Field Research

It’s not hard, once the adults have returned and everyone is explaining what happened with varying degrees of accuracy and enthusiasm, for Ryan to slip around a corner. The second they do, they slump against the wall, finally letting the physical exhaustion of holding a pocket of time bent out of shape for that long hit them. It isn’t overwhelming, not quite, but it’s still nice to get the moment of rest.

After a moment, they hear footsteps, but they’re pretty sure only one person saw them duck back behind this side of the inn, and they don’t mind looking a little exhausted in front of him.

“Ryan?” The footsteps continue until a pair of soft leather shoes come into view, followed shortly by a young man’s face as the speaker bends down. He has mismatched eyes - one blue, one gold - slightly pointed ears, and messy silver hair. Though the expression on his face is soft, it looks odd on his face, as if it is more used to expressions of boredom and haughty superiority.

“Are you alright?” Asks Merlin.

Ryan’s exhaustion momentarily falls away in favor of a smile that would, if seen by another Big Team member, lead to being teased mercilessly.

“I’m alright,” they confirm, pushing off of the wall a little to stand. “Just a little tired. Hadn’t tried that particular trick before, it was harder than I expected.”

They push their bangs out of their eyes so they can look over Merlin, make sure he looks alright as well. “How about you? It looked like the fighting was worse over where you all were.”

The wizard scoffs. "It wasn't that bad. A few casualties, but no deaths. They were lucky we were nearby; the closest thing this place has to soldiers are the local hunters, and they have no experience shooting anything other than deer." He takes Ryan's hand and turns to lean against the wall as well. "Though that actually would have been sufficient, normally.

"Speaking of your trick, it was impressive."

Ryan smiles and laces their fingers through Merlin’s, enjoying the contact. They do flush slightly at the compliment, though.

“Thank you. I figured if there wasn’t something in the present that I could use as a distraction, I’d just find something from sometime *else* that would work.” Their smile turns a little more playful. “We would have been pretty stuck, though, if a certain wizard didn’t sweep in to save the day.”

Circling back to Merlin’s earlier comment, though, they frown. “So what *was* this, then, if you don’t mind me asking? Because these things weren’t an actual raiding party.”

"Hmph," Merlin responds, "I'll show you. It's actually quite unexplainable, which is *vexing.* I'm Merlin, I can explain everything!" He pushes off from the wall and sets a step forward before turning back, still holding onto Ryan's hand. "Maybe you can make sense of it, however."

He takes Ryan through the streets into the  forest, a bit away from the village, taking care to avoid the pages, instructors and villagers milling about - and the Big Team members as well. Especially those. The moment they step into the forest the air changes, growing immediately more humid and dense. There is a palpable sense of heaviness to the air, and everything more than a few feet away looks slightly bluish. "Spores," Merlin says, pointing at a mushroom tree as they pass, an enormous Entoloma Hochstetteri. "Harmless unless you're a tree, or a dryad. You don't want to be made of wood around here. Come, I left one alive here."

As they turn the corner around a large, moss-covered boulder, just far enough beyond the edge of the first to be out of sight from Bescaby but not far enough to be out of earshot if something happens, a creature comes into view. It is large and canine, the size of a wolf and black as night, the reflections on its fur a faint purple sheen - though as they get closer, it becomes obvious that it is no fur at all and rather a coat of small, dense feathers like a raven's.

It is also unconscious, and encased in a purple bubble inside of which nothing moves, not even the spores in the air.

Ryan frowns when Merlin says he can’t explain it--if nothing else, that underlines exactly how strange the problem they’re dealing with is. They follow him through the streets of Bescaby and the mushroom forest, the air still heavy with the ocean from hundreds of years ago.

Ryan trusts Merlin, and trusts Merlin’s magic, so they don’t feel particularly wary about stepping closer to the bubble, trying to get a better look at the creature inside, taking note of the feathers, the purpleblack sheen of it and the sheer size of the thing. A thought comes to them and they snort, shaking their head.

“If my grandpa were here, he’d be asking what the English feed their inugami to let them get this big,” they explain, insofar as that’s an explanation, “but I don’t think this is what that is at all, so that’s not really important. So they’re these doglike creatures, except they could take the form and mannerisms of a Viking raiding party, and only revert when the form was destroyed, at which point most of them melted away into ash.” They look over towards Merlin. “Accurate so far?”

