Merlin: Witness
by mirwalker
CHAPTER TWO
Merlin had jumped back from the mirror, again dropping the armful of stained clothes he'd been trying to gather and take to the laundry. He chided himself for that clumsiness, before reminding himself that he had good reason to be startled. Did I really see someone else in the mirror? Who was that? Hang on… I didn't just see him; he saw me too. And spoke!
Wondering if he really was just overworked and under-rested, Merlin slowly eased his gaze back toward the shiny surface, and initially saw nothing but Arthur's room—bright and brash, vast and vacant. Not so unlike its occupant in better times! Sighing, he stood and stepped back, relieved the vision was only that. Until...
"Can you hear me as well?" asked a voice more polished than his own, ringing of the royals' accent, but without their attitude. And there, again, in the frame faced head on, was the strange man eyeing him with a similar cautious wonder.
Frozen in place this time, Merlin just stared back silently, taking in the apparent recurrence of his delusion. Not wanting to believe what he was seeing, he managed to decide that a test would help prove whether he was entirely imagining things, or just misunderstanding them through his fatigue. Slowly, he tilted his head to one side, hoping that his odd reflection would as well.
When it didn't, he tilted it back, and then raised one arm out to the side.
Again, the figure failed to follow suite.
"I asked, Can you hear me?" the figure repeated, entirely without prompt. "Are you well, Merlin?"
"Oh, fine. It's just that there's a man in the mirror, who isn't me… talking to me!" he exclaimed with am excited and nervous turn in place, before shushing himself on seeing the sleeping Arthur still across the room. "Wait, you know my name?"
"Aye," the figure said, himself looking a little surprised. "But I didn't know you could hear and see me. You can stop pinching yourself; you're not imagining me."
"What?" Merlin whipped his hands out from behind his back. "How did you…?" He looked behind to see if there were another unexpected mirror giving away his out-of-sight attempt to end the odd dream. He looked back to the bed, confirming Arthur was very much still there and very still—not directing this trick in some way. And then he finally faced the conversation partner who shouldn't be there, and so couldn't know what he'd been doing behind his back anyway.
"You can see me best in this surface—something to do with its reflective properties, we suppose. But I'm aware of everything around Arthur, not just what's visible to this mirror."
Whatever the explanation's intent, it had not unpuckered Merlin's face. In fact, he squinted further, and mustered the nerve to approach the mirror, lift an edge and look and feel behind it. "How are you doing that?" he demanded, unwilling to believe it wasn't some wind-up, either by someone else or his own exhaustion.
"Come over to the table," continued the voice, without change to its volume, tone or direction. "Turn over the platter you brought in this morning."
Growing more suspicious as the encounter continued without evidence it was actually happening, Merlin glanced quickly back to the mirror's front, hoping to catch the absence of the vision as proof against it. But the odd man was still there; and was nodding him toward the large table at the room's center.
With a sigh, Merlin backed toward it, removed the goblets from the silver tray, and slowly turned it in his hands.
"You can see me here too?" the man said, still in the mirror; and now also visible in the metal underside of the platter that Merlin had himself polished on the day before. He nearly dropped it, at the now doubled ghostly image. I'm getting worse!
"If you're able to see me at all, you can in almost anything that holds a reflection. But…," both versions of the man said with a single voice, "Beyond Arthur, the only other person I know to be aware of me is one who has magic... And so, yours must be great, to both see and hear me."
"Well, the princely prat is certainly not magic," Merlin rolled his eyes, before catching himself for getting into Arthur's shortcomings, magical or otherwise. Though this could be something magical, he thought. That would begin to explain it… Merlin set the platter down, and sank into the closest chair. "If you aren't just a very impressive figment of my weary imagination, why haven't I seen or heard you before? I've been in Arthur's service for more than a year!"
"I keep quiet when people are around, and except in the really shiny things, I'm hard to see. You've never paid attention before; but I've known you… I've known you to use magic, and Gaius to encourage it. You've heard the King and Arthur; would you speak up? Magic is to be feared…"
"They're wrong," insisted Merlin quickly. If he's a figment, no harm in being honest and challenging him. If he's real and telling the truth, he already knows what I am; so no sense in pretending otherwise.
"So I've begun to wonder…," the man said, his confidence softening. "I have known you to use yours to help Arthur, usually…"
Merlin smiled nervously, wondering what subtle irritations to the prince this vision had witnessed.
"And Arthur has grown ever distant as we've aged," the man continued, a sadness seeping into his tone and eyes. "He can see, but not hear me—just the opposite of Gaius; and eventually, he tried to shut me away behind this tapestry."
"Why?"
"'You shouldn't see things that shouldn't be,' he said. His father had explained his stories of me as a childhood fancy; I suppose he couldn't be a man with that imaginary friend, especially one who couldn't disappear. We grew up, and he outgrew what play we could have, what willing ear I could give without much response."
"He's not always the best of friends, is he?" Merlin commiserated. "Did he just leave you like that?" he nodded toward the mirror, meaning his grizzled appearance.
"If I understand how you see me, this is simply how I have become. No sleep or eating; no shave or cutting of the hair; and no clothes save this single cloth I've always had. There is nothing else here; and Arthur was never able to pass anything to me, though we tried often in the early years." He smiled briefly at the memory of a repeatedly dirtied mirror, of a more generous Arthur.
Merlin's face had grown somber, scrunched this time more in growing pity than his original fear. The mix of attempted generosity and cold dismissal from the crown prince he could understand well enough; but this man… "Who are you? I mean, do you have a name, or know how you came to be as you are?
"No name; none was ever given me. Arthur called me 'Fleck' sometimes; but it's not a true name as others have. And I have always been here, with Arthur, for as long as we both have been."
There was a light knock at the door, followed by a hushed whisper, "Merlin, it's Gwen. Gaius has sent me with fresh herbs. Can I come in?"
Merlin leapt to his feet, nearly knocking over the seat, tray and cups, as if the room weren't still such a mess. "Uh, just a moment," he nearly shouted back, before catching that clamor that as well.
None of the reflections reacted, seeming to wait for how he would respond.
"I have to go," the solid servant said, approaching the mirror. "But if Gaius has heard you—knows something about you, would it be alright if talk with him, see if knows anything more about how you came to be… in Arthur's service…ware? Maybe we can help?"
"Help?" the man seemed confused, either at what was offered or why he would need it.
"To get you out of there, not trapped in the wall," the young warlock smiled with intended generosity.
"I'm not in the wall…"
"Merlin?" came a slightly louder call through the chamber door.
"By the way," an urgent Merlin cut him off, hand ready to draw the curtain, "Just to make certain: I heard singing as I approached. Was that you?"
Distracted, Fleck looked across the room to where Arthur lay, bandaged and unmoving. "It was a song the nurses sang over Arthur when he was young, and so sang to me. Despite how he's come to treat me, he is all I have known in my time. I need him well."
tbc...