Chapter Text
After days of anticipating this moments, after weeks of work and nerves and sweat, the day had finally arrived. For all the servants, they could finally relax slightly as they witnessed the fruits of their labour. For Arthur, he could relax and to talk to Queen Anis and King Olaf, who he had placed near him because he got along with those two the best out of all the visiting nobles. For Morgana, she had finally finished the dress, and was just waiting for the right moment to present it. As Merlin looked around the hall over the sea of grinning faces, he felt like the only one who was nervous was him.
“You have nothing to worry about.” Arthur told him for the thousandth time as they held hands under the table, “You’re going to be amazing.”
Merlin watched anxiously as more and more food was brought out. When the tables were full, Arthur would stand up and announce his Court Sorcerer as the entertainment for the evening, not that everybody knew by now, and were casting curious glances at him that made him want to sink further back into his seat. Instead, he rocked back and forth in his chair. He knew every spell of by heart. He had gone over everything over and over again. Now if he could get everything to work…
“Merlin.” Arthur brought him out of his thoughts, “People can see you panicking from a mile away. You need to stop.”
“Stop panicking?” Merlin said incredulously, fighting to keep his voice down as well as going a pitch higher, “I’ll just take a deep breath, shall I, Sire?”
“You know what I mean.” Arthur rolled his eyes, “Now talk to someone, otherwise the nobles are going to think you’re mute as well as dumb.”
Merlin gulped but didn’t answer as Arthur turned back to his conversation with King Olaf. When Merlin squeezed Arthur’s hand, however, Arthur didn’t hesitate to squeeze back.
“You know...” Merlin turned to hear the voice of Queen Anis beside him, “My father once told me a story that reminds me of you. Would you like me to tell it to you?”
Unaware of where this was going, Merlin nodded, thinking it was better than stressing himself for the next ten minutes.
Seeing his nod, Queen Anis continued, “Well, it focused on this young bird… let’s call it a Merlin, shall we? Anyway, this Merlin was an eager young bird who flew around day after day, full of energy and never ever stopping. When other birds would tell it to slow down, the Merlin would say that he couldn’t, because he one day dreamed of flying in the sky. The other birds laughed at them, but the little Merlin paid them no heed. He just kept on flying.”
“Okay.” Merlin smiled his thanks at a maid who was placing a selection of foods on their table, “Where is this going?”
“Keep quiet and I’ll tell you.” Queen Anis told him patiently, to which Merlin shut up, “Anyway, one day the little Merlin met a dragon. A dragon that was famous for travelling the world through its enormous skies. The Merlin, very excited to meet the dragon, asked it if it would ever be able to fly in the sky like the dragon did. The dragon laughed, like all the other birds did, and said to the Merlin that it was already in the sky. The Merlin, taken aback from having been living the dream for so long answered ‘that’s it?’ and the dragon told him to make the most of it before he flew off.”
“That’s it?” Merlin frowned.
“Problem?” Queen Anis said as her servant poured her some wine.
“No.” Merlin said as he did his own and Arthur’s out of habit, “I was just expecting… a better ending, I guess.”
“Well, most stories don’t even have endings.” Queen Anis shrugged, “Yours doesn’t have an ending, neither does mine…”
“Is there a point to all this?” Merlin asked, regretting the slight impatience that was sneaking into his tone. Before he could apologise though, Queen Anis laughed.
“The point is that you have to make the most of it.” She chuckled, “Arthur told me last night that you have been stressing yourself silly over this performance, but there’s honestly no need for it.”
Merlin, only just holding his tongue, silently urged for her to continue.
“You’ve tricked yourself into thinking that this performance, while it is important, could alter your life somehow. However, after you finish it, perfect or not, while you may feel some adrenaline afterwards, by tomorrow you’re just going to feel like you again.”
“I guess.” Merlin said, slowly starting to see where she was getting.
“Even if you do mess up, Merlin, there’s always going to be another chance to impress old fools like us. Your fears have made you believe that it has to be perfect, but I’m going to tell you now that is not that case. Go out there and do your best. Mistakes aren’t going to stop Camelot from admiring you and they’re certainly not going to stop Arthur from loving you.”
“You’re right.” Merlin smiled, holding tighter onto Arthur’s hand, “I really needed to hear that. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” Queen Anis smirked, “Just make sure you don’t set the palace on fire, alright? I know first hand how clumsy you can be.”
