Hello! Right now, there is a bit of a background to how this story came about!
So a very intelligent reviewer by the name of battlemaiden518 made a very good observation in one of my stories, I wrote Merlin's eyes as green while in fact they are clearly a very oceanic blue! I have simply never noticed! I think I've been writing him with green eyes for years and never copped on! Oops!
Now, being the stubborn Irish eejit that I am, I refuse to be wrong. So this is the story of why my Merlin has eyes that shine like the emerald isle! It was written at stupid time in the morning so please excuse the… randomness of it all….
Have fun!
And I am so sorry for my lack of surname creativity….
I don't own Merlin….. I have a napkin that looks like his scarf tied to my wardrobe though!?
The Emerald Eyes of Merlin MacWarlock.
Two men stood at the starting line. Blue eyes boring into emerald green. Raven hair brushed across the top of the sea blue eyes as he peered up at his opponent, his eyes fierce and determined.
"Stakes good?"
"Oh yeah..." The young warlock replied, the cockiness seeping unashamedly into his voice.
Now, how exactly Merlin had ended up at the HagRavens Tavern on the very outskirts of Dungal and Camelot were long forgotten. Well, they'd hit the third tavern just as the moon hit its highest peak which was a good long time ago. Gwaine had trickled off as the starlight faded; he seemed to be on one knee in front of a blind sow behind the farmers shed but Merlin couldn't really recall the details. There had been a few drinks... Loose emphases on "few"...
He was too focused on the present. One track. One opponent. One winner.
One egg. One spoon.
Tavern to the apple tree. A grand ol' total of about 25 sleeping Percival's. Merlin was feeling confident.
"Me win, me your sapphires. You win, you my scarf"
Merlin smiled and nodded. It was a nice neckerchief... Rich silken red, like an apple just plucked from a spring branch. It hung at a perfect angle about the foreign traveller's neck. Merlin wanted it. He didn't have any sapphires handy but he wanted it. Besides, who said he was going to lose?
The two contestants readied themselves at the starting point.
"READY!" Merlin fixed his sea blue eyes on his egg. The ground seemed to be moving beneath him... For some reason, this was hilarious and Merlin giggled.
"STEADY!" -"I AM STEADY!" Merlin cried out, catching himself before he face planted the ground. "Oh oops..." The drunken servant pressed his fingers to his lips "Shhhhh" he slurred solemnly, grinning into his hand. "No, right spell..." the warlocks head was spinning. Images of the night's events flashed in front of his eyes. Gwaine declaring his love for a mother pig, himself standing on a table singing some stupid song about a Tigers eye, and this weird old man coming up to him talking gibberish and staring into his eyes like a creep... His scarf was nice though...
"GO!" -"NO!" Merlin cried back, his egg wobbled drunkenly on the tip of his spoon. The spell for sticking things together was sticking to the back of his head. He looked up; his opponent was staggering towards the halfway point. "Not Fair! He yelled before stumbling after him. For some reason his feet wouldn't go on the ground in a straight line. The world kept trying to buck him off. Why the hell had he picked the wooden spoon!?
Should have gone for the ladle like the other guy...
The crowed were cheering wildly as the race unfolded before them. Coins had swapped hands and most were cheering the stumbling boy who had won every bet he took since he'd turned up in HagRaven. Now however it looked like he couldn't even win a bet with gravity. He tripped and tottered his way down the track after the traveller, his egg only barely clinging onto the wooden spoon as it tilted and turned with him. The traveller looked slightly steadier on his feet and was quickly making his way up to the finish line.
Merlin glanced up at his fellow racer. He had gain pace on him, he had drifted to the right somewhat but was still closer. "I can do this! I am Emrys! Greatest Warlock to ever live! Destined to help the once and future King! The Last DragonLord! I'm Bat-" The great DragonLord tripped over a discarded tankard and fell with all the grace of a lanky drunken servant face down into the mud. Thankfully, nobody heard the dignified "whoouuup" as he went down due to the eruption of cheers and groans from the crowd as his opponent crossed the final sleeping Percival to be crowned WINNER!
The crowd milled back into the tavern, the melodic chink of gold changing hands as they walked by. Merlin stayed lying in the mud. His head reeling from what had just happened along with a night full of mead and ale sloshing over his temples causing his head to crack from the inside.
"Boop!" Merlin tilted his head upwards. The sun was just beginning to peak its head over the horizon. The wooden coloured face of his traveller opponent loomed above him; his smile was so wide it forced his eyes closed.
"Winner!" He said triumphantly, pointing to his chest.
"Yeah," Merlin replied, rolling onto his back. His head began to pound, his stomach gushing from side to side like a boat in a choppy sea. "I actually don't have any sapphires, sorry." He mumbled throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the strengthening light.
He felt a hand grab his arm and pull it upwards. The dark face of the traveller hung above him like a black sun. He reached up a hand and placed his fingers very gently on Merlin's eyelids.
"Sapphires." He said.
"Waaaaait... you want my eyes?" Merlin opened his deep blue eyes to stare into the foreigners emerald ones, only to have to snap them back shut as the fresh sunlight invaded his sight almost blinding him. He resorted to raising his eyebrows as high as he could, (Which was embarrassingly low compared to his guardians talents) and staring at his opponent through closed eyelids.
"Pretty Sapphires!" Declared the traveller happily.
