"Prince Arthur! Prince Arthur!" the guards yelled, banging on the door with their fists, some trying to open the door and only succeeding in jiggling the handle up and down. No matter how hard they tried, they just couldn't get the door open.
Arthur wasn't sure how long he sat on the floor of his room before he became aware of the guards' frantic calls. He spared no thought to his sudden monstrous appearance as he rushed from the floor to the door to let the guards in. He had to warn everyone so they could capture that witch and have her reverse whatever it was she had done to him.
Once he reached the door to his chambers it only took a second for him to throw it open. In the doorway stood three guards, swords drawn and ready to take down whatever thing had attacked their prince.
Unfortunately for Arthur, he looked like this thing.
The guards let out gasps of surprise, and before Arthur could even open his mouth they attacked.
The guards forced Arthur back into his chambers, their swords pointed directly at Arthur. Had this been a normal day for Arthur, he would have been outraged at being attacked by his own guards. As it was, he was too much shock to truly feel anything.
"What have you done to our prince?" one of the guards asked, stepping forward and driving the point of his sword into Arthur's chest. It was just enough pressure to make Arthur take a step back again, drawing the tiniest bit of blood through the fabric of his shirt.
"What are you talking about?" he asked. His voice was low and dark and gravely, completely different from his normal voice. With his sudden change in appearance and his voice so different, it was hardly a wonder that they didn't recognize him.
"It can speak!" another one of the guards said, taking a swing at Arthur with his sword.
The blade grazed Arthur's arm, just deep enough to cut his sleeve open and leave a thin line of blood behind. A roar tore unwillingly from Arthur's throat, causing the guards to panic and attack all at once.
Multiple swords swung at Arthur from all directions, forcing him to back up. He kept backing up until his foot collided with the end of his bed, causing him to trip and fall to the floor. He could feel blood rising to his skin and dripping down his arms onto the floor.
In his ears he could hear a dull roar, the kind before he usually passed out and gave into the black spots growing across his vision. Underneath all that, he could hear the guards shouting at him, demanding to know where their prince was.
"It's me!" Arthur yelled, although he doubted that the guards could actually understand or even hear him.
"It's me, Prince Arthur!" he cried again, his voice slightly more his own. He resisted the dark urge inside his head that was whispering to attack the guards who were attacking him first. It was a primal instinct, almost animalistic.
Slowly the guards stopped their onslaught on their prince, momentarily confused by the monster's voice. It had sounded a little too much like their prince's voice for comfort.
"Prince Arthur?" one of the guards asked. He lowered his sword to look at the monstrous person huddled on the floor. Nothing about the person looked like their prince, but there was no denying that voice. Now that the growl had faded from it, it was obviously their prince's.
"Finally," Arthur said, anger and pain seeping into his voice. These guards had almost killed the future King of Camelot, all because they had refused to listen to him.
"Someone fetch King Uther. And the court physician!" the guard called out to another guard closer to the door. The young guard nodded his head and took off, intent to complete his mission quickly.
Arthur looked up at the guard with ruby red eyes. His eye lids drooped slightly, weakness from the curse, shock, and slight blood loss finally taking its toll on him.
"You've sent for Gaius?" Arthur questioned, his voice taking on a drowsy tone. "Good, because I think I'm going to need to be seen to."
And with that, Arthur Pendragon slumped the rest of the way to the floor, out like a light.
XXXX
Three months. Nearly three months later, and Arthur was still stuck looking like a beast.
Time passes differently when you're out and away from nearly everyone and everything. In fact, it hardly seemed to pass at all for Arthur.
He paced up and down the length of the large entry room near the doorway, impatient, just like he was every time.
The only way he ever got any information about the outside world, or more specifically Camelot, was whenever Gaius came to visit him in this dreadful place. Arthur resisted the urge to let out the animalistic growl that tended to burst out of him when he thought about being trapped here, and the situation that had led him there.
Once the guards had stopped attacking him and finally sent for his father and Gaius, it became quickly apparent how strong the curse was. Even though he had passed out the claws, teeth, and other changes still remained.
