[Merlin] Storyteller
(Written for merry_gentry's prompt "Anansi Boys". "aburuwaba." means "child of a slave woman" in Kwi, a West African dialect.)
"You have to go in there." Merlin states rather than asks, looking at the cave in front of them. It's more a crevice, a cut into the stone.
Arthur nods. Behind him, four of his knights sit on their horses. "We have come this far, highness." Agravaine says, pushing a bit forward from the rest. "But from here..."
"I know." Arthur says. "A prince's task."
Merlin eyes the entrance to the cave. He doesn't like it. It feels...dark, and not because the sun cannot reach there. It feels dark to his magical eyes, to his other senses. He can't see inside, and that worries him.
"Arthur..." He says, "Arthur, don't go in there."
Arthur looks at him. "You know what happens if I don't."
Merlin does know. It's all bound up in the idiotic laws of Uther, in the pigheadedness of Arthur himself, in the fixation that everyone in the Court has about honor, about bravery, about dying because you were too stupid not to. He knows exactly what will happen if Arthur doesn't go in there.
But he doesn't know what will happen if he does. He doesn't know that Arthur will win. He doesn't know that he'll be able to protect Arthur. And he's neither used to nor comfortable with that.
But he looks at Arthur, and Arthur looks at him, clear-eyed and solemn, and for once in his life Merlin keeps his mouth shut.
They turn back to the cave, in time for two children to talk out of it. They look to be about ten or twelve, both boys, and moving with a strange, stuttering step. Merlin thinks for a moment they might be wounded, but there's not a sign of pain in their faces. In fact, there's not a sign of anything in their faces at all, just blank eyes and slightly parted lips.
Agravaine dismounts and kneels to one of them, his face full of worry. "Who are you, child? Where have you come - "
Merlin feels something shift in the caves behind the children, and then the child moves, faster than anything Merlin has ever seen, stabbing twice into Agravaine's neck with a short, heavy blade. Agravaine falls, his eyes going glassy. The child steps back from his body, and Merlin finally sees why they move so strangely - they have not two legs, but many, working in time to produce something like a human walk.
Arthur sees it when he does, shouting, "It's sorcery! They are not children, but beasts of magic! Bring them down, my knights!" He himself rides forward, slashing down at the second child with his sword. The child watches it come with dead eyes, before side-stepping neatly and catching Arthur's sword in his tiny, pudgy hands. Merlin has no time to do anything but watch with horror as the child pulls Arthur bodily off his horse and leaps onto him, his many legs scraping over Arthur's breastplate. "No!" Cries Merlin, but the child stabs downward, his blade sinking into the flesh of Arthur's neck.
Around him, the rest of Arthur's knights have similarly fallen. Merlin sits on his horse, tears streaming down his face, and resolutely does not look at Arthur. He does not look at the children. He turns his face to the cave and stares into the darkness with golden, shining eyes.
He can see thread, white and green and gray like the stuff of ghosts, connecting the children to something inside the cave, something that shifted whenever they killed.
"Come out." He said softly, a whisper of his power in his voice. "Come out."
Why should I? Why should I brave the daylight, the sunlight, the blades of fools, if I can so easily unhorse you and keep you from here? The voice is dry and so very, very old, a sly, teasing twist to it.
Merlin closes his eyes for a moment, looking only at the threads that connect the children to the voice inside the cave. Then, swiftly and simply, he cut them.
The children slumped to the ground, their blades falling from their hands, and there was a hiss from the cave. They were my children.
Merlin's eyes are glazing golden, now, tears dripping off his chin. "He was my king." He says through gritted teeth and for a moment he can see it, how it might have been, Arthur on the throne and Merlin at his side, no longer bumbling servant but trusted adviser. Friend. Lover. He sees Arthur's eyes warm with affection. Sees how broken he would have been, when Merlin finally told him, and how much stronger they both would be, after. He tastes Arthur against his tongue, feels his fingers, his breath, his heart against his palm, and he shakes himself free and feels only rage. "Come out."
A moment of silence, and then something emerges from the cave. It has the upper body of a man, though nothing like any man that Merlin has ever seen. His skin is dark and his chest bare. His hair is black and coarse, teased up into twisting spires and spikes, dyed with red and white clay. Feathers are braided into it at the back of his head, hanging over his shoulders like a mane. Red and white clay has been used to paint his chest, as well, a great spider whose legs trace the man's ribs, whose eyes are many and seem to glint with intelligence.
His torso moves unnaturally back into legs like the children's, eight of them, black and jointed. They shift constantly, not trying to seem human, but moving in a constant, weaving dance, as if keeping the man balanced.
