Emrys Emergent

Chapter Two: The Origin of Felix: Hat-Maker and Tomato-Hater

by Tonzura123

Disclaimer: I own the patch for BBC's plot-holes. That's it.

"And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit
And hundred winters are but as the hands
Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege.
And near him stood the Lady of the Lake,
Who knows a subtler magic than his own-"

-The Coming of Arthur, Tennyson

After I have defeated Master Bleys in the arena and announced my Battler's Name to the ranks of royals, peasants, and magic alike, I wait in the physician's tent for my next competitor to be announced.

All five surrender at the sound of their names.

What else can I do? I pack my things, let my manservant, Felix, carry my burnt robes, and make my way in secret back to the castle. There is only one more round in the day and I am not in it.

"Don't you want to stay and watch?" Felix asks me on the walk back. "I'll bet the next sorcerers will be the bloodiest!"

Felix has a certain fondness for blood that has served him rather well. He is sixteen summers and has spent the last three of them in my service.

Initially, it had been a means of repaying a debt. When he was thirteen, he had bloodied up a sorcerer intent on taking Arthur's life. I had been ill at the time. Feverish. To be honest, I don't remember hiring Felix, but Arthur and the knights swear they had seen the entire ordeal; only too eager to remind me of how I'd run into the throne room, beet-red and sweating in my nightclothes, and swept down on Felix and collected him into the tightest embrace of his life. Arthur always liked to include the fact that I had been blabbering "thick-headed garble," but I suspect what I had been saying had been too intelligent for him to puzzle out.

Now, at the time Felix had saved Arthur's life, magic had technically still been illegal, so Arthur had been prepared to spare Felix the death sentence and banish him from Camelot. But when I burst in and started saying... whatever it was I had said, he had retracted the banishment in exchange for five years of servitude in my care.

Sometimes, I feel that this was more in the spirit of getting me back for being a lousy manservant than just honoring the life debt owed to a sorcerer.

"You were bloody brilliant, sir!" Felix shouts happily. A pair of young ladies passing us by blush fiercely.

"It's Merlin, Felix, and don't swear. You sound like a complete dung-dunce."

"I never know what you're saying when you swear!"

"That's the beauty of it- Is it insulting? Is it complimentary? Should I hit him? Should I hug him? And by the time they muscle it out, you're on the other side of the kingdom."

"I prefer a good fight. Like what you did today! Cor! It was brilliant!"

"His spell went wonky and hit His Majesty," I say primly. "That's bad form, Felix. Never fall victim to bad form. Especially in a sorcerer competition."

"At first you were a ninny," Felix affirms. His eyes are still dancing with sparks and spells. "Frogs and girly tricks and all 'Oh, let's not fight!' But when you pulled out that dragon! I thought the King was going to have a fit!"

"Oh," I say under my breath, "I wouldn't put it past him. The day is young."

Felix laughs. He loves it when I speak of Arthur as a friend almost as much as a good, bloody fight.

"I didn't even know you had magic, Sir!"

"Merlin. And I do."

"Cor," Felix says again, eyes wide as he stares up at me. "Was your magic supposed to be a secret?"

"It was. Well, not really. It's complicated. I suppose Arthur will have good reason to be upset with me. I wasn't really supposed to be good at magic."

"If he banishes you," Felix begins, unaware of how my stomach lurches, "Then I'm going with you. We can live off of the land and fight bandits, or maybe just start a tavern. I'm sure Sir Gwaine would visit us."

"I'm not going to be banished, Felix." My palms feel a little sweaty. "Now, when we get up to my rooms, I'm going to ask you to, please, find some basil and anise from the physician's stores. I'll pay her back later."

"Are you making a burn paste?"

In for a penny, as they say.

"A spell," I say, lowering my voice as we pass the smiling castle guards, "It works about the same, but it can be temperamental, which is why I'll be doing it and you'll be watching."

Felix looks at the singed robes he carries and then at my face, which I know is a raw red. He appears to be in deep thought. This merits a comfortable silence between us as we eventually come to my rooms, in the high Western tower.

My rooms used to be a place to store the leavings of palace chamber pots. Granted, when Arthur presented them to me, he'd had them scoured down several times so they would be fit to live in, but I know he'd intended it as something to keep in mind. And it stayed in my mind- because every time I enter, I cast a small scouring spell to clean the entire space. It has to be the cleanest place in all of Camelot by now.

I cast the same spell now, louder than I used to, which makes Felix jump and look at me. I ignore him and wave the fireplace into flame, pulling back the sheets so I can turn in early if I so choose, and magicking one of my quills to scratch down the instructions to the spell before I can forget. Felix watches in awed silence.

"Teach me," he says earnestly, dropping my robes onto a chair.

"Later." I summon the parchment, look it over and hold it out to Felix. "Basic ingredients. Bring them back and then start working on your Latin."

