Whoop-whoop! Chapter 3 is here, peeps! I'm so happy with all the amazing feedback I've been getting so far :D Hopefully you'll like what's coming up next!

Enjoy!


Chapter 3

A week later they were on a quest. It was uncanny how quests always managed to find Arthur. First it had been Uther sending them every which way, on ridiculously useless quests and ridiculously dangerous quests alike. After Arthur became king Merlin thought the frequency of quests might diminish.

He had been wrong. Very wrong. Because the second any type of issue, no matter how small, appeared somewhere inside Arthur's realm, Arthur felt the need to deal with it personally. It turned out Arthur despised being king, because sitting on a throne and making policies was boring.

Merlin should have known Arthur didn't have a mature bone in his body. Case in point, Arthur kept throwing glaring glances Merlin's way, as if to say he hadn't forgotten about his invisible stalking stunt. As if Arthur hadn't personally come to order him to accompany him. Arthur really should make up his mind about whether he wanted Merlin here or not.

At least this current quest was not completely useless or ridiculous. Young women had been disappearing from a village in the White Mountains and no one knew when and how they disappeared.

By the time they arrived there was no young woman left in the village. Which, as Arthur put it, was unfortunate. It was awful, really, but unfortunate was the word Arthur insisted upon. Because if there were no young women to see disappear, how were they going to find what caused this unfortunate phenomenon? How very unfortunate. (Merlin was certain Arthur kept repeating the word in order to see him scowl).

Just to be contrary Merlin said, "Well, we can always make one of you pretty knights into a woman."

Arthur glared at him. "My knights aren't pretty."

"Hey!" said Gwaine, but Percival stopped him from saying anything else.

Merlin blinked innocently up at Arthur who was still regally sitting on his horse. "Are you sure none of the knights here are pretty?"

"Certain."

"I see. How strange. You usually like compliments. I was thinking you would make such a good woman, Arthur."

Arthur spluttered and the knights guffawed under the disturbed stares of the villagers. "I think you'll make a better woman, Merlin, since you're such a girl," Arthur countered, and Merlin crossed his arms.

"As the resident warlock I can't be bait. Given the way these women disappeared there is a significant chance the source is related to magic."

"I don't see why you can't be bait. My knights and I can take care of any magical foe."

"Can you though?" Arthur opened his mouth to probably say that of course he could, he always had, and Merlin could see the instant the self-doubt set in. "Can you really?" Merlin added just to hammer the final nail in the coffin.

"Shut up, Merlin. I don't want to know."

"Funny. First you yell at me because I didn't tell you anything about my magic, and now that I'm ready to tell you the whole thing you don't want to hear it."

Arthur finally dismounted with a metallic clang, his armour shining with a perfection that could not be achieved by regular means. Not that Arthur knew that. "Yes, well, Merlin, we do have other things to do this fine afternoon then listen to your self-important tales."

"Yes, you'd call them self-important, you're the main character," Merlin muttered. He shook his head and turned around. He smiled brightly at Gwaine.

Gwaine was the obvious choice. He was the prettiest knight – if you didn't count Arthur – and starting with a good base would make the transformation so much easier.

"Gwaine, my friend! How about you become a woman for the night?"

The knight pulled out his smoothest leer and Merlin regretted his choice of bait already. Sure, Gwaine would make a stunning woman, but his character was the worst for the task.

"That depends on how much of the night you intend to spend with me once I'm a woman, dear warlock of mine," Gwaine said.

All of a sudden Arthur was blocking his view of the lewd knight. "He's not your warlock, he's mine," Arthur growled. The silence that followed was rather impressive. Merlin couldn't see Arthur's face, but he could certainly see the back of his ears and the way they turned bright red. Merlin hid a small smile."I mean, he's Camelot's warlock. Which is why, as the king, he is my warlock. That's all I meant."

"Of course you did, Sire," Percival said. That man always managed to seem so genuine and innocent in his responses. So many people underestimated his intelligence because he was so tall and burly.

After the staring contest ended, Gwaine had to add a cheeky 'I'm all yours' that made Arthur audibly grind his teeth. Merlin just rolled his eyes and gestured at Gwaine to come closer.

"Remind me how many times you've done this, Merlin?" Gwaine asked, suddenly much less enthusiastic.

"I didn't count. And it all depends on what you mean by 'this'. Do you mean transformations in general, or transformations into women? Or do you mean transforming myself, or transforming other people?"

"All of the above?"

"Wait, you've transformed yourself into things?" Arthur said, as if that was the most preposterous thing he'd ever heard.

"Dragoon."

"What about that horrible old man?"

Now Merlin was a bit offended. Sure, old men were hardly popular – look at Gaius and the fear he always inspired, or Geoffrey and how people avoided the library like the plague – but 'horrible' was a bit much. He had helped Arthur out many times as Dragoon. This was hardly fair.

Gwaine suddenly started to laugh. "Wait— hah, you're saying— you are, ha— you, hahaha!"

"Yes, well, as you can see I have experience transforming myself. Now stand still."

Next to him Arthur gasped and murmured 'no' while Gwaine doubled over with laughter. Merlin tuned them out and repeated the right phrase in his mind – what he thought he remembered was the right phrase anyway – before opening his eyes and enunciating it clearly. Gwaine's laugh cut off abruptly, like something had blocked his airflow. A flash of very bright golden light made everyone groan and look away.

When they blinked the world back into colour, Gwaine the knight was gone. Instead, a young woman sat in the mud, swimming in the heavy armour that hung askew, her long brown hair hiding most of her face. She blew the hair away in a very Gwaine-like fashion, only for it to fall right back. She made an irritated noise and grabbed a fistful of the hair to throw it over her shoulder.

