Author's Note: Wow two updates in one day. I'm a beast. I seriously hope this doesn't run out. I hate that more than anything. ThiscChapter is dedicated to speechbubble who guessed what happened!! I hope you like this chapter; things are just starting to get good… I hope.
Disclaimer: If I owned Merlin, I seriously doubt I would be writing fanfiction on it. Well actually…
Chapter Three (I think I forgot this last chapter, oops)
It took a second for Merlin to notice the change, and the first give away was that he was now looking slightly down, at himself, and a hand was on his shoulder. No that was wrong; his hand was on his shoulder. But no, that was still wrong somehow.
He felt bulkier, taller, and more muscular. And then there was the whole thing that he was looking down at himself.
What had he done?
Arthur looked up at the devilishly handsome man in front of him; it took him a little longer than Merlin to realize that it was in fact himself that he was looking at.
He wasn't sure why he was now looking into his own eyes, or why his hand was on his own firm shoulder, and he wasn't sure where Merlin had gotten off to.
"What the devil?" The words coming out of Arthur's mouth sounded wrong, it confused him even more.
"Prince Arthur?" Merlin said tentatively. He was hoping the answer was going to no.
Unfortunately for the young warlock, the reply he got was. "Merlin?" And after a beat. "What the hell did you do? Demand that you return me back to normal."
Merlin sighed, but he didn't do as the future king commanded.
In fact he wasn't even sure if he could do what Arthur had asked of him. He didn't even know if he did it in the first place.
"I- I dunno what happened, sire." Merlin looked down at the hand that was remarkably similar to his own, still resting on the shoulder that was uncanny in resemblance to Arthurs. Quickly he looked down the hallway, he saw no one coming, luckily. He also spotted a mirror resting on the wall.
"C'mon!" He cried, and grabbed Arthur and pulled him toward the mirror.
The two stared in shock at the images the saw.
It was indeed Merlin and Arthur standing in front of the mirror, however, they were in the wrong positions, and though the Merlin in the mirror was fretfully toying with his ears, Merlin himself was looking down at his now very toned arms.
"You-you switched us!" Arthur exclaimed with a squeak in his voice. It was all very un-princely, but then again, nothing about being in Merlin's body was princely.
"I didn't mean to I swear!"
"Oh of course you didn't!" came Arthur's sarcastic response. "I look terrible."
"Hey!" Merlin whined, he found that whining with Arthur's voice sounded quite suitable. "That's me you're talking about."
"Well you look fine. I look like-like a manservant."
"Funny I think that every day, until I realize that I am a man servant." Merlin crossed Arthur's arms, and pouted. He found that pouting was most becoming of Arthur's face.
Although Arthur didn't. "Don't pout like that; you'll make me look like an idiot." Arthur looked once more at his hideously incorrect face and did the first thing that came to mind.
"I am going to kill you Merlin. I'll do it myself, with my own bare hands. I swear."
Merlin managed to look stunned for a moment. "Sire, I'm sure I can fix this. I really am. You just have to trust me."
Arthur gave the warlock an incredulous look. "Trust you? After you turned me into a newt?"
Merlin decided not to take the last comment to heart. "Look, I know it looks bad, but if I did this then I should easily be able to fix it."
The two had decided to go back to Gaius's chambers to try to figure out a spell when Morgana, closely followed by Gwen, approached them with fire in her eyes.
"Arthur." She demanded "Where were you this morning? Your father is furious that you didn't show up to the banquet."
Merlin looked at Arthur who looked back at Merlin who looked to Morgana and said with absolutely no confidence at all. "I was, erm, ill."
Morgana gave him a stern look, and then as if noticing some sort of change she cocked her head slightly. Figuring that it was due to his alleged illness Morgana nodded and bade them goodbye.
"Well that was close." Merlin piped up.
Arthur simply slapped the back of his head and walked on to Gaius's quarters.
*~*
"Did you find anything yet?" Arthur whined from the chair he was casually slumped in.
"Not since four seconds ago when you asked me last." Merlin replied patiently. He had been searching through his book of magic for an hour and found nothing about a spell that could swap bodies.
And unfortunately none of the spells in the book had any sort of counter measure that came even close.
Another problem they had run into was when Merlin had come across a sort of "put it right" spell.
When he muttered the words, nothing happened. It was as if he was just speaking of apples and oranges, not saying words of the old religion.
"This isn't working." Arthur complained.
"Yeah, I noticed." Merlin rolled his eyes. "The thing is that even if this particular spell didn't do anything to put us right, it should have at least had an effect on my room."
Arthur lifted his head and took in the very out of place clothes. "I don't think magic could even clean your room Merlin."
"It's weird, usually I can feel it." He paused. "The magic that is. And if I say any magical words I can sense the magic within me, even if the spell doesn't work." He explained all the while thinking back to the instance with Knight Valiant's shield and the dog statue. "But now, it's like I have no magic at all."
Arthur sighed. "This isn't looking good is it?"
But Merlin refused to believe that he didn't have his magic anymore. That would be ridiculous. Where would it have gone?
Arthur stood up and walked over to Merlin. "Did you look through the whole book?"
Merlin groaned. "It's a very big book."
"Yes but I doubt I can stand being you for another moment."
"And I doubt that I'll be able to fix this with you nagging me." Merlin roughly shut the book of magic causing a large puff of dust to emanate through the air.
Arthur, the perfect prince that he was, managed an entirely ungraceful sneeze, placing his hands in front of his nose just in time to burn himself on the flames that were created.
"Well I think I know where my magic's gone."
Author's Note: I'm really hoping more slash comes into play soon! But they're just so darn stubborn and won't admit their feelings. Oh well. Review please, and no promises but more story when the reviews hit 18… don't ask about the number =P
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