Disclaimer: I don't own anything except my laptop! Whoop!
Thanks to Taigh, Hogaboom, you-shall-never-know-me and Spirited.Karma for their kind reviews. Hope you enjoy this chapter though I don't believe it to be quite as good. Feed me with comments and cookies!
"It is like fate led me to that ledge."
"You know, Merlin, you are talking a load of rubbish."
Arthur stepped into the castle hallway, shaking water from his hair. The weather was horrendous, torrents of rain poured down on Camelot, obscuring practically everything with its density. Walking through it was like taking an ice cold bath over and over again. The two boys had been drenched on the last leg of their journey and as a result were freezing. Arthur's fingers were numb and his hands had turned purple with such a low temperature. Merlin's teeth just chattered.
"I am not talking rubbish!" the young warlock replied, sounding wounded, "I landed on that ledge for a purpose and that was to save this baby bird. This merlin." He didn't bother mentioning that his magic had caused him to land there rather than the fall.
"Yeah, you keep calling it a merlin but it's just an egg, how on earth can you tell?" Arthur asked, unimpressed. With a flurry of movement he plucked the said object from his servant's hands and inspected it. "Just looks like a plain old egg to me. What are you planning to do with it anyway, hatch it?"
"As a matter of fact, yes!" Merlin snapped, leaning over to snatch it back. However Arthur yanked it out of his grasp causing him to pitch forward onto the wet stone beneath their sodden boots. "Arthur! This is no time for jokes, give it back."
"Ha, I don't think so; maybe I'll have it for breakfast." The young prince held the egg between his thumb and forefinger as if urging Merlin to take it. The servant boy growled and leapt, intending to tackle Arthur and get his prized possession. Arthur had not been expecting to invoke such a reaction in his friend and dropped the egg in surprise. Merlin yelped.
Quick as a flash the sorcerer was on the floor, cupping the rusty brown thing in one half-curled, outstretched palm. Arthur boggled. He hadn't even seen the boy move that fast when it was time for dinner. The movement had almost been too swift for the eye to see. Perturbed, the king's son watched as Merlin clambered to his feet, shot him a dirty look and then marched off down the corridor.
"Hey, Merlin, you aren't finished with your duties yet. I need someone to fetch me some hot water for a bath. Merlin?!"
"Get someone else to do it," the servant snapped back, his voice laced with unfamiliar venom. Arthur was about to order him back but then realised just how much he had upset the young man; Merlin never got angry but somehow Arthur had made him so. Holding his tongue, Arthur trod heavily after the retreating form of his manservant.
The physician's room was warm, filled with the smells of the herbs and minerals that lined the shelves along the wall. This array seemed disorderly and random but in actual fact was meticulously organised by Gaius in a way that Merlin could never hope to understand; there was no logic that he could see to the ensemble. Still, the castle doctor always knew exactly where everything was when he was in need of it.
Hanging from the wall were a few burning torches mounted on brackets that cast orangey pools of light into the centre of the room. Their illumination highlighted just how many papers and books littered every surface so much so that the eye could not take in every single little detail at once; there was just too much to observe.
With one sweep of the space, after he pushed open the creaky door, Merlin knew that the chamber was deserted. He pondered for a second as to where Gaius could be but then forgot about him as he hurried forward in search of a place to keep his egg. Eventually, Merlin nestled the un-hatched merlin in an empty box lined with old scraps of paper and cloth and placed a lamp beside it hoping the warm glow of the candle would help the bird to survive. He remembered reading somewhere that eggs needed a lot of heat to hatch. Once this was done he set about preparing his dinner.
The young warlock was ridiculously angry, he hadn't consciously realised this fact until he saw that his hands were shaking with every task he performed and his entire body was tense. Inside his head was a whirlpool of emotions: mainly anger but disappointment, betrayal and annoyance. He knew Arthur could be an idiot sometimes but this time he'd gone too far. It was in Merlin's nature to be kind, caring, forgiving but when he'd seen Arthur messing around with his egg and then dropping it with such callousness he'd seen red - a blinding scarlet that left him reeling even now.
