Story [Merlin] Talk To The Dragon, Complete - - humor

Title: Talk to the Dragon
Author: ardavenport
Timeframe: pre-Episode I, pre-TPM
Genre: season 1
Characters: Gaius, Merlin, OC, others at the end.
Keywords: Gaius, Merlin, magic, Cemelot
Summary: Gaius runs into an old acquaintance who might give him a reputation.
Notes: Typo is my middle name, with missing words and errors that spell checkers do not catch being my speciality - if you see any, just post a reply or send a PM with the what and where and I will kill them with no mercy.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Shine and/or BBC Wales; I am just playing in their sandbox.



Gaius got Merlin up early to go to the market. While Merlin washed, Gaius glanced back into his room, making sure the boy hadn't fallen asleep over his book of magic and left it out. He had only done that once, but the possible consequences from such carelessness were so dire that Gaius made a habit of checking anyway. He knew that Merlin stayed up late studying magic, but he didn't comment about where all the candle stubs were going to.

After they had their morning porridge, he handed Merlin a basket and they were out of the castle just after sunup. New traders from the south had arrived in the town at sundown and Gaius wanted to see what they had.

"Come along, Merlin," he admonished as they made their way down the packed earth lane. Farmers were still arriving with their vegetables, roots, berries. Some had grapes and early apples. Only half the sellers had their stalls open. The newcomers were easy to spot at the end of the lane where the traders had set up a white and red tent. The morning air was scented with the usual morning cook fires, straw and animal excrement.

"Merlin!"

His young assistant had stopped to talk to a girl from the castle kitchen and a goat herd. Nudging goats out of his way, Merlin hurried to him with his basket. Gaius turned his attention to the new trader's wares.

Frowning, he supposed that Lady Morgana or some other court ladies might be happy with the colorful foreign cloths and trims and shiny buttons. There were some very fine needles, good for sewing up wounds, but the trader was asking far too much for them and they were not any better than the ones he already had. He did not see any herbs that he didn't already have in adequate quantities as well. Goldenseal, coriander, calendula, chamomilla. He sighed, shaking his head. Merlin looked a little interested, but he was young. There was nothing really new here. Gaius straightened and turned around to go. . . .

. . . . and almost bounced off of an enormous woman's bosom. He hastily backed up into Merlin who dropped the basket and yelped in protest.

"Ow!"

Gaius stared back at the equally surprised woman. Blue dress and white under-dress puffed out over her prominent bosom, hair gone white with age, but her round face was lined with few wrinkles. He squinted at it; he knew that face . . . .

"Myrna?"

"Gaius?"

He could not believe it. What was she doing in Camelot? Her eyes darted to either side.

"Gaius!"

She grabbed him, pinning his arms with her ample body pressed into him.

"Aaaah!" He tried to pull away, but she had him.

"Ow!" Merlin yelped again.

She pulled back.

"Gaius!"

She grabbed the sides of his head and pressed her lips onto mouth. He kept his lips shut tight as she tried to suckle them. Then she ecstatically pulled back, her eyes lit up with apparent happiness.

"Gaius!"

She grabbed him again in another tight hug that he could not escape. Her hair smelt strongly of rose-scented soap.

"Myrna! Myrna! Get off of me!"

She let him go and stepped back, admiring.

"Oooooh, Gaius, you always did like to play hard to get."

He couldn't believe it. He did not play games like that. And certainly not with Witch Myrna. He sneered in digust. But something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Merlin was grinning, his eyes on Myrna's ample cleavage.

"Merlin!"

He startled and stumbled backward, hopping and hitting his shin on a tent pole.

"Ow!"

"Wha

Thanks for reading! Yeah, Gaius has got a little bit of trouble coming his way, but he's capable.

- - Part 2


Gaius spent a worrisome afternoon and a fretful evening going about his tasks. But there were no alarms. He was not worried that Myrna was any danger to the kingdom. But he would not wish to see her burned for sorcery.

"Is something bothering you?" Merlin asked as they tidied up their rooms before retiring.

"Hmmm?" He drew back. "Bothering me? No, why would you think that?"

Merlin shrugged. "Oh, well, maybe because you've been jumping up every time someone knocks on the door."

Gaius glanced at the heavy wooden door of their chamber.

"Or looking there even when there isn't anyone there," Merlin finished. "Are you expecting something to happen?"

Gaius gave the young man a sour look. But he wasn't about to tell his assistant that he was actually hoping that something would NOT happen. He absolutely did not want to see Myrna dragged up before King Uther and condemned to burn at dawn the next day. Myrna may not have been a threat to Camelot, but that did not mean she was completely harmless. Clothing was optional for the free-loving style of magic that she practiced, and that was the least of his objections. Gaius had no intention of exposing Merlin to the lusty variety of sorcery that he had seen from Myrna and her coven, especially at his age.

"No, I am not expecting anything to happen. Unless you're referring me to seeing you taking that bucket out before going to bed."

Merlin looked over his shoulder at the bucket by the door, brimming with the leavings of their meal and soggy, smelly residue of his potion-making for the afternoon. Resigned, he went to it, grabbed the bucket handle and opened the door. He did not say anything on his way out to empty it over the wall, but the last glance back to Gaius said that he did not believe his mentor's denial.

Sighing toward the closed door, Gaius had to acknowledge that Merlin was a very perceptive young man. But he was going to do everything he could to keep Myrna and her free-loving magic away from Merlin.

Nothing happened that night. No running or shouts or alarms from the guards. Gaius was restless. What trouble could she cause or get into on her quest to talk to the dragon that Uther kept chained under the castle? Of course he would not hand her over to be burned as a sorceress. But it had been foolish for him to tell her that. Perhaps the threat of Uther's law would have forced her to leave.

Gaius fell into a restless sleep and was unaware that anything had transpried overnight until he woke suddenly.

The room was gray with early morning half-light from the window. The sun wasn't up yet.

Lying on his side, he listened carefully. There was something . . . in the room . . . with him . . . a noise. He looked behind him.

Myrna was there. Her magic, golden amulet hung between her enormous bare breasts, pale as double moons.

"Aaaah!" Gauis might have tipped his narrow cot over and fallen out, but Myrna's weight on the other side kept it upright while he scrambled out and faced the naked woman on his bed.

"What are you doing here?!" He pointed at the blanket. "Put something on!"

She casually lifted his discarded blanket and loosely draped it around herself.

"Good morning," she smiled cheerfully.

"Shhhhhhh!," he hissed back. "Quiet! How did you get in here?"

She shrugged innocently. "The door wasn't locked." She at least showed him the courtesy of keeping her voice low.

"That is not what I mean! And what are you doing in my bed? Like that?" He whispered his outrage at her as loud as he dared.

Dropping her good humor, she sighed. "Believe me, I would not be here if I didn't have to be. It's all that damn dragon's fault."

"You talked to it?"

"Yes, I did." She fingered the cord around her neck; Gaius thought he saw an extra golden glint from the amulet. "The dragon breathed on it. I've got all the proof I need. But that idiot beast burned all my clothes off doing it. And had a good laugh about it, too."

"Really? And why didn't he burn you up while he was at it?"

"I warded myself against t