In the Land of Stories Old

Chapter 17

Arthur, not having much else to do at the moment, decided to occupy himself by going through the castle and mapping out the warren of rooms and towers and tunnels and chambers that neither Snow nor her father knew anything about—honestly, the family had lived entirely in the bottom three or four levels since possibly before the Cataclysm and only knew that the place was huge and more than a little foreboding and might be dangerous the higher up you went. So, Arthur began by counting floors from the bottom and then started his map from the topmost tower—an old watch tower whose roof was half gone—and worked his way down from there.

There wasn’t much to find. Dust. Bones in a few places. A colony of plump gray bats that squeaked at him and flapped their wings in agitation over the additional light he’d brought with him. A tower room that looked like it had been used for storage and then had its contents set on fire, with just a few pieces of pottery and shards of a broken mirror left among the ashes. A room whose rather complicated lock had fallen out of the door when the wood had rotted which turned out to be full of treasure, something the kingdom was no doubt going to find useful. More dust. More bones, but these were from mice and rats and even a few birds, so Arthur went with the assumption that at some point there had been cats in the castle to keep the vermin down—not a bad idea to bring back, as it wouldn’t be difficult to gather some new cats for that purpose. And assuming he could keep Snow and Serena from spoiling the creatures to the point they wouldn’t hunt. Everyone else knew better, thank goodness.

Arthur had a lot of time to think while he was exploring. He was staying alert to his surroundings, of course, and he had encountered a few troublesome loose stones, two hidden passageways, and a handful of traps which had mostly rotted away but which he’d carefully marked anyway…but he still had a lot of time to think. About what had happened in Avalon. About his friends, and what was eventually going to become of the Fearless Seven now that Merlin would need to stay close to home. And about the…habits Merlin seemed to have picked up while he was away.

Habits might not have been the right word: Merlin had a schedule. His time was regimented practically down to the minute, although you wouldn’t notice it unless you were around him every day. Merlin rose early and checked in with the ghostly guards to find out how the night watch had gone, then ate breakfast in the kitchen with Hans and Snow, and after that the two of them got to work on the duties of crown and castle—meaning Merlin was also now checking in with Arthur about his map-making exercise and not just with the triplets about whatever projects they were working on. Then lunch in the kitchen again, followed by a walk with Snow that was also him checking the gardens, and after that he took himself off for an hour of training with the guards. And hadn’t that been a kick in the gut for Arthur, realizing that Merlin was preparing himself for the day when the rest of the Seven would no longer be there to fight beside him, when possibly no one would be. Not to mention, seeing Merlin take a ghostly spear out of a guard’s hands and turn it on him had been more than a bit shocking.

The rest of Merlin’s day, until supper at least, was usually spent in study. Magic mostly, but sometimes Snow joined him for a while and they’d pore over the history of Old Metra and the Black Isle, digging out advice for ruling the kingdom that her father just didn’t have to give to the two of them. Supper was had in a smaller hall with everyone at one end of a long table and guards in attendance, sometimes Merlin took his turn helping Hans clean up the kitchen and get things prepared for the next day—Arthur had been added back into this roster too once he’d gotten back—and then Merlin would go back to his books and study some more until it was time to go to bed. The guards reminded him if he lost track of time, and he always tucked his work away at once and went up to his bedroom without argument, bidding his princess a sweet goodnight along the way. He and Snow weren’t sharing a bed, but Arthur really hadn’t expected them to be. Snow hadn’t been raised with that sort of freedom—princesses normally weren’t—and Merlin, because of the way his magic worked, had to be very careful about doing anything that could result in the formation of a bond without invoking all sorts of power-controlling rites and vows. He’d already planned out the marriage ceremony with that in mind, going over every step of it with Snow to work in the details and flourishes she wanted as well, making sure everything would go smoothly and nobody would die or worse.

There was something else going on with Merlin, though, there had to be. Because in spite of the schedule, in spite of the fact that Arthur knew Merlin was eating enough and even the guards had reassured him that his friend was getting plenty of sleep, Merlin still looked tired and a little drawn. Some of it might be the pressure of knowing that soon he’d been helping Snow rule her kingdom, of course, but since they were already doing most of that work Arthur didn’t feel like that was the answer. Worry probably had some part in it, but worry alone wouldn’t account for what Arthur was seeing. He’d asked Hans and the guards, and they had all told him that Merlin was fine, just tired, and ended the discussion there with admonishments not to worry Snow by bringing it up with her.

He didn’t get to ask the triplets, because they left the castle before he could. Everyone had been giving them sideways looks after he and Jack had come back, and finally Pino had thrown his hands in the air and told them all off quite soundly. “All right, fine! We’ll go. We will be back in…a week?”

“A week,” Noki agreed. “She should still be at the beach, enjoying the last of the sun.”

“She?” Jack wanted to know.

Kio sniffed at him. “We will be back in a week.”

And an hour later the three of them were gone, taking their little walking machine and a week’s worth of supplies with them and still acting somewhat offended. “I’m not sure they want to change back,” Snow ventured. “Maybe they like being dwarfs?”

“That might be it,” Merlin agreed. “It’s easier for them to do their work when they’re smaller, and they don’t have to build things quite as big. And they have a system worked out, if one of them needs the extra strength or a longer reach, they call out Occhi! and the other two close their eyes until whatever it is is done.”

“I still want to know who ‘she’ is,” Jack said. His arm was still in a sling and his ribs still pained him if he moved too suddenly, but he was otherwise back to normal. “Did it not sound as though they had already known where to find their woman?”

“It did,” Arthur agreed. “Well, I guess we’ll just see if we can get the story out of them when they come back. In a week.”

fanfiction In the Land of Stories Old