Rowena
Chapter 7: Rowena
It was always like this. Always, always, always! Merlin gingerly rose to his feet when the rumbling stopped. His head spun slightly from hitting the wall earlier. He surveyed the damage around him. They'd lost an entire tray of crockery and 4 jars of herbs and poultices were unusable. He noted with dread that the two poultices that were casualties were the two for the village elder. They would be here tomorrow to pick it up and now he had to brew them again.
Merlin helped Godric, Salazar and Helga up off the floor, dusting off Helga's dress and straightening Salazar's robes when she noticed a bleeding cut on Salazar's arm. He grabbed it, bringing it closer for inspection.
"Salazar, did something hit you just now?" Salazar wordlessly pointed to a shattered wooden charm that now lay in pieces on the floor, eyes wide as were the eyes of the other two, still trying to process what had just happened. Merlin recognized the shape it had once been as the druidic symbol for protection. Merlin felt something rise in him, something that had been either absent for a long time or maybe he had simply repressed it. He hadn’t been able to afford feeling the way he was. Now however, the feeling was making itself known, and quite forcefully too.
Merlin was angry.
It had been years since Merlin had gotten angry, properly angry. It welled up in him until he could stand it no longer, he whirled around, facing the knights with flinty eyes, any reservations he'd had earlier gone. Arthur and Leon had finally gotten themselves upright, Gwaine and Lancelot were making sure they were in one piece while Elyan and Percival were checking the chainmail to see if it had sustained any damages. They froze when they noticed the change in Merlin's eyes, and it made Gwaine swallow, he had no way of knowing this, but he felt he had seen this before. Those eyes, that fury, it was familiar to him. But from where? He simply couldn't place it.
"Helga." The redhead looked up from inspecting the remains of her breakfast on the floor and found herself staring at the ramrod straight back of her Mistress.
"Yes." The response came out squeakier than Helga had intended.
"Take Godric and Salazar and go find Rowena. When you find her, send me a message and I will come to get you." Merlin's eyes never left Arthur's face. He felt a strange sense of satisfaction when the man's eyes darted around, as if using his warrior instincts to taste the fury that permeated the air. The knights circled Merlin warily until they flanked Arthur's sides. None of them had their swords so it was their bodies that tensed in response to the decidedly confrontational tone in Merlin's voice.
Helga, despite being the younger of the two boys, grabbed their hands, ignoring the protests that they wanted to watch and dragged them out into the forest. Once Merlin was sure they were out of immediate reach, he surreptitiously cast a muffling spell on the door. He didn't want them to hear what he had to say, lest it influence their opinions of things to come later.
"Alright. I've been patient, you were sick and I didn't want to kick a man while he was ill, but honestly, what on earth do you think you're doing Arthur Pendragon."
Leon's eyes widened in indignation at Elladora's unabashed insult of Arthur's position. Elyan gaped at her, while Percival tried to look anywhere but at Merlin and Arthur, standing in the middle of the main room of the home. Lancelot and Gwaine, standing to the left of their King could see in Elladora's face that something in her had fundamentally changed. Her eyes had changed, losing their softness and instead staring at Arthur was something neither of them could fully identify. It was like a mix of disappointment and frustration.
"Excuse me?" Merlin could see that the King was affronted by the lack of deference from him, despite the fact that he had admitted not two minutes ago that Merlin was aware he was in the company of the King and his Knights. Well, if he expects me to grovel at his feet, Merlin thought, he's well and truly mistaken. He stepped forward and pointed a finger out the open, swinging door.
"Are you quite happy? A grown man such as yourself, you accomplished a gargantuan task today. Making a child cry." Arthur's eyes narrowed, not one to back down from a confrontation, getting right in Merlin's face.
"In case you're sense of reason has gone the same way as your sense of morality, I’d like to remind you that she clearly committed a crime." He was practically nose to nose with Merlin, who thought that if he could roll his eyes any further into his head, he would.
"What crime? She turned a flower purple? When was that a crime? Did she hurt you? Do you have a closet fear of flora?" Merlin couldn't help the rather rude tone of voice, but he was done. Who was Arthur to condemn people without an ounce of thought?
Arthur's face remained in the expression of righteousness that he adopted when he believed he was doing something for the good of someone. Merlin knew without a doubt that he would try to appeal to Merlin's sense of duty next.
"Magic is a crime in Camelot, surely you know that? You are their mother are you not? How can you just stand by and watch them indulge something that is sure to take their lives in the end?" He tried to reach out and grasp Merlin's shoulder in a show of solidarity, to make Merlin see he only wanted the best for the children. His eyes pleading for him to understand what he meant. Merlin flinched away from his touch, knocking his hand away with the back of his arm.
"Don't touch me." Merlin's voice was hard, it was jarring to see that even his act of sacrifice back at the castle hadn't even been enough to shift the King's stance on magic. Arthur took a step, hand raised away in a gesture to show he meant no harm.
