Sorry, such a late post :S It was my birthday, and this chapter is excesively long... what the hell. I have no excuse... *grovels*
This is your very last even slightly fluffy chapter, I'm afraid. I've tied up quite a lot of loose ends here- hence the length- and it's sort of setting things in motion... hopefully all will become clear!!
Just quickly, I'd like to say a special thanks to xxDibDabxx, who's stcuk with this story right from the start, gives amazing reviews every time and is quite simply awesomely amazing :D So HUGE hugs and cookies to you. Thank you !! :D
Read, review, enjoy. (and anticipate the multi-chap ending! :O )
xxx
Ten.
Revelry is sometimes such a contradictory thing: celebrating the passing of time, growing older, weaker, and not always wiser. Years piling on, like loads into saddlebags and still, increasingly bitter, merriment was insisted upon. This was Arthur's own bête-noir.
Merlin, however, couldn't help but somewhat welcome the ebb of youth and the steps closer to the end. Each time a shadow passed over his Arthur's face- at the mere mention of the shrinking years- he couldn't help but shudder. He couldn't help but fear losing time together, but welcome the approaching oblivion all the same.
Ageing was just another change, and heaven knows he'd accepted so many of those. Age did not, as he had dared to dare to hope, crumble his quietened feelings. He felt no meagre apathy for any and every tiny motion or flaw of his Arthur. It was the one thing that would never change.
The northern star, so far from any kind of extinguishment.
***
Merlin had insisted. No party. No feast. No, no they could not hold a festival.
Merlin had told them he didn't want any fuss: Arthur always got depressed at anyone's birthday if they were over the age of 35.
And so, on the eve of his birthday, the court magician was sitting alone in a corner of a small dingy pub on the outskirts of Camelot with a tankard in his hand.
He stared sorrowfully at the last dregs of ale swirling at the bottom of the glass.
"Mr barman," he said in voice of deep regret. "I do believe I am out of ale."
"Another pint, Master Merlin?" The short balding barman reached for a mug.
Merlin fixed him with a very serious look. "Make it two."
He added his now empty tankard to the growing pile in the middle of his table reached with both hands for the next drink.
"Is there anythin' else I can get yer, sir?"
Sir. Six months and Merlin still hadn't got used to that. Siiirrrrr…
Merlin noticed the barman had a funny little nick in his left ear. Merlin narrowed his eyes and held his own left ear warily.
"I'm quite fine at the moment, thank you very much." Picking up the full tankard with his free hand, he started deep into its depths.
Even in his alcohol-blurred state, Merlin could remember why he was here. He took a swig of the ale. That meant he hadn't had enough to drink.
Arthur had let him go without comment this afternoon when he'd sidled out of the room muttering about a quick drink. Gwen and Morgana had pursed their lips in Arthur's direction at this.
Merlin took another morose gulp from his mug. He didn't have a problem with parties. It was all Arthur's fault, and his strange problem with grey hairs.
And the ale had only made his resolve not to hurt Arthur stronger.
So, no, there were to be no celebrations, thank you very much.
"Well, Mr barman. It certainly has been a most enjoyable evening," Merlin stood unsteadily to his feet and made a dangerous attempt at a bow. "Thank you for your good service, my friend." Pressing a few coins into the barman's palm, he wrung his hand and clapped him on the shoulder. Or on his head. He wasn't too sure.
Merlin walked carefully to the door, and into the dark street. Tomorrow he would be forty-one. He decided to see if he could count forty-one stars in the sky. They were very pretty, after all.
Merlin wondered if Arthur was looking at the stars.
He took the next left- or was it right?- back up to the castle. Tripping slightly, Merlin began to wonder why there were trees beginning to line the path. How exactly he hadn't reached the drawbridge yet.
