Beetlejuice
Season 2: The Sleeper Saga
Episode 31: Uncle Merlin
The next day, Lydia scheduled a study session with Ben at his cottage. Prudence, Bertha, and Claire now seeing the young Merlin for the first time pretty much answered the same way Lydia did when he revealed himself to her in the forest. They all were flabbergasted to see him now in his early thirties rather than looking his ancient age. His skin was no longer pale and worn but vibrant and tanned. The wrinkles had vanished and his body now evenly toned to show his broad chest and strong arms. Claire had to constantly remind herself that he is the better part of a couple thousand years old while Prudence wracked her brain to crunch the numbers together to figure out how to replicate it for future use. Bertha was in doubt until she asked him an entire SAT's worth of questions before she was convinced.
"Seriously," Merlin began, "Countless feats of magic witnessed and an age reduction spell gets you all confused." Remembering all of the magic that Naria threw at them, Lydia and Beetlejuice couldn't argue. Lydia then shook her head to try and remove her confusion when they heard a loud knock at the cabin door and then Delia's voice screeching out, "Oh Lydia, I just came to see how your homework is coming." Lydia nearly panicked when Merlin waved his hand quickly and used controlled wind to place out their homework and books out along the table as well as quickly set chairs for them. He then cleared his throat and mumbled to himself in an Australian accent before ushering the five of them to the table and allowed Laurence to get the door. "Ah, Mrs. Deetz. Come on in. I'm surprised ta see ya out here in the woods." "Good to see you too Laurence. I'm just checking up on my daughter and bringing her snacks incase she was hungry." Delia said in her cheerful demeanor. "Awe, how sweet of ya, but I just grilled up some grub for them already." Delia peaked around Laurence's shoulder as he spoke to her, finally noticing the young Merlin trying to sneak into the kitchen. "Laurence, who is in your kitchen?" she asked immediately. 'Oh crap!' Lydia thought to herself as she overheard Delia. 'New strength in magic and you couldn't think to turn yourself invisible or something?'
Merlin thought fast, the quickly grabbed a skewer from the silver wear drawer and conjured up an illusion of a shrimp and pineapple kabob and then casually poked his head out of the kitchen while waving his fingers and tricking Delia's nose into smelling the kabob's scent. In his Australian accent he announced himself. "Oi, Pops! Who's this Sheila?" His new accent was so thick, you could have sworn he was born and raised in Australia's outback regions. Laurence turned naturally and scolded him, "Oi, drongo! You're being galah. Now be polite before I rap ya upside the head!" Merlin honestly did not expect the aged golem clone to react like that, but now he was put on the spot and had to think really fast.
Merlin walked up to Delia and politely bowed while shaking her hand, "Pardon me Miss. My name is Merlin. I'm Ben's..." "Uncle." Laurence filled in for him, surprisingly good at keeping up the lies. "Twins him and Alex was." Laurence gruffly placed his right hand on Merlin's right shoulder with a proud smile on his face. Delia looked Merlin up and down thinking to herself, 'I wonder if Ben's father looked this young.' She forced herself to snap out of her daydream and asked, "When did you get in?" Merlin answered, "Just now Miss. I just popped in a few minutes ago and saw the tykes just reading away. I didn't mean ta bother anyone. I just wanted ta surprise li'l Ben here. I didn't think he'd have friends over."
Delia couldn't help herself, she suddenly imagined what it would be like to be married to an Aussie like Merlin. She snapped herself out of it when she realized that there'd be no way of understanding what he says. She cleared her throat and swiftly answered, "Well, I... we would like to invite you and Ben to a dinner at our house to..." she cleared her throat once again, "get to know our neighbors better. Laurence is that alright? After all, I had Ben invite us to dinner." A sheepish grin formed on her face as she said that last line. Realizing what was going through her mind, Merlin flatly retorted, "It's the accent idn't it?" Without even thinking, Delia blurted out, "And the muscles..." Realizing that she just made a fool of herself in front of Lydia, Delia turned her gaze sheepishly to the ground and quietly said, "Sorry. I'm married. I should know better."
