The Once and Future King (S02E02)

Part 1

Summary: in case you couldn't tell from the title, this is an Arthur and Merlin Fanfiction. Arthur falls in love with Merlin, and Merlin with Arthur. Merlin uses his magic to keep an eye on Arthur as he stays with Gwen, but what will happen? What will Merlin discover about Arthur?

Merlin gives Arthur some privacy so he can change into his cloths. Once Merlin is sure he's out of Arthur's sight, he takes a leaf off of the tree above him and placed it in the palm of his right hand. "I hope this works." He whispers to himself, being careful for Arthur not to hear him. "Ypoc ym ecnaraeppa, ypoc ym eciov, ypoc em dna emoceb a dnoces noisrev fo em." Merlin whispers, his eyes turning gold as he says the spell, his magic start to spin around the leaf slowly, almost like a magical, majestic, slow dance. Merlin blows the leaf off his hand and the moment it's in the air it become a golden glow that gets bigger in size as the leaf changes, once the glowing stops there is a perfect copy of Merlin, well...almost, the copy has green eyes unlike the real Merlin's who's eyes are a very light, powerful blue, but he doubts anyone will notice, especially Arthur. The real Merlin smile as does his copy. "I did it." Merlin celebrates to himself quietly. "Do you know the plan?" Merlin asks his copy.

"Of cause I do, I'm you Merlin." The copy stats.

"Good, well...here goes nothing." Merlin states with a shrug. "Ekam em a flow." His eyes became gold once more and his magic surrounds him in a bright blinding golden light, the copy of Merlin has to close his eye. Once the copy no longer sees a light from behind his eyelids, he opens them to find the real Merlin is now a wolf. He is twice the size of a normal wolf, with gorgeous golden eyes, and black as night fur. As a wolf, Merlin actually has a lot of muscle, he was faster, stronger and lighter on his feet than any ordinary wolf, which was quite impressive considering he was twice the size of a normal wolf. "I can't believe it worked! Ok, you know what to do. Take Arthur back to Camelot to Gwen's house and I'll be there shortly." He told the copy, knowing full well that the copy knew what to do. Now, as a wolf, Merlin's voice was very gruff and quite deep, which meant that if he was to talk by accident, no one would recognize him by his voice.

"Merlin!" Arthur called for him, and the real Merlin almost went but quickly stopped himself.

"Good luck." The copy stated, with a nod from Merlin, the copy walked off to Arthur.

"Get my bag Merlin." Merlin heard Arthur ordered his copy.

"If you're a present, don't you think you should carry your own bag?" The copy asked, Merlin chuckles to himself a bit.

"That's just it Merlin. No one will know it's my bag." Came Arthur's reply, and Merlin felt as if though something hit his stomach, he looked over, the copy was holding the bag to his stomach. No doubt Arthur through the bag at him, which meant Merlin had to be careful, if he could fell that, that meant that the two Merlin's were connected, if pain was to occur to the copy it would happen to him too, and if pain was inflicted upon him the copy would feel it. Good thing it was only for a few days, because Merlin's life was dangerous enough as it is. Then Merlin released, what if he had to copy himself again and he couldn't get the copy of himself by calling the name Merlin, it would feel really weird so he decided, since his copy's eyes were green and he could us magic, he was going to call his copy, Neerg

They arrive at Gwen's and enter the house. "Thank you for doing this Guinevere." Arthur stated not looking at her as he said so.

"My pleasure, my lord." She replied kindly, then leans in to Neerg. "I can't believe you talked me into this Merlin." Gwen whispers, Neerg smile.

"Sorry." He apologized, then out of nowhere there was a scratch at the back door. "Who is it?" Neerg asks, pretending he doesn't know, and does it convincingly. No one answers the call, so Neerg opens the door curiously and Merlin pounces on him with excitement. "Shadow! What are you doing here?" he asks happily, giving the Merlin a good fuss to make it more convincing. Make what more convincing you may ask, well…

"Merlin, what is this?!" Gwen asks in shock.

Neerg puts on a really convicting; 'I forgot where I was', look on his face. "This is Shadow…my pet…wolf." He says nervously, but before anyone could say anything else. "Shadow this is Gwen, she's a good friend of mine." Neerg stats, Merlin walks up to Gwen, sits down in front of her and lifts up his right paw. Gwen smiles at Merlin and take his paw to shake. Neerg smiles like he's really pleased with himself. "And this is Prince Arthur." Neerg stats and Merlin growls a warning growl, smiling a little in his mine because he's always wanted to have an excuse to growl as Arthur for something and get away with it, and now was that time, oh and how he was going to take advantage of it. "Shadow, manners." Neerg stats sternly, making Arthur look at him in shock, not knowing Merlin had it in him to be stern. Merlin bows his head at Arthur but huffs out a noise that kind of sounded like a quick, quiet, almost gentile growl, but it was just a, 'I don't like you huff' which made both Merlin's grin, luckily going unknown by Arthur. "It appears even animals know prates when they smell them." Neerg joked, and Arthur looks at him displeased which makes Neerg smile even more, Arthur turns his head away from Neerg with a slight blush on him face.

