Things That Merlin Isn't Allowed To Do (According to Prince Arthur)
18: Turn People "Accidentally" Into Animals (or Do Must-Concentrate-On Magical Experiments When He Should Focus On the Prince)

One of the more annoying perks of being Court Sorcerer (the position might be unofficial, but the principle's still the same) is that, since more people know of his gift, they all want towitnessandknow of everything he does. Watch. Listen. Be there when he uses magic, because it's "Awesome" (in Gwaine's opinion), "Incredibly fascinating" (in Lancelot's opinion), and "So beautiful, so pretty! It reminds me so much about you! Not that it wouldn't, or that you're pretty - well you are! I mean you aren't - no, wait! I mean you're so adorable I just want to pinch your cheeks and hug you! Wait - I mean like, not like that - I just should've stopped when I said 'beautiful' shouldn't I?..." (in Gwen's opinion)

And, finally, in Arthur's opinion: "It's dangerous since you're so accident prone, and you will likely do something stupid, like poison/injure yourself or conjure up a damn unicorn again. So I better be here keep an eye on you."

Being the prince, used to get things as he wants them to be, Arthur deems his opinion on these matters to mean a lot more than Merlin's. Nevermind that Merlin is a warlock and knows more about magic than him. At least when Merlin protests and says that he'll be fine and won't conjure up unicorns. The prince insists - naturally - on 'keeping an eye on him'.

So for the whole afternoon - while Merlin is trying to learn and use a particularly tricky spell and brew a complicated potion to heal broken bones - Arthur constantly hovers on his shoulder. All of the time. And if Arthur has to fetch food or something else which requires him to leave the room, he lets Gaius take his place. Then he's back, minutes later, persistently refusing to move.

And he talks, points and asks a lot of stupid questions and remarks things like "Now the brew is blue - does that mean anything?" and "That's just a lot of stupid gibberish," while trying (and failing) to understand a text in the Language of the Old Religion, and "I thought this'd be interesting, but it's so boring, it beats even council meetings in its ability to numb the mind" (he's lying about that last bit, of course, but won't admit it because he's such a prat). Interestingly enough he won't answer why (if it's so boring) he doesn't want to leave in the first place.

And since he's the Prince Prat, even if Merlin swears and waves his hands and insults him and kicks his shin forcefully and conjures buckets of cold water to empty over the prince's head, Arthur won't just leave him alone.

"Is the smoke supposed to make shapes like that?" he asks and points.

"Arthur, I'm trying to concentrate!"

The prince peers closely into the cauldron which Merlin transfers from one table to the other, to mix it with something. "It's really hot now, be careful or you'll drop it."

"Go away or I'll drop it on you, dollophead, I swear!"

"Ha! You wouldn't dare - I'd have you put in the stocks for a week. Now, aren't you finished soon? Oh, what's this?" the prince asks poking at a random item lying on the table, as he's done at least five times before. He inspects it closely wrinkling up his nose, before snorting and putting it down again at the totally wrong place.

"I've warned you (thirteen times in the last hour) - Why don't you stay put, be quiet and don't touch anything!"

"Yeah, yeah – it can't be that difficult can it? It's just making it boil. Or maybe you're too much of an idiot to handle even the simplest things."

"That does it!"

Note to self: never anger the most powerful warlock ever in existence.

Merlin whips around, eyes glowing gold and the mildly startled prince is enveloped in a sparkly white smoke. Arthur doesn't have time to even cry out.

Poof!

As the smoke lifts, fading away, it's to reveal that the prince has shrunk alarmingly in size and taken on an odd green colour.

"...Oops," Merlin says, eyes widening, at seeing exactly what's happened. It's a quite fitting word. But at least he's not turned the prince invisible, into something inanimate, seriously injured him, or transported him halfway across the kingdom in the blink of an eye. He's just accidentally transformed the prince into a four-legged, green animal, that's all.

"Ribbit!" says Arthur the Frog in a (hopefully) berating, intimidating manner. (Which translates to 'Merlin!')

"Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. Honestly. I didn't."

"Ribbit. Ribbit!" ('You utter idiot, Merlin. Turn me back normal!')

