Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Leon looked at the rabbit, holding it gingerly out in front of himself. The rabbit stared back with wide, dark eyes, whiskers twitching mutinously.

“…What do we tell Arthur?” the knight asked miserably, feeling increasingly guilty under the weight of that stare.

“We could run for it,” Gwaine suggested, trying – and failing – to wrestle the second, more aggressive rabbit into a better grip. “Take them and make for the border. Or, better yet, tell the princess that they eloped together and we had nothing to do with it. Will you stop kicking, Merlin?”

Leon ignored both suggestions with a glare, finally giving into his charge’s unspoken demands and setting it down gently on the ground. Gwaine dumped his own bunny rather unceremoniously next to it, and the four knights backed up, contemplating their dilemma.

The rabbits hopped closer to each other, huddling together and staring up at them. Leon’s rabbit, at least, looked fairly, well… rabbity – the one that Gwaine had been holding was downright unnatural, its’ almost hectically bright, animated blue eyes darting from one face to another, as though it were daring them to laugh.

Or perhaps Leon should have said as though he were daring them to laugh.

Oh, gods, this was doing his head in.

Leon glanced back in the direction that the sorceress had capered off in, cackling madly all the way. “Do you think that we should have followed her?” he wondered out loud.

“I think we were all more focused on the fact that my sister has been turned into a rabbit,” Elyan pointed out, looking faintly nauseous – and if a bunny ever looked affronted, Gwen-rabbit was doing a fairly impressive job. “We need to take them to Gaius. He’ll be able to fix them. Right?”

“Right,” Leon agreed, thoughts dashing madly around his head. “Right. Percival, you carry them – that is, if you don’t mind, my lady,” he paused momentarily, feeling faintly foolish asking a rabbit for permission to do anything. He tried not to flinch when the smaller of the two creatures nodded hesitantly, her companion chittering huffily beside her. “Good. Well, if that’s sorted-”

He was cut off by a sudden shrieking cry, the sort that rent the forest and sent small animals scurrying for cover, and before Leon could so much as blink, something – no, two somethings – both small and blindingly fast, shot through the air in front of him, swooping low and snatching up the two rabbits from before their very eyes before rocketing off above the tree-line.

Leon blinked, startled. He glanced over at Gwaine, past him to Percival, and then back across at Elyan. He gawped back at the now empty patch of grass in front of him, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Then he turned and bolted after the fleeing hawks. Because if it would be hard explaining letting a passing sorceress transform the king’s wife and best friend into rabbits, it would be even harder explaining letting them get eaten.

“That way!” Elyan shouted, pounding after him and pointing skywards.

“No – no, I saw them go the other way!”

“That was a sparrow, Gwaine!”

The four knights all but fell over each other – and a various assortment of roots, rocks, streams, small and unassuming animals – in their haste to keep up with the birds of prey and their unfortunate victims, and to keep them in sight through the trees. They sprinted through the forest, and every time an expanse of branches or foliage interrupted their view of the birds’ lazy passage, Leon’s heart jumped into his throat. If the hawks hadn’t been weighed down, it would have been impossible. As it was, by the time the birds reached their eyrie – and thank god that they hadn’t felt the need to range too far in their hunt – Leon was both out of breath and completely and utterly terrified.

At least the hawks didn’t drop them.

He nearly lost the birds as they vanished into their nest, but a flash of white – the lighter colour of Merlin-rabbit’s underside – caught his eye, and he honed it as it vanished into the canopy. “There!” Leon shouted, making a bee-line for the tree and shoving Gwaine out of the way rather unchivalrously when his fellow knight tried to barge in front of him. Above, he could hear the fluttering of wings and muffled squawking, and the knight nearly fainted when he heard a distinct crunching sound. He threw his arms around the tree trunk and bolted upwards, the rest of the knights shouting encouragement and lightly veiled threats regarding his speed as he did so.

It was probably lucky that he didn’t make it very far up, because Leon promptly fell straight back out as an abrupt, ear-shattering – and thoroughly disgruntled – roar split the forest. He vaguely had time to see the two hawks flee skywards with startled, dismayed squawks before he re-made his acquaintance with the ground, the breath pushed violently from his lungs on impact.

