AN EVIL OLD TOAD
Chapter Two: In Which Merlin Makes A Mysterious Friend
By: A1&2
Disclaimer: We don't own Merlin, or this would have happened with a lot of shirtless Gwaine moments.
"You practice magic!"
Oh. No. Crap. This was not supposed to happen. Melvin, servant to the King of Camelot, a King who rumor had it hated magic with every fiber of his being, was not, under any circumstances, supposed to walk in on her using magic to turn the fall leaves into horses and the castle statues into intricately carved pets. This was supposed to be her sanctuary- it was the Queen's old room, and had been undisturbed for more than twenty years. Except by her, of course.
"Look mate, I am absolutely sure that there is a perfectly logical explanation for all of this!" Adelaide said, letting her enchantments slip off of the leaves and statues to make them still again. She looked anywhere but at Melvin. It wasn't his fault she wasn't careful enough with her magic.
"Yeah, and the perfectly logical explanation is that you practice ma-"
"Shut up Melvin!" Adelaide snapped harshly, chancing a glance at his hurt- but surprisingly not angry- face.
"How could you not remember my name? We've been working side by side for two whole days!" Merlin asked. He seemed to forget that he was in the presence of an illegal sorcerer.
"One and a half, mate! Not even that, since you were off helping your High 'n Mighty look for his missing knight for most of yesterday!" Adelaide shot back, hoping to further distract him from her magic.
"I thought we were friends." Merlin said. Adelaide snorted.
"Considering in a few seconds you'll have signed my death warrant, no, mate, we aren't friends." Adelaide hissed. Merlin, looking slightly ashamed, backed up and closed the doors.
"I'm not going to turn you in." Merlin said. Hope bubbled in his eager eyes. Adelaide simply gaped at him. Had she just heard him say he wasn't going to turn her in?
"Why?" Adelaide asked. Merlin took a deep breath, and his eyes flashed gold. Instantly, the leaves and statues reanimated themselves, with much more vigor and strength than before. Merlin had a goofy, overjoyed smile on his face. Merlin's expression was so different from His that she wanted to cry.
"Because I have magic." Merlin said softly, almost laughing with the sheer joy of being able to tell someone- someone who he wasn't going to kill in a few seconds- his secret. Adelaide found herself mirroring his expression.
"You're King Arthur's servant," Adelaide began.
"Yes," Merlin said.
"And you have magic," She continued. Merlin nodded and urged her on.
"And you haven't tried to take over Camelot," Adelaide reasoned, "Which means that you're good, and one day, your little prat of a princess will realize that magic doesn't have to be feared!" she finished.
"Yes!" Merlin breathed, happier than he been in ages. And both of them erupted into laughter.
"MERLIN!" Arthur suddenly called, his shout echoing throughout Lord Godwyn's castle.
Seconds later, Princess Elena yelled out, "ADELAIDE!"
Both servants jumped in surprise and whisked their magical creations out through the Queen's bedroom window, then raced away to their respective masters.
-:-
"Agravaine."
"Morgana, my lady."
"I trust you bring me good news? Perhaps the death of my dear brother?" Morgana asked wickedly, giving her uncle a cold smirk. Agravaine bowed deeply.
"Arthur has left in search of a runaway knight- he is such a fool, to have such a weakness for his people. He has left me in charge, and I daresay no-one could blame me if I was unable to hold off…" Agravaine indicated to Morgana with a flourish, "A High Priestess of the Old Religion." He left his words suggestively hanging in the air. A cruel, bitter smile slowly darkened Morgana's face.
"Well, then I suppose we must have a very warm welcome for my dear brother when he returns to Camelot." Morgana said. Agravaine beamed, glad that he had done something right for once, and left Morgana's hut, ready to send the Knights of Camelot on as many wild goose chases as he could. Soon, his beautiful, clever, jewel of a niece would take her rightful place on the throne of Camelot- this time, she would be there to stay.
-:-
To keep in the good graces of Lord Godwyn, Arthur was forced to stall. More specifically, he was forced to take Princess Elena out for a picnic, and was now making a fool of himself due to a distracted mind. Finally, Merlin came to his rescue, tired of hearing Arthur spin boring tales that rivaled the hilarity of George's brass jokes.
"Why don't you tell the Princess about the missing knight? I'm sure you won't run out of things to say about him." Merlin said, grinning at Arthur when he gave him the death glare. Princess Elena perked up immediately, and waved Adelaide over to fluff up her pillows.
"Yes! I'd love that! After all, I'm still mostly in the dark about your visit." Elena said forwardly. "So why did he run away?"
Arthur shifted uncomfortably, and Merlin winked at Adelaide, who settled beside him once more and had previously been just as bored with Arthur's tales.
"Well, Sir Elyan made the mistake of asking about his sister, and in a few hours Merlin, the useless idiot that he is, discovered that he'd just up and gone. We followed his tracks here. I suppose he ran away to find his sister, though he did call her and evil old toad before leaving, so I can't imagine why he'd want to find her." Arthur said.
Princess Elena laughed and said, "That's strange! But who was this knight? You never said, so am I to suppose he's one of your more trusted knights?" Arthur nodded.
"Sir Gwaine, a noble knight of the Round Table."
Adelaide tensed next to Merlin, eyes wide.
"Sir Gwaine? A noble knight of the Round Table? An evil old toad? That bastard!" She spit out, seething. That insufferable little brat that judged everyone and didn't listen to anyone but himself had no right to come looking for her!
"A-Adelaide?" Princess Elena asked. Adelaide blinked.
"Don't mind me, mate. That wasn't meant for the world to hear. Now if you'd excuse me, Princess Elena, Princess- err, King Arthur, I'm going back to the Castle to...uh...do laundry." Adelaide said, ignoring the shouts from behind her as she walked away.
