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Once upon a time, in the land of Albion, there lived a boy named Merlin. Well, he would have objected to the word boy, preferring to be called man, or perhaps warlock, but honestly he was barely twenty and had only just moved out of his mother's cottage.
Regardless, Merlin did live in the land of Albion, and he was a warlock, ranging from somewhat hopeless to really quite impressive, depending upon the day and his motivation. He had a little home, made of stone and roofed over with straw. Straw wasn't actually very good at keeping out the elements, though, so it was mostly held together (rather shoddily) with magic. It let the rain in more often than it kept anything out, and during the winter the snow slipped in and piled up on the Wizard's Almanack, issues three through fourteen, and soaked through the pages of Mistress Maude's Goode Cookery where it'd been lying open to the recipe for Flampoyntes for several months.
Life as the town warlock was nice enough. There wasn't very much to do, although sometimes the baker called Merlin in to direct the forces of the elements against the grime under the bread oven, and occasionally he rescued a child or small pet from too deep water or (once) a burning building. Well, actually, it was just smoking a little, but it was highly possible that it could have begun to burn, had Merlin not stepped in.
Mostly, though, Merlin was content to clamber around fixing ceilings and patching up cottage walls with his steady hand, or to help the youngest children pick blackberries and bare the back of his neck to the sun as he pulled weeds in the fields.
Yes, Merlin was quite content with his lot in life, more than happy to conjure up magical creatures, stop time, or disappear into another century in his off hours, when he wasn't busy helping the townspeople. When he was alone, he did all those things, and when he wasn't doing that, he read.
He was a voracious reader, and thanks to his magic, he could borrow books from all the great libraries in the world with a snap of his fingers. His mother had taught him to read, having learnt it from her cousin, who was a chambermaid and had been taught it by her mistress. His mum swore it was important, and Merlin agreed. In books, he could see what it was to live in a castle, to eat from a silver platter and dance to jigs, to perform feats of enchantment for people wearing gem-studded diadems and finely fitted clothes. Merlin dreamed of being able to use his magic to defend a kingdom, of protecting a handsome prince, and perhaps, in his off time, gathering up the finest delicacies in all the land and laying them at his feet. Merlin dreamed of all this as he ate his dinner at his small, wooden table, and again as he fell asleep in his narrow bed of straw.
In the end, it was all the reading at got him into trouble, although the lonely house with the lonely bed certainly didn't help. As the winter gave way to the soggy beginnings of spring, a minstrel rode into town, on his way from the castle at Camelot to the neighboring fiefdom. It was at least another day's ride away, so he was easily convinced to stay and tell a story, as the townspeople plied him with bread and mead.
After he'd eaten, the minstrel stretched his long limbs out by the fire, all tawny in the flickering light. "Have you heard about Prince Arthur?" he asked, lazily nonchalant.
"No," the townspeople said at once, though they all felt guilty afterward for being such busybodies.
"Locked in a tower, he is," the minstrel said, picking at his teeth. "Enchanted by a sorceress. He sleeps all day and night, waiting to be rescued, and none of the knights have been able to get to him."
The townspeople oohed and aahed appreciatively. They hadn't had any outside entertainment in rather a while.
"So," Merlin said carefully. "Where would, uh, someone find this tower," he said, with a little cough, "Just out of completely idle curiosity."
"Right," the minstrel said slowly, sounding unconvinced. "Here, the king gave me directions to pass around." He handed Merlin a crumpled up bit of parchment. "Great load of rot, if y'ask me. Got any more of that yellow cheese? I'll sing the one about the baker and the groom, after."
Merlin waited until he was alone to read the parchment. He curled up in bed, using the stub of tallow candle that he reserved for special occasions to light the room. Holding the letter close, he strained to make out the spindly writing, and read:
Twixt Camelot and Oakengrove,
Beyond the blackened tree,
Ford the brook nearby the cove,
And there the prince shall be.
"Rhyming couplets," Merlin said sleepily. "How nice." With that, he blew out the precious candle, tucking the parchment under his pallet before he drifted off to sleep.
