New chapter! I finished all my exams (except sciences) yesterday, and so I should be able to get a Tangential up finally. I might have to download the iPlayer video and destroy my internet connection (it's so distracting!) but I should be able to get it done! Also, would anyone read a Doctor Who/Merlin crossover? Because it's one of the many things I have plans for. Until then, have some irritated Arthur!
Day 3, Night is approaching fast. Percival succumbed and ate the cheese, and has yet to regain consciousness. Mordred and Merlin are taking it in turns to levitate Leon whenever he looks away, while Gwen has begun to talk to a nearby rock, claiming that it's really called Wilson and is just a misunderstood puffskein, whatever the hell that is. We ran out of alcohol over 2 hours ago, am not sure whether Gwaine will last the night. Too soon to start planning celebrations? Gwen thinks so. Gwaine has run out of drinking songs and has moved onto nursery rhymes.
God help us. God help us all.
"Come on Merlin, tell us!"
"I need to preserve some loyalty!" Merlin protested, despite the combined pleas of Mordred, Gwen and Gwaine while Leon looked on with interest. "Yes, I told you my big secret, but I can't just tell you everything I know, it's not even my secret to tell."
"Please!" Mordred begged "It's literally been the bane of existence since I first stepped foot in Camelot again, you've no idea how many times I've lain awake in bed wondering about it, and I know for a fact that you know the answer, so stop stalling!"
"But-"
"Merlin" Gwen said pleadingly "It's an important question, it's something we've all been wondering. Isn't it irresponsible for you not to tell us the answer if you know it. And don't try to deny the fact that you know it; you've more or less admitted it already."
Merlin turned despairingly to Leon, sole responsible Knight of Camelot. "Leon" he pleaded "Isn't there something in the Knight's code about peer pressure?"
"No" Leon said "And even if there was, I want to know the answer to this as much as the next person."
"Percival wouldn't-"
"Percival gave his life for you Merlin; the least you can do is honour his memory and tell us!"
"Percival isn't dead…"
Gwaine ignored him "It is your duty to Camelot, Merlin, to tell us. We need to know. We won't judge them differently because of it, so just tell us. If not for Camelot, then for the sake of humanity itself!"
Merlin sighed in exasperation "Gwaine…"
Seeing that his motivational speech wasn't affecting Merlin, Gwaine quickly changed track "Mordred, quick, give him the puppy eyes!"
"What? No! That's unfair Mordred!" Merlin exclaimed, as Mordred looked solemnly at Merlin, eyes round and glassy. Merlin crossed his arms and glared at them all, and Arthur smiled smugly. For once, they had all stopped picking on him to join forces and discover the secret that the whole of Camelot had been wondering over for the past few months, if not years. Merlin continued to glare at Mordred, who was still sending puppy eyes at Merlin.
"Why did I teach you how to do that?" Merlin complained, as Mordred continued to stare "Anyway, it's not going to work Mordred, I'm more or less immune-"
A single tear rolled down Mordred's face.
"Damn it!" Merlin shouted, turning away from Mordred and his annoyingly effective puppy eyes. "Leave me alone. Arthur, help!"
Arthur raised an eyebrow "because you helped me so much when everyone was calling me the 'oblivious prat' not five hours ago. Of course, I should definitely return the favour and help you… not." Arthur glared at Merlin "As your King, I demand that you tell us."
"But-"
"Merlin…"
"I'll give you a crate of Apples!"
"Pleeeeeee-"
"Just leave me alone!"
Come on!"
"-eeeeeee-"
"Gwaine, shut up!"
"Just one little secret!"
"-eeeeeee-"
"We won't tell anyone!"
"Merlin, we're your friends"
"-eeeeeee-"
"Merlin!"
"-eeeeeeease!"
"FINE!" Merlin yelled, causing Gwaine to jump and drop his apple into the newly resurrected fire, where it burnt up with a soft 'phup' "YES, YOU'RE ALL RIGHT, GAIUS CUT HIS HAIR LIKE THAT BECAUSE HE LOST A BET, ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!"
