Merthur one shots || Merlin

The Necklace

Arthur woke to the early morning sun filtering through the slightly parted curtains, the bright rays shining directly in his eyes.  He huffed in annoyance and turned to face the other way, but his attempt was useless when he could still feel the heat of the sun on his back. With another groan, he rolled onto his back and cracked an eye open to see what kind of day awaited.

To his surprise, the sky was clear, the birds were singing their unique songs and outside, knights and citizens could be heard outside going about their daily tasks. It was a change of scenery from the gloomy weather that had been around for the past week, throwing the entire castles plans into works. Servants weren't able to wash clothes or sheets, which in turn meant no one had any clean clothes. The King and his knights were unable to train, the field being reduced to mud and slush.

All of this only added to the horrible event's that had happened to Camelot in the past month, the worst being the horrific magical beast that had started terrorizing the villages. The three-headed beast was larger than the King or any of the knights had seen - even Merlin didn't recognise it - and as a result of it's presence, homes and crops were being destroyed, people were being injured and occasionally killed and Arthur had to send a message to the nobles from the next village that were due to visit to hold off on coming until the beast was dealt with.

The change in weather had an immediate effect on the King who was up and dressed before his servant arrived. George was pleasantly surprised by this and set down Arthur's breakfast before being dismissed. Of course, the King's good mood was ruined by a frantic knock on the door. Arthur barely had time to move out of the way before Gwaine, Percival and Leon barged in, followed by Merlin.

"Sire, Merlin found something on the beast" Percival said, seemingly out of breath as he gestured to Merlin who cleared the plates off the table and replaced them with a large magic book.

"I stayed up all night going through all the magic books I had, reading about every single magical beast there is until I found it" Merlin said, opening the book and flicking through until he got to a page that had a picture of the beast. "It's called a Cerberus, a three-headed dog that resides deep within the forest. According to this, it only comes out once a month or so and goes to nearby towns or villages to get food"

"And this time, it's Camelot" Arthur sighed when Merlin nodded. "Do you have a plan on how to slay this beast?"

"The only ones strong enough to kill it are Sorcerers and Warlocks, a blade isn't sharp enough to do any damage" Merlin ran a hand through his hair. Arthur only then noticed how exhausted Merlin looked, his hair and clothes dishevelled and dark purple circles under his eyes. Arthur wished the circumstances were different so he could order Merlin to get some sleep, but the situation was too grave to spare his help.

"Alright" Arthur ran a hand down his face, trying to figure out how the hell they were going to stop this beast. "Do you know any sorcerers or Warlocks who can help?"

"The druids can help and there's a kingdom not far from here full of Sorcerers. Hopefully our magic combined will be enough to kill it" Merlin said.

Arthur didn't hesitate to nod, though he didn't particularly like the idea of Merlin going up against a beast that large. He had seen Merlin use magic to fight off bandits and other smaller magical creatures before and he knew Warlocks only had a certain amount of time before they got tired. Merlin often got tired quicker if he was behind on sleep, so Arthur knew him fighting a gigantic beast on little amounts of sleep was dangerous.

"Sire, if we are correct, the beast is due to attack tomorrow" Gwaine said, his usual laid back attitude replaced with a serious demeanour.

"Very well" Arthur answered. "Tell the rest of the Knights to take the day off, get some sleep, you're all going to need to be well rested"