Merlin was at a loss somewhat. "You see... I kinda need them... You know, to see... things..."
The traveller frowned and then smiled. He rested his fingers on his own eyelids before bringing his hand down to the warlocks. "Swap." he said.
"You want to swap eyes?" Merlin squinted through the burning sunlight into the foreigners emerald green orbs. "Ok..." he muttered, "I am never going drinking with Gwaine again..."
"Stakes..." his victor muttered looking crestfallen.
He had won after all. I mean, they had organised the stakes before the race and even if Merlin hadn't been expecting this (Or anything remotely like this at all really) to happen, he had shook hands. A contract had been struck. If he had won he would be expecting his prize surely, why should it be different the other way around? How was that fair?
"Fine." Merlin said, lifting himself up and sitting cross-legged in front of the traveller. "But errm, how exactly are we going to do this?" Even if Merlin was going to reveal himself a warlock he had never really bothered to learn the eye switching spell... Priority wise it was up there with the one for accelerated-arm-hair-growth and rapid-toenail-swapping. And unfortunately he was going to have to protest somewhat if any metal instruments were pulled from the foreigners robes.
The traveller smiled shyly before holding out his hand. Very gently, golden specks of light began to form above his palm. They danced softly in the morning sunlight before gathering themselves into the shape of a tiny golden horse. The miniature animal galloped a lap of the man's ebony palm before dissolving back into the air. It was beautiful.
"Sorcerer" Merlin said smiling up at him, still in awe of the simplistic beauty of the magic preformed for him.
The foreigner nodded and placed a finger to his lips. Merlin copied him silently, still smiling.
The traveller stretched out a hand towards Merlin. The boy sighed. "How the hell did I end up in this?" His deep sapphire blue eyes took one final glance around; they caught the sun causing tiny golden flecks to appear around the irises. Merlin shut his eyes and leaned his forehead into the traveller's palm.
Everything went black. Merlin's ears perked up catching only the shortest snippets of a spell in a foreign tongue. His heart thumbed madly in his chest. His head swirled from the nights alcohol and surfing memories. His eyes raced around in his skull, trying to see what was happening. He felt a warm liquid seep from the man's palm down to his eye sockets. It skimmed around his temples before flowing into the boys eyes. He felt it circle his eyeballs, covering them in this warm hug.
It was uncomfortable at best. It wasn't like Merlin was bathing his own eyes in warm water often; it was a very unusual experience! His hands began to lift to rub away the invading substance but he caught himself just in time. He dared not to anything lest something went horribly wrong...
This sensation lasted only for about a minute. Merlin felt the hand lift from his forehead and an accented "Tadaa" floated into his ears. The young boy just sat there, eyes tight shut. Half of his brain waiting for some sort of instruction, the other half telling him "it'll be fine. We'll just walk around like this for the rest of our life what's wrong with that?"
He felt a slight pressure on his knee. "Open." The man said softly. "All good! Promise." There was something in that final word that Merlin couldn't help but trust. Besides, it's all done now anyway...
Very very slowly, the warlock cracked open his eyelids. Blinding light seeped through the gap and he snapped them shut again. A deep low chuckle came from somewhere just in front of him. "Great... Now I'm a loser and a wimp...A blind wimpy DragonLord. There's a title of someone going far in the world..."
Merlin tried again to unsheathe his new eyes. The light was less daunting this time and suddenly a fuzzy blur of the world shimmered into focus. Nothing much had changed, the trees still stood tall reaching up to the heavens, the tavern was still just visible behind him, a chorus of some song about a man wanting to go for a ride on a horse named Porsche... the sky still twinkled with the crystal blue, dotted with delicate strokes of snowy clouds. Only something was different... It seemed less blue... Only by a fraction but there was definitely some change. He looked about again, the grass, the leaves, the plants... was it just him or were they... different. Not majorly, the grass beneath him seemed a stronger shade of green. The leaves on the trees were more prominent against the sea blue sky. He could spot each subtle difference in shade from one plant to another... it was giving him a headache.
"OK?" Merlin looked up at the traveller. He looked exactly the same. Only now, two very familiar sapphire blue orbs were sitting under heavy black eyebrows.
"That's weird..." Merlin grabbed the tankard he had tripped over in the first place and gazed into it. Sure enough, two bright green eyes shone out beneath his black fringe. He tilted his head back and forth to try and get his new features from every angle. The emerald eyes followed him, almost as if they were testing out their new home. "Oh that's very weird..."
The man chuckled again and began to get up from the floor.
"Oh Gaius is going to notice that..."
"You good man." said the traveller, stretching out his legs and looking around the sky. "Fair man."
"Oh Gaius is going to kill me..."
The traveller looked down on the warlock, his new sapphire trophies resting down on the ebony hair of their former owner... "You be great leader Emrys. We trust you."
Before Merlin could look up the traveller had gone, dissipated into the heightening sun. Leaving the young Warlock sitting alone watching the sunrise with his new emerald green eyes.
.
.
.
.
Let's just take a moment to comprehend what we've just witnessed… Yes, in my head, Merlin lost his blue eyes because he got a bit drunk and lost an egg and spoon race with a foreign travelling sorcerer.
Oh look! It's the train of common sense burning as it derails off a cliff!
Hope you enjoyed it!
Dedicated to battlemaiden518.