GUYS. IM ALIVE. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. WHO IS THIS GAL
also, the cover image for this story is making me cackle. threw it together like 4 years back and i've just noticed how ridiculous it looks. LOL.
CHAPTER 10 - The Instruction Manual for Explosions.
Set approximately 3 hours before last chapter's events.
Merlin sits at a lone desk in the middle of a hall. He taps his pen on his chair leg because the silence is not merciful.
He taps his pen until his fingers grow into pens themselves, until his whole body throbs, until black ink pours out of his mouth-
"AGH!" Merlin's eyes burst open, a chill slithering up his spine as he registers the absence of his duvet. He must have kicked it off the bed sometime during the night.
"You…good?"
"AGH!" He repeats, hands clutching at his head for half a moment before he stills, eyes finally clearing and giving way to a more sheepish expression. "Sorry Arthur," he projects, "Didn't realise that was you."
"That much was clear, Merlin. You just gave me the mind-speak equivalent of a punch."
"Well, I'm sorry but I'm not exactly used to hearing voices in my head as soon as I wake up!"
"Then you shouldn't have taught me how to do mind-speak with you! It's nothing but your own fault Merlin."
Merlin grumbles a few choice words under his breath, and props his pillow up against the head board to lean his back against. His mind replays the dream and there's a blessed moment of ignorant bliss before it hits him like a truck. He had a nightmare about turning into a pen!? Oh, fie, Arthur would never let him live this down.
"Say Merlin…"
"What."
"Why did I just receive a horrific wave of embarrassment from you?"
Merlin freezes, a deer caught in headlights. "You-must-be-imagining-things-I-haven't-sent-you-anything-I'm-not-embarrassed-no-why-would-I-be-embarrassed-" Merlin cuts himself off, a realization coming into sight. "Arthur- why are you near Hogwarts?!"
"Erm-"
"No – don't even attempt to deny it! The only way you can access my emotions without long distance projection is to be in close proximity! And I haven't got my blockades up yet because one, it's you, and two, its half four in the morning!"
"Peace, keep your goblins in their barrels Merlin! Yes alright, I'm in Hogwarts-"
"You're actually in Hogwarts?! Arthur, are you mad! Have you not forgotten about Peeves' whole vow of revenge to you?!"
"You fret too much about me Merlin."
"I object to that! I do not fret!"
"Yes, you do."
"No, I – shut it, Arthur. We are getting off topic. Why are you in Hogwarts?" Merlin feels Arthur quickly suppress a bout of something akin to mischief, but not before some of it squeezes past the blockades into Merlin's mind. He immediately becomes suspicious.
"Topic?! Merlin we never had a topic. And even if we did, since when do we stick to one?"
Merlin sighs long-sufferingly and sends a subtle influx of nightmare-induced fatigue for sympathy points. It works.
"Alright fine," Arthur projects guiltily. "I was meeting Aithusa."
"Aithusa?!"
"Yep. She said she had a message for me, but it turns out the message was for you, and she was too immature to deliver it personally. Something about teacher-student boundaries."
"Oh, did she now?" Merlin snorts. Two can play that game then.
"And I admit it was quite entertaining seeing her in human form again,"
"Again?! She hasn't transformed into human form since the 1850s! When you were too busy lazing about in a swampy lake if I recall correctly!"
"Ah- yes. You're right, I haven't seen her in human form-"
"Cease the porkies Arthur, when did she-"
Merlin's chamber door suddenly swings violently open, and in a wingbeat he is face to face with the intruder. Said intruder taps the bridge of his nose thrice, and smirks.
"You two are the bane of my existence." Merlin sneers, and spins around on his heels to launch himself back under the covers of his bed.
He feels the mattress dip at his feet and pokes his head above the duvet to glare at the blonde, who has taken it upon himself to perch at the bottom of the bed.
"Get your fat arse off my covers, you'll dirty them."
The order is ignored. As per usual.
"I take it this nightmare of yours wasn't serious then? Judging by the red tips of your ears."
"No, Arthur it was fine. In fact it was-" Merlin halts, swallowed by a sudden wave of amusement.
"Ah – it was a funny dream then?"
"No – well – yes – shut up."
Arthur guffaws.
"How did you find my chambers?"
"I followed your Magic trail."
