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Merlin - My Fair Arty 4/9 (Arthur/Merlin, Gwen/Morgana - pg13)
Title: My Fair Arty 4/9
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
batgurl88
Pairing/Characters: Arthur/Merlin, Gwen/Morgana, Gaius, Uther, Nimueh
Wordcount: 5,245 (52,352 overall)
Summary: Arthur is a royal who can't remember his past. Merlin and Gaius are con-men, hoping to return Arthur to Uther for a hefty reward, but little do they know they have the real deal on their hands.
A/N: Some lines and plot aspects respectfully borrowed from both Fox’s Anastasia and BBC’s Merlin. Beta’d by the brilliantjusticemischief.
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My Fair Arty
Part Four
---------------------------
Merlin sighed, stretching the kinks in his neck as the train whistle sounded.
The train itself was nearly packed, with only a few empty compartments to be found. They didn't have many belongings between them - just a small bag for Gwen and two suitcases between Gaius and himself, as Arty had no real possessions to speak of. Gwen had immediately staked out a spot near the window, mumbling something about "natural light" that Merlin hadn't quite caught, pulling out a ratty bundle of papers, a dull knife, and a stick of charcoal. Gaius had settled beside her, his nose buried in an old book, leaving Merlin stuck with Arty.
Tickets to Paris had been easy enough for Merlin to procure - despite what he'd implied to Arty the previous day - but the visas had been another matter. Gaius had been up most of the night, scratching out travel papers for their new companions in the dim firelight of the Winter Palace where the four of them had spent the night.
Merlin had watched him for a while, his offer to help predictably shot down. It had been many years, but the memory of Merlin’s first attempt at forgery still hung heavily between them. He'd been so proud of himself, spending hours copying the fake birth certificate onto the correct paper for Gaius' inspection, only to realise he'd spelt Lancelot's name wrong. The money to redo it had come from his own savings, and he'd had to endure weeks of mocking by Gaius, who still insisted on calling him "Luncelot" whenever he did something particularly stupid. After that, he'd left the forging mostly to Gaius, preferring to dedicate himself to the business side of things.
Merlin sighed, trying to find a more comfortable position on the crowded bench.
Arty was quickly displaying a complete inability to sit still, his constant fidgeting annoying Merlin to no end. If he wasn't shuffling his feet against the floor, he was fingering a thin gold chain around his neck, the links clinking against each other in a decidedly irritating way. When one of Arty's knees knocked against him for the fourth time, he snapped.
"Knock it off, would you?" he said, glaring daggers at the other man.
Arty's expression turned sour. "These seats are too small."
"Well, the rest of us are doing just fine with them, so get used to it. Grand dukes don't fidget."
"Really? Met a lot of grand dukes, have you?" Arty retorted sarcastically.
"Look," Merlin sighed, not particularly eager to divulge his history this early in the trip, "The fact is, I know a lot more about the subject than you do, so mine is the opinion we'll be going with. What's that you're playing with anyways?"
"Nothing," Arty said, tucking the chain back under his shirt.
Merlin "hmphed", glancing across the compartment at Gaius' disapproving frown. He shrugged. What? It wasn't his fault that Arty was annoying. Gaius's glare only grew more disapproving, causing Merlin to sigh again. They needed Arty on their side for the con to work, and if that meant being nice to the jerk, then he'd have to go along with it.
He closed his eyes, trying to come up with a safe subject to discuss.
As it turned out, Arty beat him to it.
"So, what is it you do, exactly?" he asked, glancing sideways at him. "When you're not searching out grand dukes, that is."
"Do?" Merlin echoed.
The other man rolled his eyes. "Yes, you know, your job? Gaius makes the forgeries, so what does he need you for?"
Merlin distinctly thought he heard a muffled snort from the seat across from him, but he chose to ignore it, focusing his anger on Arty.
"Is this your idea of small talk?"
Arty shrugged. "It's a long train ride."
Merlin looked away. "I set up the jobs," he replied testily, folding his arms.
"And that's hard, is it?" Arty mocked, surveying him with fake interest.
"Harder than mooching off other peoples' charity, yeah," Merlin sniped.
The tactic worked as he'd known it would. Arty's eyes darkened considerably, his mouth a thin line. "I don't need charity."
"Of course you don't," Merlin mocked back, digging about in his suitcase for something to read. Arty "hmph"ed beside him, turning to face the window. They rode the next half hour in blessed silence.
* * *
Arty sighed, leaning his head against the window. The novelty of the train ride had worn off after the first hour, leaving him rather bored. Gaius was still reading - some ancient tome on medicinal cures that looked to have been pilfered from the library of the Winter Palace - and Gwen was busy with her drawing, somehow managing to keep her lines straight even with the motion of the car. Unlike the others, Arty had no activity to occupy his attention, and he hated sitting around doing nothing.
They'd just passed the border into Poland when Gaius got up for a walk through the cars, citing a need to stretch his legs. Merlin stretched a bit himself, reaching into his suitcase as though a thought had just occurred to him.
"Here." He tossed a small booklet onto Arty's lap and one onto Gwen's as well.
"What's this?" Arty said, inspecting it, the paper stiff beneath his fingers.
"Your new exit visa."
He frowned as he reached the page with his personal information on it.
"You made my last name Durakov?" he demanded loudly, staring at the visa in disbelief.
Merlin shrugged, doing a very bad job of hiding his grin. "You said you didn't have one, so I had to improvise."
"Artem Dracovin Durakov," he read. "I sound ridiculous!"
"No change there, then," Merlin muttered under his breath. Arty glared. "Look, the important thing is it'll get us across the border," he said sensibly.
"You called me a simpleton!" said Arty, brandishing the visa like a madman.
"Well, I had to make it believable," the other man reasoned smugly, leaning back against the seat, still looking far too pleased with his own joke.
Arty glowered, tossing the visa in his bag and crossing his arms as he turned to glare out the window. Of all the stupid pranks to pull. He'd have to present that visa at every passport check, looking like a complete idiot. Jealously, he glanced across the aisle at Gwen, who'd had no such complaints about her travel papers.
She caught his eye. "It's not that bad, Arty," she assured him quietly, guessing his thoughts. "Most people probably won't even notice it where we’re going."
He shrugged begrudgingly, conceding her point. True, most people hardly gave a second thought to the meanings of surnames. It wasn’t like they’d spent weeks studying books of names and their definitions like he had, trying to find one that felt familiar. Still, it was a cheap shot for Merlin to take.
Gwen raised her eyebrows, gesturing toward Merlin with an expectant look on her face. He sighed again, glancing sideways at the other man. If there was any chance of them making it to France without killing each other, it would obviously be up to Arty to extend the olive branch.
