Tangential will probably not be updated for a week or so, due to a mixture of exams and stomach bugs. However, have some 'For Want of a Rope'! Enjoy!
Arthur had learnt something new today.
Two was company, Three was a crowd, but Nine was three badly chosen words away from an octuple murder-suicide.
Two words if one of the nine people happened to be Gwaine.
"So do we have anything to eat?"
To the surprise of no-one at all, it was Gwaine who brought up the subject of food first. Apart from occasional complaints from Merlin, the whole topic of 'hey guys, we might actually be starving to death here' had been largely ignored. Now that Gwaine mentioned it, Arthur did feel quite hungry. It had been, what? A day since Merlin had started a trend and slipped off the cliff. A day was definitely long enough to start feeling hungry.
"Merlin?" Arthur asked, turning towards him expectantly. Merlin looked back in exasperation.
"If I remember correctly, it was your job to bring food." He pointed out "Not mine"
"Couldn't you just use your magic?" Leon asked hopefully, but Merlin shook his head.
"Last time I tried to make food with magic, I almost ended up getting beaten to death by a carrot… it's a long story" he added quickly, as Percival raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"Anyone else got anything to eat?" Arthur asked hopefully.
Of course. No-one had thought that this three day long journey would require food. Great… just great.
"Hang on" Mordred said, reaching for one of the (many) bags Merlin had brought down with him when he fell. "I thought I saw something in here when I was looking for the water bottle… wait a second… got it!"
Mordred withdrew his hand from the bag triumphantly, before placing his prize on the (previously on fire) flat rock that the seven of them were huddled around. It as a small, slightly furry, chunk of something.
Arthur eyed it apprehensively, his first thought being that it was some small, vicious magical creature created by the old religion to take vengeance on him, before realising that this affront to nature itself had probably been created through Merlin's inability to properly clean the bag out between quests.
"And what… is that?" Gwen asked, peering at the object in mixed parts disgust and confusion.
"It was definitely cheese last time I checked" Mordred said slowly. He bent over it and sniffed it, before pushing himself away, gagging slightly. "Yeah, it's still cheese"
Arthur looked at the 'cheese' with a level of suspicion he usually reserved for his relatives.
Everyone stared uncertainly at the cheese for several seconds, before Gwaine slowly stretched his hand towards it. Leon grabbed his forearm before he could reach it, shaking his head in disbelief.
"Gwaine you don't want to eat that." Merlin told him, picking up the thing between his forefinger and thumb, nose wrinkled in obvious disgust "this thing looks pretty close to gaining sentience"
Merlin hurled the hunk of cheese away, where it bounced at least two feet into the air, its momentum carrying it past a sleeping Aithusa and an unconscious Morgana, coming to a rest on an outcrop of rock at least 50 feet away, where it laid still, looking deceptively innocent.
"I never want to see Edam again in my life" Mordred muttered, looking slightly ill.
"I think that might have been Emmental…" Gwaine said wistfully, looking longingly at the cheese.
"At least we never have to see that particular piece again" Gwen said reasonably "It's not like cheese can move or anything."
"You know, I think that Emmental might have been beginning to…"
"So we still don't have anything to eat?"
"I could cook something" Gwaine said brightly (it was never a good sign when Gwaine said anything brightly. It either meant that he was planning on doing to do something extremely stupid, or he had done something incredibly stupid and was trying to soften the blow of explaining why half of Camelot was painted bright pink and covered in glitter.) "With the moss and mushrooms here, how hard can it be?"
"No" Arthur said flatly "You are not cooking. The last time that happened you ended up setting the soup on fire."
All people who had been present for the Great Cock-a-Leekie Fire the previous week shuddered at the memory, while Gwen gazed curiously at Gwaine.
"How do you set fire to something that's 99% water?" she asked.
"Gwaine managed to find a way" Leon said despairingly "Gwaine always manages to find a way."
"You say that like it's a bad thing" Gwaine said with a pout.
"It is a bad thing"
Arthur glared at the steadily rising sun as Gwaine started a very loud and very irritating argument with Leon. Percival was not-so-subtly backing away from the two of them, slowly edging his way in the general direction of anywhere that wasn't near Gwaine. His stomach gave a loud rumble which was sadly not loud enough to deafen the sound of Gwaine's voice.
Well, if it came to the worst, they could always eat Gwaine.
"Merlin, I'll eat that piece of fur pretending to be cheese only when pigs fly"
Merlin sighed.
"I'll eat it" Gwaine offered "It looked mostly edible"
Leon, unofficial babysitter to Gwaine, sighed in exasperation.
No matter how much Arthur would enjoy seeing Gwaine choke to death on some poisonous cheese (and trust him, he would enjoy it), Arthur thought it would be somewhat irresponsible of him to let Gwaine eat some food that had its own mini-ecosystem growing on it. He was about to forbid Gwaine from going near the food, but was interrupted by an odd mixture of sounds. A squeal, the sound of rushing air and then a loud SPLAT. Arthur watched in bemusement as a small pig cartwheeled off the cliff, doing some rather spectacular flips as it did so. It hit the ground and moved no more.
