Merlin belongs to the BBC as much as I loathe them for it…
No spoilers because I'm not that far in myself XD WARNING: there will be some cursing and violence if you are uncomfortable with this you have been WARNED (and maybe a bit of romance later on? Heehee ?)
So here it goes, not my first fanfic (Though they all sucked miserably in past, I believe my heroin chucked someone into the wall and put them in a coma for teasing her in the first chapter… I do hope this will be better as it has been a year or so since my last fanfiction attempt) Reviews/helpful criticism is more than welcome! ENJOY!
Chapter 1 – What the Fuck?
If you've ever had a life changing, world upside downing, post-apocalyptic run in circles screaming and shouting, revelation of your whole meaning and philosophy of life and the world and everything around you… -ing… experience. You will probably, hopefully, maybe, kind of, understand me when I'm standing on top of a cliff screaming a string of rather explicit curse words into the air; but we're not quite there yet. You see that day, where for a little while I was pretty damn sure I was off my rocker started completely and utterly normal, so normal that looking back on it while standing on top of afore mentioned cliff it seemed completely and utterly strange.
Par to the usual, that morning my alarm at seven, also quite par to the usual I hit the snooze button… ten times. Pulled my rust bucket of a fluorescently colored truck into the parking lot twenty minutes late, (and still manage to pull a B in my US history class, which I am almost always twenty to thirty minutes late for) and drag myself through four classes before lunch. When the bell finally rang I was out of my pre-cal class and was under the C wing back staircase in five minutes chomping away at a slice of pizza.
"Ally!" I looked up grinning as my best friend Clarisse ran over, looking like she would collapse under the weight of her backpack. Clarisse and I had similar and shape, long and elegant with tapering fingers. All similarities stop right there, I'm not super tall but decent at about five foot seven with a stocky figure, Clarisse tops out at an astonishing five foot two and is thin as a stick. I have straight dirty blonde hair and pale green eyes, she has a mass of black curls and deep brown eyes. I'm pale, she's tan; I have boobs and butt, she does not; she has wiry muscles and for a girl her size she's strong, a few guys are terrified of her, because she has a temper and isn't afraid to hit low, I'm shy too scared to talk to guys unless they come up to me, forget kick them in the nuts, not very athletic. The one sport I do is one of the few things we have in common riding.
Judging from the grin on her face as she skipped over, whatever she was going to say had something to do with horses. The tiny girl slid down the white washed walls and settled down next to me, rummaging through her lunch box as she spoke.
"My track practice was canceled!" she grinned before turning her puppy dog face on me, her big brown eyes growing impossibly wider. "You wanna give me a ride to the barn?" I looked off into the distance feigning deep thought, fingers stroking an imaginary goatee.
"hmmmmmm." I hummed stalling as Clarisse's lips pursed into a pout trying to look as pathetic as possible.
"Pleeease."
"Promise not to scratch up my seats?" I smirked
"What seats, you're practically sitting on foam with bits of leather for decoration!"
We both cracked up and then proceeded with our regular lunch conversations. Horses, riding, what new saddle we were saving for. Clarisse's upcoming track meet, my chorus concert on Saturday, and of course Roger Faur. My hopeless crush, all of my crushes were hopeless, I can't even call myself a hopeless romantic, because it's not romantic just desperate and kind of creepy. I'm pretty much a stalker; I have talked to the boy once… once. Clarisse is always trying to convince me to talk to him, that he would like me, because I'm pretty and actually a nice person once I get my mouth open. I was afraid that if I did open my mouth I wouldn't be able to close it, and he would be deeply disturbed as to why I knew the names of all of his siblings, parents, his three dogs, two goldfish, and what his three year old sister called her blanket (Babo), or that they went to Pablo's for dinner every Friday night, or that he broke his leg twice in a year in the eighth grade when he still lived in California. Facebook stalking is a great way to get to know useless… or creepy facts about people; it's just awkward explaining exactly how you came to know this information and why.
After lunch came three more classes, before finally we could escape. I made it to my truck first, sliding into the driver's seat. The fabric of my jeans making a rather unpleasant scratching noise on the musty yellow foam that was left in the wake of the disappearing leather. Clarisse knew what my truck looked like, as did everyone else. When you drive a traffic cone orange truck covered in rust, that sounds an awful lot like someone strangling a very large ostrich… people tend to notice.
