The Once and Future King

The Copy

Merlin gives Arthur some privacy, so he can change into his clothes. Once Merlin is sure he's out of Arthur's site, he takes a leaf off of the tree above him and places it in the palm of his right hand. "I hope this works." He whispers to himself, being careful that Arthur doesn't hear him. "Ypoc ym ecnaraeppa, ypoc ym eciov, ypoc em dna emoceb a dnoces noiserv fo em." Merlin whispers, his eyes turning gold as he says the spell. His magic starts to swell around the leaf slowly, almost like a magical, majestic, slow dance. Merlin blows the leaf of his hand and the moment it's in the air it becomes golden glow kits bigger in size as the leaf changes, once the growing stops there is a perfect copy of Merlin, well...almost. The copy has green eyes unlike the real Merlin whose eyes are very light, powerful blue, but he doubts anyone will notice, especially Arthur. The real Merlin smiles as does his copy. "I did it." Merlin celebrates to himself quietly. "Do you know the plan?" Merlin asks his copy.

"Of course I do, I'm you Merlin." The copy state with a proud smile.

"Good, well...here goes nothing." Merlin states with a shrug. "Ekam em a flow." His eyes become gold once more and his magic surrounds him in a bright blinding golden light, the copy of Merlin has to close his eyes. Once the copy no longer sees the light from behind his eyelids, he opens them to find the real Merlin is now a wolf. He's twice the size of a normal wolf, with gorgeous golden eyes, and black as night fur. As a wolf, Merlin actually has a lot of muscle, he was faster, stronger, and lighter on his feet than any ordinary wolf, which was quite impressive considering he was twice the size of a normal wolf. "I can't believe it worked! Okay, you know what to do. Take Arthur back to Camelot to Gwen's house and I'll be there shortly." He told his copy, knowing full well that the copy knew what to do. Now, as a wolf Merlin's voice was very gruff and quite deep, which meant that if he was taught by accident, no one would recognise him by voice.

"Merlin!" Arthur called for him, Merlin almost went but quickly stopped himself.

"Good luck." The copy states. With a nod from Merlin, the copy walk to Arthur.

"Get my bag Merlin." Merlin heard Arthur order his copy.

"If you're a peasant, don't you think you should carry your own bag?" The copy asked, Merlin chuckles to himself a bit.

"That's just it Merlin. No one will know it's my bag." Came Arthur's reply, Merlin felt as if though something hit his stomach, he looked over and the copy was holding the bag to his stomach. No doubt Arthur threw the bag at him, which meant that Merlin had to be careful, if he could feel that, then that meant that the two Merlin's were connected. If pain was to occur to the copy it would happen to him to, and if pain was inflicted upon him the copy would feel it. Good thing it was only for a few days, because Merlin's life was dangerous enough as it is. Then Merlin realised, what if he had to copy himself again and he couldn't get the copy of himself by calling the name Merlin, it would feel really weird. So, he decided since his copy's eyes were green, and he could use magic, he was going to call his copy, Neerg.

They arrived at Gwen's and entered her home. "Thank you for doing this Guinevere." Arthur stated not looking at her as he said so.

"My pleasure, my lord." She replied kindly, then leans into Neerg. "I can't believe you talked me into this Merlin." Gwen whispers, causing Neerg to smile awkwardly.

"Sorry." He apologised, then out of nowhere there was a scratch at the back door. "Who is it?" Neerg asks, pretending he doesn't know and does so convincingly. No one answered the call, so Neerg opens the door curiously and Merlin pounces on him with excitement. "Grey! What are you doing here?" He asks happily, giving Merlin a good fuss to make it more convincing. Make what more convincing you may ask, well...

"Merlin what is this?!" Gwen asks in shock.

Neerg puts on a really convincing; 'I forgot where I was', look on his face. "This is Grey...my pet...wolf." He says nervously, but before anyone could say anything else. "Grey this is Gwen, she's a good friend of mine." Neerg states, Merlin walks up to Gwen, sits down in front of her and lifts up is right paw. When smiles at Merlin and takes his paw to shake. Neerg smiles like he's really pleased with himself. "And this is Prince Arthur." Neerg states and Merlin growls a warning, smiling a little in his mind because he's always wanted to have an excuse to growl Arthur for something and get away with it, and now was that time, oh and how he was going to take advantage of it. "Grey, manners." Neerg states sternly, making Arthur look at him in shock, not knowing Merlin had in him to be stern. Merlin boughs his head Arthur but huffs out annoys that kind of sounded like a quick, quiet, almost gentle growl, it was just a, 'I don't like you half' which may both Merlin's grin, luckily going unknown by Arthur. "It appears even animals no prats when they smell them." Neerg jokes, and Arthur looks at him displeased which makes Neerg smile even more, Arthur turns his head away from Neerg with a slight blush on his face.