Some fluff and humor for y'all!
Disclaimer - I don't own Merlin. But I would've loved to own Morgana. *sigh*
It was Merlin's own fault, really. He shouldn't have left the book with her. Considering that he had just tempted her with a new and very tricky spell, one that even he himself had never tried. A curious Morgana was a dangerous Morgana. Not that Morgana was ever not curious. Or not dangerous. So considering that as well.
He had returned to Gaius' chamber to catch a breath from his unreasonably busy schedule as Prince Arthur's manservant and bodygaurd (Not that he'll ever be acknowledged as the latter, or rewarded for the former), only to find his bed occupied by the Lady Morgana, who was lying on her back in a remarkably un-ladylike fashion, supporting her upper half on her elbows, with her face buried in the magic book atop her chest.
Upon hearing the clicking of the door, she graced him with a dull look before going back to reading.
Sometimes Merlin believed that he was an idiot. Just sometimes. And no, it wasn't when Arthur called him one. Not when Gaius called him that, or even when Morgana affectionately swatted his arm when he did something silly (although he found himself rubbing the sore spot for a good few minutes because apparently everyone was aware of Morgana's physical strength but Morgana.)
No, it was at times like these when he realised that by telling Morgana of his magic and letting her bully/charm/convince him into teaching her magic he had created a monster. The fact that the Lady was spending more time in Gaius' dingy chambers than her own was starting to raise eyebrows - he cracked up at the thought, because somehow Gaius and eyebrows in the same sentence was always funny –
"Merlinnnn", Morgana whined, sounding disturbingly similar to Arthur just then "I've had it with these boring, regular spells now. I want to do something different! There's so many interesting spells in here and you haven't let me try a single one of them.
Anybody who claimed to know the Lady knew that she had a tendency to be dramatic, and while he found it mostly endearing, this was one of the few times when it made him want to hit his head against something hard and pass out.
"Now that's not fair, Morgana. We tried that levitating spell only day before, right? You understand why we must take this slow, don't you? If you jump right to the complicated spells without mastering the basic ones, it'll get out of hand. I don't want you get hurt, or end up hurting anyone else."
He looked at her with huge blue eyes and spoke in that annoyingly persuasive and understanding tone that made her feel like the impetuous dollophead she was.
"Fine" Morgana conceded. " – but can you at least tell me what this spell is, exactly? It seems like some sort of transformation one but I can't be sure."
"Let me have a look." Morgana handed the book to him with the page opened.
"Yup. A transformation spell it is. But it seems to be a very advanced variation. The one we did last week was much simpler compared to this one. All we did was change inanimate objects. This seems like it's meant for living creatures and we are certainly not going there anytime soon."
"Relax, Merlin. Don't be such a Grinch. I was simply curious, that's all." She said with a nonchalant tone that made Merlin the opposite of 'relaxed'.
"Anyway, it's late. I suppose I might as well retire for the night. Got to catch up on my beauty sleep." Morgana stressed on the last part.
This made Merlin doubly suspicious, because Morgana was exceptionally beautiful – but it was surely not because of her "sleep" since she'd barely ever had a peaceful night – a time of the day she'd never looked forward to.
But right then Morgana interrupted the trail of any coherent thoughts he may have had by grabbing his right ear and kissing his left cheek. She pulled away but didn't remove her hand still. Instead she traced the contours of his cheekbone with her thumb for a few seconds and said a heartfelt "Thank you, Merlin." before leaving.
Merlin stood there dazed for one whole minute, before his aching bones reminded him of his tiredness and exactly how inviting his bed looked at that moment.
Oh well, he'd deal with Morgana in the morning. What could she possibly do in a single night anyway? And without the book too – which was safely kept on his bed right with him. With that reassuring thought he climbed into his bed and let sleep take him into a pleasant dreamland of Morgana and pudding.
Unbeknownst to the sleeping warlock, one curious and excited witch on the other side of the castle spread out a roll of parchment marked with ancient words. She couldn't wait to try out this spell. She took out a whittled cat from her wardrobe – a childhood gift from her father. She had always been fascinated with all animals – but especially cats since she was a child. Now was the time to test this spell and her growing skills. Merlin's warning rang in her head but she brushed it off. Technically she wasn't doing anything wrong, was she? He said not to try anything advanced unless you get the basics. But she already had learnt the basics of this spell. What could possibly go wrong?
Slowly and surely she chanted the spell, letting the words fall from her mouth like musical notes and concentrating all her energy on the carved toy in front of her. Once she was done, she waited, and waited and…nothing.
Absolutely. Blasted. Nothing.