Merlin nods in approval. "Quite. These are Cŵn Annwn, a type of fey hound - or, to be precise the Cŵn Annwn are a domesticated variety of these creatures created by Arawn, or Gwyn ap Nudd, or whoever leads the Wild Hunt these days, and over time the name came to refer to all of them. They originally had a name of their own, which I of course know, but it is not relevant." He walks around the creature, chanting a phrase in welsh under his breath, and it changes shape from a black dog into a hart, and then a boar. "They are a type of shapeshifter, distant relatives of the gramlin but less mischievous in nature and more limited. They live in woods and assume the shapes of things native to those places, fully embody said creatures nature until they die a natural death, after which they revert to their previous form. Some have even been observed to father offspring in their transformed states. Which, if you're curious, and I know you are, are entirely identical to their natural kin and show no signs of fey nature.

"The most important thing to know about them is that they can only ever change into things that are fully native to an area, to the point that they can be considered a full and necessary part of the ecosystem. If you were to transplant some into North America, for insurance, they would never be able to turn into boar, as those were never native to that continent.

"And they can never, ever, change into people. Humans are not native to anything, or to be more precise, our very nature as masters of our environment sets us apart from it. And that," He flicks his wrist and the boar turns into a large, muscular woman wearing furs and a conical helmet, "That is why this is impossible."

Ryan listens intently, with the particular look on their face that means they’re shelving this information away for future reference, noting specific moments in it to look up later, when they have free time. It’s always nice to have Merlin explain things; he goes into detail and tends not to assume that Ryan won’t be able to understand whatever he’s talking about--or, if he does think that, it doesn’t change how he explains things, and so far Ryan has had no problems keeping up with him. Once Merlin gets to the end of his explanation, though, they pause.

Ryan grew up entirely in Halcyon City, and like many people who grew up entirely in Halcyon City, they have a healthy distrust of the word “impossible.” Impossible things happen routinely in Halcyon City; they’re as much a part of the scenery as Camelot Park, or the four downtowns, or the Zodiac Tree.

“It certainly sounds like it’s unprecedented,” they say instead of explaining all of that, squinting at the Cŵn Annwn in the bubble before them. “So, despite never being able to take a human form before, these particular hounds could take them and mimic their behaviors--although,” Ryan remembers suddenly, “they couldn’t mimic speech and didn’t seem to understand it, either. Which indicates that their basic level of intelligence and ability didn’t change--just the range of forms they could take. Huh.”

They step back, frowning as they consider the options here. “This does seem to be, thematically, a natural extension of their abilities--just one that has either changed how their magical nature sees humans from “non-native” to “native,” *or* which has removed the native species requirement entirely. And while I suppose that could be something that happened on its own as a matter of...evolution, I suppose, that seems like a hell of a coincidence that it happened here and now, right when there’s a tentative ceasefire between Avalon and Asgard and a random party of Vikings showing up on a raid could be catastrophic.” Ryan’s aware they’re paranoid. They’ve been informed of this many times. It would be a lot easier not to be paranoid if the world didn’t frequently prove them right.

“So who or what could alter how the Cŵn Annwn’s shapeshifting functions, and for what reason?”

"I could, given enough time," Merlin responds as if that is obvious. "Not many others. I believe the fey witch Medea has a similar level of control over changelings, though I can not confirm it. Whoever leads the Wild Hunt, I suppose, would need to have some measure of ability to change them to be able to turn them from wild creatures linked irrevocably to their environment into hounds of the hunt, but I have never heard of them doing anything like this. Nor do I see why they would.

"You are right to suspect foul play. This is not the kind of evolution that would happen naturally unless the creatures gain sapience or a party of asgardians settled in an area for long enough to become an intrinsic part of the environment, something which even the locals have not accomplished."

He puts his hands on his hips and grins.

"It is truly a mystery, and I could not be more thrilled. Research! Experimentation! It has been too long since I was presented with a conundrum I could not solve." Merlin looks at Ryan with eyes that are practically twinkling and a healthy flush on his cheeks as if he just ran a marathon. "I believe together we can get to the bottom of it."