“Ow.”

“Are you alright?” Percival had the decency to ask distractedly, lending Leon a hand and helping him to his feet as Gwaine and Elyan peered anxiously up into the trees. He nodded shortly, massaging his back.

“What the hell was that?”

“It sounded like a bloody dragon,” Gwaine said uneasily, and Leon – re-calling his own personal experience with the creatures – had to agree. That was exactly what it had sounded like. But, considering that they hadn’t been barbecued yet, he found himself reluctant to believe that there was an actual dragon in the vicinity.

“It was close,” Elyan called. “Someone get up there and see what’s in that nest!”

Somehow, Leon found himself democratically elected to be the one to re-scale the tree, and he promised himself under his breath – amidst a torrent of colourful insults – that he would get back at all of them during their next training session. Violently. The knight shinned upwards, trying to ignore the ominous way that the branches creaked beneath his weight, and sighed a small breath of relief when he finally came level with the nest.

Remembering the crunching noise with no small amount of trepidation, Leon took a breath and gathered his nerves. Then he peered apprehensively into the haphazard twig structure, fairly certain that he would fall straight back out of the tree at the first sign of blood.

He needn’t have worried. Two sets of wide, bright eyes, one brown, one blue, watched him patiently from over the rim of the nest, and Leon’s heart slowed back to a semi-normal pace, a smile splitting over his face. Although, he thought distractedly, Gwen-rabbit did seem slightly terrified – and, if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought that Merlin-rabbit looked perhaps a little bit smug.

₪₪₪₪₪

Actually getting the two rabbits down from the tree proved surprisingly difficult. And somehow ended with Merlin-rabbit fumbling his way out of Leon’s grip – resulting in a minor heart-attack on the parts of everyone present – and landing squarely on Gwaine’s head like a dark, over-sized and very oddly shaped hat.

“Merlin, get down from there.”

“I think he likes it.”

“Merlin, I swear I’ll drop you. All I have to do is nod my head-”

“If you drop him you get to explain it to Arthur.”

Gwaine sulked as Leon passed Gwen – much more cautiously this time – down into Elyan’s waiting arms, grudgingly holding his head at a stiff angle so as not to upset Merlin’s precarious grasp on balance. “The things I put up with for you, mate,” he sighed, and Merlin chittered back obnoxiously, twitching one of his long ears so that it hung down over Gwaine’s field of vision.

“Cheeky little blighter.”

“Actually, maybe it would be better if we didn’t leave either of them where they might be mistaken for some passing predator’s next meal,” Leon said nervously, still warily searching the shadows for whatever had made that roaring noise as he dropped back onto the ground with a huff. “No need for a repeat of this.” However amusing Gwaine’s new hair ornament might have been.

“Exactly,” Gwaine said in satisfaction, reaching up and grabbing Merlin around the middle – and promptly getting kicked soundly in the face for his trouble. “Oi!” he shouted, exasperated, tucking the smirking rabbit safely under one arm while massaging the side of his face with the other hand. “I’m trying to stop you from being eaten, ungrateful little-”

Leon pretended not to notice Gwen’s rather un-queenly approximation of a rabbit-snicker as their odd little group hastened noisily back along the trail, vaguely in the direction of Camelot. He kept his hand on his sword at first, but nothing – no chimaera, no wyvern, and certainly no dragon – came snarling out of the shadows, and it didn’t take long for the knight to find himself relaxing. The birds wouldn’t have been singing if something so dangerous as a magical creature had been nearby, he realised. Whatever it had been, it was long gone by now.

Or, at least, he very much hoped so. Maybe the local birds were just unusually stupid.

“Gwaine, what are you doing?”

Leon’s attention came back to his companions, and he sighed. “Gwaine, stop annoying Merlin.”

His fellow knight was holding the rabbit carefully out away from his body, scrutinising it seriously and paying very little attention to where he was walking. Merlin was looking thoroughly displeased, kicked out ineffectually and staring pleadingly at the rest of them. Leon could almost see Merlin wondering why he had ended up at Gwaine’s mercy, while Gwen was being carried in quite a placid and dignified fashion by her brother. His lips twitched.