"Did you have to make it so long— Oh. Huh. Is that my voice? I sound so strange. Do I sound strange?" The silence stretched. "Guys? Hellooo!"

"Yes, you sound strange. Merlin, couldn't you just, I don't know, transform his armour into a dress or something?" Arthur said, crossing his arms and very pointedly not looking at Gwaine.

"I don't know how to do that."

"But you know how to transform a person into a whole other gender. Right. What was I thinking."

"I just learned the magic that happened to be useful in the moments I needed it, Arthur. I'm not a walking magic encyclopaedia. Which, you know, doesn't exist anymore, magic encyclopaedias. I'm lucky I have the one book I have."

"You have a magic book."

"Yes, Arthur, I have one book, and it saved your royal behind many times, so you're welcome."

"Oh, hey, don't mind me, I'm just a woman at the moment. I'll go ask those nice villagers if they have a dress from one of their missing daughter lying around then, won't I? Yes? Fine, just continue your glaring contest, don't mind me."

Gwaine stomped away, Percival following in his wake.

By the time the trap was set and they were waiting in the shadows for something to happen to Gwaine, Arthur and Merlin weren't glaring anymore. They weren't speaking either. But then, what else was new?

Arthur was so confusing. Wanting him to use his magic one moment, berating him for it the next. It was like Arthur accepted magic except when he didn't, and it appeared to be completely random. Though, why was Merlin surprised by that? Arthur had always been erratic, accepting of things like friendship with a servant or knights of non-noble birth – and then throwing Merlin in the stocks at the drop of a hat.

"Hey, look!"

At the whisper of one of the knights, Merlin was pulled back to the situation at hand. Gwaine was on the move, even though he had been ordered to stay in one of the farmer's homes and pretend to sleep. The singing wind and nightly wildlife had a strange undertone to it, a musicality and beat that Merlin had never heard before.

The knights had begun whispering among themselves, their amours clinking as they got more agitated and Merlin hushed them. "Listen! Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Arthur whispered back, now suddenly shoulder to shoulder with Merlin. Merlin couldn't help looking at him – in the heat of the moment Arthur was finally acting normal and Merlin wanted to drink it in. He held Arthur's blue gaze for a second too long and shook his head. Now was not the time to get distracted.

"There is some kind of… music in the wind."

"I don't hear anything." The other knights shook their heads as well. "Maybe only you can hear it, if it's magical."

Merlin hummed thoughtfully and crawled out of their hiding place to join Percival. He had been sent to stay in the house with Gwaine, dressed as a farmer, but none of the garments fit him and he looked like a child who had outgrown his clothes overnight.

"What happened," Arthur asked him.

"I don't know. One minute Gwaine was sleeping, snoring away as he always does, and the next he's up and out the door without taking his sword or putting on shoes or anything. I tried calling after him but I didn't want to be too loud and frighten off whoever we're looking for. I don't think he heard me."

"I think even if you'd shouted right in his face he wouldn't have heard you. He's under the influence of magic," Merlin said before starting to walk fast in the direction Gwaine had gone in.

This was not good. This wasn't some magical beast praying on young women, he could feel it. This was a magic user, and who said magic user said an intelligent foe often more dangerous than a beast.

"Do you know what's doing this, Merlin?" Arthur asked when he'd caught up. The rest of the knights were jogging alongside them, armours clanking noisily. It was making the spell on the wind almost inaudible – what if the spell suddenly ceased? He needed to be able to hear if it did.

"Everyone stop!" he said, and whirled around. All the knights were alert, some with their hands on their swords, eyes darting every which way. Merlin held out his hands and muttered a spell to silence their loud gear – he could see the shock on Arthur's face when his eyes must have flashed gold.

There was a beat of silence; so much silence in fact that it was as if no one was even breathing.

"What in Camelot's name did you do?" Arthur growled.

"I made you noisy lot stealthy. You're welcome."

"How about you give us some warning next time, before you magic us?"

"Hush. I'm trying to hear the magic spell."

"What spell?"

"The one on the wind! The one you can't hear? Seriously, Arthur, try to keep up!"

While Arthur sputtered incoherently Merlin went back to walking up the path that lead up the hill into the forest. The two torches the knights were carrying really weren't doing the trick so he added a couple of magical lights, but even then he couldn't tell if Gwaine had stayed on the path or not. He'd never been good at tracking.

"Merlin! Remind me to throw you in the dungeons when we get back."

"Certainly, Sire. Now could you please tell me if Gwaine walked up this way?"

Arthur sputtered some more. "You don't even know where we're going? What kind of warlock are you?"

"One that doesn't know how to track footprints if the soil is as dry as this. Luckily I know a king who's a very good hunter."

Arthur tssked and got down on one knee. "Give me some light."

With a look Merlin ordered one of his balls of light to hang above Arthur and brighten enough to make the path nearly sunlit without blinding them all.

"This is very useful, Merlin. How come you've never used it before? You like to see me stumble around in the dark, do you?"

"Yes. And also, I like to not be burnt at the stake for sorcery. I think stumbling in the dark was worth it, don't you?"

Arthur stayed silent, but Merlin could hear him internally brooding and grumbling nonetheless. The eternal 'why didn't you trust me with your life-threatening secret, aren't I your friend' debacle. And Arthur didn't like the 'I wasn't always your friend, and you were always my potential executioner' counter-argument, so in the end they didn't talk about it at all. Merlin and Arthur's usual dynamic in a nutshell.


Uh-oh! Will they be able to find Gwaine before something not-good happens? You'll find out next week ;)

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