Nightmare
Chapter 11: Nightmare
The problem with children, Merlin was quickly learning, is that personal physical and emotional space did not exist where they were concerned. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that he hadn't quite fully explained himself to them, but they were becoming quite well versed in how to convince him to give his permission for them to do things he would really rather they not do. This included the time they managed to wrangle permission from him to learn a high level of spell casting that had resulted in splinching.
Merlin always winced at the memory. A couple months ago, he had discovered the ability to appear in one place to another with instantaneous speed. As in here one second, there the next. He had decided to call it 'apparation', there had been complications of course. The first time he'd done itm, he'd somehow managed to leave his dress behind, and had appeared at the second location naked as a newborn babe. Rowena had caught him doing it and told the others, this caused a veritable riot as Merlin had wrestled with whether or not he could teach them something he had only just mastered.
Of course, being Merlin, he should have realized there was no way it wasn't going to go horribly wrong somehow. The night ,in tears and howls as they ended up with torn fingernails, and in Godric's case, a rather nasty bout of having to regrow teeth in his upper jaw. Needless to say, Merlin became very wary after that in terms of agreeing to their demands.
So when Godric asked him point blank to go to Camelot, Merlin's mind went momentarily blank. He had no idea that the young boy had even been entertaining the idea of going to the main Kingdom, much less that all of them wanted to go, if the expectant looks he was receiving were anything to go by. He ended up saying "What?" Purely as a means to stall.
There was no way he could go to Camelot, but how was he going to make them understand that? He looked at the children, grown as they were. At age ten, Salazar's hair had gone from a gold blond to wheat color, that complimented his peachy skin, and crystalline blue eyes. He was average height for a boy his age, though stockier, for Salazar it meant nothing and he was constantly trying to find ways to make himself taller, pouring through spell books for an incantation that would help him, albeit he had yet to discover any. Merlin found in him and uncanny thirst for knowledge and even more pronounced desire to capitalize on that desire in ways he saw fit and often, that required Merlin to curb his curiosity, lest he hurt himself and others. Not that Salazar took it well, for a 10 year old, the kid sure had a lot of pride.
Helga was the direct opposite of Salazar, in mentality at least. She was short, and content with it. She was 12, and the most happy child Merlin had had the fortune to meet. Her hair was a bright red, like the burnt orange of the sunset, and it followed into the freckles that spotted her healthy face. Her bright green eyes reminded Merlin of the fresh green apples that Winifred from the village brought them. Helga had the distinction of wanting to see the best in everyone she met, whether or not they were known to be good or bad, nice or mean, Helga always gave them her trust first, and more often than not, it left poor Helga in tears. Merlin supposed that it was Helga's way of combating her rather turmoiled childhood, this constant and tireless pursuit to find in the world the good that was denied to her as she grew up. That warmth was what gave Helga her talent in cultivating plants and her affinity for all things green and floral. If Merlin was unable to find Helga, he knew all he would have to do is step into the garden and there she would be, knee deep in mud, face streaked with dirt and smiling like she was the happiest girl in the world when she would look up and see Merlin standing in the doorway, watching her.
Where Helga was trusting and welcomed the people around her with open arms, Rowena was reserved and reluctant to bond with anyone other than her family. She refused to maintain trusting relationships with people who tried to extend welcoming hands to her. This became a counter productive to the young girl as her one passion in the world was knowledge and her abrasive approach to people denied of access to many things. Rowena wanted to know everything. It reflected off her very, admittedly tall, being, in her onyx eyes, her pin straight black hair that ended at her shoulders, her pointed, almost hawkish nose. There eyes that sparkled with curiosity and intrigue. Merlin often found her nose deep in a book in his room, where old man Grindle had kept his books. She had so many questions about everything and anything. Where did it come from? How? When? Why? By who? For who? She wouldn't rest until she had satisfied every inquiry and even then there was more to know or something else was discovered and the cycle would start again. Sometimes Merlin wondered where she kept such knowledge and found that Rowena had transformed into a walking spellbook. Even if she had never practiced the spell before, you could bet that the spell was somewhere in the fast vault that Rowena kept in her mind. And Lords beware if you ever happened, even accidentally, challenged Rowena something deemed impossible or improbable. Let it be known that Rowena was nothing, if not clever.
