Disclaimer: I'm a physicist, not a biologist. And not the writer of Merlin.
It is Agravaine, my love. Agravaine and horse grease!
Chapter 4: Rests in the murse of an old man
That night, before dawn, Agravaine had most of his things packed. He was determined to find Merlin no matter what. Inside his giant murse, he packed his horse grease, a large jug of water, a map of the lands, and his precious ViAgra. Once he found Merlin, he would need all the strength possible to face his love once more. Elyan had offered to join him, but he felt that this was something that he had to do alone. He liked Elyan, but honestly, he was becoming a bore, always bringing up Gaius. And besides, he'd rather not drag along a sulking cockblocker.
Agra rode thru da forest wit his fresh new doo rag and kicks. He wanted to look his best for his lil' M. He spotted smoke coming from a distance and that made him want to have a smoke. He sat down and lit his bong. While smoking, a group of bandits came and stole his murse. The bandits took off and Agra didn't realise he had just been robbed. A sudden thought came to Agra's greasy mind. He finally realized that he should have wondered where the smoke was coming from in the first place like any normal explorer would have done. He turned around and noticed his murse was missing. Where was he going to put his bong? ← suspense rite dere end of chap 4
Agravaine decided to forget about finding out where the smoke was coming from. Even if the smoke would lead to Merlin and the bandits' campsite, he couldn't go to see his lover without his murse. Without that bag, his ensemble was incomplete. He went looking for the robbers first, following the tracks that led away from his resting spot and into the woods.
Agravaine followed the tracks which led, to his surprise, to the place where the smoke was coming from. He crept through the trees and bushes and crouched in a ditch, looking at the campsite for the robbers. He saw them moments later, four of them rummaging through the murse and rudely tossing his horse grease aside. Well, tossing might not be the right word, as the slick bottle simply slid out of the robber's hand when he tried to pick it up.
Seeing how the robbers disrespected his grease really aggravated Agravaine. He worked so hard to extract that oil from the horses! He quietly searched the ditch and found a large rotting tree branch. After deciding that there was no oil to be extracted from the branch, he sprung out of the ditch with the zeal of a younger man (approximately half his age, Merlin's age maybe), charging at the robbers and brandishing the branch like it was Excalibur.
But it was no Excalibur.
Perhaps Agravaine ought to have chosen a less rotten branch, or a different object altogether, as this branch crumbled upon its first contact with the largest robber's back, causing little to no damage to the man. The robbers all turned around and saw Agravaine, face flushed and still quite greasy from his most recent application of grease. Agravaine smiled nervously at the robbers, keeping an eye on the bottle of horse grease, but his heart dropped when he recognized the robber at the back of the group, a thin man in a red neckerchief.
"Merlin?" Agra asked with hope. The bandits looked at Agra as if he were speaking a different language. He couldn't help but stare at the one that resembled Merlin but soon noticed that it was just a ginge beard. When Agra stopped staring, he realised he was being tied up and put in a carriage. He tried to scream but he was too hoarse without his horse grease. The carriage was full of hay which made Agra feel like a horse and he began to giggle.
""
Agravaine was being driven mad. He had lost his Merlin, his murse, and now he was being kidnapped. He looked to the bandits at the front of the carriage. They were laughing at his murse and parading around wearing it, pretending the carriage was a catwalk. Agravaine couldn't help but think that their strut was mediocre and that the murse seriously clashed with their outfits. When he realized that they were ridiculing his murse, he stood and shook the bars of his carriage cage.
"Hey! That's my murse! I don't know you!" He rasped at them, causing them to laugh harder at the greasy man whose throat was parched with a lack of grease. When he realized that they had left his bottle of grease on the floor of the woods, he slumped to the carriage floor in dismay. He began to cry, his tears made of salt and no liquid due to the lack of grease. Now only the surface of his skin was oily, his insides were desiccated like Gaius' dreadful hair. The carriage stopped at a dock where an unfashionable man sat, waiting in his tiny rowboat. Agravaine recognized this place, he had read about it in Gaius' sketchy books: just across the water lay the Isle of the Blessed.
The bandits dragged Agra out of the carriage and into the rowboat, trying not to tip it over, for Agra was a husky thang. The bandits gave the rowboat man Agravaine's murse as payment! Agravaine was outraged, how could they? The murse would look terrible on him, it did not match his swagger in any way. Agravaine thought about the different outfits he could have worn with his murse during the entire boat ride. They got there before he was finished planning what to wear with his new studded platform shoes. As he got off the boat, he turned to the boat man.