She tore the parchment into god knows how many pieces and threw it away in anger. So this was what could happen. She climbed into bed and roughly pulled the sheets over herself. She wondered if she could bury a hole through her bed and stay in it. She would've been happier if she had been struck by lightning or something. At least it would have been less disappointing than being faced with her own inadequacy.
Morgana woke to sunlight streaming through her window onto her suddenly very large bed. She blinked once, twice, before getting up and stretching like a cat. She felt different, very different but she chalked it up to morning blurriness. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to two perfectly normal furry white paws stretched out in front of her face.
Paws.
Paws.
Morgana screamed, except it came out like a hiss, and soon enough Gwen burst into the room to find her mistress' bed occupied by a cat, a rather hostile one judging from the sounds it was making.
Morgana had to make a split second decision before Gwen bolted out of the room to notify anyone of her disappearance, and did what any sensible person(or feline, in this case) would do. She pounced at her best friend.
When Merlin woke up the very first thoughts in his head were that he was hungry and that Morgana's skin looked especially edible in her nightgown.
He slapped himself and shook his head twice to drive such lascivious thoughts away from his mind.
Don't get in over your head now, Merlin.
The chiding voice in his head sounded a lot like Gaius, which was great - the best way to get rid of any tempting thoughts was to think of Gaius.
A knock on the front door interrupted his musings and not a second later someone barged into his bedroom.
"Gwen!" Merlin exclaimed, before scrambling to cover his naked chest with the blanket.
"Merlin! Oh thank god, I didn't know who else to go to, and since Gaius is not here, I thought!"
Gwen spoke breathlessly, anxiously looking about the room as if doing so would make Gaius teleport there right that instant.
"Wait, slow down, Gwen. Relax." Merlin lowered the blanket when it became clear that Gwen was least concerned about his modesty or lack thereof, since there was obviously a far bigger issue to be dealt with here. It was only then that he noticed that Gwen was holding something. He could make out a lump of black and white fluff and some whiskers.
"Gwen, is that a … cat?"
"Oh what? Yes. That. Merlin, I know what I'm about to say sounds crazy, but..". "I think this cat is Morgana."
Merlin blinked.
"What?"
"This morning when I entered her chambers there was no sign of her. Instead of Morgana, I found this cat in her bed, buried among her sheets and nightgown. Since then it-"
She was cut off by an angry mewling noise.
"She. She has been trying to.. tell me something? By scratching and pointing to her things. She didn't let me leave her chambers until I'd found out.
"And how did you?" Merlin narrowed his eyes.
"I well, looked into her eyes. And I just, sort of knew."
"And if you notice – this cat has a lot of markings similar to Morgana's. It can't be just a coincidence. Look, she has this little scar above her right eye. And her eyes are almost the same shade of green. And with all of your…magical shenanigans I thought, well, that it may not be entirely out of the realm of possibility."
Merlin still wasn't entirely convinced. This called for a closer inspection "Can you pass her to me?"
"Okay."
Gwen let the cat slip out of her arms and almost in a second it was across the bed and snuggling upto Merlin.
"Well, she seems to like you just fine." Gwen scoffed.
Merlin on the other hand was too busy trying to validate Gwen's suspicion to have heard her comment. She was right, there was something awfully familiar about this cat. And the eyes did bear a striking resemblance to Morgana's. But there was only one way to truly find out.
They had tried this last week – trying to touch each other's magic. It was a powerful yet frightening feeling. It was terribly intiamate, as it felt like someone had reached out a hand through your body and grabbed your soul. But it had its advantages, like now. Merlin recognized Morgana's magic as easily as his own. So if this really was Morgana – the nature of her magical core would have remained unchanged despite her form. Somewhere in the back of his mind Merlin realised that he should probably be concerned that he was having lewd dreams about this very being last night - ShutupShutupShut up, brain! This is so completely NOT the time. And it wasn't as if I were dreaming about a cat - It was very much her human body. Her soft, curvy, perfect- Merlin shook these thoughts out of his head for the second time in the same hour.
As soon as Merlin reached out – he could feel those familiar threads connecting to his own like they always did.
This really was Morgana.
Merlin let out a sigh– he was beginning to really worry. Had it not been her it would have been especially alarming. He hugged the cat close him in relief.
But it lasted for about two seconds when his eyes narrowed and he fixed the cat with a glare.
"You tried the spell last night didn't you?"
Morgana suddenly found her newfound paws to be the most interesting thing in the room.
"But why would you turn yourself into a-"
"Merlin," Gwen interrupted hesitantly,"I don't think she was trying to do it on herself. I found a whittled cat on her bedside. Now, I won't pretend to know much about how magic works, but maybe she was trying to transform it into a real cat?"
