Merlin short stories

Strawberries🍓

Prompt:

"Lance alive! Basically Merling getting hurt while on a trip and, before passing out tells them to follow the strawberries that eventually lead to a druid camp where there was Freya and everyone was expecting her to cry and she be like "what has my husband done this time?" With hands on her hips, super annoyed. And two seconds later a boy and a little younger girl run towards Merlin screaming "daaaad" and so the knights are super confused (except lancelot who just bows to Freya saying "my respects Lady Of the Lake, so that Freya understands who he is) and just go on from there. The knights asking question and just Merlin having a happy family (even if he's hurt af)" - federicamolinelli

Not quite the same but here goes:

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Arthur crashed to his knees.

He stared into the expressionless face, and with trembling hands brushed the skin, still warm with life. Suddenly ripped from his own body, he heard himself whimper as something warm ran down his cheeks, clinging to his chin for a second before falling silently to the ground.

This couldn't be real.

It just couldn't.

"Merlin?"

"Get out of the way."

Lancelot pushed him harshly, all formalities dropped, and crouched next to the manservant under whose nose he carefully positioned his sword.

The blade remained stubbornly clear.

"No breath."

Gwaine swore violently and rammed his weapon into the soil. "How?" he roared. A flock of birds took off, startled. "They were just a measly group of thieves, so how could this have happened?" he said, insisting on every word.

Arthur glared at him, as Lancelot leant in to search for a pulse. "Maybe," he started, getting up and stalking over to the knight, "Maybe if you didn't take everything as a joke, maybe if instead of unnecessarily provoking trouble you looked out for the one person who can't fight here, we wouldn't be in this situation right now."

"Oh alright. Thank you, princess, blame it on me would you, for not paying attention to him when I'm trying to save my own skin," he hissed back. "And, pray tell, what were you doing? How did neither you, nor Lancelot, spot the archer hiding in the tree?"

Arthur reddened. "You were the closest one!"

"So? Do I look like a nanny to y-"

"THERE'S A PULSE!"

The bickering screeched to a half. Then both grown men pounced over.

"Oh my god, where, what-"

"He's still losing blood! That's a bad thing right? I know that's a bad thing."

"Don't pull out the arr-"

"We know that. Everyone knows that, but if you want to ride around with this long ass arrow sticking out of Merlin, be my guest."

Lancelot carefully snapped the shaft to get it out of the way. The three men then proceeded to stare at the wound in silence because the author actually has no medical knowledge other than fictional remedies.

"Any villages in the region?"

"None," was the answer, followed by a series of glorious curses.

"I read somewhere we should still dig it out, then stop the bleeding as much as possible," Gwaine proposed tentatively. The other two looked up confusedly.