He dreamt of a slumbering prince, all bedecked in gold and with a smile more radiant than the sun.
So life went on. Merlin worked hard to forget about the imprisoned prince, but try as he might, he couldn't keep it out of his thoughts. While washing his face in the morning, he could have sworn he saw a tower flickering just out of sight in the basin, and while eating his dinner, he found himself discussing it aloud to the celery soup.
"It's not far," he said conversationally, "And it's not as though I have anything better to do. And really, it's rude to leave someone in a tower, when you know perfectly well that you could get him out and still be home by teatime. He could catch a chill," Merlin added plaintively, in the general direction of the butter tray. "It's barbaric."
As usual, he ended up turning to his mother for advice. Hunith was, in Merlin's opinion, one of the wisest people in all the world. This was agreed upon throughout the village, and in fact people came from all over the fiefdom to ask for her advice. She lived in a hut on the other side of Ealdor, so Merlin set out to see her immediately (since Ealdor proper was about twenty huts in size, it really wasn't a strenuous journey).
When Merlin ducked into his mother's hut, the bi-weekly meeting of the WLFEC (Women's Liberation Front Ealdor Chapter) was well under way.
"Farmer Grupsman told me I wasn't fit to work when I had my monthlies," Edith the vegetable monger said. "I needs that money to feed my little'uns."
"We'll meet with him directly," Hunith said kindly, denoting it in her ledger. "Widow Backsby, any word from the national office about those embroidered surcoats? The proceeds go to battered women's shelters in seven different duchies."
"Mum," Merlin cut in, "Sorry, but could I interrupt for a minute? I need advice."
"Ooh, advice," said Dame Wickersmitt. "Do tell us, lad."
"It's about a boy," Merlin said, and everyone whistled and catcalled in a truly unorthodox manner, and generally made Merlin turn quite red.
"Anyway," he said, when the reactions had died down, "He's sort of in a tower, and I think rescuing him would be the polite thing to do."
"Is he very handsome?" asked Griselda, who had a wife just like some of the menfolk did, and nobody liked her the less for it.
"I mean, I don't exactly know," Merlin said. "But I'm having these dreams, and I just can't stop thinking about him. I can't sleep for worrying over it."
"Darling," Hunith said, patting him on the shoulder, "I always told you our magic was meant for something bigger than Ealdor. You've got a gift, it needs to be used for something greater than rescuing the laundry that the wind drags off the line. What's the harm in going to find this tower? Maybe you'll make some friends. If nothing else, it'll be an experience. Who knows when you'll next find a boy in a tower just waiting for the rescuing?"
Well, when it came down to it, Hunith was right. It wasn't as though Merlin had any pressing obligations to attend to, and who knew, perhaps it might even be fun.
"Feeling better, darling?" Hunith asked.
"Merlin nodded. "I'm going to go find a tower."
"Lovely, dear." Hunith said. "Now scram. It's time for the safe space discussion topic, and you're not invited."
"Thanks mum," Merlin said, and gave the other ladies a little wave as he stepped out the door.
The tower was remarkably easy to find. Ealdor was very close to Oakengrove, and Merlin already knew about the stream by the cove, because it was a favorite place for fishing, not to mention swimming about with one's young loves. Merlin spared a moment to blush at the memory of the boys he'd brought here. Now he was very grown up and mature, though, Merlin reminded himself, and hurried on toward where he could see the tower looming in the distance.
The tower was unquestionably a thing of magic, made of gleaming white stones that seemed to shift and slide whenever Merlin wasn't looking at them head on. It was surrounded by a tangle of brambles, thick and brown and forbidding, and Merlin looked up at the tiny tower window and thought, "Might as well have a bit of fun." He could have simply teleported Prince Arthur to safety, but as his mother had pointed out, it was only so often that you got to use your magical prowess to rescue a prince, and so instead he conjured up a fine blade, gleaming with golden light, and instructed it to cut a swath through the brambles.