Merlin sighs, burying his face in his hands. He's just used magic on the Prince of Camelot, turning him into an animal! The King is going to have his head on the execution block for sure! Oh god, how's he going to fix this before anyone notices?

"I warned you, you know," he mutters irritably glaring at the frog. "But of course, you're an utter ass so you won't listen to me. Or toad, now."

"Ribbit!" the prince growls, or attempts to; it's strangely difficult to growl when you've got such a croaky voice. ('Merlin...!')

Very timely, the court physician enters the chambers, hurrying to close the door so that passers-by won't notice the now very purple colour of the brew on the table, and the magical texts spread all-over the room for the young warlock's reference. Said warlock isn't looking at the (almost boiling over) cauldron now, but at a frog seated on the bench next to him which is oddly enough looking back at him, like they're in a staring competition.

"If you'd told me from the beginning you had one of those, I would not have had to go down to the market," grumbled Gaius, frowning just so slightly. "My old joints soon can't take all these stairs any longer!"

"Err, what?" Merlin asks awkwardly, glancing between the physician and the animal.

"The frog. It looks like you don't have any need for it; I need to make a paste for-"

Suddenly the warlock reacts. "No!" Merlin cries out, grabbing the frog gently and holding it to his chest possessively, well out of the physician's reach. "You can't do that! You can't take him and mush him into goo, I won't let you!"

Arthur leans against the warlock, agreeing with him wholeheartedly. "Ribbit!"

"I-I mean, err," Merlin backtracks at seeing the physician's inquiring eyebrow. "I … Please don't kill me, Gaius!" he cries out suddenly. "I didn't do it on purpose, I swear! I'll fix it! I will!"

"I take that's no ordinary frog," Gaius says. He's clearly not impressed.

"Uhm. Not really…" The warlock glances down at the frog in his hands: the eyes are blue, a strange colour for that kind of animal, and there's a hint of gold on top of his head. "… Gaius, you wouldn't have any clue on how to turn frog princes back human, would you?"

"Merlin!" the old admonishes, staring at the odd pair completely aghast. "Don't tell me that's the prince!"

"Err … It's the prince."

If it was physically possible, hot steam would now be streaming out of Gaius' ears, accompanied by a loud whistling sound. He stalks over and hits Merlin over the head, something which usually is reserved for prince Arthur only, but since said prince is unable to reach that far, Gaius gladly steps in. "What have you done? You should be more careful about your magic! Haven't I told you that a hundred times! When will you ever listen?"

"Ouch!"

"Ribbit!" Arthur nods enthusiastically. ('He's a complete idiot sometimes, isn't he?')

Merlin eyes the frog warily, while rubbing the back of his head. The physician didn't have to hit that hard! "I think he's agreeing with you…"

Sighing (his old heart will soon not be able to take all this anymore: he should ensure Merlin a babysitter. Someone that's not Arthur because you see how that turned out.) Gaius puts down his bag of fresh herbs on the table. "Have you tried anything yet to turn him back – a spell perhaps?"

"…Not really – and I'm not sure what would work, I mean I've never encountered this kind of magic before…"

Arthur tries to bite the hand that's holding him, which doesn't work that well without any teeth. "Ribbit, ribbit? RIBBIT!" he shouts, jumping up and down furiously. ('What, you turned me into a bloody frog and have never done shape-shifting before? IDIOT!')

"Calm down, Arthur, calm down!"

But the frog refuses to be petted in any manner and won't listen to the warlock, continuing to jump. Probably since it's his only way to get rid of frustration.

"Luckily for you, I know of a solution. Merlin, to turn him back he needs – well, he needs a kiss."

"Wh-what?"

The warlock might've squeaked.

"Look here," the old man holds up a page in a book he's suddenly holding, but Merlin is pretty certain Gaius wasn't near that book half a minute ago. But when scanning the page, Merlin sees that he's right. It states quite clearly that a man of noble blood having been turned into an amphibian needs a maiden's kiss to become a man again.

Merlin reads the text a dozen times to be sure. First quietly. Then aloud. Arthur stops jumping at the third read-through; actually listening himself, freezing up when hearing what the 'solution' exactly is going to entail.

"Only one thing," Merlin says to the physician. "There are no maidens nearby, and I won't run around Camelot in search for one and let them kiss Arthur!"