Hearing the complete awkwardness of the entire situation, Lydia buried her face in her hands and proceeded to try and rub away the stress all the while mumbling to herself, "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy." She then caught herself thinking that her late mother wouldn't be this weak minded, then remembered that she would be nice to him anyway. "How 'bout another dinner at the cabin? Merlin'll cook barbecue. I guarantee you and Charles will like it. Besides, them tykes still need ta study." Laurence answered. "In an hour then?" Delia asked. Both Ben and Lydia now felt the doom of embarrassment looming over them and simply allowed their foreheads to fall to the table with a synchronized 'thud'. After Delia left, Laurence brought Merlin up to speed on the background of Ben's life that he made up.
An hour later, a barbecue rib and chicken dinner was prepared by Merlin perfectly. A homemade barbecue sauce with gigantic sets of spareribs and whole pieces of chicken perfectly grilled on the barbecue along with barbecued corn on the cob and a leaf salad adorned with corn chips, sliced almonds and an oriental salad dressing. To make things less awkward, Laurence decided to make the event an all out backyard barbecue and invite Claire's, Bertha's and Prudence's Parents as well. The whole thing turned out to be a good impromptu idea as it took the stress off of Lydia, Ben and Delia and allowed them to have some fun mingling with others rather than give in to a dead awkward silence. Merlin proved to be a master cook behind the grill and when Delia asked how he had gotten so good, his answer was, "Ya learn a few things as ya travel." However when Lydia asked, it was, "A couple thousand plus years and you think I never learned to cook?"
As the parents began to mingle with each other embarrassing stories about their children began to come to the surface and laughter began to echo through the forest trees. While Bertha's parents refused to partake of the actual meet, they did however sample and compliment Merlin on his barbecue sauce and all of them ate till they were full and mingled long into the afternoon.
Later that night, after all of the families had left and thanked Laurence and Merlin for the barbecue, Lydia found herself still angry at Delia for her flirting with Merlin and wanted to scold her stepmother for her behavior, however decided to try and sleep it off for the night and try and talk to her about it tomorrow when she had the chance. Merlin, however was exhausted and flopped down in the guest bedroom and fell asleep the moment his face hit the pillow. The dreams that came to him were more like memories of his childhood. His father was a mighty warrior that was humanoid in shape but had fine golden scales adorning his skin. His flaming red hair flowed just so perfectly in the wind so that even while he was standing still and smiling warmly, he looked like an epic samurai warrior from Japan. Upon his head were sandy brown horns that curved away and back from his head. The irises of his eyes were as golden as his scales. Merlin looked fondly at his father's physique, his large hulking shoulders and massive muscular arms and chest. His father was a dragon warrior, a dragon that took on the shape of a human being for whatever reason, and that reason was his mother, a human female about as tall as he was. Her long silver hair swayed beautifully in the wind and looked like it was encrusted with diamond dust as it shone in the light of the sun. Her skin was bright like the moonlight and her smile was as gentle as a cloud on a calm day. Her sapphire blue eyes glinted in the faintest light. She was gorgeous in every sense of the word and he, a young pup about seven years of age, was proud to have such a family of strength and grace.
Merlin's father spoke with authority and power in every word that escaped his lips while his mother spoke gracefully and kind, uplifting even a dying man's moral. The era was a time of many battles, dragon fought against human for supremacy of the planet, dragons out of pride and anger, humans out of fear of destruction. Spears, swords, axes, bows and arrows, weapons of all kinds were used by the humans in combat while the beasts known as dragons used their mystical arts over the elements of nature. Aromant, Merlin's father, refused to allow his family to be torn apart by some silly war over superstition and pride, so he hid his family away in a mountain dwelling until one day, when the war came to them.
A single ruby red dragon in beast form came crawling up the mountain side, bleeding profusely from a wound in its leg. It spotted an ornate building built into the side of the mountain and hidden by the trees from the eyes of all who would intrude. The dragon limped on to the house and called out in a tongue only dragons could hear. To a human it merely sounded like a series of growls and roars, but to Aromant, it was clearly the language of his kin. Aromant met the dragon outside of his house and conversed with him in the tongue of the dragons until Luna, Merlin's mother came to join them and see if she could help the injured beast. Seeing a human, the red dragon reared and tried to roar out a signal until Aromant snagged one of the creature's fangs and yanked his head to the ground and forcibly gazed him in the eye. Aromant's simple glare made the mighty creature cower with fright and it simply whimpered as the mighty hand of the golden dragon warrior released the fang with not a threat, but a warning. "Endanger my family, and you will know my wrath worse than any punishment or war."
