Summary: There's something wrong with Arthur's armour. It must be Merlin's fault.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Author's Note: I'd just like to take the chance to say a massive thank-you to everyone that reviewed or favourited Emrys Revealed. I was totally overwhelmed by the response – the most reviews I have ever received! This is clearly a lovely fandom It has really motivated me, so I have decided to make a conscious effort to actually write down more of the stories that float around my head!
A few people in the reviews mentioned a continuing it, but at the moment I don't have any plans to. As tempted as I am to continue it and get more of your wonderful reviews, I always imagined as just a cheeky little one-shot. So for the time being, I will leave the reaction to your imagination!
So this probably isn't as good – I don't think it's as funny, but I hope you like it! It was going to be a oneshot, maybe with an epilogue. But it's sort of got away from me a bit and will probably be a two-shot instead!
Well of course, he'd noticed that he'd had a few lucky escapes recently: a misdirected arrow in a hunt that luckily didn't pierce his armour; a bandit that seemed to have a similarly weak hit with a sword and that strangely heavy rock that probably should have dented his helmet at least, if not knocking him out completely.
But now he KNEW something was wrong. It was common knowledge that the only way to survive a fight with Percival was to make damn sure you kept out of his way. Every one of them had experienced the feeling of finding yourself suddenly lying on the floor, staring up at Percival's triumphant face after a good solid hit had sent you sprawling. So the occasion when Percival had finally managed to get him was memorable for the simple fact that Arthur was still standing, and the mace appeared to have just bounced off his breastplate.
Not one to ever look a gift horse in the mouth, he took full advantage of his knight's quite expected confusion and promptly disarmed him, while the others looked on with similar amazement.
"Nice try Percival!" he said cheerily, while turning away from his victory. No point in them realising he was just as clueless as the rest of them.
The training session broke up not long after that, and to be honest, he'd forgotten all about it, until Merlin turned up later to collect his armour.
"Just what do you think you're doing Merlin?"
Merlin blinked back, a gauntlet in one hand, his helmet in the other and his breastplate precariously balanced under his arm. "What do you mean 'what am I doing?'" he replied petulantly.
"Pretty obvious question Merlin, what are you doing at this moment in time?"
"Answering your stupid questions?" He strode over to his manservant and snatched back the helmet, causing the breastplate to clatter to the floor and Merlin to jump away to avoid a stubbed toe. "Hey!"
"Did I tell you to touch my armour!"
To his surprise, Merlin didn't get angry, but answered back with a grin, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Forgive me for anticipating your every need Sire, but after being your manservant for over four years, and being told to polish your armour whenever anything so much as touches it, and particularly after a rigorous training session where I hear Percival managed to get a hit on you, I clearly incorrectly and idiotically assumed that you might want your armour polished this time, as you have every single other time? I deeply apologise for such a foolish attempt at being a better servant."
Oh he wasn't going to put up with that.
"Apology accepted Merlin, because despite all attempts to the contrary, you are both an idiot and a fool. Now leave the armour and go and exercise my dogs!"
"At once my Lord!" Merlin exclaimed, dropping the remaining armour on the floor and bowing extravagantly before turning and leaving the chambers.
"You can muck out my stables too!"
"MERLIN!"
The young man in question jumped off his seat as Arthur burst into Gaius' chambers, where he'd be lounging with his feet on the table, idly scrubbing Arthur's boots while reading a book. He tried vainly to catch the chair before it clattered noisily to the floor. Arthur stood in the doorway watching with a raised eyebrow. "Working hard Merlin?"
"Ah, yes... well, I was just uh... cleaning your boots and I uh... Oh! Do you want me to polish that armour now?"
Arthur was unimpressed. "No, there's something wrong with this armour." He said, dropping it onto the table. "Will you take a look at it Gaius?"
Gaius frowned and approached the table, shooting Merlin a brief look as he did. "I know very little about armour Sire, surely the blacksmith would be able to help?"
Arthur shook his head. "No, there's something else wrong with it. Well, I suppose it's not wrong exactly, but..." he seemed hesitant to elaborate.
"What is the problem Sire?"
"Well it seems to be... stronger than normal."
Gaius raised an eyebrow as Merlin winced behind Arthur's back. "Stronger?"
"There was a couple of things I'd noticed recently, but yesterday, Percival should have knocked me off my feet with that blow, but I barely felt it! It just bounced back! Then last night I thought I'd try it out. I hit my breastplate with as much strength as I could..."
"Hey!" Merlin interrupted indignantly and Arthur spun round to stare at him. "I mean, I work hard on that armour, you could at least try not to damage it on purpose!"