“But it’s not every day one of your friends gets turned into a rabbit,” Gwaine complained. “I mean, look at him. It’s so... weird. He still looks like Merlin. And Gwen still looks like Gwen. But they’re rabbits. And they’re kind of… cute.”

“Yes, Gwaine. Thank you for pointing that out,” Elyan said drily.

Finally fed-up (apparently being called cute was the final straw) Merlin-rabbit growled – actually growled – and bit down savagely on Gwaine’s knuckles with his over-sized buck teeth, eliciting a howl of surprise from his unsuspecting victim. Percival lunged forwards with arms out-stretched as Gwaine dropped his charge like a hot coal, jumping back and wringing his hand before realising what he had done. In the chaos that ensued, Elyan sensibly leapt back out of the way, cradling Gwen close as she strained to get a better look, Percival missed the falling rabbit entirely and barrelled into Gwaine, sending the both of the tumbling to the floor, and Merlin somehow managed to land on all fours with exceptional grace and balance before darting out from beneath the tangle of bodies and scampering up Gwaine’s shoulders and back onto his head, where he settled, eying them all haughtily.

Leon just sighed, feeling dis-inclined to risk life and digit removing him.

He had a feeling that it was going to be a long journey home.

₪₪₪₪₪

Arthur sighed, tossing the last of the reports onto his desk. There. Let the council deal with the rest of them. Gwen and the knights – and Merlin, he supposed – would be back from their picnic any minute now, and he’d be damned if he had to miss whatever stories they had to tell because he was still buried in logistics and paperwork.

There was a hesitant knock on the door, and the king smiled. That would be them now.

“Enter,” he called, glancing up expectantly. His smile lessened somewhat when the door swung inwards and the knights trouped in, a distinct lack of Gwen – or Merlin, come to think of it – among them.

“Where’s-”

Arthur stopped himself, taking in their appearances as the knights fiddled nervously. They were dirty and ruffled one and all, he realised uneasily; bits of twig sticking out of odd places, hair mussed, Gwaine appeared to have a rapidly blackening eye, and – wait, what?

“Gwaine,” Arthur said slowly, “why is there a rabbit on your head?”

His knight’s eyes flicked upwards, but Arthur noticed that Gwaine was ve-ry careful not to tilt his head or otherwise unbalance his passenger as it nibbled staidly on his prized locks. “Erm… well… it’s a long story.”

One of Arthur’s eyebrows took the opportunity to climb up into his hairline. The rabbit glared back at him, far too much intelligence in its manic, oddly coloured eyes – in fact, the longer the king looked at it, the more he felt like it was trying to engage him in a staring contest. Arthur frowned and shook his head, pulling his gaze back to his knights as they shuffled guiltily. Elyan was also carrying a rabbit for some reason, this one more sensibly positioned in his arms; its soft fur deep brown around huge, deeper eyes that watched him quizzically. The king glanced back at Gwaine’s rabbit, a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Black fur. Electric blue eyes. Questionable sanity. Then at Elyan’s. He felt a growing urge to face-palm.

“Please tell me that’s not-”

“There was a sorceress, sire,” Leon said quickly, finding his voice. “She – we had no chance-”

“And then there were the bir-”

For some reason, Percival elbowed Gwaine sharply in the ribs to cover up whatever he had been about to say, and Arthur’s suspicions were confirmed when the jolt sent the slightly larger rabbit sliding awkwardly off of the knight’s head, with an easily recognisable lack of co-ordination, and into his arms with a startled squeak.

“You let a sorceress… turn them into rabbits?”

“Um,” Leon hedged, scratching his head. “Yes, sire.”

Arthur couldn’t help it. He gave into the urge. “Would someone please fetch Gaius?” the king asked in a slightly strained voice, his voice muffled around the palm of his hand, and he heard someone scamper from the room to carry out his request.

“It could be worse,” Gwaine’s voice said, in a poor attempt at cheerfulness. “They could have been eaten.”

“What?”

