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Chapter Text

“Thank you.” Arthur feels that these are his last words, consuming all his remaining energy. Then the world goes dark, and the only thing he can sense is Merlin's warmth around him. When that last comfort leaves him too, all he can feel is cold. He’s really cold. But it’s like a caressing cold, like he’s floating - is he in water? This is what death feels like? Is he just going to float around in the cold for eternity? Has it been seconds, hours or days? He can’t tell.

But then something disturbs the dark around him. Two tiny, ugly, blue people appear before him. What is this? Is he not dead after all? Is this some kind of fever dream?

“Arthur Pendragon.” one of the blue… men speaks. So he knows him. Wonderful. He open his mouth - he finds that he has a mouth, since he can open it, so he must have a body as well, no matter how he can’t feel or see it - and he wants to ask who are they, but instead he asks:

“What are you?” which comes off rather rude looking back. But the blue creatures don't look offended.

“We are the Sidhe. We’ve come to offer you a bargain, young King.” the other tells. Arthur does not speak. He does not know what a Sidhe is, but he will listen to what they have to say. It’s not like he has better things to do anyway.

“You are not dead, Arthur Pendragon.” continues the first. “You are merely… stuck. Stuck between life and death. Unfortunately, as Death has touched your soul, we do not have the power to simply send you back to the land of living, to when and where you left it. It would have been much easier if Emrys got you here in time.”

“There could be a way, though it is much harder, and contains certain… side effects. We are asking you if you accept these conditions, and wish to go back to the land of the living, or you wish to continue your journey to the land of the dead, leaving the other half of your soul forever alone.” finishes the other. 

Arthur tries to digest what he was just told. So he is not entirely dead, but after all he is. He could go back, to his friends, to Gwen, to Merlin… Emrys? Morgana called Merlin that too. And now the Sidhe. Was that some kind of fancy sorcerer name?

He could go back. To Camelot. He’s sure that Camelot would be in good hands with Gwen, but as Merlin said he had a dream… and he didn’t even have a chance to fulfill it. The other half of his soul? Did they mean Gwen? They must have. 

“Two questions,” he speaks. “One. Why would this be a bargain, what would you benefit from me going back? Don’t take it as an offense, but you don’t seem like the kind of creatures who do something like this out of goodwill. Two. What are those side effects you mentioned?” neither of them speak for a moment.

“Your first question would be a different kind of story, but I’ll try to be quick. To be really simple, your destiny is to unite the lands of Albion, and bring magic back to Camelot. Now this is obviously not a destiny we can just ignore, no matter how short is just one man's life, compared to ours. And just to make sure, your side of the bargain, our price, is your word that you will make magic flourish in Camelot once again.” one of them says, in an indifferent tone, like he would have just said that the weather is nice today. Arthur stares. Well, he’s not sure he stares, since he can’t feel his eyes, but he can see, so he must have them. Uniting Albion has always been his dream, but to bring magic back…? Even if he’s been considering for the last few days, that magic can’t be that evil as his father always said, since Merlin has it… but bringing magic back to Camelot could be really dangerous. Especially since there’s the possibility that magic is evil and corrupting, and Merlin is just some kind of exception, a miracle.

Before he could get lost in his train of thoughts, the other Sidhe talks again.

“As for your second question… you may not know, but it’s not the first time you have been touched by Death. The bite of the Questing beast has no remedy, not even magic. If Emrys hadn’t gone to the old religion, and traded your life for another, you would have died for certain. We have the power to send you back to the other time you have been touched by Death, but that was at least five years ago, which is a long time in your pathetic short lives. Our question is, do you accept the terms that you have to do most of your actions and choices again, and when you become king again, you will bring magic back, in trade of your life?”

Arthur does not speak. The Questing Beast… that was indeed more than five, maybe six years ago. But that also means that Morgana didn’t hate them at the time… She hated him because he didn’t accept magic right? So if he makes magic legal in Camelot, Morgana won't have a reason to turn on them. And maybe he would get his sister back. And a war could be avoided… Was it Merlin who saved his life after the Questing Beast? Of course it was, wasn’t it. He remembers his father telling him that it was truly a miracle he recovered, since no remedy can cure the bite of the Questing Beast. Merlin… It would most definitely make Merlin happy if he made magic legal in Camelot. He wouldn’t have to hide anymore. He can’t even imagine, what could it be like, not being able to tell anyone such a big part of your life. Not getting any recognition for such huge accomplishments. Gosh, he really was a prat, wasn’t he? He could do so much better this time. 

“One more question… Who did Me- Emrys kill? You said he traded my life for someone else's.” he asked slightly afraid. He could imagine Merlin trading his own life before anyone else’s but that obviously wasn’t the case, and he wanted to know.

“That’s not my place to tell you, you should ask him.” said one of the Sidhe, slightly annoyed, and impatient. Ask him? As if it was that simple. He wanted to know things, but the two were obviously running out of patience, and he already made up his mind, so.

“I accept the terms,” he spoke.

“Very well then.” nodded the Sidhe. Suddenly, the world turns blindingly white, and Arthur has to close his eyes. He passes out.

-

He does not fully regain consciousness, although he’s aware of someone lightly holding his head, and something cold pouring down his throat. He hears voices, but he can’t tell who they belong to, or what are they saying. He then feels the light touch leave his head. He wants to wince, and reach after it, but his body won’t move, and no voice leaves his throat.

-

When Arthur wakes, his whole body hurts like a thousand horses galloped over him. He slowly opens his eyes. The first thing he sees is his father just waking up by his bed. He does not know how he should feel, what he should say, so he averts his eyes to look around the room. Gaius is also there, maybe a tad younger than he last saw him, but he can’t see Merlin anywhere.

The last time he saw his father was when his soul came back to haunt them, tried to kill Gwen, most of his knights, Merlin, and him too. He doesn’t know how to look him in the eye with the same trust and adoration as he did as a child. He knows that his father cares about him, but he cares about having an heir who will completely do as he would, a clone to continue his legacy. As soon as Arthur would do something differently than him, he’s not good enough. He knows that now. And now, he vowed to erase the last, and most important legacy his father left: the magic ban. How could he look him in the eye? If only Merlin were here.

“I thought we lost you.” his father pats his arm.

“Don’t worry Father,” he says averting his eyes, “I’m not going to die.” well at least not yet. Then he thinks of Merlin again, and smiles. “It’s like there’s someone watching over me. Keeping me from harm.”

“Maybe you’re right.” his father nods. “On your long journey to become king, you’ll need a guardian angel.” he says, and Arthur chuckles. Merlin as an angel is quite a funny thought. Although… he is, isn’t he? His own guardian angel. 

“I shall inform the court that their prince lives.” Uther grins awkwardly, and leaves the room. Right after he leaves, Gwen comes in bringing spare sheets. Arthur’s heart flutters. He doesn’t know how to act around her, they weren’t even talking normally to each other at this point. He doesn’t think he can treat her like a servant again, but if he favores her there will be rumors that will get back to his father, and then what would happen to Gwen… He was not ready to do this again. He considers pretending to be asleep, but then he opens his eyes, and looks at her.

“I knew it.” Gwen smiles brightly. “I said you’d be alright.” she turns away to tend to her business. He doesn’t know how to respond. He’s glad that she has faith in him, but the credit would need to go to Merlin here… speaking of Merlin, why does Gwen do his manservant’s job?

“Where is Melin?” he asks then. 

“I don’t… I don’t actually know.” Gwen frowns. “Maybe he’s helping Gaius. He’s the physician's apprentice after all. I was just asked to do this.”

Arthur’s heart drops. He can’t have gotten hurt could he? Arthur lives, so he already traded someone’s life for his… oh how he hates this thought. He couldn’t have traded his own life, because he distinctly remembers him not dying. So then where is he?

“I have to get these washed Sire,” she points at the laundry. “But I will look around for Merlin.” 

“Thank you, Guinevere.”

Arthur is left alone with his thoughts. He’s thinking about what he didn’t have time to think about since he awoke. Should he tell Merlin that he’s basically from the future? Honestly, he doesn’t want to. From what he understood, Merlin knew some of the future. He said that he knew it was Mordred he had to look out for. Did he know that Mordred was going to kill him? That would explain why he always looked a bit oddly at him. He doesn’t want to tell Merlin, because then he would have to tell the whole future, and knowing Merlin, he would blame himself for everything that happened. Maybe he would be even more drastic. He wouldn’t try to kill a (yet) innocent kid though, right…? Alright, he made up his mind. He will try to do it alone, and if he’s really helpless, he’ll tell Merlin. Next dilemma. If he doesn’t tell Merlin that he’s from the future, how does he tell him that he knows about his magic? …Maybe just not yet. He wants to see what he’s using it for, and how often. And he fears that if Merlin knows about him knowing about his magic, he will be a lot less careful. If his father finds out, Arthur can’t protect him. What about Morgana? Does she even know about her magic in this timeline? Maybe if he makes her feel like she can tell him…

Like he summoned her, the door opens, and Morgana pokes her head in. She looks awful, though she still looks much better than the last time he saw her, when she was dying. Dark circles are under her eyes, and she looks like she’s been crying a lot. When she sees he’s awake, she smiles tiredly.

“I heard you’re alive.”

“I am.” He doesn't speak for a moment. “You warned me not to go. You were right. I’m sorry for not listening.”

“Did I hear it correctly? Did Arthur ‘I always know better’ Pendragon just admitted he was wrong about something?” she teased. Arthur rolls his eyes.

“But I would go again. I had to protect my people.” Now it's Morgana's turn to roll eyes.

“You knights are all the same. Brave, and idiotic. Merlin too.” she says Merlin’s name a bit worried. Could she know something? What’s up with Merlin? Where is he?

“Wouldn’t you do the same? For the people you care about?”

“You’re right. I would.” Morgana answers after a few seconds. They sit in silence for a few seconds, then Morgana stands up.

“I shall retire myself for the night.” she nods to him, and walks towards the door.

“Morgana?” Arthur calls. Morgana turns back from the door.

“Yes?”

“Do you know where Merlin is? Is he with Gaius?” Morgana’s eyes flicker nervously.

“I saw him walk out of your chambers with Gaius earlier today, but I haven’t seen him since.” Arthur feels that she’s not telling him all she knows. But he just nods. He has to believe that everything is happening like last time, and last time Merlin didn’t seem harmed. So he’ll just have to wait it out.

“Sleep well.”

Morgana just nods, and walks out, closing the door behind her. Arthur immediately feels exhaustion consuming him, and he falls asleep quickly.

-

When he wakes the next day, it’s midday already, and still no sign of Merlin. He’s extremely bored. He tries to watch the training knights from his window for a bit, but he just gets frustrated. Gaius said he can’t get active for at least three days, and after that nothing exhausting until he says so. His lunch was already on his table when he woke up, so he met no one all day.

He’s pouring some wine when he hears the door open. Relief sweeps over him, when he sees his manservant enter.

“Ah! Merlin.” he says perhaps a bit too happy.

“How are you?” the other asks in a hollow voice, not even turning his head in Arthur's way, but rather the floor, as he closes the door.

“Good.” the blonde says a tad disappointed. Not the enthusiasm he was looking for.

“I’m pleased.” Merlin says, still not looking at him for too long. Then Arthur has an idea, what could force a reaction out of him.

“Yes. And I owe it all to Gaius.” he wants to take it all back as soon as he sees the miserable look on Merlin’s face. He doesn't look all right in general: he has dark circles under his eyes, and tears shine in them. Though he’s smiling, it’s a very sad, tired smile. He looks at Arthur, then averts his eyes again.

“I need to talk to you.” he says quietly, looking at the floor.

“What is it?” Arthur asks worriedly. “Is everything all right, Merlin? You don’t look so well.”

“I’m fine,” the man raises his eyes surprised. “Just… haven’t been sleeping lately. I was worried.” Arthur feels his heart warming. He opens his mouth; he desperately wants to ask whose life did Merlin trade for his, but then he would have quite the explaining to do. Instead he tries to jest. 

“Watch out Merlin. A few more occasions like this, and I might think you like me after all.” he grins. Merlin grins back, and lifts an eyebrow.

“That’s presumptuous of you. With how much of a prat you are.” Arthur chuckles. He repeats the same words he just said a few hours ago.

“Don’t ever change, Merlin.”

“I wouldn’t, you’d get bored. Although a few more occasions like this, and I might think that you like me.” Arthur doesn’t speak. Merlin sights. “Promise me this, if you get another servant, don’t get a bootlicker.” Arthur's head snaps up.

“You’re not leaving, are you?”

“No.” Merlin says firmly. “I’m happy to be your servant. ‘Till the day I die.” Merlin’s blue eyes shine determined. Arthur stares. This sounds too much of a goodbye. Whose life did Merlin trade?? Arthur’s alive and conscious, so the exchange must have already happened. Still, the Merlin in front of him looks like he’s ready to sacrifice his own life. Which couldn’t have happened, because for the last time: Merlin did not die.  

“Merlin, is everything really alright? You know you can tell me.”

“I’m fine, really. Sorry for being all emotional. It’s just… you almost dying, it made me realise that we need to say these kinds of things, because we may not have another opportunity.” 

“That’s… quite a depressing thought.” Merlin chuckles.

“Sorry.” he stops for a moment. “You’re a great warrior, and someday you will be a great king. You just need to learn to listen as well as you fight.” the sad-smiling bitter expression is back on his face. He looks at the floor and furrows his brow. “And… don’t… be a prat.” he says not looking at him, then nods and leaves. Arthur stares after him. Merlin is not an idiot, he never was, that much was clear to him by now. He was just really good at pretending to be one most of the time. How did he say it? ‘It’s just a part of his charm.’ Arthur chuckles. Then looks at the door with furrowed eyebrows. Did Merlin just leave for the night without bringing him dinner and preparing him for bed?

-

When he wakes up the next morning, he can tell by the rumbling of this stomach that it’s already well past breakfast. Where was his idiotic manservant again?? He stormes across the castle and bursts into the physicians quarters, only to find it empty. No sign of Merlin, nor Gaius.

“Merlin?” he calls. "Gaius?"

He enters Merlin’s chambers, and to his surprise it’s not empty, but it’s not Merlin sleeping in the bed. It was his mother. What was Hunith doing here? He leaves, and quietly closes the door behind him, not wanting to wake up the sleeping woman. He heads towards the kitchens, since he can’t think hungry. 

After finishing his breakfast, he tries listing the facts he knows, to see if anything comes out of them.

1. Apparently, Merlin traded someone’s life for his.
2. In the last two days Arthur only saw him, when that clotpole seeked out him, never the other way around.
3. He gave a weird speech which sounded like he was saying goodbye.
4. He can’t find neither him, nor Gaius. (Although Gaius may have just went to the lower town to tend to the ill)
5. His mother is here in Camelot for some reason.

Arthur groanes. Nothing of this makes sense. Maybe he should talk to Hunith? Or should he just wait and trust the fact that nothing seemingly too bad happened the last time? He bangs his head on the table. Seriously, he shouldn’t be this helpless without his manservant. That’s right. He was perfectly fine, without Merlin. Now, should he talk to Gwen? No, that would be too awkward. Then Morgana? That seems like a better idea, he should get on better terms with her instead of just ignoring her. Alright then, that’s decided.

-

It’s evening already, he’s in a rather fierce game of chess with Morgana, when someone knocks, and Merlin pokes his head through the door, holding two trays of dinner. Arthur is immediately distracted from the game.

“ Mer lin! Where have you been? What are you doing here?” Merlin smiles shyly. He no longer wears the weird bitter expression from last night, he just seems tired.

“Sorry Sire, I had to go collect herbs for Gaius, I forgot to tell you last night.” He obviously lies, Arthur can tell as much by now. He knows the reason, and understands, but it still unsettles him how easily Merlin lies to him. “And a guard informed me that you’re here, so I thought I would bring your, and Lady Morgana’s dinner here.” Morgana smiles at him.

“Thank you Merlin,” she says. “Are you all right?” Merlin frowns.

“Yes, I am, why?”

“Gwen told me that your mother is very ill. That must be hard.” well, that would at least explain what was Hunith doing in Camelot. She came for Gaius? Or she thought she would die, and wanted to see Merlin? The thought deeply unsettles him. Hunith is a great woman, she deserves a long, happy life.

“Oh! Thank you, she’s much better now. Thanks to Gaius.” he smiles as he sets down the trays. Relief sweeps over Arthur.

The door opens the second time, and Gwen comes in also with two dinner trays. She stops when she sees Merlin.

“Oh! Gwen!” Merlin greets her. “I already brought dinner for them, sorry I should’ve told you.” Gwen opens her mouth, but it’s Morgana who answers instead of her.

“It’s quite alright, you two can have dinner with us this way.” she smiles. “And, check-mate. You should’ve paid attention, Arthur,” she grins at Arthur's scandalised look.

“That’s not fair, I was distracted!” he protested. But then he hears Morgana’s laugh after years, and Merlin joins in, teasing him, meanwhile Gwen is just smiling amused at them, he feels he’s finally home.

Chapter Text

It’s been almost a month now, since Arthur died. Well, he didn’t actually die, but basically yeah. By now, he’s kind of used to this weird old-new life. Going back to being prince from king was much easier than being crowned as king from prince. Although it can be really frustrating sometimes, because if his opinion doesn’t match his father’s, then most of the time Uther will just simply not listen to him.

He’s been spending much more time with Morgana than he ever did since they were kids. They eat dinner together almost every day, when there isn’t a banquet, or Uther does not require their presence, and Morgana even convinced him once or twice to sneak out and spar with her. They used to learn sword fighting together when they were kids, but then their father wanted Morgana to spend her time with more… ladylike activities. That was when they just suddenly… weren’t as close as they used to be.

