew, as he set the book down on the tangle of his bedclothes and stared without really seeing the pages, that he was going to have to tell Arthur, sooner or later.
For the record, "a chuisle" means "my heart" or "my pulse" in Gaelic. I admit I got the phrase from a horrible boyslove book a read a while back, but it was Gaelic and that meant I had to use it for a Merlinfic! I'll probably translate the rest of the Gaelic in the story in the last chapter, just to keep it all together.
Rated probably PG-13 overall, ~26,000 words. This chapter is 5,234 words.
A Chuisle: Chapter 1
It wasn’t a spell that Merlin knew; the words hadn’t been pre-planned or rehearsed. In fact, he could very well claim he hadn’t really been in charge of all (or any) of his faculties at the time. All he knew was that, as he watched Arthur single-handedly face down a group of attackers with all the stupidity and tenacity of which he was capable, Merlin couldn’t allow it to end like this.
The hunting trip had gone well - spring was in the air and the bite of winter had begun to diminish, leaving the ground soft and fertile and the wildlife abundant and daring. And indeed, by mid-afternoon Arthur had sent his fellow knights back to the castle with their kills, saying that he and Merlin would scout deeper into the forest and return the next night.
But things hadn’t turned out quite as planned. Merlin had been woken in the night with a knife at his throat and threats whispered into his ear; he’d been pulled from his bedroll and bound and gagged, left at the far end of the clearing he and Arthur had picked as a resting place and he’d watched, with wide eyes and a racing mind, as a group of five shadows had descended upon the sleeping prince.
But Arthur was a more formidable opponent than these bandits had thought - he’d sprung into action as they neared, leaping out of his blankets and facing them down, anger and rage in his blue, moonlit eyes. Merlin felt a surge of something flare in his stomach as he watched, immobilized - it was an indistinct feeling somewhere between relief and terror. Arthur would save him and all would be well once more… or Arthur would die, and nothing would be right ever again.
And one of those options was clearly not acceptable.
But what could Merlin do, bound and gagged as he was? He could speak no spells without the use of his mouth, and though he could move objects and pause time for an instant, it did him no good in the end. He fought desperately, wordlessly, even as Arthur fought valiantly, his sword a silver streak of lightning in the moonlight. But they were outnumbered and Arthur was clearly ill-equipped for battle. He’d taken down two men, now lying dead in the dirt, but three were still very much alive, and angrier than before.
“Who are you?” Arthur asked for perhaps the third time, breath coming heavily as he kept a wary eye on his circling attackers. The point of his sword followed their every movement, but Merlin couldn’t help but notice that it wavered where once it had not. Arthur was tiring.
“No one you need concern yourself with,” the largest of them said. “But your body will fetch an impressive price from our master, little prince.”
And then he leaped at Arthur. Merlin’s heart skipped several beats; there was a scuffle, a shout, and Arthur and his attacker went over into the dirt. Then suddenly there was silence. The moonlit forest stood perfectly still.
Merlin’s eyes were so wide he felt like they might burst from his head; he could hear his heart in his ears, beating a frantic rhythm against his ribcage, and a low, keening whine escaped his throat. Was Arthur all right? Had Merlin just allowed, through his ineptitude, his prince and his destiny to be killed?
He knew the truth a moment later, when the bandit stood and wiped his sword on his sleeve.
Merlin felt sick, felt too hot and too cold all at once. He felt something lurch and twist in his stomach - grief - and the world seemed to spin and grow black around the edges. In an instant his mind was no longer filled with sane thoughts, and then there were no thoughts at all - only grief, sickening grief, and loss.
Then something else lurched within him - magic, pure and raw and with a mind of its own, burning up through him like a pillar of light. It burned him from the inside out, until he was encased in a shining cocoon; it burnt away his clothing - and with it, his bonds. The gag dissolved from his lips and without a thought of his own Merlin’s eyes locked onto Arthur’s attackers - Arthur’s murderers - and he spoke.
“Ar thine!” he cried, screaming the words into the night.