There was something about the egg that invoked such feelings. He just knew that it was fate that meant he found those eggs and saved one in particular from that corvid. He was supposed to save it, he was positive. And now he had to hatch it.
"Merlin? Merlin are you back?" Gaius' voice called.
"Yes. Over here, Gaius," Merlin answered from where he was standing behind the door, chopping some carrots.
"Ah, there you are. Had a good day?" The old man nodded, satisfied, and wandered over to his desk, taking a seat in the chair.
"Good and bad, I guess."
"Oh?"
"Well, bad because Arthur led us the wrong way and we never got to see the damn beach and….ouch!" Merlin yelped as the sharp knife tip sliced through his finger.
"Are you all right?"
"Fine," the young man said, sucking his finger, "Anyway...and good because I found an egg."
"An egg?"
"That's what I said wasn't it? Anyway, this egg…I think it belongs to a merlin."
"Wait, you didn't bring this poor unborn creature back with you did you, Merlin?" Gaius raised his eyebrows incredulously.
"Um…yes, but it's not what you think…"
"What do I think?"
"That I want it for a pet or that I just wanted to save something," the dark haired boy stated. "It's different, I could tell I was meant to pick the egg up and nurse it. I could feel it in my bones."
"Right, and you say it is a merlin?"
"Yes."
"How unusual…"
"I know."
"Well, it is highly unlikely the infant falcon will hatch now you have taken it from its nest but if you wish to be disappointed, be my guest. Just don't shirk your duties to care for a lost cause, all right?"
"Yes, Gaius, I won't and it's not a lost cause, I'm telling you."
And, as it turned out, Merlin was right. Five days after its discovery, the baby merlin got its first look at the world. Unfortunately there was no one there at the time except a very disgruntled Prince Arthur. The man had gained a laceration from a particularly nasty fall from his horse. He had come to the castle physician to get stitched up but neither he nor Merlin was in the chamber when he got there. So he just sat down to wait.
The first he saw of the bird, well heard, was a gentle tapping. To begin with he ignored to noise but as it grew more insistent he grew more annoyed until finally he noticed the rust brown egg. A small pinkish crack had formed on one side of the shell, contrasting with the coppery colour. Arthur stared. Another fissure appeared, joining the second in a jigsaw pattern. Suddenly there was an entire spider web of cracks spreading out fast from the epicentre. And then the beak appeared.
Intrigued, the prince edged closer to the box containing the egg and watched as the beak pecked away at some of the shell to reveal a beady eye that stared at him through the hole. The eye focussed on him a little longer as if assessing him. Arthur was reminded oddly of Merlin's intense look that made him feel as if he was being judged. This baby had the same gift.
Suddenly, with a sickening crunch that although quiet was still unsettling, like the sound of a bone being broken, the egg split right in two to reveal the hatchling within. To be honest, the newborn falcon wasn't the prettiest thing Arthur had ever seen, for some reason he had been expecting a fluffy little yellow chick like the ones he occasionally saw around the hen coop. Instead, he was long and gangly, with spindly wings and messy dark feathers that stuck out in random directions. These feathers were still damp from being in the egg with bits of shell stuck to them and had an odd dull sheen to them. His beak was hooked and looked rather fierce like it could take your finger off easily. And the eyes that Arthur had seen even before the infant left the egg were too large for his face, big and brown and alert. For some inexplicable reason the young man was reminded yet again of his faithful servant. It seemed right somehow that Merlin was named after such a creature.
Arthur was aware how harsh that sounded after the description he had given of the chick but he was sure that although he did not look like it, this infantile merlin would grow into a beautiful and brave falcon.
Soooo...what do you think? Comments much appreciated! -have a Halloween cookie for your trouble (I know it is not there yet but they are already in shops!)-