"So, are you going to miss it?" he asked, rather politely, in his opinion. The semi-glare he received in return was completely unwarranted.
"Miss what?" Merlin asked, bored.
Arty shrugged. "Russia."
The other man shook his head. "Not really. It's just a country. Russia or France doesn't make much difference to me."
He frowned. "Not even a little bit?" he pushed, shaking his head a bit in confusion. Sure, Gwen had expressed little regret about leaving all she'd known behind, but he'd still seen her sniffle a bit when the train left the station in St. Petersburg.
"Why should I miss it?" Merlin said exasperatedly, turning in his seat. "It's just a place I used to live."
"So, you must be planning on making France your new home, then," Arty concluded with a nod, the idea making sense to him. It was what he was doing, after all.
"What is it with you?" wondered Merlin, rolling his eyes. "No, I don't plan on making France my home. Not everyone needs to be stuck down in one place, you know."
The concept was foreign to Arty, and he frowned. How could anyone see a home as being “stuck down”? A home was where a person belonged.
"Well, if you're not going to find a home there," he continued, nonplussed, "What will you do?"
Merlin glared. "What is this, an interrogation? I don't want to talk about it, all right?"
He turned away, leaving Arty fed up with the brush-off.
"Look, what exactly is your problem with me?" he demanded, unfolding his arms.
"Me?" Merlin shot back, scowling. "You haven't stopped being a pain since we left St. Petersburg."
Arty barked out a laugh. "You must be joking. I'm not the one refusing to have any sort of polite interaction."
"No," countered Merlin, standing up. "You're the one who keeps sticking his nose in other peoples' business."
"As if I cared one bit about your boring life," Arty retorted, standing as well. "I might as well try and strike up an intelligent conversation with an elephant. At least its ears would be less distracting to look at."
Merlin's face flushed red, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
Gwen watched the exchange silently, her gaze flitting back and forth between Arthur and Merlin as her charcoal-covered fingers hovered over the page she'd been drawing on.
The door to the compartment slid open, revealing their final travelling companion.
"What's all this?" Gaius inquired, glancing between the pair, who stood frozen, identical expressions of anger on their faces. Arty straightened.
"Gaius, remove him from my sight!" he demanded regally, glaring at Merlin. If they wanted a grand duke, they could have one.
Merlin threw up his hands in exasperation. "You don't have to ask me twice!"
With that, he stormed from the compartment, grabbing his coat as he went. Gaius hesitated a moment before following, the corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly.
Arty huffed, plopping back down onto his seat. Across the aisle, Gwen was watching him with a strange expression.
"What?" he asked, a bit more snappish than he'd meant to.
She shook her head quickly, apparently embarrassed to have been caught.
"Nothing, it's— Nothing," she stammered, turning back to her drawings.
Sighing, Arty tilted his head against the seatback to look out at the passing countryside.
You're doing this to get to France, he reminded himself, his mouth twisting downwards at the thought of having to spend the rest of the trip with Merlin. At least Gaius wasn't so bad, and he still had Gwen to talk to. And once he got this grand duke business over with, he'd be free to start searching for his family.
The thought made him smile. He closed his eyes, dreaming of Paris.
* * *
By the time Gaius caught up with him, Merlin had found a new compartment, and was angrily punching his coat into a comfortable pillow to sleep against.
"There's no way we're going to be able to use him as the grand duke," Merlin said without preamble. "He's far too much of an idiot."
"He certainly sounds like royalty," Gaius mused, a hint of a smirk on his face.
"Yeah," groused Merlin. "He'll have no trouble bossing people around, that's for sure."
He gave up on the pillow, giving it another punch just for good measure before throwing himself onto the seat, his arms crossed over his chest.
Gaius took the seat across from him.
"Merlin," he said hesitantly. "If this attraction of yours is going to be a problem..."
Merlin bolted upright. "Attraction?" he spluttered. "You think that I— Well, that's just— To him?"
"It makes sense," his partner assured him. "He's attractive and headstrong, and bears a rather striking resemblance to the grand duke whom you've been pining over all these years—"
"I've not been 'pining'!" Merlin yelped indignantly, his ears reddening. The raised eyebrow Gaius gave him begged to differ.
"What else would you call obsessively memorizing the history of the Petrovin family and every last known detail of the grand duke's life? I think you know more about Arthur than Uther does."
"You've studied it, too!" he defended, crossing his arms again. "Besides, it's all about to pay off, isn't it?"
Gaius sighed, folding his coat over his arm. "I suppose." He tilted his head. "All I'm saying, Merlin, that it's not uncommon to misplace certain feelings you have for another onto a person of similar quality and appearance," he said, his eyes softening a bit with understanding. "But if it's going to interfere with our work—"
"It's not, because you've got it all wrong," Merlin insisted, staring him straight in the eye. There was absolutely no way he was displacing his feelings for the grand duke - of which there were none! - onto Arty.
The older man nodded congenially.
"My mistake," he said, sounding more amused than repentant, in Merlin's opinion. Merlin glared.
"Just go make sure that our visas are in order, would you?" he said, shoving his coat into the corner of his seat again. Train travel was far more uncomfortable than it needed to be.
He didn't look up as Gaius left, falling back onto the seat again to stare up at the ceiling. Ridiculous.¬ Gaius was going soft in his old age, all right. As if he'd ever confuse the grand duke with Arty of all people - Arty who didn’t have a single refined bone in his body! Arty who, while bearing a certain resemblance to Arthur, had none of his grace or ease. Arty, who was most certainly the biggest brat he'd ever had the displeasure of meeting.
Merlin scowled, turning on his side. For such a big payoff, this job certainly wasn't coming easily. The sooner they got to France, the better.
* * *
Deep in her prison, Nimueh glared over the contents of her scrying bowl, watching as the grand duke relaxed on the train, hardly a care in the world. Her eyes narrowed at his easy demeanour. She'd see that Arthur never reached France - there would be no tearful reunion between him and his precious, meddling grandfather.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the spell. It'd been many years since she'd attempted such a powerful work, and it would need her full attention.
Taking a sharpened stone, Nimueh pricked her finger. The blood dripped slowly into the water below, crimson diluting and taking shape within the bowl.
"Loppe," she intoned, holding her red vial by its cord, watching as it glowed to life. The water burned and hissed inside the bowl, the drops of blood slowly transforming into ghost-like red spiders, taking shape along the snow-covered track.
She held out her hand. "Ābrēotan."
The spiders began crawling, climbing quickly over the moving train, unnoticed by the patrons within. No one would see them but her.
Nimueh bid them toward the front car, watching with perverted pleasure as they set the engine aflame, the train picking up speed.
