Two Sides of The Same Coin (Merthur)(Discontinued)

The Hunt

Merlin is a show owned by BBC. I do not own Merlin or any of it's characters, only the plot is mine.


The morning was unusual, but only because of how usual it was. I had expected some sort of something. An evil sorcerer maybe, an early hunt gone terribly wrong, some sort of mythical creature, trying to kill Arthur, I don't know. Something! I brought it up to Gaius, how wrong it felt, how I knew something should be happening, but I got nothing back.

"You should relax, Merlin. If you haven't heard anything, Arthur must be safe, for the time being." But I still felt like something was wrong. Morgana would be plotting up some evil scheme, or recycling the idea of poisoning the cups. I just knew it. And I also knew not to ignore myself when I felt like this. Last time somebody ignored these feelings Shrine Boy was disturbed from his resting place, possessed Elyan, and tried to make Elyan kill Arthur. Of course, Arthur apologized and the Shrine Boy accepted the apology, but that only went to show what happened when my uneasy feelings were ignored.

Not to mention that I was getting bored. Most of the time, I followed Arthur around, met danger with him, and secretly saved his life, along with polish his armor, dress him, serve his breakfast, groom his horse, get him ready for the day, and nearly anything else a servant does for their master. When I wasn't serving Arthur, Gaius usually had me sweeping the floor, putting away books, delivering medicines, or, my least favorite; cleaning the leach tank. But Arthur hadn't yet asked for me today, and Gaius only had one medicine to deliver, which he had done himself. In fact, it wasn't until noon that I heard Arthur's unmistakable voice.

"Merlin!" A moment later, he came barging into the room, his blond hair messy, and his shirt and pants so tangled and messy that I had to wonder how in the world he could put it on to make it look like that. Arthur approached quickly, with that kingly walk of his, and scuffed me in the back of the head.

"Merlin, you idiot. I slept late. Why didn't you wake me?" I shrugged, rubbing the back of my head a little, and fake panting. I tried to block some thoughts from coming through, but a couple slipped by. How could they not? Arthur was gorgeous, and as his servant -although I felt ashamed of it, sometimes- I got the privilege to see him naked regularly as I dressed him or he bathed.

"You could use the extra sleep. After the hunt and the tavern, you looked like a walking corpse. So, naturally, I thought you could use the extra sleep." Arthur huffed, not having an answer, and turned to walk away.

"Well, anyways," He turned back to me, "We're going on a hunt in an hour. I already had breakfast." Arthur started to leave again, but before he could make it out of the door, Gaius spoke.

"For God's sake, Merlin. Help him with his clothes." I rolled my eyes, but smiled, as I went to comply. I would've let Arthur walk around the castle like that for a little bit. Wouldn't hurt his ego to have a couple people laughing at him.

"What's wrong with my clothes?" Arthur asked defensively. He didn't move to push me away, though, and being close to Arthur was always nice. In a couple moments, his clothing was almost completely straightened out, but Arthur was wearing the same shirt that he had spilled ale on yesterday, which was strange, because he usually slept shirtless. So, I folded and held the shirt in my hand as I followed Arthur back into his bedchambers.

Then Arthur beant forward with his arms out, as I pulled the red shirt over his head. There. I was busy again. Everything was back to normal. It was actually going to be our sixth hunt in three days. Arthur was heartbroken over the betrayel of Gwen, even though he tried not to show it, and would do anything to get his mind off of her.I understood how he felt, as I had been just as heartbroken when Freya was killed.

The hunts were one part I hated about serving Arthur. The animals killed were always so innocent, doing nothing to hurt anybody. But Arthur still saw it fit to shoot them with an arrow or something like that. I would have thought that, after the unicorn, Arthur would be more thoughtful when chosing to do that sort of thing, but I supposed that men in power liked to kill their animals. And I would support Arthur through anything, well, almost anything. I didn't like him trying to find people to replace Gwen, but how could I? Those two were a beautiful pair, and if Arthur was looking for somebody, why couldn't he see me? He saw Gwen when she was a serving girl, so he should see me just as well.

But, of course, he hasn't. Why should he? Arthur's a guy, I'm a guy, and that's practically unheard of. It'd be a difficult secret to keep. But then again, I already had one of those, Arthur having one wouldn't hurt to much either, as long as he knew how to keep it to himself. Well, to himself and me, and I wouldn't tell.

But here we were, going hunting, to get his mind off of Gwen. Consuming his time with somebody else, instead of something else may have worked better. Alas, that wasn't the way of life, anywhere, and I was in Arthur's stables, preparing his horse for a short ride to wherever Arthur wanted to go. There was some food and wine in the saddlebags, in case Arthur got hungry during the trip, and a cloak, in case he got cold. Everything I did, I did for Arthur, and I hardly even allowed to ask myself why I couldn't fill another role. Why I couldn't be a lover for him. True, I was skinny, with pale skin and black hair, but I was pretty sure blue eyes were supposed to be nice. Couldn't Arthur look at me and see those, instead of the rest?

