Chapter 38
Warning/s: none
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
A/N: according to my app i am now 19% fluent in German and 1% fluent in Dutch
Prompt: "Merlin and Freya babysit Arthur and Gwen's son." – Aithusa Vase
"You're sure you're okay with this?" the Queen asked as she handed her son over to Freya. "I mean, we can always find someone else."
"It's fine," Freya exclaimed, cooing at Olwen. He was still young, barely a month old, and Freya's heart melted a little every time she saw him.
"Thank you," Gwen said gratefully. "I really have to go now to greet the visiting dignitaries, I should only be an hour."
"It's fine," Freya said again, rolling her eyes. "Merlin's just getting a book from the library, he'll be back soon. I can cope and I'm sure my husband can to." She practically had to propel the Queen from the doorway at that point.
"What are we going to do with you?" Freya asked pointlessly, rocking the baby in her arms. "Aren't you just the cutest thing?" She continued in this stream until Merlin returned with an armful of books, and she stopped out of embarrassment.
"Is it today we're babysitting Olwen?" he said in surprise.
Freya sighed in fond exasperation. "Yes, it is, and I thought you were only getting one book?"
Merlin had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. "Well, yes, but I got reading so…anyway, hello, Olwen." Carefully, he perched his books on a nearby table. "How old is he now?"
"Just a month," Freya said fondly. "Honestly, Merlin, you're becoming so forgetful lately."
"Yes, well, other things on my mind…" he trailed off as he started to flip open a book. "Funnily enough, those other things involve Olwen as well."
"What are these other things?" Freya asked suspiciously, cradling the baby to her. She supposed that one could take to mean by her words and tone that she thought Merlin was going to do some harm to this child, but that couldn't be further from the truth. In actual fact, her worry was that Merlin was planning to give the baby some sort of super protection (this wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the fact that Merlin went slightly overboard and anyone with one of his protection spells ended up naïve from lack of danger).
Merlin paused. "You remember when Gwen nearly died during the birth?" he said hesitantly. At Freya's nod, he continued. "I used magic to restore the blood loss, if you remember, and to help Olwen survive."
"He couldn't breathe," Freya recalled.
Merlin nodded and bit his lip. "Well, you see…I think because of this, I may have accidentally given Olwen a little bit of magic."
Freya closed her eyes briefly. Then she opened them and fixed Merlin with a steely glare. "I thought you said it was dangerous to give infants magic?" she said through gritted teeth. This was so typically Merlin – she loved her husband, but sometimes he became wrapped up far too much in his own world. Just because he loved having magic from birth didn't mean everyone did. Plenty of druids didn't, and it had taken Freya a long time to revel in her gifts.
"I didn't know it would give him magic," Merlin protested. "And it's only dangerous because it can overload their system and developing brain. Which is why I didn't tell you before now, because it's usually less than a month before the effects are noticeable."
Freya sighed, rolled her eyes slightly. "Honestly, Merlin," she said, but her exasperated tone was outweighed by her fond tone. "So he is fine?"
Most likely, Merlin thought to himself. "Completely," he told Freya. "Of course, he may not have ended up having magic as I thought; it's rather a fifty-fifty chance."
"So now you're going to try to find out?" Freya asked, narrowing her eyes. "How?"
Merlin glanced up. "Well…I was going to cast a rather complex spell involving seeing into Olwen's soul to see if he had any touch of magic apart from my own that will have imprinted on him at birth, but I'm not going to do that anymore." He hopped up onto the edge of the table.
"Why not?"
"Well, it wasn't me who turned your hair pink," Merlin pointed out, grinning devilishly. Freya squawked and looked down at her hair, which had indeed turned a garish pink.
"Olwen," Freya squeaked indignantly, frowning amusedly. "Merlin, turn it back. And find a way to control Olwen's magic."
Merlin turned Freya's hair back to her usual chocolate brown with an easy flick of his fingers. "I suspect this isn't the first time he's been playing tricks," he said slowly. "Remember when the castle turned bright yellow and everyone blamed me?"