* * *
Gaius made his way through the cars, shaking his head. For all that Merlin made a wonderful con artist, he never could lie very well - at least, not to those who knew him. Many a night, Gaius had awoken to find his young charge bent over the small treasure box from the palace, his fingers brushing against the engravings. Though Merlin had never shared more than the bare minimum about his time as a servant in the palace, Gaius knew there was a story to tell, and that the jewelled box was more than just a flash of treasure and opulence.
He sighed. Merlin had been a faithful companion for ten years, but he knew that a life such as theirs was not healthy for the boy. He dedicated all of his time to their work. Never once had he made any friend besides Gaius, and he had found even fewer romantic interests. Gaius fully supported any endeavour that would grant Merlin the life a man his age deserved, but it was unfortunate that the first apparent chance of that happening would occur during the biggest job of their collective careers.
Glancing out the window as he walked, he shook his head again. Of course, Arty appeared to be as stubborn as Merlin, so there was a chance nothing would come of it. At any rate, this promised to be a rather eventful trip.
He nodded to a married couple in the walkway, pulling out the travel papers he'd finished the night before. Not his best work, perhaps, given the rush, but they would do.
"Illya, where are our visas?" the woman pestered her husband, spotting the conductor making his way up the aisle. The husband rolled his eyes, handing her a red booklet with gold printing on the outside. She opened it, ready for the conductor to inspect, black ink jumping off the page.
Gaius froze, his gaze falling to the red-inked visas in his hands. He was truly falling behind in his years to let a mistake like that slip past him. Time was he would have known the government’s intentions to alter the appearance of an official document before they themselves were aware of the change. Perhaps Merlin was correct in his desire to leave the con artistry business behind. It would certainly mean less stress.
"Travel papers!" the conductor shouted from the front of their car.
Hurriedly, the older man made his way back past the couple to Merlin's compartment, sliding the door closed behind him.
"Merlin, get up," he ordered, knowing very well that his young companion was feigning sleep. "They've changed the ink on the visas. Our forgeries are no good. We're going to have to make a run for it."
Merlin's eyes shot open, alert. "Find us a place to hide," he told Gaius, speedily pulling on his coat and reaching for his bag. "I'll go fetch His Grace."
* * *
Gwen was still seated by the window, idly sketching figures on her paper when he found their compartment again.
She stood as Merlin entered, frowning at the urgency in his expression. "Merlin? What is it?"
"We have to move. Get your things together," he replied, his gaze falling to Arty, who'd fallen asleep on his seat. "Gaius will meet you outside."
To her credit, she didn't question him, quietly gathering her charcoal and pulling on her coat and scarf. Merlin nodded to himself - at least one of their new companions had a head on their shoulders.
He crouched beside the orphan’s seat.
"Arty? Arty! Come on, get up!"
He shook the other man harshly, and was promptly rewarded with an elbow to the face.
"Ow!" he yelped, clutching his nose in pain. "What the—!"
"What's going on?" Arty mumbled sleepily, having no regard for the injury he'd just inflicted.
Merlin frowned, curbing the desire to grab one of the seat cushions and smother the other man with it. "Change of plans. We've been given new accommodations," he lied. Anything to get him moving faster.
Arty sat up lazily, putting on his coat and taking his sweet time about it. "How come?"
"Does it matter? Just hurry up, would you," he barked, still cupping his wounded nose and resisting the urge to kick something. "You paranoid bastard – was that really necessary? I think you might've broken it."
The other man scoffed, an amused smirk on his arrogant face as he followed Merlin out of the compartment. "Don't be such a girl, Merlin. It's hardly life-threatening."
Gaius met them out in the corridor, his eyes flitting to where the conductor was still making the rounds. "This way," he urged, leading them toward the front of the train. They crossed into the next car, quickly hurrying down the aisle, Merlin glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed their abrupt departure. They'd need to get off at the next station, but hopefully they'd manage to stay hidden until then. He and Gaius couldn't afford any trouble with the authorities.
They slid open the door to the next car, finding it stacked head-to-toe with luggage. Great.
"It'll have to do," Gaius sighed, setting down his suitcase.
"Our new accommodations are in the baggage car?" Arty drawled, raising a sceptical eyebrow. "There wouldn't happen to be something wrong with our exit visas, would there, Merlin?"
"Of course not, Your Highness," Merlin replied sarcastically. "I just thought this would be a nice change of scenery. You know, enjoy the view." He gestured to the dirty luggage that surrounded them, rolling his eyes. "We hit a small snag. We'll get off at the next stop, but in the meantime, we need to keep a low profile, so I suggest you make your royal ass comfortable."
Arty's eyes narrowed for a fight, but Gwen cut him off.
"Er ... Are we supposed to be going this fast?" she asked nervously, gesturing to the engine car ahead of them.
The others paused, frowning - sure enough, the train did seem to be moving faster than before, practically whipping along the snow-covered track. As one, they moved to the end of the car, sliding the door open to peer around the coal bin that separated them from the locomotive.
Merlin's eyes widened. There was orange light flickering from the front of the train, far more smoke billowing toward them than should have been necessary.
"Something's wrong," he shouted over the noise of the engine, feeling the train give a small lurch as they rounded a wide curve in the track.
"Stay here, I'll check it out," Arty said, stepping across the cars to the ladder on the coal bin.
He frowned, "Wha— Hey!"
It was too late - the other man had already disappeared over the top of the car, leaving Merlin scowling. It figured that Arty would be one of those annoyingly heroic rough, tough, save-the-world types. Always showing off.
They waited, gripping the sides of the doorway as the train gave another lurch. It wouldn't take much to derail them at this speed, and they certainly weren’t slowing down.
"What do you think it is?" Gwen asked, looking worried.
Merlin shook his head. "Might just be a malfunction. They're probably trying to fix it."
Arty landed in front of them, alarmed. "No one's driving the train," he informed them, pushing through the door back to where they'd come in. "We need to warn the other passengers - we'll have to jump."
* * *
Nimueh grinned, watching as the locomotive continued to pick up speed. Her spiders covered the train, invisible to the grand duke and his companions. She raised her hand again, letting the phial dangle over the water.
"Sundrian."
At once, the spiders scurried to the end of the railcar, unhooking the passenger carriages. She watched the four travellers’ eyes widen in horror as they reached the door too late, finding themselves cut off from the rest of the train.
"What do we do now?" the girl asked.
The dark-haired man turned, determined. "We'll unhook ourselves from the engine. We can just coast to a stop."
A good try, she thought. Smirking, Nimueh set her spiders on the other half of the car, a small burst of her magic flowing through them, melting the trailer hooks together, preventing any attempt to separate the two.