The old man gives him a quite frightening, pointing Look.

Merlin squeaks and turns red like a ripe tomato. "I'm – you're saying I'm the one who must kiss him? What! No – I – Don't be ridiculous! He, he's a frog!" he stutters weakly, albeit failing to struggle as much as he could because really, he doesn't really want to, even if Arthur is a frog. He doesn't want Arthur to remain tiny and green for the rest of his life. And he doesn't quite like the idea of going out there and hand over Arthur to strangers and let them kiss the prince...No, he doesn't like that thought at all.

"Ribbit," Arthur grumbles, feeling slightly insulted. Was Merlin saying he was too ugly in his frog-form to be kissed? He should put Merlin in the stocks for that!

"I fail to see what the fuss is about," Gaius says. "Would you prefer to go to the King and tell him his son has just been turned into a frog?"

"No! I ... I have to fix this."

The frog croaks nervously, eyes widening as he looks at the warlock, who's staring at him just as awkwardly. Only the frog isn't able to blush. If he were, he'd be a matching colour as Merlin's face.

"F-fine, I'll do it," Merlin mumbles, avoiding meeting the frog prince's gaze, and picks him up carefully. "Please don't kill me for this, Arthur." He gulps to get rid of the lump in his throat. Suddenly trembling a little, and his face still flaringly hot, he slowly raises his hands and places a shy kiss on the frog's face.

The change is just as abrupt as before; a smoke is created which sparkles as sunrays through the window hits it, and suddenly Merlin has a lap full of naked human Prince Arthur. "Eep!" Merlin cries out, arms flailing, but Arthur hasn't got anywhere to go really since he's practically straddling the warlock and though it's terribly awkward, it's kind of nice and Arthur finds himself enjoying it. In a possessive-prat sort of way.

"I assume I can safely continue with my rounds now."

Arthur turns his head to look at the physician, realizing with shock that the man's been there the whole time witnessing this. He suddenly looks very stern, eyes narrowing, and lifts a finger. "Not a word about this," growls the prince in the most threatening manner he can muster, pointing accusingly at Merlin's nose, then giving Gaius an equally threatening look. "To anyone. Ever. Is that understood?"

"Y-yes, sire," the warlock says weakly, still struggling to keep his eyes above and not below the very naked shoulders or broad chest or even more southwards, and he really must stop that train of thought right now. Merlin wonders if it's actually possible to die from embarrassment.

Gaius takes it all in a stride, bowing his neck. "Of course, sire." Then grabs his bag of herbs and is on his way, closing the door behind him and locking it. Just in case. He'll need to remember to knock when coming back – he doesn't want to interrupt the boys when they're … elsewhere occupied. Well, they should get on with it, the old man thinks, practically the whole city knows anyway and they've been jumping around it for months. Young people nowadays...

The silence lingers until the door clicks shut.

"Err…maybe you could, uhm, get off my lap now…?" Merlin mumbles, glancing down to avoid the prince's sharp gaze on him which is a huge mistake. Yes. Mistake. Very much.

It's not his fault – it's Arthur's fault for being naked in his lap and making him look down at-

It is!

His hard swallow doesn't get past the prince. Arthur flushes scarlet, but doesn't seem to mind really. A kind of accomplishment fills him and makes him pleased; this is too great an opportunity to pass up.

"A maiden's kiss, Merlin? Well, you do act like a girl most of the time - it really doesn't surprise me," he says with the hint of a smirk and a raised eyebrow, drawling the name in that wonderful way he likes to do it, and lets a finger trail up Merlin's jaw making him look up again. He's a bit slow at looking up though, the warlock's wide eyes glued to ... other parts of the prince's body.

Merlin eeps, squirming a little. "Ye-no!"

"Seem like we need to work on your vocabulary," Arthur murmurs in a way he's certain is seductive, leaning down to almost touch Merlin's cheek with his mouth and maybe he uses a bit of tongue as well, but it's only fair. "And some other things. Let me give you a helping hand."

Merlin doesn't protest, and his calling Arthur a prat fades on his tongue as the prince leans in and claims his lips in a mind-blowing kiss.

(So maybe it was kind of on purpose, that he turned Arthur into a frog to begin with. Not that Arthur has to know.)