Alaia Skyhawk: Nope, I'm not dead!

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

Music: N/A

~(-)~

Chapter 10: Plying One's Trade ~Part 5~

There was a crash, followed by several curses, thuds, and yelps, coming from Merlin's room the following morning. When the warlock realised the sun was well above the horizon, and he was very late to take Arthur his breakfast.

Gaius raised an eyebrow at the racket, shaking his head, and remaining silent until the moment Merlin came scrambling down the steps from his room.

"Sit down and have your breakfast, Merlin. Georg stopped by to say he told Bel to wake Arthur this morning, after he said it was close to midnight when he finished helping you set those wards. He guessed you would be tired enough to sleep in."

Merlin skidded to a halt, gaping at his mentor before letting out a sigh and sitting down at the table. There was a large bowl of porridge there, and an apple, as if Gaius were aware of the fact his ward had skipped several meals over the past few days.

Merlin glanced at Gaius, and flinched at the flat look he was given. Yes, Gaius knew about those skipped meals.

He ate his food, making a point of not rushing, before leaving to head for Arthur's chambers. He was only halfway there when Bel found him.

The druid stopped in front of him, as calm and polite as always.

"Arthur wants me to inform you, that you need to prepare two horses and the gear for a short hunting trip. No need for camping supplies, you'll be back by nightfall."

Bel continued on his way, leaving Merlin stood there with the intense desire to make Arthur sound like a woman like that time so long ago. Instead he turned and headed to prepare everything, even putting on a cheerful smile when he and Arthur rode out of the city and into the woods.

It was about half an hour after that, when the king inexplicably stopped beside the river. He then smirked at Merlin, and pulled a few coils of fishing line, with hooks, from the pocket of his jacket.

"Stop gaping at me, and find a couple of good sticks to make fishing poles. We're going to catch our dinner with them."

Merlin dismounted from Bitan, still staring.

"But I thought this was a hunting trip."

Arthur gave him a long look.

"If you think I didn't notice you spent the night in your study the other day, you're wrong. You've been working yourself into the ground since we got back from Escetia, and I think it's time you had a break. And that's exactly what I brought both of us out here to do."

Merlin started to recover from his shock, and raised an eyebrow at that.

"So you needed a break too?"

The king let out a massive sigh.

"I've been dealing with almost constant 'concerns', from the Councillors, about Escetia. The ones that have come to see me twice, I've warned against continuing to waste my time with their protests. But that's still only amounts to a third of the council, and I needed to get away from the rest of them for at least one day."

Merlin joined him by the riverside, using a flick of magic to yank two straight branches off a nearby willow. He then took the fishing lines from Arthur.

"Well, sitting and waiting for the fish to bite, is certainly going to be a lot quieter than the castle is right now."

He passed a finished pole to Arthur, and watched as the king kicked over a nearby dead log to get grubs and worms for bait. It was funny to think how squeamish he'd been the time they'd done this with Liam. Arthur had clearly gotten over his misgivings about impaling squirming things onto fishing hooks.

The two of them sat down on the riverbank, letting the peace of the setting ease their tensions. Laughing as Merlin caught several fish, while Arthur only managed to get one.

Before long, the sun was passing zenith and the fish had been cooked and eaten. It was then, as Merlin washed his hands in the river, that Arthur eyed his back and a smile crept onto his face.

The next moment saw Merlin shoved head first into the water, bursting to the surface to glare at a laughing king. Another moment after that, and said king was flying through the air to land in the water as well.

When he came to the surface, he chuckled.

"Now that's not fair, using magic."

Merlin started to grin wickedly, raising his eyebrows.

"How about I even things out... First to surrender, wins."

Arthur felt a thread of magic wrap around him, backing up in the water to put some space between him and the warlock. Both of them now grinning, as the king's eyes gleamed gold with borrowed power.

"You're on!"

Arthur shoved a wall of water towards Merlin, who countered with a wave of equal size. Within seconds everything within twenty yards, vertically as well as horizontally, was soaked beneath the great plumes of water being thrown around. That also happened to include the horses, who snorted and looked in the direction of their masters as if wondering what on earth was going on.