Gwaine looked slowly from the pig to Arthur.
"When pigs fly…?"
"Shut up Gwaine"
"Arthur, what are you doing?"
Merlin's uncertain voice cut through the sound of bubbles and Gwaine's voice. Arthur sighed (or he made a sound that was as close to a sigh as you could make whilst your head was underwater) and withdrew his head from the large pot of water he had stuck it in.
"I'm trying to drown myself" he replied through gritted teeth, before re-inserting his head into the pot.
He could practically hear Merlin's confusion. In fact, he could hear Merlin's confusion, because no, he couldn't just leave Arthur alone when Arthur was obviously busy doing something.
"You do know that there's only an inch of water in there?"
Arthur removed his head from the pan again. He'd discovered it in one of Merlin's (many) bags, and had been unsuccessfully trying to drown himself for the past half an hour.
Gwaine could be really irritating when he put his mind to it.
"Yes" he replied shortly, before plunging back into the water.
So far the only thing he'd achieved was that his nose was slightly cleaner than normal.
"Which pot?"
Arthur yet again pulled his head from the pot, trying hard not to throw it at Merlin's head. Couldn't he be left to drown himself in peace?
"The brown one?"
A cough which was a mixture of supressed laughter and unsuppressed laughter stopped him from his next attempt.
"You mean the brown one with suspiciously browner bits?"
Arthur ignored Merlin, and shoved his head forcefully back into the water, coughing slightly as something soft caught in his teeth. Even under the water, Merlin's voice still carried clearly over to him.
"That's the toilet bucket."
"No Merlin, we are not playing truth or dare."
"Fine then."
…
"I spy-"
"Merlin, I have a sword, and I know where you live. Shut up"
"Foooooooooooooood!"
"No Gwaine, it's mine!" Merlin clutched the tomato protectively to his chest, while Gwaine desperately made grabby hands in the direction of it. Where Merlin had found a tomato, Arthur for the life of him didn't know, one moment Merlin's hands were empty, then suddenly he was holding a tomato. It was like magi-
Right, all-powerful Warlock. That probably explained it.
"Gwaine" Leon said patiently, "Leave Merlin's tomato alone"
"But foooooooooooooood!"
"Gwaine…"
"What the-? Aaarg!"
Gwaine made a desperate dive for the tomato, sending Mordred flying in his attempt, while Merlin's eyes just widened as Gwaine came flying towards him.
"No! GWAINE! GO AWAY!"
In the resulting scuffle, Arthur discovered that Gwaine knew more swear words than anyone else he knew, and that Merlin could be exceptionally vicious when tomatoes were involved. Merlin was literally holding Gwaine back at arm's length, while Gwaine frantically groped at the food. With a yelp, Gwaine was freed, as he kicked Merlin hard in his other tomatoes. Arthur winced in sympathy as Merlin groaned in pain, giving Gwaine the opportunity to dive for the fruit.
There was a soft 'thwith…' noise, as Gwaine seemed to nick the tomato's artery, and tomato juice sprayed out from it, coating Merlin's face.
Merlin closed his eyes once, and opened them again, and Arthur had the strange suspicion that he was trying very hard not to explode Gwaine into thousands of tiny pieces. He had to admit that if he had the power to do that, Gwaine would have been disintegrated long ago.
"You… you killed my tomato" Merlin said slowly, as Mordred and Percival slowly backed away from him. Gwaine smiled uneasily at him.
It was surprising how scary Merlin could look when he had pieces of tomato gut plastered to his face.
"It was only a tomato…"
Suddenly, there was a small *pop* and Gwaine vanished, replaced with a small tree.
"Did you just kill Gwaine?" Percival asked cautiously.
"I think I turned him into a tree…" Merlin said "Hm, that's something new. I haven't done that before."
"Can you turn him back?" Gwen asked, watching the tree sway in the breeze.
"Probably" Merlin said, and he began to raise his hand to perform the spell to return Gwaine to his normal form.
His very annoying, normal form.
"Wait!" Arthur said quickly, causing Merlin to lower his hand. They all turned towards him, and he looked pleadingly up at them. He hadn't had a moment's peace since Gwaine had arrived, after all "Can't we just… just leave him like that for a couple of minutes. Please? Just a minute or two!"
It took nearly an hour for anyone to bring up the topic of returning Gwaine to normal again.
It took twice that amount of time for Merlin to actually perform the spell.
Surprisingly, it was Percival that started it.
When Gwaine had finally been returned to his normal (if highly irritating) state, he had stayed quet for just under 2 minutes before he had opened his mouth to say something that would probably take several years of intense therapy to get over. While everyone gave Gwaine murderous looks, Percival actually did something mildly constructive.
"Well that's just treemendous…" he muttered.
Gwaine closed his mouth again. Everyone turned to stare at Percival, and Arthur saw Merlin's face split into a slightly evil looking smile.
"Would you say…" he said slyly, leaning forward "that you've stumped Gwaine?"
The evil grin Merlin was wearing slowly began to grow on Arthur's face too.
"Do you think he's twigged yet?" Arthur asked, gesturing at Gwaine's (currently moping) face.