It was weird at first for Arthur, wasn't too easy to forget how much time she spent trying to kill him. He sometimes flinched, when she made a sudden movement, raised her voice, or even when candlelight reflecting in her eyes seemed too similar to the use of magic, always earning a confused look from his sister. But when he looked into those green eyes, they were never filled with crazed hatred, but with kindness, compassion, and worry, and that always gave him reassurance.

And because where Arthur was, there was Merlin, and where Morgana was, there was Guinevere, usually the four of them hang out together, creating this weird friend group.

He paid more attention to Merlin too. He found that he is in fact much more subtle with his… talents than anyone knowing Merlin would think. He never caught him in the act, just saw the product of it, which, with how he had always taken Merlin for granted, he would never have noticed. And never did. He noticed, how when Arthur wasn’t there he did his chores much more quickly, and proficiently, how his bathwater was always the perfect temperature, despite that carrying it across the castle, it shouldn’t be more than lukewarm, how that time when they came across bandits, a dry branch fell in perfect timing, crushing one of the bandits (which, remembering back, wasn’t the first time something like this had happened), or how the salve he brought from Gaius for a nasty bruise he earned in the same battle healed him much more quickly than it would’ve been natural.

Which brought him back to his dilemma. Was magic really evil and corrupting, and Merlin was just some kind of miraculous exception, or. Or he and his father killed hundreds of innocent people, simply just for the crime of existing.

Because magic can’t just be evil, if it can be used for chores, or healing… These are just simply not evil acts. Why would doing them with magic make them? If he doesn’t count Merlin, then the only time he’s seen magic, it was against Camelot, his father, or him. But if he really thinks it through, why did almost all attacks occur? Because magic in Camelot is outlawed, because they literally committed genocide on magic users, because anyone who didn’t have anything against the crown, would just not use magic at all because doing chores, or growing vegetables with magic were not worth someone’s life.

After this realisation, he couldn’t look Merlin or Morgana in the eye for days, until Gwen came up to him saying that they don’t know why he’s angry with them but they apologise. Arthur after telling them that he wasn't angry with them, he just had a few hard days, resorted to being super nice, which wasn’t only super exhausting, but earned a few side eyes too, and after a few more days they literally asked him to stop it because it’s scary. He wasn't offended a bit, no.

He still had a thousand questions, most of them for Merlin or Morgana. But the most important ones were for his father. Why did he start the purge in the first place? Obviously even he could be wrong about some things. But why did he believe that magic is inherently evil? If he always believed that magic can only be evil, why didn’t he start the purge after the start of his reign, why wait years and years with it? But if he didn’t always think that, then what made him turn?

There was a voice whispering in the back of his head, that he knows what . No, his father would never do something like that. He loved his mother. The same voice in his head said ‘not enough not to cheat on her with Lady Vivienne, Morgana’s mother.’ 

But if what Morgause showed him was really his mother, and all true, then why would Merlin tell otherwise? Surely it would’ve been good for him if Arthur became king believing that magic is not at fault, but his father is.

He can’t even ask Merlin about it now.

If he asked his father about it, he would most definitely deny it, and it would only raise questions, where had he gotten such information.

Well, that is if he asked about his birth. But he could ask him why he thinks magic is evil couldn’t he?

~

They were having one of those extremely uncomfortable family dinners when he did. His father, Morgana and Arthur ate in silence, while Merlin was trying to stifle his yawns behind him, embarrassingly failing. 

“Father, I had a question on my mind for a while now,” he said, breaking the silence. Uther looked at him.

“What is it, Arthur?”

“Why… or how exactly did you come to the conclusion, that magic is evil, and corrupting?” he felt the room literally froze. Morgana whipped his head towards him. He saw Merlin stiffen behind him out of the corner of his eye. His father’s expression was unreadable. Arthur kept his voice and face neutral. “Because you didn’t make it illegal immediately after you became king, you waited many many years. So you couldn’t have th… known all your life that. I was just wondering if there were any specific events that made you… have enough?” Uther cleared his throat, and looked down on his plate.

“No… no, I don’t think there was something like this. Just multiple examples continuously proving that magic is evil and dangerous.” he said not looking at him. Arthur waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. That was it? The great reason for his genocide? Maybe it was something that needed to be experienced, but still… Unless he wasn’t telling the truth. He tried to chase every thought about his mother from his head. His insides twisted, and his dinner didn’t seem as tasty as it did before.

He looked up, and Morgana was still staring at him. She looked at the door, back at Arthur, and raised an eyebrow. Arthur nodded. She stood up.

“If you excuse me, my Lord.” she looked at Uther, who nodded absently, granting permission for her to leave. Although she always called their father ‘my Lord’, it somehow stuck out more now, and Arthur’s stomach turned even more at the thought that she doesn’t even know she’s talking to her father. He didn’t ask for permission, just stood up and followed Morgana out, Merlin behind him.

“What was that about?” Morgana asked, once they were in the corridors.

“Nothing. I was just curious. As I said.” coward, he said to himself. He should’ve told her. He should tell her. And Merlin too. That he doesn’t believe anymore that magic is definitely evil. But no voice came out of his throat. Coward.

~

That wasn’t the only time he had nearly told them. But somehow he could never actually go through with it. Sometimes they were interrupted by someone or something, sometimes he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because saying it out loud would make it official, that all these years he was wrong, and that how many innocents have died because of it.

He will tell them, he will make it up to them, he promised himself. To all of the people of Camelot. He will, by changing the laws, and changing the future.

-

Arthur lies awake in his bed, as he listens to the not-so-quiet night, as the minings go on under the citadel. He actually welcomes all the noise, he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, and the thumping and rumbling drives his thoughts away from his troubles. He even starts to nod off, the monotonous noise lulling him to sleep, when it stops. He opens his eyes. Seriously? Just when he was about to sleep. He’s wondering if he should go investigate why they stopped, because he thought they were to work all night, when there’s a knocking at the door. Who might it be? It’s literally the middle of the night.

“Yes?” he calls. A guard opens the door.

“Sire, the King requested your presence. The miners found a tomb under the castle, he would like to investigate it.” a tomb? Arthur’s stomach clenches. He distinctly remembers a rather unpleasant encounter with a tomb under the castle. He really hopes this is not that.

-

“Idiot.” Arthur hears his father’s annoyed voice as he enters the tomb. He follows, just in time to see Merlin standing up with a golden plate in his hand which he must have dropped. He feels his mouth twitch slightly. He would never admit it out loud, but Merlin’s clumsiness always cheered him up.

He looks around. There’s a lot of gold; many, many valuable things, he can tell it by first sight. Gaius is there too; that explains Merlin’s presence.

Then he sees the statue of a lying man, with a huge, heart-shaped crystal glowing with an unnatural blue light, and feels as if his worst nightmare had come to life. This was indeed Cornelius Sigan’s tomb.

“Well, this is quite a find,” Uther looks around in awe. “You see, Gaius, I was right. There is treasure to be found under Camelot. Which of my predecessors do I have to thank for all this?” Arthur feels panic rise in his throat. He has to tell them! They need to seal the tomb back, so no one can even get close to it. It’s not like Camelot suffers from poverty; they don’t need all this gold. But how would he explain his knowledge? What would he even say? ‘Father, this is an evil sorcerer's tomb, who will come to life and try to destroy Camelot, so we need to seal it off.’ In the best case he would think Arthur’s gone crazy. “Gaius?”

“Uh, I’d have to look into it sire!” Gaius sounds unsure. Could he know something? Arthur looks at Merlin, who is staring at the crystal, not in awe, but rather pale and uneasy. The crystal, which looks rather magical. Could he… feel something? Could Merlin sense magic around him?

“How did he die?” the king looks at the dead body on the floor without an ounce of sympathy.

“He seemed to.. unwittingly triggered a trap. Here,” Gaius points to a part of the floor.

“To deter grave robbers.” Arthur mutters.

“There’s plenty in here, people would want to steal. Have them secure the tomb. Guarding is your responsibility, Arthur.” the King announces. Well, that would do for now. He will just have to be extra careful to let no one break in.

“Yes, Father.”

After making sure the tomb is secured, having it locked and guarded, Arthur returns to his room and tries to remember what happened last time. They discovered that someone broke into the tomb, but took nothing. And the next day hell unleashed. But who was it that got possessed by Sigan? He curses under his breath; he doesn’t remember. It must have been some no-name peasant. And how was he defeated? It was a miracle, he remembers; Sigan must have left the body of the man he possessed because he was captured, but definitely wasn’t a powerful evil sorcerer anymore. Still, he was executed. But why did Sigan just give up? No matter how much Arthur hates to admit, but he was winning, he could’ve taken Camelot with minimal effort. It just doesn’t make sense.

And then it suddenly clicks. What if Sigan didn’t give up? What if there was another powerful sorcerer, on Camelot’s side who defeated him? Arthur stops in his pacing. God. Did Merlin really save Camelot? Again ? Just how much that stupid bumbling imbecile did for them? And how much credit did he get for it? He knows the answer for this.

So what should he do? There’s no way he’s just sitting around and wait for the problem to solve itself. He will increase the guards and patrols, that’s for sure. He can tell his father that it’s to protect the goods. This way at least if they get attacked, there will be more soldiers to protect the people. And he will make sure that no one will break into the tomb. It won’t be easy since he doesn’t remember who it was, but knowing the risks he will be more on his guard than last time.

-

Arthur thought about canceling the hunting trip arranged for the next day, but honestly he thinks it would be nice to put off his thoughts for a while. It’s not him personally guarding the tomb anyway, so he really wouldn’t have to do anything other than worrying.

He’s climbing up on Llamerei, when he feels the saddle shift, and he hits the floor with a harsh thud.

“Merlin!” he grumbles a bit annoyed, because honestly, Merlin should know how to fit a girth by now, and it does hurt to fall off a horse. And even his horse had run away.

“I don’t understand! I did that girth up myself.” Merlin himself seemed surprised. Arthur feels his face soften. Well, everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Especially if they are as clumsy as Merlin.

“I think that might’ve been the problem.” he pokes Merlin's forehead just for the fun of it. In return, he gets a beautifully executed eyeroll.

“Would you like me to fit the girth properly for you, Sire?” he hears a voice. A man he does not know walks towards them, holding Llamerei. He fixes the girth, then pats her.

“Thank you.” he says surprised.

“It’s an honor to be of service to the Prince.” the man bows.

“An honor! You hear that, Merlin?” Arthur jokes. Merlin makes a face like he doesn’t know whether he should laugh, or be annoyed.

“Allow me the honor of brushing clothes down?” the man rushes forward and starts dusting off Arthurs’s clothes. Okay, now this is bootlicking. Arthur is half amused, half annoyed by this fact. Merlin, on the other hand, is fully annoyed now. “Anything else, I can do for you Sire?'' So what could the man want from him? Money? Position? Arthur wants to find out.

“No, thank you. What’s your name?”

“Cedric. I’ve come to Camelot, in search of work.” ah! So position it is. Well, work he can certainly give him.

“Good! You can be a beater on the hunt, we’re short of a man or two.” he declares, then goes to Llamerei.

“You’re too kind, Sire.” the man calls after him.

-

Arthur hears something. Finally! This hunting party wasn’t going too successful ‘till now. He signals Merlin and the others to spread out. Then suddenly, the biggest boar he has ever seen bursts from the trees galloppes towards them fast. Arthur feels the others’ distress behind him, so wanting to finish it quickly he throws his spear at the boar. Despite the aiming being perfect, the spear doesn’t even remotely hurts it. Now the boar runs towards him, and he doesn’t have a weapon. Great. He bends over, preparing for the impact, when suddenly a spear out of nowhere hits the boar at its neck, killing it.

“Who threw that?” he asks enthusiastically. Whoever was it, he just saved Arthur’s life. He scrambles over to the boar, and notices his own spear in its neck. What? But that should be over there, casted away… He looks up, where his spear should be, but it’s not there. How could it be? Then it clicks. Was it Merlin? With magic? That could be the only possible explanation. Despite the slight awe, that his manservant managed to save his life again , fear makes its way into his heart. That idiot! If anyone had seen that…! Merlin was standing in literally the opposite direction where the spear came from so at least Arthur hopes he won’t be that idiot to volunteer for his question. He looks around. His hunters just shake their heads. Then he hears a cough. Arthur looks at Cedric, and raises his eyebrow. “Was it you?” he asks. Cedric shrugs, and nods. Arthur feels disgusted, that someone would just take the credit for something he obviously didn’t do, because, he noted, Cedric’s spear lay casted away on the ground, where he must have dropped it out of fear, but honestly it came at a good time, because if Cedric takes the credit it won’t be suspicious. “You just saved my life.” Arthur tries to smile.

“Honestly sire, it.. it was nothing.” Cedric tries to seem as someone who wasn’t half scared out of his mind five minutes ago. Arthur’s eyebrow creeps even higher, and he thinks if he keeps this up, he will reach the ‘Gaius-mode’.

“I shall be forever indebted to you. You shall be rewarded.” Cedric doesn’t notice the sarcasm in the Prince’s voice.

“No, I couldn’t possibly…”

“C’mon! What do you wish for?” Arthur asks impatiently. Better get this over with quickly.

“I desire only one thing, Sire.” Cedric tilts his head modestly, and Arthur thinks if he didn’t know that it was actually that bumbling idiot that saved his life, he would fall for it. “A position in the royal household.” What? He doesn’t want Merlin's job does he? Arthur doesn’t speak for a moment. He remembers that to outsiders it still needs to look like he’s indebted to this man, so he needs to be polite.

“I regret saying this… but I’m afraid all positions in the royal household are currently occupied. If you really need a permanent job though, we have space at the kitchens, or you can be a delivery boy. And if a position at the royal household becomes vacant, you will be the first to know.” Cedric bows, clearly not happy, and Arthur pats his shoulder. He turns around, towards the boar, and sees Merlin smiling happily at him. His heart gives an odd flutter. Merlin didn’t think he would replace him that easily, did he? Oh, and he needs to reward Merlin. Not something flashy though, so it won’t be too suspicious. Maybe he will ask him to bring more food for dinner, and eat together. The idiot needs some proper meals, Arthur can’t even imagine what it would be like to eat Gaius’s food every day.

-

Next day, he doesn’t awake to Merlin’s cheerful voice as usual, but to him busying himself around the chamber. When he notices that Arthur is awake, he smiles, although the smile is a bit strained.

“Good morning Sire. I brought you breakfast.“ he gestures towards the table.

“Why didn't you wake me up?” Arthur asks, bleary-eyed.

“There’s nothing scheduled today until the afternoon training, so I thought I’d let you sleep in.” Merlin explains while the blonde gets out of bed and sits down at the table. He gestures Merlin to sit down. He does, but with a raised eyebrow, which he apparently learned so well from Gaius, and it just creeps higher when the Prince pushes his plate towards him, so it’s between the two of them.

“What’s up with you nowadays? You’re being too nice. It’s creepy.” Merlin states as he picks up a piece of cheese from the plate.

“Hey! I am perfectly capable of being nice, thank you. Besides, look at it as an investment in my own comfort and wellbeing. If you keep up how you eat, which I don’t blame you for, I have tasted Gaius’s cooking before, you will disappear. And a servant who can’t lift my armor, or randomly faints through the day is no use for me.”

“I see.” Merlin smiles cheekily at him. Then the smile slowly disappears from his face, as he seems to have lost in his thoughts.

“So what’s up?” asks Arthur, and punches Merlin’s shoulder.

“Ouch! What was that for?” Merlin looks at him rubbing his shoulder. “And what do you mean what’s up?”

“That was to cheer you up…?” gets embarrassed Arthur. Isn’t that how people cheer each other up? Then he remembers; not Merlin. He called him thick the last time he did that. The authority. “And by ‘what’s up’ I meant what's wrong. You seem… off. Worried. Or something.” Arthur feels his ears get redder by the second. He likes the shoulder punching method much better. Merlin on the other hand stares at him with some kind of awe-struck wonder that makes Arthur’s heart flutter. No, it has nothing to do with how Merlin looks at him; it’s probably because he’s embarrassed, he isn’t used to talking about feelings.

“Well, it’s multiple things actually.” with a nod, Arthur nudges him to continue. “Mostly because of Sigan.” Arthur starts coughing aggressively as he chokes on his water.

“ What? ”

“Cornelius Sigan. It’s his burial chamber we found. Gaius and I are worried that there’s some kind of curse on or in the tomb, since Sigan’s lifework was to achieve immortality, and if he succeed and something would trigger the curse that brings him back, Camelot wouldn’t stand a chance. Gaius took our worries to the King, but he dismissed them.” Merlin explains. So they knew. They knew what could happen, and it happened because his father was blinded by gold, and didn’t listen to Gaius. He swallows. Wherever he turns, he sees that the man he practically worshipped as a child makes mistakes out of selfishness causing suffering to the people he vowed to protect. He looks at Merlin, who seems to have perceived his emotional turmoil, because he doesn’t speak, he just looks at Arthur with those extremely blue eyes of his.

“I will try to talk to him. It will probably bring no result, you know how stubborn he is, and if he didn’t listen to Gaius, why would he listen to me, but I’ll see what I can do.” Merlin nods.

“Thank you.”

“Why are you thanking me? It’s the safety of the people of Camelot in question, of course I do what I can to protect them.” Merlin gives him a lopsided smile.

“I know. I meant thank you for listening.” Arthur feels his ears heating again. He cleares his throat.

“And what else?” Merlin gets sirious again.

“I’m worried about Morgana. She had a nightmare again last night. Gwen told me she was terrified, it must’ve been a really bad one.” Arthur’s eyes widen.

