Merlin Headcanons

Fool

The Great Hall was emptier than it used to be.

Much emptier.

Those who remained were grim and paranoid. The guard's eyes were haunted and the noble's fearful.

The king's, of course, were mad.

Once, Johan's assistant would have been creating pictures from the flames by now to charm reluctant smiles from the crowd. Or, more to the point, to charm smiles out of the pretty girl who sang to accompany them and whose name he could never remember.

He had sent his assistant away when this unpleasantness started.

He hadn't gotten far, and the pretty girl's smiles had grown false and her eyes heavy with guilt.

He wasn't quite sure where his wife was. She was the daughter of a dragonlord's cousin. She might have been killed in a riot or by vigilantes when she'd gone to visit her mother, or she might have joined her family in the army rapidly growing by the Isle of the Blessed.

And still he kept smiling, because he was the court jester and that was his job. Part of it, anyways.

Tonight, he intended to remind them of the other part.

"Goodness, it's quiet tonight," he said into the silence. Quiet and empty. No one had filled the seats on either side of the king. No one would presume to take Ygraine's, and the place where Balinor used to sit seemed to still hold him a little too strongly somehow.

Johan wondered if Balinor still believed the best of Uther or if Old Sedric had finally managed to talk some sense into him. Mathis would be no help at all; he idolized Balinor and Uther by extension.

Once, at least. Mathis was dead now. He had forgotten.

He stepped out onto the center of the floor. "Come, come! It is too grim by far in here, when we have such excellent news from our allies and friends! Let us have a tale! Your majesty? What say you?"

His majesty looked like he'd like nothing more than to tell him to go away - there was the petulant boy he remembered - but the court had perked up, so he waved a hand. "Come. Divert us."

"Once there was a fisherman," he said, flinging his arms wide. "He was well liked and respected by those of his village, and he had a beautiful wife and all a man could ask for. But he worried over what they would do when he grew old and less able to work, so he desire, more than anything, a pearl of great value to sell." He whisked one out from behind a lady's ear. Sleight of hand, nothing more, but a dangerous trick in these time, nonetheless.
He tossed the pearl up into the air. "As his wife was walking on the shore one cold day, she spotted a fine pearl at the bottom of shallows. It was unnatural good luck, so she waded out and picked it up, wondering by what chance it had come to be free of it's oyster. She ran home, never minding her wet dress, and presented it to her husband, who was well pleased." He tossed the pearl to a startled knight.

"Well pleased until she caught chill from the cold and the wet, fell ill, and died." The king had grown rather white in the face. "The man set the pearl aside, still grateful for its value but ignorant of its real worth, and went to the rest of the village. He declared that water was wicked and ought to be done away with. He was a powerfully built man and had a fearful look in his eye, so they listened."

He reclaimed his pearl. "Naturally, they all died. A great storm arose and swept the remnants of the village out to sea where the pearl was swallowed by a shark. And that, oh, king, is my tale."

The king had risen from his seat. "Guards!"

"To avenge your wife, you've condemned your son. He'll be washed away in a tide of magical blood. By your own hand you've written this fate."

"You speak treason," the king hissed as the guards grabbed his arms.

"I speak truth. And when the truth becomes treason, kingdoms fall, old friend."

There was no trace of his old friend in that enraged face.

Johan, son of Taliesin, was led away.

He was beheaded at dawn.

. . . . .

A/N: I was thinking about how Annis thought Merlin was Arthur's fool. He's not, of course, despite filling some of the same functions. (Makes the king laugh, tells the king uncomfortable truths, mocks the king when no one else dares . . . ) Arthur doesn't actually seem to have a court jester, and neither did Uther.

But did Uther never have one, or did something . . . unfortunate happen? I leaned towards the latter.

What's up with the Taliesin thing? Some of you probably already know, some may not. Historically, he was a bard. In some legends, he was also a prophet. In this case, I meant to imply that Johan was maybe doing more than just be creepy at the end.