"What?" Merlin exclaims, lifting his head up to stare at Arthur in sharp curiosity. "You've never sensed magic before! You haven't even learnt any yet! How did you see my trail?"
"Because I know you." Arthur says quietly, fixing Merlin with gentle irises. "It's got nothing to do with learning magic."
Merlin makes eye contact longer than necessary.
Arthur huffs and breaks it, half-heartedly poking Merlin's torso under the covers. "Enough with the sappiness," He shoves a bag of quavers under the warlock's nose, "Now eat. I want to tell you Aithusa's message."
Merlin sits up and takes the bag of quavers, hiding his amusement beneath a grunt. Arthur had mysteriously taken to carrying the muggle snack in his trench coat pocket ever since Merlin had admitted his liking for them half a decade ago.
"As you are well aware, Merlin, Aithusa and her little hoard of dragon pals have continued to keep watch over – well – whatever they want to watch."
"I'm aware." A crisp vanishes into his mouth simultaneously.
"And on one of these little stalking- *cough*watchingtrips, several of the dragons witnessed a man extracting the left femur bone from the Tom Riddle Senior's corpse. They have reason to believe this man is Peter Pettigrew."
Merlin is silent for a couple breaths. He eats another quaver.
"Alright," he says evenly, tone not yet betraying verdict. "Anything else?"
"Not that I'm aware. Well, apart from the many choice words she threw in your direction regarding your apparent kidnapping of her during the sorting ceremony,"
Merlin chuckles lightly, but there is a humourless edge to it.
"You don't know what he's doing?" Arthur more or less states, softly.
"I don't know," Merlin confirms, copying Arthur's tone and nodding once. "But all his energy right now must be directed towards attaining himself a sufficient body. I'd imagine the bone is part of some sort of ritual – but there are so many different ones, and I just don't have the insider knowledge about his state to narrow it down."
Arthur nods, and they sit in a short thought-filled silence, both staring at the wall opposite the bed.
Merlin suddenly side-eyes Arthur. "But there is someone who might,"
A dramatic pause from Arthur. Then -
"That cranky old bastard?!" He exclaims in almost comedic horror.
"Arthur, do you really think I would go to Kilgharrah for advice?"
"Well, consid –"
"I'm talking about the Cailleach." Merlin interrupts, before Arthur can verbalise his most-likely-correct-thought.
Arthur feels his eyebrows rising before he's even processed Merlin's statement. "The Cailleach." He repeats in deadpan. "The Cailleach. The the Cailleach."
"Yes Arthur. The 'the Cailleach'."
"Cease the mocking, Merlin. It's hardly my fault I didn't know she was still lurking about after all this time,"
"She's made of the Earth's magic. She'll be sustained as long as it's around."
"Like you?"
"Like me."
"Like me?"
"I…believe so."
"Hm."
Merlin studies Arthur, briefly alarmed by the shift in conversation. But the blonde has carefully constructed his face to betray nothing. The shift is gone as quick as it comes.
"So, this Cailleach – she'll be able to identify the regeneration spell? So that we can pinpoint-"
"Pinpoint Riddle's next move, yes." Merlin pauses, wetting his lips. "At least I assume so. If the bone is indeed part of the regeneration ritual, then it will deform Tom Riddle Senior's soul in the spirit world – as part of him will be reincarnated in a way. I merely need to know if she has felt any stray ripples on her side of the veil, the intensity and direction of them. Think that'll give me enough to go on."
Arthur squints slightly, searching his friend's face with eagle-eyed precision – a skill being in 'murky swamp water for a millennium and a half' (as Merlin would so often phrase it) had granted him. Merlin stares back impatiently.
"Why do you look so suspicious, then?" Arthur blurts, and to Merlin's endless amusement, looks shocked at the words he's said, as if his mouth had translated his thoughts into something utterly obscene. In other words, a classic Arthur moment. "Dubious, I mean. Or, I don't know – stop smirking – you seem unbalanced somehow. Your face is a sort of…distant relative of your worry face, and I don't think it has anything to do with Riddle."
"You are getting startingly perceptive Arthur," Merlin exclaims with a snort that covers something deeper in his voice. "Even if you are ever hopeless. And you're correct in your very roundabout way – I'm not worried – it takes a lot to get me worried, properly. I'm just…uncertain, I guess. I have doubts that I can actually contact the Cailleach in the first place. I used to be able, but I don't think I can now."