"Don't fight it, Arthur," she mocked, delighting in watching their fruitless efforts to escape. "You'll be with your family soon enough."
* * *
Gaius pushed the door open again, looking down at the hooks connecting the two cars. Merlin stepped out past him, placing a foot on either car as he bent over the hooks, trying to yank them apart. To his surprise, they appeared to be welded together.
"It's not working! I need something to pry it with!" Merlin yelled to the others, struggling to keep his balance, Gaius' hand darting out to help him stay upright.
Gwen handed him one of two crowbars, kneeling in the doorway of the car as she worked with him to try and pry the hooks apart. Behind them, Arty scowled, looking around.
"There's not enough time. Maybe we can still jump," he shouted.
Merlin paused to look up doubtfully at the scenery whipping past them. There was a death wish if he'd ever seen one.
"How about you go first and we'll follow," he offered, glancing up at the other man.
Arty frowned. "Well, what would you suggest?"
He clanked his crowbar against the hooks, hoping to knock them loose, Gwen's face screwed up in concentration as she put her weight into prying at them. "Find me something to break this with!"
"We don't have much longer," Gaius informed them, peering out between the two cars. "There's a sharp turn ahead on this route. We'll jump the tracks for sure."
"I know," Merlin grunted, putting his back into it, the hooks refusing to budge. They'd have no choice but to jump, soon. Of all the ways he'd envisioned his own death, a train wreck certainly hadn't been one of them.
Arty appeared over Gaius' shoulder again, a lit stick of dynamite in his hand. "Will this do?" he asked smugly.
His eyes wide - where on earth had he managed to dig that up? - Merlin accepted it quickly, shoving it between the two hooks as Gaius pulled Gwen out of the way. The four of them bolted back inside the car, ducking behind a pile of crates, one of them marked for demolition. Oh.
Gwen braced against Arty, the rest of them huddling together against the explosion, the force of it sending them all flying. The front of the car was completely ripped away, allowing the cold wind to whip more freely inside.
Merlin was the first to recover, his ears ringing as he checked on Gaius, who appeared shaken but unhurt. Gwen and Arty stood slowly, watching as the locomotive sped on ahead of them, no longer attached.
"Now what?" Gaius asked, getting to his feet.
"We've got plenty of track," Arty assured him. "We'll coast to a stop, like Merlin said."
Merlin looked out at the track ahead of them, frowning. "I don't think that's going to work anymore," he said, spotting the curve Gaius had mentioned at a distance. The locomotive was still going too fast to make it safely. Once it jumped the track, they'd hit the wreckage for sure.
He set his jaw, looking around the baggage car for something to slow them down. Spotting a length of chain, he quickly formed a plan.
"Gwen - attach something heavy to the end of the chain. Something that will catch against the tracks," he ordered, racing toward the rear of the carriage as she nodded. "Gaius, give me a hand." He'd need a lot of luck to pull this off, but hopefully it'd be enough.
Breathing out, he eased himself over the edge of the car, bracing his feet against the undercarriage as he tried not to touch the speeding track below them. He bit his lip, carefully sliding himself under the car, finding his grip.
"All right, Gaius, hand me the chain," Merlin grunted, straining with the effort of keeping himself upright, his feet slipping against the undercarriage, the track a little too close for comfort.
Arty's head appeared over the edge of the platform, chain in-hand and eyebrows raised.
"Wha— Not you!" Merlin shouted. "Where's Gaius?"
"He's busy," Arty shouted back, looking unimpressed. He shook the chain, dangling it just out of Merlin's reach. "Do you want this or don't you?"
Scowling, Merlin grabbed the chain from the other man's hands, carefully reaching back until he had hooked it to the underside of the car. A piece of debris flew down the track toward him, Arty's hand darting out quickly to pull him up before he could be knocked under the train.
Safely back aboard the coach, Merlin breathed out in relief as the debris bounced along the track behind them, quickly obliterated by the speed of its travel.
Sighing in disappointment, Arty turned away, wiping his hands clean. "To think, that could've been you."
Merlin scowled again - he was getting really sick of his arrogance. "I hope you're not expecting a thank you."
Together, they pushed the rest of the chain over the edge, watching with guarded hope as the piece of metal rail Gwen had attached flew out behind them.
"Hold on," Merlin cautioned loudly.
The rail caught, hooking itself against the wood of the tracks, sending the car into another lurch. Their speed was too great for it to stop them completely, the chain pulling taut as the rail tore through the tracks, another explosion rocking the car. The four of them turned to look at the locomotive that had jumped the track just a few kilometres ahead, bursting into flames.
"We have to go!" Arty shouted, getting to his feet. He and Gwen unlatched the side door of the car, pulling it open while Merlin and Gaius scrambled for their luggage. The passing forest of trees was still moving far too quickly for Merlin's liking, his stomach lurching at the thought of plunging to certain pain, if not death. He heard Gwen's gasp and Gaius' muttered curse beside him as they lined up side-by-side.
"Go!"
The four of them leapt, the snow bank doing little to cushion their fall as they each let out a loud grunt of pain, rolling along the ditch with their luggage. Merlin's face bashed against the stiff ground, his arm getting tangled up beneath him as the baggage car carried on without them into the wreckage. A third explosion filled the night sky, the car meeting with the damaged remains of the locomotive.
Tumbling to an unpleasant stop, someone's foot caught beneath him, Merlin groaned, feeling dizzier and more broken than he could ever recall. The foot beneath him twitched, its owner letting out an appreciative moan of displeasure.
Merlin closed his eyes, still feeling the motion of the train in his bones. He listened to the dying sounds of the explosion, trying not to think about how easily that could have been them.
"I vote we rest here for a while," he mumbled against the ground.
His three equally sore companions muttered their agreement.
* * *
Nimueh let out a scream of frustration, slamming her fists on the edge of the scrying bowl. She'd been so close! How could he have escaped?
She dashed her hand across the water again, distorting the image. She had no desire to watch the grand duke gloat in his victory.
Pacing the length of her prison, she scowled. She should have foreseen the trouble his companions would cause. Alone she would have defeated him for sure, but she'd underestimated the people he surrounded himself with. Just as before, Arthur relied on others to shield him, to prevent her from carrying out her revenge.
She sneered. No one was invincible. She'd have to find a way to get him alone, away from anyone who could interfere.
Sitting against the stone wall of the cave, she held the phial of the Old Religion before her, staring into its smoky red insides.
"Enjoy your short reprieve, Your Highness. I will not rest until I see my curse completed."
Author:
batgurl88 Pairing/Characters: Arthur/Merlin, Gwen/Morgana, Gaius, Uther, Nimueh
Wordcount: 5,245 (52,352 overall)
Summary: Arthur is a royal who can't remember his past. Merlin and Gaius are con-men, hoping to return Arthur to Uther for a hefty reward, but little do they know they have the real deal on their hands.