By the time the two men were done, it was a surprise there was any water left in the river around them. What with massive puddles of it on the banks either side. It was also as well this wasn't a hunting trip, because the volume of their laughter had likely scared away all the game within half a mile.

They were still smiling to themselves when they arrived back at the castle, and Arthur teasingly remarked that he'd come back empty-handed because Merlin had scared everything away as usual. It was then, in the light of the coming dusk, that Merlin tended to the horses and for the first time in a long while went straight to bed. Having been told that Bel would again sort out Arthur's breakfast in the morning.

He felt far better rested the next day, after two lie-ins and the fishing trip. And thus it was in a cheerful frame of mind that Merlin retrieved his oak stave, wrapped it in cloth, and headed into the upper city with it.

When he arrived at the man's workshop, Alan looked up in surprise at who came in. Having not expected Merlin back so soon after getting the idols for the castle wards.

"Merlin, what brings you here today?"

The warlock glanced around the room to check the other carpenter wasn't here, and smiled wryly.

"I need some advice on wood-shaping, and to borrow some of your tools."

The carpenter hastened over, ushering Merlin towards the back of the workshop.

"Of course. What are you making?"

Merlin pulled the cloth off his stave and lay it down on the nearby worktable.

"I need to shape this into a staff, of a very specific shape."

"I'll get the tools you'll need."

Merlin watched as Alan went to table and drawer and hook-on-wall, gathering several tools. And then, under Alan's direction, began to use them on the oak stave. Slimming it down, and gradually turning it into the image of the one he'd seen his alter-ego holding in the glimpses he'd had of Morgana's visions.

When it was done, Merlin couldn't deny how eerie it felt to be holding it, but he didn't reveal that to Alan. He just thanked the carpenter, paid him a silver penny for his time, and went back to the castle.

It was thankfully just after midday, letting Merlin grab a meal in Gaius' chambers before taking the staff down to the workroom. Shaping the staff was the easy part. Changing it from simple wooden stave, to magic-channelling tool, would be an entirely more complicated and long-winded matter. Staff making was something he'd studied out of curiosity, and to try to better understand the workings and creation of his Sidhe staff. And while the methods and materials for making staffs were as varied and numerous as the clouds in the sky, the principles at least were few and plain. Prepare the staff through cleansing, attuning it to magical energies, and then embed whatever enchantments were wanted to dictate its power and abilities. The stronger the sorcerer who made the staff, and the more of their power they invested in those enchantments, would decide the power of the finished tool. Everything else was up to chance, for magic could be a fickle thing when imbued into a staff. Makers often ended up with a tool that also had abilities they didn't intend, or be missing some of the ones that had been wanted.

Merlin rummaged through his jars of herbs, taking down a small one of hyssop and spooning a measure into a pot. To that he then added a lump of bees' wax, and a large measure of the oil he used as a base for all herbal oils he made for spells.

He stuck the pot on top of his small forge, throwing enough magic into the special stones it contained for it to become warm and remain that way for a few hours. He then roused Friou from where she napped in the corner, and left via the caverns to fly to the Lake of Avalon.

He was subdued when the two of them returned to the workroom. Being at the lake, holding the staff beneath the surface while incanting a spell to cleanse it with the sacred waters, had reminded him of how close yet so far Freya was from him there. He'd kept wishing she would appear, but knew she would not. It left him quiet as he retrieved his now warmed and well-steeped mixture from the warm top of the forge.

He tipped some of it into a bowl, and added powdered quartz to it before spreading it over the middle of a leather square. He used it to sand the staff smooth, also sealing the surface and giving the whole thing a golden hue from the oil. After that he did something that would raise eyebrows among many, pricking a finger to put several drops of blood into a pestle, followed by plucking a scale from a very startled wyvern and adding that too. They were ground together into a dull paste, which he well-diluted with purified water. And then, with a linen cloth, he used that unusual mixture to wash the entire staff down twice while again incanted spells.