"I don't know" Mordred said seriously "but I do know that his bark is worse than his bite"
Leon gave an exasperated sigh. "Could we act a bit more maturely please? We're Gwaine's fronds after all…"
"Oak-ay, yew guys" Gwen said from beside Arthur "Leaf him alone"
"Three in one" Merlin said approvingly "Very punny indeed Gwen"
"Thank you Merlin"
"I was turned into a tree" Gwaine complained from the corner he was currently sulking in "It was a highly traumatic experience. Would it kill you for a little sympathy? You're just making fun of me!"
"Aww, we've made him into a Weeping Willow" Mordred said "We're sorry for making pun of you."
"He's pineing"
"Maybe you should go and pack your trunk"
"Stop it, or I'll have to call the copse"
"These jokes really need to branch out."
This continued for a good few minutes, and from that point onwards, whenever Gwaine looked like he was going to contribute anything to the conversation, all they'd have to do to shut him up was make a vaguely tree-related pun, which would send him back into a sulk.
It was pure bliss.
"Hang on, was that a Blue Box flying by overhead?"
Night was approaching fast, unlike any sign of help whatsoever. Leon and Gwen were discussing how they'd take over Camelot if they had the chance (they were currently talking over the method they'd use for their immortal army), while Mordred and Merlin had joined forces in an attempt to beat Percival at arm wrestling, but were still managing to lose badly. Arthur had started a new hobby of glaring darkly at anything that breathed.
Maybe he could start a post-apocalyptic diary, so when their bodies were finally discovered, people would know what they had gone through (Arthur didn't expect that they'd make it through without someone being beaten savagely to death with the toilet bucket, especially since Gwaine was no longer sulking).
Then again, who'd want to read about this?
Well, there were some pretty insane people in Camelot who might actually enjoy reading about how he was driven to murder by Gwaine.
'A Story of Rope and Insanity' he thought 'The tale of how a loyal and rather attractive King was pushed to murder…"
Gwaine had started singing again.
Now that sounded like a post-apocalyptic diary entry.
"Look!"
Arthur resisted the urge to look, as the last time he had glanced in the direction Mordred had indicated, Merlin had stolen his sword and refused to give it back for over an hour.
'Mordred used to be so polite…' Arthur mused inwardly 'Before he became friends with Merlin.'
Now Mordred was a mini-Merlin-in-training, complete with lopsided grins and 'clotpoles'.
"Really Arthur, look!"
Arthur glanced warily upwards, keeping one hand on his sword in case anyone tried to steal it, unsure as to whether Merlin had managed to corrupt Gwen too. He wasn't sure whether Merlin had convinced her to come over to the 'Arthur-is-a-prat' side yet.
"Sire!"
Yet another person was standing (ominously) close to the edge of the cliff. Arthur vaguely recognised him as one of the Knights he had sent on a solitary scouting mission a couple of days ago. Magneto or Marcus or something.
"Sir Magnum!" Leon called up at the Knight, who was carrying several bags oof what Arthur hoped was food and rope. The Knight took a step forward, and everyone at the bottom of the cliff (apart from Merlin, Mordred and Gwaine, who seemed to be enjoying this somehow) held their breath. The Knight didn't fall. Arthur breathed out loudly.
"Stop!" He called up. Magnum did so, looking thoroughly confused.
"Just… throw the rope down" Arthur called "It's really slippy up there!"
The Knight nodded and opened his bag, withdrawing a long length of rope from it.
"Now throw it down."
There was the sound of rushing air as the rope landed on the ground.
Arthur resisted the urge to sob.
"You were supposed to tie the rope to something first" he said through gritted teeth.
"Could you pass the rope up to me?" Magnum asked.
"What do you think?!" Arthur yelled.
Magnum cocked his head to one side, the effort of actually thinking taking up most of his mental processing.
"I know!" Magnus announced "I'll climb down and get the rope!"
Leon groaned and turned away, while Merlin passed Gwaine some money (had they been making bets?!) "Just don't… don't accidentally fall!" Arthur said, not really expecting that Sir Magnum would actually make it down in one piece.
Magnum looked at Arthur.
"Don't accidentally fall?" he asked.
"Don't accidentally fall." Arthur repeated.
Sir Magnum gazed thoughtfully at the cliff. "Don't accidentally fall…" he muttered quietly to himself. "Don't accidentally fall…"
And so, Sir Magnum leapt off the cliff.
His bags separated from him as he fell, his body landing in a very plot-convenient hole which swallowed him whole.
"Where do you get your Knights from?" Gwaine asked incredulously "Do you select them for their natural stupidity or something?"
"At least we've got food" Gwen said, trying to be optimistic about the situation "At least his death wasn't in vain… much"
Arthur weighed up what the food had cost them. A couple of days' worth of food verses the life of one of his Knights who seemed to view his own stupidity as a positive attribute. Was it really worth it? It only took him a couple of seconds to come up with the answer. Yes, it was worth it.
Completely.
And thus, another character was pointlessly tossed off a high object by the almighty Author, just to resolve a plot point.
After all, it was what Stephen Moffat would do.