A/N: Some lines and plot aspects respectfully borrowed from both Fox’s Anastasia and BBC’s Merlin. Beta’d by the brilliant
justicemischief. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
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My Fair Arty
Part Four
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Merlin sighed, stretching the kinks in his neck as the train whistle sounded.
The train itself was nearly packed, with only a few empty compartments to be found. They didn't have many belongings between them - just a small bag for Gwen and two suitcases between Gaius and himself, as Arty had no real possessions to speak of. Gwen had immediately staked out a spot near the window, mumbling something about "natural light" that Merlin hadn't quite caught, pulling out a ratty bundle of papers, a dull knife, and a stick of charcoal. Gaius had settled beside her, his nose buried in an old book, leaving Merlin stuck with Arty.
Tickets to Paris had been easy enough for Merlin to procure - despite what he'd implied to Arty the previous day - but the visas had been another matter. Gaius had been up most of the night, scratching out travel papers for their new companions in the dim firelight of the Winter Palace where the four of them had spent the night.
Merlin had watched him for a while, his offer to help predictably shot down. It had been many years, but the memory of Merlin’s first attempt at forgery still hung heavily between them. He'd been so proud of himself, spending hours copying the fake birth certificate onto the correct paper for Gaius' inspection, only to realise he'd spelt Lancelot's name wrong. The money to redo it had come from his own savings, and he'd had to endure weeks of mocking by Gaius, who still insisted on calling him "Luncelot" whenever he did something particularly stupid. After that, he'd left the forging mostly to Gaius, preferring to dedicate himself to the business side of things.
Merlin sighed, trying to find a more comfortable position on the crowded bench.
Arty was quickly displaying a complete inability to sit still, his constant fidgeting annoying Merlin to no end. If he wasn't shuffling his feet against the floor, he was fingering a thin gold chain around his neck, the links clinking against each other in a decidedly irritating way. When one of Arty's knees knocked against him for the fourth time, he snapped.
"Knock it off, would you?" he said, glaring daggers at the other man.
Arty's expression turned sour. "These seats are too small."
"Well, the rest of us are doing just fine with them, so get used to it. Grand dukes don't fidget."
"Really? Met a lot of grand dukes, have you?" Arty retorted sarcastically.
"Look," Merlin sighed, not particularly eager to divulge his history this early in the trip, "The fact is, I know a lot more about the subject than you do, so mine is the opinion we'll be going with. What's that you're playing with anyways?"
"Nothing," Arty said, tucking the chain back under his shirt.
Merlin "hmphed", glancing across the compartment at Gaius' disapproving frown. He shrugged. What? It wasn't his fault that Arty was annoying. Gaius's glare only grew more disapproving, causing Merlin to sigh again. They needed Arty on their side for the con to work, and if that meant being nice to the jerk, then he'd have to go along with it.
He closed his eyes, trying to come up with a safe subject to discuss.
As it turned out, Arty beat him to it.
"So, what is it you do, exactly?" he asked, glancing sideways at him. "When you're not searching out grand dukes, that is."
"Do?" Merlin echoed.
The other man rolled his eyes. "Yes, you know, your job? Gaius makes the forgeries, so what does he need you for?"
Merlin distinctly thought he heard a muffled snort from the seat across from him, but he chose to ignore it, focusing his anger on Arty.
"Is this your idea of small talk?"
Arty shrugged. "It's a long train ride."
Merlin looked away. "I set up the jobs," he replied testily, folding his arms.
"And that's hard, is it?" Arty mocked, surveying him with fake interest.
"Harder than mooching off other peoples' charity, yeah," Merlin sniped.
The tactic worked as he'd known it would. Arty's eyes darkened considerably, his mouth a thin line. "I don't need charity."
"Of course you don't," Merlin mocked back, digging about in his suitcase for something to read. Arty "hmph"ed beside him, turning to face the window. They rode the next half hour in blessed silence.
* * *
Arty sighed, leaning his head against the window. The novelty of the train ride had worn off after the first hour, leaving him rather bored. Gaius was still reading - some ancient tome on medicinal cures that looked to have been pilfered from the library of the Winter Palace - and Gwen was busy with her drawing, somehow managing to keep her lines straight even with the motion of the car. Unlike the others, Arty had no activity to occupy his attention, and he hated sitting around doing nothing.
They'd just passed the border into Poland when Gaius got up for a walk through the cars, citing a need to stretch his legs. Merlin stretched a bit himself, reaching into his suitcase as though a thought had just occurred to him.
"Here." He tossed a small booklet onto Arty's lap and one onto Gwen's as well.
"What's this?" Arty said, inspecting it, the paper stiff beneath his fingers.
"Your new exit visa."
He frowned as he reached the page with his personal information on it.
"You made my last name Durakov?" he demanded loudly, staring at the visa in disbelief.
Merlin shrugged, doing a very bad job of hiding his grin. "You said you didn't have one, so I had to improvise."
"Artem Dracovin Durakov," he read. "I sound ridiculous!"
"No change there, then," Merlin muttered under his breath. Arty glared. "Look, the important thing is it'll get us across the border," he said sensibly.
"You called me a simpleton!" said Arty, brandishing the visa like a madman.
"Well, I had to make it believable," the other man reasoned smugly, leaning back against the seat, still looking far too pleased with his own joke.
Arty glowered, tossing the visa in his bag and crossing his arms as he turned to glare out the window. Of all the stupid pranks to pull. He'd have to present that visa at every passport check, looking like a complete idiot. Jealously, he glanced across the aisle at Gwen, who'd had no such complaints about her travel papers.
She caught his eye. "It's not that bad, Arty," she assured him quietly, guessing his thoughts. "Most people probably won't even notice it where we’re going."
He shrugged begrudgingly, conceding her point. True, most people hardly gave a second thought to the meanings of surnames. It wasn’t like they’d spent weeks studying books of names and their definitions like he had, trying to find one that felt familiar. Still, it was a cheap shot for Merlin to take.
Gwen raised her eyebrows, gesturing toward Merlin with an expectant look on her face. He sighed again, glancing sideways at the other man. If there was any chance of them making it to France without killing each other, it would obviously be up to Arty to extend the olive branch.
"So, are you going to miss it?" he asked, rather politely, in his opinion. The semi-glare he received in return was completely unwarranted.
"Miss what?" Merlin asked, bored.
Arty shrugged. "Russia."
The other man shook his head. "Not really. It's just a country. Russia or France doesn't make much difference to me."
