Hey guys…I'm very, VERY sorry about not updating for six months; as some of you know, I put my other stories on hold in order to finally finish my super long Merlin fic, The Sorcerer's Bride, which I did. Then when I tried to get back in the groove of this one, this chapter just wouldn't flow - I must've rewritten it over a dozen times before coming up with something halfway satisfactory.
I also feel like I should apologize for not having a more exciting comeback chapter, since this one's pretty much all Bo/Merlin fluff…but enjoy it, because another crisis begins in the next one, and this will probably be the last fluffy scene with just the two of them.
It took some work, but Merlin got better at managing the many demands on his time. He started using more magic to finish his chores for Arthur faster (hiding it from Gaius was easier these days since the old man had for some reason taken to announcing himself loudly before entering Merlin's room, and keeping his eyes firmly on the floor when he came in) which allowed him to fit more magic lessons with Morgana into his schedule.
His biggest problem was Bo, who refused to fit into anyone's schedule. With no monsters to fight, she found the life of a noblewoman dull - unlike Kenzi, she didn't even have a hobby of spying on Merlin and Morgana whenever they were in the same room to amuse her - so she started popping up wherever he happened to be. He didn't mind too much; any excuse to spend more time with his girlfriend was fine by him, and her company came with the added perk of Kenzi (whose nosiness forced him to use concealment spells to keep her from finding out about the magic lessons) making herself scarce when he was with Bo rather than Morgana, but she made it hard to stick with Gaius' advice about discretion and balance - especially on days like today, when she made it her mission to distract him from his work.
"Ah, Bo, I don't think- This really isn't the place-" His protests that the stable was not a good makeout spot fell on deaf ears; she went on kissing him with almost feverish intensity, and the longer she kept it up, the harder it became for him to remember why letting her continue was a bad idea. Mustering his last reserves of willpower, he tried one more time. "Gaius-"
That did it. Bo pulled away, her eyes flashing. "Gaius?" she growled in a voice disturbingly close to the deeper timbre she slipped into when her dark side came out. "You're seriously thinking about Gaius right now?"
"I'm sorry - I just remembered how Gaius said we need to be careful. I mean, anyone could walk in on us…"
The blue light in Bo's eyes faded as her ire ebbed. "I know, I just hate that we have to keep looking over our shoulders every minute we're together. And you're always so busy…" She sighed dejectedly. Even though she knew Merlin wasn't to blame, she couldn't help thinking that this wasn't how she had pictured her first 'real' relationship.
It killed him to see her so unhappy. He wished he could do something to lift her spirits…and then inspiration hit. "Why don't you come with me tomorrow? Gaius asked me to go outside the city and gather some herbs for him, and some of them grow pretty far out, so Arthur's given me the whole day to do it."
Bo brightened considerably. "A whole day out of the castle, just you and me? Count me in!" Then a slight frown crossed her face. "Damn, I never thought I'd be this excited about picking herbs."
###
Morgana watched from her window as Merlin and Bo set off to replenish Gaius' stores, and tried not to envy them. She wished she could have gone - it would have been a wonderful opportunity to practice magic away from prying eyes - but the idea of her traipsing through the countryside with a manservant would send Uther into conniptions. Then of course there was the fact that Merlin hadn't given her the slightest encouragement to invite herself along on his excursion; Morgana had assumed he wanted some time to himself, though his desire for solitude evidently didn't extend to Bo…
Her thoughts were interrupted at that point by the arrival of Gwen. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"Where else would I be? These are my chambers after all."
"Yes, it's just that lately you always seem to be rushing off somewhere else, although you won't tell me where. With all this secrecy, I'm beginning to think there's a man involved," Gwen teased.
She wasn't completely wrong, since Morgana's frequent absences were due to her meeting Merlin, although they certainly weren't sneaking off together for the reasons Gwen had implied. "Oh, please," Morgana scoffed. "When do I ever get to meet any decent men?" That's not really true, though. Merlin is a decent man - no, he's more than decent. He risks his life every day by passing on forbidden knowledge to me and keeping my magic secret; he's a true friend, and braver than any knight in Camelot.
She quickly pushed that thought away, telling herself her assertion that she never got to meet any decent men was meant purely in the context of Gwen's teasing accusation, referring to her romantic prospects. No matter how brave and true Merlin might be, he was still only a servant, so Morgana could never think of him that way. Of course she didn't believe his low station in any way diminished his worth as a human being, but she was practical enough to know that no good could come of letting herself fall for him.
When she married, it would probably be to someone Uther selected for her; even if she had the good fortune of being allowed to choose her own husband, she would still need his approval, and Uther would never in a million years sanction a match between his ward and a lowly servant. Therefore, any feelings for Merlin she might have developed had to be swept aside and never acknowledged; to do otherwise would only lead to heartbreak.