Arthur smirked "Yes"
"So you went to the Dochraid."
"Yes"
"And asked her for information."
"Yes"
"And she gave it to you why?"
Merlin squirmed uncomfortably. "Normal weapons don't work on her, because she's basically a creature of the old religion, so I er… needed to… um"
"What did you do?" Arthur asked in a long-suffering voice.
"Imighthaveborrowedyoursword"
"And in English?"
"I sort of… borrowed your sword for a bit…" Merlin said in a rush, as if hoping if he said it quickly enough Arthur wouldn't actually understand the full implications of what he had said. However, Arthur understood every word. Perfectly.
"You stole my sword!" He said indignantly.
"You do know that he blamed me for hiding it?" Gwaine said, looking offended "he kept threatening to exile me!"
"You mean you've had the power to banish Gwaine all this time and you haven't done it yet?" Merlin said in astonishment.
"Don't try to change the subject" Arthur growled "You stole my sword. You'd better not have damaged it in any way at all."
"Ah" Merlin said reluctantly "I might have got some green pus-like substance on it, but I think cleaned most off, but it's still got a bit of a weird smell, but as long as you don't shove it up your nose…" he trailed off as he saw Arthur's expression, which was (if possible) madder than it was when he had revealed his magic.
Arthur glared at Merlin "I don't have any words strong enough to describe how I'm feeling right now."
"Gwaine has at least three"
"Mordred, you're not helping matters"
"So Arthur, do you have any relatives who didn't end up being evil?" Gwaine asked, poking a thumb at the (luckily and conveniently) still unconscious Morgana. "Because as far as I know, I can't think of anyone in your family that wasn't slightly insane and evil."
"Uther wasn't that evil…" Leon said thoughtfully "but he was a bit insane, especially when it came to sorcery."
"So they're all bonkers?"
"Gwaine!" Gwen said, poking Gwaine's arm "there's obviously someone who wasn't; it's not like Arthur's whole family is demented."
Gwen shook her head and turned to look at Arthur, her slightly incredulous look turning to one of uncertainty as Arthur looked away from Gwen "Your family isn't all evil, is it?"
"I think I had a second cousin once removed who wasn't" Arthur said, furrowing his eyebrows as he tried to remember. "Hang on, no… wait. He became a banker, didn't he?"
"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'unresolved plot point'"
"Merlin, stop breaking the fourth wall"
"And so then, I took the sword from Gwen's house and made my way to the caverns that lie beneath Camelot, where Uther had locked the Great Dragon years before. I held the sword up to him, and Kilgarrah breathed on it with fire, giving it special properties, the most important of which being the ability to slay something that had already died. But Kilgarrah gave me a warning…" Merlin said dramatically, causing both Mordred and Gwaine to lean even further forward, so there was a very real possibility that Gwaine would fall forwards into the fire. But no such luck. "No-one but the Once and Future King should wield the sword. But the sword fell into the wrong person's hands, and the Dragon was… um… pissed off. He told me to place the sword where no man could wield it, and so I threw it into the lake of Avalon.
"Wouldn't it get rusty?"
"Magical sword in a Magical lake, Gwaine"
"Right, sorry."
"But a time came when the sword was needed again, and I used it against Morgana and Morgause's army in an effort to find and destroy the cup of life. The sword slammed into the cup of life, causing the blood inside to spill, and the soldiers to… to… um…"
"Self-destruct?"
"Disintegrate?"
"Be obliterated?"
"Go the way of the Dodo?"
"Not extinct, or even discovered yet Gwaine."
"Sorry again."
"Anyway… um… explode. And then I had to place it once again where no-one would find it, so I stuck it into a rock in the forest, to remain there until it was needed again."