He frowned. "Not even a little bit?" he pushed, shaking his head a bit in confusion. Sure, Gwen had expressed little regret about leaving all she'd known behind, but he'd still seen her sniffle a bit when the train left the station in St. Petersburg.
"Why should I miss it?" Merlin said exasperatedly, turning in his seat. "It's just a place I used to live."
"So, you must be planning on making France your new home, then," Arty concluded with a nod, the idea making sense to him. It was what he was doing, after all.
"What is it with you?" wondered Merlin, rolling his eyes. "No, I don't plan on making France my home. Not everyone needs to be stuck down in one place, you know."
The concept was foreign to Arty, and he frowned. How could anyone see a home as being “stuck down”? A home was where a person belonged.
"Well, if you're not going to find a home there," he continued, nonplussed, "What will you do?"
Merlin glared. "What is this, an interrogation? I don't want to talk about it, all right?"
He turned away, leaving Arty fed up with the brush-off.
"Look, what exactly is your problem with me?" he demanded, unfolding his arms.
"Me?" Merlin shot back, scowling. "You haven't stopped being a pain since we left St. Petersburg."
Arty barked out a laugh. "You must be joking. I'm not the one refusing to have any sort of polite interaction."
"No," countered Merlin, standing up. "You're the one who keeps sticking his nose in other peoples' business."
"As if I cared one bit about your boring life," Arty retorted, standing as well. "I might as well try and strike up an intelligent conversation with an elephant. At least its ears would be less distracting to look at."
Merlin's face flushed red, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
Gwen watched the exchange silently, her gaze flitting back and forth between Arthur and Merlin as her charcoal-covered fingers hovered over the page she'd been drawing on.
The door to the compartment slid open, revealing their final travelling companion.
"What's all this?" Gaius inquired, glancing between the pair, who stood frozen, identical expressions of anger on their faces. Arty straightened.
"Gaius, remove him from my sight!" he demanded regally, glaring at Merlin. If they wanted a grand duke, they could have one.
Merlin threw up his hands in exasperation. "You don't have to ask me twice!"
With that, he stormed from the compartment, grabbing his coat as he went. Gaius hesitated a moment before following, the corners of his mouth twitching ever so slightly.
Arty huffed, plopping back down onto his seat. Across the aisle, Gwen was watching him with a strange expression.
"What?" he asked, a bit more snappish than he'd meant to.
She shook her head quickly, apparently embarrassed to have been caught.
"Nothing, it's— Nothing," she stammered, turning back to her drawings.
Sighing, Arty tilted his head against the seatback to look out at the passing countryside.
You're doing this to get to France, he reminded himself, his mouth twisting downwards at the thought of having to spend the rest of the trip with Merlin. At least Gaius wasn't so bad, and he still had Gwen to talk to. And once he got this grand duke business over with, he'd be free to start searching for his family.
The thought made him smile. He closed his eyes, dreaming of Paris.
* * *
By the time Gaius caught up with him, Merlin had found a new compartment, and was angrily punching his coat into a comfortable pillow to sleep against.
"There's no way we're going to be able to use him as the grand duke," Merlin said without preamble. "He's far too much of an idiot."
"He certainly sounds like royalty," Gaius mused, a hint of a smirk on his face.
"Yeah," groused Merlin. "He'll have no trouble bossing people around, that's for sure."
He gave up on the pillow, giving it another punch just for good measure before throwing himself onto the seat, his arms crossed over his chest.
Gaius took the seat across from him.
"Merlin," he said hesitantly. "If this attraction of yours is going to be a problem..."
Merlin bolted upright. "Attraction?" he spluttered. "You think that I— Well, that's just— To him?"
"It makes sense," his partner assured him. "He's attractive and headstrong, and bears a rather striking resemblance to the grand duke whom you've been pining over all these years—"
"I've not been 'pining'!" Merlin yelped indignantly, his ears reddening. The raised eyebrow Gaius gave him begged to differ.
"What else would you call obsessively memorizing the history of the Petrovin family and every last known detail of the grand duke's life? I think you know more about Arthur than Uther does."
"You've studied it, too!" he defended, crossing his arms again. "Besides, it's all about to pay off, isn't it?"
Gaius sighed, folding his coat over his arm. "I suppose." He tilted his head. "All I'm saying, Merlin, that it's not uncommon to misplace certain feelings you have for another onto a person of similar quality and appearance," he said, his eyes softening a bit with understanding. "But if it's going to interfere with our work—"
"It's not, because you've got it all wrong," Merlin insisted, staring him straight in the eye. There was absolutely no way he was displacing his feelings for the grand duke - of which there were none! - onto Arty.
The older man nodded congenially.
"My mistake," he said, sounding more amused than repentant, in Merlin's opinion. Merlin glared.
"Just go make sure that our visas are in order, would you?" he said, shoving his coat into the corner of his seat again. Train travel was far more uncomfortable than it needed to be.
He didn't look up as Gaius left, falling back onto the seat again to stare up at the ceiling. Ridiculous.¬ Gaius was going soft in his old age, all right. As if he'd ever confuse the grand duke with Arty of all people - Arty who didn’t have a single refined bone in his body! Arty who, while bearing a certain resemblance to Arthur, had none of his grace or ease. Arty, who was most certainly the biggest brat he'd ever had the displeasure of meeting.
Merlin scowled, turning on his side. For such a big payoff, this job certainly wasn't coming easily. The sooner they got to France, the better.
* * *
Deep in her prison, Nimueh glared over the contents of her scrying bowl, watching as the grand duke relaxed on the train, hardly a care in the world. Her eyes narrowed at his easy demeanour. She'd see that Arthur never reached France - there would be no tearful reunion between him and his precious, meddling grandfather.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the spell. It'd been many years since she'd attempted such a powerful work, and it would need her full attention.
Taking a sharpened stone, Nimueh pricked her finger. The blood dripped slowly into the water below, crimson diluting and taking shape within the bowl.
"Loppe," she intoned, holding her red vial by its cord, watching as it glowed to life. The water burned and hissed inside the bowl, the drops of blood slowly transforming into ghost-like red spiders, taking shape along the snow-covered track.
She held out her hand. "Ābrēotan."
The spiders began crawling, climbing quickly over the moving train, unnoticed by the patrons within. No one would see them but her.
Nimueh bid them toward the front car, watching with perverted pleasure as they set the engine aflame, the train picking up speed.
* * *
Gaius made his way through the cars, shaking his head. For all that Merlin made a wonderful con artist, he never could lie very well - at least, not to those who knew him. Many a night, Gaius had awoken to find his young charge bent over the small treasure box from the palace, his fingers brushing against the engravings. Though Merlin had never shared more than the bare minimum about his time as a servant in the palace, Gaius knew there was a story to tell, and that the jewelled box was more than just a flash of treasure and opulence.
