Alas, Poor Knight

We were robbed honestly

Imagine if you will a curse gone wrong-

We get the whole castle and town exploding into song, and a refrain and melody developing that echoes through the rest of the songs, maybe asking if things will ever return back to normal

There's an opera style back and forth between Uther and Gaius about the cause of the curse and whether it's dangerous, they don't resolve anything

Uther tasks Arthur with rooting out the cause, and it's a kind of call and answer, with Arthur following Uther's orders

We get Morgana, terrified her magic will be found out. Her song transforms into an "I want" song, maybe she wants fairness, maybe revenge, maybe power

The knights have a barbershop quartet thing going on and we love that for them

Merlin finds the cause, and maybe the curse is ultimately deadly although it seems innocuous enough. Maybe people are already starting to feel the ill effects. He needs help, but he just has to get someone to believe him. Cue his moment to sing, appealing to Arthur and the knights his voice turns out to be so sweet and heartbreaking (see Colin Morgan's work with PJ Harvey) and to his surprise everyone rallies around

We get a song with Merlin, Arthur, the knights and maybe others like Gwen and Gaius working together to fix the problem, the song builds to a crescendo and stops short the moment the spell is seemingly broken

It cuts to the next day and some normal speech indicates that their efforts worked. But Arthur hovers just outside this chambers because Merlin is cleaning inside and is singing as he works, his singing finally resolves the melody. Arthur laughs quietly and enters the room

The End

merlin should have had a musical episode

Leonid Pasternak  (Ukrainian, 1862–1945) - The Torments of Creative Work

The Silt Verses were my biggest inspiration this Inktober, and I name it thus: Siltober

(the prompts are in the alt text if they're not in the image)

Seline Burn (Swiss, 1995) - Untitled (2024)

for the @merlinmicrofic prompt "harvest" Gaius/Geoffrey, G , no warnings, 290 words, ao3 link

seedling

You'll want to wait for the grain to wither, to go brittle-dry, before you take the scythe to it. Not meant to be cut are stalks still full of sap, unless nature made them weak. Or so Death would reason if it had a voice.

By Uther's wrath though, old and young alike fell before the reaper. The king's most trusted were tasked to ensure bountiful yield. There were lists.

Gaius felt sick. He had sworn, he'd sworn to leave his old life behind and all that came with it. Magic. Tradition. Conscience? “I couldn't bear it,” the king had said, “if any harm came to you,” and Gaius had cowered before the threat.

There were lists, and Gaius felt sick. “So many souls.”

Geoffrey looked up, gaze sharp, quill idling. “Do you not love our king?”

“And do you not love me?”

It was as much as either of them could say out loud. The moment lingered, then something broke between them. The quill resumed its scratching. The reaper bound sheafs.

Sneaking out in the night was not something that came easily to Gaius. He cursed this bout of courage as fear constricted his throat, a premonition of the hangman's noose.

Up in the tower over the courtyard, there was a light in the window. The infant prince must be keeping his wet nurse up again. Would he one day have to pick the fruit grown from his father's bitterness, and choke on it? Had fate, moving its playing pieces into place, already entrapped him in its vines?

“Gaius?” The blonde girl's eyes shone bright with fear and magic both. “What of my sister?”

“Don't be afraid. She will be safe.” Gaius took her hand. “Come, Morgause, let's go.”

boy do i love te

again, ethically sourced from tumblr

Angel Barrett

I feel so seen 🥺😈

For the ones that need it today

I really appreciate that the Alliterative Morte Arthure is giving Kay a solid 45 lines to go full batshit mad scientist on his feast preparations, featuring

Peacocks, plovers, pork, porcupine, herons, swans, beef, wild boar, barnacle goose, young hawks in bread, cranes, curlews, rabbits

By my rough count, approximately eight different kinds of wine

On-fire blue stews ("wavy with azure sauce all over, they appeared to be flaming")

More fire: "pheasants adorned in flaming silver"

Poison-proof gold cups: ("So that if any poison should go secretly under them [in the cup],/The bright gold would burst all to pieces with anger,/Or else the poison should lose its power because of the virtue of the precious stones")

the secret to life is to always use more spinach and less rice than you think you’ll need