Things That Merlin Isn't Allowed To Do (According to Prince Arthur)
35: Associate With Otherworldlers
The word of the finding of the strange Ring rushes through the city. One of the nightly patrols had found it, sitting by the foot of a hill, covered with foliage and dead leaves: they had returned in the morning and uncovered it. King Uther, suspicious and fearing it might be sorcery (naturally), sends his son along with some guards and Gaius to examine it.
"I've never seen anything like it," the physician muses when looking at the tall metal Ring. "These signs are unfamiliar to me."
"What about this device?" Arthur asks and points at the strange thing they've found some eight feet from the Ring; it's like a metal rock, with the same markings on it like the Ring, and a big blue button in the middle.
"No, I'm afraid I'm yet unable to answer what this is."
Merlin, who is standing on Arthur's right, flickers his gaze around the group and lowers his voice so that the guards won't hear. "Maybe it's magic," he murmurs and shares a glance with Arthur. The prince sighs. It probably is magic. And if Gaius cannot come up with another explanation, Uther will go into frenzy and heads will roll and the King will demand the Ring destroyed. Now how they're going to do that, Arthur doesn't know, since it looks rather stable. Gaius estimates it must've been standing here for many decades. The only reason it's not been discovered before is the dense dark forest around it, wherein both weird monstrous things (probably magic) and druids reside.
"Well, there's nothing more I can do from here," Gaius exclaims. "I must see if there are any writings on the Ring in the old records."
()()()
For three days, the physician searches for information while life goes on as normal for the inhabitants of Camelot (unusual findings and happenings aren't that, well, usual, and the people are used to it, and no one raises an eyebrow when the knights starts taking shifts at guarding the Ring).
Then, one of the knights, sir Bors, who's been guarding it, returns to the city in haste, his horse frothing when they finally come to a halt by the citadel gates. The man barges right into the council meeting and a nearly-falling-asleep-out-of-boredom Arthur almost falls off his chair (just almost though. Falling off a chair isn't princely or dignified).
"Sire! The Ring woke to life. Some kind of watery blue substance and light filled its centre!" sir Bors gasps.
"Sorcery!" King Uther spits from his tone, tone dark. "I want the device destroyed at once!"
Prince Arthur shares a quiet 'what'd I tell you'-look with his manservant.
"That is not all, your highness! Four strangers stepped through, dressed oddly and speaking of things we did not understand. Three of our men are left to guard the Ring, while the holding the strangers prisoners."
"Bring them to me!" says the King, "They must be sorcerers!"
Obviously.
()()()
The dungeon is dark, damp and depressing, as they are reminded by the whining of the man with thin brown hair and quite forthright manners. The man sighs loudly, which prince Arthur only can interpret as an insult and he scowls at the man. "Sorcery? Hah! Ridiculous. There's no such thing as magic, only you backwards people seem to think so; once, if you ever, experience an industrial revolution-"
"Rodney!" says the man with dark hair and wearing some specters before his eyes, a bit like those Gaius has when reading, except these are bigger and black. He's obviously the leader, having introduced himself as Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. Merlin wonders if that means he's some kind of knight or nobleman – he acts a lot like one, except maybe a bit less prattish than Arthur (but just a little). "Be nice to the 'backwards people' now."
"Pfft. Magic!"
Arthur rolls his eyes. "Look, I understand your reluctance of accepting your situation. But you stepped through the Ring by means we can only interpret as sorcery, and the king of these lands does not approve of such methods. For this there's only one punishment."
"It's science!" cries Rodney angrily. "How many times do I have to tell you!"
"Really?" Merlin blurts out, kind of excited, because while these people seem quite odd they also seem nice and not that dangerous. And Merlin has always been curious. This kind of science seems a lot more exciting than the science Gaius does. "I've never seen science like that before! How does it work? Can you show me? Because Gaius' science never seems that interesting or-"
The prince is less than pleased at that. His manservant is meant to stand behind him and be quiet! "Merlin – shut up."
Rodney stiffens and frowns at the youth. "Merlin?" he asks.
"Yes?" the warlock says confused and stares wonderingly at Arthur when the prince grabs his arm and pulls him behind him. Have the strangers heard his name before? Was there something odd about it?
"Yes," says Arthur irritably now, "that's my manservant's name. Now, what is your business in Camelot?"
"As we've said, we are explorers. We come to trade," says John.