###
Despite commenting yesterday that an herbal scavenger hunt was not her idea of a perfect date, Bo was having a great time. She and Merlin had spent the morning hiking through the land surrounding Camelot's capital city, only straying more than three feet from each other when they paused to collect one of the plants Gaius had requested, talking about whatever popped into their heads or just walking along in companionable silence, and generally enjoying the opportunity to act like a couple without worrying about being busted for improper behavior.
At noon, they stopped to eat on the shores of a lake - not the one where they had put Freya to rest; this lake was smaller, without the ethereal mist and almost otherworldly atmosphere that hung over what Bo had come to think of as Freya's lake, although according to Merlin its proper name was the Lake of Avalon.
"So what's next?" she asked once the food was gone. "Seems like we've already got stuff to cover most of the common symptoms." Merlin had tried to teach her about the various herbs as they found them, and while botany had never been Bo's favorite subject, he'd made it interesting enough that she had learned a lot.
"You're right; there's just one left."
"Great. Where do we get it from?"
Merlin grinned mischievously. "Take off your dress."
This instruction brought a puzzled frown to her face; she'd worn her sexiest outfit, hoping he would appreciate being the only one who got to see her in it, and he'd told her she looked beautiful (at least she thought he had, since he wasn't at his most coherent when she removed her cloak and showed him what she had on underneath), but he hadn't seemed too eager to get her out of it. They had all day, so there was no need to rush. "What happened to foreplay?"
"The plant we need can only be found in the lake; we'll have to swim out to where it grows, and-" His fingers trailed up her bare arm and slipped under the delicate band of silk flowers that draped over one shoulder "-it'd be a shame to get this wet."
Bo's skin broke out in goosebumps that had nothing to do with Merlin's touch as she shrugged his hand off. "I think I'll sit this one out."
"Why? I've been here before, and it's a good place for a swim. It'll be fun." He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer…and then he slid his hand up her back and started unlacing her green leather corset top.
Bo was torn; she didn't want him to stop, but she knew he was going to try to get her in the water once he had her dress off, and she did not want to go there. Time for evasive action. "You know, if we're getting naked, I can think of way better things we could do than picking algae." She used her special touch to turn up the heat while removing his clothes, intent on making him forget about that damn water plant.
Unfortunately for Bo, she'd forgotten that although Merlin's magic didn't automatically block hers anymore now that they were so well attuned to one another, he was still able to resist it when he wanted to. One minute she was confident she had him right where she wanted him, their bodies entwined on their picnic blanket, the next she found herself in waist-deep water. "What the hell, Merlin?"
"Sorry, but as much as I would've liked to carry on with what we were doing, I really need to get that herb."
"Damn it, I told you I didn't want to go in the lake!" Bo turned her back on him and crossed her arms over her chest, not wanting him to mistake her body's reaction to the chilly water for a sign that she was enjoying this even a little bit.
Taken aback by her anger, Merlin circled around her so he could see her face as he asked, "What's the matter? You don't like the water?"
"Neither would you if you'd nearly drowned when you were little!"
"I'm sorry; that must have been terrifying. But Bo, do you honestly believe I would let you drown?"
"What, are you a certified lifeguard? I don't think so," she said sulkily. "You don't even own a Speedo."
"I was still able to pull Arthur from the Lake of Avalon when a sidhe tried to gain entry into the realm beyond by sacrificing him, and he was a lot heavier than you with all that armor on. I won't let anything happen to you."
Bo slowly relaxed her stiff stance, letting her arms drop to her sides. "I know… I trust you."
Merlin took her hands and drew her deeper into the lake, the water rising over them until their feet left the muddy bottom. He was pleasantly surprised to find that Bo already knew how to swim, and hadn't forgotten everything she'd learned even though, since her near-drowning experience, she had for the most part avoided venturing into any body of water deeper than a bath or hot tub. "See, this isn't so bad. I don't know what you were worried about."
"Can we hurry up and find your plant so we can get back on dry land? Being in here is giving me flashbacks to Lake Miniwappo."
She clearly wasn't having fun, and Merlin was determined to fix that. "Then I guess I'll have to make you forget about Lake Miniwappo." He stopped in the middle of the lake, treading water to stay afloat, and kissed her.
She turned her head away. "Okay, normally I love that you've started taking the lead sometimes, but seriously, here?"
"Well, you know I think these things should be kept in the bedroom, but you keep telling me to be more adventurous, so I decided to try something different…unless you've changed your mind. Maybe you like safe and monotonous better."