Chapter Text

Once he stopped laughing – which, admittedly, took some time – Gaius informed them with as much solemnity as he could muster that the curse could only be broken with any efficiency by the one who had cast it. Apparently there had been a second option… but after the words ‘blood sacrifice’ and ‘wildren’s tails’ had been cited as a part of the ingredients list, that plan had been abandoned. Hence how the knights, Arthur, and two disgruntled fluffy companions found themselves traipsing through the forest, trying to hunt down the witch’s trail.

Then, after a day tramping around in the forest following a trail that back-tracked and turned in on itself and wandered through half of Camelot, they actually found the witch – and things had kind of gone down-hill from there.

“Look, if you could just break the curse, you’ll be free to go. No knight of Camelot will bother you ever again,” Arthur grit out, seriously wondering whether arresting the witch and making her break the curse might not be a better course of action. He wasn’t entirely sure how he could coerce a magic user into doing anything, but still. He was sure that he’d come up with something.

“Why would I do that?” the sorceress asked belligerently, hands on hips and seemingly totally at ease despite the fact that the knights had her more or less surrounded. “Wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of cursing them in the first place?”

“If you don’t mind me asking, my lady,” Leon interjected, and Arthur glared at him. “What was the purpose of, um… turning our companions into rabbits?”

The witch eyed the black and white bunny sitting comfortably on top of the king’s head, and smirked. “It was amusing.”

Arthur flushed. No-one was entirely sure how Merlin had managed to get up there. It had just kind of… happened. And no-one had been able to get him down. Camelot’s best and brightest. Foiled by Merlin. In the shape of a rabbit.

It took an awful lot of self-control not to bang his head against the nearest tree.

“What’s the matter, oh king?” the witch asked sweetly. “Don’t like not being in control? Don’t like having someone target the people around you for no apparent reason? Oh, dear, what an awful, crying shame. My heart bleeds for you.”

“Now, look here-”Arthur started indignantly – but before he could fully formulate some sort of defence, the rabbit using his head as a chair huffed impatiently, and Arthur found himself wrestling off a furry assault. Merlin proceeded to make his way awkwardly down towards the ground, slipping first onto the king’s shoulder, then down one arm, and finally using Arthur’s hands as a spring-board when the king tried to catch him. He landed nimbly on all fours, throwing Arthur a disgruntled look as he went.

“Merlin, get back here,” Arthur called in frustration, fully aware that his knights were fighting grins, and that the witch was giggling outright. Merlin, naturally, ignored him; so Arthur decided that he didn’t care when his rabbit-servant bounded right up to the witch, stopping a foot or two away from her skirts. Fine. If the idiot wanted to get himself killed, or turned into a toad, it would serve him right. Arthur didn’t care. And he certainly wasn’t readying himself to reach for his sword if the witch so much as twitched towards his frie- servant.

The king and his knights watched in bemusement as Merlin glared up at the sorceress with his manic blue rabbit eyes, and started squeaking angrily, ears twitching as though to accentuate whatever points he was making. Arthur opened his mouth to point out to his idiot servant that no one could understand what the devil he was going on about… but then he noticed something odd.

The sorceress. She wasn’t laughing, or ignoring the rabbit at her feet. Actually, she looked like she was… listening to it. As he watched, one hand fluttered to her mouth, and the witch blanched white. Her eyes flicked up to his own face, then back down at the Merlin-rabbit. Then she started apologising profusely.

“Oh my good Goddess, I had no idea, I swear I had no idea, I’ll turn you straight back. I’m so sorry. So sorry. Here.” She knelt down next to the rabbit and reached out a hand, ignoring everyone else in the clearing entirely. Arthur’s jaw went slack. Wait. What?

There was a sudden commotion off to the king’s right, and he glanced over to find Elyan fighting a similar battle to his own (failed) one, trying to keep Gwen safely in his arms. She was fiercely struggling to get out, and, as Arthur watched in bemusement, his wife employed Merlin’s favourite tactic and bit her brother’s hand ferociously. She sprang away from her cursing brother, glancing back at him apologetically before bounding over to Merlin’s side, paying no attention at all to the rest of the knights.

