Hi everyone!
The plot bunnies that inspired me for this crossover between Merlin and Sherlock ruthlessly attacked me after I read most of the Merlin/Sherlock archive.
Be warned, I love the brotherly relationship between the main characters. :)
I plan to write a Moriarty/Morgana alliance later in the story, but shush, spoilers :D
I think there are not enough of those Sherlock/Merlin crossovers (only 54! Come on, guys!)!
Anyway :P
This story is not slash.
The plot takes place during Camelot's era, roughly two months after Uther's death. This is not a modern, Sherlock era fic for a change! This is one of the only (or even the only one) which is entirely based in our cherished Merlin universe!
The Sherlock BBC series did not happen in this story because, well, it is Camelot and not London (lol :P). Just imagine a royal Mycroft :D
Hope you enjoy this and do not forget to review! Pretty please ! I am baking you virtual cookies!
Disclaimer (for the entire fic): if I owned Merlin, there would be at least ten more seasons. And if I owned Sherlock, we would not be waiting for the 4th season but for the 15th... or something like that!
Enough rambling, and on with the fic! Enjoy :)
Mycroft, Sherlock and Merlin were the three sons of the King of Semloh. He had had one son each five years; Merlin was the last, by ten years younger than Mycroft. Their mother had died giving birth to her third son.
The King of Semloh was respected by his subjects; he was as close to them as a friend would be. The kingdom flourished under his reign, and everyone in all of Albion knew of the wonderful King, and talked of his generosity. King Balinor was also a dragonlord; his subjects were used to seeing the magnificent creatures fly peacefully above their heads. The dragons were a warrant of their safety, as no sane enemy would have even thought to confront such tremendous power.
The Kingdom's only enemy was Essetir. It was a southern land of mercenaries, ruled by the ruthless Moriarty; Balinor's renegade nephew.
Moriarty had always craved for power. He was madly jealous of his three younger cousins, the only in line for the throne; and suffered cruelly from not having any of his family's magical talent.
After a murder attempt against the King a few years before Merlin's birth, he had been banished from the kingdom. The traitor had taken over Essetir and prepared his revenge with the most ruthless assassins and sorcerers. He had infiltrated most of Albion's courts only a year after his banishment, and had relentlessly tried to invade Semloh since then – without much success, partly thanks to the dragons.
Brutal strength was useless against the mighty dragonlord's kingdom, and Moriarty learnt it soon enough. He was more and more inventive over the years; but his maingoal remained ending the dragons' problem by wiping out the dragonlord lineage.
When Merlin was only two years old, the King was murdered. The poison was fatal in less than five minutes. No dragon had been able to heal their lord, not even the Great Kilgharrah.
Everyone knew Moriarty was the assassin, but the grieving kingdom had had no way to attack back. They had lost their best asset: their control over the dragons.
A dragonlord's power was passed through death to the oldest son, but only if he had any magical talent. Neither Mycroft nor Sherlock had any power whatsoever. They were unusually intelligent and witty, but did not possess the required magic to access to dragonlordship. Little Merlin, on the other hand, was the most magically gifted child Albion had ever known; but he was only two at that time. Nevertheless, thanks to the tiny child's influence, the dragons stayed pacific towards the kingdom; but they never attacked Essetir back.
Three years later, the three princes went for a walk in the park behind their castle, as they did on every weekend. It was late March, but it was such a Northern region of Albion that the forest was still covered by a thick snow blanket. Merlin and Sherlock played at hide and seek while Mycroft sat in the grass with a heavy book, sighing at the sight of his brothers' childish behavior. The older prince was reading the coronation protocol again – not that he needed to. He had known the process by heart since his father's death, in case Moriarty tried to claim the throne; that way he could have been crowned in a hurry, and the traitor wouldn't have had any chance of becoming King in his stead. Luckily, there had been no such need.
The actual ceremony was going to take place in less than a week, for his sixteenth birthday, and he wanted it to go perfectly. He needed to stabilise the kingdom and make it enter a new peaceful era.
He flicked through the pages and sighed again at hearing his brothers shouting happily – he sometimes wished he could be a normal teen and play with them (not that he would admit it loud).
The sky suddenly darkened, and Mycroft looked up as if to pout at the cloud that had passed over the sun. But there was not a single cloud in the unusually dark sky. It seemed a magical shadow was laid over the forest. A oppressing sense of foreboding invaded his mind.