Bo's eyes narrowed. 'Monotonous' was one word nobody had ever used to describe being with her, and she wasn't going to let him get away with it even if she had to make out with him in the middle of a lake to prove him wrong. "I'll show you monotony," she retorted, latching onto him like he was a life preserver and maybe tangling her fingers in his hair with a little more force than necessary as she returned his kiss.
He responded enthusiastically, his hands sliding over her wet skin as he tried to pull her closer and touch all of her at the same time; despite the relative ease with which he could shake off her succubus magic, it had been harder than she knew to tear himself away from her, to stop after things had progressed so far…but then, perhaps it was more a case of momentum deferred, because they seemed to be picking up right where they'd left off. "I want you, Bo - right here, right now."
She nodded breathlessly - strange as it seemed that the cold water hadn't dampened their arousal, she couldn't deny that she wanted it too - and wrapped her legs around him, letting his arms and the water hold her up as she clutched his shoulders for leverage and lifted herself, then dropped back down so he was once more buried in her to the hilt, the water lapping around their chests and occasionally splashing higher when their movement churned it up. She gasped when a fine spray hit her in the face, cooling the heated passion of their shared climax somewhat…then started laughing. "Wow. This definitely takes the gold in the 'most unique sexual encounter of my life' category."
"I probably don't want to know how much competition there was for that coveted title."
"There's no competition," Bo assured him, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck and resting her forehead against his. "You're not like anyone else I've ever been with. I used to think I'd never be able to have anything like this, anything real that would last, especially not with a human, and I'm really glad you were the one to prove me wrong."
###
Having obtained everything on Gaius' grocery list, their work for the day was finished, but neither of them felt like going home yet, so they spent the rest of the afternoon by the lake, catching a few fish, venturing back into the water for a brief second swim that involved a lot more splashing fights, and skipping rocks, something Merlin was surprised to find that Bo, who didn't seem like a rock-skipping kind of girl, did better than him. She shrugged and said her dad taught her how to do it during the summers when she and her adoptive human parents used to visit Lake Miniwappo prior to her brush with death. "…Of course, we didn't go there anymore after that; my parents were never able to have any kids of their own, so they were pretty protective. After I got pulled out of the water, they were so upset they took me straight home - wouldn't even stay for the Canada Day fireworks."
"What are fireworks?"
He listened intently to her description of pyrotechnical displays, soaking up the information like a sponge - the future world she came from was fascinating, especially for someone as insatiably curious as him - before moving on to a much more important (and, he suspected, more sensitive) matter. "Why haven't you mentioned your human parents before? It sounds like you were happy with them…"
Bo didn't answer right away; when she did, it was in a much darker tone. "Mary and Sam Dennis loved me in their own way, but they had a very narrow view of the world, and they were super religious…which meant they had a lot of beliefs about sex and relationships that were not exactly succubus-friendly. Growing up, I was just like any other kid, and everything was fine; then, when I was eighteen, my fae side came out. I had a boyfriend, Kyle, and he kept wanting to sleep with me-"
Merlin was tempted to interrupt with a tirade about what a cad Kyle had been but, sensing that this was hard for Bo to talk about, bit his tongue and instead took her hand in a silent show of support while still giving her space to finish her story.
"I didn't want to at first because I'd been taught that it was wrong, but eventually I gave in…and I drained him. I didn't know anything about being a succubus back then, I didn't understand what'd happened; all I knew was that Kyle died after being with me, and I was pretty sure I killed him. I was scared and confused, so I ran home to my mom…and instead of helping, she screamed at me that I was a slut, a sinner, a monster, and then she threw me out. I ran away from that town and kept on running for years, never understanding why people kept dying around me, until the fae found me and I finally learned what I really was… And now you know my entire life story. Not exactly like the fairy tale Kenzi fed Uther when we first got here, is it?"
"I'm so sorry, Isabeau. I can't believe your mother could be so cruel." Like Bo, he'd been forced to leave home when it became clear that he would never fit in with the simple folk of Ealdor, but Hunith had been a lot nicer about it.
"Yeah, well, after I got out of the backwaters, it didn't take me long to figure out that my mom was nothing more than an ignorant, warped bigot; I know she was wrong to treat me like some kind of deviant just for doing what most normal teenagers in love do. The stuff about me being the spawn of Satan, though, that's harder to get out of my head…because there were times I thought maybe she was right. I hurt so many people…" Her voice trailed off as tears welled up in her eyes.
Seeing that she was done talking, Merlin finally freed his hand, which had gone numb from her crushing grip, and pulled her into his lap. "It wasn't your fault; if anyone's to blame, it's whoever abandoned you in a village full of humans who couldn't possibly understand what you are or help you learn to control your powers."
"Thank you, Merlin," Bo mumbled from where she had buried her face against his neck, for once not caring how scratchy his scarf was. "You took this a lot better than I expected. I mean, I always thought my mother acted like she grew up in the Dark Ages, but you actually did."