Arthur squints at Merlin, curiosity and suspicion battling for higher ground. Merlin squints back, mocking. Arthur doesn't sway.
"Why do you always assume it's something I've done!?" Merlin exclaims theatrically, throwing his arms in the air.
"Am I wrong?" Amusement brews in Arthur's irises.
Merlin huffs.
He rolls his eyes when a string of shuffles ends with the blonde's back against the bed headboard, mirroring Merlin's position. "Shove off goofball," Merlin says, maturely punching Arthur's shoulder with the force of a hamster. "My humble twin bed hardly has enough room for three humans – don't give me that look, you know you count as two."
Arthur swings around to abruptly stuff a foot in Merlin's face. After he deems Merlin's following exclaims and splutters to be of satisfactory amount, he retreats back to leaning on the headboard. Merlin grumbles at Arthurs smirk.
"Hmm? You say something, Merlin?"
"Bugger off," Merlin mumbles, despite shuffling over to accommodate Arthur and his ridiculousness.
Four wingbeats of silence.
Arthur looks at Merlin, waiting.
"I breached the terms," Merlin sighs resignedly, "of the Cailleach and I's… agreement. Contract more like."
"Oh?"
"Mm. I started finding…loopholes, if you will. See, the souls on our side of the veil are balanced with hers. Have been and always will be. Perhaps I knew this, but it didn't stop me from trying to prove otherwise. I rarely took a life for a life, but there were situations where it was done for the best of both parties." Merlin paused with intention, an invitation for Arthur to react.
Arthur was silent, but his eyes held understanding.
"I do not regret it ," Merlin continues, firm, "but the Cailleach and I both knew I could only do it so many times before it became abuse of the natural order. She warned me, so I stopped."
Merlin pauses, arranging his words. "But… natural never equates merciful. Nature is undiscriminating, both a curse and a blessing. If I could remove at least some of the cruelty in the last moments shared between a mother her dying son, then I would. That's what I did."
"How, Merlin?"
"I – eh – I'm immortal, yes?"
"What does – well, yes-"
"Immortal does not mean I'm unable to die, it means I will keep living. That is to say, every time I die, my soul goes through the veil like everyone else's, if only for a bit. It's rejected and spat back out later, inevitably so, but all that matters is that I can die, and I can stay dead for the amount of time it takes for the son to stroke his mother's face and speak his last words." Merlin's eyes flicker to the window. "Extra time. A small mercy in the face of great pain, but a mercy nonetheless."
Silence settles upon them, thick but not heavy. Merlin feels Arthur's look before he meets it.
"Quit looking at me like I'm your morning sudoku puzzle Arthur,"
Arthur scoffs. "Sudoku makes sense, there's a clear answer. You on the other hand-"
Merlin rolls his eyes, and they flicker back to the window.
Arthur swallows, quietly. "So, you mean to tell me, you would kill yourself in order to grant dying people a few extra moments with their loved ones? And you did this enough times to get – what – grounded by the Cailleach?!"
"Grounded?!" Merlin snorts, "Arthur, you make me sound like I'm a child-"
"I mean if we're going off intellig-"
"Whatever. Grounded, yeah, whatever you want to refer to it as."
"So - you can't contact her, or do anything that interferes with the veil?"
"Mm, pretty much, yeah,"
"How long?"
"I think the argument happened a mere three decades or so before you trudged out your bog. It's why my missions recently have been relatively tame. I mean – penguins?! 600-year-old me would laugh his intestines out if he found out I'd been helping penguins rather than dying people."
Arthur frowns, but Merlin knows it's not directed at him.
"And this whole thing I've got going on with her isn't going to last forever, of course. It's just not sustainable having one side dictate what comes and goes through the other. She's not evil, she's just what is and what isn't. She's also a stubborn old goat if I ever saw one, and boy does she know how to hold onto a grudge." Merlin snorts to cover up his sudden tiredness. It isn't something he can cure with a full 8 hours.
Arthur must see something, though, as he gives Merlin's shoulder an awkward pat. Merlin represses a smile at Arthur's efforts.
"So, macho man, got any solutions for me?"
