Chapter Text
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Merlin was dragging you through the castle by your good arm at a pace that you couldn’t quite keep up with. He was rushing you to his and Gaius’ chambers, probably so you wouldn’t be seen in such a state of undress in the middle of the castle.
“My lady, how have you gotten yourself into such a predicament?” Merlin mumbled through puffed breaths as he arrived at their door. You looked at him with wide, confused eyes. You hoped that the evidence found in your wobbly knees and sweat-slicked skin, since you weren’t able to even get a syllable out. It felt as if something was holding your tongue hostage, and every time you opened your mouth, only sad, pained groans came out.
Thankfully, the chambers that they escaped to were warmed by a roaring fire. The outside corridors were freezing, turning your hot, sweaty state into something much sicklier. Merlin ushered you inside to a cot near the fire and wrapped a spare woolen blanket around you. He dragged the side of the bench closer to you and sat, looking up expectantly. Oh, he hadn’t noticed. Your mouth worked for a moment, flopping open and closed like a fish. You pointed to your throat, shaking your head, and Merlin tilted his head slightly.
“You can’t…speak?” he asked, not confused, but still interested in your predicament, “that’s a little turn in the road I didn’t expect.”
You closed the blanket to cover your legs more as Merlin thought, glancing over at you a few times, but staying deep in thought otherwise. It was refreshing being a human again, of course. Being a cat wasn’t nice per se, since there were so many limitations to what you could do with your broken arm. The main downside to having been a cat was the fact that you couldn’t communicate with anyone except Merlin. You weren’t even able to do that now anyway.
“Can I look at your druid mark?” Merlin asked, and you cringed. Your mark was in a more…risqué position than most druids. It was a great hiding place for it, however, since people like your uncle—who’s mark was on his forearm—were a lot more viable to be found out. You wanted to shake your head and wrap yourself up even more, refuse the help that Merlin was trying to give you in favor of keeping whatever dignity you had left. Now that he had mentioned it, though, your mark was getting more and more irritated under the heavy wool. After a split-second decision, you forwent your nod and flicked away the blanket and tucked the floaty tunic around your hip to preserve at least a little of your dignity.
Merlin let out a low whistle, laying an ice-cold hand on your skin, pulling your mark do the side with his fingertips. You wanted to let out some sort of whine, but the sight of your abused mark left you breathless. It was as if your body was trying to reject it, with the pigment that you had been born with raising on the edges and almost peeling off of your skin. The skin around the mark was red and inflamed, and hot to the touch. It was almost like you had an infected sore that had been left alone for too long and your body decided to purge the bad stuff out for you.
“That magic isn’t playing too well with your druid mark, it seems,” he hummed, turning to glance at some books on a shelf a ways away, then swinging his lanky legs over the bench to hop over and grab one that had been just about hidden by a loose leaf of papers around it. The cover had a matching triskele to the marks that you had seen all your life on your family and community members. Merlin cracked it open, the pages making a sound of distaste for being woken up.
“If I remember correctly…” Merlin trailed off, flipping through crumbling pages, “The druids mark acts as a sort of filter for dark magic. It prevents any bad kickbacks from spells that have…unfortunate consequences. Seems that Morgana was a bit too strong for your humors, even magic ones.”
Merlin looked at you, squinting his eyes in thought and stroking his chin. In this moment it struck you that he was such a young man. You weren’t old, per se, but your aunt and uncle had tried to set you up many times with “nice” druids around your settlement. Normally, people at your age had found someone to have kids with by now. Merlin had the face and the eyes of someone who hadn’t had such pressures laying on him.
You raised your hand to get his attention. It felt very patronizing, like you were asking permission from an adult, but you couldn’t figure out any other way of asking him for something. You mimed a quill and paper, asking for something to write on. You knew some words, since you did a fair amount of dealing with the humans when you were younger. Merlin’s eyes blew wide, and he darted around the room, finding a spare quill and a tincture of ink that was already spilling over his hands.
“You know I never thought that you could write how clever—”
Y human rite now?
“That’s what I want to figure out,” Merlin sighed, “does this happen every night?”
First nite
“This is the first night that this has happened?”
You were becoming frustrated with the young man.
No first nite cat.
“All of this went town today? And your mark looks like—like…that?” Merlin dragged a hand over his face, “This dark magic doesn’t seem too good for you, my Lady.”
wat do u mean?
He jolted up from the bench that he had been sitting on, or perching on, overturning it with a loud clattering sound. The man cringes, cursing.
“Merlin?” Gaius’s voice piped up, with the man inching into view. You could feel your cheeks heating up, and you drew your legs into the blanket. Your skin had never been so bare with so many men around you. All of the healers in your tribe had been women, so you had never had to think about a man seeing you in such undress.
