It feels like this is getting redundant, but I am so sorry for the late update! I was at a conference in Washington, D.C. for three days, still having to stay an extra hour after school every day, and I'm on yearbook staff this year, aaaaand I've been working busily on that long Merlin fic I've been telling you about. And I do mean loooooong. When I started it, I thought it would be maybe 20 pages, no more than 10,000 words. Guess what? 112 pages, 55,174 words. Yeah. Needless to say, you're going to have plenty of Merlin to read from me this summer. (Don't be nervous; hopefully you'll enjoy it. *hehe*)
I promise-cross my heart and hope to die-that I will not be so late with the next update!
Chapter Six
Of course, Arthur had been completely correct in his estimate of when Merlin's enthusiasm for Gwen's thoughtful gift would die away. It was almost exactly one candle-mark later that the energetic feline finally stopped dancing about on the tabletop and attempting to get his master to pay attention to him. (Arthur was becoming steadily better at ignoring his pleading blue eyes and distractingly huge ears.) Seeing that he was really not going to cooperate, Merlin leapt down off the tabletop to explore once more, peeking into all the corners and beneath the furniture he hadn't yet had the chance to properly investigate.
Arthur breathed a quiet sigh of relief when Merlin tiptoed across the room, finally able to concentrate entirely upon the page he'd read three times over now.
Merlin nearly toppled over trying to bend his neck enough to see the top of the folding screen, over which hung a pair of Arthur's trousers and a white shirt from when he'd changed the day before. He regained his balance quite easily, however, and proceeded to peer around said screen, carefully, as though there might be something dangerous hiding behind it. What he found was something he certainly hadn't expected.
He approached the looking-glass slowly, his ears straight and his tail curled up, and when he realized that it was not a vicious-looking, rival cat he saw but a friendly-looking one with a matching red scarf, the distrust dropped immediately away from his eyes and changed to a warm amiability. He sat himself down centimeters away, watching the other cat move and not daring to blink as he waited for his fellow feline to get out of sync with him.
When he saw that this apparently would not happen as long as he was predictable in his motions, an idea sprung to him, and he ducked his whole body down so that even his tail was out of sight of the mirror. He was immensely shocked when the other cat reappeared at the exact same instant he did.
He was even more shocked when his head struck something hard and cold and he sat, stunned, for a moment and tried to fathom why his tackle hadn't worked according to plan.
Just when a new notion started to form in his mind, the sound of the latch on the chamber door reached his ears, and he cast one fierce glance behind him at the other cat, who was also fleeing and glancing rather contemptuously back at him.
When he arrived at the dining table where his king sat, Merlin was not at all pleased to find his place as the center of Arthur's attention had been once again invaded by George, the manservant.
"There you are, Merlin," Arthur said, looking away from George and to him, which made the cat feel considerably better.
Neither Arthur nor Merlin ever noticed the slip, but when he heard the name by which the king called his mysterious new pet, George's back straightened even more than normal and his dark brows shot up toward his hairline.
"I hope this is sufficient to your desires, my lord," was all he said, however. "The seamstresses had this excess thread to toss away, so they were unopposed to my taking it upon your request."
Arthur watched as Merlin, drawn by the kaleidoscope of colors wound and knotted together in the mess of yarn dumped upon the table, began to pluck his claws into the string.
"This is certainly good enough, George, thank you," he answered graciously. "You may go now."
George bowed, curtly, with his hands locked behind his back, and then, he betrayed his usual single-minded state of being by pausing briefly at the door. He squinted his eyes together in thought and shook his head, once, sharply, before he left the king and his Merlin to their games.
Some time later, Arthur stood from his writing-desk to prepare for tournament practice in the evening. He stretched his cramped muscles, yawned broadly, and suddenly realized that he hadn't heard a peep out of his idiotic cat in a great while.
He circled around the bed, where he'd last seen the multicolored thread being dragged. When he got there, he sighed. Deeply.
"Can't you do anything right, Merlin?"
The creature in question, who might have looked like a menacing wildcat caught in a trap were it not that he was so pathetically skinny and the net was rainbow-colored, mewled helplessly and kicked out in a vain attempt to untangle himself.
"Oh, for goodness' sake, come here."
Merlin settled down just slightly when Arthur picked him up into his strong hands—colorful yarn and all—and sat down on the edge of his bed. The king set the little creature in his lap and, with surprisingly dexterous fingers, began to tug the knots out of the thread which Merlin had pulled tighter around himself with his struggling.
Merlin sat still enough, with just barely-audible meows breaking his silence.
"You certainly can make a mess out of the simplest things, can't you?"
He held up one paw helpfully for Arthur to unwrap a stubborn orange string.
"That's the trouble with string, Merlin," the man said as he undid the last bit of blue yarn from Merlin's two-tone tail.
Merlin turned carefully around in his lap, hearing his master's tone change to something low and distant as he'd spoken these last words. The little feline found the man's handsome face haunted, the sapphire blues of his eyes clouded, and he stopped all his own noise-making to pay attention.
"You get so wrapped up in it all," Arthur went on, and it didn't sound as though he was talking at all about string any longer, so Merlin listened, just as he always listened. "It's not that it's not a good thing—it is. You can make beautiful things out of string, I suppose; I've never tried myself, you know, but…"
He trailed off, and then he smirked down at the cat standing on his knees, and couldn't help but touch the soft fur beneath Merlin's jaw.
"You know what I mean, don't you?" he said. "It's just that it can be a terrible thing too—all knotted up and impossible to follow. If you get caught in the tangled pieces, there's no getting out on your own."
Merlin meowed a soft agreement.
"It's not that I don't like being king," Arthur said quietly, and he certainly wasn't talking about string anymore. "I love my people, more than anything. You know that I do, Merlin."
He purred understandingly.
"I want to be the best I can be for them. That's really what I've always wanted." He ran his fingers along Merlin's back, underneath the red scarf. "It's just that, sometimes, I feel…trapped." He sighed again. "Is that wrong of me, Merlin?"
Merlin vehemently leapt up at that; he pressed both of his front paws against Arthur's stomach, and when he'd gotten a good look into the man's eyes, he rubbed his ear against his shoulder.
Arthur huffed out a laugh and picked the cat up, once again dangling him up in one hand without elegance.
"You are such a strange little thing," he declared, eyes sparkling with fondness he would never wholly voice; then, his countenance changed. "I'm going to be late for training if we don't hurry. Are you coming too, then?"
Merlin, once the king had placed him back on the floor in favor of finding his duller sword in his wardrobe, meowed out his happy answer and skipped after the man's worn boots.
To be continued
Next chapter is the final one, which will be up in a week or less, and then an epilogue! I wish you all a wonderful week, even those of you who won't review. ;)
(By the way, does anyone have any new info on the next season? If so, I'd love for you to leave it in a review. Thanks!)
(And by another way, what is that piece of furniture on the left side of Arthur's bed called? It bothers me every time I think about it...not that I make it a habit to thing about furniture or anything...)