Merlin stopped and looked around himself with interest. The castle had changed quite a bit since that afternoon- it seemed as if Gwen had decided to redecorate. About time too, Merlin thought. And the greenery really did bring a lot to the… the… he really was very tired. Maybe now would be a good time to sleep. The stars looked pretty through the leaves above him. The slight rustling was strangely soothing. The hell! It was his birthday tomorrow. If he wanted to sleep on the floor he would.
Just before he closed his eyes, the surrounding trees sighed.
"…Wake him up?"
"Did you see him last night? He's head is going to be-"
"Shut up, Arthur." A hundred horses had run over his head. It felt like his brain was smacking the sides of his skull as a gentle hand shook his shoulder. "Merlin? Merlin?"
He moaned. "Go away."
A low chuckle, and something hard and leafy hit his face. "Oh, sorry-"
Merlin pulled his eyes open to a crack. There was horribly bright sunlight jabbing his pupils and he seemed to be lying- in a tree.
Forcing his eyes properly open, Merlin's neck cricked as he twisted it around to take in his surroundings.
Gwen's kind dear face was hovering over his, eyes lined with concern. Arthur was standing a bit behind her, wearing an expression somewhere between amusement, resignation and irritation- little Ygraine was clinging to his hand, her big brown eyes looking everywhere at once, and her fat little hand twisting the velvet of her blue cloak. She pointed over to the left, where Morgana seemed to be murmuring to a large oak. Its branches were doing an excellent job, he noticed, of shading him from the sun. A few shadows of guards shifted in the shadows of the distant trees.
The leaved cocoon of branches below him shuddered slightly. Holding a hand to his pounding head, and patting the brushwood gratefully with the other, Merlin stood up.
"My God, Gwen," he screwed up his eyes and peered, wincing, into her face.
She smiled. "Sleep well, then?"
"Like a log."
A chuckle. "Morgana?"
"Hello?" Morgana looked up from the roots of the oak.
"Do Merlin a favour."
"It's his own fault," Arthur interjected, rolling his eyes. He leaned down to Ygraine, armour chinking, and whispered conspiratorially, "He should not have stayed out so very late last night."
Morgana glided over- barefoot, her shoes swinging from her left hand- and touched her palm to Merlin's forehead. Her irises darkened fleetingly, storm clouds for just a moment.
"Instant cure for last nights memories."
"Well it's certainly better than Gaius' old drink," There was a moment of shared smiling- unlike Uther, the late Gaius had never been a forbidden subject of conversation. He was more a grace of a memory, whereas Uther's was something akin to climbing ivy. To everyone.
Merlin ran a hand through his hair. He stretched, about to reach out his hand for Ygraine's free one, as Arthur cleared his throat.
"We didn't come all the way down here just to wake you up," Merlin knew every curve in each of Arthur's expressions by heart; he watched the corner of his mouth crease his cheek perhaps a little too intently for company for a second.
"You didn't?"
Gwen squeezed her arms around his waist. "Happy birthday, Merlin."
He never shuddered at the thought of who else these arms had wrapped around any more.
He was grown man now after all.
"Honestly, I told you-"
"Look! We bought cake and everything," She continued.
"Oh Gwen, but-"
"Which I baked." Morgana arched her eyebrows, daring him to refuse to try it now.
"But you know-"
"Merlin."
Arthur's voice cut through his babble. "I'm hungry."
That was all the consent needed.
"Well, in that case-"
"Mern!!" Despite the Arthur's remarks, Merlin still thought Ygraine's name for him was endearing. "I made you a present!"
"Thank you," he squinted at the picture she'd pressed upon him. There was a moment of Morgana's suppressed laughter hanging in the air, before two large circles on the side of the head made him exclaim, "It's me!"
There was laughter.
"Thank you very much your highness." She giggled at her favourite title, and Morgana took him by the hand to the centre of the clearing at sat him down, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder as she set about empting the basket in her hand.