“My Lady!” Gaius exclaimed once he saw you, then turned to Merlin, “Merlin! What are you doing with such a lady here?”
“Gaius,” he drew out his mentor’s name in a whiny manner, not unlike a child. “We know this certain lady. I made a splint for her just today.”
It didn’t take long for Gaius to connect the dots, and once he glanced back at you, you gave him a short wave. He sputtered, not unlike your uncle used to do when you got in trouble for running your mouth at one of the elders, then took a breath.
“Why is the cat human?”
“Well, it seems that the cat was a human first,” Merlin responded quickly. You nodded your head vigorously, then gestured to your throat, trying to convey that you now couldn’t speak, either. From there, there was a fair amount of debating and examining and researching of your position. Neither Merlin nor Gaius could find anything that was quite like your curse, and there was soon conversation of the future.
“I don’t think that I can keep saving you from Percival’s room every night, if this happens,” Merlin says as Gaius reexamines your arm as a human.
“Well, cats roam at night, don’t they? They’re—sorry, you’re—nocturnal,” Gaius reasons, “We’ll just tell Percival that we found you yowling at our door for food in the middle of the night. He’ll let you roam, and we can get some lady’s clothes in here so you can be decent at night.”
Then, everything felt all wrapped up in a bow, and perfect. Truthfully, you were looking forward to the next day as a cat. Things were easier, and you at least could nap a little bit instead of working like you would as a human. Yes, life as a cat seemed nice.
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You were a little bit right about life as a cat being nice. The naps were good, especially when Percival brought you food afterwards, but you weren’t really big enough to wander around. Over the last few days, you had gained a kind of schedule with Percival and Merlin. Percival would stroke your fur in the morning as you laid by the fire before he went out to train in the morning and patrol, and he would come back sometimes before court and bring you some sort of morsel of food. You were being pampered not unlike a child, and you didn’t mind it.
What you did mind was being carted around like a piece of fruit. You were a bit small still, and your leg was hindering you quite a bit, so you didn’t have the clear freedom that so many cats had. Your tether was Percival and where he decided to bring you. After the first night, he propped his door open a touch so you could slip out, but it was slow goings for you to trek anywhere, and if any of the knights came across you, you were sure to be scooped up. Even Merlin was a culprit of this from time to time. Once, even Gwen had been a perpetrator. That did lead to the first time that you had seen yourself in a mirror as a cat. You were a pretty good looking cat, by all means. Not quite full grown, but not a fluffy baby kitten, with a sleek black coat and a small marking where your druid mark was on your thigh.
The nights were what was the hardest. You didn’t want to spend all the time you had with thumbs and on two legs asleep, so you often changed in the privacy of the small, windowless storage space that Merlin had set your clothes and set about the castle grounds.
It was one clear, cool night that you were futzing about with one of the training swords that had not been locked up when you heard a deep, strong voice ring out through the crisp air.
“My lady,” Percival’s tone was the same as when he addressed you in your other form, and you were a bit hopeful that he had recognized you and you could get rid of the whole charade. But no, as you looked in his eyes, there was little recognition. Perhaps he remembered you from the first time he encountered you as a human? That would be mortifying.
The heavy sword you were playfully swinging about dropped heavily atop the sand of the training arena. Truly, it was one of the only places that wasn’t constantly crawling with guards like any of the main hallways of the castles. You had been almost caught a few times before you learned that fact. You were preparing to turn tail and run when he called out again.
“No! No, don’t! I’m not getting you in trouble or anything,” he called again, and you looked back over your shoulder as he stepped out of the shadows of the night. He was dressed down, in his linen pants and tunic without a belt. It hung low on his neck and you knew that he had woken up not too long ago. You paused, screwing up your eyebrows at the night.
“Its just…” he scrubbed his head against his short cropped hair, muttering underneath his breath, “This is so stupid, ah, have you seen my cat? I didn’t get her that long ago, but she disappears every night and I just want to make sure that she’s okay.”
You tilt your head in question, then gesture to your throat, shaking your head. You hadn’t quite found the best way to convey that you weren’t able to speak to people, but Percival seemed to be able to pick up the pieces. He stepped into the arena, finally, getting out into the clear moonlight that bathed the whole place.
“Well, I’m sorry about your voice, uhm, shake or nod your head for yes or no? About my cat?”
Your heart melted a little bit about the worry he had for you, and you wished you could assuage his worry altogether, but it was a bit hard to explain your situation. You shook your head, mournfully.
“Ah, thank you,” he sounded down, hanging his head, but then turned his eyes back to you. “Would it be rude of me to ask what a lady like you is doing out here so late?”