Burns Too Bright, Lives Too Fast

It's almost silent, but in the distance, Arthur's voice can be made out if you put your mind to it.

"...Merlin, I hardly need your help to figure out this... voice... thing." A short silence, and then, much, much louder, he continues: "No, I am aware of which direction I am supposed to speak in. The question is, do you have any idea--"

  "You have reached the Blackberry telephone of Prince Arthur Pendragon. Leave a voice or text message after the 'beep', and I'll get back to you. Please don't try my room phone, as it is unfortunately deceased."

BEEP.

One warrior fell back and dropped on his arse. Loudly.

But no one dared to utter a word. After all, who knew who'd be next? ... George, as it turned out: he stumbled backwards and bounced his head off of the walls. And after him, whatshisname, the one with the-- something with an S?

All right, maybe Arthur wasn't entirely concerned with their names. After all, he'd never see most of these men again. "Worthless," he called, putting his foot down on Whatshisface's chest. "Honestly. And you came all this way to become knights? Surely that means several of you are all too used to hitting your heads and shaking whatever goes for minds inside there."

He pulled his foot off of Whatshisface's chest. The man panted loudly, unable to sit up.

"Clear out, you pathetic lot," he called. "Testing resumes tomorrow. If any of you haven't forfeited by then, I would hope you bring more skills to the table than you have displayed today."

The warriors scrambled out of the courtyard with varying levels of dignity. Arthur glanced at them only once - he knew this spectacle by now.

"I do love new potentials week," he sighed, pulling off his gloves as he entered the citadel.

[[ open for anyone who's here, phone calls, whatever! ]]

The kingdom had suffered under strange magics of late. Disappearances that went unnoticed, even by Arthur's magic-fearing father - areas of the kingdom that had once been and now had simply ceased to do so.

Arthur and Merlin had mounted their own investigation, of course. Though not after a whole range of increasingly embarrassing attempts on Arthur's part to convince his father that something was amiss - embarrassing, but also terrifying. If even his father's memory was failing them, then what they were to do?

Yesterday, part of the citadel had gone.

Today...

Arthur and Merlin were staring at the remains of the woods. Or rather the lack of them.

"My God."

[[ for a wizard, and a narrow escape. ]]

There were days where hunting meant one thing, and days where hunting meant quite another. The former did not involve any actual animals, whereas the latter sort of did.

Sadly for Merlin, summer meant that the amount of days where the latter seemed rather attractive greatly increased.

Though at least this time Arthur was taking a fairly scenic route that had let them here, by some stunningly impressive waterfalls.

"Oh, stop moaning, Merlin," Arthur said, cheerfully lowering his crossbow. "I think we've almost got that deer! Look at that-- it's got to have taken off... north..."

Well, at least it wasn't a unicorn?

[[ for a wizard and SP! ]]

It had gotten increasingly harder to escape the castle now that spring approached. There were preparations to be done, last rations to be distributed carefully so that everyone would have enough, farmers to protect. It was exhausting, was what it was, and Arthur relished the chance to get out for a ride.

Eventually he made it back here, to his usual spot deep in the forest by a small brook. He got off his horse and sat down on the pebbles by the river, breathing in the air.

A little peace and quiet.

It took him about fifteen minutes to get terribly sick of it, which was when he flipped open his phone and started calling numbers. Really, Merlin's magic held up surprisingly well with these things.

[[ open for phone calls, etc. ]]

Like many in and around Fandom, someone was waking in this hotel room. Someone with prematurely grey hair, in fact, who happened to be draped liberally in someone else with unfairly non-grey hair.

Someone who had been sleeping quite fitfully tonight on these fancy modern sheets, thank you very much, until someone else's phone had started ringing pointlessly at the crack of dawn.

Why?

A welcome message.

Not that Arthur cared at the moment. "Mrrln!"

The whole mess was over and done with, and now Arthur had even managed to sweep the last scraps of trouble under the rug. It had been trying, and it had been bloody dangerous, and how could he have been so stupid to begin with?

He had all this adrenaline still coursing through his body, and the morning's training had only taken the edge off. So now that things had been settled, and spoken through with his father, he was in his room. Prying bits of rock off the wall with his sword.

While brooding.

This was a spectacular combination.

[[ for a wizard, and sp ]]

Things had been going from bad to worse, and they were just degenerating by the second. First, Aredian had paraded in three more 'witnesses' who had all seen 'horrible visions of magic' around town. Arthur's father had been appropriately moved, and had of course promised to do whatever Aredian wished.

Arthur was fairly sure Merlin hadn't done anything that stupid. He hoped.

"The sorcerer laughs in your face!" Aredian intoned. "Even now, magic flourishes on the streets of Camelot!"

"I scarcely believe it," Uther breathed, his face growing pale.

The frown on Aredian's face was downright triumphant. "And yet it is the truth, my lord!" he called. "Fortunately, I have utilized every facet of my craft to bring this to a swift resolution."

"The sorcerer..." Uther leaned forward. He watched Aredian as the man paced between the courtiers. "You have a suspect?"

"Oh, I do, my lord," Aredian promised. "I regret to say--" He didn't look like he regretted anything-- "that they stand among us in this very room."

A collective gasp passed through the courtiers present. Arthur privately felt glad he'd had the forsight to tell the girls to stay away from the audience chamber this time around, but he couldn't help but glance Morgana's way. She looked even paler than usual. God-- he hadn't even thought about what this might mean for her.

"My methods are infallible!" Aredian, meanwhile, was revving up to his final speech. "My findings, incontestable! The facts point to one person, and one person alone! ( The boy, Merlin! )

[[ open for reactions from anyone in Camelot who isn't currently incarcerated. ]]

It had been less than a few hours in Fandom, yes, but in Camelot over a day and a half had passed since Arthur's guests had arrived.

A day and a half. It was some kind of ( 'Cause trouble' record, and Arthur might have found that amusing if he wasn't absolutely petrified right now. )

[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-okay, and taken from the Merlin season 2 episode 'The Witchfinder'. Preplayed with the brilliant bigdamndestiny, glacial_witch, thismaskiwear and thatsamilkshake. ]]

With August now behind them, Camelot was starting to cool. It was not yet so cold that it took effort for Arthur to bluff his way out of the castle, but given a few more weeks, it might well get to that point.

He'd figure out what to do when it happened.

Now, though, it was about a week since Francine and Katchoo had departed, and he had a strange urge to get into contact with the world outside of Camelot. And so, he'd brought his phone back to his usual clearing amidst the trees.

He tossed a few calls out to the world. Who knew what'd come up.

[[ open for phone calls! ]]