"God, I hate it when he smiles like that. It's too cute." Arthur thinks.

"What is he doing here?" Gwen asked, with confutation in her eyes.

"There's only one reason Shadow would risk his life to come to me during the day." Neerg stated, seriousness in his eyes. Arthur can't help but look at him in disbelief, Merlin smiles too himself.

"Why?" Arthur finally speaks.

"There are hunters after him." Neerg stats with worry in his eyes, he turns to face Gwen.

"Please can he stay here until I find somewhere else to hide him? He won't be any trouble, he's extremely well trained. He will do anything if given the command, but he is only loyal to me, if anyone else gives him a command he just stares at them with a really frightening death stair, but that can be sorted out, all I need to do is tell him to listen to you. Please Gwen?" Neerg begs, Gwen looks at Neerg in shock, not quite expecting that.

"Um" Was all Gwen was able to say.

"Thank you Gwen! You're a life saver!" He places his hand on the handle of Gwen's back door, and looks at Merlin with a smile. "Now, I want you to stay here with Gwen. I want you to behave, and listen to Gwen until I get back." He tells Merlin, they needed to make this as convincing as possible. He turns to face Gwen. "Oh, make sure he doesn't growl, bark or howl, I don't want anyone knowing he's here" He strokes Merlin on the head. "Be good…bye boy. Bye Gwen, bye Arthur." And with that leave the house, not to return till tomorrow, and in the moment Neerg was outside, he made sure no one was looking, and the spell was released, turning Neerg back into the leaf he once was.

"Well I guess that means you're staying here Shadow." Gwen stats, Merlin wags his fluffy black tail, sticking his tong out in that happy puppy way, he really wanted to sell this act, it was the only way to keep an eye on Arthur and no that whatever Arthur did, it would be because he wanted to do it, not because he may be trying to hide something from Merlin.

"Is this my bed?" Arthur asks, sitting down on the bed.

"Yes sire." Gwen doesn't answer for a moment, just stars at Arthur with a displeased look but it goes unnoticed. With a sign that goes undetected. She grabs herself a green blanket and tries her best to get comfortable on the potato sacks.

Merlin stars at Arthur with a displeases look as Arthur gets comfortable in Gwen's bed, but Merlin's displeased look doesn't go undetected by Arthur unlike Gwen's when he just assumed the bed was his. "What are you looking at?" Arthur asks with annoyance. Merlin's pupils change into slits for a split second as he growls at Arthur but they go back to normal when his growl stops, Arthur's eyes widen in shock, shaking his head thinking he must have imagined it. Merlin stands up and goes to where Gwen sleeps uncomfortably on the floor and his ears drop in sadness, not liking the fact that she has to sleep on the cold hard floor just because she can't stand up to someone when they just assume something.

Gwen looks at the black wolf that has decided to join her in the kitchen. "What is it boy?" She asks in a whisper. Merlin goes round to her back and nudges her head with his nose, Gwen lift her head knowing that he was probably trying to get something, but she didn't expect the wolf to lie down underneath her head as a pillow, and place his tail around her stomach in a hug sort of way. Gwen smile at Merlin as she places her head down on his soft fur, realizing that the wolf wanted to make her feel more comfortable on the floor. "Thank you Shadow." She whispers stroking him in appreciation.

"Good night Guinevere." They heard Arthur say from the bed the lies in the living room.

"Good night Sire." She replies with confutation.

Arthur hesitates for a moment. "Good night Shadow."

Shadow leafs his head in an alarmed kind of way, looking at were Arthur was beyond the wall that stopped them from seeing each other, his ears are perked up straight, and his eyes are filled with shock, but it soon fades into a soft smile. But Merlin was still angry at Arthur for stealing Gwen's bed, so Arthur gets a pretty threatening growl as a reply before Gwen hushes him. Once Arthur and Gwen are asleep, Merlin smiles down at Gwen. He may have not done much to make her more comfortable, but he could tell what it meant a lot to Gwen. He was pleased that at lease she was getting descent sleep, from the worth of his wolfs body, and the softness of his fur. He placed his head on a potato sack, his ears going down ready for sleep to take over, and closes his eye with that, 'I'm pleased with myself', smile on his face, sleep quickly taking over.

To Be Continued

All spells are just regular words backwards, for example: Arthur=Ruhtra, wolf=flow and so on. But only the words are backward, not the sentences.