So there's not much to report today (I was a marshal in the kindergarten graduation tonight, so now I'm sleepy and my creativity for conversation suffers...), but I hope you all had a good week, and thanks to everyone who has reviewed and favorited so far.
This is the final chapter, featuring, as we all probably expected, a bit of adorable kitty!Merlin whump and protective!Arthur. (I just couldn't resist.)
Chapter Seven
"Where'd Merlin get off to?" Gwaine questioned as they laid their weapons aside in favor of cool drinking-water in the humid evening air.
Arthur hardly needed glance up to know that his newly-acquired pest was gone from the place where he'd firmly told him to sit half-an-hour previous, when the knights' training had commenced and the cat had been wide-eyed at all the fascinating movement on the grounds. He should have known Merlin would get bored after a few minutes.
"He's fine," Arthur reassured him, because, though he'd never admit as much aloud, while he'd always had a brotherly sort of protectiveness for his little, trouble-prone manservant, he knew better than anyone that Merlin was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. "Probably just went looking for something to do…or destroy."
"He's never been able to keep interest in training for too long, unless he's the target," observed Elyan with a smile, as he poured a bit of the clear water over his head.
"He's never been able to stand still at all for too long and be comfortable," Leon chuckled, recalling how fidgety Merlin became during long banquets with eternally-drab speeches, and how eventually Arthur would just send him to clean his chambers and tell him not to come back until it was entirely spotless.
"There he is," said Percival, and the men looked to where he gestured to see a long, gray-and-white tail curling over a pile of polished armor on the sidelines a little way across the field.
Arthur rolled his eyes, but did not make an effort to go over and stop Merlin's single-minded exploration of the complicated and shiny items.
"Come on," he said to his men instead. "We'll go at it until sunset, and then I have a speech to prepare."
"Good luck," needled Leon playfully, for he was well aware of the other man's aversion to the art of being a wordsmith.
Arthur just chuckled wryly as he led them back out to the open space, where a few of the other manservants had set out new targets for their spear practice.
Merlin, meanwhile, peered over a dinted breastplate on the weather-beaten tabletop; once he was assured that his beloved master was still within his sight, he ducked his head down and stuck his tail in the air again. Satisfied with his current situation, he continued to tiptoe unhurriedly through the wondrously captivating maze of armor, giving dark looks at the returned copycat who stuck close at his side as he went.
When the sun began to sink into the flamed sky behind the castle tower a short while later, Merlin was greatly startled by a sudden, thunderous voice above him.
"Oi! Get out of there, you filthy animal!"
The feline leapt back in a combination of fear and temper as a large, calloused hand reached violently toward him. His side struck a helmet which had been teetering on the edge of the tabletop as he pressed away from the unfamiliar knight; the helmet tumbled off and broke into two pieces upon the hard, rocky ground.
The knight swore.
"You stupid beast," he spat as he bent down to retrieve his fallen property; when he saw that it had been broken, he hurled it down at the table with all his force. One of the broken parts bounced and struck Merlin's front paw.
The little cat made a pained, shrieking noise and jumped down, landing imbalanced with his left front paw held up from the ground.
"It's going to take a bagful of coins to fix this," the knight riled on, though the helmet had been nearly broken before due to his own carelessness. "Get back here, ugly creature."
Merlin hissed with ire as he was violently jerked from where he'd been limping hastily toward the field. He bared his sharp, white teeth, his eyes glinting at the ruddy man as the rough hand—nothing like Arthur's rough hand, much meaner—tightened acutely around his fragile ribs.
The knight roared in pain and rage as the razor-like teeth sank deeply into his wrist, the claws of the uninjured front paw slicing gashes into his unkemptly hirsute face. He tossed the struggling cat down with as little concern as he had his broken armor, promptly stepping on his tail so that he could not get away while he pressed his hand against the shallow stripes on his cheek.
Merlin mewled as he tried to pull his tail from where it was trapped beneath the heavy boot, succeeding only in bringing himself more affliction.
"I'm going to break your scrawny neck," the man swore through clenched teeth, caring not that the red scarf must mean that the beautiful feline was cherished by someone.
Merlin's childlike shriek as the man's other boot struck his side with a dull thud would have broken any listener's heart, were there someone near enough to care.
There was.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Merlin, whose ears bent down as his eyes turned bleary with the pain, tried to shake himself awake as he heard his savior's voice rise above the ringing in his head.
"The little menace needs to be taught a lesson, sire," said the mean voice from above him, but Merlin didn't care to understand him; he was focusing his eyes on the blonde hero standing boldly in front of him. "One less filthy creature on the streets."
Arthur's eyes flashed subtly.
"Let him go," he commanded, and all except the low warning underlying his royal voice was silent; even the other knights around them had stopped speaking to one another. "That 'creature' belongs to me."
The knight's anger never dissipated completely at that, but his face paled beneath his dark tan, and he had no choice but to obey the order of his king.
Merlin scrambled unsteadily, limping and swaying as he walked away from his captor and toward his good master.
Arthur leant down and picked him up carefully, cradling Merlin's lean body in both arms a bit awkwardly for fear of harming him further, and, for one of the rare times, caring little what anyone watching thought of him for it. He instinctively smoothed down the red scarf as he addressed his offending knight once more.