White-hot power engulfed the hapless bandits where they stood, burning them to ash in seconds, with only their cut-off screams left behind them. The light that had flared was gone; Merlin’s gaze fell upon the ground, to the body that lay there cooling, and despite the searing heat of the power flowing through him, his eyes filled with tears. A lump in his throat swelled until he was sure he would never speak again. Sadness overcame him, sadness stronger than the magic, and as the last of it burnt itself from his body, he heard himself say, “Anamchara a chuisle mo chroí!” into the darkness as it engulfed him and swallowed him whole.
*
“Merlin.”
There was a voice, calling him. It sounded very far away; it did not concern Merlin much. He was someplace warm, someplace where everything was at peace, and he did not want to leave.
“Merlin!”
The voice grew more insistent; Merlin frowned as it began to unravel the edges of this place, pulling him back to somewhere he had been, back somewhere cold and uncomfortable. Slowly, sensation returned. He was sore, and his body ached as he shifted.
“Merlin, I know you can hear me. Wake up, you idiot.”
Merlin blinked and the remainder of his dream dissolved from around him; he was lying on the forest floor, cold and uncomfortable and very, very naked. The sun was just rising in the east, hidden by the trees, and the sky was a brilliant pale orange streaked with blue. Arthur was leaning over him in the growing light, features ashen but wry, and his mouth now twisted into a bemused half-smile as he saw his manservant wake. There was blood all down his front, and a tear in his shirt at heart-height. But he was unharmed, save for a few bruises and scrapes that were hardly life-threatening.
Merlin suddenly remembered the night before and thought he might have gone to heaven, except that wouldn’t explain the tree root digging uncomfortably into his side, or the nakedness, or the cold.
“There you are,” Arthur was saying, rocking back on his heels as he leaned over Merlin, balancing with hands on his knees. “Now, dare I ask why you are sleeping over here, naked as the day you were born, while I clearly had to do all of the work? God, I feel like death warmed over. I must have driven the rest of them away.” He looked over his shoulder to the two corpses on the ground.
Merlin blinked slowly. “You must have.” The words felt strange in his mouth, like his tongue and lips were dry and parched and swollen. He felt confused, it was difficult to breathe and his thoughts were moving about too quickly in his head for him to hear them properly.
Arthur’s face suddenly came into view, blocking the morning light and looking concerned, as though a particularly unpleasant thought had just occurred to him. “Merlin,” he said quietly, any humor gone, “did they…” He glanced down at Merlin’s nakedness with uncharacteristic worry, and Merlin felt his face begin to heat.
“No!” he said, and tried to squirm away from Arthur a bit, feeling distinctly embarrassed by what Arthur was implying despite the prince’s concern. He was suddenly aware of how exposed he was; of course, he’d seen Arthur naked before, but Arthur had not seen him -
The relief on Arthur’s face lasted only a fleeting instant before the wry humor was back. “Well then, don’t expect me to give you my pants,” he said primly, as his face grew thoughtful. Then, after a moment, he picked up Merlin’s rumpled blanket and tossed it over to his manservant. “You’ll just have to wear that.”
Merlin stared first at the brown wool blanket in his lap, then at the prince standing in the growing light of morning, his hair a blonde halo and his lips twisted into a smirk. “Why thank you, sire,” he said, and wrapped the blanket around him until he was reasonably satisfied that it wasn’t going to fall off. Arthur had gone to look at the bodies of the men he’d dispatched in the night, crouching over them as though they could tell them their names and purposes in death as they had not in life.
Once Merlin was clothed (or at least as passably covered as he was going to get), Arthur stood and looked around the clearing. “Let’s head for Camelot,” he said. “I don’t want to stay here any longer.”
Merlin could not agree more. The broke camp and made for home; the journey was a slow and uncomfortable one for Merlin, having no shoes and still carrying their amassed things on their back while trying to keep the blanket wrapped about him. Arthur kept glancing at him as they walked, his expression opaque and unreadable, but he said little. That was just as well for Merlin, whose thoughts were racing as he tried to put together what had happened last night. He could only remember pieces, as though something had burnt holes in his memory. But he remembered the attack, remembered feeling guilty and helpless, remembered Arthur being overpowered. And then he remembered white-hot light, and words he didn’t know ringing in his ears, and then he’d known nothing until this morning. All he knew was that he felt relieved and worried at the same time, and his stomach seemed content to tie itself in knots.