“Merlin?” Merlin turned to see Arthur waiting for him, “Are you ready?”
Merlin took one last look at the hall and the anxious glances and the ready tables before turning back to Arthur, “Yeah.”
Not letting go of Merlin’s hand, Arthur stood up. Immediately the conversation in the room died, all eyes on him in a matter of seconds.
“Ladies and Gentlemen.” Arthur greeted the hall in a manner very similar to his father’s, “I’m delighted that you could all make it this evening, and honoured to be in your presence. As you all know, this is my first time hosting a feast of this proportions, and so I thank you all for your patience and for the encouragement that was found in your letters. As you know, one of the topics of this feast that have been greatly anticipated has been Camelot’s attitude towards magic. To stem the flow of rumours, I would like to confirm that we are welcoming towards magic and all that practice the art. I am aware that some of you here tonight are still wary of magic, and still believe it to be corrupt in some way.”
There are some murmurings in the hall. Merlin’s nerves turn into embarrassment for a brief second, and he can’t help but flush and look down. Seeing this in his peripherals, Arthur squeezed his hand and moved on.
“To address this problem, my manservant Merlin, who will be granted the title Court Sorcerer in a few months, is willing to perform his magic tonight to show that magic is a tool, created evil only by a person’s will. While we’re not expecting this performance to open eyes to any epiphanies, we do ask that you think about what you see tonight and consider the true intentions of sorcerers.”
With that, Arthur thanked his audience and sat back down, with a final intake of breath, Merlin let go of Arthur’s hand and rose, almost tripping over the leg of his chair as he made his way to the centre of the room.
As the rest of the room grew quiet, Merlin closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were a solid fierce gold.
Muttering the spell that he had been practicing for over a month now, Merlin immediately felt his adrenaline mix with his magic as butterflies of all shapes and sizes appeared out of thin air. Upon Merlin’s command they flew around the room and formed shapes that, to Merlin’s delight, earned gasps and applause from the onlookers. When Merlin dared look, he found that most people in the audience were looking at the butterflies with awe and bewilderment on their faces, as if they were enchanted themselves. However, in his peripherals, Merlin could see some blatant frowns and disapproving shakes of the head. Merlin quickly pushed them out of his head, knowing it’ll only lead to disaster and focused on the butterfly swarm that was now forming the shape of a dragon.
After five or so minutes of butterflies performing tricks and stunts in the air, Merlin snapped his fingers and the butterflies dispersed. Instead of disappearing though, the butterflies flew to one guest of the choosing, landing on their heads. Many of the guests welcomed their new friend with little strokes of the wing, but others started shooing them away the moment they got to close. After everyone had finished greeting their new companion, the hall burst into applause.
After the applause had died down, Merlin looked up and started shouting in draconic, to the surprise of many in the audience, who had believed the dragonlords to be long gone. When the gold had died down in Merlin’s eyes and nothing happened, all audience members followed Merlin’s gaze up to the ceiling, where banners were hanging down.
It wasn’t long before a small white head peeked out from behind the banner and stretched her wings. Drinking in the gasps of amazement that were rippling around the crowd, she leapt from the alcove and, with a loop-the-loop purely to show off, she landed neatly on Merlin’s outstretched arm.
Enjoying the applause and the attention far more than she should have been doing, Aithusa puffed out her chest and sat up straight, intensely smug only after five seconds after her performance.
“Okay Aithusa.” Merlin whispered to her, which was enough to snap her out of it, “Ready for the first trick?”
When the gawking over the baby dragon was over and done with, Merlin’s eyes glowed gold once more and people leant back slightly as every single lit candle in the room had their flame taken of them.
“Ready?” Merlin whispered again. Aithusa, her eyes darting to each off the candle flames, gave a small purr of determination in her voice.
“Go!” Merlin shouted, throwing Aithusa into the air. Immediately, Aithusa made for the nearest levitating candle flame and stepped on it, the flame unable to harm her because of her dragon scales. As soon as she had leapt of the candle flame onto the next, Merlin used his magic to make the candle flame explode into a firework, forming the Pendragon crest before fading into nothing.
On and on Aithusa went, leaping from one candle flame to the next, all of them exploding into a firework in her wake. The sparks, colourful and harmless, rained down onto the audience, who were to busy staring at Aithusa to notice. After leaping from every candle flame that had been levitating in the air, Aithusa jumped of the final one and landed back on Merlin’s outstretched arm. As soon as she’d done so, she tilted her head back and breathed out as much fire as she could. Then, she felt the fire being taken from her and Merlin manipulated it to form the Pendragon’s crest once more before that to became a firework.