He sighed. Merlin had been a faithful companion for ten years, but he knew that a life such as theirs was not healthy for the boy. He dedicated all of his time to their work. Never once had he made any friend besides Gaius, and he had found even fewer romantic interests. Gaius fully supported any endeavour that would grant Merlin the life a man his age deserved, but it was unfortunate that the first apparent chance of that happening would occur during the biggest job of their collective careers.
Glancing out the window as he walked, he shook his head again. Of course, Arty appeared to be as stubborn as Merlin, so there was a chance nothing would come of it. At any rate, this promised to be a rather eventful trip.
He nodded to a married couple in the walkway, pulling out the travel papers he'd finished the night before. Not his best work, perhaps, given the rush, but they would do.
"Illya, where are our visas?" the woman pestered her husband, spotting the conductor making his way up the aisle. The husband rolled his eyes, handing her a red booklet with gold printing on the outside. She opened it, ready for the conductor to inspect, black ink jumping off the page.
Gaius froze, his gaze falling to the red-inked visas in his hands. He was truly falling behind in his years to let a mistake like that slip past him. Time was he would have known the government’s intentions to alter the appearance of an official document before they themselves were aware of the change. Perhaps Merlin was correct in his desire to leave the con artistry business behind. It would certainly mean less stress.
"Travel papers!" the conductor shouted from the front of their car.
Hurriedly, the older man made his way back past the couple to Merlin's compartment, sliding the door closed behind him.
"Merlin, get up," he ordered, knowing very well that his young companion was feigning sleep. "They've changed the ink on the visas. Our forgeries are no good. We're going to have to make a run for it."
Merlin's eyes shot open, alert. "Find us a place to hide," he told Gaius, speedily pulling on his coat and reaching for his bag. "I'll go fetch His Grace."
* * *
Gwen was still seated by the window, idly sketching figures on her paper when he found their compartment again.
She stood as Merlin entered, frowning at the urgency in his expression. "Merlin? What is it?"
"We have to move. Get your things together," he replied, his gaze falling to Arty, who'd fallen asleep on his seat. "Gaius will meet you outside."
To her credit, she didn't question him, quietly gathering her charcoal and pulling on her coat and scarf. Merlin nodded to himself - at least one of their new companions had a head on their shoulders.
He crouched beside the orphan’s seat.
"Arty? Arty! Come on, get up!"
He shook the other man harshly, and was promptly rewarded with an elbow to the face.
"Ow!" he yelped, clutching his nose in pain. "What the—!"
"What's going on?" Arty mumbled sleepily, having no regard for the injury he'd just inflicted.
Merlin frowned, curbing the desire to grab one of the seat cushions and smother the other man with it. "Change of plans. We've been given new accommodations," he lied. Anything to get him moving faster.
Arty sat up lazily, putting on his coat and taking his sweet time about it. "How come?"
"Does it matter? Just hurry up, would you," he barked, still cupping his wounded nose and resisting the urge to kick something. "You paranoid bastard – was that really necessary? I think you might've broken it."
The other man scoffed, an amused smirk on his arrogant face as he followed Merlin out of the compartment. "Don't be such a girl, Merlin. It's hardly life-threatening."
Gaius met them out in the corridor, his eyes flitting to where the conductor was still making the rounds. "This way," he urged, leading them toward the front of the train. They crossed into the next car, quickly hurrying down the aisle, Merlin glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone had noticed their abrupt departure. They'd need to get off at the next station, but hopefully they'd manage to stay hidden until then. He and Gaius couldn't afford any trouble with the authorities.
They slid open the door to the next car, finding it stacked head-to-toe with luggage. Great.
"It'll have to do," Gaius sighed, setting down his suitcase.
"Our new accommodations are in the baggage car?" Arty drawled, raising a sceptical eyebrow. "There wouldn't happen to be something wrong with our exit visas, would there, Merlin?"
"Of course not, Your Highness," Merlin replied sarcastically. "I just thought this would be a nice change of scenery. You know, enjoy the view." He gestured to the dirty luggage that surrounded them, rolling his eyes. "We hit a small snag. We'll get off at the next stop, but in the meantime, we need to keep a low profile, so I suggest you make your royal ass comfortable."
Arty's eyes narrowed for a fight, but Gwen cut him off.
"Er ... Are we supposed to be going this fast?" she asked nervously, gesturing to the engine car ahead of them.
The others paused, frowning - sure enough, the train did seem to be moving faster than before, practically whipping along the snow-covered track. As one, they moved to the end of the car, sliding the door open to peer around the coal bin that separated them from the locomotive.
Merlin's eyes widened. There was orange light flickering from the front of the train, far more smoke billowing toward them than should have been necessary.
"Something's wrong," he shouted over the noise of the engine, feeling the train give a small lurch as they rounded a wide curve in the track.
"Stay here, I'll check it out," Arty said, stepping across the cars to the ladder on the coal bin.
He frowned, "Wha— Hey!"
It was too late - the other man had already disappeared over the top of the car, leaving Merlin scowling. It figured that Arty would be one of those annoyingly heroic rough, tough, save-the-world types. Always showing off.
They waited, gripping the sides of the doorway as the train gave another lurch. It wouldn't take much to derail them at this speed, and they certainly weren’t slowing down.
"What do you think it is?" Gwen asked, looking worried.
Merlin shook his head. "Might just be a malfunction. They're probably trying to fix it."
Arty landed in front of them, alarmed. "No one's driving the train," he informed them, pushing through the door back to where they'd come in. "We need to warn the other passengers - we'll have to jump."
* * *
Nimueh grinned, watching as the locomotive continued to pick up speed. Her spiders covered the train, invisible to the grand duke and his companions. She raised her hand again, letting the phial dangle over the water.
"Sundrian."
At once, the spiders scurried to the end of the railcar, unhooking the passenger carriages. She watched the four travellers’ eyes widen in horror as they reached the door too late, finding themselves cut off from the rest of the train.
"What do we do now?" the girl asked.
The dark-haired man turned, determined. "We'll unhook ourselves from the engine. We can just coast to a stop."
A good try, she thought. Smirking, Nimueh set her spiders on the other half of the car, a small burst of her magic flowing through them, melting the trailer hooks together, preventing any attempt to separate the two.
"Don't fight it, Arthur," she mocked, delighting in watching their fruitless efforts to escape. "You'll be with your family soon enough."
* * *
Gaius pushed the door open again, looking down at the hooks connecting the two cars. Merlin stepped out past him, placing a foot on either car as he bent over the hooks, trying to yank them apart. To his surprise, they appeared to be welded together.