Out came cakes, wine- Merlin laughed at that- a cold turkey, bread, jam, tarts, sausages, a set of plates- Merlin suddenly felt overwhelmed by a strange rush of affection for all of them. His heart, long suppressed, swelled and his youthful beam of a smile spread over his face.
Gwen beamed.
Long after the turkey lay bare and all that was left of the cake were crumbs, long after the guards in the trees had grown glazed and boringly bored, Morgana lay with her 2head in Merlin's lap, her gales of pealing laughter danced over the grass, infectious as Merlin's smile. Ygraine sat plaiting Morgana's hair into tendrils of night, giggling at her uncle Mern and daddy bantering easily over the remains of the picnic.
"So that's why you'll never speak in front of the Mercian's- this Rebecca refused you a dance?"
"You, my unmarried servant, can only imagine the humiliation. I was seventeen years old!"
"Your dignity is intact, my liege," Merlin raised his eyes to the warm sky. "You know a man told me at the market last week you can tell the future from the clouds?"
Arthur snorted. "The clouds?"
"Of course, it's a far more reliable method than asking me," Morgana said in mock-seriousness.
"Did this man show any of his cloud fortune, then?" Asked Gwen with interest, picking a grape from the near-bare bunch in the middle.
"Well, he charged me two groats, but I thought it sounded interesting, so-"
"Two groats?" Arthur shook his head. "You, my friend-" stopping, he placed his hands over his daughter's delicate ears. "Idiot."
"Daddieeee!" Ygraine had just pulled at her father's hands, pouting in a spitting image-
"Who goes there?"
The guards awoke like waxworks, every ear in the clearing sharpened and Morgana and Merlin leaping into identical poses.
"Guinevere-" the edge of love like his sword drawn from its scabbard cut his voice as Arthur stood before his wife and child.
Wife and child.
"Peace! I mean no harm. Let me pass."
"A druid man, my Lord." Was there still a touch of contempt there, fifteen years on?
"My lord?" The wary guards followed a crush of flattened foliage under the hooves of a slight white horse padding into the clearing. "Forgive me- Arthur King of Albion?"
"That is I. Who asks?" defensive, formal. Merlin felt his magic coil, and Morgana's hiss.
A dark, slim man slid from the slim, white horse to the grassy floor. His cloak seemed almost to flow into the ground. It wrapped around his thin frame several times, concealing, Merlin felt, far too many secrets. "My name is Fianait. King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, Emrys… Lady Morgana." The intensity of his final greeting… scared Merlin. "You don't know me- I am a friend of Mordred."
Morgana's gasp.
Morgana's joyous gasp.
Gwen looked at Merlin- a look of shared worry that was not returned.
Merlin's world had stopped.
Are you telling me that little boy is going to kill Arthur?
It seems that is up to you.
"Mordred? Well… do send him our greetings."
"Oh, how is he?" Morgana was so eager.
"Fine, my lady, just fine. I must say, I am honoured to finally meet you."
"You have heard of me?"
"There are many tales of you among my people, my lady."
"Arthur-" Merlin had to stop this. It might be too late, but he had to stop it-
"Fianait, wasn't it? Tell Mordred he simply must visit us," there was a strange fervour to Morgana's excitement and to the way she wrung Fianait's hand with her own. "I have to see him!"
"Morgana, Mordred might be, you know, busy-" Oh smooth, Merlin. Subtle, he commended himself, fighting the blood pounding in his head and the urge to simply blast this Fianait with the roar of magic.
Going to kill Arthur?Arthur, Arthur, Arthur!
"Not at all!" A smile. "Mordred will be delighted at the invitation, I assure you."
Morgana beamed round at them. Guinevere's frozen smile was just too tight to share Morgana's joy.
Arthur just looked amused.
The young man, his elfin face so satisfied, swung back onto his horse.
"I bid you goodbye. Your highness, Emrys, Lady Morgana."
And he went.
"Uncle Mern?"
There was no reply.
The sky boiled with clouds.
***
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