And He Will Be My Squishy

Context: colourofsaying  has most recently been indoctrinated into Merlin, aka my Happy Place of kittens and rainbows and unicorns and magic lads with giant ears and dorky smiles. And as is typical, we are watching episodes together, from a zillion miles and several timezones apart.

colourofsaying : Arthur looks so unhappy that that guy lost
colourofsaying : He desperately wants an equal, doesn't he? Is that why he was attempting to train Merlin to fight?
colourofsaying : Beyond the obvious of making Merlin's life hell, of course.
masterofmidgets : that, and he knows that Merlin, being dumb as a box of hammers, is likely to get himself in trouble fairly frequently when he isn't there, and needs to be able to defend himself from monsters and black knights and particularly aggressive gusts of wind
colourofsaying : Not that it helped, since a sword kind of overbalances him and is /sharp/
colourofsaying : Merlin is not to be trusted with sharp things. That's the real reason he uses magic to do Arthur's chores.
masterofmidgets : but really, one does get the impression that Arthur's life, despite the luxuries and power, has really been quite lonely
colourofsaying : Which is why he adores Merlin so much, since Merlin fails to grasp the basic courtesy and hierarchy of Camelot
masterofmidgets : having a single father who's bitter and obsessive will do that to you I guess
colourofsaying : He tried to be a good prince, he really did, but Merlin just wouldn't /let/ him be aloof and lonely.
colourofsaying : He probably pokes him to wake him up.
masterofmidgets : Merlin is probably very cuddly
masterofmidgets: like a limpet
colourofsaying : *imagines Merlin standing by Arthur's bed, jabbing him in the side with his finger* Oi! You! Wake up!
colourofsaying : Once Arthur gets him in bed, he is very cuddly and not nearly so good as an alarm clock.

(we also talked about Lancelot and his overwhelming hotness. And how Arthur/Morgana and Merlin/Gwen could convenience-marry so that Arthur/Merlin and Morgana/Gwen could hook up for funtimes.)

This Has Not Changed

In-class writing exercise from Thursday:

It's a big house, bigger than ours anyway, three bedrooms, a living room, a den, a kitchen that at Christmas always smells of anise and ancho chiles. Even with the stones raked smooth in the place of grass the yard spills over with life - the peach tree and the apple tree on the side of the road, and a stone-walled vegetable garden hugging the garage wall, with rosebushes and daffodils growing in red-bricked circles to fill the gap.

Across the street, between the brown-painted wooden fence and the noise of the main street, is the bank, nestled in hummocks of grass and cottonwood trees that families for five blocks around use as a makeshift park. A neighbor's yard butts the back and shares the crossroads, an old woman who invites us in on Saturdays to sit surrounded by ancient knicknacks and yellowing photographs and hear stories told in heavily-accented English while we sip tea and nibble German chocolate bars.

To the east, it's a clear view straight to the mountains, the high knobbled ridge glazed watermeleon-pink by the setting sun.


Every story I tell, no matter the reason, comes back to the mountains eventually.