Felix scowls. He hates Latin.

"I'll teach you a cleaning spell to help with your chores if you get through it all tonight," I say, enticingly holding up my ancient spell book that Gaius had given me many years ago. Felix hesitates until I waggle my eyebrows and add, "It has to do with dusting."

He snatches the parchment and bolts out the door.

OooOooOooOooO

"That's it?" Felix whines. "What about the magic words?"

I check my refection in the looking-glass, which reveals that my skin has fully healed. "What did you expect?"

"I wanted something to catch on fire!"

I fight not to smile, "Not everything in magic is fire and blood. Sometimes it's just putting basil and anise in a wooden bowl and dropping some silver on it."

"That's boring magic, Merlin."

"Dead useful though," I press the looking-glass into Felix's hands to be returned to the cupboard, "Now I won't look like a tomato at the banquet tonight."

"Do you know," grumbles Felix, as he corrects the state of the room and snatches a pair of fresh robes from my wardrobe, "Before I came to Camelot I didn't even know what tomatoes were? I thought they were poisonous! And I wasn't that far off the mark, either."

"Tomatoes were brought to Camelot by magic," I tell him, sliding my arms into the robes and pulling the front clasps together, "A spell gone wrong from before the Great Purge. They were trying to rescue a sorcerer who fell over the side of the world- far out across the western sea. Instead, they had a bunch of strange fruits."

"I thought they were vegetables."

"It hardly matters. They're not good for anything but throwing at people in the stocks."

Felix seems encouraged by this, pulling on my collar and sleeves until he deems them perfect, then steps back to take me in.

"Hmm," he says seriously. "Your hair."

My hand unconsciously jumps to my head, "My hair?" It's certainly a little longer than any other council members, but I don't really care to cut it. However, as I run a hand through it, I can instantly feel the problem. "Oh, dear."

"You fixed your burnt skin," Felix tells me, "But Bleys still singed off some of your hair."

I snap my fingers, and the looking-glass shoots out of the cupboard, back into my waiting hand. The impact stings. I bring it up and twist my head to see the peeping edge of white skin on the back of my scalp.

"Maybe no one will notice," I say optimistically, brushing at the hair around the patch in hopes of covering it up.

"If I noticed, someone will notice."

"I don't know a hair-growing spell!"

"Maybe we should just shave it all off?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Well..." he flutters and then throws up his hands in surrender, "Well, then- What do you want to do?"

"If I can just- Cover it, somehow-"

"A hat!" Felix cries triumphantly. My stomach swoops warningly.

"A hat?"

"A big one!" he continues caught up by the notion, "Something that a council member wouldn't think twice about!"

I think of bright red feathers and a snickering Arthur and set my teeth:

"I think I'd rather shave my head."

A loud knocking comes from my door. Felix and I jump, turning to each other, looking quickly around the room. The knocking continues as Felix leaps away from me, grabs up my blue night cap, and mutters a starching spell, to clean it, I suppose, but instead, the spell causes the hat to point straight up like a dunce cap. Before I can argue, he jams it over my head and the door swings open to reveal Sir Elyan.

"Merlin?" he asks, dressed in clean mail and a sweeping cardinal cape. His hand rests on the pommel of his sword. He looks uncertainly between Felix and I. "Ready?"

"Yes, thanks," I say stiffly. Felix nudges me into stepping forwards.

We descend the tower in semi-awkward silence. Elyan continues glancing at my hat. In the moments that he does not glance at my hat, I try to glance at my hat through the reflections of suits of armor and metal pitchers lining the halls. I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't just the metal winking back at me in the light.

Out of the corner of my mouth, I whisper to Felix, "Is this hat sparkling?"

"It's very clean," Felix whispers back.

I hope he's prepared for extra Latin tonight. And Greek. And some Babylonian, just for the fun of it. No more cleaning spells for him.

Elyan clears his throat, "You did very well today, Merlin. We were surprised."

"Thanks," I say again. "I aim to please."

"Gwaine says he's never seen the Druids so riled. It was a little worrying."

"I'm sure they'll calm down after they've eaten something."

"Merlin." Elyan stops walking and tries to catch my eye. The effect is somewhat ruined, because the glare from my hat forces him to blink rapidly. "Me and the knights talked and we think you seem a little... comfortable with that level of magic."

I look at him innocently. "Am I under arrest, Elyan?"

"Should you be?"

"Well, seeing as Arthur was the one to order me to do magic, I suppose we'd have to start with him. But then, magic hasn't been illegal for two years now, so technically that means it is, in fact, legal. Encouraged, even. So, good on me for practicing a little flibbertigibbet in a magic competition sanctioned by the King. I think I deserve the week off."

Elyan laughs, disarmed by my blabbering. "Arthur has never given you a day off in your life."

