Written after re-watching Episode 9 of Series 4, which definitely put me in a melancholy frame of mind. To cheer myself up I wrote this completely nonsensical, silly fic, safe in the knowledge that none of the BBC cast or crew will ever read it! [Apologies to Shakespeare, for cribbing lines from Macbeth.]
Everybody Wants Merlin: Chapter 1
Well, even though things had worked out the way she'd planned, what with Guinevere being labeled a slut and exiled from Camelot, Lancelot's unfortunate shade being returned to the Otherworld where it bloody well belonged, and Arthur totally despondent—for all of his iron-jawed, stoic demeanor—Morgana wasn't satisfied. Not really. How could any girl be satisfied, stuck in a forest hovel, with no access at all to jewelry merchants, silk merchants, servants, or men who might appreciate a pretty face and flair for wearing clothes. In fact, even if there had been any men about, how could they appreciate her for the beauty she was, when her current wardrobe was limited to shabby black frocks and shawls, her hair hadn't been dressed properly in months, she only had two pairs of shoes, for pity's sake, and there were simply no cosmetics to be had in the wilderness.
She had tried conjuring up a fashionable crimson gown, but the damn thing had turned to cobwebs—or was it a pumpkin?—at the stroke of midnight, and she'd had to dash back to the hut stark raving naked, covered with goosebumps and humiliated. It was obvious…she might be proficient at casting spells on dead men, controlling men's minds with feomorrahs or whatever, and opening the door between two worlds by sacrificing blood relatives, but Morgause had never taught her any practical magic—spells to turn vine leaves into gold necklaces and berries into jewels, or whip up a fetching frock at a moment's notice, for example.
So here she was, friendless, fashion-challenged, and nobody to admire her but stupid Agravaine. He might bow and scrape and do her bidding, but he was practically her uncle, for god's sake, and when he paid her compliments or slid his eyes in her direction, it kind of made her skin crawl. And to think that she had once had the worship of every young man in Camelot, from haughty lordling to lowly servant, and that she had taken it all for granted. Why even that skinny, troublemaking pup, Merlin, had brought her flowers.
Ha! Merlin. That reminded her. It wasn't enough that Arthur had lost his father, his beloved Gwen, and Lancelot, one of his finest and most noble-hearted knights. He must lose everything and anybody who meant anything to him. Why not force him to dismiss his devoted, faithful manservant, the one person who had always stood by him, following him about like an oversized puppy, enduring his insults, and foiling a number of her most heinous plots to murder the young king. An excellent idea! Humming to herself, Morgana crouched over her cauldron, tossing in everything she could remember from that spell Morgause had taught her over a year ago. Was it eye of newt and toe of…hog? Dog? Frog? Oh, bloody hell! Wool of bat and…why did these spells have to be so disgusting? Oh, she mustn't forget the blind-worm's sting, whatever that was. Morgana scratched her head in confusion, and then scratched again, dolefully wondering if she had got fleas. It wouldn't surprise her, living in a cobwebby cottage in the middle of nowhere.
If Morgana hadn't been a lady—no, a noblewoman, a princess, who should have been queen, into the bargain—she would have said, "Oh, bloody fuck!"
Now how did the incantation go? Honestly, solitude was beginning to affect her memory.
"Powers of darkness, hear me," she rasped. (By all the gods, now she had a sore throat!) No, that wasn't right. "Fire burn and cauldron bubble." And damn, but the Old Tongue, the language of spells and incantations, was almost impossible to memorize. Was "passion" meahtmod or cwaeþ…or neither? Suddenly everything seemed too much of a burden. More than anything in the world, Morgana wanted to kick the cauldron over, collapse in her most comfortable chair, burst into tears, and get roaring drunk. But no, first she had to take care of the little matter of her half brother's manservant. If one was to go by the evidence, or at least by what Arthur had always said, he had put up with insolence, laziness, incompetence, and persistent tavern-going by Merlin, so what could possibly move him to throw his servant out of Camelot for good? Arthur had tolerated a great deal of careless behavior, so what sort of behavior would make him intolerant?
Arthur was—at least outwardly—a notorious stickler for high moral standards, so one way, perhaps, was to make it appear that Merlin of Ealdor was the biggest man-whore in all of Camelot.
The problem was that Merlin was anything but. However, if every person under the age of thirty found the scrawny wretch irresistible and tried to get into his trousers…Morgana didn't think that Arthur would put up with such a distasteful state of affairs.
A simple, twenty-four hour spell ought to do the trick. Now, if only she could remember the blasted ingredients!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Merlin was only half awake when he was jolted into the realization that something was definitely amiss in Camelot. Or at least, out of the ordinary.
He had crawled, bleary-eyed, out of bed, washed, swallowed Gaius' scalding, lumpy porridge, and headed for the armory, where Arthur's helmet was undergoing a bit of repair. On the way, he had to pass the stables, and before he knew what was happening, an arm snaked out and dragged him within.