Unlike the children, though, the man's face is intelligent and pointed, his eyes nothing but amused in the face of Merlin's anger.
"Give him back." Merlin says, voice tight with tears. "Give them all back. I know you can. You took them away and you can give them back."
The man tilts his head, eyeing Merlin. Play a game with me.
Merlin clenches his teeth. He wants to strike out at the man with fire, with ice, with just pure force, but his mind slides past the man's and refuses to catch. "They're dead, and you want to play games?"
The man raises his eyebrows. Dead? They are not dead. I do not kill, I simply...keep. He smiles, and Merlin realizes that the children stabbed Arthur and his knights with two of the man's teeth.
He doesn't let himself register that Arthur isn't dead. Not yet. He stores it away, calmly, carefully, because his joy will break his rage and his rage is his only weapon. "Who are you?"
Well. The man's smile widens. Perhaps that will be our game. You tell me, little aburuwaba.
Merlin forces himself to calm, forces himself not to throw himself bodily onto the creature and pummel it with his bare hands. He takes a long breath, and then he starts to think.
Arthur often calls him a half-wit, an idiot, a bumbler. And he is impulsive, and he often acts on emotion rather than logic. But if he takes his time and truly thinks something through, he has a clever mind. And now it is humming with magic, burning and thrumming with it, and he knows what he's been doing wrong.
He stops trying to throw force at the creature and starts just looking at him. Really looking, the kind that only Merlin can do. It's not a spell. It takes no words, no gestures, just a certain way of opening his eyes and not letting himself get in the way of the other.
The creature flows into Merlin's mind. He's old, very, very old. So old that it staggers Merlin for a moment. And he's young, too, childish and capricious and impulsive. Right now he is happy, looking at his web, thinking that he has Merlin caught. His web. Woven of words and puppets and laughter.
He sees the creature weaving, his face intent. Sees him creating and destroying - people, things, thoughts, emotions. Colors slip past the creature's lips and form into scenes of normal life. Animals that Merlin has never seen dance around campfires, steal from one another, trick one another. The creature tells stories that are life, and life flows into his stories again. He is neither evil nor good, a trickster, a spider that dances on the edge of the moral knife.
But behind it all, there's something strange. The world of Camelot and forests and castles jangles around the creature, uncomfortable. And Merlin smiles, then. Grins fierce and predatory. He pulls back and looks at the creature with gold eyes, stained by sorcery.
"You shouldn't be here." Merlin says calmly, and the Storyteller rocks back on his many legs. "This is not your world. These are not your stories to tell. You cannot keep us, for we were never yours."
The Storyteller casts a cruel glance sideways. Your king looks to be mine, boy. My poison runs in his veins, it is my tooth in his neck.
But Merlin only shakes his head. "I am sorry, Anansi." He says, and Anansi stills for the first time, his legs freezing. "But this is not your land. Go back to your jungles, your deserts. Go back to the people that love you and hate you with equal vigor, who whisper your name in the short hot nights and murmur your fame around their fires."
Anansi scowls at him. And who, then, shall weave the stories to color this place? I am fulfilling an important duty here, boy.
Merlin meets his eyes, and fills his voice with all the years he will live, all the lives he will save. He puts into it Camelot and the Round Table and the death of Uther. He puts into it Gwen and Lancelot and Morgana, Nimue and the dragon. He puts into it the idiotic laws of Uther, the pigheadedness of Arthur himself, the fixation that everyone in the Court has about honor, about bravery, about dying because you were too stupid not to. And because Anansi will understand it, he puts himself in, sitting at a loom, his hands old and his beard white. "I will."
Anansi retreats back into his cave, and after a moment, the lands are empty again of his webs.
Merlin dismounts, walking to where Arthur lies, his mind still a golden, shining pool of prophecy and truth. He looks down at Arthur's still face, and kneels by his side. "My stories." He whispers to the listening world, and leans down and kisses his sleeping prince.
Arthur gasps in a huge breath, and the gold snaps out of Merlin's eyes like a bowstring. He cradles Arthur to him, all his grief and rage pouring out in great, wracking sobs. The memory and prophecy goes with it, flowing away and leaving only sharp relief and confusion.
"Merlin?" Arthur rasps, raising a hand to trace Merlin's cheekbone, or perhaps wipe away his tears. "What happened?"
Merlin looks around. The children lie slumped on the ground. The knights are beginning to wake and pick themselves up, cracking their necks and moaning. Completely bewildered, Merlin looks back to Arthur. "I have no idea."
