"This is ta'king SOO LAING!" birts shot out of the surrounding bushy trees like rockets in surprise as Will disrepted the peace of the mid-morning forest with he bellowing shout if displeasure and slumped back in his seat on his horse. Arthur rolled his eyes at the otlaws back.
"What do you want to do about it, turn into a dragon and fly us there?" He said sarcastically. Will shot up in his seat and turn around as far as he could to look at him.
"Aye!" He twisted the other way so fast he almost fell off his horse "Merls! Could ye?!"
"Afraid not. I think my magic is a little less god for dragons right now and a bit more for..." He held out his hand, his eye flashed gold and little cloud of golden dust shot up from his palm with a 'pfft' noise then faded away.
"No transfiguration today. Sorry" He shrugged and gave a half hearted smile.
"Och" Will slumped back down in his seat with a grunt. Arthur glanced at his lover and saw he was looking dejectedly down at his pommel, and he felt a pang in his chest. He couldn't imagine what it'd be like to no longer have control over such a huge part of yourself, like if he could not longer control a hammer or forge even the most simple onject.
"Hey" He said quietly, and Merlin looked up to catch his eye "Don't worry. We'll sort this, and soon." But the pale warlock just gave him that ad smile again. Arthur reached across to squeeze his hand where it gripped his horses reins, his inability to change the situation immediately gnawing at his insindes.
"Arthur" Came Lanceolt's voice from behind them and they both turned to see him and Gwen riding close by.
"What is your plan once we reach King Alfred's court?" Arthur blinked.
"Uhm. Turn up, say 'hello I'm Arthur Pendragon' and ask for help I guess?" he said looking at them slightly confused. The couple shared a look that managed to look lik they were having a telepathinc conversation before Gwen torned back to him.
"Well, uhm, don't take this the wrong way, but, yuo don't really, ACT like a prince?" tittered Gwen, nervious to insult Arthur.
"Well how is a princ esupposed to act?" Arthur asked bewilderred loioking around at his friends.
"Regal" Lancelat remarked.
"Obnoxious" chirped up Gwaine from in front.
"Aurthoritative!" Gwen said, more helpfully.
"Chivvlerous?" suggested Elyan, riding up to joint them.
"A clotpole!" Joke Merlijn looking up with a cheeky grin.
"What does that even mean?!" griped Arthur, frustration leaching into his voice to hide his worries that he was not even one of the things his friends had descrived.
"Arthur Pendragon" grinned Merlin with eyes asparkle with his mirth.
"I'm not any of those things!" Arthur wailed and flapped his hands in defeat, causing his horse to look at him concerned for a moment before turning back to the path.
"Well...Elyan spent time with the king. He knows how to act kingly" Gwen saind.
"Are you forgetting someone?" Gwaine asked the crowd.
"Oh, yeah, Lancelet's dead noble" Merlin pointed out.
"AHEM" barked Gwaine ina fake cough.
"Bless you" Lancelot said mildly.
"I am LITERALLY...urp...the sonof the Duke of Orkney!" Gwaine said, accidentally belching very royally in his sentence.
"Oh." Rippled around the gang of friends. An awkward silence fell.
"No offence but you're not very..." Gwen started and then trailed off.
"Majestric." Elyan suggested.
"Nooble" Will suggested
"Posh" joined in Arthur.
"I get the point" sulked Gwaine.
"I'm sure you'll have some valuable input" Elyan said charitbaly and Gwaine seemed a bit satisfied by this.
"Why don't we stop now and we can do some practice?" Elyamn suggested as they neard a large clearing in the tree.
"Princess lessons!" Gwaine saif gleefully. They all dismounted at they reached the clearing and let the horses graze. Lancelot handed out fruit from one of the packs and they all settled down to figure ou how to make a king out of a blacksmith. Arthur felt very uncomfortable sitting on a log surrounded by his friends all munching on fruit and squinting at him critically, but Merlin's warm presence by his side gave him strength. It was only going to get much, much worse than this anyways, when he had to introduce himself to an actual king.
"We need to mske you look more regal" Gwaine said around a mouth of food. Everyone nodded.
"Merls, aye ken ye sid transfurmations ay oof the table, but could ye magik us uup a cloak?" Will inquired.
"I really don't need one" Arthur insisted.
"Yes you do, you need to look regal!" Gwen squealed.