The sword set to work, and while the smell of fresh chopped brambles wasn't quite as nice as that of fresh cut grass, there was still something rather satisfying about it. Watching the sword swing back and forth was a bit hypnotic, and Merlin found himself nearly drifting off, that is until a voice from within the tower shouted, "Hey, what's the big id- oh."
The voice belonged to a man who was leaning out the window, and, oh dear, Merlin thought, but he was really quite unfairly beautiful. He had golden hair, catching brightly in the late afternoon light, and the strongest, nicest jaw Merlin thought he had ever seen. It really was a shame that this wasn't the prince, because Merlin had plans to make an honest man out of Arthur, who was slumbering peacefully on inside the tower. Of course, he'd certainly offer him the prince a choice, being a gentleman, but Merlin was a great believer in destiny, so he felt that his magic wouldn't lead him astray.
"Hello," Merlin called up politely. "I'm here to rescue the slumb'ring prince, bedeck'd in wreaths of gold with cobwebs in his hair."
"Oh bloody hell," the man said irritably. "Honestly. That blasted minstrel told you that? I'm so having him sacked. I'm really only asleep half the time, and it's an enormous bother. I have to leap for the bed whenever I start to feel drowsy, so I don't fall on anything breakable. And I've only been here for four weeks, I'm hardly mouldering."
"Oh," Merlin said earnestly. "I'm very sorry. Do you not need rescuing, then?"
The man, Prince Arthur, Merlin thought, a little giddily, frowned. "Don't tell anyone about this, or I'll throw you in the stocks."
"Who'm I going to tell?" Merlin asked. "Even my dinner doesn't listen to me anymore."
"Right," Arthur said slowly. "Oh damn it all, I'm falling asleep. If you could hurry up with the rescuing, that'd be really great."
With that, he disappeared from the window with a very ominous thud.
"Well" Merlin said cheerfully. "Time to rescue the prince."
He summoned stones from the riverbed, and with a thought, fashioned them into neat blocks. With a wave of his hand, they began to stack themselves, forming a staircase that rose solidly up the side of the tower, held together with a gleaming cord of magic. A lesser magician might have thrown together a rope ladder and called it a day, but Merlin wanted the staircase to last. He didn't want anyone else to end up locked in the tower, but with a staircase it might actually make a rather nice vacation home, so Merlin was loathe to destroy it entirely.
Once the staircase was assembled, Merlin trotted up to the tower window and clambered through it. Inside, the room was bright and airy, and suspiciously much larger than the outside of the building would have led one to believe. It was furnished with an enormous bed and a toilette table strewn with little golden combs and hand mirrors.
Arthur was sprawled out half on the floor, half on the bed, drooling beneficently onto the tasseled coverlet. He was clad in a frankly ridiculous outfit of rosy silk, a doublet trimmed in pale green ribbon, over a matching pair of pantaloons. Still, his feet were bare, as were his hands and his long, perfect neck, and as Merlin stared down at how the light caught on Arthur's high, aristocratic cheekbone, suddenly he didn't look very silly at all.
It seemed uncouth to be staring at a prince while he was unaware of it, so Merlin knelt down next to Arthur and whispered, gently, "Wake up, sire, I'm here to rescue you."
He'd imagined Arthur slowly awakening, his eyelashes aflutter as he looked lovingly up at his rescuer, but Arthur clearly had other plans. He had apparently decided that the best way to wake up was to thrash violently about, and that was just what he did, his head snapping up to connect with Merlin's chin with a resounding crack.
"Ow," Arthur said in a wounded, mutinous voice, as though it hadn't been his flailing that had caused the pain in the first place.
"Ow yourself," Merlin said sullenly, feeling gingerly at his face. "Come on, I made a staircase. Time to escape."
"Oh," Arthur said carefully. "That's very nice and all, but I don't think it'll help matters much."
Merlin stared blankly at him. "What's the problem?"