There was very little conversation until they finally crested the hills above Camelot and the castle came into view. The journey had taken most of the day, and the sun was fat and red just above the western horizon. It was then that Arthur glanced back over his shoulder at Merlin, and that wry expression returned. “I’m going back first. You wait twenty minutes and then follow me.” He paused. “I don’t think I’ll need your services until the morning.”
Merlin sighed. Coming from Arthur, he supposed that was an attempt to spare them both any rumors that would arise from Merlin’s current state of dress, and the evening off was not unwelcome. Though, he mused as he watched Arthur’s back recede in the distance, he wasn’t sure how much rest he was going to get. He had a feeling that Gaius was going to want an explanation and, knowing the physician, he wouldn’t let Merlin rest until he’d gotten it.
And, of course, Merlin was right. He’d barely closed the door of Gaius’ workroom when there was a shuffling of papers and the old man’s voice asked, “Good lord, Merlin, what happened to you?”
Merlin trudged over to the workbench and collapsed bonelessly onto a stool, letting the pack fall from his shoulders before he chanced a look up at Gaius. The physician’s eyes were locked on his, one eyebrow raised in an expression with which Merlin was quite familiar - it was the look Gaius always gave him when he knew that something magical had happened, and that it had clearly been Merlin’s fault.
“Merlin…” he said, but his voice held less warning than concern. “Tell me what happened.”
“I’m not entirely sure, myself,” Merlin admitted tiredly, but before he could think about it too much he’d launched into the entire tale, starting with being woken by the bandits until he and Arthur had crested the last hill before Camelot. He tried to fill in as much detail as possible, as much for himself as for Gaius’ benefit. But reliving the events through the telling wasn’t any more helpful, and he was still vague on what were likely the most important parts.
Gaius listened silently until Merlin was done. “That’s quite a tale,” he said finally, and his expression now held nothing but concern. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” Merlin said, taking a drink from the cup of water Gaius had poured for him halfway through his tale. “Burnt out, sort of.”
“I should say so,” Gaius murmured, searching Merlin’s face as though his features held the rest of the story. “I’ve never heard of magic doing something like that before… But then,” he smiled faintly, “you are a sorcerer the likes of which the world has never seen. And you say you don’t know what spell you used?”
Merlin shook his head. “I don’t even remember the words.” He’d been trying; he felt like they were on the tip of his tongue, at the edge of his memory, but the harder he tried to think of them, the farther they were from his mind’s reach.
“Hm,” Gaius hummed, tapping a finger on the table. “Well, it is clear that whatever happened, you saved Arthur’s life, and he does not suspect that magic was used. I suppose we ought to be thankful for that.”
Merlin nodded, by now too tired to feel much relief, and lifted himself stiffly from the stool. “I think I’m going to get some sleep,” he said, and Gaius nodded, watching the boy disappear into his room. Once the door was shut it was all Merlin could do to unwind the blanket from around himself and fall, facedown, onto the bed. In the next instant he was asleep.
*
Things proceeded normally for the next week or so, with neither Arthur nor Merlin speaking to each other about what had happened. Arthur had of course told Uther about the attack, but his version involved the daring rescue of his kidnapped manservant and Arthur’s having sent the bandits running in fear. Merlin supposed that he could let Arthur have this tale, seeing as his version would only get him an appointment with the executioner. A band of knights was dispatched into the surrounding territories to try to flush out whoever might have hired the bandits, and in Camelot life went on much the way it always did.
Until Arthur had his first attack.
It hadn’t been a comfortable day for Merlin, to begin with. The spring tournament was set to begin that afternoon, and he’d been cleaning and polishing Arthur’s armor all week until it shone brighter than the sun. Arthur had called him in early that day to check and re-check each piece before it was placed upon him, but finally Arthur was dressed and armored to his satisfaction. Merlin handed him his sword, bowed his head, and wished the prince luck.
And then there had been the waiting. Arthur had won the previous year’s tournament, and so he was not to fight until most of the competition had been eliminated. Merlin watched from the sidelines, eyes following each opponent as a hawk might follow its prey. This was the same tournament at which, a year ago, Valiant had tried to use an enchanted shield to kill the prince. Merlin would have no such thing happen again.
