146 posts
Gaius: I told you to look after merlin.
Lancelot: He'll be fine. He's a sorcerer.
Gaius: That's just what they're called. It doesn't mean he actually knows what he's doing.
Gwen: Will you look after Arthur?
Lancelot: He'll be fine. He's the King of Camelot.
Gwen: That's just what he's called. It doesn't mean he actually knows what he's doing.
I would bet that at one point, probably S1-2, Arthur tries to teach Merlin how to use a dagger and then immediately regrets his entire existence.
Think about it. He has a manservant who is bound and bloody determined to follow him literally everywhere, sometimes literally into the jaws of malevolent creatures, without armour or weapons or even basic survival skills, it seems. Of course, Merlin is more likely to injure himself than anyone else with a sword, so Arthur decides to give him a dagger instead. He was given his first dagger when he was seven. Merlin should be able to handle that, right? A dagger is small enough to be carried around without general suspicion, it’s not heavy enough for balance to be an issue (of course, with Merlin, balance is always an issue) and it doesn’t really require the skill a sword does. Hold the dull end, stick the pointy end in whoever is trying to stick you. It isn’t like Merlin isn’t ever in the thick of a melee anyways, so hopefully he’ll never need much skill.
At first, it almost seems like a good idea. Arthur gives Merlin his very own blade (it was Arthur’s, years ago, so it’s far better than whatever kitchen knife peasants normally use) and it takes, oh, about three days for him to realise that he’s made a terrible mistake when a guard comes and tells him that Merlin almost shanked someone in the tavern and started a brawl that sent three people to see healers. According to Merlin, his almost-victim had been talking unfavourably about Arthur. When he refused to shut his trap, Merlin decided to shut it for him. At dagger-point. He doesn’t know if he should be flattered or horrified than Merlin is willing to bleed someone just because they were speaking ill of Arthur.
This becomes a Thing.
Arthur has Regrets.
Arthur, trying to wrest the dagger out of Merlin’s hands: Let – let go. You can have it back when you learn some self-control. Daggers are for good servants who don’t assault people at random.
Merlin, keeping a death-grip on the hilt and glaring at the drunk who’d compared Arthur to the King: It isn’t random.
Arthur: Mordred, Merlin and I have to attend a meeting in Nemeth, and it's your turn to watch the baby.
Mordred: *looks at Aithusa, eating a plate of raw liver with blood all over*
Mordred: ......The "baby."
Arthur: Yup. We'll be back in a week.
Arthur: *leaves*
Mordred: *looks at Aithusa*
Aithusa: *hisses*
Mordred: Goddess have mercy on me.
Morgause, on the phone: Hi, my idiot brother chased a cat and is stuck in a tree.
Fire department: Sorry, right now we’re only responding to fires.
Morgause: I see.
Morgause:
Morgause: Give me a second.
Headcanon that Freya and Arthur become afterlife BFFs in Avalon, and even though they can't return to the living world, Freya can visit, as long as she doesn't leave the lake, and this is how she and Arthur learn about the modern world, including language. Particularly slang. Not all of it is exactly accurate (think Ariel and the dinglehopper) but they're learning.
Stuff left on the docks? Gone. Too close to the shore? Yoinked. Things dropped in the lake? Never recovered. She even takes stuff from boats because technically she's still in the lake.
Freya, rollerskating into Avalon wearing a beach towel like a cape and a pair of giant sunglasses, carrying a boombox and a cooler of beer: Arthur, my good bitch, you will not believe what I found this time.
Arthur, wearing a 'Sun's Out, Guns Out' tank top, jean shorts, and a huge sunhat, reading one of the three dozen trashy romance novels Freya's brought him, drinking a pina colada through a crazy straw: Oh, word?
Have we talked about the sleeping arrangements here?
I remember cackling about Merlin and Arthur’s angsty back to back sitting but there’s so much more going on
Percival’s so freaking tall Arthur has to sit all scrunched up
Leon and Lancelot seem to just be doing their own thing and good for them
Why does Gwaine need to sleep right there? Elyan’s practically resting his feet on him. You could ask why is Gwaine not moving but you could also ask why Elyan has not made him move. Why are they like this
Also if Gwaine’s not careful his hair is going to set on fire
Are any of them actually functional human beings or
Never mind we all know the answer
Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?
For @forever-rewatching-merlin who made me cry over my most favourite merlin fic for the hundredth time.
Die For You In Secret by @emrysofmagic - In which Merlin and Lancelot start sleeping together at the end of season three, Arthur notices, Gwaine is all too perceptive, and Merlin realizes that the heart’s capacity for love is greater than he ever could have imagined.