![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Merlin: Once, in Manila
Written for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
camelot_fleet's take your fandom home with you minifest, because I can't resist Mary Sueing my home into fics.
Once, in Manila
Merlin. Arthur, Uther, Lancelot, Gaius. Rated G. 1650 words. Crack?
Family vacation, of a sort.
Uther reckons he'll never complain about another winter again. As soon as he stepped out of the airport and into the sauna of tropical weather, he started sweating. You sweat just standing in one place here. It's obscene.
"There are two choices, sire," says Gaius. "Either you can slather yourself in this sunblock that I've concocted especially for this trip, or you can never leave the hotel room."
Gaius himself is covered in a shiny patina of sunblock and sweat, and it makes him look more frog-like than usual. Uther detects the tones of mockery in Gaius's words, but he lets it slide. Gaius means well, and in this case he is also correct. Arthur burnt horribly the first day here and had spent an hour subjecting himself to Gaius's ministrations with various home-made creams. Uther is not in any hurry to have that experience himself. But still, the sunblock smelled vaguely of mayonnaise, and Uther never liked mayonnaise.
"I have been given to understand," says Uther, "that in these southern regions, there are beautiful beaches to be had, yet I've seen none."
"Well, that is because we are in the city, sire."
And what a city it is. With 1.6 million people densely packed together, it can swallow Camelot several times over. It seems like Manila has swallowed several things, several times over: it is a place of bizarre contrasts. Shantytowns rise up like ghosts outside of gated communities, and ragged beggars rap on car windows at the intersections of the Ortigas business district, asking for change. And you, in your air-conditioned car, listening to the new Norah Jones CD, tell them that, improbably, you have none to spare. (Except if you're Lancelot, in which case you will give at least twenty pesos.)
The solution, Uther decides, is to go out only at night. It's still uncomfortably balmy, but at least nobody burns, and nobody has to smell of mayonnaise. They dine at Fort Bonifacio, a neighborhood named for the man who led the revolution against the Spanish, now an area frequented by well-heeled youth where the beer costs three times as much as the beer in Quiapo.
"You've barely touched your ostrich in wine sauce, Arthur," Uther says. "Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing, Father," he says.
"Perhaps you should have chosen the crabmeat risotto after all," Lancelot says, smiling, "if ostrich is too exotic for you."
Arthur gives Lancelot the slightest of sidelong glances. "Yes, you are well-acquainted with the things I like."
Lancelot looks away, and Uther exchanges looks with Gaius. There has been something off with Arthur and Lancelot recently, and neither he nor Gaius quite know what it is. It is not in Uther's nature to pry into such things, and besides, if Arthur is to be king one day, then he has to learn to sort these things out by himself. He just hopes they'll sort it out soon; it won't do to have these divisions between a prince and his best knight.
They go to a lot of malls. There is a frightening number of malls in Manila, including the gargantuan Mall of Asia by the bay, which - if Gaius is to be believed - is the fourth largest shopping mall in the world.
"How strange," Lancelot muses. "The shopping malls are so large and numerous here, and yet there are people living under a tarp on the sides of the highway. Entire families! And there are people living barely above their own filth on the banks of the Pasig."
"It's the inevitable march of progress," Gaius nods solemnly. "We can't help it."
Lancelot asks, "Progress of what?"
The mall Lancelot seems to hate least is Greenhills, especially the bazaar, which is a rat's maze of haggle-happy vendors selling pirated software, tarot readings, state-of-the-art tech toys, baby clothes, taho in a cup, jangly jewelry, and in short: everything. Uther buys a t-shirt with "Pearl of the Orient" emblazoned across the chest in flowing script, and finds out later that he was ripped off. They jack up the prices for foreigners, and he and Arthur have a conversation where they pretend they're not trying to soothe their own egos: so what if we paid more, it's still cheap to us, we can afford to pay the jacked up price, they probably could use the extra money. But then Uther would glance at his new t-shirt and Arthur would glance at his new watch, and they would rue their purchases.
In the DVD section of the bazaar, something catches Uther's eye. "Arthur," he says.
"Father?"
"Look at this." Uther picks up one of the DVDs, a film starring Sam Neill and Helena Bonham Carter. "Merlin. Isn't that your servant's name?"
"Yes, it is." He peers over. "What is this film about?"