And so Merlin watched, heart racing faster as round after round brought them closer to the time when Arthur would fight. He knew Arthur was competent - more than competent, really; he was the best knight in Camelot and Merlin knew it as well as anyone else - but there was something in him that would not let him relax whenever Arthur was in armor. Every time Arthur stepped into that arena of beaten earth, Merlin’s heart would race and his stomach would twist. He supposed, wryly, that if Arthur claimed not to get nervous over such things, then Merlin would do it for the both of them.
In the stands, Arthur frowned, shifting in his chair. Merlin saw him roll his shoulders and make a face. He excused himself and Merlin skirted the arena to meet him behind the stands, thinking perhaps he needed something. He found Arthur in the shadow of the tents that littered the grounds just behind the arena, head pressed against one of the wooden support beams. He was taking deep breaths. Merlin’s stomach clenched.
“My lord?” he asked softly, approaching Arthur as he might approach a frightened doe. “Are you well?”
Arthur’s head snapped up and his eyes glared at Merlin; eyes that were just a bit wilder blue than normal. Merlin’s heart beat a faster pace. “Arthur?”
“I’m fine,” the prince snapped, and took another breath. “Just… bring me some water, Merlin.”
Merlin obeyed, brow knitted with worry, but when he returned Arthur seemed better; the prince drank the water he was brought and watched Merlin for a moment with quiet, dark eyes. “I’m fine,” he said, though Merlin hadn’t asked again if he was. Then he’d stomped back around to take his seat in the stands once more.
Arthur’s opponent was large and well-trained; as he watched them Merlin’s heart was like a stallion racing across an open field, pounding out a rhythm in his chest that quickened every time Arthur fumbled, every time he paused or jerked in a way that broke the flow of the fight. It was a strange dance that Arthur went through, ducking and weaving before stumbling and recovering, and the prince’s body seemed to betray him somehow at the most inopportune of moments. But Arthur won, in the end, and as the cheers went up among the crowd Merlin felt he could breathe once more. As he lifted the prince’s helm from his head afterwards, Merlin saw that Arthur’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes glassy.
“Are you really all right?” he asked, but was answered with only the hilt of the prince’s sword thrust in his face.
“I’m fine. I won, didn’t I?” Arthur asked, and his voice was low and tight and although he wanted to enquire further, Merlin kept his mouth shut and simply helped Arthur remove the rest of his armor. His heart may have calmed, but his stomach was still in knots as he cleaned and dressed the prince for the celebratory feast, and although his job of bringing food and wine to the table was simple, it felt a chore not to trip over his own feet as he tried to watch Arthur all evening. But the prince gave no other outward signs of anything being amiss, and Merlin went to bed exhausted and worried that night, with no answers to a question that he wasn’t even sure how to ask.
When he woke late the next morning, he heard voices beyond his closed door. Rubbing his eyes, he crept to the door and put his ear to the wood, trying to make out the conversation taking place just beyond it.
“… you sure, my lord?” That was Gaius - and there were only two people he would call by that title.
“I can’t explain it much better than that, I’m afraid.” That was Arthur’s voice; Merlin had tumbled out into the room almost before he knew what was happening. Arthur and Gaius froze mid-conversation, their faces blank for a moment before Arthur’s features twisted into amusement and he began to chuckle. “Well, I see that unless I send for you first thing, all you do is lie about all morning. I shall have to see to that, tomorrow.”
Merlin felt his face heat and resisted the urge to scrunch his nose defiantly in Arthur’s general direction. Instead he came down the steps into Gaius’ workroom, the floor cool against his bare feet, and asked, “Is there something wrong?”
Arthur shifted uncomfortably, as though he didn’t want an audience while he described whatever he’d come for to Gaius. Merlin felt vaguely hurt, but sighed and turned back towards his room. “Well, if you don’t want me here, then - ”
“No,” Arthur said, his voice sounding somewhat defeated, “No, it’s fine. You can stay.”
Merlin turned back around and came further into the room, seating himself on a stool by the workbench. Gaius, who had been watching Merlin with one eyebrow raised as he approached, turned back to Arthur with a professional air. “Now, my lord, you were saying…?”
Arthur scowled a bit, looked at his hands. “It’s the oddest thing. I’ve never felt nervous before - certainly not that nervous. Not since my first tournament, and even then I don’t recall it being that bad.” He glanced over at Merlin, then back to Gaius. “It wasn’t even while I was fighting, necessarily. My insides were in knots well into the evening.”