Morgana could've kissed Gwen right then. Or licked. Or something.
Merlin groaned "God, Morgana why?! I told you not to meddle in those kind of spells didn't I? Now look what you've done! Couldn't you have at least waited to do it with me? Now how are we supposed to-"
Morgana looked up at him with huge misty green eyes and it was as if an invisible force had zipped his mouth shut. He suddenly felt like the most vile, brutal and terrible human being on the planet and tried to make up for his earlier outburst.
"There." He cuddled the cat close to him and rubbed softly behind her ear. "I didn't mean to go off on you like that. I'm sorry, Morgana. But I'm just worried about you." Morgana nuzzled into his neck and settled even closer to him at that, as if in understanding.
"Ahem."
Someone cleared their throat and that's when Merlin realized Gwen was still in the room.
"As lovely as this is, Merlin. We have to think of something to fix this."
"What? Yes. Yes we do."
He answered absent minded-ly as Morgana had now taken to slipping up and around his shoulders.
"Merlin!" Gwen chided.
"It's not my fault! Look, she's distracting me!" Merlin whined.
Gwen raised a very Gaius-esque eyebrow.
"Alright ,Alright. I need to get to Arthur right now. Meanwhile you take Morgana back to her chambers and I'll meet you there in an hour or so, hopefully with a solution."
He somehow managed to dress his upper half before Morgana pounced on him again and it was another fifteen minutes before he could move.
Morgana was very reluctant to let go of Merlin – and whilst she was very adorable – Merlin didn't own very many neckerchiefs and Morgana had already made quick work of the one on his neck right now.
Gwen scrunched up her eyebrows "If this really is Morgana, why is she behaving soo..?"
"Feline-ish?" Merlin supplied.
"Yeah."
Merlin scratched his head "Well, she technically is a cat right now. So whilst she has Morgana's memories and brains – she is also susceptible to behaving like that because, well-"
"She cannot help it?" Gwen asked.
"Basically." Merlin replied.
"Okay" Gwen put on her best "back to business" face. "Come on then, Morgana. We have to let Merlin go do his work, now."
A meow was her answer and she hadn't moved an inch from Merlin's arms.
"The sooner you let him go the sooner he can find a way to change you back."
The noise was a bit lower this time, as if she understood but was still slightly reluctant.
Gwen went in for the killer blow, "I have yarn balls for you. About a dozen of them. And you have a far bigger, fluffier bed there in your room."
That did it. She slipped from Merlin's arms and pounced into Gwen's and settled herself on her shoulders.
Merlin was amazed.
"What?" Gwen smiled, "I have experience with cats. I had one as a child."
As Merlin was busy polishing Arthur's armor his mind was somewhere else entirely. To come up with a solution he needed a book. And maybe help from some external source. It had been two hours since he had promised Gwen that he would be back for Morgana.
He chuckled at the thought of her. She made such a fluffy, adorable cat. He'd never had any pets but he'd immediately warmed up to her cat form. He knew he should be mad at her for her carelessness, but the one time he had been she'd immediately made him feel rotten. Merlin pouted, it wasn't fair. He was the one who was supposed to distract her by flashing big puppy eyes. This was the first time he'd gotten a taste of his own medicine and he wasn't liking it one bit.
But back to the problem at hand.
There were two things he could do in this predicament. He could go to that blasted dragon and ask him about a solution. Or he could wait for an hour for Gaius to come back from his excursion into the lower town and figure out something with him.
The dragon would be entirely cryptic and since it was Morgana in question here, entirely unhelpful and especially obnoxious, so he crossed out that option.
Which left him with Gaius. Well, there was surely going to be a lot of ear pulling, "What were you thinking, Merlin"s, "I leave you two on your own for one day" and a constant eyebrow of doom involved, but ultimately he would agree to help clean up this mess.
But until then, Merlin had to leave his duties to go check on Morgana and this whole fiasco had to be kept from Uther, and that could not be done without informing Arthur.
"Morgana's a cat.''
Arthur was used to his servant's occasional questionable behaviour but intercepting him in the hallways to inform him that his foster sister was a cat was certainly a new one.
"Of course Morgana's a cat, Merlin. She stretches like one, she used claw me up when we were children, and she misplaces my sword for fun." He shuddered at the last thought, his hands absentmindedly reaching for the sword dangling at his hip to make sure it's still there.
"No, I mean, she's umm... quite literally a cat."
Arthur paused his mighty strides of prattishness to grace Merlin with some semblance of attention.
