Chapter Text
It had been weeks since Merlin had returned with Arthur, Gwen, and Mordred from their days-long journey to the Cauldron of Arianrhod, and Merlin hadn’t been sleeping well. Well, that wasn’t to say he’d slept well very often to begin with, being King Arthur’s manservant was a constant job and one that often precluded sleep, not to mention saving his life so often and balancing being both a servant and perhaps the most powerful person in the entire kingdom, the subject of prophecy. And that would have been bad enough had Morgana not been trying to kill them. Morgana’s descent into madness and fury was the subject of great guilt to Merlin, for he knew he had played a part in alienating her… and he knew that had he made different choices, perhaps Morgana could have been a powerful ally to Camelot. And this latest escapade had unsettled him. For Gwen to be so tortured - she had sobbed the entire way back from the Cauldron - that her will had been slaved to Morgana’s, and the grim fear it had put in Arthur’s heart, it made Merlin worry. And it wasn’t just that. Mordred had reminded him that he knew of Merlin’s magic, and the warnings from Kilgharrah about Mordred left Merlin uneasy to say the best.
IF YOU CAN SEE THIS TEXT, THEN EITHER YOU HAVE WORK SKINS TURNED OFF, OR THIS WORK HAS BEEN STOLEN AND POSTED ON AN ALTERNATE PLATFORM WITHOUT ITS ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S PERMISSION. If this has messed with a screen reader, my apologies. But what had unsettled Merlin most of all was not an evil. No, it was his own actions that day at the Cauldron of Arianrhod. It had taken only minutes, to purge Gwen of Morgana’s cursework, but just as it had when he had disguised himself as an old man and done it, using magic in front of Arthur, without shame or fear, had been… well, it had been a taste of what life could have been. If sorcery were legal in Camelot. A terrible taste, for it had left a bitter aftertaste. It had left in its wake how sour life was when he could not show his true nature, when even Arthur, his greatest friend, could not know. He couldn’t do that to Arthur, force that choice upon him, let alone himself.
And so, Merlin tossed and turned in his cot that night, feeling sorry for himself. He really couldn’t think of another way to put it, though it felt like it should have been called something more momentous. A plague of ill thought, fear, and sorrow, maybe. That only when he wore another’s face could he be free, at least now. Though, clearly not quite another’s; both identities had been pegged by Arthur as looking familiar.
Merlin huffed, rolling over and staring at the ceiling of his little chamber in the dark. A feather down-stuffed pillow instead of a straw one would have been nice, maybe his sleeplessness over the years would have been allayed were his chambers as nicely appointed as his master’s. But he doubted this particular predicament would be sorted by a nicer bed, even if he had one. The spells that changed his form had been the ones he had found most useful, not just because disguises were by nature helpful but because even though he had been aged when he’d used them it had lifted an enormous weight off of his shoulders. Even when those shoulders had been aching and cracking, they had been relieved. Becoming someone else had been the first thing in years to bring Merlin a lightening of the load. And it was at that thought that Merlin sat up in his cot, the blankets falling around him as he muttered the spell to light the candle beside his bed, filling the tiny chamber with a flickering orange light.
It occurred to Merlin that the ageing component wasn’t actually a necessary part of any such spell. It was an option, but it wasn’t compulsory. He’d only used it because it had seemed the easiest way to make himself look utterly different, and because ancientness was a trait associated with sorcerers - which both his false identities had been. But if he just wanted some time to himself, he didn’t have to become old, just different, and then… maybe he couldn’t openly practise sorcery, but at least the responsibility, the weight, the constant tension of being Merlin would be lifted for a moment. He looked up at the window. The moon was high in the sky, and the stars were flickering, but he was sure the tavern would still be open for business. He could be an ordinary person for an evening.
Well, if he couldn’t sleep anyway, he supposed, he might as well consider it. So Merlin sighed and retrieved the heavy tome of magic from under his bed and shifted the little glass bottle of water beside the candle so its refraction illuminated the area around his bed a bit better. The book’s dry ancient pages were stiff as he opened it and perused to find the spells he had used before. There were quite a lot of ways to disguise a person, to change their form, simple illusion… but the one Merlin’s mind kept cycling back to was part of what he had done to create the Dolma.
At first, the idea crossed his mind and he scoffed at it. He shouldn’t turn himself into a woman. But the more he searched through the book, the more other means dissatisfied him and the more it found his thoughts. And the more he gave it thought. Being the Dolma had somehow been better, as if the greater detachment had been better. And if the plan was to be unrecognisable, to go about without the weight of his destiny yoked about his neck, becoming a woman would solve that very handily. After all, nobody would even consider he even could be Merlin. And so, twenty minutes later, he was sitting cross-legged on his bed with the book in his lap, willing up the nerve.