“But is she okay?”

“I think Gaius is talking with her right now. But I wanted to drop by later to see if she’s okay,” he says. Arthur clasps his hands.

“Well, let's go then.” he proclaimes.

“Now?! But Gaius is inspecting her, we shouldn’t disturb them…”

“Now, Merlin! I am the Prince of Camelot, I can do what I want. If that’s checking on my adopted sister, then I will do that.” he gently slaps the back of Merlin’s head as he stands up to which he gets an eye roll in return.

-

After Merlin dressed him they make their way to Morgana’s chambers. Merlin knocks, and when they step into the chamber, they are greeted by a baggy-eyed Morgana, and Gaius with his Eyebrow. Arthur cleares his throat.

“Sorry for interrupting. We just wanted to check on Morgana.” she tiredly smiles at him.

“It’s alright. Gaius and I are already done anyway.” she says, and looks at the physician pointedly. He sighs, then after bowing to Arthur, he leaves. Arthur looks at Morgana questioningly. Did he imagine, or was there some kind of tension between them? Morgana just shakes his head.

“I’m alright. It was just a stupid nightmare.” she says resignedly.

“It can’t have been that stupid if it scared you so much.” Morgana scoffed.

“It was just a stupid bird. Nothing scary about that is there?”

“A bird?” Merlin echoed. “What kind of bird?”

“A raven.” she says. Arthur sees the color leaving Merlin’s face. “Shady birds. Probably that’s why I got so scared, they usually mean bad luck. And yet when it looked at me with its cold, dead eyes, I felt as if my whole body froze, and my heart only knew fear. I wanted to turn around and run, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. it was… awful.” she shivers, then looks up. “Merlin? Are you okay?” the addressed doesn’t reply to her, just turns to Arthur.

“Arthur… the raven is the insignia of Cornelius Sigan. The name “Sigan” actually means raven.” he says. Arthur pales.

“What does this mean?” his eyes flicker to Morgana who stares at them with wide eyes.

“I don’t know. It could be just a coincidence…” Arthur highly doubts it. Could this… Could it be that Morgana can see the future? She does have magic after all.

“What do you mean? What does Sigan have to do with any of this? He’s long dead.” Morgana asks, panic in her voice.

“The burial chamber we found two days ago under the castle belongs to Sigan.” Arthur tells her. Her eyes widen with fear.

“He will come back, won’t he?” 

“We are afraid.”

Chapter Text

Almost a week had passed since they found Cornelius Sigan’s burial chambers, but nothing happened. Uther has started to have transferred the fortune’s part that was in coin to the royal vaults, and he called appraisers for the rest. The long wait when nothing happened, didn’t calm down Morgana, Merlin and Arthur, more like the opposite. Morgana’s bags under her eyes grew darker day-by-day and she had nightmares about ravens almost every night. The bustle around the tomb made the tension in Arthur’s shoulders rise, he went down literally every hour to check if the crystal was still there, and he became super irritable. Merlin made amateur mistakes after mistakes in his work, and every one made him super annoyed with himself. That’s why the only person Arthur didn’t shout at these days was Merlin, because the man was meaner to himself than Arthur could ever be.

Gwen seemed to sense their distress. She then quickly got them to spill everything, and then, realizing that she couldn’t do anything to help with the actual problem, she did everything she could to ease their minds. Whether it was making them tea, decorating their rooms with flowers, or stopping a shouting match between Arthur and Morgana, escalated because of the stress and tension in the air. Morgana and Merlin called her an angel at times like this, and Arthur quietly agreed with them.

Arthur felt completely helpless. He remembered that there wasn’t such a big time gap between finding the tomb and the return of Sigan. He just didn’t know what he did differently that delayed (Just delayed; he was certain. The problem was the crystal, which was still there and there was no way they would just leave there an incredibly valuable looking stone. Arthur couldn’t even get it to safety, because then it would be him Sigan possesses.) the horrid events. Was it because he increased the guards? Or was it somehow because Morgana, Gwen and Merlin knew too? He once heard about something called the butterfly-effect: that even the smallest actions can cause great differences in the future.

-

Arthur is on his usual route to check if the crystal is still there, when he literally bumps into someone. Stumbling - no, just stepping; a Prince doesn’t stumble - backwards, he looks at his “attacker”. It’s that peasant man that tried to get Merlin’s job; what was his name…? Cedric! That’s it. When the man sees who he bumped into, he bows.

“My sincerest apologies Sire. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Arthur waves his hand.

“Don’t mind it. And what are you doing down here?” He raises his eyebrows, because the only people allowed near the tomb were the guards and the appraisers.

“King Uther told me to deliver a message to the appraisers.” Arthur nods. Well, the man's job is now to deliver messages, letters and small packages within the citadel, so Arthur lets him go.

“Good day then.”

“Sire.” Cedric bows again, and leaves in the opposite direction.

Arthur gets going too. When arriving upon his finish, first he notices the absence of the guards. Then he sees that they are there, they are just laying (sleeping? knocked out?) on the ground. Then he steps into the tomb, and the world turns with him. The crystal is gone. Well not exactly gone, looking around, upon more still bodies he finds it, but it has lost its otherworldly blue color, and looks more like glass now.

Picking it up, he starts running back where he came from. It was Cedric. He needs to find him (or Sigan?) and incapacitate him before he does any harm. On his way he shouts at a patrolling guard, telling him to sound the warning bells. He bursts out to the busy corridors. He looks around; there’s no sign of Cedric. Fuck. He has no chance of finding him just running around the corridors like a madman. Merlin. He needs to find Merlin. He starts running towards his chambers; his manservant is supposed to be there. On his way he hears the warning bells. Good. At least even these idiot guards can take orders. He almost knocks the door down when he enters his chambers. Not only Merlin was there, but Morgana and Gwen too.

“Arthur what happened? We came here as soon as we heard the warning bells.” Morgana says, shaking. “Is it…?” Arthur just holds up the discolored crystal. Merlin pales, Gwen gasps, and Morgana bites her lips so hard that it draws blood.

“I need my armor.” 

-

“Father, it’s about the safety of the people of Camelot! I don’t care if it’s just a bedtime story or not; if there’s the slightest chance of it being true I will not risk the lives of all who live here upon that chance!” shouts Arthur flailing his hands that are still holding the glass-jewel. “Ordering unnecessarily the people not to leave their houses until we say it’s safe would cause no bigger harm than slight annoyance, but letting them bustle around while there’s an attack can result in dozens of people losing their lives!” Uther stares at Arthur like he’s seeing him for the first time. It is the first time his son declared his opposing opinion so fiercely. Neither of them speak for moments. Then the King slowly nods.

“It is better to be safe than sorry, you’re right. And it will be easier to catch the thief if no one is allowed on the streets. Announce the curfew.” he declares. Arthur tilts his head, and leaves, guards in his wake.

-

It’s sundown already, and still nothing has happened. Arthur is glad that they had time to get all the people to safety, but now they have nothing to do except patrolling the streets and the citadel, and it was eating him from the inside. There was no sign of Cedric nor Sigan.

He’s worried about Merlin and Morgana. He asked Gwen to look after them, because they are prone to do stupid things, but even Gwen is no match for the Merlin-and-Morgana-combined-forces who could convince anyone about anything, and elude anyone anywhere. If they come out to the battlefield Arthur can’t focus on the enemy and on protecting them at the same time. Because even an all powerful sorcerer’s hands are tied when he is surrounded by Knights of Camelot; Merlin can’t use magic in front of them.

Then just as the sun sets, the events start. Arthur is on the bridge, when he hears shouting from the courtyard. He runs there, his knight after him, and they see one of those giant monsters, which look like magically awakened gargoyles, tearing one of his knights apart. He immediately orders the knights in position, but it’s no use. The spear thrown by Sir Greidd just bounces off of it, causing no more, than just an angrier monster. It strikes among them, Arthur is just barely able to avoid it. Not everyone is so lucky. He swings his sword, causing the creature to recoil and shriek, but it’s far from hurt, it just gets angrier. It throws away and tears apart his best knights like they were ragdolls. Arthur sees his knights have wavered, and scattered backing off.

“Regroup!” he shouts. “Form a phalanx!”

Not even ten minutes have passed and it’s just Sir Bran, Sir Aber, and him. Around them lie scattered the bodies, or parts of their peers, meanwhile there’s not even a scratch on the monster. Why aren’t there reinforcements coming?

It suddenly turns its head away, like it hears something. That’s it! There’s an opening! Arthur thrusts his sword into the creature. It shrieks in pain, then lifts from the ground, taking Arthur’s sword with itself, just to fly back towards Arthur with high speed. He steps back. He’s sure he’s going to die, but then Sir Aber steps in front of him with a raised sword, saving his life. Next second Arthur sees only red, and he stumbles backwards, wiping the blood from his eyes. Then he hears Sir Bran scream, and he knows he’s alone. He’s able to see again, and he quickly picks up Sir Aber’s sword, not looking at his disfigured corpse. He swings at the monster, who is slower now, thanks to its injury, but is still able to avoid all his strikes. He barely manages to jump back from a swipe of its claws, but he loses his balance and falls backwards, hitting his head. The world goes blurry around him, but he still sees the monster above him, ready to strike, and makes a weak attempt to crawl out of the way, when he suddenly feels someone pulling him, successfully avoiding getting impaled by a giant moving gargoyle. He looks up at his savior, expecting one of the knights, but he sees Merlin staring up at the creature.

“ Mer lin! What are you doing here?!” he asks exasperated. That thing could have killed him! Merlin just stares at him annoyed.

“It’s good to see you Merlin, thanks for saving my life…!” his manservant mimics mockingly, but then his eyes widen as he looks at something behind them. “Watch out!” he shouts, and literally jumps on Arthur, knocking him down on the floor again, and falling on him. Arthur sees the monster fly away just above them. Then he notices that Merlin is literally lying on him, his face just inches from Arthur’s.

“ Merlin !”

“Sorry Sire!” Merlin says, quickly standing up, dragging Arthur with him. Then he sees that Gwen and Morgana are here too, checking for survivors. They found only one, and they are lifting him up carefully.

“You are all idiots!” Arthur shouts as all four of them are rushing towards the entrance, the creature still circling above them. He just gets unamused stares.

When they are inside, they lead him to a room, where it seems like Gaius set up an impromptu hospital. There are more than a dozen knights suffering from severe injuries.

“What happened to them?” asks Arthur, horrified.

“There are more than one of those creatures. Knights are fighting them all over the city.” Morgana explains, while Gwen and Merlin hurry away to Gaius.

“So that’s why reinforcements didn’t come.” Morgana nods. “How are we gonna defeat Sigan?” he shakes his head, but stops when he sees the word around him blur again, and feels dizzy. Morgana doesn’t answer his question.

“I fear he has a concussion,” she tells Gwen who comes back with a bowl and a glass of water and bandages. Gwen nods.

“Here, drink this, Sire.” she gives Arthur the glass of water, while she starts to wet the bandages.

“I can do that too,” Arthur says. “You two, go help Gaius, there are people whose life is in danger.” They nod, and leave. Arthur drinks the water, then holds the wet bandages to his head. The throbbing immediately gets better. He looks around. Gaius, Merlin, Gwen and Morgana are tending the injured, Merlin shooting worried glances towards him. Arthur smiles at him reassuringly, to which Merlin responds with a tight smile. Then someone bursts into the room.

“Arthur!” Uther calls out worried.

“It’s nothing.”

“You were right.” Arthur looks at him surprised. It’s not often his father admits he was wrong. “Camelot once again falls victim to sorcery. I was blinded by gold, ignored the evilness of magic.” dread sets in Arthur. He never stopped to think about how his father will, if possible, hate magic even more after this. He just nods. Uther looks around.

“How many dead?”

“At least half our forces,” Arthur shakes his head. “The people are safe in their homes as we know.”

“I’m sealing the citadel.” Uther say after a few seconds. Arthur look at him mortified.

“You can’t!”

“I have no choice! I have to protect those who stand a chance! If I don’t, we will all fall!”

“This is madness father, we are not against ordinary creatures, we are against Sigan! He wants to take over Camelot, he will find another way to destroy us! We can’t just sit around in here and wait!” Arthur stands up.

“Where are you going?”

“Our knights are fighting for our lives in the lower town at the very moment.”

“I forbid you!”

“I will not leave them to die!”

“It’s suicide!” Uther reaches after his arm to stop him. Arthur looks at him, and feels the part of him that looked up on, that worshipped this man, die.

“It’s my duty to Camelot. And to myself.” he says resignedly, then leaves. A small group of knights who are able to stand follow him.

They don’t get further than the drawbridge when they hear one of the creatures growl. It lands in front of them, blocking their way. It’s the one Arthur wounded, his sword is still in its side.

“On me!” Arthur shouts as they get into formation. “Charge!” They rush forward, but suddenly another one appears, and grabs Sir William at his shoulder, lifting him from the ground, while he shouts for help. 

“Arthur!” he hears Sir Cador shout, and whipping around he just manages to evade the claws of the first monster, falling onto the ground again. “Arthur!” he hears Sir Cador call his name again, then the creature shrieks. “Retreat! Regroup in the square!” takes the knight the situation in his hands. Arthur will have to praise him later, for not putting his life over ten other men’s. He gets up, and sees that the monster is gone - probably flew away. He backs away into the courtyard holding his sword ready to strike. “Arthur?” he hears Cador’s voice. He carefully turns around, when the creature lands in front of him, separating him from his knights. It turns around, and growls at the group of knights.

“Save yourselves, that’s an order!” shouts Arthur. Cador looks at the younger knights, then back at Arthur, seemingly battling with himself.

“Retreat, retreat!” he shouts at the end. The creature turns back to Arthur, who raises his sword. His head doesn’t even hurt anymore, probably the heat of the battle. He swings at the monster, who jumps back, but slower than before. Maybe the injury, maybe it’s getting tired, but hope sparks in Arthur’s heart. He strikes again, now going for its wing, because it would be much easier if it couldn’t fly, but the creature, maybe sensing what he wants, flapping its wing grabs Arthur, flies high up, then drops him to the ground. Arthur screams as he feels a sharp pain in his leg. He tries to stand up, but his left leg won’t work, it’s probably broken. Shit.

The next events happened within a few seconds. The creature starts to fly towards him at full speed. Arthur then spots Merlin under the arcades. He looks at the creature, then Arthur, who was too far to get him out of there in time, and as he looks at Arthur, tears shine in his eyes. Then he raises his hand, shouts something Arthur does not understand, and the monster explodes into a thousand pieces of rocks.

Did Merlin just use magic in front of him?

Merlin runs up to him, a worried look on his face.

“Are you okay?” he asks, grabbing Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur wants to answer, but he finds that he can’t. And not some poetic shit can’t, but literally can’t. He can’t move, can’t speak, can't make a sound. What is happening?

“Who would’ve believed it?” a deep voice echoes in the courtyard, and the figure of a man looms through the mist. “You, a sorcerer. And a powerful one.” says Cedric. No, not Cedric. Sigan. Merlin glances at him worried, and Arthur tries to reassure him with his eyes. It seems to work, because Merlin stands up to face Sigan.

“I won’t let you hurt him.” Sigan chuckles.

“And you’re going to stop me?” he asks mockingly.

“I’ll stop you.”

“He does not deserve your loyalty.” Sigan looks at Arthur with disgust. “He would have you dead as soon as he can move again, just because you saved his life with magic . You know that.” Arthur sees the visible hurt on Merlin’s face, and desperately wants to shout that he wouldn’t, that he would never, but he can’t.

“That doesn’t matter.” shakes his head Merlin.

“But it must hurt so much… knowing that he never really knew you. That now he does, he hates you.” hums the sorcerer. Arthur knows that every one of Sigan’s words hit Merlin like an arrow to the heart, because he believes them to be true. He finds that he can still cry. But Merlin keeps his eyes locked on Sigan, so he doesn’t notice the tears in Arthur’s eyes, who doesn’t know if it’s a good thing, because he’s got a pride to maintain, or a bad thing, because if Merlin saw him crying, maybe he wouldn’t believe Sigan’s words. When Merlin doesn’t answer, Sigan continues. “You’re young, Merlin, you’ve yet to discover your true power. I can help you.” declares Sigan, and dread sets into Arthur. He’s trying to get Merlin to join him! No, Merlin would never. He has to trust him. “Think, Merlin! To have the world appreciate your greatness, not having to go into hiding just because of the way you were born!” Merlin stares at Sigan with sadness and… hopefulness? He’s not considering it is he? Shit, if Arthur could at least talk! Merlin’s eyes flicker to Arthur, and they widen when he sees the tears in Arthur's eyes. “If you join me, together we can rule over this land! Arthur will tremble at your voice, he will kneel at your feet!” finishes Sigan. Merlin eyes darken at this.

“I don’t want that.” he says firmly. Sigan looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

“You’d rather die?” Merlin looks at Arthur again nervously, then turns back.

“Maybe I won’t have to.” His voice is full of hope. Sigan looks angry now.

“If you will not join me, I will become you, and your power will be harnessed to my will!” he declares. As he says the last word, his eyes widen, he gasps, his eyes roll back into his head, and he falls to the ground limp. Arthur stares at it in disbelief. Did Merlin do something? No, by the look on his face he is as surprised as Arthur is. But then some kind of blue smoke, or mist leaves Cedric’s mouth, circling towards Merlin. Shit, Sigan wants to possess Merlin?! Then Merlin pulls out the heart-shaped crystal, and starts to chant as the blue mist gets closer to his mouth. He just finishes when the mist disappears into him, and Arthur holds back his breath. When Merlin falls to his knees he wants to scream. But a few seconds later he feels that he can move again. He crawls over to Merlin, and shakes his shoulder.