"Merlin, it's not as if you usually make sense, but this is the most nonsensical thing I've heard from you in a long time. And I have things to do, you know?"
"I'mafraidthismatterrequiresimmediateattention!"
"What?"
"Sire."
Then Merlin proceeded to give what was most likely the lengthiest and most awkward explanation he had ever had to give in record time.
Fortunately, Arthur was in a more sensible mood for the day, so instead of bolting straight to the Throne room to tell the king, he marched towards Morgana's chambers to inspect the situation on his own.
Merlin didn't fail to notice the uncharacteristic maturity displayed on the Prince's part.
"Wow. One would think your first priority would be to inform the King of sorcery."
"And miss the opportunity of seeing Morgana licking her own toes? Never."
"Technically, they're paws."
Arthur ignored his jab and stopping just short of Morgana's chamber doors, leveled his manservant with a hard glare, "If I find that all this is some kind of practical joke..."
"You'll make my life hell?"
Arthur gave the sorcerer a saccharine smile.
Merlin mirrored his look and said, "Then I can assure you that you won't be disappointed."
Arthur wasn't quite sure what he had expected to see upon opening the doors, but he certainly wasn't ready for the scene that was playing out in front of him.
Gwen was sitting on her haunches, dangling a yarn ball in front of a black and white cat that was animatedly chasing it.
"You mean to tell me that that is Morgana?" He asked Merlin, pointing at the feline that had now managed to tangle itself in the wool.
"Yup."
"I don't believe this."
Gwen looked up from where she was busy amusing Morgana. "Arthur! I'm sorry I didn't notice you entering. This um...this is - "
"It's okay, Gwen. He knows."
Gwen raised her eyebrows. The question on her face was clear to Merlin. How much?
"He knows about the goblin that did this to Morgana. And that he fled. And that she'll be normal again by tomorrow."
"Oh."
Merlin felt guilty for not having discussed the alibi with Gwen before using it, but had enough faith in her ability to quickly catch on to it and play along.
Meanwhile, Arthur had zoomed in his full attention to the cat – which was supposedly Morgana and tried to decipher if the entire situation was, in fact, a very strange dream. The whole thing seemed all too ridiculous to be real. But it wasn't as if it were completely implausible. The events of the past year – encounters with griffins, unicorns, sorcerers and even trolls had made him firm in his belief that virtually nothing was out of the realm of possibility. Still, but Morgana… as a domestic animal? There was only one way to confirm that. He walked up to the cat that was now sitting with her paws on crossed over the other in a strangely regal pose, knelt down, and gave the fluffy tail a firm tug. The result of his action was a hissing sound accompanied by the cat jumping on his shoulders and scratching his head off. By the time he was able to get away from the vile creature, his hair was a complete mess of blond sticking out in all directions, and his face had a good few scratches on it. Satisfied with her handiwork, the cat gave him a scarily familiar glare before trotting back to its preferred spot (And was it… swinging its posterior?).
'Okay, that's Morgana alright."
"What the hell did you do that for?" An incredulous but secretly amused Merlin asked Arthur.
"Oh, that was for uh…checking." Arthur winced as he touched the tender skin on the side of his face where Morgana had marked him. "You see, Morgana and I used to get into a lot of physical fights as children, and while we didn't generally play by any rules, there were some moves that were off-limits. Pulling her hair was one of them. She would nearly claw my eyes out whenever I tried to do that, and cause twice the damage to my own hair. I was sure that that tendency hasn't changed and probably never will."
Arthur hadn't realized how much of his embarrassing childhood he had shared until there was some snickering and muffled laughter from the general direction of Merlin and Gwen.
Arthur scoffed, "Anyway, now that you both have extracted your amusement from my misery, shall we move on to how we are going to handle this situation?"
"Please don't tell the king about this, Arthur." Gwen had decided to clear out the one thing that was of utmost importance.
"It's alright, Guinevere. It wasn't my intention to do that anyway." Arthur reassured Gwen with that special disarming smile of his that he reserved for her only.
Whilst the humans in the room were busy arguing about the best course of action, none of them noticed a certain fluffy kitten sneaking out from the crack of the door.
A/N - Hello, again! This is another one that was collecting metaphorical dust in my docs and and one particular reviewr's encouragemnt in the last story I posted motivated me to post this as well. It will likely consist of 1 or two more chapters. Something light-hearted in contrast to my last one.
Also, If I have offended any cat owners due to my lack of knowledge about cat behaviour reflected in this story, I apologize in advance. I'm actually more of a dog person but C'mon! You can't tell me if Morgana were an animal you could imagine her as anything other than a cat :P