Uther flips to the back, and frowns. "It seems Merlin here is a powerful magician of legend."
Arthur snorts. "That sounds nothing at all like Merlin."
"I should certainly hope not."
Uther puts the DVD back where he found it, and they move on.
+
On the seventh day, Uther went to a spa and Gaius to some undisclosed part of town to "pick up a few things", leaving Arthur and Lancelot to their own devices. Suck it up, Arthur tells himself, and asks Lancelot if he wants to go to the mall. Besides, who knows when he'll come visit the Philippines again, and he won't spend another day lolling around his room bemoaning his fate and sunburnt skin.
"The mall?" Lancelot echoes, and smiles. "Perhaps I have a better idea."
And Arthur becomes suspicious, as he always does when people claim to have better ideas than him. But in the end, he pauses only long enough to make Lancelot squirm before saying, "Okay. What?"
They take a taxi to the Salcedo, which they call a village, and is unlike any village Arthur has seen before. The neighborhood is densely packed with tall buildings, condominiums and offices, hospitals and carparks. As big as the buildings are, that's how small the roads are, and just as cramped. When they have been stuck in traffic around the corner for 15 minutes, Lancelot pays the driver and says, "Come, sire. We'll descend here."
"Is it far?" Arthur asks as they begin walking.
"It's just up ahead. And besides, if it were, you would be well-protected with Gaius's sun cream."
"I'm beginning to wonder if he didn't just transfer this from a mayonnaise jar," Arthur mutters.
Lancelot says, "I think you are too hard on mayonnaise."
It is not a long walk; here they are. The Salcedo weekend market spills over with color and grilling smoke, and as they step through the entrance archway, Arthur realizes he is still hungry. Or maybe it's just the effect of seeing that much food around him. Food from all over the Philippines, food from all over the world; he tells Lancelot that he's going to buy himself a meal and meet him over by the tables, and spends the next fifteen minutes circling the market in a daze.
What the hell is a longganisa? Can you even eat that part of the chicken? Is that a fruit or something from the dungeons? There are also cakes and pies and cookies and jams and jellies, and something called 'dirty ice cream', and Arthur is beginning to suspect he is too intimidated to buy anything except a banana.
Someone clasps his shoulder.
Lancelot, with a shawarma in one hand and coconut juice in other, grins at him. "Thought you said you were hungry."
"I'm still deciding," Arthur announces, and Lancelot gestures with a jerk of his head to follow him.
Truly, he admits grudgingly to himself, if there is someone out there who knows what Arthur likes, it is Lancelot. Merlin may be a devoted servant, and Gwen may have Arthur's heart, and Morgana may have been a constant childhood companion, but Arthur and Lancelot are cut out of the same cloth. They both have an instinct for knighthood, and an honor that some might describe as stubborn. They are alike, and perhaps that is the problem.
"I recommend this," Lancelot says, gesturing to a calf carcass as big as he is, slowly turning on a spit. "I had a sample earlier and it's wonderful. The meat is quite tender."
"...Oh my god," Arthur comments, taking in the sight of it. It's not quite something he had expected to find in the square of a business district.
"It's just like back in Camelot, eh?"
Arthur's stomach is rumbling, and a large carcass has never looked so enticing. In the end he buys Lechon Baka Platter B, and lets Lancelot lead him to a table in the shade. Around them, the market bustles with families and their noises, and, oh. Oh Lancelot is right, the meat is tender, and criminally delicious.
"Isn't this much better than a mall?" Lancelot asks, watching Arthur gobble his meal.
"This is wonderful," Arthur says with his mouth full. "How did you find out about this place?"
"The lady in Greenhills I bought an iPod Nano from told me about it. So," he says, "what to do for the rest of the day?"
"I don't know. We could always go to the malls."
"I don't understand your fascination with malls, sire."
"They're air-conditioned."
They banter back and forth, and Arthur finds himself settling into the rhythm of it, finds himself smiling. He has missed this. Perhaps Gaius was right; perhaps a vacation really is what they needed. He has missed Lancelot. He misses Gwen and Merlin and Morgana too, of course, but he is glad that for the moment it is just him and Lancelot, and that the tensions of recent times can be put aside for now.
"The day is young yet, sire," Lancelot says. "We can do anything."