“Absolutely,” Ryan says, smiling back. Even if they weren’t already intrigued by this mystery, which they are, Merlin’s enthusiasm is infectious. “I know we can.”

And then, because when Merlin is looking quite that enthusiastic and excited about something Ryan’s brain-to-mouth filter apparently stops working, they say, “Could I kiss you?”

“Oh!” Merlin stops mid-sentence, mouth open in surprise. He closes it, face red. “Well, um, I, yes, of course, I mean - that is, yes, if you want to,” He drops his hands, moving them to his side, his mouth, his chest, obviously not knowing what to do with them, and as a result the spell holding the creature in drops, the viking dissolving into ash. “Oops.”

“Oops,” Ryan echoes sheepishly, reaching out to take Merlin’s hands in theirs. They could say it would be to prevent more accidental spellcraft, but that would be a lie. “Well, good, because I very much want to, and--um--you know, I’m going to stop talking,” they cut themself off before they can either keep talking or realize they have no idea what they’re doing, and lean in over their joined hands to kiss Merlin.

Merlin is stiff at first, muscles tense, but they relax a second after the initial contact as he puts his arms around Ryan’s waist. Despite the lifetimes worth of experiences in his memories, the libraries worth of knowledge both arcane and mundane, it is obvious he has next to no experience with this - but what he lacks in experience he makes up for in enthusiasm as he reciprocates in force. He tries to mumble something while making out, apparently impossible to shut up even now.

Eventually he pulls back, looking at Ryan from up close. His entire face is red, up the the tips of his ears.

“You, um - you’re. You’re really… you’re sweet.”

Ryan, who had already been blushing, goes bright red, and manage to free one arm from being around Merlin to try to hide their face behind their hand. It is profoundly unsuccessful.

“I--uh--thanks. I just--I know I wasn’t the most articulate about it earlier, but I love you, you know?” They manage to say. “And I love it when you’re excited about things, especially things I’m also excited about.” They think for a moment. “Or, really, things I’ve never heard about. Or pretty much anything. It’s just nice to see you happy, and also you’re always excited about really interesting things.”

“Gah. I mean, uh. I. I feel the same,” Merlin responds, hiding his face behind his hands as well. He splays his fingers out to be able to look at Ryan through them. “I think? Yes? Ahh. I have never had to do this before!” He takes a breath and stuffs his hands deep in the pockets of his robes to try and get them out of the way. “You - you too! Are nice when interesting! I mean, you are good when you are interested. I’m happy when you’re.. Oh, sod it all, *I love you too.”*

His magic flares in response to his emotions. The forest brightens around them, mushroom trees moving to allow sunbeams to shine onto them. The noise of birdsong grows louder, flowers open up, and butterflies fly around them. It’s like a Bisney movie.

“Gah! No! Stop that!” Merlin swats at a passing butterfly in embarrassment.

It feels to Ryan like time has stopped for a moment when Merlin says *I love you,* so it takes them an additional second or so to realize that no, time has *actually stopped* outside the small clearing they’re in. They hastily wave a hand, the hourglass charm on their bracelet catching the brighter sunlight for a moment, and time comfortably resettles at its usual speed as they look back at Merlin and take in the sudden abundance of butterflies.

They can’t help it; they burst into giggles--at the absurdity of the situation in general, more than at anything in particular.

“I’m not laughing at you,” they manage to clarify in between breaths. “I accidentally stopped time, I don’t really have a leg to stand on there--I’m just. I’m just happy,” they manage.

Merlin smiles, and kisses Ryan again.

An indeterminate amount of minutes later, they are rudely interrupted by the sound of someone making their way into the forest.

"*Meeeerliiiin*! We're getting ready to leave, you fool of a wizard, where are - *Ya Elahy*," A tired-looking Sir Gawain steps into the clearing, a set of bags asking across her shoulders that she immediately drops to cover her eyes. "I'm not looking, I'm not looking!"

“Sorry!” Ryan goes pink again, pulling away for a moment. “Gawain, we’ll--we’ll be back in just a moment, okay? We were just, uh--” It is very obvious what *they were just.* “...would you believe me if I said we were doing research?”