"We come in peace," interjects the woman, Teyla, whom Arthur finds a bit fascinating. Dressed in the same kind of uniform as her companions, like a man! But at least she has manners and the right way of speech; she is probably a lady of higher status, a diplomat, perhaps a leader albeit not of this group.
"The kingdom you speak of, Atlantis, is unfamiliar to us," Arthur says.
"So you've never seen anyone or anything come through the Stargate – the Ring – before now? At all? Ever?" the scientist demands. "Because that makes no sense. All worlds in this galaxy before now with a Gate on the planet surface has had at least elementary knowledge of it and its uses for planetary travel, not to mention the Wraith-"
"Wraith?" exclaims Merlin. Oh no! There couldn't be more out there, could there?
(The prince sends him an odd look. Merlin figures he should tell him about the incident with Dubois and the making of Excalibur in more detail.)
"Yes, Wraith. You know, pale vampire like things, sucking your life out of their hands…?"
His words are only met by confused and darkened faces. Momentarily Arthur silences, deep in thought. If such creatures are common in the kingdom of Atlantis and the other … worlds … that these people have visited, then what if they found their way here? The prince wasn't sure if he should take them seriously, at least at first, but they all soundsincere. They aren't lying; at least that's what Arthur's gut is telling him.
"All right. Say I believe you," he says at last, "but I cannot promise you freedom. My father, the King, is very … adamant, and it will be difficult to persuade him of your innocence."
Rodney looks at him weirdly.
"Hang on – king? His name wouldn't be Arthur would it?"
The guards and the prince nearly choke in surprise and Merlin hides a grin at the reaction. "No. No. That is my name. I'm Prince Arthur Pendragon." His eyes narrow then, in suspicious once again. "How could you know my name without having known of Camelot beforehand?"
"Oh, we know of Camelot, all right," says the leader, John, in an nearly absurd tone. "It's kind of famous where we come from." He looks over Arthur's shoulder, at Merlin, receiving a heated glare from the prince at that. No one looks at his Merlin like that!
"Look," John continues, "we only want to go back home, never harm anyone. Can't we have a chat with you King and I'm sure we'll come to an agreement."
()()()
"Look, I know you're probably not very happy about our coming here, but we're not going to hurt anybody. In fact we mean to go home through the Gate as soon as we can."
"Sire," inserts Gaius diplomatically, "by giving them allowance home, we could work toward peace with their people, whom I believe possess some very strong weaponry. Executing them could lead to war."
King Uther will not see reason, as always when it comes to magic, of course. "I will not allow it! Who let this sorcerer stand before me? Take him back to the dungeons! I want the stake burning at dawn!"
"Oh crap," mutters the man, when he's dragged away. "Rodney will so not be happy to hear this."
()()()
As foretold, the brown haired man goes into hysterics when hearing about the law Which Demands the Execution of Everyone Magic (or strange or that the King doesn't like). "What? Burn at the stake? No! No! Everyone here's fucking crazy!"
"Relax, Rodney," drawls the dark-haired one. "Our check-up dialing is two hours late, so Elizabeth has understood something is wrong and backup is probably sent any moment now."
"Relax? How can I relax when they're preparing to kill us all? How can you be so laidback?"
"I believe the Colonel is right," says the woman. "It is better for us all if we remain calm. Prince Arthur seems to understand our predicament and seemed like a good man; he'll try to free us."
()()()
After five hours in a dark cell you get kind of bored. John flinches awake at the sharp sound of footsteps and a torch materializes in the hallway.
"Change of plans," Arthur grunts out. "Merlin," he says, "do it. Hurry before the guards wake up!"
The servant's eyes glow gold and the lock to the cell clicks and the door opens, to the astonishment of the prisoners. "Did you just-" says Rodney in a disbelieving voice.
"I think he did," says John in a drawl. Both of them are being ignored by Arthur and Merlin.
"Are the horses ready?" demands the prince.
"Uhm. No. I sort of … forgot about it until it was too late? There were so many guards!"
Arthur glares at him and Merlin twitches nervously. "Damn it, Merlin…!"
"But…I have a plan."
"A plan?" the prince raises an eyebrow at him.
He nods, once and then one more time a bit more eagerly. "Yes. Actually it's an awesome plan."