"I'm going to look like an idiot!" Arthur protested, without fire.
"And that's a difference...?" swaid Waine cheekly.
"Oi!" sniped Arthur.
"Du your think Merrrls" Will prompted.
Merlin concentrated hard. He could barely feel the magic that usual course through his veins, a burning amber life blood, it was as though it were detached, sitting behind a wall of darkness it could not illuminate. He pulled at the tendrils of the forcr that he could reach and closed his eyes, which he could feel glowing gold behind his eyelids. The yellow spraks flittered out of his finger tips and flutter and swirled in the air, building something. Then thr magic stopped. There was a silence as Merlin timidly opened his blue again eyes. A crimsin bed sheet hung suspended alone in the air. One corner of it was on fire.
"It's... Almist right!" said Gwen, with generous false brightness- for she could see Merlin's devastation at his failure.
"Oh aye" Seconded William.
"Yeah it's close enough!" exclaimed Gwaine patting his friend on the back with bravadio.
"It's basically right..." offered Elyan.
"I'm sure Arhtur would be proud to wear it" said Lanclet. All the pairs of eyes and their faces turned expectantly to the blacksmith. He suppressed his sigh and smiled supportively at the clumsy wizard, exhasperated at their friends behavoours.
"It'll make a fine cloack" he said charitabely, tying to to his neck with a forced grinned, pointedly ingoting the snickers of Gwiane and Will.
"We need to mske you look more regal" Gwaine said around a mouth of food. Gwen took this opportunity to reveal her hands from where they werr perched behind her back.
"I made this for you." she said with a bright smile as she presented Arthur with a circlet of twigs. Gwaine's gauff of laughter was only cut off by an unexpectedly sharp look from Lancelot. Arthur suppressed the urge to roll his eyes though he could help but smile – they were all like kids playing dress up.
"Yes yes, it's lovely, put it on my head" he said in an unconvincing monotone and a put upon sigh.
"You've nailed bossing people around, like a royal" joked Elyn as his older sister put the crown on his adoptive brother's flaxen hair. Everyon stepped bacl to look a theire handiwork.
"well..." Gwen said tilteing her head an looking critiacally. Everyone burst into laughter at once, except Arthur, who glared at Merlin in betrayal as he tried to hide his laughter in his scarf.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry. You just look like you got dragged out of bed and through a bush!" He cackled and set everyone off into peal of laughter. Arhtur let out of "garrrumph" of displease, and rolled his eyes so hard it looked like he might sprain something, causing Merlin to peck a little kiss onto his cheek and lace their fingers together as he led Arthur into the middle of the clearing.
"Okay pretend I'm Alfred. Introduce yourself" He said with an encouraging smile.
"Uhm, good morning, sire. My name is Arthur and-"
"Wrong!" Gwaine shouted from the side, interrupting Arthur and warranting his glare to be cast upon him.
"Good glare, terrible everything else." Gwaine smirked at hi, dark eyes sparkling with merth.
"Well how would you do it then, cabbag head?" Arthur said acidly. Gwaine stood with a flourish and strode over.
"Allow me" He said griping Arthur by the shoulders he gently pushed him to the side and took his place in front of Merlin. He cleared his throat. He looked at Merlin expectantly. Melrin looked back: blankly. Gwaine sighed and rolled his eyes, exasperated.
"Well, announce me." He said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the worlds.
"Announce you?" checked Merlin.
"You can't expect the Duck of Orkney to announce himself" replied Gwaine pompously. "Or the Prince Arthur: Heir of Camelot, for that matter. Noblemen do not need to tell people who they are, they have servants for that. Go ahead Merlin." He said with a waive of his hand. Merlin didn't say a sarcastic comment he thought of.
"This is Gwaine." He said, with a small hand gesture towards Gwaine, who stood, legs apart, hips forward and hands on those hips, shoulders thrown back and head high. He dopped the pose at Merlin's lacklustre announcement.
"Do it peoperly," he whined, taking the pose again. Merlin breathed deeply and rolled his eyes.
"This…!" He said dramatically, waving his hands around his head and then pointing them at Gwain in jazzhands "Is Gwaine." He finished flatly. Gwaine glared at him again and Merlin finished it off by producing a small cloud of gold dust in the palm of his hand with a pronouncd 'pffft' sound.