It was Editha, who worked in the kitchens. She was a large, strong girl, and without giving Merlin a chance to say good morning, or ask her what appeared to be the problem, she had him flat on his back in the clean straw of one of the empty horse stalls and straddled his hips, muffling his protests in her considerable cleavage.
It wouldn't have been practical to use magic to escape her, and anyway, she was pretty, and her vigorous ministrations put to rest the rather sizeable problem he had woken up with, that morning. (Oh blast, he awoke with one every morning, and had been assured by Gaius that this was common to all the lads his age.) But when Merlin staggered out of the stable fifteen minutes later, the laces of his breeches still unfastened, it did occur to him to wonder just what (apart from himself) had gotten into the girl. She had never had more than the most casual greeting for him in the past, and hadn't struck him as the sort of female who flung herself at a fellow without a word of warning.
Pulling bits of straw out of his rumpled hair, Merlin sagged against the armory doorpost and came to the conclusion that it must have been some kind of…spell.
It wasn't that he had never been on the receiving end of feminine attention. Of course he had, in the years since his arrival in Camelot. He might not be a muscular Apollo, like Arthur, but he was aware, in spite of his modesty, that a number of girls found him both appealing and attractive. (There were the girls from the dairy, who flirted with him, Agnes the cook called him a "pretty boy," and Lord Tancred's wife, Gisela, had put her hand on his backside at the feast of Beltane, when she was drunk.) Not to mention that one or two of the older squires, even one or two of the knights (his friend Gwaine was the most obvious of the lot), had looked him over with interest. But this went beyond simply looking, and given that it was quite out of character for Editha, there was only one explanation.
Perhaps Editha's mother, one of the palace laundresses, was a sorceress. Perhaps she had cast the spell in the hopes of getting her daughter married to a man with close ties to the young king.
That the spell, or whatever it was, went beyond Editha's sudden infatuation became glaringly obvious when Merlin attempted to deliver the newly repaired helmet to Arthur's quarters. He had passed the steward's forty-something wife, the tailor's wife, and several of the older knights without receiving so much as a glance from any of them, but when he said good morning to the baker's saucy daughter, Alis, her eyes lit up with glee and she backed him into one of the empty guest chambers, where—
"Oooo-er, those eyes!" gurgled Alis admiringly, before she lunged forward with nothing so much as a by-your-leave, and went straight for the jugular. Except that it wasn't, er, exactly his jugular.
This wouldn't do. This really would not do. He would have no energy left for his afternoon duties, if things went on like this for the rest of the morning. Having left Alis in a blissful and satisfied heap on the floor, Merlin managed to evade two of the young maidservants, who chased him down the hallway, and catch his breath in the king's antechamber. As he waited for his pulse to subside—feeling highly aggrieved at having been transformed into a sex object wanted for little more than his cock—he went over counterspells in his mind. What was it that Gaius had told him about enchantments that affected more than one person at a time? Who could possibly be responsible for the current state of affairs? Who was powerful enough, well trained enough in magic, and who might wish to discredit the young king's manservant, not to mention cause both the king and the manservant the worst sort of embarrassment?
Obviously, somebody wanted Merlin to be caught violating all of the rules of courtly behavior by shagging every damsel in Camelot.
Merlin wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably, but could come up with only one rational choice of an instigator for all of this.
The Lady Morgana.
Who had once been his friend; and at one time he had even, secretly, fancied her. Almost as much as he sometimes fancied Ar—
"Merlin!" bawled Arthur from his chambers, and Merlin gave such a start that he nearly dropped the now gleaming and dent-free helmet.
Trust the royal prat to interrupt his thoughts, just when he was trying to work out what to do about this ridiculous and exhausting state of affairs.
"Yes, sire?" he said dutifully as he trotted into the king's bedchamber, helmet under one arm, hoping he didn't look excessively disheveled. If he did, Arthur would either snap at him, or make some of his usual "Merlin is a hopeless idiot" comments, neither of which Merlin was in much of a mood to listen to. And if he told the truth, there was no doubt whatsoever in his mind that Arthur would come very close to dying from laughter.
The young king was tapping his fingers impatiently on the table.
"My breakfast, Merlin?" he said pointedly, looking from the empty tabletop to his rumpled manservant.
"I'm sorry, Arthur," Merlin replied, more meekly than was his wont. "I…I went to fetch your, you know, your helmet, and as I was walking down the corridor, I…"
"You were set upon by rabid thieves, from the look of you," Arthur said dryly. "Well, don't just stand there, trying to think up stupid excuses. Get my breakfast, go on!"
Merlin went. As he waited in the kitchens for one of the cooks to load up his tray, he counted to ten, and then to twenty, in an effort to keep his temper. He was, naturally, accustomed to Arthur's morning crankiness and tendency to hurl insults or objects in his direction, but he had also gotten used to being treated—however infrequently—as a trusted friend, a confidant, and a sort of comrade-in-arms, even if he himself rarely carried a weapon.
Well, at least the bloody prat had gotten dressed all by himself that morning.