"Yes," says Arthur. "Indeed we can."
camelot_fleet's take your fandom home with you minifest, because I can't resist Mary Sueing my home into fics.Once, in Manila
Merlin. Arthur, Uther, Lancelot, Gaius. Rated G. 1650 words. Crack?
Family vacation, of a sort.
Uther reckons he'll never complain about another winter again. As soon as he stepped out of the airport and into the sauna of tropical weather, he started sweating. You sweat just standing in one place here. It's obscene.
"There are two choices, sire," says Gaius. "Either you can slather yourself in this sunblock that I've concocted especially for this trip, or you can never leave the hotel room."
Gaius himself is covered in a shiny patina of sunblock and sweat, and it makes him look more frog-like than usual. Uther detects the tones of mockery in Gaius's words, but he lets it slide. Gaius means well, and in this case he is also correct. Arthur burnt horribly the first day here and had spent an hour subjecting himself to Gaius's ministrations with various home-made creams. Uther is not in any hurry to have that experience himself. But still, the sunblock smelled vaguely of mayonnaise, and Uther never liked mayonnaise.
"I have been given to understand," says Uther, "that in these southern regions, there are beautiful beaches to be had, yet I've seen none."
"Well, that is because we are in the city, sire."
And what a city it is. With 1.6 million people densely packed together, it can swallow Camelot several times over. It seems like Manila has swallowed several things, several times over: it is a place of bizarre contrasts. Shantytowns rise up like ghosts outside of gated communities, and ragged beggars rap on car windows at the intersections of the Ortigas business district, asking for change. And you, in your air-conditioned car, listening to the new Norah Jones CD, tell them that, improbably, you have none to spare. (Except if you're Lancelot, in which case you will give at least twenty pesos.)
The solution, Uther decides, is to go out only at night. It's still uncomfortably balmy, but at least nobody burns, and nobody has to smell of mayonnaise. They dine at Fort Bonifacio, a neighborhood named for the man who led the revolution against the Spanish, now an area frequented by well-heeled youth where the beer costs three times as much as the beer in Quiapo.
"You've barely touched your ostrich in wine sauce, Arthur," Uther says. "Is anything the matter?"
"Nothing, Father," he says.
"Perhaps you should have chosen the crabmeat risotto after all," Lancelot says, smiling, "if ostrich is too exotic for you."
Arthur gives Lancelot the slightest of sidelong glances. "Yes, you are well-acquainted with the things I like."
Lancelot looks away, and Uther exchanges looks with Gaius. There has been something off with Arthur and Lancelot recently, and neither he nor Gaius quite know what it is. It is not in Uther's nature to pry into such things, and besides, if Arthur is to be king one day, then he has to learn to sort these things out by himself. He just hopes they'll sort it out soon; it won't do to have these divisions between a prince and his best knight.
They go to a lot of malls. There is a frightening number of malls in Manila, including the gargantuan Mall of Asia by the bay, which - if Gaius is to be believed - is the fourth largest shopping mall in the world.
"How strange," Lancelot muses. "The shopping malls are so large and numerous here, and yet there are people living under a tarp on the sides of the highway. Entire families! And there are people living barely above their own filth on the banks of the Pasig."
"It's the inevitable march of progress," Gaius nods solemnly. "We can't help it."
Lancelot asks, "Progress of what?"
The mall Lancelot seems to hate least is Greenhills, especially the bazaar, which is a rat's maze of haggle-happy vendors selling pirated software, tarot readings, state-of-the-art tech toys, baby clothes, taho in a cup, jangly jewelry, and in short: everything. Uther buys a t-shirt with "Pearl of the Orient" emblazoned across the chest in flowing script, and finds out later that he was ripped off. They jack up the prices for foreigners, and he and Arthur have a conversation where they pretend they're not trying to soothe their own egos: so what if we paid more, it's still cheap to us, we can afford to pay the jacked up price, they probably could use the extra money. But then Uther would glance at his new t-shirt and Arthur would glance at his new watch, and they would rue their purchases.
In the DVD section of the bazaar, something catches Uther's eye. "Arthur," he says.
"Father?"
"Look at this." Uther picks up one of the DVDs, a film starring Sam Neill and Helena Bonham Carter. "Merlin. Isn't that your servant's name?"
"Yes, it is." He peers over. "What is this film about?"
Uther flips to the back, and frowns. "It seems Merlin here is a powerful magician of legend."
Arthur snorts. "That sounds nothing at all like Merlin."