"That doesn't mean I can't see you for who you are. You have a good heart - the best of anyone I've ever known - and even though I had my doubts about you at first, I know now that you could never deliberately hurt a soul. In fact, since your coming here undid everything that happened in your time, technically you haven't hurt anybody apart from one guard…which makes your body count lower than mine."
Bo's head snapped up. "What are you talking about? You would never hurt anyone."
"Yes, I would. I have." Part of him hated to taint her good opinion of him, because no one had ever respected, even admired him the way she did, and he didn't want to lose that…but it had to be done. It wouldn't be right for him to hold back after she had shown him the darkest parts of herself. She deserved to know about all of them - Mary Collins, Edwin Muirden, Aulfric, Sophia, and Nimueh - all the humans and fae whose lives he'd taken in defense of Camelot before meeting her, not to mention those whose deaths he'd indirectly contributed to (he didn't count Cornelius Sigan since he had died hundreds of years ago and should've had the decency to stay dead, or Cedric, because if the possession had killed him, well, he brought it on himself).
"…And then there were the bandits who attacked us on the road to Ealdor; I impaled the archer who shot you on a branch…and of course you saw what I did to Jonas with the candlestick. That was the first time I ever killed someone without magic…and unlike you, I never had the excuse of not knowing what I was doing."
"You can't blame yourself," Bo said at once. "It was all self-defense, or protecting innocent people. I've killed more than a few fae too, to protect myself or humans - it's disgusting how many of them think human lives don't matter at all - but humans can be monsters too."
"I know; I've wondered sometimes if I'm becoming one."
"You're not. I can tell a lot about a person from their chi, and you don't taste evil."
"No, I definitely don't think I've gone that far. It's just that I used to use my magic to fix things around the house - when my mother let me - or even just for fun… Now it feels like all I use it for is fighting and killing."
Bo abruptly stood up, pulling him to his feet too. "So do something else with it. Right now, while we're here by ourselves, do something with your magic that has nothing to do with death and destruction. It'll be therapeutic."
Merlin mentally ran through the recreational spells in his repertoire, searching for something special to entertain his girlfriend; he could make her a crown of flowers to match her sash, but he gave her flowers so often that she was probably getting tired of them. An animation spell? But there were no statues nearby that he could bring to life, and that one wasn't much fun anyway considering how aggressive the sculpted dog he'd animated while practicing to expose Knight Valiant had been. He could make shapes out of the smoke rising from all the hearths in the lower town, but they'd talked so long that evening had arrived, rendering it almost invisible against the darkening sky. What we need is some light… That's it!
There wasn't exactly a spell for what he wanted to do, but he thought tweaking an existing incantation or two should produce the desired effect. "All right, my lady, prepare to be amazed. The last time you went to a lake you didn't get to see any fireworks, so…" He recited his newly invented spell, and brilliant, multicolored balls of light exploded over the lake, reflecting off the black mirror of the water's surface.
"Wow, they're beautiful."
Merlin agreed, although his eyes were on her rather than the fireworks.
###
They came home to find the lower town in an uproar, with people running around and shouting in an apparent panic. "Whoa, where's the fire?" Bo wondered.
"I don't see anything amiss; I'm sure someone at the palace can tell us, if we can get there. Come on." Merlin grabbed her hand to keep them from getting separated as they pushed their way through the streets - being seen holding hands with a lady was now the least of his worries.
No one paid any attention to them anyway until they reached the castle gates and were hastily ushered inside by a guard, who then ran off to inform the king of Bo's return. Left standing in the main front entrance, they had just begun to debate whether they should head for their respective quarters when Morgana ran up to them, pale and terrified. "Thank heavens you're safe!"
"Why wouldn't we be? What the hell's going on out there?" Bo demanded.
"A short while ago, strange lights were seen in the woods Gaius sent you into," Morgana explained, causing Bo and Merlin to exchange guilty looks, "and pandemonium broke out. Everyone's convinced an army of sorcerers is marching on Camelot; some are even saying it's the end of the world-"
"That's ridiculous! If there was a sorcerer in the forest, it sounds like he was just fooling around."
Merlin, however, had bigger concerns than the ravings of hysterical townspeople. "And what does Uther say?"
"Well, he doesn't believe the apocalypse is upon us-"
"That's a good thing, right?"
Far from appearing reassured, Morgana's already pallid face somehow turned even whiter. "He's still outraged that a sorcerer would dare display their powers so blatantly this close to his city, and he vowed to root them out and make them pay. Merlin, he's summoned the Witchfinder."
Oops, looks like some angst crept into my fluff. Still not completely thrilled with this chapter, but I guess it did what it needed to do.