Alarmed, he closed his book and shouted for Merlin and Sherlock to stop playing and get back to the castle at once. Sherlock came in the clearing running, panicked: it had been Merlin's turn to hide and he was nowhere to be found. Mycroft was about to scold his brother –obviously, it was his fault- when they heard a child's shout coming from the other side of the forest. The oldest boys looked at each other in the eye, and began running as quickly as they could. There was another shout, a bit muffled this time. It came from their right. The river.
They kept running and barged in the middle of a battle. Guards had arrived before them and were fighting off a dozen of bandits, certainly hired by Moriarty. Mycroft, furious, took a sword out of his sheath and dived into battle.
Sherlock was not old enough to have his own weapon, so he grabbed a stick – not that it was much efficient against heavily armed men. He ducked to avoid a fatal hit and frantically looked around for his little brother's silhouette, without avail.
The fight was quickly over, and the bandits were captured.
The whole kingdom looked for the youngest prince for hours, which quickly moved into days, weeks, months. Six months later, no one had found Merlin, and the Lost Prince was declared dead.
Merlin was running. He laughed merrily as a fresh breeze went through his unruly black hair, pushing it out of his unusual blue eyes.
He loved winter so much!
After finishing this game, he decided he would ask Sherlock to build a snowman. Or make a snowball battle. Or skate on the iced lake. Or…
There! He would hide under this enormous twig – just big enough for him to slide under. He would have made himself invisible, but using his powers wouldn't have been fair for his non-magical brother – and he did not want to win so easily, it was no fun.
Merlin bent and rolled under the tree, leaves getting stuck in his dark hair. He put himself in a fetal position, pulling his legs against his chest and keeping them close with his arms. He giggled in excitement.
He camouflaged his hide a bit by moving some leaves and branches over him with a flash of his eyes.
Merlin shifted a little to find the most confortable position, and waited. After a few moments, Mycroft called out his name. He giggled. His older brother was playing as well!
A twig snapped behind him. But... it couldn't be Sherlock. His brother did not do that much noise whilst moving. And neither did Mycroft – uh, perhaps he did, he was certainly fat-big enough-, but this wasn't him. There was someone else in the forest, and that someone did not sound friendly.
He tried to breathe as softly as he could, and risked a look out. Five men were encircling his tree. They were slowly walking towards him, eyes focused on Merlin's hiding place.
The young prince didn't find the sharpness of their swords friendly at all. He reached out with his magic, fearing what he might find out; none were sorcerers, but they had magical items in their bags. And they were armed to the teeth. He gulped at the sight of the enormous mace the tallest bandit held in his left hand.
They were surely Moriarty's men! He had heard about them, about how they attacked regularly Semloh.
One day, when Merlin was four, Moriarty had gotten into the castle. It was midnight, the bells had just rung. Merlin could not sleep: Moriarty hadn't been caught yet. The boy had heard a noise in his cupboard, and had gone to open it. He still remembered how much he had trembled during the four agonizingly frightening steps he had taken between his bed and the wardrobe.
When he had pushed himself on his toes to open the door –obviously he wasn't tall enough to reach the handle without gaining a little height, the room wasn't ergonomic at all- and someone had shoved a hand on his mouth. He had tried to scream and kick his aggressor, but there had been no use.
A mocking voice had whispered in his hear that if he didn't move, his death would be less painful – as if that was in any way comforting.
The boy had angrily bitten the man and pushed him away with his magic. The man's head had hit the side of his bed with a loud thud. Merlin had turned around to see his attacker, but there had been no one. Moriarty had magically escaped.
Merlin still had nightmares about that night, about the evil man in the cupboard – since then he had always checked his room before going to sleep. He shook himself out of his thoughts. He had to escape – he could hear his inner Sherlock telling him that that fact was much obvious. He nearly giggled but bit his tongue to stop himself.
Merlin made himself invisible, and tried to get out without making any sound. But he had put leaves and branches above him, and he wasn't exactly swift –sigh-. Of course, his escape was noisy, and the bandits tried to jump on his invisible form.
Merlin ducked to avoid them, and started running towards the river, hoping to follow it back to the castle. It was the quickest way out of the forest.
Obviously, there were more men waiting there, as heavily armed as the other ones. Double sigh.
