Summary: Blond icon Arthur has an identity crisis. Arthur-centric silliness.
A/N: Before you start reading I'd like to say that I am personally very pro-ginger. My dad was ginger, and I know they get a lot of stick. This is just a bit of fun.
Orange Magic (Part 1: Red) by frostgossamer
It was just after midnight, and the denizens of Camelot Castle were sleeping comfortably in their beds. Safe in the knowledge that guard patrols watched over them as they slept.
Lady Morgana sat in her chamber contemplating evil. As she swept a silver-backed brush through her long dark tresses, she was struck by an evil idea. She reached under her bed and retrieved the bag of tricks that her evil sister had entrusted to her, and removed the makings of a charm of great power.
Long threads of evil floated on the air like smoke, down the corridors of Camelot Castle, eddying like whiffs of exotic perfume.
In Prince Arthur's chamber the low burning fire sucked the cold air under the door, bringing fingers of evil magic to circle Arthur's sleepy head, a head unfeasibly blond for a nobleman of Welsh extraction, and, as he breathed in, to slide unnoticed up his nostrils.
('o')
When the first rays of the dawn sun filtered into the prince's room, he stretched sleepily and opened one eye. Another day of tedious royal duty was about to begin. What a bore!
He sat up and ruffled his hair with both hands, yawning loudly. And just at that moment Merlin pushed his way into the room, with his backside, as he struggled to carry both a big breakfast tray and a number of small items of shiny armour.
He turned toward Arthur, a wide morning smile on his face, only for his jaw to drop to his feet with shock.
"Arthur!", he exclaimed. "You're ginger!"
Arthur stopped rubbing his head and looked puzzled. "What the blazes do you mean, Merlin?", he asked, gruffly, suspecting some joke at his expense.
"I mean you have red hair", Merlin explained. "Your hair is red. You know. Russet. Rusty. Red."
"Don't be so bloody ridiculous, Merlin", Arthur retorted. "My hair is blond. Blond as a lion's coat. Golden like sunshine on Midsummer's Day. Everybody remarks on it. It's central to my image."
And he tossed his head, flicking his hair like a stallion flicks his mane.
Merlin couldn't help but laugh. Noisily.
"Honestly, Arthur", he exclaimed, choking. "You'd think your hair was your whole identity."
"Of course it is", Arthur replied. "It's what I'm known for. It's how I'm recognised on the field of battle. It's my signature look. Unless someone invents a way of making a lightening sketch of me, and distributing it throughout the kingdom with a click of their fingers, how else are the general public supposed to recognise me?"
"Well, that's a shame", Merlin commiserated. "Cos it's not blond anymore. It's ginger. Here. Have a look in the mirror."
And he handed Arthur one of his favourite mirrors. Arthur had several of these, probably more than Morgana, his handsome appearance being very important to him.
Arthur frowned into the mirror.
"This can't be right", he yelped. "It must be the light in here. Open the curtains, Merlin."
Merlin opened Arthur's curtains as wide as they would go, and the bright clear light of a pure bygone sky shone into the room, highlighting the silver of Arthur's armour, the gold of his candelabra and the shocking copper mop on his head.
Arthur recoiled from his outrageous reflection in horror.
"In the name of all that's blest", he swore. "What kind of hellish trick has robbed me of my natural fair-haired magnificence and replaced it with this rusty excuse for a hair colour?"
"Well, actually I think it looks quite good", Merlin suggested, uncertainly.
Arthur fixed him with a dagger-sharp glare. "Not. On. Me.", he growled.
('o')
Merlin sensitive ears were assaulted by the yelling and colourful blaspheming coming from Arthur's chambers as he approached. Two brass dishes and a candlestick flew out of Arthur's door, only missing Merlin's head because of the enhanced reflexes he had developed attending his prince the last few years. The airborne items were followed by two young pages who scurried away like terrified mice.
Merlin entered warily. Arthur was standing in the middle of the room in a towel, fuming. His face was scarlet and he was stamping on the floor like an infuriated bull.
"What's the problem, Arthur", Merlin said, in the tone a mother would use to soothe her petulant child.
"Argh!", Arthur growled, kicking the mess he'd made around the floor. "The breeches I want to wear tonight aren't washed, I can't find my favourite belt and my bath water is barely tepid."
"You should have waited for me", Merlin told him, calmly. "I was helping Gaius, or I would have been here sooner. I'll sort everything out. Just sit here and calm down." He indicated a chair.
"Don't tell me to calm down", Arthur yelled, but he sat down anyway and waited, grumbling to himself, while Merlin set out his favourite breeches and belt, and the rest of his outfit, and did a little surreptitious incantation over his bath water, to bring it up to temperature.
"There you are, Arthur", he said, cheerfully. "Your clothes are ready, and I think you'll find that your bath is actually piping hot."
Arthur stuck a finger into the water suspiciously, then snorted and climbed in.