By the time his father and Gaius had arrived the guards had managed to maneuver the newly cursed prince into his bed, which was not an easy feat, considering Arthur was too far under to be of any help.
After cleaning the prince's wounds (which were completely healed mere hours later), and somehow managing to convince Uther that the strange looking person on the bed was actually Arthur and not something that was bent on destroying Camelot, Gaius began to look for a cure or someway to reverse the curse.
Two days later, and a lot of questions from both Gaius and his father, and Arthur was ready to rip his hair out. That is, if the curse had left any.
It was two days after that that Uther decided that something needed to be done about Arthur and his new condition. He had allowed Gaius to use all the tools necessary to reverse whatever had happened to Arthur, yet he had nothing to show for it.
The king knew that Arthur couldn't be allowed to stay in Camelot, or at least couldn't be allowed to stay in the castle any longer. Servants were already beginning to get curious as to why the prince had been confined to his chambers the past four days, and why only the King and Gaius were allowed in. Even the Lady Morgana had been denied the right into his rooms, much to her (and everyone else in the vicinity's) displeasure.
Rumors about the prince began to fly. They would say he was sick, so sick that he was dying. Another popular rumor was that his guards had been enchanted and attacked their prince.
Nobody knew the truth of course, expect for Uther, Gaius, and the guards from that night, and Uther wanted to keep it that way. So he did the only thing he could think of.
Within less than a week Uther had ordered several men to clean out one of the manors relatively near the castle that had fallen into disuse when it's previous owners had died. It now belonged to Uther, and it would make for the perfect place for the prince to hide out in until a cure could be found.
The manor hadn't been used in years, which was apparent from the smell and the dust that covered really everything. The men had brought in a clean bed, refreshed and restocked the kitchen, and tided up a few of the entry ways.
Once the manor was restore enough to be deemed livable, although not truly comfortable, Uther put in action the next part of his plan. Uther, with Gaius's help of course, dressed Arthur up in full knight's gear, helmet and all, and claimed that he was going on a quest that he must go through to become the Crown Prince of Camelot.
As Arthur had sat upon his steed, covered completely just in case someone got too close and noticed anything was off about him, he had stare out at everyone gather there. His people had cheered for their brave prince that would obviously be going off on some sort of perilous quest if the amount of armor he wore was anything to go by. It made Arthur angry that he was being sent away like the ugly step child in those fairy tales that Morgana used to read, but he knew that he would have to deal with it, at least for a little while.
Besides, how long would it take for Gaius come up with a cure anyways? Surely not too long, there was a reason he was the court physician and so heavily relied on by his father.
At first Arthur thought he'd be gone for a few days, a week at most, and then he'd be back training his knights and being his handsome, princely self. But then a week passed, then another, until before he knew it three months had gone by and he was still a beast trapped in a small version of a rundown castle.
Every two weeks Gaius would come by and inspect the young prince while also bringing more supplies so he could keep on living in the manor. No progress had been made in finding a cure yet, but that didn't stop Arthur from anxiously hoping and pacing right before Gaius was due to arrive.
Arthur glanced towards the door, hoping to see or hear Gaius coming. Ever since the curse had been cast his hearing had improved so much that, if motivated, he could listen to sounds nearly a league away. If properly motivated that is.
He could hear the sounds of two horses drawing closer to the manor, and if he listened a bit closer, the sound of Gaius talking to someone.
That was odd. No one else had ever accompanied Gaius on his mission to bring the prince more supplies. Despite having known Gaius since he was born, Arthur suddenly felt fear and betrayal rear its ugly head inside his heart.
Gaius had brought someone else to the manor, the manor that Arthur was unfortunate enough to call home until he could be changed back. There was no way he could allow anyone else to see him like this.
The horses stopped outside the manor, and Arthur did the only thing he could think of; he hid. Without a single thought to what he was doing, he sprinted over to one of the tapestries that he spent his first month shredding to pieces, and launched himself at it. His claws sank into it, and he began to pull himself up it as if it were as simple as a cat climbing a tree.