Forty five minutes and two stops at our houses to get riding clothes later the rust bucket groaned to a stop in the gravel parking lot of Willow Creek Stables. I jumped out striding across the gray rocks with Clarisse, our knee high black leather boots turning a similar color at the toes where they were already beginning to be coated in dust. Inside the barn, I felt myself relax a little, the scent of horses and manure and dust from who knows where. In a stable with horses is where I truly felt at home, nowhere else was I that happy.
"So ring work or hack?" Clarisse called from the tack room.
"Umm… Hack." I replied as she came back, and took my leather halter and shank from her.
"Good, today's too nice not to." She grinned as we started walking towards the pasture that our horses shared. My gray gelding loped up to the fence tossing his ebon mane about, followed by Clarisse's bay thoroughbred mare. When we reached the gate I reached up stroking River's face, he was a big boy part percheron part thoroughbred he came in at about 17 hands.
"C'mon boy." I spoke softly slipping the halter over his ears and leading him out of the gate. It had been out to ride just yesterday, but Clarisse had been stuck at track practice for the whole week. While River wouldn't have minded it, Byrd (Clarisse's mare) however was obviously going to be a bit fresh.
"I'm going to go lunge her." My friend said turning in the direction of the round pen, occasionally pulling back on her lead to keep Byrd from trotting. I lead River into the barn hooking the cross ties to his halter. While Clarisse lunged Byrd I would have plenty of time to groom and hang out with my horse. He could definitely use it he must have rolled in the mud yesterday, because his normally light gray coat was now coated with dried dirt. Sighing I grabbed a curry comb and started working in tight circles, squinting my eyes so that the rising clouds of dust wouldn't get in them. By the time that Clarisse was back with Byrd, River was mostly clean, just a bit of mud on his black stockings that I was trying to scratch off.
Twenty minutes later we were in the saddle trotting away from the stable and into the woods. Going side by side we talked as we went along, not really paying attention to where we were going. Taking which ever path the horses seemed more inclined to go down. Looking out I saw we were reaching the long stretch of trail that was straight. The instructors would take the kids along it but it there were lots of logs, perfect for us though. Grinning at Clarisse I nudged River into a canter and pulled in front of her letting my gelding have his head as we approached the first log, popping up into two-point before cantering off. I could hear Byrd landing behind us, and squeezed with my calves urging River to go even faster. Leaping over the logs that we came across with a reckless abandon, but it wasn't until the narrow trail opened into a big field, filled with tall golden grasses that caught the light of the sun that was starting to sink lower in the sky, that I really let him open up. Laughing as he stretched out, his racehorse speed and draft power together was always breath taking. Even though we galloped at a breakneck pace Byrd and Clarisse pulled up beside us, her eyes wide and a grin on her face.
"You're on!" I yelled leaning closer to River's black mane, and burying my hands in it before drumming his sides pulling ahead a hair, we danced back and forth Byrd taking the lead and then River. My big warmblood had longer legs, but was at a disadvantage to Byrd's lighter build. It didn't matter who won though, just galloping out in the open field was exhilarating. Peering through his ears I could see we still had a good ways to go before we hit the pine forest ahead; which is why I was so terribly confused to quite suddenly find myself racing through a wood filled with beeches and oaks. I reined in River, looking back as we slowed to a quick trot and then a walk. Clarisse pulled up beside me, looking as bewildered as I felt.
"What the fuck?" I finally said, those were the last words either of us said for quite a while. We sat on our horses, in dead silence staring at the forest. It was a pretty forest, old twisted trees solid and tall, permanent. Green mosses and lichens draped over trunks and branches and nestled within roots. Bird song could be heard, though the birds themselves were all high in the branches. It wasn't just pretty but stunning, breathtaking, and completely impossible.
"You do see this too right?" I asked almost afraid she would say yes. Her black curls bobbed with her tentative nod. The silence continued again, until River decided he no longer felt like standing and took up a leisurely pace weaving through the trees, Byrd following. I sat there letting the gelding go where he pleased as I floundered about in my mind searching for some sort of logical explanation. Maybe we both closed our eyes, and the horses turned off to the side? That's completely impossible there were no woods around the trails that looked anything like this. It was mostly pines, and bracken and brambles where the paths weren't clear. Wormholes? I let out a bitter laugh, yeah right..
If suddenly finding myself in a forest when I was in field was one thing, the view we came upon was just too much. Just as breath taking, and beautiful and even more impossible. I was overlooking a quaint little village, a medieval village. Complete with chickens, geese, little gardens, and what appeared to be a lot shit. And that is about where the cursing starts.