Arthur grins weakly, rolling his eyes at Merlin. "Half-wit." He says, and his eyes are warm.
"You have to go in there." Merlin states rather than asks, looking at the cave in front of them. It's more a crevice, a cut into the stone.
Arthur nods. Behind him, four of his knights sit on their horses. "We have come this far, highness." Agravaine says, pushing a bit forward from the rest. "But from here..."
"I know." Arthur says. "A prince's task."
Merlin eyes the entrance to the cave. He doesn't like it. It feels...dark, and not because the sun cannot reach there. It feels dark to his magical eyes, to his other senses. He can't see inside, and that worries him.
"Arthur..." He says, "Arthur, don't go in there."
Arthur looks at him. "You know what happens if I don't."
Merlin does know. It's all bound up in the idiotic laws of Uther, in the pigheadedness of Arthur himself, in the fixation that everyone in the Court has about honor, about bravery, about dying because you were too stupid not to. He knows exactly what will happen if Arthur doesn't go in there.
But he doesn't know what will happen if he does. He doesn't know that Arthur will win. He doesn't know that he'll be able to protect Arthur. And he's neither used to nor comfortable with that.
But he looks at Arthur, and Arthur looks at him, clear-eyed and solemn, and for once in his life Merlin keeps his mouth shut.
They turn back to the cave, in time for two children to talk out of it. They look to be about ten or twelve, both boys, and moving with a strange, stuttering step. Merlin thinks for a moment they might be wounded, but there's not a sign of pain in their faces. In fact, there's not a sign of anything in their faces at all, just blank eyes and slightly parted lips.
Agravaine dismounts and kneels to one of them, his face full of worry. "Who are you, child? Where have you come - "
Merlin feels something shift in the caves behind the children, and then the child moves, faster than anything Merlin has ever seen, stabbing twice into Agravaine's neck with a short, heavy blade. Agravaine falls, his eyes going glassy. The child steps back from his body, and Merlin finally sees why they move so strangely - they have not two legs, but many, working in time to produce something like a human walk.
Arthur sees it when he does, shouting, "It's sorcery! They are not children, but beasts of magic! Bring them down, my knights!" He himself rides forward, slashing down at the second child with his sword. The child watches it come with dead eyes, before side-stepping neatly and catching Arthur's sword in his tiny, pudgy hands. Merlin has no time to do anything but watch with horror as the child pulls Arthur bodily off his horse and leaps onto him, his many legs scraping over Arthur's breastplate. "No!" Cries Merlin, but the child stabs downward, his blade sinking into the flesh of Arthur's neck.
Around him, the rest of Arthur's knights have similarly fallen. Merlin sits on his horse, tears streaming down his face, and resolutely does not look at Arthur. He does not look at the children. He turns his face to the cave and stares into the darkness with golden, shining eyes.
He can see thread, white and green and gray like the stuff of ghosts, connecting the children to something inside the cave, something that shifted whenever they killed.
"Come out." He said softly, a whisper of his power in his voice. "Come out."
Why should I? Why should I brave the daylight, the sunlight, the blades of fools, if I can so easily unhorse you and keep you from here? The voice is dry and so very, very old, a sly, teasing twist to it.
Merlin closes his eyes for a moment, looking only at the threads that connect the children to the voice inside the cave. Then, swiftly and simply, he cut them.
The children slumped to the ground, their blades falling from their hands, and there was a hiss from the cave. They were my children.
Merlin's eyes are glazing golden, now, tears dripping off his chin. "He was my king." He says through gritted teeth and for a moment he can see it, how it might have been, Arthur on the throne and Merlin at his side, no longer bumbling servant but trusted adviser. Friend. Lover. He sees Arthur's eyes warm with affection. Sees how broken he would have been, when Merlin finally told him, and how much stronger they both would be, after. He tastes Arthur against his tongue, feels his fingers, his breath, his heart against his palm, and he shakes himself free and feels only rage. "Come out."
A moment of silence, and then something emerges from the cave. It has the upper body of a man, though nothing like any man that Merlin has ever seen. His skin is dark and his chest bare. His hair is black and coarse, teased up into twisting spires and spikes, dyed with red and white clay. Feathers are braided into it at the back of his head, hanging over his shoulders like a mane. Red and white clay has been used to paint his chest, as well, a great spider whose legs trace the man's ribs, whose eyes are many and seem to glint with intelligence.
His torso moves unnaturally back into legs like the children's, eight of them, black and jointed. They shift constantly, not trying to seem human, but moving in a constant, weaving dance, as if keeping the man balanced.
