I'M AFRAID OF MYSELF
AN: Hey everyone! This is just a little one-shot story fic I really wanted to share. Sorry to those people who followed and favourite this fic before. I had to delete it to sort out some things, but it's up again now. Anyway, I got the idea from listening a few songs by Hurts on my IPod, it suddenly hit me how every lyric related to how I saw the magic reveal going in Merlin, so I thought I'd have a crack at it. Bare in mind, like what I wrote before, this is a FemMerlin fic so if you don't like that sort of thing you don't have to continue. The storyline runs along Hurt's songs 'Help', 'Stay' and 'Sunday'. If you want to put the songs on in the background to 'help' with the imagery, please do. I sure did :) Anyway, enjoy!
BTW Disclaiming Merlin, obviously! It belongs to the BBC. This fic was originally a song fic medley but I unfortunately had to delete the actual lyrics out of it. Don't worry, I was NOT at all taking credit for them. Other writers have put lyrics in their song fics but I was the one that keeps getting told off. However if you look carefully (and know all three songs well enough), some modified lines may be hidden away ;) Furthermore I apologise in advance if there are any spelling or grammatical errors. This first chapter relates to the first verse of the song :)
...~~IAOM~~...
(Arthur's POV)
We were running.
Harder and faster than I could ever remember.
It was the two of us against hundreds of enemy soldiers only a hundred yards behind.
Or at least I hoped they were that far away, We were sprinting through the thick forests, dodging trees and leaping over roots, the only way of determining they were there was a faint war cry and the thundering sound of many many feet, or was that my heart in my mouth...
If it was me on my own I would have run a lot faster, but Merlin was behind me, dressed in her boy clothes, hunting bags and weapons long since dumped to get away faster. She obviously wouldn't be able to keep up otherwise.
We had got separated from the rest of my own men, of course we did. Now the soldiers were targeting us, that was hardly fair! Well, I was the prince.
The air had gotten thicker by now, a disorientating fog had settled around us, and the gaps between trees were getting smaller.
I began wondering if Merlin was even behind me anymore, but was temporarily reassured as I heard her breathlessly yell out my name, as I glanced back she was waving at me to follow her to the right. I quickly looked to see if the army were in sight and started running again. As I caught up with my servant, she grabbed my hand and led me the way in and out of the trees.
This trick she'd learnt from me. As a huntsman, if the dangerous animal you were hunting turned on you, you were to zig zag through the forest so the creature could not follow an obvious path. It may just work for enemy soldiers too. But it didn't.
Eventually the canopy above us opened up and we emerged out of the darkness into a large clearing where streams of evening sunlight were able to reach.
We still had to get out though. This was sitting duck territory.
Making a break for it, Merlin and I ran through the middle of the clearing. We had to get back into the dark tree line to find somewhere safer to hide whether we liked it or not.
However, shooting through the leaves with a whistle, was an arrow. It hit me straight in the left shoulder from behind. Dear god, it was painful! The force of it caused me to fall forward, and I caught Merlin's leg on the way down. Had she not stumbled, another arrow sent our way might've got her in the head.
I believe I was still conscious lying there on the ground face down, but was in too much pain to struggle to get up. I couldn't even string two words together telling Merlin to run and to leave me. Even when I felt the stubborn idiot try to lift me up under my arms, turn me over and drag me the rest of the way out, I knew there wasn't enough time and she wasn't strong at all.
...~~IAOM~~...
I froze.
Merlin stood facing away from me a few feet away with her arm outstretched. But I knew it was her causing this.
An overwhelming storm, bigger than any I've seen before, had gathering over us. It was hammering it down with rain. The black clouds overhead blocked out the light, like it had become night time in a few seconds. The thunder was deafening, and through my concussion, I could see blurred shapes disappearing in a bright flash of white across my vision. Lightning bolts one right after the other were striking hundreds of the men down as they tried to charge across the grass toward us with their weapons raised. More and more behind them started to realise the stupidity of it and retreated back the way they came. But through the trees, lightning struck where they would be, they were not spared.
All this was happening out the corner of my eye, but I couldn't draw my stare away from the girl in front of me. The strange words I heard her mumble, this horrific storm that appeared out of nowhere afterwards...
The storm subsided in the background, but inside my head I battled all the many emotions building up. Surely not. Surely Merlin was just standing there trying to guard me, and there was a sorcerer hiding somewhere in the trees causing all of this...
As looked around I noticed everything had stopped, it was still dark as night, but the rain was thinning and the lighting had stopped completely. Surrounding us were bodies, even some piles of what used to be people, now disintegrated into dust.
Merlin lowered her arm down to her side, and slowly turned her body round to me. Her head was down, and her drenched golden hair hid part of her face. My hope from before was fading that this was someone else's doing.
I could see her body slightly trembling, probably from the cold rain, but it wasn't that, I knew it.
Finally my maidservant, friend, lifted her head and she looked at me. Her eyes! They were glowing, no, that wasn't the word... It was like they were windows to the fiery soul that possessed this unsuspecting, innocent looking shell. In the darkness, nothing stood out more.
Looking into them, it was like they showed everything! Truth and lies. Suffering and healing. Success and failure. Captivity and Freedom. All that was, all that is, and all that will or could ever be...
Out of everything, this was the scariest thing I'd ever witnessed.
And this was Merlin!
She walked over to me agonisingly slowly, and knelt down on my right. I was shocked into reality as she rested a hand gently on my uninjured shoulder, and when I jolted, the pain of my wounded one stabbed me all over again. I cried out and my right arm instinctively reached out to grab something, which was Merlin's forearm. She placed her hand over my gloved one that rested there to steady me, and as the pain went a little, my focus went back to her. The gold in her eyes was gone now and the vivid blue was back, though had a shine as they tried and failed to conceal tears.
Eventually words came to me. "You're not-" I swallowed, "You can't be..."
Merlin closed her eyes tightly shut and shook her head, before looking back at me, a tear broke free and trailed her already wet cheek.
"I- I am a sorceress," she choked out. The air went cold and my heart stopped. "I have magic."
...~~IAOM~~...
We fought. And it was awful. Our words washing over eachother like the cold rainwater. Names were exchanged, and admittedly on my part, not very nice ones.
That's all I can really say. It all happened so quickly, I felt so betrayed and confused, and consumed with anger. Merlin I could only guess felt the same and yet the opposite.
She was trying to explain, but explain what!? This was questioning everything I had ever known.
That we had known eachother for years now, that I trusted her more than anyone, that she was my best friend, that we kissed once... and yet she was this... this completely different person all of a sudden. A stranger.
Was she out to get me all this time? Was she just earning my trust, to some day kill me? If so, why did she just kill all those men... my servant, who was once a friend, sweet innocent clumsy girl who liked to dress in breeches and go on hunts only to trip up or cough to scare game away... a killer? A magic user?
Some time later, I couldn't take it. She was to come back to Camelot with me where I would decide her fate properly. The journey back was deafeningly silent, and slow. Merlin said she should bandage up my shoulder after the arrow was pulled out, but I ignored her. After a while she stopped insisting. I let my hand go to the hilt of my sword every time I could hear the girl slow down behind me, in case she tried to run. But she didn't.
I was so glad for the rainfall. It disguised my tears perfectly.
...~~IAOM~~...
AN: Hope you liked it. I know it had elements of the 'Crystal Cave' and 'The Diamond of the Day', didn't it? There will be another part covering what Arthur did next, again relating to the same song. Thank you for reading, please review and I'll see you later ;)
