Merlin tugged at the collar of his starch white jacket for perhaps the hundredth time, swallowing in a vain attempt to moisten his throat. Sweat clung to his forehead, droplets running down his nose, down the back of his neck. His jacket clung to him more viciously than ever, the perspiration marrying it thickly to his back, he could feel the moisture slick under his arms, between his legs, every unpleasant, impossible, place, and Merlin decided that if he had to carry on one more minute he'd simply jump off the bloody ship and take his chances in the freezing ocean. The thought of the cool water alone was enough to make him dizzy with desire.
He'd been hauling luggage for over an hour. Seemingly the Pendragons had decided to pack every item they possessed into a never-ending stream of luggage, perhaps because they were sadists, perhaps because Karma was using them as puppets with which to torture Merlin, but either way, the baggage was there.. At first it hadn't appeared so bad, the collection of trunks and cases destined for the luxurious room no more than two apiece. Merlin had carried them up to the Bridge Deck, checked the labels and stowed each case neatly in the appropriate room, he'd lit the lamps and started the fire in preparation for his master's return, but had then been summoned by a rather irate member of staff who ordered him back down to the luggage deck. Apparently the remainder of the Pendragon baggage had yet to be packed and stored on the lower level, so Merlin had been enslaved into dragging cases with what felt like solid rock inside up and down gruelling staircases, the heat of the boilers one level below near suffocating him. He worked alone and without help, the deck master merely raising his head from his paper to make a snide remark about the slowness of Merlin's pace, which Merlin found rather rich of him seeing as, by the look of him, it seemed the only exercise that man received was to walk from his chair to the table to eat his undoubtedly gruesomely large dinners.
By the time he was finished, Merlin was a wreck -sweating, panting, light headed – but he had no choice but to return straight to the room to await the men on their return from their excursion. He tried to wipe the sweat from his forehead, stayed out on deck as long as possible in an attempt to cool down and to alleviate any possible smell, but all too soon he was back in the suffocating warmth of the fire lit room, praying to God that he would go mostly unnoticed.
The door finally opened, and Merlin swallowed, standing to attention as best he could. Valiant entered first, brow furrowed and shoulders squared, and as his eyes fell upon Merlin he eyed him with displeasure, moving into the room and standing by the door. Uther followed, removing his gloves as he moved forward, finishing a sentence about tax deduction, he took a breath as if to continue, but paused as his eyes fell on Merlin, lips parted and eyes sharpening as they surveyed him. Merlin wanted to cringe. He must have looked worse than he'd thought. The third figure to enter barely made it through the door before stopping near dead still and staring at him, eyes moving over every inch of clinging material. Merlin ignored the blue eyes, not bothered to meet them and observe the contempt he knew he'd find. Uther held out his gloves, as though almost unwilling to hand them over to one such as the sweaty mess in front of him, and he cleared his throat.
"And what, may I ask, have you been doing?"
Merlin stepped forward and took them carefully, his cheeks burning partly from heat and partly from embarrassment.
"I've been transporting your luggage, Sir." Merlin bowed ever so slightly and then added, "All of it."
Uther stared a moment, in fact, all three of them did. Merlin felt like a freak from one of the travelling circuses, something to be laughed at, and there was certainly amusement in Uther's voice as he spoke.
"Luggage. Dear me. Let's hope we don't wear you out over this trip, my boy. We might require you to pull out a chair at some stage, Lord help us you might faint."