"You could start with watching avatar with me,"
"Arthur, I'm beginning to ponder the reasons Avalon released you if the only thing you do all day is watch movies and eat chicken nuggets."
"Actually, I've had spaghetti hoops this week, I'll have you know."
"Who knew you'd be such a sucker for comfort food – wait – you've had spaghetti hoops this week as in once? Or every-"
"Yes, everyday Merlin, what else would I mean?"
Merlin sighs theatrically, as if he's been told the moon will no longer be available for the night shift. "I knew leaving you to your own devices would cause catastrophe someday! You'll get a deficiency if you continue like this!"
Arthur's lips curl dangerously close to a pout. "Well – it's hardly my fault I don't have green fingers!"
"That's an expression used for gardening." Merlin says dryly.
"Knew that. What's the kitchen equivalent?"
"…Just a shoddy cook?"
Arthur yanks the pillow from beneath himself.
Wack!
"Ow! Arthur!"
"And no, I don't have any solutions for you regarding your grounding."
"I gathered," Merlin sneers, rearranging his hair. Not that it makes a difference, of course. He exhales, slow, noticing the first rays of buttery morning light making themselves known. It spreads itself generously on his desk, then moves onto his staff. His staff. Butter.
Merlin leaps out of bed with the gasp of a child seeing the white rabbit in the hat for the first time. He starts to run his hand through his hair, but stops halfway, hesitation gone quicker than it comes. His eyes lock onto a random spot on the wall.
Arthur fears for his own safety.
"Give me your butter knife," Merlin says excitedly, head suddenly twisted towards Arthur with the focus and drive of an eagle. Arthur's concerns for safety extend to the madman himself.
"Call it my butter knife one more time and I swear Merlin-"
"Fine. Give me Excalibur,"
"No."
"Pretty please-" Merlin considers batting his eyelashes.
"Fine."
Arthur tosses the small dagger from his boot to the now pacing man, who reverts it into the sword with a whispered word and a flash of gold. Arthur watches with concern and mild amusement as Merlin makes a beeline towards a staff. He takes said staff in his other hand and walks towards Arthur with purpose, holding the weapons up with a maniacal grin on his face.
Arthur yearns for spaghetti hoops and peace.
"This Arthur, this is our solution!"
"My sword and a stick?"
"Listen."
"I bloody am!"
"No- not to me – to this!"
"Certainly won't have any problems doing tha-" Arthur cuts off as he hears a deep humming noise, intense and thick in the air. And he doesn't just hear it – he feels it. Like something that was always there in his bones has awoken, thrumming warm through his anatomy, beating, breathing. He puts a hand on his bicep, expecting to feel the intense warmth, but his skin is the same temperature it always has been. He looks up at Merlin, who has overlapped the staff and Excalibur in a cross shape in the air. Merlin uncrosses them a few moments after observing Arthur, and precedes to gape at him.
The humming stops.
"You feel it too?" Merlin whispers, something akin to awe in his tone.
Arthur doesn't need to nod, for Merlin knows the answer, but he does anyway.
"What just happened? What was that?"
A grin plasters itself on Merlin's face immediately. "These are powerful instruments of magic, Arthur, especially when they touch. Combined with me, the concentration is of magic is…well – dense to say the least. So dense you can hear it's hum, and even feel it if there is already magic inside you," At this, Merlin gives Arthur a suggestive pointed look, thinly disguised joy in it. "And three is a deadly but god-damn powerful number."
Arthur folds his arms, standing up. "So, your idea is to…what exactly? Hypnotise the Cailleach with this hum of yours?"
"If only." Merlin says, barking a laugh. He picks up one of his many succulents in pot, for some unfathomable reason. "The Cailleach, believe it or not, does not usually come to the forefront of the veil when a soul passes through. She prefers to have the souls of past loved ones greet the recently deceased. Call her cold, but there's a shred of warmth running through her veins, despite how little."
Merlin pauses, as if arranging his next words. "If I can direct the combined magic to something living, the hum should be strong enough to attract the Cailleach's attention. She will hear it; she will feel it. She cannot see the happenings on this side of the veil, so she won't do anything, of course, only wait and track. Then, I'll kill the living thing, and her curiosity will make her stand in the gateway, so she can finally see what the being looks like when it enters."