Merlin laughed. "Just lie back and relax", he ordered. "Or you're going to give yourself a heart attack. That red mop of yours has given you a temper to rival that bully King Anguish of Ireland."
He left the room hurriedly, just as a big wet sponge sailed past his ear, and landed with a splosh on the floor.
('o')
"Now this is ridiculous", Arthur whinged, staring at his reflection in a hand-mirror. "The last thing I needed was a spotty face."
Merlin stared at him critically for a moment. "They're freckles", he stated. "They go with the hair."
"Damn it!", Arthur griped, tossing down the mirror. "And I've always had a perfect alabaster complexion. What have I done to deserve this?"
"I could ask Gaius to prepare something to cover them up", Merlin suggested.
"You'd better not be suggesting I wear makeup", Arthur snorted in disgust.
Merlin chortled to himself. "Of course not", he replied. "But the alternative is learn to live with them. You'll just have to think of them as a feature."
Arthur gave him a piercing look. "Not funny", he griped. "My patience is beginning to wear thin. I've even caught my father having a chuckle at my expense. This auburn thing is starting to spoil all the work I've done, building up my reputation as a fair-haired heroic paradigm."
"Auburn?", Merlin muttered to himself, as he sneaked out of the room. "Posh word for carroty I'd say."
('o')
Arthur had always been proud of his even temper. Some of the servants might have argued, but it was certainly true that the quality of his temper had lately become somewhat uneven.
And so it was that today, on the training ground, Arthur's band of knights were looking decidedly reluctant to volunteer to partner Arthur in their exercises. After he broke a few shields, fractured one man's wrist, and got some unfortunate adversary in a headlock, several of them noticed that the sky might be starting to show signs of weather.
As the last of them hurried indoors, Merlin approached Arthur, as he stood looking sweaty and bewildered.
"Gaius and I have been studying his medical texts all night and all day", he told Arthur, as they walked back to the castle. "But we still haven't been able to find anything that can counteract the red hair. He thinks you will probably just have to wait for it to grow out. Then hopefully your natural blondness will grow back in, er, naturally."
Arthur grumbled, huffily. "Well it had better not take too long. Sir Agramore said something very aggravating about my hair earlier, and I nearly strangled him. I'm beginning to get a handle on this wretched temper, but I have trouble coping with the gingerist sentiment I have to put up with. It's infuriating."
Merlin smiled, sympathetically. "I used to have the same thing with my ears", he said.
"What did you do about it?", Arthur asked.
Merlin grinned, "I just charmed everyone."
('o')
Guinevere poured the herbal concoction onto Arthur's head and rubbed it in vigorously.
"Ouch!", he complained. "Do you have to do that so hard?"
"I need to get it right into the roots, and thoroughly coat every hair, or it won't work", she insisted, rubbing some more.
"Are you sure this is going to do the trick?", Arthur asked.
"Look, Arthur", Guinevere explained, patiently. "I've been using this stuff for years. It's by far the best thing to take the kink out of kinky hair. And it'll put the lustre back in. See, mine is always lovely and shiny", and she tossed her head with a tinkly laugh.
Arthur groaned. This morning he had noticed that his ginger mane was starting to frizz up. That was the last straw. How could the Crown Prince of Camelot walk around with a frizzy bonse like a dandelion. Merlin had no idea what to do, but then Guinevere had walked in and offered a solution, literally.
Not that Arthur enjoyed having girly preparations applied to his hair, but needs must. And he was actually quite enjoying the sensation of sweet Guinevere massaging his scalp. If it gave him an excuse for her to do this more often, it might almost be worth being a redhead.
('o')
The day had started badly. Merlin should have realised. Arthur had got out of bed on the wrong side. Nothing pleased him. He objected to the breakfast Merlin had brought him, the clothes he had laid out for him, the smile on Merlin's face. Nothing was right.
Merlin had lately learned to keep his head down in the mornings, but it might have been better if Arthur had managed to get some of the fight out if his system before he went to see his father.
King Uther was in his audience chamber discussing some castle administration issues with Sir Leon. Nothing new there. The problem came when he looked up from his conversation to greet his son.
"And how are we today, Copperknob?", he asked jovially.
Arthur was not in the mood.
Rash words were spoken. Uther could give as good as he got in any argument, and that didn't calm his son down one iota. The joshing, snide remarks, insinuations and downright insults he had suffered in recent weeks, over his eye-catching new hair-tone, pushed him up to and right over the edge.
Merlin ran into the room just in time to see Arthur grab his father by the collar, and drag him out of his throne. There followed a very undignified knock-down drag-out brawl between the two men, which had the whole complement of the castle gathering around to gawp.
Uther held his own surprisingly well for a man of his age, but Merlin had no choice but to intervene with just a little sneaky magic, before Arthur managed to win himself a very early succession, by eliminating his predecessor in the way of his barbaric ancestors.
TBC
A/N: Please read on...