The audience were getting eager for more now. The knights had been shouting themselves horse all evening and Gwaine was already drunk enough to be shouting inappropriate comments. Knowing that she was done for now, Aithusa crawled her way up to Merlin’s shoulder so that Merlin could use both of his arms.
Next, Merlin took a deep breath to calm his nerves as he muttered the spell he had learnt of by heart over and over again under his breath until he could feel shouts of surprise all around the room. Slowly, he could see that all the wine that had been in the room was slowly lifting out of their glasses and pitchers, to the objections of some people. Merlin ignored them and continued lifting the wine out of their respective glass. Slowly, drop by drop, he guided all the wine into the centre of the room to create one big bubble. While it was impressive, Merlin could understand that, when looking around the room, he could see glances of apprehension and doubt.
Now, here’s the thing – Merlin had heard Arthur complain for days on end that in their letters, everyone had asked for a specific type of wine, fruited, mulled or otherwise. Merlin had joked that the nobles only had a preference to look posh, and wouldn’t actually be able to tell the difference between one drink or another. While it hadn’t succeeded in making Arthur feel any better, it had given Merlin a new idea for his performance.
Ignoring the protests of the others, Merlin mixed all the wines together until they formed one big bubble in the centre of the room. Merlin had hoped that if he wasn’t able to get the approval of the nobles through magic, then he may be able to get it through their stomachs. After moving the gigantic bubble of wine around the room and making it clear to the audience that he was mixing the liquids, he then separated them all into tinier bubbles, making obvious that each bubble was meant for one glass.
After the bubble of liquid had made it safely back into a glass, Merlin turned to Gwaine, “Could you take a sip of your drink, please?”
“Do you even need to ask me?” Gwaine asked as he grabbed his cup and downed the lot, not caring if it was an amalgamation of flavours. When he finished and lowered the cup, Merlin grinned at the frown on Gwaine’s face, “It tastes exactly the same!”
There were several more exclamations as other nobles tried their own respective drinks, only to find that, even after all the mixing the wine had gone through, Merlin had still been able to filter them all back to their original owners. When the audience members had understood what he’d done, they burst into even more applause.
“Ready?” Merlin asked Aithusa once more. With a flap of her wings, Aithusa steadied herself back onto Merlin’s outstretched arm again.
“Go!” Merlin shouted as he launched Aithusa up into the air for the second time that evening. This time, Aithusa dove for the red banner that was hanging down in the middle of the hall and grabbed it with her tiny jaws. While Aithusa’s weight alone wasn’t enough to tear the banner down, Merlin’s magic quickly snapped the strings that kept it suspended, and Aithusa quickly dragged it back towards her master. Once the banner had been safely delivered into Merlin’s hands, Aithusa crawled onto his head and sat there, believing that she had managed to tear down that massive banner all by herself. Not caring to tell her otherwise, Merlin let her bathe in the applause while he took the banner apart. With their mouths hanging open, the audience watched in horror as Merlin stripped the banner and used magic to reduce it to ribbons. Once he had done, Merlin scattered the ribbons around the room and levitated them in the air, letting them float. When Aithusa recognised that as her que, she hopped back down onto Merlin’s outstretched arm.
“Ready Aithusa?” Merlin asked as he bent his arm slightly, “Go!”
Launched for the third and final time, Aithusa flew amongst the ribbons of large red cloth that were breezing by like clouds. It wasn’t long however before they started moving, manipulated by Merlin’s magic.
Immediately, Aithusa was forced into action. She dipped, dived and zipped her way across the room, avoiding the makeshift obstacle course at all costs. Each piece of cloth moved in an unpredictable pattern, all that she was able to avoid with a swift flap of her wings. She raced along the tables, she hopped onto heads and burned a few pieces of cloth, all which Merlin mended. She twisted and turned and weaved between people before using the cloth as a springboard and leaping across each one. To the people below, she was a white blur who raced from one obstacle to the next. After ten minutes or so, when Aithusa finally started to feel tired, she dove back into Merlin’s arms, who hugged her back just as enthusiastically as the crowd burst into applause.