"It's not working! I need something to pry it with!" Merlin yelled to the others, struggling to keep his balance, Gaius' hand darting out to help him stay upright.
Gwen handed him one of two crowbars, kneeling in the doorway of the car as she worked with him to try and pry the hooks apart. Behind them, Arty scowled, looking around.
"There's not enough time. Maybe we can still jump," he shouted.
Merlin paused to look up doubtfully at the scenery whipping past them. There was a death wish if he'd ever seen one.
"How about you go first and we'll follow," he offered, glancing up at the other man.
Arty frowned. "Well, what would you suggest?"
He clanked his crowbar against the hooks, hoping to knock them loose, Gwen's face screwed up in concentration as she put her weight into prying at them. "Find me something to break this with!"
"We don't have much longer," Gaius informed them, peering out between the two cars. "There's a sharp turn ahead on this route. We'll jump the tracks for sure."
"I know," Merlin grunted, putting his back into it, the hooks refusing to budge. They'd have no choice but to jump, soon. Of all the ways he'd envisioned his own death, a train wreck certainly hadn't been one of them.
Arty appeared over Gaius' shoulder again, a lit stick of dynamite in his hand. "Will this do?" he asked smugly.
His eyes wide - where on earth had he managed to dig that up? - Merlin accepted it quickly, shoving it between the two hooks as Gaius pulled Gwen out of the way. The four of them bolted back inside the car, ducking behind a pile of crates, one of them marked for demolition. Oh.
Gwen braced against Arty, the rest of them huddling together against the explosion, the force of it sending them all flying. The front of the car was completely ripped away, allowing the cold wind to whip more freely inside.
Merlin was the first to recover, his ears ringing as he checked on Gaius, who appeared shaken but unhurt. Gwen and Arty stood slowly, watching as the locomotive sped on ahead of them, no longer attached.
"Now what?" Gaius asked, getting to his feet.
"We've got plenty of track," Arty assured him. "We'll coast to a stop, like Merlin said."
Merlin looked out at the track ahead of them, frowning. "I don't think that's going to work anymore," he said, spotting the curve Gaius had mentioned at a distance. The locomotive was still going too fast to make it safely. Once it jumped the track, they'd hit the wreckage for sure.
He set his jaw, looking around the baggage car for something to slow them down. Spotting a length of chain, he quickly formed a plan.
"Gwen - attach something heavy to the end of the chain. Something that will catch against the tracks," he ordered, racing toward the rear of the carriage as she nodded. "Gaius, give me a hand." He'd need a lot of luck to pull this off, but hopefully it'd be enough.
Breathing out, he eased himself over the edge of the car, bracing his feet against the undercarriage as he tried not to touch the speeding track below them. He bit his lip, carefully sliding himself under the car, finding his grip.
"All right, Gaius, hand me the chain," Merlin grunted, straining with the effort of keeping himself upright, his feet slipping against the undercarriage, the track a little too close for comfort.
Arty's head appeared over the edge of the platform, chain in-hand and eyebrows raised.
"Wha— Not you!" Merlin shouted. "Where's Gaius?"
"He's busy," Arty shouted back, looking unimpressed. He shook the chain, dangling it just out of Merlin's reach. "Do you want this or don't you?"
Scowling, Merlin grabbed the chain from the other man's hands, carefully reaching back until he had hooked it to the underside of the car. A piece of debris flew down the track toward him, Arty's hand darting out quickly to pull him up before he could be knocked under the train.
Safely back aboard the coach, Merlin breathed out in relief as the debris bounced along the track behind them, quickly obliterated by the speed of its travel.
Sighing in disappointment, Arty turned away, wiping his hands clean. "To think, that could've been you."
Merlin scowled again - he was getting really sick of his arrogance. "I hope you're not expecting a thank you."
Together, they pushed the rest of the chain over the edge, watching with guarded hope as the piece of metal rail Gwen had attached flew out behind them.
"Hold on," Merlin cautioned loudly.
The rail caught, hooking itself against the wood of the tracks, sending the car into another lurch. Their speed was too great for it to stop them completely, the chain pulling taut as the rail tore through the tracks, another explosion rocking the car. The four of them turned to look at the locomotive that had jumped the track just a few kilometres ahead, bursting into flames.
"We have to go!" Arty shouted, getting to his feet. He and Gwen unlatched the side door of the car, pulling it open while Merlin and Gaius scrambled for their luggage. The passing forest of trees was still moving far too quickly for Merlin's liking, his stomach lurching at the thought of plunging to certain pain, if not death. He heard Gwen's gasp and Gaius' muttered curse beside him as they lined up side-by-side.
"Go!"
The four of them leapt, the snow bank doing little to cushion their fall as they each let out a loud grunt of pain, rolling along the ditch with their luggage. Merlin's face bashed against the stiff ground, his arm getting tangled up beneath him as the baggage car carried on without them into the wreckage. A third explosion filled the night sky, the car meeting with the damaged remains of the locomotive.
Tumbling to an unpleasant stop, someone's foot caught beneath him, Merlin groaned, feeling dizzier and more broken than he could ever recall. The foot beneath him twitched, its owner letting out an appreciative moan of displeasure.
Merlin closed his eyes, still feeling the motion of the train in his bones. He listened to the dying sounds of the explosion, trying not to think about how easily that could have been them.
"I vote we rest here for a while," he mumbled against the ground.
His three equally sore companions muttered their agreement.
* * *
Nimueh let out a scream of frustration, slamming her fists on the edge of the scrying bowl. She'd been so close! How could he have escaped?
She dashed her hand across the water again, distorting the image. She had no desire to watch the grand duke gloat in his victory.
Pacing the length of her prison, she scowled. She should have foreseen the trouble his companions would cause. Alone she would have defeated him for sure, but she'd underestimated the people he surrounded himself with. Just as before, Arthur relied on others to shield him, to prevent her from carrying out her revenge.
She sneered. No one was invincible. She'd have to find a way to get him alone, away from anyone who could interfere.
Sitting against the stone wall of the cave, she held the phial of the Old Religion before her, staring into its smoky red insides.
"Enjoy your short reprieve, Your Highness. I will not rest until I see my curse completed."
Part Five
Extra Translations (For anyone who’s interested):
Durakov – Surname, originates from the term ‘durak’, meaning “fool”, “idiot”, or “simpleton”
Loppe – (Old English) Spider
Ābrēotan – (Old English) Destroy
Sundrian – (Old English) Separate
Durakov – Surname, originates from the term ‘durak’, meaning “fool”, “idiot”, or “simpleton”
Loppe – (Old English) Spider
Ābrēotan – (Old English) Destroy
Sundrian – (Old English) Separate