Phanstarlight:
Well, someone who don't like changes apparently ;-)
Vaughntronic:
*whistles innocently* Who, me? ;-)
But well yes, maybe a liiiiiittle bit… But I'm going to make up for it, promise!
Nance:
Yeah, I think they'd been really sweet together in the series…
And yes, I daresay the cat is out of the box… again… ;-)
Guest:
Amethyst49:
I do feel a bit evil about that, but soon things will start to look up for Arthur :-)
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin or any of the characters in the series, I'm just borrowing them from their respective owners to play with a little and I promise to give them back when I'm done. No copyright infringement is intended and I don't make any money from writing fanfiction.
Long live the cat!
All's well that ends well, or the ginger age of Camelot.
Waking up felt strange. Everything around him seemed gigantically out pf proportion and Arthur quickly closed his eyes for a second, pinched himself to make sure that he was awake and not still dreaming, and then opened his eyes again. Still the same. Then he realized that he was not lying in a bed but in a small basket close to the fire and that he had four legs instead of two. Well, that would explain why the table suddenly looked higher than Camelot's northern tower and that Gaius that came shuffling over to check on him seemed taller than Percival.
"How are you feeling, sire?" Arthur stood up gingerly, carefully flexing and stretching his limbs. Surprisingly enough his ribs felt fine and he was stunned to realize that he didn't even seem to have a concussion. He'd expected to feel far worse after such a fight.
"I'm fine" he said and his surprise must have shone through his voice because Gaius smiled.
"Now that magic isn't outlawed anymore I might have, eh, brushed off my old healing skills, sire" he said and Arthur laughed.
"Thank you, Gaius. Where's Merlin?" He looked around, couldn't see him, and asked again, a little worried now. "Is he all right?"
"He's fine, sire" Gaius assured him. "But he's still sleeping and I didn't want to wake him up."
"Can I see him?"
"Yes, sire" Gaius answered and then added sternly "if you don't wake him up, you can." So Arthur promised to be quiet and then quickly padded over to Merlin's room. There was just one problem.
"Gaius? Can you open the door for me?" A quick word and the door swung open quietly. Arthur went inside and jumped onto the chair next to the bed.
He was soon bored. He tried to practice and change back to human but he realized that he was too tired. He tried to get comfortable on the chair and the clothes that had been in a neatly folded pile were soon turned into a nice little nest but Merlin's snoring kept him awake. Merlin's stupid neckerchief had been on top of the pile but it had fallen on the floor when Arthur burrowed himself in the pile of clothes and now he looked at it where it lay crumpled. It was tempting. Too tempting. And when a burst of wind came from the door and made the fabric flitter slightly, Arthur couldn't resist it anymore.
"Woop!" With a loud yell he jumped the neckerchief, rolled around the floor with it, chased it, smacked it away with his paw and ran after it again. He was so caught up in what he was doing that he didn't realize that Merlin had woken up and was giggling at the sight of him.
"Ahem." A polite cough from the door drew Arthur to an abrupt halt and the neckerchief that he'd thrown up into the air came to a rest on his head.
"If you don't mind" Merlin said with a half-choked laugh and picked it up, tied it around his neck, and then pulled on his tunic and breeches.
"Not at all" Arthur croaked mortified and curled into a ball, hoping to disappear.
"Sire, whenever you're quite done…" Gaius paused momentarily and Arthur winced a little when he heard Gaius' disapproving tone, "I would like to have a look at Merlin." Arthur, only too happy to oblige, all but fled from the room followed by Merlin's laughter.
He was met by the worried looks from Elyan, Percival, Leon and Gwaine. Arthur couldn't resist the opportunity, so he gleefully sauntered up to the man.
"Sir Gwaine" he said. "I hope you realize that it was in fact my scratching and biting that saved Merlin so maybe we should in fact hold training sessions in that." His point was somewhat lost however as Gwaine didn't understand him and just stared at the cat.
"How's Merlin?"
"He's fine, and so am I, thank you so much for asking" Arthur answered a little sulkily, feeling left out when they all rushed past him to ask Gaius instead. Suddenly he was yanked into the air and immediately started wriggling but stopped once he realized that it was Leon that carried him on his shoulder.
"Whoa!" he exclaimed surprised and even though Leon only heard a lot of meowing he could guess what it meant.
"Didn't want you to feel left behind" he said and Arthur settled down, trying to resist the sudden urge to play with Leon's curly hair. That would just have been too weird.
Gaius drily assured everyone that everyone involved in the incident was fine, that there was no need to come rushing into the room like a stampeding herd of oxen and that he personally would throw Gwaine out of the room if the knight didn't stop pestering Merlin. That calmed things down a bit and Leon took over and informed everyone that the attacker had been apprehended and thrown into a cell in the dungeons. Apparently the man had been certain that the king had been enchanted by his manservant and had tried to liberate him from the influence of the "cursed sorcerer" as he called Merlin. After they'd dealt with all that, the day could finally proceed as normal. Well, as normal as it could be for a shapeshifting king, his warlock and manservant and a bunch of knight regularly putting their lives on the line.
Since the story about what happened that night spread like wildfire around the castle soon everyone knew about Arthur's shapeshifting anyway, but one cat looked very much like another and he found to his great contentment that he could still move around as a cat practically unhindered. And people started to notice that the king seemed more content, more inclined to enjoy life and that he was more tactile and open with his feelings.
Looking back, the whole incident seemed to have been a bit of a turning point. The fact that the king had risked so much to save a fellow magic user had quite naturally caused anyone with magic to become even more loyal to the king, but he also gained more affection form the servants since Merlin was his manservant and the king had put his life on the line for him. Anyone who didn't approve of magic had made sure to keep quiet about it and, more than anything, it convinced everyone that the king was serious about allowing magic in Camelot and very serious about preventing any persecution of magic users.
So, all in all, things got better. There were still bumps and potholes in the road but things did get better and Camelot's relations with the druids were rapidly improving. The lives of Camelot's magic users improved, as did Arthur's control over his ability. That however, didn't mean that he got off completely without accidents.
There was that day when he forgot that he was in feline form and went past the pen of the hunting dogs. Leon had to climb the tree that Arthur had fled into and carry him down. There was also the time when he tried to sneak through the kitchens and got a bucket of cold water thrown at him courtesy of cook. Then there was the day when Arthur didn't realize that there was a maid scrubbing the floor in the throne room as he shifted. Merlin had to perform an extremely strong spell on her to erase the memory of looking up from the floor to find the king running around the throne room completely naked, desperately trying to yank down one of the heavy tapestries to cover himself with. But all in all things were good.