“Oh… fine,” Merlin muttered, before he spread his hand an inch or so from his chest and began whispering the enchantment. The burning well of ancient magic within him blared out and surged, erupting through him as he called upon it, and turned in upon his own form. But it was no simple spell, its words were long and complex and the power it demanded of him so great that as it took hold and his body was altered, his vision dimmed and he almost fell unconscious. The breath gasped out of him as he nearly fell off his bed, catching himself on its frame as he breathed deeply, closing his eyes and panting. And when he reopened his eyes, he shook his head, confused for only a moment by the mess of brown strands in front of his face before his tired mind caught up. That was hair. His own. And the hand he raised to brush it out of the way was different.
The spell had worked.
Merlin sat up, staring at his hands. The spell had changed his body, he could feel that much but he wasn’t quite ready to look yet, but it had not changed him to be so entirely unrecognisable. His hands were smaller, but still calloused and rough, the hands of a girl but not a noble girl. More like Gwen’s from before she had become Queen, after which her callouses had been getting soft. A serving-girl’s hands. Her nails were still a little ragged, and her hands were still her hands, if she squinted
She?
Merlin huffed softly. It hadn’t taken her long to slip into thinking like that. Taking a deep breath, Merlin looked down, and couldn’t help but almost laugh. Well. That hadn’t been quite so clear as the Dolma, clearly the ageing spell being combined into it hadn’t done her any favours. The Dolma had been a wrinkly old hag, she’d been glad she’d picked a dress that covered her. But this? Sitting in Merlin’s bedclothes was quite obviously a woman. Her breeches were uncomfortably tight, and her shirt was very obviously stretched over a bosom that it was not made for. Merlin looked away, almost shamefully as she bit her lips, lips which she swore felt a little fuller. Not that she’d ever had particularly tiny lips as a man. It felt almost wrong to look, and she was practically naked. A problem she’d have to fix if she intended to walk among the people as someone else. So Merlin forced her eyes down. She certainly hadn’t changed entirely, she was still skinny like a stick, but where those curves had come from she had no idea. Perhaps it had come from Balinor’s side of her blood. But she and Gaius had a number of clothes in their stores, both to give to and taken from patients - sometimes patients’ clothes were destroyed when they were brought to them, and it was best they be given something fresh. And sometimes, when patients died, it was best not to waste the clothes. She was sure they’d have something that would fit this… womanly body. She was pretty conscious of just how womanly it was as she got up from her bed and padded over to her door, which she peered through.
Thankfully, Gaius was snoring. She had no desire to explain why she all of a sudden was female to him. He’d think it was childish, a waste of her powers. But one benefit of this body was that even if she was still just as clumsy as she’d started, she was a little slighter, so she didn’t brush into anything she might otherwise have as she crept over to their cupboards and began searching them for a suitable dress, cursing the squeaky hinges on the cupboards until she had found one she liked. It was purple, going with a white shift, and embroidered with white and blue flowers, and Merlin was half sure that it might have been Gwen’s from before she’d become Queen. Merlin nodded to herself and closed the cupboard, folding the clothes over her arm. It wasn’t that much softer an arm, and she definitely still had the same lithe muscles she’d had that day. The spell had made her into a woman, but done very little else.
As Merlin crept back toward the steps to her room to get dressed, she stopped as she caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of Gaius’ many little bottles. Normally, she’d have looked away, having never liked seeing her own reflection, but this time she was too curious, and she looked.
Merlin frowned, and the girl in the glass frowned. She had never looked in a mirror and not felt almost scared, like her reflection was going to pop out and strangle her - which, in a world full of magic, wasn’t an entirely impossible thing, but that wasn’t it. Reflections had always felt somehow alien, as if another person had been looking back. And what confused Merlin in that moment was that it didn’t. It felt fine. She blinked, and she blinked back in the reflection. Merlin stepped a little closer to get a better look in the slightly warped reflection that was inherent to a bottle.
Was it just her imagination, or was she pretty? Really pretty? Her raven-black hair was a little matted and messy, but it flowed in waving locks down her shoulders, and Merlin tilted her head to see how it behaved. The Dolma persona hadn’t had such long hair. With her free hand, she swept it back a bit, and an unbidden little breath escaped her as her heart skipped, and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Her very pretty face. She still had her usually sharp features, the cheekbones some - whose judgement Merlin questioned - would kill for, but her face was softer, a little rounded off at the edges. Better, as if somehow her edge had been refined.