No one tried to stop her, although several more hands went immediately to sword hilts. Arthur wondered if they hadn’t all simply come to the conclusion that they were better off letting the rabbits have their own way – too busy trying to keep up with what was devil was going on. Even the sorceress paused in whatever arcane ritual she had been about to perform to watch as Gwen bounded up to Merlin, her tiny nose twitching as though affronted.

What followed, in rabbit-tongue at least, went something like this.

“Gwen? Why are you glaring at me like that?”

“That depends. Why did you just call yourself Emrys?”

“…Ah. Umm, well, it’s kind of a long story.”

“Do you have magic?”

“Wait, what?”

“I knew it!”

Both rabbits glanced self-consciously back over at the king, as though he could somehow understand their indecipherable squeaks, then exchanged guilty (and, on Merlin’s part, hesitant) rabbit grins. The king, of course, had absolutely no clue what they were saying, listening with the kind of confused intent that usually meant he was attempting to think. The guilty glances cemented his – and the knight’s – suspicions. Arthur sniffed. Great. Now not only were they rabbits, they were gossiping about him.

The sorceress giggled at something one of the rabbits had said, and Arthur lost his patience. “Turn them back now,” he growled, and the witch looked up at him in surprise, as though she’d forgotten that he was there.

“But they’re so cute,” she argued, ignoring the king’s spluttering and suppressing a coo as the Gwen declared that she had no intention of informing anyone about Merlin’s powers. She liked this Queen. The sorceress sighed, unwilling to interrupt the pair, then gently prodded the both of them to get their attention as the mortal king gestured impatiently towards his sword. Adorable or not, watching this particular drama unfold was not worth her head.

“If you don’t mind?” she queried politely, and Emrys hesitated before nodding. The Queen squeaked something, the witch smiled smugly as Emrys said something reassuring and self-depreciating back. Oh, yes. To hell the Lady Morgana. Here was one that she could follow.

“This might tingle,” she warned, before focusing her energy and roaring out the words that would change them back to their usual selves. At least, she hoped that they were the right words. She hadn’t had any intention of using them up until five minutes ago, after all.

The magic left her in a rush, and the witch threw back her head in exultation, laughing. Arthur started forward, suddenly unsure that trusting her had been the best plan, but the sudden flash of light forced him to throw his hands up to shield his eyes. When it faded, and his sight returned, Arthur blinked them back open warily, and a grin spread over his face.

“Guinevere!” he called in relief, breaking the circle to bundle her into his arms. “Thank goodness!”

“Arthur,” Gwen laughed back, mercifully human again.

“I’m fine too, thanks for asking,” Merlin grumbled somewhere in the background, and Arthur happily ignored him.

“I’ll just be taking my leave then, my lord,” the witch called cheerfully, but before Arthur bothered to look back up and give his grudging permission – he had given his word, after all – the unnatural wind that always seemed to precede a teleportation spell filled the clearing, and the king tightened his hold on Gwen, feeling it pluck teasingly at his tunic and the short strands of his hair. Arthur glanced up just in time to see her fold away into nothing; but, beneath his gladness at seeing the back of her, a small part of his mind pointed out that, for some reason, she seemed to be addressing Merlin. Then the more rational part of his brain re-asserted itself and dismissed the notion as ridiculous.

“Good riddance,” he muttered as the knights relaxed, grinning widely.

“Can we go home, now?” Merlin called, grinning tiredly as Gwaine slapped him happily on the back.

“Of course,” Arthur replied. “But first, I think you’ve got some explaining to do, Merlin.”

Suddenly, his servant’s eyes were wider than they had been as a rabbit.

₪₪₪₪₪

“So, let me get this straight,” Arthur said disbelievingly, twenty minutes later. They were headed in what they vaguely assumed was the direction of Camelot, Gwen’s hand reassuringly in his own, and the knights fanning out around them, listening in amusement while keeping one eye on their surroundings. They did not need a repeat of the day’s events.

“The sorceress agreed to change you back into humans… because you told her that you both have magic?”

Merlin winced, wondering why on earth that had been the explanation that he had blurted out. Never mind that it was partially the truth. “Urm… yes, sire.”

