Chapter Text
Merlin looked down at the rip in his shirt and the blood now leaking out. “Great, something else that will need mending,” he thought absently before falling back against a tree and sliding down the rough bark to sit hard on the ground. Luckily, his shirt was somewhat thick this day or else the bark would have probably left scratches in addition to just adding to his bruised back and torso.
Lancelot came running over from the downed creature they had just defeated together. “Merlin? Are you alright?” His footsteps squelched in the mud as he drew nearer.
“Yeah, Lance,” Merlin said as he held a hand to his side to staunch the blood flow. “Just a little banged up, I’ve had worse. How about you? How’s your head?”
“I’m fine. I don’t even have a headache. Are you sure you’re fine?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure,” Merlin said again, relieved that Lancelot was not dead and had no ill effects from the spell Merlin had performed. It had been a quick spell of protection just before performing the killing blow. Gaius had not had any issues on the Isle of the Blessed when Merlin had performed that magic before, but there was still relief when it worked so well.
Lancelot looked uneasy at those words but didn’t dispute them. “You’re bleeding,” he said as he began rifling through Merlin’s sack to find bandages he knew Merlin kept there.
“Just a scratch. The rain mixing with the blood is making it look worse than it is.”
Lancelot pulled out some cleaned cloths in order to clean the wound. “You took a pretty good hit. Be honest, Merlin.”
“Well, I mean, yeah, it hurts some, but as soon as the ground stops spinning, I can do something about it.”
Lancelot paused briefly in lifting Merlin’s shirt. “The ground is spinning? You must have lost more blood than I thought.” Lancelot pulled the shirt up further to see the damage done by the boar. He was only slightly surprised to see the burn on Merlin’s arm as he moved it out of the way.
“Not from blood loss. Happened when it knocked me against that tree. Knocked the wind out of me and hit my head a bit. It’ll clear up soon.”
Lancelot only sighed. He paused again with Merlin’s sharp intake of breath. “Hate to tell you this, but I think you might have a cracked rib or two.”
“Yeah, figured as much. How about you? You took a pretty good hit, too.”
“I landed in the bushes. Few actual scratches. Not like you getting gored.”
“You can hardly call this getting gored. Its tusk just scraped my side, but it didn’t go through me. Let me see your scratches.”
Lancelot showed Merlin his cheek, but Merlin reached out to check him over. Lancelot tried to argue with Merlin about how Merlin needed medical attention more than he did, but he realized Merlin would not allow him to do any more until he was sure that Lancelot was unharmed. He grunted when Merlin probed his shoulder, but after Merlin was sure that it wasn’t broken or dislocated, he settled back to let Lancelot finish his own ministrations.
“The thing is really dead now, right?” Merlin asked as he settled back against the tree trunk.
“I don’t see how he could still be living after that lightning bolt. Did you know you could do that?”
“I did it once before, but it’s not something I do on a daily basis. I mean, I knew I could, I just don’t know how I did it.”
“Well, since this seemed to come from you, do you think you can make the rain stop? It is making cleaning this wound a little more difficult with all the mud.”
Merlin chuckled, and then regretted the action as it pulled on his torn skin and bruised ribs. When he was able to breathe again, he replied, “Sorry. Not actually sure how I start it, and I’m not actually sure how to turn it off. If it’s anything like last time, it will finish soon.” Almost as if Merlin did control it, the rain lessened and the clouds started to part. “See?”
Lancelot shook his head and smiled. “You never cease to amaze me. Still dizzy?”
“A bit, but better,” Merlin replied.
“Can you heal yourself?”
“I’ve never been good at healing spells, but I can try.” Merlin held his hand back to his now bandaged side and said the incantation. He felt the familiar warmth flow through him, but the pain in his head increased tenfold causing him to cut the magic off before he’d had a chance to heal anything.
“What’s wrong?” Lancelot said in near panic.
“It’s ok, I have just used too much magic already. I’ll be better in a bit. Go grab the tusks off the boar to show Arthur, and we had better get back to the castle.”
“You sure you can make it in your state?”
Merlin grinned up at his best non-royal friend. “Yeah. Like I said, I’ve had worse.”
Lancelot looked at Merlin as if he wanted to say something else, but he turned back to the boar instead to cut of the tusks as proof that the danger was gone. Merlin braced himself against the tree and worked his way to his feet. The world spun around him briefly, but he closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, the forest had righted itself.
Lancelot was back quickly and put Merlin’s arm around his neck to help with walking. Merlin wanted to refuse the help at first, but he knew the quicker they moved, the sooner he would be back to Gaius and the bitter pain medicine he desperately wanted. Even with Lancelot’s help, the trip back was slow going. Merlin didn’t ask for it, but Lancelot gave them frequent breaks, and Merlin was glad for it. His head ached and his side burned. When Merlin had bled through his bandages, Merlin decided he needed to stitch up the damage. As Lancelot went to refill their waterskins, Merlin sewed and thought about how they had gotten in their predicament.
