Merlin Oneshots (Wattys 2016)

Sickness

Arthur dragged me along on his little hunting trip today. It was awful. I had to cut through the foliage in order to allow Arthur and his knights to get through the forest. I walked in front of the group.
At one point, I got caught by a prickly,  yellow plant. There must have been some sort of oil in it, because it burned a hole in my pant leg and I got a bad burn. Arthur didn't care  though.  When I showed it to him, his exact words were:

"Stop being such a girl, Merlin, and suck it up!"

I sighed and trudged on. We headed back to Camelot with the two deer and one turkey we had caught. I wanted to go straight to Gaius to get my burn looked at, but Arthur would not have it. He forced me to unpack and clean up all the horses we had taken on our trip. All of them!  There were, like, fifteen! They all had to be groomed, watered, washed and fed.

One of the horses decided it would be a good idea to stomp on my foot with its horseshoe on! How cruel can the world be?! I could handle a lot of pain, but if you know what it felt like to be stepped on by a horse with a horseshoe,  you know exactly how I felt right then!

Taking care of the horses consumed most of my afternoon, and I managed to avoid Arthur long enough to get to Gaius. When he saw me limping in, he was very concerned.

"Merlin, what did you do to yourself?" He asked, guiding me to the bed for patients and began inspecting my injury.

"It's not me, Gaius, it's Arthur. During the hunting trip, I scraped my leg on an oily plant that burnt my leg, and all he had to say about it was, 'stop being such a girl!' Then, he had me water, feed, clean,  and otherwise take care of 13 horses! I..." I sucked in a breath as Gaius touched a particular spot that stung. "...I can't do it anymore, Gaius. I can't...I can't..." Suddenly feeling exhausted, I layed back and closed my eyes. I could hear everything. I could hear Arthur calling for me to come assist him with getting ready for bed, I could hear Gaius muttering to himself about  a cure for my wounds, I could hear my mother in Ealdor talking to Daniel,  a farmer, about how she can help with the harvest this year, I could hear every conversation everywhere. But I couldn't move. I felt a weight fall on my chest, and then --- the world went dark. . .

Howdy! I am the absolute slowest updater in the entire universe, and for that I am sorry. My life has gotten extremely busy these past two years and it's difficult to find time to do leisure activities such as writing. Thanks for reading this book, but I will likely not be posting any more one shots. Thank you again for reading, and Merry Christmas!

~ Savvy