"The 'mate'! And calling me 'Princess'! How did you not see that, Merlin?" Arthur said from far away. Adelaide broke into a run, heading for the nearest tavern, fully intending to drown her sorrows in ale.
-:-
Gwaine bellowed with laughter as he listened to the man's story. Something about how he found out his wife was cheating on him, but the man didn't particularly care because he was cheating on her.
"She's no' even tha' pretty," the man slurred drunkenly. "Don' see 'ow she got someone else. Our parenss set up the marriage cause we needed money an' she was rich." He paused to think for a moment. "Well, actually, tha' makes sense. Prob'ly bribed the poor man." The tavern erupted into laughter, so loud that he nearly missed the door opening and closing. In fact, he probably would have had the fading sunlight not reflected directly into his eyes.
In entered a pretty woman with brown hair and eyes. Gwaine considered swaggering over before noting the crow's feet around her eyes. She was probably in her late forties or something – too old. And a prude, he noted as she eyed the large group with disgust. Definitely not his type. He returned his attention to the story.
"An' – an' – an' my sister says I 'ad it comin'!" the man continued relating mournfully. "Tha' I was a dirty, rotten drunkard an' tha' I was lucky I wasn't sleepin' out on the streets!" Gwaine felt a stab of sympathy, and he leaned over to pat him on the back.
"Don' worry, mate," he said cheerfully. "I got a nasty old sister too. An old hag, prob'ly with wrinkles and jus' plain ugly by now. Las' time I saw her, she called me some nasty names an' burned down our house!" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the new woman's jaw drop as she glared at him. The rest of the people in the room, however, howled with laughter.
"They should make a group," the other man mused. "'The Nasty Old Hags'!" More laughter.
"They would terrorize the kingdoms, take over the entire land better than that witch, Morgana!" Gwaine bellowed. By now, he noted distantly, his vision was blurring.
You should probably stop, his sensible side whispered.
And go back to dealing with reality? his immature side retorted. No way! Order some more ale!
Gwaine agreed, pushing away the sensible voice. He turned to holler an order to the barmaid – only to stop at the dark glare and the sneer on the new woman's face. Anger burned in his stomach. What right did that woman have to judge him? She was in the tavern, clearly to get drunk as well, or she would have come in much more . . . revealing clothing. Not that that would have helped – no man in his right mind would want to sleep with her.
Standing up, he began to totter over to the corner where the new woman sat, nearly dropping his tankard. How long had he been at this? he wondered hazily. Four, five hours? The search hadn't been going to well – Godwyn's kingdom was huge and Adelaide had never had never had any real preferences of places to frequent. He'd finally snapped when one innocent lad had asked why his wife – the thought made him want to puke – had run away from him. So he'd asked for directions to the nearest tavern, and had ordered a round of ale, fully intending to drown his sorrows.
And as he tripped onto a table, his last thought was that he really should return to Arthur before the princess thought up some cruel punishment for running away so abruptly.
-:-
Adelaide slipped quietly into the tavern, her lip curling slightly at the large group of men gathered and relating sob stories. Not that she could really judge them – she was there to get drunk, too, but still. Some looked like they had been drinking since noon. Hell, a couple men were already draped across a table, snoring with a tankard of ale clutched to their chest like a stuffed animal.
She sat down in a corner, ordering a tankard of ale. She fully intended to ignore the men, but then –
"Don' worry, mate!" a slightly familiar voice slurred. "I got a nasty old sister too." Adelaide froze. Gwaine! She would recognize that head of hair anywhere – before she had left, Gwaine had cut his hair in such a way to attract women. She had teased him incessantly about it, reminding him that his one true love, if he got one, wouldn't care how he looked and that he looked like a girl and that women wanted manly men. Much to her dismay, however, the hairdo had attracted even more women than before, inflating his ego to gargantuan proportions. She snapped out of her reverie as he continued.
"An old hag, prob'ly with wrinkles and jus' plain ugly by now." Adelaide's jaw dropped. He. Had. Not. She was only eight years his senior! If she was an old hag of seventy, he was a lecherous old man at sixty! And he knew full well that she was a very lovely woman. She'd attracted as many men as he had women when they were younger.
"Las' time I saw her, she called me some nasty names an' burned down our house!" 'Lecherous monkey' was her nickname for him, the bastard! And he knew full well that that fiasco had been an accident. Adelaide downed the rest of her tankard with a snarl.
"They should make a group," the storyteller had mused. "'The Nasty Old Hags'!" Adelaide's hands clenched. Oh, she dearly wanted to kill those bastards . . .
"They would terrorize the kingdoms, take over the entire land better than that witch, Morgana!" Now that wasn't fair. She had started practicing magic because she wanted to help people like that poor smith! She certainly wasn't evil. Nor did she terrorize everyone, just the bullies and the perverts.
Adelaide heard a crack, and looked down at the handle of the cup. It had splintered. Oops. Ignoring the slightly broken cup, she glanced at the group again, sneering as she watched one man fall asleep, cradling his tankard. Men were idiots.
She was swept up by a wave of panic, however, as Gwaine began tottering over to her, splashing those around him as his cup of ale tilted crazily. How long had he been drinking? Adelaide wondered. Their family could hold their liquor well – their mother could empty a wine barrel before getting slightly drunk, as could she and Gwaine. Teetering came after hours and hours of drinking. She sat frozen as he continued to stumble over – running would just attract attention, not to mention she would have to pass him anyway to get to the door. Relief swamped her as he tripped and fell on top of a table, passing out as so many of the other men in the tavern had done so earlier
She was done, Adelaide decided. She was going to leave, drown her sorrows when Gwaine wasn't five feet away.