Of all the children, the one that Merlin had to keep the keenest eye on was Godric. The child was the biggest headache out of the four. Tall, brunette and well on his way to becoming a fully fledged man. Merlin didn't miss the way girls his age looked at him, although Godric didn't look their way for even a moment, since for him family came first. He had eyes the color of the loveliest brown, smooth and wide. He was the oldest and the hardest to keep in line.Merlin could see that living in the country, in the humdrum life of a healer was hardly the excitement that a young boy would thirst for. He reminded him of Will in all reality, in that there was a deep seated unease in him, a subconscious anger, perhaps from the his violent youth. Merlin frequently realized that as loving and polite as Godric was, he harbored a sizable amount of rage towards the world for what had happened to his Auntie. There had been moments where Merlin had overheard Godric talking quietly to Rowena about how he wished he could go back to the village and show them who held true power over them and the before Merlin felt like he had to intervene, Helga would appear behind Godric and massage his shoulders silently before hugging him from behind, before quietly saying that revenge was not what their Auntie would have wanted, that he knew as well as she did, that they did not want to live for such a violent goal. She wanted to live peacefully and maybe someday she could save someone's life like Auntie had theirs? Like how Elladora had come for them? That was always the phrase that would turn Godric away from the path that Merlin could tell he was so desperately tempted to follow.
It was then that Merlin realized that nothing less than the truth was going to work in this situation. He sighed, and gathered the rest of the herbs around him on the ground. He'd been arranging them into piles but he could no longer focus. He dumped them in together into his basket, resolving to sort them out at home. He gestured for the rest of them to rise and follow him, which they did. His silence as they walked back to the cabin allowed the four of them to mumble amongst them in the background.
"Oi, do you think we made her angry?"
"Watch your words, Salazar, 'oi' is hardly civilized speech."
"I'll speak however I bloody well want, thank you. Not all of us can pretend we're royalty like you can in that delusional head of yours, Ro."
"I'm older than you and I'll thank you to -"
"Oh for the love of – will you two knock it off? She's not angry, maybe she just doesn't want to talk about it."
"But she didn't say yes or no."
"Maybe she just wants to talk to us at home instead?" That was Helga, quiet and unassuming. Merlin rolled his eyes, shifting the basket from one hand to the other. Just because he was walking in front didn't mean he'd suddenly lost his hearing.
"Speaking of, we keep calling her a she, but she's a he isn't she? I mean he?"
"Salazar, you can't just go around saying that, what if people hear you? They'll get the wrong idea."
"Well, I'm not wrong, she said she was a he. What did she say her name was ? Merly?"
"Merlin, you buffoon."
"Stop calling me names!"
"Like you said, I'll talk however I want -"
"Quiet. Clot-poles, the lot of you." Merlin turned around, as they reached the door to the house. Merlin fought the urge to laugh, listening to them bicker, as he opened the door and they all filed in. Once inside, Merlin thought to himself, that 7 years or so in, he made a fairly good parent, as he watched the children with practiced efficiency.
Once that was taken care of, Merlin went to the pantry and brought out some bread and cheese, fresh from the dairy farmer and the Baker, and sat down near the fireplace, waving his hand to the others to come sit with him, handing each their first serving.
"Alright. I suppose we're going to have to talk about this like adults." Merlin settled in the way he was most comfortable because he was about to delve into some topics that were very uncomfortable for him. He sat, legs apart, knees up with his forearms draped over his bent knees, which probably looked odd for a woman, but Merlin scoffed at the notion. Having lived the last 7 years as a woman was annoyed at the sheer amount of should and should not's that existed for a woman's behavior. The fact that they exist at all was ludicrous.
"You know why I'm like this," Merlin gestured to his body, with his long hair, fairly voluptuous yet slender figure and almost elven face.
"Because you bollocksed up a spell?" The comment earned Salazar a smart whack upside his blonde head and withering glances from the other kids. 'What?' He mouthed back at them, rubbing his head where Merlin had hit him.
"Because I tried to change forms to get away from some very bad people who were trying to capture a friend. But the spell went a tiny bit wrong and I can't seem to get it off. The thing is, I shouldn't have been there at all. Not that I regret it, but my job was a high post in the castle."
Rowena's eye grew as big and as round as dinner plates.
"The castle? You worked at the castle?" Merlin nodded, carding his fingers through his unruly hair, the slender hands catching on any knots it found, untangling them absentmindedly Reliving the experience was threatening to bring forward emotions he'd forced down a long time ago.
"I didn't just work there, I was the manservant to the King's son. The Prince." Godric's mouth dropped open.
"The King, you mean you worked there when King Uther was alive?" Merlin inclined his head in affirmation and Helga looked at him in trepidation.
"But people say King Uther was the one who started burning people who were magic!"
"The Purge." Rowena said softly, looking at Merlin with something akin to awe.
"Yes, I worked there when he was King. But I didn't have much of a choice in whether I wanted to work or not. I made the mistake of saving the King's idiot son at a banquet, and as thanks he made me a servant." Salazar made a face at that.
"That hardly seems like a good reward." Merlin cracked a smile in response, remembering how he and Arthur had gotten to know each other.
"I was thinking the same thing. Although it paid well, how else do you think I had enough money to buy that feast we bought the first day? To make matters worse, the King's son didn't like me very much."