Unlike the children, though, the man's face is intelligent and pointed, his eyes nothing but amused in the face of Merlin's anger.
"Give him back." Merlin says, voice tight with tears. "Give them all back. I know you can. You took them away and you can give them back."
The man tilts his head, eyeing Merlin. Play a game with me.
Merlin clenches his teeth. He wants to strike out at the man with fire, with ice, with just pure force, but his mind slides past the man's and refuses to catch. "They're dead, and you want to play games?"
The man raises his eyebrows. Dead? They are not dead. I do not kill, I simply...keep. He smiles, and Merlin realizes that the children stabbed Arthur and his knights with two of the man's teeth.
He doesn't let himself register that Arthur isn't dead. Not yet. He stores it away, calmly, carefully, because his joy will break his rage and his rage is his only weapon. "Who are you?"
Well. The man's smile widens. Perhaps that will be our game. You tell me, little aburuwaba.
Merlin forces himself to calm, forces himself not to throw himself bodily onto the creature and pummel it with his bare hands. He takes a long breath, and then he starts to think.
Arthur often calls him a half-wit, an idiot, a bumbler. And he is impulsive, and he often acts on emotion rather than logic. But if he takes his time and truly thinks something through, he has a clever mind. And now it is humming with magic, burning and thrumming with it, and he knows what he's been doing wrong.
He stops trying to throw force at the creature and starts just looking at him. Really looking, the kind that only Merlin can do. It's not a spell. It takes no words, no gestures, just a certain way of opening his eyes and not letting himself get in the way of the other.
The creature flows into Merlin's mind. He's old, very, very old. So old that it staggers Merlin for a moment. And he's young, too, childish and capricious and impulsive. Right now he is happy, looking at his web, thinking that he has Merlin caught. His web. Woven of words and puppets and laughter.
He sees the creature weaving, his face intent. Sees him creating and destroying - people, things, thoughts, emotions. Colors slip past the creature's lips and form into scenes of normal life. Animals that Merlin has never seen dance around campfires, steal from one another, trick one another. The creature tells stories that are life, and life flows into his stories again. He is neither evil nor good, a trickster, a spider that dances on the edge of the moral knife.
But behind it all, there's something strange. The world of Camelot and forests and castles jangles around the creature, uncomfortable. And Merlin smiles, then. Grins fierce and predatory. He pulls back and looks at the creature with gold eyes, stained by sorcery.
"You shouldn't be here." Merlin says calmly, and the Storyteller rocks back on his many legs. "This is not your world. These are not your stories to tell. You cannot keep us, for we were never yours."
The Storyteller casts a cruel glance sideways. Your king looks to be mine, boy. My poison runs in his veins, it is my tooth in his neck.
But Merlin only shakes his head. "I am sorry, Anansi." He says, and Anansi stills for the first time, his legs freezing. "But this is not your land. Go back to your jungles, your deserts. Go back to the people that love you and hate you with equal vigor, who whisper your name in the short hot nights and murmur your fame around their fires."
Anansi scowls at him. And who, then, shall weave the stories to color this place? I am fulfilling an important duty here, boy.
Merlin meets his eyes, and fills his voice with all the years he will live, all the lives he will save. He puts into it Camelot and the Round Table and the death of Uther. He puts into it Gwen and Lancelot and Morgana, Nimue and the dragon. He puts into it the idiotic laws of Uther, the pigheadedness of Arthur himself, the fixation that everyone in the Court has about honor, about bravery, about dying because you were too stupid not to. And because Anansi will understand it, he puts himself in, sitting at a loom, his hands old and his beard white. "I will."
Anansi retreats back into his cave, and after a moment, the lands are empty again of his webs.
Merlin dismounts, walking to where Arthur lies, his mind still a golden, shining pool of prophecy and truth. He looks down at Arthur's still face, and kneels by his side. "My stories." He whispers to the listening world, and leans down and kisses his sleeping prince.
Arthur gasps in a huge breath, and the gold snaps out of Merlin's eyes like a bowstring. He cradles Arthur to him, all his grief and rage pouring out in great, wracking sobs. The memory and prophecy goes with it, flowing away and leaving only sharp relief and confusion.
"Merlin?" Arthur rasps, raising a hand to trace Merlin's cheekbone, or perhaps wipe away his tears. "What happened?"
Merlin looks around. The children lie slumped on the ground. The knights are beginning to wake and pick themselves up, cracking their necks and moaning. Completely bewildered, Merlin looks back to Arthur. "I have no idea."
Arthur grins weakly, rolling his eyes at Merlin. "Half-wit." He says, and his eyes are warm.