“Merlin? Merlin!” When the man opens his eyes he holds back his breath. Merlin or Sigan will answer him? But then the well-known goofy smile appears on the man’s face, and he holds up the crystal which shines in a blue light again. Arthur drops to the ground beside Merlin with a relieved exhale.

“Arthur…?” starts Merlin carefully, and he wants to answer him, but he feels all the exhaustion and pain fall on him at the same time, and the world turns with him. The last thing he hears is Merlin’s worried ‘Arthur!’ before he passes out.

-

He wakes up in his bed, feeling miles better. He opens his eyes with a groan and the first thing he sees is Morgana sleeping on a chair next to his bed. Gwen, who noticed that Arthur is awake, smiles at him, and puts a finger to her mouth. Arthur smiles back, and nods, but apparently it’s no use, because a second later Morgana’s eyes shot open.

“Arthur.” she says firmly. Then she looks at him, sees that he’s awake, and smiles. Arthur just stares.

“How did you know I was awake?” Morgana just grins at him slyly.

“Women’s intuition?”

“I swear to god you terrify me sometimes,” shakes Arthur his head. Then memories come flooding back. “Where’s Merlin?” Morgana rolls her eyes.

“He’s bringing you lunch, he should be almost back.” Guinevere answers, because she’s the kind one.

“He told us what happened.” says Morgana. Arthur frowns.

“He did?”

“Yeah. I’m not saying this much, but well done.” nods Morgana in acknowledgement. Arthur raises his eyebrow. What now? What did Merlin tell them? Not the truth for sure, because then he wouldn’t get ‘well done’-s, instead he would never hear the end of it from Morgana that Merlin saved Camelot instead of Arthur. And to be honest Merlin should get the ‘well done’-s. 

Speak of the devil, the door opens, and Merlin enters with a tray of food. As he sees that Arthur is awake, he averts his eyes, looking at the floor. Arthur gets out of his bed. He finds that he is indeed much better than he thought he was, he can move around with no problem. He looks at Morgana and Gwen.

“I appreciate you worrying for me but I’m fine now. Would you two leave us alone for a moment? I need to talk to Merlin.” Morgana looks at him with eyebrows raised high, then at Merlin, whose ridiculously big ears have gone red for some reason.

“Fine, but I have no idea what makes you think that I was worried about you.” she grins. “Oh, and Uther said you will have to report to him as soon as you’re capable, because he wouldn’t have a peasant’s report.” she rolls her eyes, and flipping her hair, she leaves. Gwen smiles at them apologetically, then leaves behind her.

As the door closes behind them, an uncomfortable silence falls upon the room. Arthur looks at Merlin, who suddenly finds the floor very interesting. The Prince opens his mouth, then stops. What should he say? He’s shit at words. Before he could think out what he wants to say, Merlin speaks up.

“I’m sorry Arthur.” he finally looks up. Tears shine in his eyes. “I should’ve told you, I shouldn’t have lied to you, I just couldn’t, I was afraid of the pyre, I still am to be honest. I’m a sorcerer, Arthur, I have magic. Well, warlock actually, I was born with it I didn’t really have a choice-”

“Merlin.”

“-but I only use it for you, Arthur, I’ve only ever used it for you. I know you’re angry, and hate me now, I would understand-”

“Merlin!”

“-but please, Arthur, believe me that not all magic is evil, I’ve really only ever used it to protect you, to protect Camelot…”

“Merlin!!”

“What?!”

“I know.” Merlin just stares at him with blank eyes.

“What..?”

“I know that you have magic. I have for a while now.”

“You-”

“-know. Yes.” Merlin doesn’t speak for a moment.

“...How long?”

“Little more than a month now maybe?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Merlin asks, visible hurt in his eyes.

“I… didn’t know how to. I’m sorry.” Now Arthur looks down on the floor.

“And… you don’t hate me?” Arthur’s heart swells at the hope that fills Merlin's voice, and at the fact that he asks if Arthur hates him, instead of is he getting executed or exiled.

“No.” Arthur says firmly, looking up to Merlin. “I was angry at first. But I never hated you. And my anger was more for the fact that you lied to me than you having magic. I…” Arthur stops. He never really had a heart-to-heart with Merlin outside of life-and-death situations, but maybe it was time to change that, Merlin needs to hear these things at least once, and then they can go back to the easy banter. “I don’t think I’d be capable of hating you. And… thank you. For saving Camelot. Now, and all the times in the past which I don't know about.” Merlin’s eyes are filled with tears again, but for an entirely different reason. Then, quickly before Arthur could react, he launches himself into Arthur's arms, hugging him tightly. Arthur feels his face heat up. They never hugged. Well, except the time Arhur thought Merlin was dead, and the time Arthur was dying, but that doesn’t count. And now Merlin is pressed against him, and his face is in the crook of Arthur’s neck, tears slowly soaking Arthur’s shoulder. The blonde awkwardly pats the other’s shoulder, then clearing his throat he gently pushes him away.

“There, there. It’s alright. Khmm.” He looks at Merlin, who this close is visibly taller than him, which is really annoying. “I hope you didn’t get snot onto my shirt, because you will be cleaning it.” Merlin chuckles, muttering something under his breath, which awfully sounds like ‘prat’, and Arthur can’t stop the smile growing on his face either. “Now, tell me what in god’s name did you tell Morgana and Gwen because I will have to report to my father, and I can't exactly say that my magical manservant saved Camelot can I?”

Chapter Text

Arthur leaps from his hiding place. He quietly sneaks past a sleeping man, whom he waited in the past hour to fall asleep. The man does not awake: Arthur is not accidentally the best hunter as well, not just warrior in Camelot, he knows how to sneak around. As he successfully enters the little restricted room behind Sir Geoffrey, he closes the door and sighs. He came here for a reason: the restricted section of the library contains the last books in Camelot, which have information about the times of magic in them. Obviously not spellbooks, but more like historical books, which not only contain information on sorcery, but other important things too, which is why they didn’t get destroyed, only locked behind Geoffrey. Arthur hopes that he will find other books as well containing information on how to destroy magic, because his father may have kept a few of those.

He lights the small candle he brought with himself, and looks around. For he does not know where to start, he randomly steps to one of the shelves and starts to read through the titles.

He manages to gather five interesting looking books by the time his candle snuffs out. Three books on simple history: Camelot’s Kings and Their Reign In the Past 100 Years , The History of Druidic Tribes , and Life In Camelot In the 5th Century . The first one was written by Geoffrey himself, the second one by a druid who did not wish to name himself, and the third one was a collection of folklore and telltales. He hoped that the first and the third would give him information about how Kings handled magic before his father, and how people lived with it. To his delight, he found two interesting looking books on the old religion too: The Old Religion Before, During, and After the Purge , and Gods and Prophecies of the Old Religion .

Arthur grabs the books trying not to fall over in the dark. Sneaking past Sir Geoffrey again with five heavy books, and without his eyes getting used to the dark was much harder, but he managed it. When he gets back to his room, he realizes it won’t be the easiest task to hide them because of their size. Not like he would really need to hide them, because aside Merlin no one just comes in and searches his chambers, he would just need to put them out of sight. But to be honest, he doesn’t really want Merlin to know. He can’t exactly explain why. Maybe because then Merlin would gift him one of those bright, beaming smiles he does much more frequently nowadays, which make Arthur feel hot and uncomfortable.

At the end he settles for putting the two on the Old Religion and the one on the druids, which were smaller anyway, into his lockable drawer, and the two less suspicious titled onto his desk, under a pile of grain reports. He thought about starting them now, but he felt tired, and to be honest, he was never a bookworm type of person. So he fell into his bed, thinking that tomorrow he would start them. Or maybe the day after tomorrow. Or after the tournament, because he needed to spend most of his time training.

-

“Great. Just great. An assassin is just what I needed right now.” says Arthur, dropping down behind his desk.

“Well,” looks up Merlin, who just started polishing Arthur’s boots, “There have to be downsides of being a Prince too right?” he grins. Arthur just rolls his eyes. “Oh come on, quit sulking! Don’t you have to prepare that brute game you knights have?”

“I’m not sulking! And it’s a tournament, not a game, Mer lin.” 

“Sure, whatever you say, my lord.” Arthur just glares at him. Then suddenly a really weird feeling washes over him. He glances at the window, but it’s closed, and Merlin doesn’t seem to be noticing any change in the air either. Maybe he has a fever? He had fevers before, and none of them felt like… whatever this is. It’s not strong, and it’s certainly not unpleasant, it feels safe, it feels… home. Arthur scratches his head, and then he’s startled by Merlin’s voice. “Arthur?” He sounds uncertain.

“Hmm?”

“Why would Odin send an assassin after you?”

Arthur doesn’t speak for a moment.

“Because I killed his son.” Merlin’s eyes widen. He doesn’t speak though, he’s just waiting for Arthur to continue. “He challenged me for a duel. To the death. I had no quarrel with him, I asked him to withdraw. Perhaps he felt he had to prove himself. I should’ve withdrawn but… I was too proud, I cared too much that people might think I was weak. I still see his face. He looked so scared.”

They sit in silence for a few moments. Arthur doesn’t blame Merlin for not knowing how to respond. Then the raven gets up, and walks over to Arthur, who has to look up since he’s still sitting at his desk. Then he yelps surprised, when Merlin, grabbing his shoulder and the back of his head, pulls Arthur to himself. The blonde freezes, caught off guard by this unusual position: his forehead is resting against Merlin’s stomach, whose fingers are caressing his nape, sending shivers down his spine. Arthur feels his face flush, and pulls away quickly.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Merlin seems surprised by this question.

“I… thought you needed a hug.” he mutters confused, his cheeks also flushed pink by now.

“I don’t need hugs, Mer lin!” Arthur tries to seem offended, and clear the smell of soap, fresh herbs and forest from his nostrils. Merlin seems a bit hurt, and looks down the floor. Were hugs really this important to him? Arthur tries to remember, but all that comes to his mind is that there were times when Merlin seemed like he wanted to hug him, but he never did. On those extremely rare occasions when they did, it was always Arthur who started it. He cleares his throat. “I appreciate it though… you trying to cheer me up.” he patted Merlin’s shoulder. There’s almost immediately a smile brighter than the sun appearing on Merlin’s face, causing Arhur’s heart to skip a beat. God, this man’s mood swings are gonna be the death of him.

-

Arthur drops to his bed exhausted. This was a good training. The jousting tournament starts tomorrow, so there was that nervous-excited vibe in the air, which made everyone work twice as hard. It annoys him though, that most of the knights are holding back against him, he remembers, that was the case too before the knights of the round table. But he knows that he only needs to beat them into the ground a few times, and they will realise he isn’t made of glass. And it’s not like he needs to prove himself, he knows that he’s far better than any of the current knights. The only ones that stand a chance against him are the knights of the round table, and most of them are not even in Camelot at this time. He makes a mental note to himself, to pay more attention to Sir Leon, because based on today’s training, he will be in need to be beaten into the ground a few times.

He sits up when he hears a door close, and he sees Merlin come in… but through the wrong door. 

“Merlin? What were you doing in the servant’s antechambers?” Arthur frowns. It is weird, because though Merlin officially should live there, he’s the physician’s apprentice as well, and he chose living with Gaius, then it just stayed that way. So the antechambers stayed abandoned for who knows how long now, since Arthur didn’t have a manservant for longer than a few days, before Merlin.

“I cleaned it.” declares Merlin, like it should explain everything.

“You cleaned it…?” Does Merlin plan to move in now? Not that it bothers Arthur, it’s just surprising.

“Yes. Arthur, I know it sounds strange, but I want you to sleep there tonight.”

“What??” Sleep in a servant’s chambers? Arthur shudders at the thought of how hard the bed could be there. He needs to be well-rested for the tournament!

“Y’know, ‘cause of the assassin. There was no attack until now, but I’m worried that this Myror will try at night.” mumbles Merlin nervously. Arthur seeing this demenaur, solemnly promises himself, that he will never throw things at his servant again. “S’why I thought that if we made it seem like you sleep in there, stuff it with pillows and all, but you're not actually sleeping there, it could confuse him. But it’s no good if you go to another room, because he could be following you,” finished Merlin outlining his plan. Arthur hummed.

“And it’s all cleaned out right?” Merlin nodded. “I suppose I can do with it for a few nights, you’re right.” The servant grinned, and nodded.

“Splendid. I’ll be sleeping there too, on the floor by the door, just in case. The antechambers don’t have windows, and I don’t think he’d suspect you sleeping there, but better be safe than sorry,” he said, as he started changing Arthur into his night clothes. 

“On the floor?? Merlin, there’s no need, I am perfectly capable of protecting myself. I’ve been-”

“-trained to kill since birth, yeah I know.” Merlin rolls his eyes. “It’s more to put my mind at ease than anything else. Besides, I’m used to sleeping on the floor. Before coming to Camelot, that was the norm for me.” he says with ease, like he didn’t just say that he slept on the floor for 17 years. Arthur remembers that when they were in Ealdor they slept on the floor, but it didn’t actually occur to him that Merlin didn’t have a bed there.

“Well if you’re sure…” Merlin nods. Arthur sighs. “Alright then.” His manservant grins.

They stuff Arthur’s bed, so it’s only noticeable from up close that there’s not actually a man sleeping there, and they enter the antechambers. Merlin didn’t lie, it’s really nicely cleaned out, the bed is made, and there’s a bedroll next to the door. Arthur drops to the bed, then frowns.

“Merlin, why is this bed softer than mine?” The servant grins mischievously.

“I knew your royal pratness would whine about how hard the bed is, so I boosted it a bit,” he says, looking adorably proud of himself.

“You… boosted it?” frowns Arthur.

“Yeah. You know…” Merlin wobbles his fingers towards Arthur, who opens his mouth forming a silent ‘o’, then he looks at the ceiling.

“What am I going to do with you…” the raven chuckles.

Merlin snuffs out the candles, then they settle for bed. Arthur’s bed is so comfy, that he really feels bad for making Merlin sleep on the floor. Well, he didn’t make him, but still…

“Couldn’t you just magic a bed for yourself?” he asks.

“Careful my Lord, you almost sound like you care,” jokes Merlin. Arthur rolls his eyes, though he knows the other can’t see it. “I believe that would raise questions if anyone were to enter here accidentally,” answers Merlin at the end.

“Right.”

Silence.

“Good night, Arthur.”

“Good night Merlin.”

-

In the end, Merlin was right. Again. When they woke up the next morning, there was a small arrow pierced in the stack of pillows in Arthurs bed, which Merlin declared to be poisoned. It seemed to be coming from the window, which was strange, because it was closed when they went to sleep, and it was closed in the morning too. But it had to come from there, because the guards in front of his door said that there was no movement in the corridors all night.

Merlin holds his horse as Arthur climbs up, the tournament about to start. The raven looks up to him, a bit nervous. They agreed that this Myror wouldn't be stupid to try anything during the tournament, since there are guards and knights all around, and Arthur is in armor anyways, but still, since morning, it seems much more real than until now.

“Well… good luck.” Merlin smiles tightly.

“I don’t need luck , Mer lin.” Arthur grins at him. Merlin rolling his eyes pats Llamerei, then Arthur takes off.

All the knights line up, then the King stands up to speak.

“Knights of the realm, welcome to Camelot.” he starts. “You have trained for this day for many years. Today you will fight for glory, and for honor. For this is the ultimate test of courage, and it will be the measure of you as men.” Arthur’s eyes wander to Merlin, who is standing by the field, looking mildly bored. When he notices Arthur’s gaze he spectacularly suppresses a yawn, and Arthur hides his laugh behind a cough. His father always says the same speech at every tournament. “For only the most skillful, the most fearless among you will emerge as a worthy champion.” he finishes, and the crowd starts to cheer. Arthur goes back to his tent, Merlin following him, to put on his full armor.

He enters the field, facing his first opponent. The flag is down, and Arthur urges Llamerei forward. The other knight is a bit slow in putting his lance into position, but when he does he holds it firmly. Nonetheless Arthur immediately notices a gap in his stance, and goes for it. He hits him right in the shoulder, knocking him off the horse. He hears the crowd cheer as he leaves the field. Merlin comes to help him, smiling proudly.

“Well done!” he cheers. Arthur’s stomach does a funny backflip, and he frowns, because it’s a weird time to be nervous about the tournament, when it already started.

His next opponent is more steady, but Arthur leans away from his lance, and strikes him in the chest. This man is not lucky, as he falls off his horse, his leg stucks in the stirrup, the horse dragging him along for a few meters. The audience exclaims and cheers, and Arthur is dizzy with victory. He always loved tourneys, but when he was king, he rarely had time to actually participate in them, so he welcomes this feeling back.

Today’s rounds were down, the victors needed to go out one more time, to acknowledge the crowd, then the tournament continues tomorrow with the semifinals. The finals will be the day after tomorrow.

“You really love these tournaments don’t you?” asks Merlin smiling, as he helps him out of his armor. “You’re practically lit up with joy.” Arthur feels his face heat up as he mumbles something insulting. He doesn’t know why he got embarrassed, he really does love them, and it’s definitely not something to be ashamed of. Maybe it's the fond look on Merlin’s face.

They are walking on the corridors, back towards his chambers, and he all but forgot about his actual troubles. His mind was on how tomorrow his next opponent will be Sir Leon, his techniques, strengths and faults. Then suddenly he hears Merlin yell his name, and the man practically jumps on him, knocking him down to the ground. He must have used some magic as well, there's no way that scrawny Merlin could just knock him down in chainmail like he weighed nothing. Arthur must have hit his head falling down, because opening his eyes, the first thing that comes to his mind is that Merlin’s eyes are beautiful.