Merlin realized that Arthur was talking about the previous day’s events - he sat up a little straighter, with the air of someone whose suspicions were being confirmed. After all, they were - he’d been so sure that something was wrong with Arthur yesterday, and to hear the prince admit it himself was somewhat gratifying. Or, well, it would have been if it hadn’t made him worry about what might be wrong with the prince all over again.
“Hm,” Gaius hummed thoughtfully, looking at Arthur as though a visual examination might give him some clue as to the ailment. But clearly it could not, and after a moment he waved to the cot in the middle of the room and bade Arthur to sit. “Take off your shirt.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow in Merlin’s direction, and lifted his arms. It took a moment, but belatedly Merlin realized that Arthur expected help with this task. Merlin rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, feeling rather put-upon as he rose from the stool to help tug Arthur’s shirt from his body. “You know, my lord, you do know how to do this yourself. Clearly you got yourself dressed this morning.”
“Mm, but why should I, when you’re right here to do it for me?” was Arthur’s smug reply; Gaius pushed Merlin out of the way before he could scowl down at the prince, and began his examination.
“Any other symptoms?”
Arthur shook his head. “My heart was racing, my hands were shaking… I’m telling you, it just felt like I was nervous, but I don’t get nervous.”
Sure, Merlin thought, but wisely kept his comments to himself after a stern look from Gaius over Arthur’s bare shoulder.
Gaius could find nothing wrong with the prince even after several more episodes and examinations over the following weeks, and could only give him soothing potions to calm his unsteady nerves when such an attack occurred. Arthur’s heart was strong and sure, Gaius said, and showed no signs of weakness or disease that he could detect. In the night, when no one was likely to disturb them, Merlin and Gaius searched the physician’s magic books in secret, hoping to find some spell or curse that might be affecting Arthur so. But they found nothing, no spell that matched the erratic episodes, and were forced to abandon their search.
But it seemed that Arthur was not the only one of them experiencing strange symptoms. Only days after the tournament, Merlin woke in the middle of the night, pulse racing and body painfully aroused. Embarrassed, he tried to quiet his mind and his body enough to go back to sleep, but it was nearly impossible. He could only lay there, taking deep breaths and trying to think unpleasant thoughts, until suddenly his body clenched, climaxed, and relaxed. Ashamed, though he didn’t even know exactly why, Merlin cleaned himself and only then was he finally able to roll over and go back to sleep. He didn’t tell Gaius about it in the morning - after all, these sorts of things happened. Didn’t they?
But it wasn’t a singular occurrence - Merlin found that perhaps a few nights a week, he would wake with the same problem. What was worse, more and more often it would come on the tail end of dreams more vivid than his normally were - dreams of Arthur in the throes of passion, though he could never see clearly the face of his partner. Merlin did not want to have to tell Gaius about how the dream-Arthur’s release would always coincide with his own, too often waking him panting for breath with his heart pounding in his ears and his bedclothes stained. It was embarrassing, to say the least, and profoundly worrying, to say the most.
He’d hoped that such episodes would fade with time, but they didn’t - neither his nor Arthur’s conditions seemed to be getting any better, though the prince had seemed to learn to live, at least somewhat, with his suddenly overactive nerves. Merlin tried to live with his condition just as valiantly, but it was still exceedingly embarrassing and he felt completely out of control of his body. It wasn’t a good feeling at all.
He continued the search on his own, scouring page after page of the book of magic Gaius had given him. But there were no answers to be had, no explanations for the strange episodes affecting Merlin and the prince.
Finally, after exhausting all other avenues of possible understanding, Merlin waited until long after nightfall, when the castle was silent and still, and he crept out of his bed and through Gaius’ workroom to the corridor outside. On feet as silent as he could manage, he crept past the guards and down into the bowels of the castle, past any corridors or passageways that were normally used until he came, at least, to the entrance to the cave that spanned beneath the castle.
“Dragon!” he called, and he waited. There was a moment of silence, and then the cavern was filled with the sound of mighty wings, and undercut with the clanking of chains as the dragon descended before him. He perched on a large rock just out of Merlin’s reach, as he had many times before, and watched the young warlock with ageless, unreadable eyes.