"I didn't," Freya said indignantly. "I knew you were innocent. I thought it was just one of the kids somewhere playing a prank and was too scared to own up afterwards."
"I think it was Olwen. And I think Olwen has been doing all the other things, like turning the kitchen cats different colours and moving plates around at feasts."
Realisation dawned in Freya's eyes. "All the strange things have happened over the past month," she breathed. "I never made the connection."
"Neither did I," Merlin responded cheerily, clearly amused by Olwen's talents. "He's not too powerful though, and he might grow out of it. Of course, if he wants to learn magic when he's older, we can teach him then."
"Is this the kind of stuff you could do when you were born?" Freya asked curiously. She knew of Merlin instinctively moving things with his mind, but neither he or Hunith spoke of it much. Probably because it had been such a terrible time for them, having to hide such a large part of Merlin's identity.
"Kind of," Merlin replied absent-mindedly, pulling out a box of wooden blocks that he kept for practicing next spells on. "I never really bothered with that stuff. I just moved things to tidy up, help my Mum, once I turned a cow purple when I was feverish…but we never really recognised the ability of my magic until later." He shrugged as he grabbed five blocks from the box and placed them on the floor, sitting down in front of them. He motioned for Freya to join him.
Immediately, the blocks all turned different colours, and Olwen clapped his hands together delightedly. "Yep, definitely magic," Merlin confirmed.
"He hasn't been any trouble, has he?" Gwen asked anxiously when she returned with Arthur. She accepted Olwen gladly and kissed the top of his head.
"Apart from turning my hair pink, no," Freya said ruefully. Arthur stopped, struck dumb, at her words.
"He has magic?" Gwen asked in disbelief.
"I think I accidentally gave him some at birth," Merlin admitted sheepishly, showing the monarchs three of the blocks which were now charred, shimmering and made of water respectively.
"Our son has magic," Arthur muttered. "Brilliant."
"Oi," Merlin piped up. "Emrys in the room."
"Yeah, because your magic has never caused any problems, has it?" Arthur scowled. It was obvious which incident he was talking about immediately, and Freya had to stifle a giggle at the memory.
"It was one time, Arthur, and it wasn't like the clouds were orange forever, just a few days."
"I'm assuming that, as we both have magic, our children will have magic as well?" Freya asked that evening, as she drying herself after a bath. She wrapped the towel around herself as she wandered out from behind the screen, where the mirror was.
"Most likely." Merlin shrugged. "I don't see why not." He was curled up in an armchair, reading through a dense tome on regeneration spells.
"I'd like that," Freya said hesitantly. "I mean, though…you could still use magic during the birth, couldn't you, just to make sure?"
"Of course," Merlin said. "Though it does have its risks, of course."
"Is it less risky to use magic at conception?" Freya asked, her voice equal parts shy and sly.
"Yes, it is actually," Merlin said thoughtfully. "I assume you're asking for the sake of having a magical child, of course?"
"Of course," Freya replied in mock indignation. Merlin, as she had hoped, had seen straight through her. "I would never ask you to use magic during making love for any other purpose."
"Never," Merlin said, setting his book down. Freya took that as her cue to wander off, and seated herself sideways on his lap, allowing the towel to drop to the floor before she did.
"Of course, if it were to add some…pleasure into the mix, that would be purely coincidental," Freya whispered into Merlin's ear, pressing herself against him as much as she could.
"I imagine it would give quite a lot of pleasure, actually, but it's more for the child's sake, of course," Merlin agreed. He raised his eyebrows when she began to undo his breeches, kissing her softly.
"And if we were to use some possibly unnecessary magic as well…for pleasure rather than the greater good…it wouldn't matter, would it?" Freya asked rhetorically, knowing Merlin was not going to disagree with her.
Merlin's response was simply some unnecessary magic for pleasure rather than the greater good, and Freya couldn't deny that she wondered why she hadn't asked about this before.
A/N: terrible ending to a terrible fic yay
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