Arthur stared at him a few moments longer, and Merlin started to get nervous. “Well,” the king said eventually, massaging his temples to try and alleviate the headache he could feel coming on. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or not. That was… remarkably quick thinking. For someone of your brain capacity,” he added dismissively when Merlin started grinning.

“Why, thank you, sire.”

“She liked the idea of there being someone with magic so close to Camelot’s king,” Gwen added, and Merlin shot her a warning look. Gwen stared archly back, before adding, “After all, it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine. My father was arrested for consorting with sorcery.”

“As if you would ever consort with such things,” Arthur replied comfortably. “Magic users could never understand the bonds of trust and loyalty that keep our kingdom strong.”
Merlin winced, but kept his mouth shut.

“There’s two things I don’t understand,” Gwaine interrupted, abandoning his search of the surrounding forest. “What was the noise?” Seven faces looked at him blankly. “You know, the roaring noise. When Merlin and Gwen were in the hawks’ nest?”

“When they were what?” Arthur shouted, and Percival thumped Gwaine over the back of the head.

“It’s, ah, not as bad as it sounds, sire,” Leon hastened to add, ignoring Gwaine’s quiet swearing. “We got them back before anything could… befall them. Something frightened the birds away.”

“It sounded like a dragon,” Elyan added, and the king’s face hardened.

“It wasn’t a dragon,” Merlin blurted out, flushing when everyone turned to eye him quizzically. Damn. He’d so very nearly gotten away with it. “It was, um… me.”

“Excuse me?”

“We were about to be eaten!” Merlin exclaimed defensively. “And I don’t know how I did it, before you ask. I was cursed!”

“Maybe the sorceress got confused,” Gwen added logically, throwing him an exasperated look, and Merlin could have kissed her. “She could have given us characteristics of other species by accident. I could have sworn that I had better eyesight than any rabbit should have.”

“That… makes some sense,” Arthur said slowly, apparently too glad that there wasn’t another dragon running amok in the forest to really question another possible explanation. Merlin breathed a sigh of relief. So, he probably shouldn’t have started yelling at the birds in the dragon’s tongue. He hadn’t thought that they’d understand rabbit. And he’d been annoyed.

At least he hadn’t set off another round of dragon hunts. Kilgarrah would have killed him.

“Okay, then, what about this,” Gwaine piped up, still rubbing angrily at the back of his head, and Merlin tensed. Where else had he messed up? “Why the devil did Merlin have to spend all of his time on my head?”

“That is a surprisingly good question,” the king said, turning to eye his servant. “Merlin?”

The warlock nearly laughed in relief. “Oh. That wasn’t actually my fault.”

“Merlin,” Gwen said warningly, and he grinned back cheekily.

“Gwen bet me that Gwaine wouldn’t let me sit up there.”

Arthur and the knights swivelled to stare at the queen, and she blushed furiously. “Well, he never lets anyone touch his hair!” she said defensively.

“And then I bet her that I could sit on Arthur’s head and get away with it.”

“It was funny,” Gwen exclaimed when her husband threw her a scandalised look. “We were rabbits! Being carried everywhere was boring!”

“I don’t even know how to look at you now,” Gwaine said admiringly – and this time when Percival elbowed him in the ribs, the knights snarled in annoyance and threw himself at his knight-brother, knocking the bigger man – and Elyan, who was standing behind him – to the ground.

“Should we try and stop them?” Merlin asked curiously as the three knights wrestled and shouted wildly, Gwaine and Elyan ganging up on Percival; and somehow still looking like they were going to lose. Leon sighed loudly, off to the side.

“No,” Arthur said dismissively. “I’m too tired.” He turned to his wife. “Just one more question. What, exactly, did you bet Merlin?”

Gwen smiled sweetly. “Nothing much. A day off.” The king relaxed. That was okay, he supposed. “And a raise.” Arthur ground his teeth. Still marginally acceptable.

“Don’t forget the other thing, Gwen,” Merlin added cheerily, over the steadily increasing volume of the three wrestling knights’ insults. “You said if I won Arthur had to help me clean the leech tank!”

Arthur stared between the grinning face of his manservant and Gwen’s apologetic, but uncompromising grimace. “I… what – absolutely not! Merlin!”