Merlin finished his story. Arthur had to admit that Merlin was a very good story-teller even he (in his more than slightly pissed of mood) had been enraptured by the story. He looked at his sword, which he had been subconsciously cuddling like a pointy safety-blanket throughout most of 'Merlin's stories'. Day had finally given in to night, and Percival had reawakened, (swearing that he would never eat dairy products ever again), and then Gwaine had requested a story.
"Merlin…" Gwaine said slowly.
"What?" Merlin replied suspiciously.
"You have Dragons right?"
"Yes…"
"Could you possibly get them to breathe fire on this sword?"
"Gwaine!"
"Why not?"
"If you had a magical sword, we would never get you away from the magical sword" Percival said "You would carry the magical sword everywhere, poke everything you saw with the magical sword to see if it exploded or not, and you'd randomly stab people with the magical sword because you could. Not to mention the fact that you're barely trusted with a normal sword, let alone one which could kill the undead."
"Oh. That's why."
…
"Arthur, can I borrow your sword?"
"No."
"No Gwaine, Aithusa will not burnish your sword, whatever you try, stop tickling her! All you're going to do is get sneezed on and covered in Dragon snot."
Needless to say, Gwaine stopped ticking Aithusa not long after that.
"So Mordred, run this through me again?"
"Fine, Gwaine" Mordred said, as if talking to a very slow, very obnoxious 4 year old. Or Gwaine, since the two were more or less synonymous.
"Ok, so Morgana was quite evil, wasn't she? She invaded Camelot a lot, with those undead armies she was so fond of."
"Yes Gwaine, Morgana was 'quite evil'" Arthur said through gritted teeth. He was going to have to spend another night listening to Gwaine's questions. They'd barely made it through the last one in one piece.
"And Morgause was evil too…"
"Yes"
"So shouldn't you be evil?"
"What?" Mordred said, losing whatever track he had of the conversation up to that point, which admittedly hadn't been that much.
"The 'Mor' curse" Gwaine said, in what he obviously thought was a wise voice "If you have the letters 'Mor' at the beginning of your name, you're evil. It's the law."
Arthur goggled at Gwaine in disbelief "Gwaine, how stupid can you get? No don't answer that!" He added hastily as Gwaine opened his mouth to respond "Names don't effect what people become!"
"That's what you think" Gwaine said, in a conspiratory whisper "But I knew someone whose surname was Baker, and they became a baker when they grew up."
Arthur gazed at Gwaine "You really are as stupid as you look, aren't you?"
"Thank you"
"Not a complement"
"Then screw you"
"How are you still alive Gwaine? I thought we had natural selection to deal with people like you!"
Gwaine just gazed at Arthur in confusion probably brought on by the alcohol Gwaine had all but blackmailed Merlin into making. Arthur shook his head and turned away from Gwaine, who had stopped talking and was instead staring intensely into the bottom of the bottle of whatever alcohol he had been drinking, as if wondering whether he could tap into previously undiscovered magical skills and make some more appear. Arthur shook his head.
To be honest, the gene pool needed more than a little chlorine.
"So, if I heard you right, you were told that you'd need Courage, Strength and Magic, and that you were Courage, and then a very strong looking Gwaine turned up and not for one second did you think 'Hmm, if I'm Courage and Gwaine's strength, then I wonder who on earth Magic could be… Hang on, maybe it's Merlin"
"Sarcasm doesn't suit you Mordred"
"Who even created those names? Have they ever met Gwaine? It's less Courage, Strength and Magic, and more Obliviousness, General Stupidity and/or Drunkenness and Magic-enabled Despair."
"Are you saying I'm oblivious?"
"Are you saying you're not?"
"I'm a hunter! I notice everything about everything! Ok, I'll admit that I probably should have noticed Merlin's magic a bit earlier on, but nobody else noticed, did they? Why do people insist on calling me oblivious just because I failed to notice one thing over the course of my life! And anyway, I bet I knew about it on a subconscious level – if Merlin tried to use his magic on me, to attack, I'd notice. I'm not an idiot, and I'm not oblivious!"
"You do know Merlin turned your hair pink two hours ago?"
"He did what!?"