"You have the list my achevements Merlin, you make a terrible steward" Gwaine grumped. Merlin sighed in defeat and droned in a bored voice:
"King Alfred, your majesty, I announce Sir Gwaine: Duke of the Orkneys, liberator of the poor, lover of cats, father of-" he cut off at Gwaine's glare, but Gwaine carried on regardless, bowing deeply to the imaginary king.
"My lord, it has been too long. How fairs you? And your beautiful daughter?" he said in a voice that was as fake as his smile. Arthur rolled his eyes.
"Fine. Use titles. What else?" Gwaine tilted his head and rubbed his scruffed chin, looking at him critiacally.
"You stand wrong." He said after the moment's thought.
"How can I stand wrong?! I'm just standing!" Arthur groaned, with a frustration flap of his arms.
"Shoulders back so everyone can see your rippleing pecs. Head up like you think ytou're better than everyone, legs further apart- you own this ground you can take up as much of it as you like! Good. Now strut!" he instructed and demonstrated a lordly strut, imperiously walking his way over the grass.
Arthru tried. He loped his way through the clearling for a few paces, walking in a way that made it very clear to Gwaine that he had never even looked up a throne, let alone sat on one, or even ever met anyone thatw as a higher rank that the head of the gild of blacksmiths. Suddenly there was an almighty crash, as Arthur fell over his laces and into a stray muddy puddle. Dirt splished across Gwaine's face and he sighed deeply, wiping it off.
"This is going to take some time," he muttered to himself and readied himself for a long time of practising.
Surprisingly, learning how to be a royal was surprisingly exhasting, and after ages of 'no not like that ike THIS' followed Gwaine or Elyan doing exactly the same thing he had been doing anyways, and Merlin and Gwen trying and falling not to laugh at his 'power walk' which he was pretty sure Gwaine had invented just to make him look like an idiot, Arthur was quite ready to be done.
"Can we stop now?" he whiined for about the 5th time in as many minutes.
"I dunno..." Gwaine frowned at him and adjusted his bedsheet-cloak.
"You don't seem quite ready yet" Elyan pt in.
"I'm as ready as I'm going to get" He insisted, the sun was going down and they needed to get a fire going and eat.
"No" Merlin said standing up gracefully, all quiet long limbs in black fabric. "I know what you're missing" He approached Arthur and gently lifted the twig crown off his head.
"Are you going to start the fire Merls?" Will joked earnign him a sharp glare from the warlok.
Merlin let thcrown settle in his palms and closed his eyes. He breath gently and deeply, feeling the weight of the wood in his hands, and felt a small trickle of his magic flow through his fingers. Carefully he reconfigured the crown, changed it''s form and it's matter, slowly letting his magic creep across the surface until the whole thing was srrounded and changing. When it was done he let his magic fade away and opened his eyes, feeling the orbs fade from golden glowing to their usuael sapphire hue.
"Ooooooh" Everyone gasped from around him and he looked down to see the simple twigs had become a royal circlet, golden and embossed, bejewelled with rubies and garnetts and blood diamonds that glittered attractively in the sunlight.. Merlin smile and his eyes met Arthurs, stunned and enrapted at once. shaft of lat eevening sunlight brpoke through the clouds and trees then and lit on Arthurs head of blonde, hi hair and his circlet burning brilliant gold in the ding light and rending th e breath fromeverytone's lungs as they gazed upon hiom: their king.
"Merlin, why have we been stealing from the rich all this time when you can do THAT?" Lancelot questioned.
"Ummm... I can't do it that offen. It's a one-off. My magic has always done strange things for Arthur." he explained, looking at his bonded with love glowing from his face.
"Give me a break your as bad as Gwen and Lancelot!" Elyan yelled at them.
"Hey!" the spell was broken and the sun disaapreard behind the clouds and below the hoirisoin in the distance. Merlina nd Arthur grinned at each other and Arthur took the new cerown off and wrapped it in his cloak-bedsheet.
"Keep that safe. you'll need it tomorrow" Merlin said and place a warm hand on his arm, rubbing small circles on the skin with his fingers.
"Who wants some dinner?" Gwaine called from the horses, and the wizard and his king went to joint their friends in a feast of a selction of cold meats, cheeses, rye bread and spiced hummus and Gwaine's famous apple ale as the evening drew its way into a short summer night.