()()()
They sneak up to one of the towers. The sky is dark and without stars or moonlight, which is only helpful right now, and Merlin calls out with his mind – not daring to do it aloud. He's used a mild sleeping spell on the guards. He dislikes doing it, but they don't want to get caught. The King would have a fit.
"So what's the plan?" John asks quietly.
"Well, it involves some flying," Merlin answers vaguely and the man's face lights up.
"Flying? That's something I can do."
"What? Oh no," moans the scientist. "Flying is awful. It only makes you sick and dizzy (unless it's on the Deadalus or on a jumper, with proper dampeners). Does it have dampeners? I swear, Sheppard, if you do anything like you would a F-302 I'm going to—"
"Oh relax, Rodney, it's gonna be fine."
After some agonizing minutes of waiting (it's difficult to make Rodney keep quiet) a large form materializes in the distance and quickly closes in, huge wings beating the air and then a heavy body lands on the top of the tower. The stone creaks and a couple of roof plates to falls down, ripped off by large claws, causing Arthur to wince.
"That's your plan? It's an idiotic plan!" the prince hisses at Merlin.
"It's a plan that'll save their lives!" the warlock retorts.
Teyla, Ronon and John stand there out of words. Rodney gapes at the thing, for a moment, before managing to find his voice: "Is this some freakish dream?"
"No, you are very much conscious, little man," booms the dragon's voice.
"No time for a chat – we must leave now!" cries Merlin and Teyla, followed by Ronon and John, carefully climbs up to settle on the Kilgarrah's back. It takes some coaxing to get Rodney up as well and once he's finally up there, he clings to John Sheppard, who's sitting in front of him, like a lifeline.
"You better not make me fall off!" he cries.
Probably just to annoy him the great dragon shifts and the man would've slid off if not for his iron grip on the colonel's vest.
"Behave yourself," Merlin chides and Kilgarrah chuckles.
"Where to then, Dragonlord?"
"There's a glade a few miles off, with a giant metal ring. You can leave them there."
"I know of it."
Merlin turns to John, who's the leader of the strangers. "Sorry we couldn't get your weapons and other equipment, but they were too heavily guarded and we didn't want to raise too much suspicion."
Rodney snorts, "And a dragon won't?" echoing exactly what Arthur's thinking. He has to come up with a good explanation for this to tell his father in the importing. Maybe he could say there was a terribly windy storm which destroyed some of the roof and made awful noise, like thunder, expect there was no rain (maybe Merlin could make some rain, though). The guards were knocked unconscious by the strong wind. Yes. Sound legit.
"It's all right," John drawls in that odd accent. "I'd say we'd drop by later to get them but now I don't think so. You're free to come visit though. Your magic would be really useful against the Wraith."
That sounds good, actually. Not the fighting bit, but visiting. Seeing Atlantis – hadn't they said something about it being a floating city? Merlin smiles at the man completely ignorant of how infuriated Arthur looks behind him.
"Yeah, maybe one day." The warlock backs a bit and waves as the dragon prepares for lift-off. "Good luck!"
And the dragon takes off, none in Camelot the wiser.
()()()
Once the strangers have gone, for good hopefully, Arthur pulls Merlin down from the ledge like the warlock was an insolent puppy, shaking him by the scruff of his neck. "Why'd you talk to them? It's stupid and ridiculous, and treacherous. They're some kind of otherworldlers and obviously cannot be trusted."
"They were nice people, just a bit weird," Merlin protests. His words are ignored, naturally.
"We're not speaking of this again. If anyone asks, we were out hunting while the strangers escaped using magic. The Ring should be buried at once so that they won't return, or that those Wraiths come here."
"Yeah, that's probably the best," Merlin agrees but can't contain a sad sigh; he'd really like to know more and see this Atlantis, and learn about science and prove Rodney wrong about magic. But Arthur's right. If those Wraiths found their way to Camelot the King would go absolutely berserk.
()()()
I wonder, though, why they were so surprised about Kilgarrah, the warlock thinks, later that night, when back in his own chambers and wrapped in his favourite blanket (it'd taken a while to get Arthur off his back, the prat kept nagging about how annoying otherworldlers were and that he needed to be more careful, but Merlin thinks he's been awfully careful as of late – nobody noticed the dragon at all!). He's got to explain to Gaius in the morning what's happened. His guardian won't be pleased but Merlin will deal with that when it comes.
I thought John mentioned he likes to fly…