"When you say something living…"
"Gods Arthur, a plant! It will be a plant, did I not imply that from holding this succulent?!"
"No, in fact you did not."
Merlin sighs sharply, simultaneously rolling his eyes, hard. Arthur ponders the possibilities and problems of Merlin's eyeballs rising into the cranium.
Merlin suddenly starts walking to the opposite side of the room and reaches up to a musty book on a humble shelf. He tilts said book until there's a soft click. The shelves turn inwards, revealing a small room behind, in which Merlin waltzes into.
By default, Arthur smirks and follows.
"Are you quite certain the Cailleach wont... realise it's a succulent and not some crazy-ass all-powerful entity?" He says as he sidesteps through the gap to the warlock's now apparent secret room. It's only a few metres wide, and smells of dust and freshly baked bread. He sees a cast iron oven embedded into the wall.
"The intensity of the magic should be enough to convince her it's an intelligent being," Merlin replies, plopping the plant down on a small coffee table, it being the only piece of furniture in the room. He gives the plant an honest-to-gods pat on the 'head', mumbling, "No offense Mister succulent."
"…What even is this musty old room?"
"I come in here to ponder the benedictions of humanity and the grievances of existence, and the consistency of my serene loaves."
"Sorry what-"
"Mm, humanity is a deeply complex-"
"No – serene loaves?! I deeply apologise, but I'm finding it very hard to grapple hearing you and serene in the same sentence."
"You're interested in my serene loaves? Oh, Arthur why ever didn't you say so before!"
Arthur groans loudly, smacking the ridge of his palm to his forehead, hard. He thinks he hears it echo. "Merlin."
"Here, try some," Merlin says eagerly, opening the oven and taking out what looks like a soggy burnt decapitated foot. "Try it!"
Arthur splutters as he dodges the blasted loaf as it's stuffed into his face. He channels his knight training. A round of shoving, elbowing and suppressed laughter is ended with the sticky monstrosity of a loaf smeared against the wall.
"I don't want to try your fucking serene loaf, Merlin!"
Merlin inelegantly licks loaf remains off his fingers in response. Arthur shakes his head in disgust at the stupid triumph in Merlin's eyes.
"The Cailleach will stand at the gate, I'm sure of it," Merlin continues, as if the past handful of minutes hadn't interrupted their previous conversation. "She's chronically pokerfaced, but I promise she's just as nosy as the rest of us."
"No one's as nosy as you, Merlin," Arthur deadpans, "If anyone can be the definition of snooping, it's you."
Evidently ignoring Arthur, Merlin's irises flash gold, and the warlock is suddenly levitating two feet off the ground. He starts looking up at the ceiling, eyes darting, searching for god-knows-what. Arthur decides not to question. A wise choice.
"So, you're telling me," Arthur begins after a minute of watching this, because a moments silence is too much is to ask of him, "that you built a secret room entirely for sulking and baking bread?" He hears a huff from Merlin. "Why go through the effort of the-" He gestures clumsily, "-swinging doorway shelf thingy?"
"Geoffrey gave me the idea. Nostalgias sake an' all. Does one good to keep the good bits of the past alive."
Arthur hums in agreement, though he is still finding it hard to take the man seriously when he's currently levitating and searching for something in the ceiling boards that, at this point, probably doesn't even exist.
"It's also because I needed to hide weapons."
Arthur doesn't even have time to process that statement before Merlin releases a loud staccato sound of joy.
"Ah ha! JACKPOT!"
Merlin's fingertips make a beeline for a random ceiling plank, pushing it until it comes loose enough to pull out. He reaches into the gap and the tensing of tendons tells Arthur when an object has been gripped onto.
Predictably, Merlin stops his levitating too abruptly and falls to the floor in an ungraceful heap, yanking said object out the hiding place. It clatters to Arthur's feet.
And Arthur just… gawks at it. Wood carved like marble, white and balletic, power in its delicacy. At the top of the staff is a large crystal, sharp blue, and it reflects dancing light onto the walls like sun-touched ripples. It's cradled by thin fingers of wood, elegant and poised. Carvings of rune-like patterns pirouette down the stem sides, lyrical, graceful. A hypnotism to the audience.
Beautiful, is all Arthur's mind can whisper.
Then, a flash of recognition. An ancient memory. A ring of the bell in a coffin.