Merlin would have to begin this conversation; he’d expected that. “I’ve done something,” he said. “Arthur was injured, and I think I may have…” he paused, and then the rest of the words came out in a rush. “I think I may have brought him back to life. But I can’t remember the spell I used, and I can’t find it in Gaius’ books.” He paused, drew a breath. “But something isn’t right with Arthur now, and” he felt his face growing warm, “something’s not right with me, either. Arthur’s never been nervous about much before, but now his nerves grip him at the strangest times. And I… I’ve been having dreams,” he finished quickly, and hoping that he wouldn’t have to say much more than that.
The dragon watched him for a long moment, and Merlin began to wonder if perhaps he wouldn’t know the answer, after all. Perhaps it was too much, assuming that the dragon would be able to help, when he likely hadn’t given him enough information to formulate much of anything. But Merlin didn’t know much more than that - if he knew what he’d done, those weeks ago in the woods, he wouldn’t be here now.
“What you have done is beyond any spell written in any book, Merlin. Surely you understand that.”
Merlin frowned, the torchlight casting flickering shadows across his face and the dragon’s. “But what have I done? If you know, I need you to tell me!” His stomach churned
The dragon chuckled; it was nothing like when Arthur chuckled, this was a cold, knowing sound that echoed in the caves below the castle. “You have given the prince what he needed. I thought that much was clear.” He shifted on the rock, talons flexing beneath him. “You have given him that which dead men to not possess. You have bound yourselves together, and with a power greater than even destiny can wield.”
“I still don’t understand!” Merlin was feeling desperate, and moreso as the dragon began to flap his wings, once more. Merlin got the feeling that, had he been human, the dragon would have been smiling.
“You will, young warlock. You will.”
And then he was gone.
Merlin, still feeling more than a little nervous and now quite worked up, all but stormed back to his room, only just barely evading the guards and thankful that Gaius was not a light sleeper. Back in his room, he pulled the battered magic tome from its hiding place beneath the loose floorboard and spread it upon his bed as he had done countless nights before.
“Something that dead men do not possess…” he whispered to himself, turning the pages though he knew the dragon had said no such spell would be written there. Whatever Merlin had done, it apparently went beyond the magic in this - or any - book. But how could he have bound himself and Arthur, and how did it pertain to what was happening now?
He was ready to give up his search after an hour; his candle had burned low, and Arthur would surely send for him first thing in the morning. Merlin flipped back through the pages, eyes skimming the words, trying to make himself remember.
He nearly missed it - he’d already gone on to the next page by the time he’d realized that something on the previous page had caught his eyes. He flipped frantically back, eyes staring at the ink on the page until it seemed to blur before him. He blinked, rubbing his eyes, and looked again.
It was a simple spell, nothing powerful at all. It was half poem, perhaps part of a sonnet or ode lost to time, as some of the older incantations seemed to be. It had not been the spell he’d uttered that day - it was nothing close to what he’d said, of that he was sure.
But there was one phrase buried within it that stood out from all the others - one phrase that, as Merlin murmured it to himself now, sounded familiar and heavy on his tongue. He looked to the notes scrawled at the bottom of the page, in a script too old to be even Gaius’. And there he finally found what he was looking for.
Merlin’s heart nearly stopped, before picking up at a faster pace than before. He licked his lips. What dead men did not possess, the dragon had told him. Something stronger even than destiny.
And something far simpler, it would seem.
“A chuisle,” Merlin read aloud into his darkened room. “My heart, my pulse.”
Suddenly things began to fall into place. Merlin was nervous enough for both of them, after all. And Arthur had only had attacks when Merlin might have had cause to be nervous: at banquets and tournaments and that time, last week, when Gwen had asked him on a picnic. The pieces began to make a whole, and suddenly Merlin wasn’t sure he liked the way it looked.
For now he saw just what he had done, and something like horror washed over him. Destiny was just a word, after all - just an idea. This was real, solid, and it meant something far more profound than the prophecies of a dragon chained beneath a castle.
And he knew, as he set the book down on the tangle of his bedclothes and stared without really seeing the pages, that he was going to have to tell Arthur, sooner or later.