"I should certainly hope not."
Uther puts the DVD back where he found it, and they move on.
+
On the seventh day, Uther went to a spa and Gaius to some undisclosed part of town to "pick up a few things", leaving Arthur and Lancelot to their own devices. Suck it up, Arthur tells himself, and asks Lancelot if he wants to go to the mall. Besides, who knows when he'll come visit the Philippines again, and he won't spend another day lolling around his room bemoaning his fate and sunburnt skin.
"The mall?" Lancelot echoes, and smiles. "Perhaps I have a better idea."
And Arthur becomes suspicious, as he always does when people claim to have better ideas than him. But in the end, he pauses only long enough to make Lancelot squirm before saying, "Okay. What?"
They take a taxi to the Salcedo, which they call a village, and is unlike any village Arthur has seen before. The neighborhood is densely packed with tall buildings, condominiums and offices, hospitals and carparks. As big as the buildings are, that's how small the roads are, and just as cramped. When they have been stuck in traffic around the corner for 15 minutes, Lancelot pays the driver and says, "Come, sire. We'll descend here."
"Is it far?" Arthur asks as they begin walking.
"It's just up ahead. And besides, if it were, you would be well-protected with Gaius's sun cream."
"I'm beginning to wonder if he didn't just transfer this from a mayonnaise jar," Arthur mutters.
Lancelot says, "I think you are too hard on mayonnaise."
It is not a long walk; here they are. The Salcedo weekend market spills over with color and grilling smoke, and as they step through the entrance archway, Arthur realizes he is still hungry. Or maybe it's just the effect of seeing that much food around him. Food from all over the Philippines, food from all over the world; he tells Lancelot that he's going to buy himself a meal and meet him over by the tables, and spends the next fifteen minutes circling the market in a daze.
What the hell is a longganisa? Can you even eat that part of the chicken? Is that a fruit or something from the dungeons? There are also cakes and pies and cookies and jams and jellies, and something called 'dirty ice cream', and Arthur is beginning to suspect he is too intimidated to buy anything except a banana.
Someone clasps his shoulder.
Lancelot, with a shawarma in one hand and coconut juice in other, grins at him. "Thought you said you were hungry."
"I'm still deciding," Arthur announces, and Lancelot gestures with a jerk of his head to follow him.
Truly, he admits grudgingly to himself, if there is someone out there who knows what Arthur likes, it is Lancelot. Merlin may be a devoted servant, and Gwen may have Arthur's heart, and Morgana may have been a constant childhood companion, but Arthur and Lancelot are cut out of the same cloth. They both have an instinct for knighthood, and an honor that some might describe as stubborn. They are alike, and perhaps that is the problem.
"I recommend this," Lancelot says, gesturing to a calf carcass as big as he is, slowly turning on a spit. "I had a sample earlier and it's wonderful. The meat is quite tender."
"...Oh my god," Arthur comments, taking in the sight of it. It's not quite something he had expected to find in the square of a business district.
"It's just like back in Camelot, eh?"
Arthur's stomach is rumbling, and a large carcass has never looked so enticing. In the end he buys Lechon Baka Platter B, and lets Lancelot lead him to a table in the shade. Around them, the market bustles with families and their noises, and, oh. Oh Lancelot is right, the meat is tender, and criminally delicious.
"Isn't this much better than a mall?" Lancelot asks, watching Arthur gobble his meal.
"This is wonderful," Arthur says with his mouth full. "How did you find out about this place?"
"The lady in Greenhills I bought an iPod Nano from told me about it. So," he says, "what to do for the rest of the day?"
"I don't know. We could always go to the malls."
"I don't understand your fascination with malls, sire."
"They're air-conditioned."
They banter back and forth, and Arthur finds himself settling into the rhythm of it, finds himself smiling. He has missed this. Perhaps Gaius was right; perhaps a vacation really is what they needed. He has missed Lancelot. He misses Gwen and Merlin and Morgana too, of course, but he is glad that for the moment it is just him and Lancelot, and that the tensions of recent times can be put aside for now.
"The day is young yet, sire," Lancelot says. "We can do anything."
"Yes," says Arthur. "Indeed we can."
no subject
"What are these again?" Arthur frowns at his taho. "Is it made of anything untoward?"
"It's made of delicious things, is what," Morgana says around a mouthful of taho pearls.