"Why?" Helga asked, having finished her first piece of bread and now reaching for another.
"I may or may not have called him an arse to his face." That sent them into peals of laughter, taking them some time to come back down from the high. "In any case, we didn't start off on the best of terms." Merlin remembered his first night in the dungeons and Gaius's frustrated face when he had come to drag Merlin's clumsy self out of it.
"But you know, what I discovered was that the both of us made some erroneous judgements about the other before we knew anything. As Rowena would say," He tapped the young girl on her nose affectionately. "You cannot hope to say you know everything when you have examined only one side of the facts, and that's exactly what happened. I realized the prince wasn't as big of an arse as I had thought him to be, and he in turn managed to humble himself a little. He was a fair man and a compassionate one. He was always fair if he could afford to be."
Godric let out a disbelieving snort to let Merlin know what he thought about that.
"Oh yes, Mistress, very fair. Sorcery is still outlawed and the order to burn on discovery still stands. " Merlin whapped Godric in the nose, causing his eyes to clench shut in surprise.
"Sneers don't suit you Godric. What did I just say? The prince grew up in the castle. No matter how fair he wants to be, he can't pass a law about a topic he knows nothing about. In any case, we're veering away from the point. Camelot is still is the very home of those who hate magic the most."
"But they don’t know that we have magic. What if we promise not to practice magic around the muggles?" Salazar said, the convincing ability of the argument was slightly undermined by the fact that Salazar had stuffed his cheeks full of cheese and bread like a chipmunk.
"That won't – Hang on, around the what's?" Merlin poked Salazar's full cheek.
"Muggles." Helga giggled while Salazar hurriedly swallowed the contents of his cheeks and finished her sentence before she could.
"It's a word I came up with. It means non-magic people." Salazar looked so proud of his invention that Merlin couldn't bring himself to tell him how positively preposterous the word was.
"Right. Okay. It won't matter if we refrain from practicing magic around Muggles, I don't know if you remember, but a few years ago, the Knights who stayed here? The ones who helped us catch the men who killed the village Elder?" They nodded, recognizing the incident Merlin was speaking of.
"Well, that man that made Rowena, er, angry. He was the Prince, well now he's King, the man I used to serve." There was a sort of mind boggled silence, as they processed what that meant for them. Rowena connected all the dots first.
"So, you're saying, Mistress, that if we go, the King will know that we have magic."
"And while he may have let us go here, I don't know what he will do if he catches us there. In any case, he's the reason I left Camelot. He found out I had magic in a rather...unexpected way. He didn't take it too well."
Merlin tried not to dwell on the fact that it had been years since he'd been run out of Camelot, and the Knight's hadn't gone out looking for him even once. Of course he knew that they were in a tough position. He didn't expect them to defy Arthur, what then, would be the point in swearing fealty to the King if you were going to betray him for his manservant. But still, the thought stung. And beyond the initial scrying he had done, from time to time to ensure Camelot's safety and that Gaius was alright, Merlin had refrained from watching. It was like deliberately torturing yourself and he refused to do it. He had a new responsibility after all.
The kids understood what Merlin was saying and they sat forlornly in front of him, their hopes of going to Camelot dashed. He felt terrible but what was he to do? Going to Camelot was as good as handing themselves over as kindling.
"Why do you want to go to Camelot so much?" The question was out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Oh very good Merlin. First tell them you can't take them, and then rub salt in the wound.
"Auntie used to tell us stories. Of all the wonderful things you could see there." Godric drew circles in the dirt floor of the cabin, the letter G appearing frequently.
"About the food you could eat, or the people you would see."
Merlin groaned. He knew he shouldn't have asked. He had a soft spot where their Aunt was concerned. Merlin frequently found himself wanting to do everything she had promised them, some kind of misguided attempt, in his own way, to honor the brave woman who had given her life to the children.
He buried his head in his hands as he came to his most definitely very bad conclusion.
"Fine. Fine, fine, FINE. You win. We'll go." Godric's eyes lit up and Rowena and Helga clapped in excitement. "But!" Merlin held up a finger in warning, and to make sure they were paying attention. "We're going to apparate there, so that we can run away should we face the slightest dangers. No, this is not up for discussion Salazar. If it were me alone, I wouldn't be frightened all that much of walking into Camelot as a known sorcerer, but I will not endanger your lives. We are going to avoid any knights and the Royal family as if they were the plague. The first sign of trouble and we are all leaving. Is that understood?" They looked at each other and then at Merlin and held their hands up like they were being sworn into an official post.
"Yes Mistress." The words were chimed in perfect sync and Merlin couldn't help but feel slightly wary of the decision he'd just made.
. . . . . .