“Merlin?” The servant gets up, and silently points at the wall, where… where an arrow, one like that morning, sticks out of the wall. Arthur’s eyes widen, and flips around to see where it came from. There was only a window.

“Some guards were here, and when they saw what happened, they left to chase the assassin but… I didn’t see him. He must be fast, and extremely good at hiding.” explains Merlin. He nervously glances around, then grabs Arthur’s arm, who feels a bit lightheaded. “Come on, let’s go.”

They just reach Arthur’s chambers when it occurs to him what actually happened. Did Merlin just manage to see an arrow and react before it hit its target? Arthur distinctly remembers that his manservant stood at least a meter away from him before the incident. Was it magic?

“How did you… how did you do that?” stares Arthur at his manservant.

“What?” frowns Merlin.

“You know…!” gestures Arthur. “Noticing an arrow, being able to react before it hits, knocking me out of the way and all this in just barely a second? Does it ring a bell?”

“Ohh that!” chuckles Merlin nervously. “Well, you know.. I have my own skill set.” Arthur nods, and raises an eyebrow, indicating to elaborate. “Yesterday I… how can I explain this? My magic, it’s usually inside me, flowing through me but I can let it out if I want to. To be honest it’s much more comfortable that way. But my magic is still.. me, so when it’s all around, I can feel things. And yesterday I let it out, and put it around you like a.. like a cloud or mist, so I sense if anything unusual is happening around you. That’s how I noticed the arrow. Then I slowed down time, that's how I got to you so fast.” explains the warlock, like it's nothing. Well, maybe it was nothing for him. Then Arthur remembers something, and he is terrified.

“But you said there were guards around? What if they noticed something?” Merlin sees the worried look on the blonde, and he’s quick to reassure him.

“They wouldn’t, I don’t really look faster from the outside, it really just saves me the time spent thinking. Actually, that’s how I saved you the first time too, when Uther made me your manservant,” he says smiling from the memory. Arthur is not entirely convinced, but there weren’t any guards banging on the door for Merlin yet, and that’s something too. There’s still one thing that sticks out to Arthur though.

“Wait your magic is.. around me?” he asks. Merlin nods, blushing a bit. “So that’s what this weird feeling is!” Arthur exclaims. The raven looks at him, frowning. “I started feeling it yesterday, and I just couldn’t fathom out what it is. I almost thought I’m going crazy, or that I’m ill, because no one else seemed to notice it.” Arthur rubs his arm.

“What, you can feel it?” asks Merlin with wide eyes. The Prince frowns.

“That’s not normal?”

“No, as I know people without magic are not supposed to feel it to any level, and even sorcerers can only feel or see each other’s magic if they perform a spell for that purpose.” scratches his head Merlin. “I’ll ask Gaius.”

A few minutes pass in silence, as Merlin prepares a bath for Arthur. He still does most of his tasks manually, which Arthur is glad for, anyone could be walking in at the wrong time. Then after a while, Merlin speaks up.

“What does it feel like? My magic?” Arthur, who was watching Merlin busying himself until now, quickly looks away, and clears his throat.

“I don’t know… it’s hard to define.” Merlin is still looking at him like he’s expecting him to continue, so he does. “It’s not unpleasant,” he states, earning a small smile from Merlin. “I could say that… when I’m cold it’s like the warmth of the summer’s sunshine, but when it’s hot it’s like a cool breeze. It feels like prickling sparks, and caressing water on my skin at the same time.” When he looks up, he’s met with Merlin’s amazed eyes. But then the servant wrinkles his eyebrows.

“You felt something this abnormal and you didn’t tell me?? Arthur, what if it was someone else, with ill intentions? You need to tell me if something suspicious is up!” Merlin scolds him, and Arthur starts to get the feeling that Merlin spends too much time with Gaius.

“But it wasn’t suspicious! It feels right, it feels… safe! Like home! Not at all nefarious.” Arthur defends himself without thinking, and it only occurs to him what he just said when Merlin’s ears go bright red. The servant mumbles something like the bath is ready, then goes to busy himself around the room.

After Arthur bathes, Merlin readies him for bed, then they settle in the antechambers again, and Arthur tries to not look like a tomato every time he sees that Merlin is still beaming like an idiot.

-

Arthur is facing Sir Leon in the semifinals. The other knight looks determined, and the Prince hopes that it means that he will follow Arthur’s order about not holding back. They ready themselves, and when the flag indicates, the horses start galloping. Arthur focuses, and it’s like the world around him ceases to exist. There’s only him, and the knight and his lance before him. He notices that Leon leans slightly inwards, probably the result of a wrongly adjusted stirrup. At the last moment, he turns his horse, to get further away from the midline. It’s too late for Leon to adjust his hold on his lance, which he holds pointing forward, but Arthur swings his weapon, hitting his opponent with it sideways, rather than with its tip. This way there wasn’t that much force behind it, so Sir Leon manages to hold onto his horse, but he still fell out of the saddle, which means Arthur won, earning a place at the finals tomorrow.

Merlin greets him with a bright smile.

“That was brilliant! And you’re surprised that I can think and act in a few second’s time, when you pull that without… more interesting talents!” the raven exclaims grinning proudly.

“Yes, but there’s you, and there’s me. That’s an entirely different league Mer lin.” hides Arthur the joy Merlin’s praise caused in him with a snarky comment and an eye roll. “Go, and give some water to Llamerei please, she was brilliant too.”

When Merlin returns to the tent and starts helping Arthur with getting off his armor, the Prince notices the dark circles under his eyes. He can’t help but start worrying. He knows Merlin has never been a good sleeper from all the quests out and hunting parties lasting more than one day, when they slept next to each other, but Merlin did sleep on the floor the last two nights and that can do him no good. The final proof is when Merlin, lifting his arm to reach for Arthur’s armor, quietly hisses in pain. His muscles must be sore and rigid from sleeping on the hard stone.

His eyes fixate on Merlin, who glances at him, knowing that Arthur noticed it.

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re in pain, it’s not nothing! I order you to go back to sleep in your bed tonight.” Arthur says, in his most kingly-voice. Unfortunately even his most kingly-voice doesn’t work on a Merlin who already made up his mind.

“I can’t! This morning, the pillows were disturbed, probably the assassin came to see why didn’t you die last night, now he knows that you’re not sleeping there! He will come looking for you, maybe even in the servant’s chambers too!” argues his ever-stubborn manservant.

“And I am perfectly capable of protecting myself!”

“Yeah, you are, as long as it’s an ordinary man! But did you ever stop to think about what if he’s a sorcerer?” Arthur is opening his mouth to argue back, but he finds that he can’t. He heard rumors about this Myror, him being the best assassin in the five kingdoms, and though none of the rumors talked about him being a sorcerer, there’s always the possibility.

“But we don’t know how much longer this will go on. You can’t keep up sleeping on the floor, you’ll be completely useless! Besides, the stone is cold, you will get sick and I might catch it from you!” reasoned Arthur, he thinks perfectly sensibly, but the clotpole in front of him is still fighting a grin.

“Well it’s not like you could sleep on the floor, so there’s not much other option,” says Merlin. Arthur thinks. Actually, the bed in the antechambers is just a tad smaller than Arthur's own, which means it’s still pretty big. And it’s not like they never slept that close, when they sleep rough and it’s cold, every ounce of heat is precious.

“There is one other option. We’ll try both sleeping in the bed tonight, and if it’s really uncomfortable tomorrow we can think of something new.”

-

“You’re really sure about this?” asks Merlin for the hundredth time, now standing beside the bed. It’s dark already, so only his silhouette is visible, but Arthur can imagine the face he’s making.

“Arghh Mer lin, if you ask one more time, I’ll throw you out the window and you will have to sleep in horse dung!” groans the Prince. Merlin quickly climbs in.

Arthur hears a content sigh leave the servant’s lips.

“Much better than the stone floor isn’t it?” he turns his head towards Merlin, then quickly turns it back, because seemingly this bed is not as big as he thought.

“Yeah. Thank you.” says Merlin quietly.

They bid good night to each other, then Arthur turns to his side, facing away from Merlin. He’s used to sharing a bed with someone, but that someone is usually Guinevere, and Arthur can only hope that his body memory will fail him, and falling asleep, he won’t embrace Merlin like he used to do with Gwen. He tries to sleep, but he’s too stiff, too aware of Merlin’s side pressing to his back, and the other man’s soft breathing.

Maybe an hour passes like this before Arthur manages to sleep. Merlin is making soft noises, mumbling incoherently and nibbling in his sleep, making Arthur smile, and relax after a time.

When he wakes up, Merlin is already up, Arthur can hear him tidying up in the neighboring room. He gets up, and goes out. When Merlin sees him, he smiles at him a bit awkwardly, his cheeks pink. Arthur frowns. Oh no, he didn’t hug Merlin in his sleep did he? That would be super embarrassing. He clears his throat.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks, because after all, that was the whole point. Merlin smiles.

“Yeah, splendid! I can’t remember the last time I slept this good.” he announces happily. Arthur can’t help but smile.

“Good.”

Merlin smiles back at him, eyes shining, and Arthur can’t help but admire for a few moments, because he too, can’t remember the last time Merlin’s eyes sparkled with this youthful joy. The last few months back in… the future, however weird that still sounds, he was always frowning, his eyes a much darker shade of blue.

Then Merlin tears his eyes away from Arthur, and his look darting around the room, he speaks.

“We need to get you ready for the last round of the tournament, I was just gonna wake you up.” Then he turns around, collecting Arthur’s armor.

-

Sir Alynor is a knight of Camelot too, although Arthur doesn’t know much of him, he wasn’t around for his rule. ‘Better this way’ he thinks. An unknown opponent is always more exciting.

They stand up, facing each other. Sir Alynor’s horse looks uneasy for some reason, but at the end the knight manages to seize him. The crowd cheers excitedly. The flag-man signals, and they start forward.

Sir Alynor seems a bit uncertain at first, but then he finds his pace, and he takes up a perfect stance. As they close up to each other, Arthur sees no gap in his defense, he won’t make it! He braces himself for the impact, because if he stays in the saddle, there will be another round.

The impact does come, but instead of the dull blow, he feels a sharp pain in his abdomen. What kind of lance did his opponent use? Clenching his side, thankfully he manages to stay on the horse.

Merlin comes to help him off his horse, with a confused and worried look on his face.

“His lance pierced my armor.” Arthur gasps, as Merlin literally drags him into the tent. He gathers a cloth from somewhere, and presses it to Arthur’s side.

“Hold it here. I’ll be back, one moment.” he says nervously, then rushes out of the tent. That one moment seems like ages for Arthur, as the world starts to blur around him. Then Merlin bursts into the tent again.

“You were jousting against the assassin! He killed Sir Alynor and took his place.” he explains. Dread sets in Arthur, then he shakes his head.

“That doesn’t matter now. I have to be back on the course soon, or I forfeit the match.” he slurs.

“Are you mad?! You can’t possibly joust in this state!” Merlin exclaims. Arthur chuckles, like Merlin is the one who said something stupid.

“I have never withdrawn from a match, I do not intend to start now.”

“Prat!” is all Merlin says, exasperated.

“Can’t you just.. heal me? With magic?” Arthur asks. Merlin’s eyes widen.

“Uhm.. I’m not really good at healing spells, but I can try. If you’re sure?” Arthur doesn’t know if the question is for the jousting, or for the magic, since Merlin never used magic directly on Arthur before, well at least that of Arthur is aware. He nods. “Okay, this won’t heal you, it will temporarily stop the bleeding, and reduce the pain, but it will be worse after, and Gaius will need to check you.” Arthur just nods again. Merlin quickly unfastens the metal plates, and puts his palm on Arthur’s wound. “ Vhoundel healfelnih sehra. ”

The next moment, Merlin’s eyes lit up in gold, and Arthur swears for a second that Merlin is so bad at healing spells that he accidentally stopped his heart. He never saw this until now, because Merlin was still reluctant to use magic in front of him, or when he did he never looked at him. And what a shame he didn’t. It was.. beautiful. 

Did he lose so much blood he thinks nonsensical things like this?

Merlin takes away his hand, and starts to fasten the plate armor around him, and the world seems to go back to normal. Arthur can hear the crowd cheering and chatting excitedly outside the tent, and Merlin’s eyes are blue again. What he can’t feel, is the pain. Instead he feels the same, calming sensation of Merlin’s magic, like in the last few days, but now it was inside his chest, where his wound was.

“Come on, you have to be out in a minute.” Merlin drags him up. Arthur shakes his head, and focuses on the task ahead of him. He faces the assassin again, who is apparently a jousting master.

He mounts his horse, and enters the course. Myror is facing him at the other end of the field. His stomach clenches, but Merlin’s magic pulses reassuringly in his side.

The flag raises. Arthur pats Llamerei encouragingly, then urges her forward. He finally finds a mistake in the other’s posture: he’s too straightened out. He mirrors it, it’s a useful trick: do any mistake the opponent makes at the start, so he won’t correct it, then at the last minute counterbalance it. That’s what he does: at the last minute, he leans so low that he’s nearly lying on Llamerei’s neck, and while Myror’s lance passes over him, his lands right in the middle of the assassin’s stomach. He falls off his horse very badly, rolling in the sand a few times, but serves him right. Because Arthur’s side starts to hurt again, and it’s worse than before. He’s barely aware of Merlin hurrying to his side.

-

He’s lying on the bed in the physician’s chamber when the King enters.

“Arthur. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” 

“What exactly happened?” asks Uther.

“Well, as you already know, the man I jousted against in the final was not Sir Alynor, but the assassin, Myror. He used a pointed lance, and it pierced my armor in the first round. My servant, Merlin, who is also the physician’s apprentice, did what he could to stop the bleeding, but I wouldn’t listen to him, wanting to compete in the second round too. And, well I won it.” he explains modestly. His father smiles at him.

“I’ll have you know, we postponed the feast held in your honor, until you recover. And, I’m glad the assassin is incapacitated. Despite the rumors, he couldn’t be all that good for only being able to land one succesful blow. Fortunately, of course.” the King says, then leaves. Merlin grimaces at his back, and Arthur holds back the urge to snort.

Chapter Text

“-rthur? Arthur!” Morgana seems slightly annoyed. Arthur squints his eyes confusedly at her.

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?? You’ve been staring at that chess board for at least ten minutes without moving any pieces, or your brain by the way. And it’s the third time you did that in one game. If you’re not in the mood to play you could just say so!” Arthur rubs his forehead.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, and moves a pawn forward.

“Arthur.” Morgana sighs.

“Yes?”

“That’s my piece. You’re with the white remember?” Morgana looks at him like she doesn’t know if she wants to cry or shout. Then after Arthur’s hurried apologies, she sighs again. “Nevermind this. I’m winning anyway. You go to sleep,” she pats his shoulder standing up.

“I’m truly sorry Morgana,” Arthur sighs wearily. “I just have a lot of things on my mind lately.” Morgana nods.

“It’s alright, I understand,” she smiles at him. “Now go. Shoo!” she says, and she starts pushing Arthur towards the door.

It’s already late night, there isn’t anyone in the corridors, Merlin and Gwen were dismissed already. To which Arthur is actually thankful, because the latter is the main reason he is in over his head.

For most of the time since he got sent back to the past, he was content with leaving things how they are. He may be a coward for this, but for now he is happy with Gwen’s friendship too, and he doesn’t want to risk putting her in danger. His crisis started, when he tried to remember back, how did it go five years ago, what was different, hoping that if he remembers that, maybe he will remember what threat comes next too, and is able to prevent it. And it started, because there were only two times Odin sent an assassin after him. When his father died, and when… When he participated in the tournament in disguise, lived with Gwen for a few days, and kissed her for the first time. Well, obviously the first is not the case.

And since then this feeling of.. need to do something is eating him up.

But what should he do?

He and Guinevere can’t actually get together for years still, and showing her what could be would just give her heartache. She is much happier clueless.

On the other hand, he can’t expect Guinevere to wait for him, if she doesn’t even know Arthur is a possibility. What if she finds someone else? What if…

Lancelot.

Lancelot is still alive now isn’t he?

Something rages up inside Arthur. He doesn’t hate Lancelot, not exactly, he’s a good man and a good knight, the most noble one Arthur has ever met. And he made it clear how bad he felt about that slip of self control. No, Arthur isn’t angry, there isn’t hate in him, he’s… hurt. Because it was always clear to him that when Lancelot is alive, Gwen would always choose him. That she would never have married Arthur if Lancelot was in the picture.

What hurts even more, is that if Gwen would’ve been with Lancelot, and, well obviously if he didn’t die, she could have been happier with him than she ever was with Arthur. Because Gwen never enjoyed the courtly life. She was a wonderful Queen, but she was never happy with the golden cage she was in. And Arthur as King never could spend as much time with her as he should have.

So if he doesn’t do anything, if he doesn’t court Guinevere, then she could live her life in blissful cluelessness, with Lancelot, without Uther trying to execute her because Arthur happened to fall in love with her.

But if he doesn’t do anything, then the only thing that’s left for him are memories, and a political marriage. Well, not exactly, he will still have her friendship, the question is, is that enough for him?

What would Merlin do in his place? He would surely think about what’s best for Gwen, and suffer in silence. 

On the other hand, if Arthur asked him what to do, he would tell him not to give her up. Merlin telling him that ‘if Uther thinks an unhappy King makes for a stronger kingdom, then he’s wrong’ echoes in his head.

