Dismantle The Sun

Chapter 10

"Who are you?" Merlin demanded, refusing to let the fear that crept along his spine creep up any further into his voice.

"Cedric Sigan. Ah, I see you know my little friend" Replied his nasal voice soft with seductive menace. He guestured to his shining black glass knife with a wicked grin spinning it in his hand. Merlin tried to back away but felt the press of the wall behind him. He was trapped, and injured. The man, Cedric, was taller that Merlin, slightly but this was disguised by an awkward haunch of his shoulders. He was thin to the point of painfulness. His face was sunken, as if malnourished and addicted to stardust, and reminded Merlin of the long extinct weasels. His eyes wear as drab and watery as dishwater but alive and hungry and slivers of dirt lingered under his fingernails. Upon his head sat a bowl of anemic straw hair. His clothes were dark and tatty as if they had seen many cycles, yet some how the rags lent an air to his menace.

"Arthur!" He shouted, hoping desperately that he wasn't too far from the bridge, that noe one was having a loud argument, that Leo wasn't crying for attention. Cedric pouted at him mockingly.

"Awe he can't hear you, too bad so sad" he taunted, his soft voice a gentle singing song of ill intenet.

"You don't have to do this" explained Merlin. His long hands up in calming surrendered as his blue eyes watched the glinting knife as its angles hit the light.

"Actually I do, my employer is paying a lot of money for the heart of a star, and I can be a wealthy man." Cedric explained back with a neutrally apologetic shrug. His apathy turned Merlin's stomach cold.

"Arthur...." Merlin whispered, his eyes glinting with a hope that Cedric couldn't recognise as the raven haired man watched a shadow creep up behind the blonde haired man.

"He can't help you now" Cedric hissed like a cobra. Madness travelled from his grim grin to his pale grey eyes. He laughed a discomforting laigh.

"You would be surprised." Growled a voice in Cedric's ear- as hard and as cold as diamonds. It was unforgiving as he felt a sharp, stabbing sensation up under his ribs. He gasped before looking down to see the hilt of the blade now buried in his side.

"Oh" he muttered asn quietly as a summer night as the light that shone dimly behind his muddy eyes dimmed further and went out. He fell the floor, a dead weight: lifeless.

"Are you hurt?" Asked the captain- his gentle etes swimming with a mythical concern, watery with worry, as he watched the other man and offed him a strong hand to help him get up from the floor. Merlin smiled marginally and then sucked in a deep breath in pain.

"Uh, slighty?" Merlin answered, moving away the pale delicacy of his hand from where it clasped against his side at the left to reveal a trickle of crimson blood that stained his black ninja costume a darker shade of black. Arthur felt his heart pitch and keen for a moment looking at it, the way Josephine, the space spice, did in the rugged winds of the Megálos Ánemos nebula, when the mites of space ragged against her bow and smashed and screamed for her to lose her course, but she, like her captain, never did and stayed true as the blond man's worried heart through the raging space storm.

"Idiot. Come with me." Arthur muttered. A reliefed grin dancing a little on his features which were handsome when he saw that Merlin had only suffered a small injury. He stepped closer a reached out as if to ruffle Merlin's hair in friendly affection, but when Merlin looked at thim with those employing and confused eyes of his, Arthur lost his nerve and he gestured with his head for him to follow him. Merlin trotted dociley along behind the captain's swift footsteps, too bemused at the other man's oddity to point out that they were going the long way round.

"Sit there" Arthur said, when they arrived and immediately turned away from the other man to start clatter about the cupboards to try and find the medical supplies. He muttered the odd dark swear word under his golden breath, looking for the Hypycros spray.