The next morning, at first light, when the sky was still an ashy grey, turning from the black of night to the brilliant blue of the day, Merlin woke his children up and still bleary eyed, had them trudging to the field behind the house. All four of them wore their best clothes. A lavender colored dress for Rowena, who had efficiently fastened her hair away from her face so as to take in all the sights. Helga wore a moss green frock, the sleeves already wrinkled from the last time she'd worn it. Salazar and Godric couldn't be bothered to care beyond making sure they were wearing their best shirts, and the rest they left as is. Brown trousers with black leather boots that were given as gifts from Derek.
Merlin prayed to Freya, (something he'd begun to do quite frequently of late), to make this trip as uneventful as possible.
"Okay. Remember, we don't want accidents like the first time we did this so hold on tight and think only of me." Merlin held his hands out on either side of him and waited for them to grab his outstretched hands. He had Rowena and Godric on one side and Helga and Salazar on the other.
Merlin squeezed his eyes shut and tried to envision the outer walls of the lower village of Camelot, with its many huts and little alleyways. He imagined in particular, the alleyway outside Gwenivere's old home. After a moment, he felt the ground drop out from underneath him, the motion giving him a nauseating feeling in his stomach. He heard the Rowena let out an ill-concealed yelp and Salazar mumble something about being sick. Then, suddenly, Merlin's feet hit solid ground roughly, and it sent him stumbling, making the others fall in turn. They made quite a sight, a woman and her children all fallen in a heap on the ground, groaning in nausea.
Yes, he was definitely going to have to work on that spell.
When they managed to get their bearings. Merlin made them hold hands again, despite their protests that they weren't kids anymore and that holding hands was stupid. One look from Merlin and a quiet question of 'do you want to go back then?' Accompanied by the appropriate raised eyebrow was enough to quell any further rebellions and let them get quickly from the lower village to the main square near the castle gates.
Merlin couldn't help but smile as they entered the square, their mouths dropping open as they took in the sheer multitude of stalls and food carts. There was a man selling toy trinkets that made the younger ones yank on his arm as if he were some kind of stable creature. His foot caught on the uneven ground as he struggled to keep up with the younger ones.
"Alright, alright, calm down! I'm coming! Rowena, I can't buy you the toy if I'm lying flat on ground with my brains dashed out."
"It's – It's you!" A hand shot out and grabbed Merlin's wrist, effectively trapping him between Rowena and a woman who was remarkably strong for one so – Then Merlin saw the hair, huge and bushy and so very red. There was only one woman he knew of with such hair.
Staring at him in shock, stood Lianora, aged by the 7 years in which they hadn't seen each other, but it was most definitely her. She looked completely staggered by Merlin. Then he remembered he was a woman and suddenly her shock was more understandable.
"It is you! Why do you still look like that?" She looked mystified as she lifted Merlin's hand up and down and inspected her with curious eyes. He yanked his hand away from her, rubbing his wrist with his other hand, the one that Rowena had let go of to eye this new woman. The other children had lost interest in the stall at the knowledge that there was someone from Camelot who knew their Mistress.
"I have my reasons." Merlin tried to look imposing, harder to do when he was trying his hardest to not be embarrassed in his state.
"You can't be serious. What reasons? Oh, I'm sorry, have you discovered the wonders of a woman's body? I guess you like women a lot." Merlin's ears flamed red.
"Lianora!" He hissed, mortified.
"Well, not that I would blame you, you certainly do seem, gifted, aside from your regular gifts." Lianora unabashedly hooked a finger in Merlin's dress, peering down the bodice of his dress with admiration. "Will you please stop that?" Merlin smacked her hand away, and Lianora rubbed the smarting skin with a hand, unapologetic. So much for remaining inconspicuous.
"Well, you're certainly not in that body of your own will, I can see tha - " Her eyes widened and filled with mirth as she realized why Merlin was still a woman. "My Lords. You're stuck!" She laughed, the sound high and pitched. Merlin winced and dragged her down the street, ignoring the looks they were getting as they made their way to an empty alley, the children crowded in after them. Once out of sight, Merlin reached over and pinched her hard. It worked, Lianora jumped, massaging the attacked upper arm and glaring at him.
"Ouch! You pinched me!"
"Because you were behaving like a crazed fool!"
"Oi don't call me names! What, did you lose your brain in the transformation or something?"
"Oh be quiet Lianora."
"Hmpf. And here I was, about to offer you a free meal at my tavern." She crossed her arms, and turned away from him, the very picture of affront. Merlin sighed, and then caught sight of the children, practically drooling at the mention of food.
He knew it had been a bad idea to come to Camelot. He was definitely going to regret this.
"Oh alright. Let's go then."
Lianora jumped in excitement, her previous grievance forgotten, grabbing his hand and shaking it between two of hers.
"Oh this is going to be fantastic!"
What a nightmare.