It was now purified, prepared for magic, and had been personalised to him. The blood and the scale, through symbolic connection, attuning it to be used by a Dragonlord.

Merlin grimaced to himself as he went for his evening meal, warning Gaius he was going to be out all night, and that Bel would need to take Arthur his breakfast again in the morning. Once again he headed out through the caverns, this time with Friou carrying him to the Isle of the Blessed. A magically-significant site, if not one of the most magically significant sites in all of Albion. If he didn't want the staff to explode under the sheer strength of his magic, then it now needed to be exposed to a very intense magical environment.

Which meant, after putting the staff on the altar, he spent almost the entire night walking round it and chanting. If anyone were to ask him why so few sorcerers had or made staffs, proper staffs, it was because certain parts of the procedure to do so were exercises in extreme tedium as well as a significant investment of power. Thus good staffs were rare and cherished by their owners, who were then very reluctant to part with them even after death. Many destroyed their staffs to stop others taking them once they were gone.

At dawn, when Gaius woke up, he made no comment when a peek into Merlin's room revealed the warlock to be back and face-down, asleep with his boots and jacket still on. But when Merlin did wake, he found a sandwich waiting for him on the table, along with a pot of herbal tea that just needed water adding to it. He ate and drank both, retrieving his staff from under his bed with a weary smile... Almost done.

Down at his workroom, his movements became reverent as he got a small box from his most secret of hiding places down here; a hollow behind one of the blocks in the wall, which he could pull out and put back without any sign of it having been moved. Inside that box were the pieces of Aithusa's egg, what could only be considered one of the ultimate symbolic items of the magic of Dragons and Dragonlords, and the bond they shared. Merlin took one small piece of that shell, and put it in a pestle along with the rest of the oil mixture he'd made the day before.

After grinding the two together, he rubbed the mix over the staff but with no more incantations. Completely silent as he worked to make sure every inch was covered with it. One final time he and Friou flew out through the caverns, this time simply to a place far out into the woods. And once there, Merlin called to the skies quite specifically for the one that had come from that egg.

It took over an hour for Aithusa to arrive and land rather ungainly in the clearing. Chirping in greeting to him, and crooning as he stroked the youngster in greeting. It would not be long now before the young dragon should begin to be able to talk. Aithusa was growing up fast, and was now visibly bigger than Friou. A few more years, and it would be hard to believe how small the dragon had started out.

Merlin smiled to himself, letting out a small wistful sigh, and then took a step back so he could hold out the staff.

"I've called you here to ask for a favour. I need you to bless this staff. Not to burnish it, just to bless it. A staff for me to use whenever I have to disguise myself as 'Emrys'. A staff to help keep me safe, and help me protect others, from those that would seek to bring down Camelot and Arthur. Will you do it?"

Aithusa reared up onto hind legs, head tilting in inquisitive regard of the item in question. And then, with a cheerful chirp, the dragon exhaled a breath of pure magic over it.

Merlin watched as Aithusa's blessing reacted with the presence of the eggshell, bleaching the staff to a shade so pale there was no way it could be mistaken for ordinary wood. And when it was over, Merlin felt a thrill at the way his power coiled so easily around the staff. Linking several of his threads to it, before casting a spell of renewal and growth and channelling it through the stave.

Grass turned lush around him, and flowers burst into bloom. Even the trees above him put out rush of new leaves. Aithusa chortled, rattling wings in excited approval at how well it had worked, and was then on the receiving end of a hug from the Dragonlord as Merlin whispered.

"Thank you. With this, you're helping me bring about the bright future of Albion."

Letting go of the young dragon, Merlin grinned as he hefted his now-completed staff. Nothing felt better for a warlock than plying his trade, especially when done for such a cause.

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: There you have it, sub-ep done. And I can say, with Season 5 so close now, that I will be piling out one more sub-ep before it starts. And why am I doing that? (Grins) Because I've made some changes to what I had planned for Season 5, and it's going to be one heck of a ride :D