"Merlin." My thoughts were interrupted by Gwaine, who was hopping onto his horses back. I smiled at my old friend. Gwaine was a bit strange in some ways. He was more talkative than all of the other knights combined, and a little bit stupid. But the thing that I never understood was why Gwaine was still in Camelot as a knight. When we had met, Gwaine had told me that he was actually noble, but that he didn't want to be a knight. That might have been because he didn't want to serve anybody until Arthur, but it really didn't make sense to me why he was staying, instead of participating in tavern brawls around the world. But my thoughts were interrupted when Gwaine spoke again,

"You may want to take that horse to Arthur. He'll be expecting to head out soon." With that, Gwaine led his own left out, and I was left to myself, leading two horses into the main square, and the steps right outside of the castle.

Just in time, as it turned out, when, a moment after I stopped outside with the horses, the castle doors opened, and Arthur came outside with some of his other knights. He strolled down the steps contently and mounted his horse with ease. I mounted directly afterwards, and by the time I was up, all the knights were ready to go.

"An old fashioned hunt. Good to have one of these in so long...." Gwaine's endless, thoughtless chatter continued, and I don't think I was the only one to grin when I caught the sarcasm in Gwaine's voice. All of us were thinking it, Gwaine was just brave enough to say it, or just the only one stupid enough to say it.

The ride to the edge of the forest was quick, and once there, Arthur gave the silent command to get off of our horses, and head into the woods on foot. I was right behind Arthur, as usual, holding his weapons. Of course, I would never kill anything, as I hated to see life wasted, but I let and helped Arthur have his own fun.

We walked through the woods attempting to be quiet, but the knight's heavy armor made a bit of a clumping sound, and I was in no way gracious, and anything but clumsy. Well, I guess you could say that I was only clumsy when I was trying to sneak around. I usually bumped into a table or something and shattered a bunch of little medicine vials. In all fairness, Gaius should have locked those up in the first place. They could easily break out there in the open, and what would happen if an enemy of Arthur's sneeked in to steal poison? Yeah... it's all Gaius's fault.

"Come on, Merlin." Arthur complained. I realized how slowly I was walking, and instantly sped up to match Arthur's quick pace. A moment later, Arthur put his hand up, telling everybody to stop, then gave the knights the signal to circle something in a small clearing ahead. I stayed in my place behind Arthur as he approached his target. There, in the clearing, was a large deer with large antlers and ten points. It was red and beautiful, and I had a difficult time holding in my impressed whistle, although I felt the smile break out on my face for seeing such a beautiful creature, but it quickly dissapeared when I remembered what the fate of this animal was to be,

I watched curiosly, wondering what Arthur would do now, but instead of asking me for his required weapons, Arthur bent down and whispered something into my ear.

"This is a Hart, Merlin." I nodded, intrested in what Arthur was going to tell me, but kept my eyes on the 'Hart'. Arthur continued "A hart has the highest level of prestige on all wild animals to hunt. Better yet, this is a Hart of ten. He has ten points on his antlers. The way we're supposed to hunt these is with rache, a type of hunting dog. We don't have any with us right now The knights and I are going back to the castle to get some, but we need someone to watch this beauty. You up for it?" I smiled and nodded. Of course I'd watch something as amazing as this.

The knights came back, gathered around Arthur, then headed off to get their hunting dogs. I was left by myself watching the hart. I didn't mind at all, it was kinda nice to be by myself in nature, with the birds chirping, and the sound of falling water not far off. Plus, the fact that I was here watching this animal at all was amazing. The deer wasn't really leaving the area. He had found a nice puddle and was lapping up water, happily. I half-wondered why no does were joining him, but I supposed it was alright, he may of just been that he was enjoying some alone time. I sat on the ground, watching, until I heard the dogs approaching and the halt began to run. They were quickly followed by the hunters, most of which looked like they were having a great time. But, just as the hunters were reaching me, we heard hoof beats approaching from the opposite direction.

"Who do you suppose that is?" Gwaine asked out loud, but we would see soon enough.

They approached quickly from here, and I saw nothing besides swirling cloaks of yellow and green, and horses. That was all. By the time I was just starting to make out the symbols, the men around me had drawn their swords, and Arthur had pushed me behind him as he ran forward. At first, I felt both touched and annoyed that Arthur was trying to keep me safe, but then I realized that I had been in his way, and he had just been trying to get past. Of course.

A seemingly regular fight insude, with the enemies running and getting slaughtered, and none of the knights even getting a scratch. I stayed to the back, still holding Arthur's weapons. If anybody were to come after me, I could use my magic without anybody noticing, what with all the action going on. And, soon enough the fight was over, and the knights were heading back to Camelot, all complaining about the lost hart.

At one point during the ride, Gwaine was saying something about 'that hart would've been such a catch, wouldn't he of? All of Camelot would have been impressed. No, all of....' he continued on as he usually did, and I bowed my head as I listened. The horses head and my own bowed head hid my face, so that nobody could see my smile.

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Author's note!

Hey guys! Here's your first chapter. Sorry 'bout the action part. I'm not so great with that, but maybe when it comes to a bigger fight... Give feedback! What do you guys think? How'd I get the characters down? Can you tell that Gwaine is my favorite knight? Well, he was at first anyways. Comment, Comment, Comment! I really appreciate it! REALLY!!!! So... yeah! And read my other stories. You'll see how much I suck at action. Love you guys! Thanks for reading!