"I will not have any of my men behaving like such a fool," he proclaimed, his voice hard and expression unyielding. "If I ever see you displaying such a reckless and juvenile temper again, especially toward a creature so helpless against you, you will be banned from attendance of training until after the next tournament. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sire." He bowed; under the weight of King Arthur's gaze, all of his anger had indeed fled him.
"You are dismissed for today," the king said loudly, speaking to all around now. "Anyone who wishes to stay and continue his own practice has my permission, as always."
The men listening began to turn away; the one he had been addressing did not even bother gathering his things together before he left around the castle wall.
Arthur, as most of the knights began to clear away from the field, turned Merlin over in his arms, pushed one of his limp ears up with his thumb, and looked into his white-gray face.
Merlin blinked at him and tilted his head in that particular way that told Arthur he was all right.
The king felt a smile curve at one corner of his mouth; at that, the cat started to purr lightly.
"I'll take him to Gaius, if you want, my lord," Percival's kind voice said from beside him, as his strong, sure hands reached out for their friend.
"No, I will," said Arthur with gratitude, as he shifted Merlin in his arms again so that the feline might lie more comfortably. "He'll be fine."
This seemed to appease the four noble men, for when Arthur was not afraid for his manservant, it meant that there was no need for anyone else to be. Nevertheless, each one patted the young man-turned-cat in turn as they bade them both farewell for the day.
Merlin blearily meowed his own form of "good-night," and settled down warmly as he was carried toward the physician's chambers in Arthur's arms.
It was a short time later when Arthur reached his own night-darkened chambers once more, and now the cat in his arms wore, along with his treasured red scarf, a tiny white bandage on his left front paw. Arthur was frankly amazed that there wasn't more damage than that done to his side, for he had seen with his own eyes the force behind Meltor's kick, but Gaius had only shrugged when he said so and told him that Merlin's body had always been remarkably resilient to such things. There would likely be bruises there when he returned to his human form, but nothing more serious than that.
He scooted Merlin into the crook of one arm, reaching out with his free hand and getting one of the feather pillows from his own bed.
"You're cleaning this tomorrow," he informed the yawning animal as he dropped it down to the floor near his writing-desk.
He settled Merlin down on top of it, wary of his injured paw, and yawned himself as he moved toward his wardrobe in search of the old trousers he slept in.
By the time he'd changed, he turned back to a sight he hadn't anticipated. Merlin had gotten up from his restful place on the pillow; where Arthur thought he'd be sound asleep by now, he was instead standing, hurt paw mindfully off the cool ground, with the corner of his pillow in his mouth as he dragged it across the floor.
"What are you doing?" he asked, too tired to be anything more than curious at this point.
Merlin released the cloth from his teeth only to give the man a meowed answer.
Arthur resisted the urge to groan, reminding himself firstly that Merlin had been through a great deal that day, and secondly that arguing with Merlin rarely produced any satisfactory results anyway.
"All right, all right," he consented sleepily as he bent over and took the pillow up. "Where do you want it, then?"
Merlin limped a few steps to the side of Arthur's bed and sat down.
Arthur complied and set the pillow on the floor just in front of him with a friendly warning.
"Fine, if that's how you want it, but don't be upset if I step on you tomorrow morning because I forget you're there."
Merlin never moved, but the look in his huge, bright blue eyes made his message clear enough.
"What, that's not where you want it?"
A tiny mewl.
Arthur inhaled slowly, his patience close to depletion.
"This is ridiculous," he said, mostly to himself, as he picked up the pillow once more and tossed it onto the bed where he'd gotten it. "If you're not going to tell me where you want it, Merlin, I'll just take it back and you can sleep on the floor."
Apparently, this development was exactly Merlin's desire, for he sprung up onto the furniture beside the bed and jumped with considerably more grace than Arthur thought was possible for him so that he landed on the bed.
He rolled his eyes and bit back another groan as Merlin turned in a circle, once, and dropped in a little knot in the center of the pillow.
After a moment, one round blue eye peeked open, one ear twitching up as he watched Arthur expectantly.
Arthur, whose will to fight with his witty companion degenerated with his liveliness at the end of the day, sighed deeply and circled around to the other side of the bed. He pulled back the blankets and rested his weary body against the soft mattress, eyeing his little friend who lay right beside the pillow where his own head rested.
Merlin, feeling his master watching him, shifted and opened his eyes to meet Arthur's own right across from him.
"This will never happen again, is that clear?"
Merlin meowed dismissively, entirely unruffled, rolling his head back to a more comfortable position against the silken fur of his front arms.
Arthur, in the ensuing silence of the next few minutes, when the world around him was finally at peace and the heavy crown he bore was nowhere in sight, inhaled deeply and slowly with one hand behind his head.
Lazily, he turned his face to his right, where slow breaths emanated from the slumbering creature beside him. A sudden thought striking him, he reached out and gently tugged the knot from the red scarf underneath Merlin's jaw and tossed the little fabric aside; it simply wouldn't do for the idiot to strangle himself with the thing in his sleep.
As his greatest friend's purring snores filled the otherwise quiet air in his chambers, Arthur drifted off into a deep sleep.
To be continued
(to epilogue)