But would he really be unhappy? He would still have Gwen as a friend, he would still have his knights, and Merlin… And if he can change the future, he would have a sister to rule over Camelot with, one of his best, and most noble knights would be alive, and he would have Mordred, who was always a little like a son for him.

He sighs as he drops to his bed. The last few days, this train of thought flashed through his mind. The stress of the decision was always hanging above him.

He bangs his head in his bedpost. That’s it! He won’t whine any longer. He won’t do anything for the record. He won’t court Guinevere, and he won’t hint to her that he has feelings for her. He feels it’s the right decision. It’s better for Gwen. And perhaps one day he will find love again.

-

Seemingly the weather hates Arthur too, because the next morning when he wakes up it’s storming outside, therefore the training would be canceled. There weren’t any council sessions either, so what should he do? The heavy book of Camelot’s Kings and Their Reign in the Past 100 Years on his desk catches his eye. He groans. It’s not like it’s not interesting, it is, he just really doesn’t like reading, it’s so exhausting! And he has to read a bunch of boring reports too. Ugh. Maybe he can do something with Merlin, Morgana and Gwen. Lately it was a common occurrence to find the four of them together, though from the outside it must look like Arthur and Morgana spend much more time together, because obviously their servants would be accompanying them.

Although it seems like, for Merlin it’s not so obvious, because he is nowhere to be seen. Arthur’s breakfast is on the table, his clothes laid out for him, but there’s no sign of the servant. Now that Arthur thinks about it, he didn’t really saw or talked to Merlin in the last couple days. Well, that could be because he wasn’t the best company in the last couple days. Well, he’s better, now that the weight has lifted from his shoulders, so time to find Merlin!

He puts on the clothes, because despite Merlin’s teasing, he can dress himself,  and strodes out of his chambers. He will have breakfast after he finds Merlin.

When he enters the physician’s chambers, Gaius looks up from the book he’s reading. Arthur looks around, but Merlin’s not there.

“Can I help you Sire?” Gaius asks.

“Where’s Merlin?” Gaius looks apologetic.

“He’s gathering herbs, Sire.” 

“Now?? It’s pouring!” Arthur says astounded.

“I said so too, but the foolish boy likes rain.” Arthur frowns. How can someone like rain? It’s cold, and wet, and muddy. “Besides, the Zephyranthes only blooms when it rains, and Merlin offered me to replenish my stock of it.” explains Gaius. Arthur sighs.

“Alright. Send him up when he’s back and dried off, it’s cold down here, wouldn’t want him to get sick,” he asks. Gaius smiles at him, and he leaves.

Alright then, let’s visit Morgana. She’s surely not running around in the rain looking for zefiratos or what.

When he reaches Morgana’s door, he hears giggling from inside. He knocks, and enters. Gwen and Morgana, who are sitting on Morgana’s bed with two cups of tea, look at him.

“Uhh.. what are you doing?” Arthur asks uncertain. Morgana cocks an eyebrow.

“Oh, Gwen was just telling me the latest gossip she heard.” Arthur scrunches up his nose.

“Gossip?”

“Yeah, you’re welcome to join if you like,” grins Morgana. 

“I am the Prince of Camelot Morgana, I do not gossip ,” states Arthur.

“Really? Because Gwen was just telling me a quite interesting gossip, about you and-”

“Noo, I don’t wanna hear it!” sings Arthur, and playfully covering his ears, he runs out of the room.

Great.

Then all that’s left is reading after all.

When he gets back to his chambers, he slumps into his chair, taking his cold breakfast with him, and he opens the book where he left it.

The most relevant information about how a court, where magic is accepted works, is found in the part, where the book describes the reign of Arthur’s grandfather, Custennin. He was King for 12 peaceful years, before the Picts poisoned him, and the chaos began. With his uncle, Constans crowned King, then Vortigern tricking the Picts into killing him, then taking the crown for himself, then the Saxons, there was little information that interested him. He all learned about it when he was kid. So he flips back to Custennin, and takes out a parchment to take notes.

He finds that there wasn’t a huge difference. Seemingly it was taken into account that non-magical people know little about sorcery. The only thing that was different in court, that there was a Court Sorcerer. He had inferiors, specialized to different kinds of magic, which is surprising to Arthur only, because he didn’t know there are different kinds of magic. Well, now that he thinks about it, it makes sense. They were all respected, but only the Court Sorcerer got a place in the court, and a vote in the matters of the kingdom. The Court Sorcerer managed all magical matters, and he guided the other sorcerer groups. These groups had different orientation, and jobs, and every group had a leader who communicated with the Court Sorcerer. These groups were for example the battle mages, the ones that specialized in magical creatures, the entertainers, or the ones that cared for the welfare of the people of Camelot. Arthur realises that the last one must have done all he read in Life in Camelot in the 5th Century , like keeping the houses warm on cold winters, making sure the harvest is good, or helping the Court Physician with healing magic if he wasn’t proficient in it. The Court Sorcerer needed to be good with every kind of magic, or if not good, then just knowledgeable enough to be able to lead his inferiors.

And from Life in Camelot in the 5th Century he also learned that even though there were sorcerers for every kind of magic, it wasn’t uncommon for regular people to know a little magic, just to make everyday tasks easier, or entertain their kids.

His lunch is brought by another servant and it’s well into the afternoon when he hears the door open. He looks up, and sees Merin stroll in, in dry clothes, but with still damp hair.

“Sorry, Sire. I was…”

“Collecting herbs for Gaius, I know.” Arthur sighs. Then his look wanders to the two cups of hot tea Merlin is holding, and he raises an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you want to gossip too.”

“Gossip?” the servant asks, confused.

“I went to visit Morgana and Gwen a few hours ago, and they were sitting with two cups of hot tea, gossiping ,” Arthur says, scrunching up his nose. Merlin, putting down a cup on his desk, grins at him, and Arthur, not too conspicuously hides the parchment he’s working on, by putting his elbow on it.

“I don’t know what’s your problem with gossiping. It’s fun!” says Merlin, and Arthur raises an eyebrow.

“Fun, like running around in the forest, in a storm?”

“Exactly.” Merlin grins cheekily. They stare at each other for a moment longer, then the sorcerer quickly looks away, ears red. He clears his throat. “In fact, if you don’t have any tasks for me Sire, I’ll join them, I have some juicy stories I’m sure even Gwen doesn’t know.” Merlin says lightly, but he’s still not looking at Arthur. The prince looks around a bit disappointed that Merlin is trying to brush him off so quickly, trying to find something that can keep Merlin here, but his chambers are clean, and his boots and armor weren’t used since the last polishing. Morgana’s chambers are even as warm as Arthur’s, so he can’t even bring up the ‘you’ll catch a cold’ argument.

“Fine, go, join the other old ladies,” rolls his eyes the Prince. Merlin chuckles, leaves, and Arthur gets back to his books.

-

Arthur leans on the table with folded arms, facing a grinning Morgana., who just bursted into the room.

“What?” he asks.

“I have an idea…” she starts, and Arthur rubs his temple.

“Oh god.” Morgana’s ideas are usually… rather interesting. “Is it like when you figured that putting a huge spider into Sir Reinfolt’s armor is a good idea, and poor man ran through the castle stripping until he was naked? Or when you braid flowers into Lady Harriett’s hair and bees attacked her, and stung her face like ten times?”

“Noo, this is a nice idea. Besides, they deserved it!” whisks Morgana. “I thought that since finally after days the sun is shining, we could go on a picnic. Me, you, and Merlin and Gwen obviously. Of course, only after your precious training,” she explains. Arthur hums.

“That’s not a bad idea.” Especially since Merlin seems to be avoiding him lately, and he can’t escape this way.

“See? I have good ideas.” Morgana says. “Then, after training,” she flips her hair as she leaves.

-

They are riding in the forest, looking for a dry spot. Although rain hasn’t fallen since the day before yesterday, the ground is still muddy. The weather is beautiful, if Arthur didn’t know it’s fall, he would say it’s spring. Morgana and Gwen are riding before them, chatting about something Arthur is not paying attention to. He looks to his side, where Merlin admires their surroundings. He always liked nature, and always seemed to.. recharge when they were out. But Arthur supposes that is explained, when he feels Merlin’s magic around him buzzing with energy. He closes his eyes, and enjoys it for a moment. Does magic have some kind of connection to nature? He still has so much to learn. Arthur convinced the warlock not to shut his magic off inside him again, reasoning with it being useful if it can sense the things happening around them, with Merlin’s own words, that it was uncomfortable to close it away constantly, and it’s not like anyone else can feel it. His main reason was definitely not him liking the feeling of.. Merlin around him all the time.

Apparently even Gaius doesn’t know why he feels the warlock’s magic. In the back of Arthur’s mind there’s a voice whispering, that maybe because he was made of magic too, but he shakes it off. He can’t know if anything Morgause said or did was true, and he can’t know if those were really his mother’s words.

Arthur looks back at Merlin, who’s watching the forest happily, cheeks rosy, and eyes shining bright like sapphires. For a moment Arthur thinks he’s even more beautiful than the vibrant forest around them, then he feels heat rising to his cheeks, and he looks away, confused. Where did that come from?

“I think this is a good spot,” Morgana’s voice shakes him out of his thoughts. They reached a small clearing with a few big and flat rocks, which have already dried up. “Perfect, actually.”

Merlin looks around as he gets off of his horse, and quickly talking it over with Gwen they decide to put the food on a rock that takes place relatively in arm’s reach to a few others, while Arthur and Morgana race for the biggest and most comfortable looking one. Arthur winning, he flashes a satisfied grin to Morgana, who sits down sulking, on another one.

While Merlin finishes packing out the rest of the food they brought with themselves, Gwen sits down on the rock beside Morgana’s. Then they realise that there’s no free rocks left, only too far away. Arthur sighs, then he pulls away, so there’s enough space left beside him for Merlin. He frowns when he sees Morgana looking at him with a raised eyebrow. What is she surprised for? It’s not like he’s going to let Merlin stand around, or worse, sit on the wet ground.

The other three start chatting about trivial, everyday things, and Arthur is just happy with listening to them, the sound of the birds, Merlin’s arm pressing to his, and the feeling of his magic intoxicating him.

Suddenly he hears his name, and he finds that everyone’s looking at him. Morgana rolls her eyes.

“You’re really not here nowadays aren’t you?”

“Sorry, what were you saying?” Arthur straightens his back.

“We were asking your opinion about Uther making the requirements of becoming a knight harsher.” The Prince quirks an eyebrow. Politics? Or something like that. He clears his throat.

“It was a necessary addition, the soldiers we knighted lately were not nearly as strong or brave that would be required,” he says in a neutral voice. Morgana frowns.

“Is that really all you think? I can’t say you seemed all that approving when the King announced this.” Arthur looked away awkwardly.

“It doesn’t matter what I think. Not to him anyway,” he muttered the last part. “I’m the Prince of Camelot, I cannot undermine my father's authority publicly.” Morgana shakes her head disapprovingly.

“But you’re not in public right now, you are with your friends, who asked for your personal opinion.” Arthur hums. She’s right. It’s probably a habit of his. Never disagree with your father, or he will be disappointed in you. Even when he died, Arthur couldn’t help but seek his approval. At the thought of his father’s vengeful ghost, Arthur feels nauseous. He shakes his head.

“Well if you’re looking for my personal opinion… I do think everything I said. That most of our knights are weak and we need better soldiers. It’s just not all that I think.” Arthur stops, when he sees Merlin looking at him with that face. That earnest face, with the intense eyes, from which Arthur can never tell what the servant is thinking. Back then, this look of his was that always made the King question if Merlin was an idiot after all. He clears his throat. “But this is not the solution. This way we won’t have weak knights, but we will barely have any knights at all. My opinion is that the first code of Camelot gravely limits our options, because there are few nobles who are persistent enough to reach knighthood under the current circumstances, have the guts and capacity to fight, and really want to become a knight to serve Camelot, not for the glory of it. Knighthood will slowly die out, there will be too many old, and too few young warriors,” explains Arthur. Then he feels heat creep up to his cheeks, when the others stare at him taken aback.

“I told you the first code was wrong!” exclaimed Merlin. “You didn’t really listen then.” Arthur sighs.

“At first maybe, but then I wanted to knight Lancelot even though he’s a peasant, if you remember with your thick brain,” he bumps his shoulder into Merlin’s who rolls his eyes trying really hard to fight back a grin, and miserably failing.

“You surprise me Arthur,” Morgana says, impressed. “I’d never have thought that daddy’s little boy would question one of Uther’s principle laws,” she nods, biting into an apple. Arthur almost snorts out loud at that.

“You have no idea,” he mutters. Morgana frowns.

“What was that?” she asks. Arthur sees Merlin pale, and he bites into his lip. He almost slipped. Then he frowns. Would it be really that bad if he told them…? Well not about Merlin of course, that’s not his secret to share, but about his views on magic. Morgana never made a secret of her not approving their father’s radical measures against magic, and well she herself has magic, even if Arthur’s not sure if she even knows about it yet. And maybe if he told her, she would trust him with her secret in the future, and come to him in times of need. Maybe then she wouldn’t become the shadow of herself, something no more than a living wraith. And Arthur, knowing Gwen, he trusts her and her judgment. Even though she was raised to fear magic too, she wouldn’t run straight to Uther, she would listen to their reasons, and would be open to change her mind if she saw how unreasonable the execution of sorcerers is. Especially, since Uther’s views on magic caused her father’s death.

Arthur, straightening his back and clearing his throat, looks into Morgana's eyes.

“I don’t believe that magic is inherently evil. I believe that the persecution and execution of sorcerer’s is an unjust rule based on Uther’s paranoia, and I made an oath, when I’m King, I will change that,” he declares.

Silence.

Arthur can feel Merlin staring at the side of his head, and it takes all of his self control not to look at him searching for approval. For now he's looking at Morgana, waiting for her to say something. She opens her mouth, then closes it just to open it again.

“Wow,” she looks down on her hands, a small smile on her lips. “You just literally committed treason.” Arthur pales. Well he knew that his father wouldn’t be happy to put it mildly, but it never really occurred to him that he is literally committing treason. Then what about Merlin? He’s committing treason just by existing.

“Well I…”

“No, I like it.” Morgana grins at him. “You having your own opinions and all. I, too, always thought that Uther is unjust for executing all sorcerers without selection. I never really thought about it deeper though, I guess it was a way for me to rebel. And obviously, if you changed your mind like this you must have came across something that made you doubt things, then researched further. Knowing you, you’d never make a decision like this rashly. So yeah, I’m with you on this one,” Morgana smiled at him. Arthur smiled back, then his look wandered to Gwen. She was looking at him with wide eyes, a bit pale. Probably because it’s not everyday you come to discuss treason with your friends. She, seeing the eyes are on her, clears her throat.

“I agree with Morgana.. on the you wouldn’t make this decision lightly part. I just want to know why you came to think this,” she says quietly. Arthur scratches his head. This will be hard to explain without Merlin in it.

“Well… I had my doubts for a while now.. but then something always happened to convince me that my father’s ideals are right. Which is, now looking back, stupid, because literally almost all magical attacks on Camelot are because the King hates magic. But then magic saved my life. Multiple times actually. Then all it took was to think a bit and pay attention. Because magic can’t be just evil if it can be used to heal, to save lives.. to entertain, to.. to even small, menial tasks. It wouldn’t make sense. Sure, it can be a powerful and dangerous weapon in the wrong hands, but that doesn’t make it evil, that just makes it a tool, like a sword. And.. and there are people born with magic! They don’t choose it. I believe that a person is inherently good, that no one is born evil. But if people can be born with magic, and no one is born evil, then magic can’t be evil. It’s neutral,” finishes his speech Arthur. Gwen nods, a small smile on her lips.

“I think I believe you Arthur. I think I would need to see things myself, but I understand your beliefs, and I will consider them. And,” she gets flustered, “I won’t tell anyone,” she smiles at him. “It’s just you know.. hard when all my life I’ve been taught to fear magic. And I really admire you that despite being Prince you were able to think objectively and form an opinion this different.” Arthur blushes. He feels that he doesn’t deserve the compliment. It did cost him years of blood and sweat, several of his friends’ lives, and his sister before he saw reason. And for that Merlin deserves the credit more than him.

Arthur finally turns to him at last. The warlock is looking at him with awe, hope in his eyes burning a hole into Arthur’s chest. They just look at each other for a moment, then Merlin realises that probably everyone is waiting for him to say something too.

“Uhh, yeah, I won’t tell anyone either,” he clears his throat, “Obviously,” mutters to Arthur, who chuckles. Morgana looks at them with raised eyebrows, then points out that they should be getting ready if they want to make it to the castle in daylight.

They are quiet on the way back, everyone is lost in their thoughts. Arthur is aware of Merlin shooting him glances, indicating he wants to talk when they get back.

-

When they get back to Arthur’s chambers, he starts walking towards his desk, but Merlin grabs his arm. The blonde looks back, and they lock eyes.

“You.. plan to repel the magic ban?” Merlin asks quietly, barely a whisper. Arthur nods. He wishes Merlin would let go of his hand, because the warlock’s magic flowing around him, tender and caressing, is more than enough to raise heat into his cheeks. Then when they don’t say anything for a few moments again, Arthur feels the need to break the silence.

“Wasn’t it obvious?” Merlin shakes his head.

“No! You said you don’t hate me for having magic, but that and changing a whole kingdom’s laws are two entirely different levels,” his voice breaks. “I.. thank you.” Arthur feels his face flush even more.

“It’s not only for you,” he says. Merlin smiles at him with such devotion that Arthur didn’t know a human being was capable of. He feels drunk, from Merlin’s eyes on him, Merlin’s hands on his, Merlin’s magic around them.