A week before, a man from one of Camelot’s outlying villages had come before the acting king to beg. He stated that a large boar was tearing down fences and goring livestock. The tale seemed like just a berserk animal until the man mentioned that the boar could breathe fire. Arthur wanted to go with his knights in order to vanquish the beast, but Uther had caught the flu which caused an epidemic in the castle.
Uther had never quite recovered after Morgana’s betrayal, and Arthur was king in all but name as soon as they returned to Camelot. In Uther’s already weakened state, Gaius feared he might not make it. Arthur still wanted to send a hunting party, but the flu that had made Uther sick was making its way through the rest of the castle and the knights. Lancelot, being one of the few unaffected, volunteered to be the one to go to the village. Percival was going to accompany Lancelot, but Percival caught Uther’s flu the day before they were to head out.
Some research on Gaius’s part revealed that the boar was likely a Calydonian boar, and only magic could defeat it. Lancelot then told Arthur that he needed Merlin to go to treat any villagers who may have been burned by the boar or be suffering from the flu. Arthur was skeptical, but after he had started suffering from the ailment, every little thing Merlin did seemed to be extra annoying for him. When Merlin had angered him one morning by being overly cheerful, Arthur yelled that he was sending him to get him out of his hair. They weren’t quite sure if Gwaine was suffering from the flu or a really bad hangover, but Gaius did not clear him for the trip. Elyan had caught it from Gwen, and Leon was only just recovering. That left only Lancelot and Merlin.
The trip to the village had been relatively uneventful. They had talked and swapped stories. Merlin was glad to spend time with someone who knew about his magic and didn’t ask him to hide it or treat him like a monster. Lancelot accepted him and his magic. He marveled at Merlin’s fire puppets and laughed when he used the puppets to tell the story of when he and Arthur first met.
The village had definitely been ravaged by a creature. There were big ruts in the ground and huge hoofprints. Fences were torn down, gardens had been demolished, and houses burned. Lancelot and Merlin listened to the villagers describe the beast. Merlin treated a few villagers for various maladies, only a few of which had actually been caused by the boar. Far more were suffering from the flu. Once they had gathered enough evidence, they began the trek back home.
Unfortunately, the trip back was not so uneventful. They had gotten off their horses to give their steeds a break when they heard grunting and snuffling. Merlin turned just in time to see the boar bearing down on them. The boar had to be at least seven feet tall and six feet wide. It had two large tusks protruding from its cheeks and extending over the top of its head. Its tail was almost as long as Kilgarrah's, and the tip was barbed. Its russet-colored hair was wiry and stuck out at all angles.
Merlin tried to blast it with a gust of wind as he pushed Lancelot out of the way. They both landed hard. The horses ran off and the two men ran to the trees after them. The boar started bearing down on them again, and they passed between two trees too small for the boar to make it through.
Lancelot had his sword in his hand and held it toward the boar as it blasted the two trees with blue flame. The trees disintegrated to ashes before they could even catch fire. Merlin’s eyes glowed gold as he telepathically threw a giant boulder at the boar. The rock blasted against the thick skull and seemed to only anger the boar more. The boar charged again. Lancelot managed to stab the boar under the chin before it threw him into some nearby bushes. Merlin yelled out a spell just before he heard Lancelot land against a large boulder hitting his head in the process, making Merlin wince. Merlin uprooted a tree and threw the entire tree at the giant.
The boar turned his attention to the sorcerer and turned its head down this time when it charged. Merlin stood his ground as he muttered spell after spell. He tried to jump out of the way, but he felt the bite of the tusk slicing his side and the boar threw his head up, picking Merlin up as well. Merlin was thrown ten feet into the air against a tree. Merlin felt the impact against the back of his head, and his vision swam. While he was dazed, the boar charged again, pinning him against the tree. Merlin desperately tried to breathe as the boar pushed him so hard that he could not move. In a panicked attempt to get his lungs working, instinct took over and Merlin’s eyes glowed gold yet again. He blasted the boar away from him.
Clouds gathered overhead as the boar shot a fireball at Merlin. Merlin dived out of the way, landing on his now sore ribs, but not before the fireball grazed his arm. He focused his magic on Lancelot’s sword embedded in the boar’s chin. Rain began to fall in sheets as the boar lowered its head to charge again. Merlin felt the power flow through him up to the sky as the lightning struck down and struck the boar through the top of its skull to the sword below. The animal squealed out in pain and the scent of burnt hair reached Merlin’s nose.
Blue sparks flowed from snout to tail before the beast gave a final whimper and fell over. Merlin then looked down at his shirt, took a few steps backward, and ended up sliding down the trunk of the tree.