The image soon shifted from his father glaring at the ruby creature, to crimson flames on a battlefield with Aromant engaged in a heated and epic struggle against a black dragon with three heads. Shadows enveloped the dragon as they fought, frightening young Merlin and his brothers. The battle began to intensify as the scene shifted back to the mountain home scorched and burned down to the ground by black flames. Aromant was now desperately clinging to Luna's lifeless body and wallowing in self pity over his loss. A silhouette of a man wearing armor with dragon's heads for the shoulder guards could be seen watching from the shade of the trees in the distance, his eyes burning with hatred. Aromant turned in absolute rage and charged at the silhouette, sword drawn and rearing to spill the assailant's blood.
Merlin shot awake from his dream as the sun broke the horizon, hearing just the end of the dawn chorus sung by the local birds. He sat up in his bed, head throbbing slightly and perspiration saturating his body from his nightmare. Merlin placed his right hand against his forehead to hold back his anxiety, he then mumbled to himself, "Again?" He then recalled the events of the last time his brother attacked and how he was still surprised at how his face looked as Grimank was talking about the voices in his head. Fear, anguish, regret, sorrow, and lunacy all rolled into one body, creating who Merlin thought was his brother. 'How did such a curious boy turn into such a maniac?' Merlin thought to himself.
Grimnak awoke from his own slumber that same morning. He stretched out the kinks in his muscles and sat silently listening to something not there. Not present, but always lurking. Hearing nothing for the first time in a great while, he decided to get himself ready for the day, except the moment he stood up, a thousand whispering voices rang in the bowels of his mind, bringing back the torment with it. "You must destroy them." The voices repeated over and over. "Stop!" Grimnak tried to command them, "Stop, I say! Stop talking to me!" Never listening, only whispering, the voices continued on, "You must destroy them!" "But why?" He pleaded in agony to the disembodied voices, "Why me?" "If you don't kill, you will be killed." The voices answered, still whispering to his mind. Fear then took hold and the tears began to flow from his eyes at the mere thought of facing his brother again. After some time went by the voices again spoke to him, echoing a thousand times in his head, "If it is too hard, let us have a try." "NO, not yet. I'm not so weak to let you take my body and spill innocent blood." Grimnak growled while clenching both his teeth and his fists. "For that, you will have to wait till I am dead."
Lydia, unable to sleep as well, lie awake in her bed. Awoken by the same dream about her mother that haunts her every other night, she was saturated in perspiration and once again found herself crying silently, the memory still vivid in her mind. The crumpled up green Acura, her mother soaking in her own blood, the lights from the ambulances all haunting her, unable to give her a moment's peace. "I'm sorry", she muttered through her sobs as if trying to speak to the memory. She repeated her apology through her tears over and over, her pillow now drenched from her flood of tears.
Then, slowly, a gentle and familiar warmth began to embrace her, calming her and washing away her sorrows. Lydia slowly opened her eyes as the warmth enveloped her entire body, seeing a pair of faintly glowing, supple arms wrapped in a parental embrace, the way Elizabeth used to comfort her when she was young. "Mom?" she squeaked as yet another tear of longing fell down her cheek. "Hush now, my little sparrow." a soft sweet voice whispered to her. "No one's called me that in ages." Lydia whispered back, letting some more tears fall. "They let you out on good behavior?" Lydia joked after a while and before the angel behind her could respond, turned around and tightly embraced her mother, sobbing some more. "I miss you so much." Lydia choked out in between sobs. Elizabeth gently stroked her daughter's head to comfort her as they both cried tears of longing and joy meshed into one. After a few minutes of mother, daughter embrace, Elizabeth whispered to Lydia, "I came here to warn you that a great enemy hunts for you, watching your every move." Confused, Lydia asked, "What enemy?" "He is an enemy to all, but we angels are forbidden to speak his name." was Elizabeth's answer. "Seek out the remaining angelic journals, they will guide you to the nephilim." "What does that mean?" Lydia asked. Elizabeth simply shrugged her shoulders and responded, "No idea. I was just supposed to deliver the message, I was never told what it means." Elizabeth then embraced her confused daughter and surrounded her once again in a soothing light. Lydia awoke the next morning feeling strangely refreshed and warm, the memory of her meeting with her mother's angelic spirit fleeting as if a dream.
End Season 2 Episode 11