“I know. I’m not only thanking for myself.” Then Merlin clears his throat, pulling his arm away, breaking the moment. “I will bring you your dinner, Sire,” he says, and he walks out the door, leaving Arthur alone with his swirling thoughts.

Chapter Text

In Morgana’s chambers Arthur is staring at the destruction before him. The curtains are completely burned, and the window is blown out of its frame. Morgana herself is with Gaius, who is nursing her after the shock. What in the world could’ve caused it? There was a storm last night, the lightning striking the castle would be a logical explanation. But that way the glass would’ve fallen inside the room, not outside. Arthur is desperately searching his memories. Is Morgana in danger? She seemed especially stressed the last few days, even more than usually.

“I came back in with some extra blankets, there was a candle but I put it out,” Gwen explains worried.

“Are you sure?” Uther asks.

“I blew it out, I swear.”

“Gwen’s been Morgana’s servant for years, if she says she blew it out, I believe her,” intervenes Arthur a bit annoyed. Besides, it still wouldn’t explain the broken window.

“Then there’s only one explanation for this.”

“What?”

“Someone attacked my ward. With magic.” Uther declares. Arthur’s stomach sinks. The King turns on his heels, motioning Arthur to follow him. He does, Merlin behind him. “Arrest all those we have under suspicion.” Arthur opens his mouth in protest.

“Father, we can’t arrest everyone on that list! Most of them are there only because their.. mother’s friend once talked to a sorcerer 40 years ago, or something, and 9 out of 10 are innocent, it would take too much time-” Uther turns around angrily.

“You dare not mock me! I would rather interrogate hundreds of innocent people than risk Morgana getting hurt,” he snaps. Arthur is moved by how their father cares about Morgana so much, he really is, but this is still not the right way to do this. Nevertheless, right now he doesn’t have another way on his mind. Uther leaves, and Arthur shares a worried glance with Merlin as they head to Arthur’s chambers.

So his father thinks it’s been caused by magic. It would be a believable explanation, because Arthur can think of no other way of how could that be achieved. But the whole “Morgana was attacked” thing makes no sense. If someone wanted to kill her, why did they cause that ruckus at the other side of the room? Why not just set Morgana’s bed on fire, not the curtain furthest from her? And the window? Or if it was meant to be a warning, a warning for what? And why warn them? It only caused Uther to see red, and so tons of innocent people’s possible death. So if someone did mean to attack Morgana they would have to be really stupid.

So still, for Arthur, an accident or a natural phenomenon seems most likely. 

Unless… Morgana does have magic. But why would she set fire to her own chambers? And she looked so terrified. There’s no way she would’ve caused it. Not deliberately at least. Could.. could someone use magic accidentally? Merlin said he was born with magic, but was he born capable of using it, or was he born using it?

He feels a tugging at his arm, and he turns around. Merlin is looking at him with raised eyebrows.

“We’re here,” he points behind them at Arthur’s door. He must have been so lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice they passed it.

“I know my own door Mer lin, thank you,” he rolls his eyes, and they enter bickering. Arthur welcomes it, their banter was always some kind of a stress reliever for both of them. But then the conversation fades away, and they are quiet for a few moments.

“What are we going to do?” Merlin asks, troubled. Arthur knows what he means; about the arrests.

“I’m afraid there’s little we can do. My father tends to lose his mind where Morgana is concerned, there’s nothing I could say to him that would change his mind,” he shakes his head. “But if nothing happens to her he won’t harm them, he’s just bringing them in for questioning. In the meantime, we should talk to Morgana and figure out what actually happened, because I find it hard to believe that anyone would attack her in this manner,” he says, and Merlin nods.

“Yeah, it’s unlikely.” Arthur is silent for a moment.

“Merlin?” he says uncertain, and the other looks up. “Could someone.. use magic without meaning to?” Merlin furrows his brows.

“Well technically it is possible, though it’s rare. Only witches and warlocks, people who are born with magic can use it instinctively, without ever learning any spells, and sometimes accidentally, as result of strong emotions,” he explains. “You think that is the case here?”

“I don’t know,” chews his lip Arthur. “I just know that I don’t think that it was a deliberate attempt to cause harm, and that I can’t find any non-magical explanation of how could.. that happen.” Merlin nods somewhat anxiously.

“I agree on that, but then…” he starts, but is interrupted by someone knocking. They look at each other, then at the door, and Merlin goes to open it.

Morgana stands there. She looks horrible; Her face is pale, which brings out the dark circles under her eyes, and the redness of it, which implies he’s been crying. Gwen looks overly worried. Arthur’s heart swells. Waking up to a burning room must’ve been quite a fright, but Morgana is a strong woman, she wouldn’t look like this if that was the only thing bothering her. In fact, she’d probably be in Uther’s heels, demanding to stop chasing innocent people. No, there’s something else. And Arthur is afraid, he knows what it is.

“I want to talk to you,” she says, determination shining in her eyes.

-

Merlin steps aside to let Morgana in. He traces her face with his eyes. Arthur could be right, it could have been caused by accidental magic; even if he probably wasn’t talking about the same situation he is thinking about. Morgana is a seer after all, from there a witch is not much further. Poor thing. Merlin wouldn’t wish his situation on anyone, and he doesn’t have Uther as his guardian.

He’s been battling with himself whether he should tell Arthur about Morgana being a seer. Arthur is far more supportive about this whole magic thing than Merlin could ever have hoped; the last few months felt like a dream. He obviously wouldn’t do anything to Morgana and wouldn’t tell Uther, and he does deserve to know. On the other hand it is not Merlin’s secret to share even if Morgana herself doesn’t know for sure.

Morgana steps inside, and Gwen closes the door behind them. The maid shoots Merlin a look implying that even she doesn’t know what is this about. Merlin holds back his breath; what will Morgana say?

“It was me. I set the room alight, I started the fire.”

Silence.

“How?” Arthur croaks. Morgana falters, and looks down on the floor. When she raises her eyes, she looks so lost and miserable, that Merlin wants nothing more than to collect her in a big tight hug.

“I don’t know.. how. I… I woke up from a nightmare, and the candle was lit. And I got scared, because I remember Gwen putting it out, so how was it burning? And as I got scared, the.. flames suddenly leaped higher! And I got more scared, and the flames became even bigger and caught the curtains. Then.. I realised that I can’t put out a fire this big I screamed and… and the window, it just.. blew out of its frame!” tears start running down her cheeks. “It was magic, Arthur. I… I don’t know how, I swear I didn’t do it on purpose, it just.. happened, but it was me, I know it,” she whispers. Merlin opens his mouth, he desperately wants to say something reassuring, but Morgana is looking at Arthur, waiting for him to say something. Merlin just hopes that he doesn’t fuck up.

But Arthur somehow doesn’t seem as surprised as he should be in a situation like this. What did he ask just a few minutes before? ‘Could someone use magic without meaning to?’ Did he.. somehow know? Or guess? How could he suspect or know about Morgana having magic before even she did? Then he remembers something. Arthur somehow feels his magic. Could it be that he feels Morgana’s magic too? That would explain much actually.

“Oh, Morgana…” that’s all Arthur says before wrapping his arms around his adopted sister. Morgana buries her face sobbing into his shoulder. “It’s alright. It’s gonna be alright,” he whispers stroking her hair. Merlin suddenly feels extremely uncomfortable like he shouldn’t be here. He looks over at Gwen whose eyes are on the floor, and she seems much paler than it is normal. Arthur and Morgana part, Morgana not looking at them while wiping her face.

“I’m sorry, I just… What if Uther finds out?” she whispers.

“He won’t.” Arthur says firmly. “Did you tell anyone anything? About this?” Morgana shakes her head.

“Not entirely, but… I think Gaius knows.” Arthur’s eyes flicker to Merlin.

“Gaius?”

“Yes, he asked me a few questions this morning. And he’s been treating me for my nightmares since forever,” Morgana also looks at Merlin nervously.

“He wouldn’t tell anyone,” Merlin shakes his head. “But if it makes you feel more safe, I swear I won’t tell him anything that was said in this room,” he assures. Morgana nods grateful.

“I won’t.. turn evil, right..?” she whispers blinking fast again. “I know you don’t think that,” she looks up at Arthur, “but… What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not,” Arthur shakes his head firmly.

“How do you know?” Morgana’s eyes widen. “You don’t have… do you?” she parts her lips shocked. Arthur chuckles.

“No I don’t. But…” he bit down on his words, and jerks his head towards the empty side of the room, directly not looking at Merlin, and the warlock understands that Arthur almost told Morgana about him. Icy fear coats his heart as he opens his mouth to say something but no sound comes out. He has to take a deep breath lest he have a panic attack right there. He closes his eyes and reminds himself that everyone in this room would accept him, and Morgana needs someone to guide her, like he had Gaius and his mother before, but he supposes old habits and fixations die hard.

“-rlin? Merlin!” he opens his eyes, to face a worried looking Arthur who grabbed his shoulders to shake him. He must have spaced out.

“Sorry, what did you say?” he croaks.

“Are you alright?” leans Arthur closer, and Merlin is suddenly super aware of how little the distance is between their faces and his breath hitches.

“Yes, I am, I just spaced out!” he says with a little more force than he meant to, stepping back and shaking Arthur’s arms off of him earning a confused look from the Prince, and an amused one from Morgana and Gwen. He feels his face heat. Is he being that obvious?

He’s almost sure Arthur wouldn’t know, he’s too much of a prat for that, but the girls… Finding himself with a massive crush on the Crown Prince of Camelot is already annoying as is, he doesn’t need them teasing him about it too.

He realised a few weeks ago, and he couldn’t look Arthur in the eye for days. If he had a mirror, he probably couldn’t look himself in the eye either. Why couldn’t he just find himself a nice girl to fall in love with? A nice peasant girl he could marry one day. But to be honest it didn’t surprise him. He supposes destiny had to make sure he would always do anything and everything to protect the Once and Future Prat. Because if he fell in love with someone else, he would put that someone else above Arthur. Probably.

He couldn’t do the avoiding too conspicuously tough, since he is Arthur’s manservant. Probably even said arse didn’t notice it, at least he didn’t comment on it. But when Arthur told them his plans, on removing the magic ban all his efforts of putting some distance between them crumbled. The only thing he can do is hope that Arthur stays ignorant enough to not notice his feelings.

Merlin clears his throat, and looks at Arthur. His eyes flicker to Morgana, then back at the blonde, quirking his eyebrow in silent question. The Prince’s eyes widen, then small smile playing on his lips he shrugs, as if saying ‘it’s your decision’. Merlin takes a shuddering breath, then turns to Morgana.

“Morgana I… Everything’s going to be alright. I know it. And we’re all here for you,” he says determined, and Gwen who didn’t say anything until now, nods enthusiastically. Morgana’s smile is gentle, and thoughtful, and some color seems to have returned to her face. “Although…” he trails off, “it would probably be convenient if you didn’t set fire to stuff accidentally.” Morgana chuckles a bit nervously.

“Well yes, but.. I don’t know how to do that,” she says embarrassed. Merlin bites his lip, and his eyes flicker to Arthur. The Prince gives him an encouraging look.

“I…” clears his throat the warlock. “I can teach you.” Morgana’s eyes widen and he sees Gwen whipping her head towards him out of the corner of his eye. He feels his face flush. “I mean I’m probably a rubbish teacher. And I’m not so knowledgeable myself, but.. you probably won’t find crowds of volunteers around here…” he rambles embarrassed about the sudden attention on him.

“Are you saying that…” Morgana whispers.

“I have magic, yes,” blurts out Merlin finally, looking at the floor. He hears Gwen gasp, and Morgana looks absolutely astonished, and a bit hopeful.

“Since.. since when?” Gwen asks quietly. Merlin’s heart swells at the hurt in his friend’s voice.

“I was born with it. Like Morgana, I didn’t have a choice. Only it manifested in me much earlier. I could use magic before I could walk, or talk. I was quite the problematic baby,” the warlock chuckles nervously. He eyes Gwen softly. “I’m sorry for not telling you, I truly am. I was just so afraid.. I still am,” he whispers.

“Oh darling,” Gwen smiles at him softly, and loving. “I understand. I do. I wish you’d told me, it must’ve been such a heavy burden to carry alone,” she says and Merlin’s eyes sting with unshed tears. He’s with his best friends, and all of them accept him as he is. It really is like a dream come true. Now the only one missing is Lancelot.

“Wait,” Morgana’s gasp breaks the tender moment. “You knew??” she stares at Arthur. The Prince scratches his head awkwardly.

“Only for a few months,” he coughs.

“Oh my god it makes so much sense now!” she grins, and while Merlin is happy she’s finally smiling, he wants to shut her up, because by the looks she’d been giving them she obviously has the wrong idea about their relationship. Maybe Merlin wasn’t as subtle with his feelings as he wanted to be, but why would Morgana think it’s reciprocated… What if she says something inappropriate that would make Arthur think about why Morgana thinks this exactly, and realise his manservat’s feelings for him? Merlin would die out of embarrassment. He silently prays for Arthur not to ask what she means-

“Pardon?” Arthur asks confused. Well shit. Morgana cocks an eyebrow.

“Well obviously you wouldn’t think ill of magic if Merlin has it,” she rolls her eyes, and Gwen giggles. Merlin feels his face heat, but Arthur just frowns confused.

“I mean obviously him being a sorcerer was what made me think things through, but my change in opinion wasn’t based on just him,” he scratches his head. “I’ve done my research.”

“I know that, I was just joking,” Morgana smiles softly, patting Arthur’s shoulder. Merlin hates how stupidly endearing Arthur’s confused face is, and how it makes things to his heart. Then Morgana looks at Merlin excited. “When can we start? The magic lessons?” she asks, her eyes shining. Now that the fright has passed she obviously sees this more as some kind of adventure. Merlin chuckles.

“Technically as soon as you want,” he stops. “Practically it wouldn’t be the best idea to do sorcery when the King is arresting anyone and everyone who ever had some kind of connection to magic…” he says, and Morgana pales.

“This… Is it because of me?” she asks. Merlin nods pityingly. Morgana shakes her head annoyed. “I’ll go talk to him,” she says, and storms out of Arthur’s chambers.

“Morgana, wait!” Arthur cries annoyed, and rushes after her, leaving the two servants back.

“Hot-headed idiots, the both of them,” Gwen shakes her head, and looking at each other, despite the situation not being funny at all, they both break into furious giggles.

-

“Morgana, wait!” Arthur hurries after his sister.

“Innocent people are getting hurt and it’s my fault! I won’t wait,” Morgana glares at the Prince who just managed to catch up to her.

“I understand that, I would feel the same,” Arthur nods,” but do you even have a plan? What will you say to him? You can’t exactly tell the truth,” he half-whispers.

“Of course I won’t tell the truth,” Morgana rolls her eyes. “Not everyone is an always honest chivalrous idiot,” she says, giving him a pointed look. Arthur suddenly doesn’t know if he should take this as a compliment or an insult. Besides, it's not like he never lies. They stop before the throne room’s door. “I have a plan, don’t worry. Just watch, and learn from the master,” she grins, and flipping her hair she enters.

Uther is there, sitting on his throne and looking over some papers. His eyes soften when they see Morgana enter, probably not even noticing that Arthur is there too. The once burning jealousy is now only dull resignation in Arthur. He gave up trying to please the man he calls his father long ago.

“Are you feeling better?” the King asks the woman he doesn’t even call his daughter, worried.

“I would feel better if you didn’t chase innocent people on my behalf,” she says fiercely. Uther looks taken aback.

“Someone attacked you, I’m not going to let them-”

“ No one attacked me!” shakes her head Morgana desperately. “I… It was my fault,” she averts her eyes. Fear coats Arthur’s heart. Oh god she won’t tell him right?

“How was it your fault?” Uther frowns. “You said there was already a fire when you woke up.” Morgana tilts her head, and looks down, ashamed.

“I lied. I’m sorry,” she says, not looking up. Arthur opens his mouth, he needs to say something before Morgana literally gives herself up, but the sorceress, maybe sensing his distress, quickly continues. “I just.. didn’t want you to get mad. I hoped you would blame it on the storm. I didn’t think it would have this big of a consequence.” Arthur frowns. This somehow doesn’t add to the picture. Moreover, Morgana looks more and more like a little girl being scolded. Uther looks at her with raised eyebrows, urging her to continue. “I.. have a pet,” she blurts out, and Arthur is glad for once that the King doesn’t give two shits about him while Morgana is in the room, because his mouth literally falls agape. Was she acting this whole time? Damn. While he stares at Morgana both scandalized and amazed, Uther frowns disapprovingly, and opens his mouth, but his daughter cuts him off. “I know, you never let me have a pet, that’s why I didn’t tell you,” she talks rapidly and nervously. “Gwen, my maidservant found a huge cat abandoned a few months ago, and I nagged her to let me keep him, he was going to die on the streets, and Gwen doesn’t earn enough to take care of him. He must have got really scared in the storm last night because he was running like crazy around my room, and I wanted to calm him, but I couldn’t see, so I lit a candle and.. and he knocked it out of my hand accidentally, and it caught the curtain… And he got even more scared because of the fire, and ran straight at the window. He was a huge cat to begin with and he got a bit fat too in the few months living with me, he literally broke out through the window glass,” she shivers. “Poor soul, he must have hurt himself, and running around on the roof all night in that storm…” a tear slides down her face. Uther looks completely perplexed, and turns to Arthur questioningly. He just shrugs apologetically.

“Well..” the King coughs, “I hope this incident has teached you about having any pets. And please, next time tell me if that so-called attack was by your crazy cat,” he shakes his head sighing, then he turns to the guards and gives orders to let the prisoners go. Morgana looks relieved, but she keeps on her act.