"That's the point Merlin, it's not damaged at all! I did the same to another piece of armour and look at it!" He displayed the other armour, now sporting a significant mace-shaped dent. Arthur turned back to Gaius "why would it do that?"
The physician raised an eyebrow and gazed at the armour in question. "Allow me some time to examine it Sire, and I'll see if I explain such an occurrence."
Arthur nodded and headed for the door. "Merlin, when you're done scrubbing my boots you can find me some other armour and polish that up for the time being."
As soon as Arthur left, Gaius turned to his ward with a look of exasperated suspicion. Merlin smiled back uncertainly. "Well that's weird isn't it?"
"Merlin, am I correct in assuming this is your doing?"
He laughed nervously. "Well I might have had something to do with it... but honestly, there's no pleasing Arthur! He finds out his armour is better than everyone else's and he wants to get rid of it! Can't he just be grateful and..."
"Merlin! Just what did you do? Surely you realised Arthur would notice something eventually?" Gaius interrupted before Merlin's complaints turned into a full-blown rant.
"I just strengthened the armour a little! You know, in case I'm too busy to drop a branch on his attacker, or trip them up... and Arthur never notices anything! How was I to know that his standards would slip so much now he's King that he'd let Percival past his guard?"
"Strengthened it how exactly?"
Merlin shrugged offhandedly "Oh you know, strengthening spell."
"Merlin! I do know a bit about magic myself you know! Strengthening spells are notoriously tricky and unpredictable, they're almost impossible to use! How did you strengthen it without the power of such a spell shattering the armour?" To his surprise, Merlin still seemed reluctant to answer.
"Well I didn't use a very strong spell..." he replied evasively.
"Just strong enough for the armour to deflect a mace?" Merlin shrugged again.
"I may have cast it more than once..." he replied defensively "Arthur does get me to polish his armour quite a lot; I've had plenty of opportunities! I sort of experimented a little as well... built in some generic preservation enchantments – I figured if the armour stayed safe, Arthur would; polished in the shape of protective runes – that was really effective; and of course if you enchant each item separately, then link them..."
Gaius looked on with no small amount of amazement as his ward launched into an enthusiastic description of the magic he'd performed on the armour, before wandering over to examine the result himself.
"...of course the problem with that is..."
"Merlin!" Gaius exclaimed, cutting the warlock off unceremoniously.
"What? Come on, Arthur needs as much help as he can get – I thought invincible armour would go nicely with his unbeatable sword!"
"No Merlin, I'm not telling you off!"
The warlock looked surprised "You're not? I mean, you tell me often enough not to use my magic for doing my chores, I figured you'd be just as angry with me using magic while doing my chores." He paused, as if waiting for Gaius to change his mind and jump in with a lecture. "And Arthur did notice, was obviously suspicious enough to come and ask you, rather than the blacksmith..."
"Well, perhaps you were a little reckless – I think we can safely say you can stop strengthening it now." Merlin had the good grace to look a bit sheepish at that "But really Merlin, this is beautiful magic." He said, admiring the armour again.
Merlin just gaped "What?"
"It's very well done, I had no idea you were capable of such refined work! It's wonderfully intricate and subtle, I really can't believe you've achieved this!"
"I...you...what?" his ward stuttered back.
"Merlin, you've been able to do magic so instinctively and easily for such a long time – I've just never seen you work on something so hard..."
"Wait a minute! I had to work hard on that re-animation spell for Valiant's shield! And that spell to enchant the lance..." the warlock interrupted indignantly.
"But you were new to spells then – your trouble was half pronunciation and half...accessing the power you have. This isn't power, its delicate work! Difficult! How long have you been working on this?" Gaius replied encouragingly.
Merlin seemed to finally catch on to the fact that he was being complimented, rather than berated for once, but still seemed rather stunned by this development. "Uh, a couple of years now I guess...but you're right, I should probably stop if Arthur's noticed."
A couple of years? Gaius just shook his head ruefully. That boy, working so hard to keep Arthur safe, even whilst scrubbing his floors and picking up after him...
"In fact" he continued with a sigh, "I'll have to start all over again if he gets it into his head that there's something wrong with this set. What are you going to tell him?"
"I'll just tell him that his armour's of a much higher quality than most others – this was a gift from his father, correct?" Merlin nodded in agreement. "Well then, he probably won't question it."
"Thanks Gaius!" Merlin yelled as he bounded out of the door, back to work.
Well there you go, hope you like! There is another chapter (the last) almost done, just needs a bit of tweaking. I'd appreciate any reviews!