Merlin frowned. Why did that make her so happy? It was a fake face, surely. So why did it feel so real? So much more real?
She scurried off to her chamber to change. Her cheeks flushed as she found herself feeling almost embarrassed as she took off her nightclothes, but it was a different sort of embarrassment than normal. How did the new form she took feel like this? It felt so much more attached to her, and she found herself glancing furtively at the windows, despite being several floors up, to ensure that none saw her bare breasts.
One might have assumed that the feelings touching them unexpectedly had startled in her would have been a man’s lust, for surely she was a man in a woman’s body? But strangely, it was the opposite she felt. Merlin herself hadn’t expected it. She did not feel the enticement she’d expect as if she was touching another, for it was her own body. And it felt like hers. Soft and squishy and pliant, but hers. And as she glanced at the windows, she felt more protective of it than she’d thought she would. Why would she feel that way for a body that wasn’t truly hers? But she felt more protective than she’d ever felt of her true form, she’d felt more humiliated when she was unclothed in that. It was a different feeling of exposure than before, it was weird.
Merlin shook herself out of it and hurriedly dressed herself, starting the shift. It was definitely a fellow peasant’s clothes she wore, anyone who could afford a servant wore clothes one required help to put on, but this didn’t. The purple dress hung from her flatteringly, at least she hoped, and she rolled up her snug breeches under the skirt so they didn’t show. They were still mens’ breeches, but she needed something. She might not have been a noble, but she didn’t like the idea of someone being able to see her intimate parts simply by looking up her skirt - and she wasn’t ready to reckon with those intimate parts being different now either. The final matter was shoes, and Merlin puttered about a bit in the dress before she figured out she just didn’t have any spare. So she huffed a bit and donned the same simple brown boots she always wore. It wasn’t as if a girl of her standing could afford much better anyway. To her chagrin, the boots were a little roomier than was comfortable now, but she could walk in them. So walk she did, quietly and softly, and worrying the entire way that her skirts would catch on something and wake Gaius up, but she was glad to get to the door, heart hammering beneath her chest, and slip out.
Nerves were shooting through Merlin every step of the way as she made her way down the tower and out into the courtyard, a goofy smile on her face. Nobody knew who she was, though it helped that the castle was quiet at night. And so, nervously but excitedly, Merlin began making her way down the quiet cobbles and out of the castle, past the guards who saw nothing but just another servant girl, and into the town. She was certainly conscious of the new form she took as she walked, and kept glancing down nervously at how all this new flesh shifted back and forth uncomfortably with her stride, the dress not quite fitting her properly and allowing surely more motion in her curves than she’d seen in other women? It felt almost chauvinistic in some way to reduce her experience down to that, but… it was the most noticeable thing, especially given she was trying to ignore the other ways it felt weird and the shape of her body was insistent on never being ignored. Her damn breasts insisted on… wiggling with every step she took and whenever she dared to move her arms, and they’d gotten in the way of said arms when she’d gotten dressed. They were full and round and really quite odd on her frame, she wasn’t used to it at all. She was used to being a skinny little twig of a person, not a decidedly curvy lass. How ironic that she had taken this form to get weight off her shoulders and it had created a whole new one. Did most girls just have better fitting clothes? If she was going to do this regularly, she needed more supportive clothes.
Regularly? Merlin asked herself. Well there’s a leap.
With her cheeks burning that she should look as she did, as a beautiful young woman, especially that she wanted to do it again when next she could, Merlin looked upon the town, which perhaps was not bustling since it was night, but it wasn’t entirely silent either. Pursing her lips nervously, Merlin strolled as idly as she could down toward the nearest tavern, trying to figure out what to do with her hands as she walked and look more like a girl. She folded them in front of herself.
“Ey up darlin’!” someone called as Merlin walked. “Hey where you goin’ huh? C’mere sweet cheeks,” he leered, and Merlin jumped as she realised that the man leaning over a stable wall was talking to her. Her cheeks went scarlet as the man’s eyes flicked down to her body and he grinned at her. Almost frozen by the mere idea that anyone could behave so badly, Merlin staggered back, shuddered, and shuffled away as quickly as she could. No wonder Gwen hadn’t liked walking at night.