Arthur opened and closed his mouth a few times, before giving up and saying, "Here, I'll just show you." He sat up, brushing off his doublet and muttering something about "bloody enchanted outfit," that Merlin was too polite to ask questions about, and stood, striding over to the window. "Here we are," Arthur said pleasantly, and reached out through the window as though to touch the new staircase.
He never made it. Arthur's hand stopped in the window, as though he's run up against a wall, and try as he might, he couldn't get out of the window.
"See," he said, sounding more smug than he had a right to be, since it was his imprisonment he was bragging about. "The spell isn't broken."
"Huh." Merlin said. "I didn't see this part coming. Perhaps you'd better tell me exactly what's going on."
"Well," Arthur said uncomfortably. "You see, the sorcerer who locked me up in here-"
"Hang on," Merlin said. "I thought it was a sorceress."
Arthur chuckled nervously. "Uh, not exactly. See, we were sort of seeing each other, and I told him I wasn't in love with him, so he locked me up in here and told me I'd stay here until I found someone I actually could love. So, it's all well and good that you got up here, but a few of my knights have already been here, and there wasn't a thing they could do about the curse."
"Er," Merlin said. "How do you know whether you could love somebody? "This sounds a bit like destiny." He was trying with all his might to restrain his somewhat crazed grin, but really this was exactly what he'd been dreaming of.
"Yes well," Arthur said awkwardly. "I don't think he was exactly trying to make it easy for me to get out of here."
"Okay," Merlin said, looking innocently down at his hands. "I suppose we ought to make sure we can't just solve this ourselves."
"What?" Arthur said. "Me? And you?"
"What's wrong with me?" Merlin asked indignantly, crossing the room to glare menacingly from a slightly closer proximity. "I'm a very powerful warlock. I walked all the way here, even though I just cleaned my boots and now I'll have to do it all over again. I help old people carry parcels. I give the last biscuit to the children even when I haven't had any yet. I," he said, and now he was quite close to Arthur, close enough to poke him in the chest. "I am a very nice person, and also can harness the powers of space and time. I really think you should give me the benefit of the doubt."
"Oh," Arthur said, and he seemed a little short of breath. "Okay."
"Okay," Merlin said firmly, and stepping forward, he kissed prince Arthur.
Okay, so yes, Merlin didn't usually move this fast, but kissing Arthur was like nothing he'd ever experienced before. Arthur's lips were more warm and soft than any one person's mouth had a right to be, and he smelled surprisingly nice for someone who'd been in a tower for a month, and he was making all sorts of delightful, surprised noises that he never quite finished, letting Merlin catch them upon his lips.
It was lovely, seeing Arthur's shocked, lovely face and feeling just the same way, but lovelier still was pressing Arthur back against the bed and working a hand into his atrocious pantaloons and stroking over the length of him, of feeling Arthur's hand reaching shyly out to cup Merlin until they were both moaning and whispering embarrassing little things to one another. The best part, though, was watching the way Arthur's face contorted beautifully when he came, feeling him struggle to keep stroking Merlin until he was coming too, leaning heavily over him and kissing every inch of his face, panting into his sweat-slick neck and pressing a kiss at the base of his exquisite throat. In fact, it was all exceptional, and Merlin felt a little lightheaded, dizzy with the magic that still swirled around them, sparkling prettily and showering stardust and colored lights throughout the room.
"Okay," Arthur said breathlessly, afterward. "I guess it's destiny." He glanced around the room, where the occasional rainbow was still floating by on a nonexistent breeze. "Maybe we could get out of here now?" He dragged himself shakily to his feet and stumbled over to the window, avoiding a pile of fairy dust,and then he was clambering out onto the stairs. "It worked!" he called happily. "Come along, Merlin, lets go find a nicer bed, perhaps one that isn't in the middle of a terrifying magical tower."
"Maybe we could go meet my mother, first?" Merlin asked hopefully. "I'd hate to keep something like this from her."
"Fine," Arthur said, not sounding nearly as annoyed as he would have liked to. "But that means you've got to meet my father."
"Fine," Merlin said pleasantly, and it really was.
THE END