"Thanks for the ride, it was very enjoyable. Can I give you some advice? You have quite a nice figure, but you hide it behind layers and layers of drab drapes. Might I suggest a thinner coat with a cinched waist?" Agravaine gave the man a wink and a #winning smile as he walked away, leaving the man with a renewed sense of self-confidence and ideas for new outfits.
The bandits grabbed Agra away from the boat man and directed him into a dark, chilly forest. "We can use this one as a sacrifice," the largest bandit said. "We'll trade his life for Dumbledore's."
Agravaine was terrified. He couldn't see properly through the fog and tripped over a tree branch. The bandits lost hold of his arms and couldn't find him. Agra took this opportunity to run away. This was probably the smartest thing he did throughout the entire journey. He stumbled through the trees and eventually found himself in a clearing with some kind of stone architecture which looked like some kind of ruins. He knew this was a place of the Old Religion and immediately felt scared. He suddenly saw two figures rise from the fog, both rather bulky men although one was larger and the other, more muscular. He noticed they were holding hands and he stepped closer to the two men. As the fog slowly cleared up, he was able to see their faces. They gracefully walked in unison towards Agravaine as he looked at them in disbelief.
"Agravaine, we need your help. The bandits wish to make Merlin their slave," the former knight of Camelot said. Uther nudged Lancelot's arm. Lancelot continued, "Also, we've been wondering if you could help us with another problem... Seeing as you're a slightly older gentleman... Not that we would assume you have such problems, but..."
"Lancelot, please just ask him!" Uther said.
"Let's just say... The only stone in the mausoleum is in the walls... If you know what I mean..." Lancelot hinted.
"Say no more! I've got the perfect cure for you! It's called ViAgra, it's a special pill I've invented. Essentially it works like the original, but this one was made using only ingredients that comply to the strictest rules of Agraculture and it has a special ingredient... Horse grease! To give you the vigour of Camelot's strongest stallions! Here, you can have some... Oh wait, it was in my murse..." Agravaine told them.
"Great, I knew asking him was a bad idea," said Lancelot. "Now he knows our secret AND we haven't got a solution!" Uther was slightly annoyed and decided to sort of change the subject.
"I'm sure your...um...murse did you call it? will turn up eventually. But the issue at hand is that the bandits have got Merlin."
"Where are their headquarters?" inquired Agravaine desperately.
"Headquarters? What is this, the year 2000?" laughed Lancelot. All of a sudden, there was the distinct sound of "Hips Don't Lie" coming from within Uther's robes.
"Sorry..." He pulled out his iPhone. "Uther Pendragon. Uh huh...yes yes... You were CC'd in the email...okay...no no happens all the time, no worries...k later brah."
Agravaine and Lancelot looked at one another in shock. Agravaine was too much of a dinosaur to even know what Uther just did or said. The latest technology according to Agravaine was his bong. Lancelot however, spoke up.
"W-when did you...get that? And where?"
"From a time traveler. It's rather wonderful if I do say so myself. Look, I can raise my own zombies!" Uther exclaimed with delight.
Agravaine had never been more confused in his life. His mind was set on finding the bandits.
"Where did you last see Merlin?" Agravaine asked.
"The bandits have retreated to the west side of the island," Lancelot told him. "if we leave now, we can get there by sunrise."
They started walking. Why they didn't use horses is anybody's guess. Agravaine noticed Uther and Lancelot were gliding across the ground. He had just realised they were ghosts and he began to giggle once again. He also figured that once he found Merlin, they could go back to the rowboat and see if the man would return his murse. He felt a renewed sense of purpose.
He trundled through the woods until it got dark, Uther and Lancelot following not far behind. See? He didn't need Elyan. They came across a laundry line and figured someone must be living here. Agravaine looked around in disgust. How could anyone have such tacky clothes? Every piece of laundry clashed immensely with another and Agravaine couldn't help but mumble "vomatrocious".
Agravaine spotted a ratty red neckerchief hanging on the line and his heart skipped a beat. Could it be? He went and touched the neckerchief to make sure it wasn't just a ginge beard and confirmed, with a long whiff of the most sweat-stained part of it, that it was indeed Merlin's. He had found his lover at last. After 3 pages of rambling about fashion, Agravaine was finally getting close. ← last sentence because that's suspense rite derr. This is more suspenseful than the bong.