Arthur knows this staff. He's seen it. In another life, long, long ago.
"Is that…?" He breathes.
Arthur barely needs to look at Merlin's face to know he's right.
Merlin grins, in an almost peaceful wistfulness, remembrance with no strings attached. "This girl sure does have some good lightning in her,"
Arthur mirrors the grin back at him.
"This, my dear Arthur," Merlin starts in the voice of a kid's magician with a bad rating. He gets up and theatrically twirls the staff on the floor, "is our get-out-of-jail card."
Arthur squints.
"In other words," Magician Merlin continues, "The staff in the other room is just a staff. A plain old staff. Very staff-y."
The squint becomes more pronounced.
"Said manky staff does not contain anywhere near the rawness of magic we need for capturing the Cailleach's attention." He twirls the white staff again, but with more exaggerated flair. "But this girl. Oh, the stories she could tell,"
"Girl? Merlin, that staff must be at least 1600 years old. That's an old-ass lady right there."
"Old?" Merlin tuts with the air of a disappointed mother-in-law. "Rude."
"Fine. Elderly."
Lips twitch.
"You should call her Margaret."
"Arthur, I'm not calling my staff Margaret."
"Well, I don't see you contributing to name suggestions."
"That's bec- you know what," Merlin says in dramatic agony, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I'll win that battle later. We are getting side-tracked, as per usual."
Arthur chuckles quietly as he follows Merlin back out the room. The warlock returns to the bed where he has left Excalibur, picking it up with a determined expression. He puts the succulent on the floor between them, and turns back to Arthur.
"Hold my staff, you oaf. Don't drop-"
"Oh, don't you worry Merlin," Arthur says in singsong, taking the white staff, "Margaret is in safe hands – hey! Slapping someone is upmost childish Merlin-"
Merlin mutters what Arthur knows is an insult under his breath. He holds Excalibur in the air and gestures for Arthur to do the same, levelling him with a look that says -
Ready?
Arthur lifts his chin.
Always.
Sword and staff form a cross shape, touching. Arthur hears some magical gibberish and fancy hand movements from Merlin's direction, but he's so focussed on the damn soul-shaking planet-shifting hum now coming from Margaret and Excalibur that he barely processes it. Its loud. Loud, thick and hot, so ridiculously far from the hum he felt before. His vision goes fuzzy.
"-thur! Arthur! ARTHUR!"
Arthur traces the voice back to where it comes from, eyelids heavy and senses dulled.
"ARTHUR, LET GO!"
Let go?
It's loud, too loud. His body can't hear his thoughts.
"LET GO OF THE STAFF YOU CLOT-"
Arthur's fingers loosen involuntarily. His spine meets the floor with the skeletons of various expletives on his tongue. It's still god-awfully loud, but at least he can breathe now.
Still, he could've done without the massive bruise on his back.
"I'M GOING TO ADD MY MAGIC NOW-"
Wait! Arthur thinks, and he must've shrieked it out loud going by the sudden alarm on Merlin's face. "YOU HAVEN'T ADDED YOUR MAGIC YET?!" Arthur grinds out, head ringing from the effort.
"THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING ARTHUR," Merlin shouts, his voice only just carrying over the hum. "JUST TOUGH IT OUT, IT WON'T KILL YA,"
"YOU SURE ABOUT THAT?!"
"IT'S JUST A BIT OF MAGIC-"
"A BIT?!" Arthur shrieks. His head vibrates with the force of a dozen horse hooves.
Sharp threads of light start tumbling from Merlin's fingertips, unravelling like yarn. They wrap around the levitating sword and staff, getting brighter, brighter, brighter. Merlin lifts his hands up higher; his sleeves shift down. Arthur squints through the blinding light.
What was that on Merlin's left forearm?
"MERLIN?"
"WHAT NOW?" Merlin yells, almost engulfed in light, "I'M A LITTLE PREOCCUPIED,"
"WHAT'S THAT ON YOUR FOREARM? THAT BLUE PATCH?"
"ARTHUR, WRONG TIME TO DIVULGE IN CURIOSITY,"
"BUT YOU-"
The humming stops.
The world goes white.
there ya have it peeps. thinking i might mildly rewrite my first handful of chapters and post this on a03 for once in my life.