He was surrounded. The men had seen his footprints, and could hear his frantic breathing. The prince couldn't escape, and decided to give away his position, hoping that his brothers would hear him. He shouted at the top of his lungs, and lost his concentration. He became visible again. The child could hear his guards running towards him, but they were too far away.
A bandit sneaked up from behind him and put a hand on his mouth. Merlin let out a muffled yell in surprise, and couldn't help but remember his nightmares. He kicked in panic, and tried to get out of the hold. He stumbled on a rock behind him, and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the impact with cold water and pointy rocks. He knew that with this angle of fall, he would hit his head on the sharp rock he had seen before falling, and knock himself out – the intelligence of the Princes of Semloh wasn't exactly comforting in those fatidic moments. At least he wouldn't see the bandits kidnap him. Or kill him. The child, in his last seconds, wished he were somewhere, anywhere far from the bandits' clutches and their weapons.
The wind picked up; the terrified child banged his head on the river's rocks and passed out as he had predicted. But he was lying unconscious far from Semloh.
Since that day, Sherlock hadn't been the same. The formerly cheery teenager was now cold and distant. He wouldn't talk to Mycroft, thinking that if he hadn't come to the clearing before going after Merlin, he would have been on time to save him.
He had lost his mother, his father; and blamed himself for his little brother disappearance. He only had his pompous older brother left – what a consolation -, and the King certainly did not understand his emotions. Sherlock had nightmares every night, in which he heard Merlin's voice calling out for help. He would run and run and run, but get to his brother too late each time.
As soon as Sherlock was old enough, the Prince set out for the countryside, intending to forget by travelling around the kingdom and helping out his subjects. At least he would help someone. His talent for deductions was soon acclaimed by all, but Sherlock paid no attention to his recognition. He just did it to forget.
Mycroft wasn't crowned the week Merlin disappeared. He had ordered everyone to go look for his brother. During the longest six months of the history of Semloh, no-one ever stopped watching out for a five-year-old dragonlord. No-one really stopped afterwards, even when Merlin was announced dead and Mycroft reluctantly crowned King.
Far far away, at the other side of the kingdom of Essetir, a young woman was in a hurry. She was the only healer of her village, and a friend of hers was giving birth in less than a day - she had been collecting soothing plants to help the delivery.
The woman was now going back to her tiny house to boil the remedies. She was quick-walking along the calm stream that would lead her straight to her house, humming to herself, when she heard a weird windy noise and a thud coming from behind her. Where she had stepped seconds earlier was now lying a tiny child, around five years old – maybe less, as he was really small. He had an ugly gash on the back of his head which was bleeding profusely, and his clothes were as wet as if he had just dived into a river.
She was at his side by the instant, motherly worry pumping through her veins. The child had funny large ears, and hair as black as night. He was definitely peculiar. The healer shook herself and took a look at his injury. The gash wasn't deadly, but could be really nasty if badly healed. She stood up, slowly took the unconscious child in her arms, and ran back home.
The woman laid the boy in her bed, comically large for him. She cleaned the bloody gash with an old worn-out tunic, and bandaged his head with a rapidity that only the best healers could reach. Satisfied but still worried, she prepared the potions she had set out for in the first place as well as supper, and waited for the child to wake.
She was just setting the table for two when she heard a low moan coming from her bed. She nearly ran at the waking boy's side, and grabbed his hand.
The healer observed her young patient again. His clothes hadn't been stained by his blood, so she hadn't changed them. He wore a little blue jacket, a bit dusty from the forest, and but made of fine materials. Noble ones. The jacked looked really warm; warmer than the boy should need at this time of the year. He wore black trousers of the most expensive quality as well as thick brown boots.
She frowned – where did the boy come from? He wore regal clothes, yet he was alone in the forest. And he was dressed as if they were during winter. Her interrogations were stopped as the child twitched, moving from lying on his back to a comfortable side position by clumsily jerking an arm above him – his hand nearly hit the woman's face, and she yelped in surprise.
The boy slowly opened superb blue eyes, though a bit glazed over - concussion. He closed them again, surely feeling nauseous, and asked where he was. He had an eerie accent, one from the northern regions of Albion.
'You are in my house, my boy.' The woman answered. The boy fearfully twitched again and tried to move away from her. 'It's all right, you are safe here. My name is Hunith, what is yours?'
The pale boy frowned and slowly opened his eyes. He looked so lost, more than a five-year-old boy should ever be.
'I-I don't know'.
Will Merlin ever regain his memory? :P
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