I purse my lips, squint at him. "No, I suppose not." And I continue down the hall. Elyan and Felix quickly follow me.

OooOooOooOooO

It is a small mercy indeed that Arthur waits until after all of the toasts and welcomes to the Four Neighboring Kings to lean to his right and gleefully ask, "What in God's name are you wearing, Merlin?"

The knights are bearing down on their plates like wolves down the table. The Kings are doing little better. Feasts and banquets really don't look any more appealing from the table than at someone's elbow. At least a few of the ladies are attempting decorum- Gwen picks at her meat pie with a delicate little fork. Lady Vivien sips at her red wine. Princess Elena, who has a broken arm from her round with a Crone, determinedly approaches her meal with a slightly less dexterous left hand.

"Only the latest fashion," I return with a haughty air, "It's all the rage in Gaul."

Arthur snorts. "You look like you were attacked by a mob of Sidhe."

I drop all airs and moodily stab my roasted tomato. "Close enough."

Arthur looks at my hat like he would very much love to flick it. Unfortunately, flicking a Counselor's hat while dining with the Four Neighboring Kings is hardly the proper thing to do, no matter how ridiculous it looks. He restrains himself, but it is a near thing.

"What happened to your burns?" he asks instead.

I drop my fork. It clangs off the side of my metal platter and clatters to the stone floor, drawing all eyes from up and down and round the table. Quite stupidly, I wave. They go back to their meals with a surprising variety of eye rolls.

"Er," I say to Arthur, and Felix returns my fork to me, "The old spell book Gaius gave me. It had a cure in there."

I prepare for all of the questions. The generic "How long have you been practicing magic?" The old circular argument about how sorcerers plot to corrupt. The suspicious note of how a beginner in magic can take out a Master. The meaning of Emrys and the Druids' reaction. The accusal of betrayal. The cold ice frosting over his eyes. The very ghost of Uther exhumed from Arthur's boiling blood.

"Oh." Arthur says, "Good work."

I'm too stunned to reply. Arthur turns away from me again and begins talking to Gwen. She's smiling brightly at him, and he laughs. His hand keeps straying to her shoulder, brushing lightly against her collar there. She sets a hand against her middle as she laughs at something he says, most likely about me and my hat.

I scowl, and mash my tomatoes into little pulpy pieces. Behind me, Felix makes a sound that can either be disgusted or jubilant. I'm not in the mood to choose.

And then a whisper of purple catches my eye.

I stand. No one in the room seems to notice. Frozen in time, they eat, drink, and make merry with their neighbor in the short breath of peace they are allowed. Wine stills in the air as it pours, the tangle of lover's hands ceases, and enemies are stopped in mid-kiss.

The Lady of the Lake smiles at me from Gwen's side. She rests one pale hand on the Queen's shoulder, opposite Arthur's. Her eyes are calm like still water and as deep and dark as the sea.

"Hello, Freya," I whisper.

"Hello, Merlin," she returns, softly. Our voices seem to echo through time.

I take in the long brown hair that tumbles down her back like a waterfall, itching to reach out and tangle my fingers in it. To kiss that sweetly smiling mouth.

"I've missed you," I say. Despite all of my wishes, I daren't move from where I stand. The magic holding us is tenuous. A single rivulet: easily misguided.

Freya's eyes search my face, "And I you."

I think I laugh, though I don't know how I could around the chasm in my chest and the barrenness of my own tongue. My eyes feel hot again; I blink quickly and dash at them with my sleeve.

When I look up, Freya is directly in front of me. She catches my hands in hers and I shudder at the warm life in them. Slowly, watching me closely, she leans upwards and presses her wonderous lips against mine. Something wet falls from my eye.

"A kiss of death," she whispers to me. I look at her. She turns her attention to my hands, brings my knuckles to her lips and lets out a soft breath. A thrill runs up my arms.

"A breath of life." Freya smoothes one finger down my cheek and it's all I can do not to bury my face in her palm. "Emrys is immortal. Someone must be fleeting. This is the way of the Old Religion."

"But not you," I say forcefully. The world flickers with the urgency behind it. Freya catches my chin, smiles sadly.

"Not me," she agrees, "Though would to God it were."

"Not Arthur," I insist. Even I can hear the riled arrogance in my tones. Should destiny claim him, it would take more than me to stop it.

"Not Arthur," she says gently, rubbing my wrist with a soft hand. "Fate designs a far more horrid price, Merlin. To grant one life forever, by taking one that never lived."

And her eyes, beautiful and loving, fall on Gwen.

A/N: Questions, comments, concerns, or silly remarks can be submitted via review or PM. Thanks to all who have read! I'm upping the rating because my longer stories tend to have a lot of violence. Just a head's up.

Happy New Years!

As Always,

-Tonzura123