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"Arthur, I-"
Merlin stopped short and started squinting his eyes at Arthur.
Arthur, who had upon hearing the door open hastily shuffled his blanket around and was now draped over it suspiciously.
"What are you doing?" Merlin asked, eyes fixed on a small spot between Arthur's arms, where something underneath the blanket seemed to be moving.
"I, nothing, how many times have I told you to knock, Merlin?"
Merlin waved him off.
He was just about to say something when a muffled chirping sound came from Arthur's direction.
"Arthur," Merlin whispered, mouth agape, "do you have... a chick in here?"
Arthur rolled his eyes and lifted the blanket. Underneath there wasn't just one chick, but a total of six baby chicks happily ruffling their tiny feathers.
Merlin groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"What is this?" he asked. Ever since Arthur had become king, he seemed to be a little beside himself and Merlin didn't quite know what to do to help his friend.
"Baby chicks," Arthur rolled his eyes as if to say 'obviously'.
"I know they are baby chicks, what I want to know is what they're doing here in your chambers."
Arthur turned to look at the birds on his bed and frown as if he saw them for the first time.
"I couldn't find their mother."
"So you what, thought you could be their mother?"
Another eye-roll.
"Don't be ridiculous Merlin, now that you're here, you're going to be the mother of course. I am the king, I don't have the time to play mother hen to a bunch of tiny ones."
Merlin stared at him with an open mouth.
"What do you mean I'm the mother? What do you expect me to do? Feed them? Bathe them?"
Arthur nodded.
"That's a start."
He got up from his bed and clapped Merlin on his shoulder.
"I have a counsel meeting now, make sure that they're comfortable until I'm back."
Before Merlin could retort anything, he was left alone with six baby chicks excitedly running about the king of Camelot's chambers.
"I'm sure that wasn't in the job description when I accepted my destiny," Merlin sighed and took a couple of steps toward the bed.
If only either of them had known at that moment that these chicken would grow up to be chaos incarnated, Arthur might've thought twice about his decision to take them in. On the other hand, it would become his favourite hobby the dress his new pets up and watch them waggle around on the farm he and Merlin would buy for keeping them. It wasn't the farm life he had always hoped to have one day but it was close enough. Whenever he was with the chicken and Merlin, he could forget - just for a few hours - about all the responsibility and pressure on his shoulders. And in those moments, he'd argue that rescuing the chicks was the best thing he'd ever done in his entire life.