Thankfully, the tavern wasn’t far, and she slipped through the door as if she belonged, grateful to be out of the dark and in the eyes of enough people none could easily get away with such a thing. The tavern wasn’t full, but it wasn’t empty either, and Merlin smiled over at the knights where they drank and played a drinking game. But the call died in her throat as she remembered that the knights wouldn’t recognise her either.
Besides, she didn’t want to intrude. After losing Sir Elyan, and Sir Lancelot so long ago Merlin had almost stopped expecting him to step through a door somewhere, the Knights needed their time as brothers, and she had no will to step in and make them have to reckon with her change. They didn’t need to know, and she thought it might be nice anyway not to have to wait on their call. So Merlin just smiled after them wistfully before she stepped over to the bar.
“‘Scuse me. Just a cider,” she said idly to the barman. She glanced up at him as he blinked at her. He seemed almost surprised.
“Fair ‘nough, long as you can pay, new girl,” he surmised, shrugging. Merlin swallowed. Of course. It wasn’t really common for unaccompanied girls to go order a drink down at the tavern. But she was sure she could afford it, her salary was higher than it had been when she’d first started serving Arthur so she had a little spare coin, particularly for a servant. She gave him a sheepish smile as she reached for her coin pouch-
Which she didn’t have. Of course she didn’t have it. She didn’t have pockets. The barman paused pointedly as her eyes widened. Merlin paused, trying to figure out what to say.
“I’m so sorry. I seem to have forgotten my purse,” Merlin said slowly, trying to imitate Gwen’s mannerisms. “It must have slipped my mind. I’ve had a long day,” she told him apologetically, and the barman nodded.
“Sorry then lass, no cider,” the barman told her, leaning back onto the bar. Merlin shrugged, grimacing.
“Sorry. Erm, do you mind if I still sit?” Merlin asked sheepishly, before she did her best to affect a girlish smile. “I’ve been on my feet all day, my master’s a demanding man,” she said. It wasn’t even really that much a lie. The barman chuckled, nodding.
“Please. Girl such as you shouldn’t be worked so hard,” he assured her with a smile, making her feel a little awkward as she hopped up on a stool. He frowned at her a little, before she looked around and noticed a young woman sharing a meal with a man who was no doubt courting her, and realised what was wrong. She was sitting like a man, with her legs spread. Hurriedly, Merlin crossed her legs, before she yawned, holding her hand before her mouth. “Ah. Here, if you can’t pay that’s that, but here, have some water. You look exhausted dear,” the fellow told her, brushing her hand before he poured her a cup.
“Oh! Thank you sir,” Merlin replied gratefully, taking it. He’s not normally that generous, Merlin thought to herself. “That’s very kind of you,” she said, before she took a long sip and looked over the tavern. Gwaine and Percival were playing dice and laughing, a few other men were drinking together and singing, and all in all it was about normal… and so was she. They were barely giving her a second glance. Though, barely might not have been the word, she was certainly getting a few sly glances that were making her blush, and she turned back around a little embarrassedly as she noticed Gwaine look up at her and fumble a dice roll. The barman, cleaning the bar, snickered at her.
“You like the look of them Knights of the Round Table eh?” he asked, and Merlin spluttered. She certainly appreciated their company, but she couldn’t explain why on earth she was blushing. “Most girls your age do, you’re not alone. I’ve seen a hundred of you coming in here all doe-eyed hoping one of ‘em might bed her.”
Merlin coughed on her water, choking.
“Plaggh! I- I never!” Merlin exclaimed indignantly. The barman laughed.
“Some of them even succeed, once in a blue moon,” he snickered. Merlin blinked. He’d never noticed that sort of thing going on. “Maybe one of them’ll buy you a drink with a little more bite to it than water. Don’t nick anything while I go refill this,” he said amusedly, holding up an empty ale jug as he went around the back. Merlin swallowed to herself, taking another drink of her water. Perhaps one of the knights would buy her a drink, but she certainly wouldn’t allow herself any such silliness. Particularly given she couldn’t take to bed with anyone even if she had wanted to; she needed to be back in her own bed, back to old Merlin’s face, before Gaius woke up. These little escapades would have to be secret, Merlin knew.
Which was a shame, she thought, because she was quite liking being normal as she sat back on the stool and took another sip of her water, trying to look all delicate as she did with a hand in her crossed lap. Maybe being a girl every now and then would be nice too, she decided.
But of course, after a pleasant evening of being nobody at all, Merlin had to go. The knights were drunk as they could get, and the night was deep, and so she made her quick way back to the castle and snuck back into her chamber, where the exertion of just the mere spell to return him to his male form sent him careening into his straw pillow, asleep before he even hit it.
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