Once Arthur reached the top, he jumped over to one of the high beams that ran the length of the ceiling for support. When he had first arrived at the manor he had been overwhelmed with the animalistic urge to destroy. He had felt like a caged animal, like there wasn't enough space in the world for him to be free, so he spent a lot of time climbing and shredding to get rid of some of the excess energy he was currently cursed with.
Three months later and that energy had only been tamed slightly.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure this is the right place, my boy," Gaius's voice filtered up from below. A moment later one of the large double doors pushed open, and Gaius stepped inside, his shadow long on the floor in front of him.
Arthur squinted his red eyes down to the floor below, trying to see who he had brought along with him. Had Uther finally come to visit Arthur, after three long months of complete silence from his father? But Gaius had said 'boy' and Uther might be many things, but 'boy' he was not.
"Whoa, this place is huge," another voice said from just beyond the door way. "And only one person lives here? All by themselves?"
Gaius sighed as he turned back to look at who ever was at the doorway. He seemed rather put upon, like he had been dealing with many questions before now. "Yes, he lives here alone. Now, if you would, please take those bags to the kitchen for me."
Arthur held his breath as he waited for whoever was outside to get the bags of food for the kitchen from the horses. Suddenly a head popped into the doorway, looking around the entrance of the manor in something similar to awe.
Arthur squinted down at the person below. Gaius has been right when he had called him a 'boy'. The boy couldn't be much older than nineteen, although he looked even younger than that due to his messy black hair and giant blue eyes that nearly dominated his face.
"Gaius?" the boy called out. His blue eyes searched the giant entryway, looking for the old man he had traveled there with.
Even from this distance Arthur could see the annoyance rolling off of the boy in waves. He stepped fully into the room and turned around to shut the rather large door. With a small amount of struggling and grunting, he finally managed to shut the door, plunging the entryway into a dusty dimness.
The boy hefted the bags filled with food up higher onto his shoulders as he looked around. He seemed to be taking in everything about the room, although it was apparent that he was looking for something or someone.
"Hello?" the boy called. His voice was low and it seemed almost whispery. He glanced around, as if he expected someone or something to jump out at him.
Arthur crept along the beam, following the boy as he made his way across the room. His claws dragged along the wood, occasionally sinking in whenever he paused for too long.
"Merlin! Where are you?" Gaius's voice called from one of the other rooms.
Arthur watched the boy's retreating form as he went to help Gaius with whatever he needed. He couldn't help but wonder who the boy was and why he had accompanied Gaius to Arthur's new 'home'.
All too soon Gaius and Merlin walked back to the entryway, their packs now empty and headed for the door.
Merlin slowed down his walk and let his eyes roam over the room. "You never told me who lives here, you know," he said. His big blue eyes landed near Arthur and for a moment Arthur feared he had been spotted. His heart beat slowly returned to normal when Merlin's gaze simply slid over Arthur, as if he wasn't there at all.
Gaius stopped near the doorway, waiting for the boy to make his way to him. "I suppose I didn't," he said in a tone that clearly meant he was avoiding the whole situation.
"So are you going to?" Merlin asked, trying and failing to appear nonchalant.
Gaius sighed. "This manor belongs to Lord Edward. He doesn't get many visitors, and he's a bit of a recluse," Gaius said.
Arthur held back the urge to laugh at his new name and title. He was Prince Arthur of Camelot, not some lowly Lord with a bit of land and a rundown manor.
Merlin didn't appear to be satisfied with such little information about whose home they had stumbled into. "Should we let him know that we've leaving? Or that we were even here in the first place?"
Gaius reached over to Merlin when he finally came close enough to him and put a hand on his back to lead him more firmly to the door. "Believe me when I say, he already knows that we're here."
Merlin opened his mouth to question Gaius some more, but he gave him a gentle shove out the door. With one final look up to where Arthur was perched on the rafters, they were gone.
A/N: So that was chapter two! I was originally going to type a little bit more, but I donated blood today, and so I'm not totally and completely hear right now. The next chapter will involve more Merlin though, and it should be posted about this time next week.
Til' later!
P.S. I would just like to say : HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOE! I HOPE YOU HAVE AN AWESOME 18TH BIRTHDAY! :D