"Why? Who decided that magic was illegal?" Arthur made an unintelligible sound in the back of his throat in surprise at the sudden change in the argument. Merlin saw Lancelot murmur something to Percival behind Arthur and the subsequent rolling of the large man's shoulders, in preparation for a defense if need be.
"My father. A woman your age should know that." Merlin scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest over, the very picture of defiance.
"Oh, of course. I should have known. Like father, like son." Merlin knew it was a low blow, but since Arthur wasn't pulling his punches, neither would he. Arthur never liked being compared to his father, knowing that the public used the similarities as an insult rather than a compliment. Merlin saw that the remark had had the intended result, seeing the tightening of his jaw in response.
"Tell me, are you ever going to think for yourself, Arthur? Or are you going to forever cling to the hope that your father was right in everything he did? Use your brain for once and think!" Merlin didn't flinch as Leon jammed his body in between the intense face-off between Merlin and Arthur with a look of ferocious outrage.
"He is your King and you will speak to him with respect,woman!" The house shook with the ear-splitting roar of Leon's words. Merlin wasted no time in retorting to the statement.
"Respect? I give respect when I am afforded such treatment in response!" Merlin knew he was stepping beyond his limits. Arthur was his King, but he needed the man to understand, truly understand, what he was trying to say. "You don't understand do you? Uther spent his whole life telling you that you would one day be King, that your servants needed your protection, that the Kingdom would look to you for guidance. But he was wrong, being a King means being a slave to the people. You serve them, not the other way around. The sooner you understand what that means, you will know what you need to defeat those who seek to tear Camelot apart." Merlin then addressed the former portion of Leon's demands.
"My King?" He smiled bitterly, "as he's graciously stated time and again, Arthur Pendragon is no King to the likes me and mine." Merlin picked up a blue orchid and touched a petal, watching the color bleed to a deep red, not unlike the color of his dress. "I
"I knew there was something unnatural about you, you're one of them." Elyan bit out, advancing toward Elladora, only to be stopped by Arthur's outstretched hand. He said nothing, but just watched. Merlin cursed his female body, as the tears of the unfairness of it all pricked at his eyes. He refused to cry, his mother had never cried in front of him and he would not cry, not here, not now.
"Yes, I am a sorcerer, and suddenly just by knowing this, the fact that I saved you from death's door and nursed you back to health matter naught." Merlin raised his head proudly, he would not be ashamed for what he was. His powers were a gift and he would not show the children that were now in his care, that they had to hide their reality. He would not subject them to that life.
This, this was his destiny. He had to prove to himself, to Arthur, to the whole world if need be, that Magic was not evil. It wasn't meant to be destroyed, it was meant to be studied, used for its splendor.
"What has our world come to? That a small girl cannot revel in the fact that she can make a flower change colors? Or a little boy is able to make the leaves dance? Who do they hurt by doing these things?" Arthur's expression flickered, unsure.
"Magic leads to corruption." Merlin could have torn his hair out in frustration.
"Where is your proof?"
"All those that wield magic have tried to take my life." Merlin wheeled around and picked up Arthur's sword from the pile of weapons that Godric had hastily deposited next to the front door. He weighed it in his hands, seeing Gwaine eye him apprehensively. He deftly tossed the sword to Arthur who caught it naturally, the action coming as second nature.
"I've met slave traders who held me at sword point, mercenaries who've attempted to kill me more times than I care to keep track of. You tell me, is the sword evil or the person?" Arthur had no response for that, just watching Merlin's face, his eyes telling the warlock all he needed to know. He ploughed on. If he could just get Arthur to see.
"Arthur, magic is like a sword, in the right hands, it's a blessing, a sign of the righteous. Like you, and your Knight's." Merlin gestured to the Knights standing rigid and at attention. "In the wrong hands, the sword becomes nothing more than a murderer's tool. An instrument in an evil design, but nothing more."
Merlin, watched, hope blooming in his heart, as he saw Arthur unquestionably turn over his words in his mind. He was clearly shaken, his beliefs unable to repair the cracks Merlin had mercilessly knocked into the walls of his logic.
Arthur began to speak, his manner hesitant. But whatever he may have been about to say was drowned out by an outbreak of yelling in front of the cabin.
The entire group started at the intrusion into the uneasy stand-off that they were engaged in, and stared in bewilderment as Helga, Godric and Salazar ran out of the bush, behind them followed Derek, bruised and clearly limping. But it was something else that caught Merlin's attention, the sight thrusting shards of ice cold fear into his heart.
Derek ran toward him carrying a child, bleeding from a large stomach wound, skin growing paler each second it took them to reach the house. Merlin couldn't help the scream that clawed its way out of his throat.
"ROWENA!"