With Aithusa comfortably back on his shoulders, Merlin stopped the cloth’s movements and, to the amazement of the crowd, stitched the banner back together and placed it unharmed back on the ceiling. As Merlin and Aithusa bowed, nobles that have never spared him a second glance stood up and whistled. The knights were screaming, Gwaine was throwing roses at him and Arthur had never looked more proud.
When Merlin had returned to his seat with a sigh, Arthur gave his guests permission to start eating.
“It seems that juggling isn’t your only talent.” Queen Anis smiled as she loaded her plate with food. Merlin laughed, only to then laugh harder as Aithusa snatched a pork pie out of Arthur’s hands.
O=II==========>
“That was quite the show, wasn’t it?” Gwen asked Morgana a few hours later, “I didn’t know Merlin could do… that. I mean, I’ve only ever seen him use his magic to protect Arthur.”
“Same here.” Morgana agreed as she collapsed onto her bed, grateful for the moment of silence, “While I do think party tricks are beneath him, it was nice to see Merlin enjoying himself at a feast for once.”
“I do as well.” Gwen smiled, “I’m glad that he’s finally happy.”
Giving a small hum of agreement, Morgana finally sucked up her courage and sat up, “Gwen, there’s been something I’ve been meaning to give you.”
Gwen turned, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I have a present.” Morgana said, panicking slightly as the words that she had rehearsed slowly left her mind.
“A gift? For me?” Gwen whirled on her, the wash rag slapping at her wrist, “Morgana you shouldn’t have, you-“
“Gwen, I wanted to get you a gift, so I did.” Morgana blurted, only to then purse her lips, “Gods, listen to me, I sound like Arthur. Just… here. I wanted to give you this.”
Blinking in surprise, Gwen could only watch as Morgana pulled out a beautiful purple dress that was lined with golden thread.
“If you’re wondering why it looks similar to Merlin’s new neckerchief…” Morgana started, her insecurities getting the better of her, “Just know that it was my idea before Arthur’s. The dress took me longer to work on and Arthur totally stole my idea, just so you know-“
“Morgana, it’s beautiful.” Gwen breathed, stroking the silk, “It must have cost you a fortune…!”
“No. Not quite.” Morgana coughed, feeling very awkward all of a sudden, “I made it.”
“Then those things you bought at the market…”
“I made this dress with them, Gwen. And it’s all for you.”
“Morgana!” Gwen blushed, unsure of what to say, “Do you mind if I try it on!”
“Off course!” Morgana quickly gave Gwen the dress and shooed her behind the screen, the two of them laughing with how happy they were. As Gwen got herself comfortable behind the screen, Morgana cautiously approached her drawer. Slowly, she pulled out the top one and reached for the mistletoe that had been there for about a month.
When Gwen stepped out in her new dress, Morgana was waiting for her, holding the mistletoe in the air. Gwen, not needing to be told twice, took two strides towards her and leapt into Morgana’s arms, allowing herself to be pulled into a kiss that she’d been waiting years for.
O=II==========>
Merlin snuggled up closer to Arthur, letting Arthur guide his head so that it was using the King’s chest as a pillow. Across the room, of he strained his ears, he could hear Aithusa snoring softly in Arthur’s favourite chair.
“You were amazing out there.” Arthur whispered softly to him as he stroked Merlin’s hair.
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.” Arthur kissed his forehead, “I was expecting something amazing, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t expecting… that.”
“I don’t think anyone was.” Merlin smiled, allowing himself to be proud of himself just this once.
“You really are full of surprises, Merlin.” Arthur yawned as he shifted his head to get more comfortable, “I can’t recall a single noble who wasn’t grinning once you were done.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re going to change their mind about magic, though.” Merlin sighed.
“No.” Arthur agreed, “But I suppose baby steps are better than nothing.”
Merlin hummed in agreement, kissing Arthur’s chest, “Go to sleep.” He chuckled after Arthur had yawned a second time.
When Arthur had finally fallen asleep, Merlin drew circles on his chest, thinking about what had happened a few hours ago.
He found that, during the feast, what Queen Anis had said was true. After a few minutes of adrenaline after the performance, the nobles just went back to their normal conversations with their friends. After a few compliments, Merlin gradually felt himself calm down and feel like himself again. While he was eating and talking to Queen Anis, he realised that these performances, convincing nobles that magic wasn’t bad, was probably going to become a past time for him, and that he shouldn’t be getting so worked up about them.
His new life as a Court Sorcerer was only a few months away, and Merlin was going to make sure that every second of it was filled to the brim with magic.