Arranged Marriage {Prince Merlin AU}

Chapter 3-Magical Music

Go support the artist, Conan Gray and the cover artist, Lauren Abbey. This song has been stuck in my head for so long. I uses this song later in the chapter. Feel free to listen when it comes up.

Also, this took so long to update as i was halfway through and it got deleted. X0

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3rd Person POV

Merlin was sitting in a bath on early morning. The sun was barley visible over the horizon. He was exhausted from his 'date' with Arthur, he had fought bandits, got banned from using his source of keeping him alive and had to pretend to be his sister. This was pretty stressful for Merlin. He hadn't had that much happen to him in months, as nothing but chairs being thrown happened in his . Over all, a pretty stressful and eventful day. The bath was suppose to help him relax. However, it was doing the opposite. His mind was supposed to wander in emptiness, it was more like limping through a battle field. Ultimately, he had failed his 'mission'. The whole reason he would pretend to be Aeryn was so that he would tell Arthur to not catch feelings but he didn't tell him.

Merlin sighed deeply and got out. This wasn't helping. He dried himself off with a little help from magic was about to threw on some of his clothes when something stopped him. Something told him to drink the potion. He rolled his eyes at himself and walked toward the cabinet at the back of the room. He swung it open and grabbed one of the bottles inside. Luckily or by fate Aeryn had put some of her dresses in his wardrobe. He threw one of the dresses on and walked out the door.

She started walking without much thought. Well, actually filled with thoughts just none about where she was going. The sun had risen a little over the horizon and now the people living on the lower part of town had started their days. Merlin paid no mind to that and continued walking, almost hypnotised by her thoughts. She broke out of her trance, however, after knocking down a maid that was holding multiple bedsheets. Merlin apologised profusely and helped her up. It was only after the maid had wandered off, that Merlin realised that she had no idea where she was. She continued down the now alien corridors, paying attention to where she was going. There was absolutely no one in the abandoned hallway, except for the occasional servant. However, before she could ask where she was, the servants had walked away. She kept walking, now in a slight state of panic.

The birds seemed to be shrieking instead of sing. The sun was blinding, burning her skin. She had to calm down, but nothing worked. All of the things around her began to seem malicious and taking away her air. She was now running in the corridors and she could feel herself starting to tear up. She had to go back to her room, this wasn't relaxing at all. She kept searching for any corridors that seemed familiar but it was no use. She was now full on crying and had to get out of the corridors. She spotted a door at the end of the corridor and stumbled her way in and shoved it behind her. She began to breath slower and rest her forehead on the door.

"Aeryn?" She heard from behind her. She spun around and there sat there the one person she really didn't need to see.

Arthur.

"What are you doing here? What's wrong?" He stood up from his seat and raced towards her. he held her hand and Merlin seemed to collapse. She probably shouldn't tell hm but she felt safe and started spilling.

"I was out for a walk to clear my head and I got lost and I don't know what happened, everything seemed like it was trying to hurt me and I don't know what happened, I got all anxious,"

"Yeah, I can tell. You look terrible," She glared at him.

"Do you remember Lesson 1?"

"Sorry, what I meant was I got worried something happened to you," He moved his hand that wasn't holding hers to her cheek to dry off some tears that had trickled down her cheek. She began to calm down and now starting to notice the room surrounding her. There were MANY musical instruments decorating the walls. Guitars, flutes, violins and she now noticed she was sitting on a piano stool and in front of her a giant piano.