Written under my penname on LJ for Camelot_Drabble for their weekly prompts. This weeks prompt was: Lost.
Merlin absolutely loathed mornings, not because he had to wake up. Actually, Merlin found that the waking up part was easy and he enjoyed watching Camelot wake up as well. He hated mornings because it meant that he had to search for things that early morning tiredness made into a chore. The latest victim to all this were Merlin's socks.
He could not find them under the bed and they weren't present in the chest of drawers, nor were they hidden in the folds of his blanket that had fallen to the floor in the night. They weren't in the bedside table or underneath any of the books that were in his room, and they weren't behind the door or stuffed in the bench. As a matter of fact, the more he searched the more he suspected that there were no socks in his room. He realised this as he was sifting through the neckerchiefs folded neatly in the bottom drawer of his cupboard and frustrated, he gave up his search. A second later a solution came to mind, if Merlin could save the life of Arthur using magic, surely he could perform it to have his socks find him, right?
A smile was on his lips as this thought crossed his mind and he congratulated himself for finding a simple answer to his problems and as he walked over to the bed to take a seat, he felt an almost smug like happiness sweep through him. At least he couldn't lose his magic and it was there inside him every morning, at least he didn't have to search for it each day like the trousers, the shirts, the belts or the sneaky socks.
Merlin closed his eyes and concentrated on the spell that he knew could have things come to him and he spoke them out loud, an image of his feet being wrapped up in the warmth of a nice pair of socks in his mind. However, something went wrong with the spell and Merlin realised rather belatedly as the door to his room thudded open and the entire household's socks fell on top of him, that he had said the spell wrong.
"Merlin," Gaius' voice yelled as Merlin grabbed for a pair of neatly folded socks. He looked up as Gaius climbed the staircase to his chambers and stood in the doorway, a sock held in one hand that was feebly fighting its way to Merlin and a scowl on his face, Merlin found that Gaius looked rather bad-tempered.
"What are you doing?" Gaius asked him, his arms crossed over his chest and he looked so stern that Merlin knew that he couldn't make up a story on the spot.
"Finding socks?" said Merlin innocently as he held up a pair for Gaius to see.