“Does this mean I won’t get my cat back?” she asks sadly, blinking at Uther through his tears.

“Absolutely not!” he objects horrified, to what Morgana breaks out in sobs and runs out of the throne room. Arthur clears his throat.

“Umm.. she really likes animals,” he explains to the dismayed king, and goes after his sister fighting back an amused grin.

-

He and Merlin eating dinner together is now a common occurrence. Sometimes even Morgana and Gwen join, but it’s never one-sided anymore, his manservant standing behind him just there to refill his cup. The girls aren’t with them tonight, they are searching for Morgana’s non-existing cat, just to make sure that they don’t blow the cover story, because if Morgana really had a cat which disappeared she would surely go looking after it.

Arthur opens his mouth, wanting to share how happy it makes him that Morgana trusted them with her secret, but then closes it. This Merlin would never understand anymore.

He only just starts realising how things are already so different than back then, with only him having more experience. Because he’s always just doing what he thinks is right, as he did back then too. The only time he actually remembered the threat was with Cornelius Sigan, and that happened more or less the same.

On top of that, he started to separate people in his mind, calling them ‘that Merlin’, ‘this Merlin’, ‘that Morgana’, and so on. He supposes separating them is the only thing that keeps him sane in this situation. Because if he doesn’t separate them, every time this Merlin flashes him a cheeky, beaming smile, that Merlin intrudes his mind, with his tired, hurt eyes, and desperate voice as he begs Arthur not to say goodbye, not to go. And at times like that he hates that he’s here and he wants to go back to that Merlin, tell him that he’s here, he’s alive, everything’s alright. Then he has to remind himself that that Merlin doesn’t exist anymore, and Merlin is right here, before him, and the whole thing starts again. So he separates them to keep himself sane.

He’s thinking about whether that Merlin told that Morgana about his magic. He remembers at a time when he thought that Merlin had a thing for Morgana. And if he thinks back, that was really roughly five years ago. But somehow his mind doesn’t linger on the were magic secrets were shared part, but rather the Merlin fancying Morgana part. Oh god, if they will have those magic lessons they will spend much more time together, what if they fall in love? Arthur’s stomach burns with what’s probably worry. Because if they ever get caught, whether it’s romantic involvement, whether it’s magic lessons, it’s always going to be Merlin executed and Morgana portrayed as the poor victim, victim of the man, victim of the sorcerer. He definitely has to warn his sister about this.

“You’re quiet,” Merlin breaks the silence. Arthur just grunts, shoving a piece of meat into his mouth. They eat in silence again for a few minutes, when Merlin talks again. “I wanted to ask you something.” Arthur looks at him. “Can you feel Morgana’s magic as well? Like mine?” the blonde is surprised by the question. He didn’t even think about it being a possibility. Truth to be told, he got so used to Merlin’s magic around him in the past weeks, that half of the time he entirely forgets it’s there. Only when Merlin feels a particularly strong emotion, the magic changing with the warlock, or when Arthur feels strong negative emotions, the magic nudging his mood in the opposite direction, it’s noticeable.

“No, I didn’t notice anything like that. But I don’t think that means anything, I only started feeling yours too when you wrapped me in it,” he says scratching his head. “But I’ll pay attention, that’s still an unsolved mystery we got here,” he smiles at his manservant. Then he eyes Merlin almost full plate. “Hey, remind me why am I sharing my dinner with you? If you keep up eating like you do, a strong wind will blow you over,” Arthur scowls, and impaling a piece of cheese on his fork, he tries to shove it into Merlin’s face, who dodges laughing. This brings a grin to Arthur’s face too, and he stands up, rolling his sleeves up. “Now get over here you little-”

Chapter Text

Nothing really happened for a few weeks. Merlin insisted on waiting with starting the magic lessons for a while, until the fuss died out, just to be careful. Arthur has to admit, he was surprised by how cautious Merlin is about this. But, he supposes, there must be a reason for no one finding out about his secret in 7 years.

Although they didn’t do anything, Morgana, being stubborn as she is, asked a whole lot of questions, until their dinners together became discussion sessions about magic. Merlin tried to answer as many of her questions as he could, but he admitted that he knows very little on the topic too, since he only ever had one book on magic, and besides that, he only knows his experiences.

Arthur listened to his explanations curiously, they were much more understandable than bloody books. He discovered proudly, that much of the said things he already knew. Some of it from the future, some of it from the books. But there were new informations as well, of course. For example, although he read that different types of magic exist, but that book was written for people who already knew that stuff and didn’t explain much. Apparently, there are nine classes of magic: divination, healing magic, elemental, necromancy, charms and enchantments, transformation, mentalism, time magic, and potency. They are usually depicted in a circle.

((A.n.: So I made a picture about this circle but I can't seem to add it here, I tried multiple ways, I hosted it on different sites but it just didn't want to so can somebody help me how to do it pls *frustrated sounds* in the meantime here's the drive link if anyone's interested: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19a1NrzsT5pR7SJALWVZpPEYDgfhLAZbO/view?usp=sharing))

~

“All magic users have an aptitude towards one of the classes. They are shown in a circle because the further a class is from which you do best, the harder it is for you to perform spells from that class. Divination is a bit different; there isn’t a scale for how good you are in it. Either you can see the possible future, or you can’t. Furthermore, although divination is magic, not all seers can use other classes. Most of them can’t perform magic, they just see the future. On the contrary, if a seer can use magic other than divination, they still have a class they are best in from the circle,” explained Merlin. Morgana nodded nervously. “Now, you’re obviously a seer,” continued the warlock, and Arthur choked on a mouthful of meat.

“You’re a seer?!” he exclaimed.

“Where have you been?” raised his eyebrow Merlin. Morgana fought back a smile.

“My nightmares… they sometimes come to pass. Like the one with the raven, when Sigan came back to life,” she explained. Arthur stared astonished.

“So you could see the future all this time? That’s so cool!” Morgana chuckled.

“I guess you could look at it that way… I would be glad for a few good night’s sleep though,” she said, and smiled when Gwen put her hand on her arm reassuringly.

“Oh, right. Sorry,” shaked his head Arthur.

“So as I was saying,” cleared his throat Merlin, “you are obviously a seer, and probably you’re best at elemental magic. With warlocks and witches, it’s easy to determine which is the favored class, because usually the first spells they do accidentally, without learning any, are from that class. And since you set the curtain on fire…” he chuckled.

"What is ‘elemental magic’ exactly?” Gwen asked curiously.

“Well, spells that involve the four basic elements: water, earth, wind and fire. There are others too: for example lightning is considered an element as well. And weather magic is in this class too, but those are a more advanced level,” explained Merlin, and Arthur thought of that old sorcerer on the cliff, who took out almost all saxons with a few lightning bolts. The sorcerer Dragoon, who was apparently Merlin all this time.

“And what class are you best at?” the Prince spoke up. Merlin looks down a bit embarrassed.

"I uhh.. I don’t actually know,” he said quietly. The others stared at him.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” exclaimed Arthur. “You said that with witches and warlocks it’s easier to know! Aren’t you a warlock?”

“I am, but I also said that it’s easier because usually the first spells they perform are from that class. I… When I was a small child I usually performed two types of magic, you know, when something happened I didn’t like. Poor ma…” he smiled fondly. “Anyway either I moved random objects around, which is potency, because you only need sheer magic for it, or I stopped, or sped up the time,” he said.

“But those are…” Gwen started, glancing down at the paper Merlin sketched down the circle.

“...opposite classes, I know.” Merlin sighed. “Besides I only ever had problems with healing magic, so based on that I would be best at necromancy, but I never tried that and I never want to. Nothing good ever comes from disturbing the dead.” Arthur stared at him, and a few words came into his mind. ‘He doesn’t just have magic. There are those who say: He’s the greatest sorcerer ever to walk the earth.’ He didn’t believe Gaius then. But, as he gets to know more and more of Merlin, who he thought was an open book, he’s more and more inclined to believe it. Merlin wasn’t open, he wasn’t even a book Arthur could just read now that he’s not as closed as he was before.

“Do you violate every rule ever to exist on purpose, or is it just an unfortunate fate of yours?” sighed Arthur shaking his head. Merlin stared at him for a moment then started laughing heartily. Soon Gwen and Morgana joined him, and even Arthur couldn’t fight back a smile.

~

“Good night Sire,” says Merlin as he blows out the last candle.

“Good night Merlin.”

Arthur lies still in his bed as his manservant quietly leaves the room. He waits for a few minutes then leaps from his bed, relighting the candle. He goes to his desk and takes out the Gods and Prophecies of the Old Religion from his drawer. He had already read every other book, and since Merlin tomorrow starts to actually teach Morgana magic, Arthur wants to get a headstart on knowledge. The Old Religion Before, During and After the Purge was a let down, it was just a mantra of Uther’s opinion and Arthur had to read how evil magic is and what kind of torture methods were used on magic users and magic sympathisers during the purge for almost three hundred pages. It just made him hate himself even more.

He opens the book hoping this would contain more interesting things than the last one.

He mainly finds prayers to the Triple Goddess. It’s not a book meant for those who know nothing on the topic, but Arthur still reads it carefully because he had crossed paths with her once, and he might again.

The Morrígan wanted him to bring magic back to the land in exchange for Mordred's life. Arthur remembers Merlin telling him that he can’t do it. Why? Because… no that can’t be. He really did know that Mordred was going to kill Arthur? How? Is Merlin a seer too? So Merlin weighed his own whole being, being able to use magic freely and not having to hide who he is, and Mordred living on to kill Arthur… and chose Arthur?

Arthur feels a tear sliding down his cheek. Only it all backfired, because apparently his punishment for not bringing back magic was not Mordred dying but Mordred living.

He also found prayers to other gods, though they seem less popular, or less influential in this world than the Morrígan. She seems like a really controversial figure, she’s the god of magic and prophecies, prosperity and family, war and death and a whole lot of other things. Because of this she’s both feared and loved.

Arthur rubs his eyes: he’s getting sleepy. Based on the candle beside him he’s been reading only for an hour but it is late and he should get some sleep. Until now he read the book from the beginning, going through it from page to page, but there were a lot of boring things in there. Prayers to random gods he never even heard about, prophecies that came to pass a long time ago, prophecies that never came to pass… He starts to spin through the pages lazily. He doesn’t really plan to read anymore, and he just wants to close the book when his eyes catch on a word. Emrys .

Hold up. Wasn’t that name what the Sidhe called Merlin? And Morgana too. Why would Merlin be in this book? Based on the condition it was in, it was written long before the warlock was even born. Arthur starts slowly turning the pages backwards, hoping to find that page again.

He does find it, but it doesn’t make much sense so he goes even further back. He notices that this chapter contains more handwritten notes than the others, most of them with different ink, like someone read it multiple times. Then he reaches the title: Prophecies about the Once and Future King .

The Once and Future King? What does that even mean? That’s not Merlin right? Arthur has to smile on the thought of Merlin being king. The clotpole wouldn’t last for a day ruling a country. Well, now that Arthur’s thinking about it, he wouldn’t be that bad… he’s been giving Arthur advice for ages, and although it hurts for him to admit it, he’s way better at writing speeches than Arthur. And he’s good with the people, they would like him. Only he’s too much of a feeler for yielding that burden, he would need someone emotionally stronger beside him… Perhaps he would make a good queen, Arthur grins. He’s such a girl…

The blonde shakes his head and focuses on the text again.

“The man they call the Once and Future King will be the one to unite the lands of Albion, bringing the golden age where magic flourishes freely in these lands once more.”

Unite the lands of Albion? Bring magic back? That sounds too familiar. The Sidhe told him that he was supposed to do this. Could he be the Once and Future King? That would be kind of cool.

After relishing in the pride of having a prophecy about himself, he continues to the next line.

“But for his destiny is great; he cannot do it alone. The one they call Emrys will stand beside him, protecting him and easing the way to his destiny. For they are two sides of the same coin, two halves of a whole, one cannot be without the other.”

Arthur almost chokes on his own saliva. If Merlin was Emrys that would make sense, since he indeed has been standing by his side, protecting him. But… there’s a prophecy about him and Merlin? He and Merlin have a shared destiny, and they are apparently some kind of soulmates? That sounds a bit weird. That sounds a lot weird actually. And it most definitely doesn’t make his heart beat faster.

What does it mean that one cannot be without the other?? He’s perfectly capable of living without Merlin, thank you. After all, when Ealdor was attacked and Merlin went back to help his mother… Okay, Arthur did go after him, but only because he was worried about the innocent people of Ealdor, and didn’t want to entrust the situation to Merlin. And when Merlin was injured and disappeared for a few days… Yes, Arthur sent out half of Camelot’s patrols after him, but Merlin saved his life so many times it wouldn’t be a kingly behavior if he didn’t try to save his subjects when they’ve done so much for him. And when Merlin didn’t come with him to Camlann, now there he was more than capable by himself and most definitely did not sulk like a child as Gwen said amused.

Arthur shakes his head scowling as he closes the book. This is stupid.

-

“Okay so first we want to make sure you can contain your powers, and that they don’t lash out because of strong emotions,” Merlin starts his explanation. “You probably won’t like this part,” he casts an apologetic look at Morgana, “it’s basically just meditation. I don’t know if it’s really necessary for learning magic, but my mother did this with me when she was at a loss of how to help me contain my magic and it worked so I would start with that,” finishes the warlock. “Actually, you guys can do this part with us if you want to,” looks Merlin at Arthur and Gwen. “I don’t think that a few meditation sessions would do harm to Arthur’s temper,” he grins, and Morgana giggles. The blonde rolls his eyes, and continues his efforts on not to think about what he read last night.

“So we won’t do any magic?” Morgana pouts. “Then we could’ve started earlier…”

“Better to be safe than sorry,” shrugs Merlin apologetically.

-

“I want to do a test on you,” starts Merlin a few sessions later. Morgana looks at him questioningly. “I want to see if you’ve learned to contain your magic, even under strong emotional impacts. If you pass it, we’re done with the meditation and can start with the actual magic,” says the sorcerer, and smiles when Morgana’s eyes light up. Arthur’s stomach clenches at the way those two smile at each other. He needs to have that talk with Morgana sooner or later.

“What’s the test?” Gwen chimes in curiously. Merlin grimaces.

“I warn you: it won’t be pleasant,” he shakes his head. ”I’m going to put you under an illusion… an illusion in which you will see things that frighten you or anger you or disgust you. If your magic lashes out I’ll be here to stop it, and if it wont you passed the test. Of course this only needs to happen if you’re okay with it, I wouldn’t want to force something like this on anyone…” 

“I’m okay with it,” Morgana interrupts determined. “I’m ready.”

Merlin nods, places a candle in front of her and gestures to her to sit down.

“Your goal is to not light this.” Morgana nods. “You ready?” she nods again, and Merlin lifts his hand, and places a finger on her forehead. “Bæmislar dwimor gedál, afindan unswefn wiiiiiiht…”  he chants in a low voice and his eyes turn bright gold. Arthur barely hears Gwen gasp as he tries to ignore the flip his stomach just made.

At first nothing happens, but then Morgana frowns. Then her eyes widen in horror, and she shakes her head, her lips silently forming the word ‘no’.

“Calm down Morgana, it’s not real, remember.” Merlin soothes her in a gentle voice as he sees a thin column of smoke coming from the candle. Morgana frowns again, this time determination on her face, and the candle stops smoking.

Everyone is quiet, Arthur barely even breathes as he stares at Morgana. They stay like this for several minutes but Morgana’s expression does not change anymore. Finally, Merlin quietly speaks.

“ Flēama. ” flash of gold, Morgana gasps, and then sighs contently as she blinks and looks at the candle before her.

“I did it!” she cheers when she sees it’s not lit.

“You did it.” Merlin beams at her, and Arthur feels something inside him he’s not supposed to feel now, something that’s definitely not happiness for Morgana’s success.

“Can we start learning magic now?” she asks excitedly.

“Next time.” Merlin says strictly. “You’re tired.”

“I am not!” Morgana says disappointed, but she wobbles when she stands up.

“See? We don’t want you to pass out on us. Next time, okay?”

Morgana nods sulking.

-

“Come in!” Arthur hears Morgana’s voice through the door, and he hesitantly steps inside. “Hi Arthur!” she smiles at him.

“Sire.” Gwen playfully bows to him. She’s not yet used to calling Arthur just casually by his name, no matter how many times the Prince told him it’s okay, but at least she’s not taking the titles seriously anymore. Most of the time at least. The blonde nervously smiles at the girls, then turns to Morgana.

“Can I talk to you?” Morgana cocks an eyebrow.

“Of course.” she says, and gestures him to sit down, so he does. Gwen curiously inches closer.

“It’s about Merlin.” Arthur says, and Morgana’s eyebrows rise even higher. “Listen, just let me finish without interrupting, okay? I’m saying this because I know you.” the woman nods. “So he’s in much danger because of his magic already. And if we’re ever getting caught, the blame will always go to him. I can imagine Father saying something like he brainwashed us or something. And that’s not the point, I’d never ask to stop with the magic lessons, I see how much it helps you. I swear to the gods, I’ve never seen you so.. free. But.. So..” Arthur’s voice cracks and Morgana smiles at him kindly to continue. “So I can see how you feel about each other, and if you ever decided to act on your feelings, another life threatening danger would add to Merlin’s list, because if you’re ever found out then once again the blame would go to him, how cruel him taking advantage on the King’s ward, a helpless maiden,” he rolls his eyes, “at least that’s what Father would say, and I’m not saying to ignore your feelings, I would never ask something like this from anyone, I’m just asking to think things through before you act.” Arthur finished quickly.

The girls stare at him absolutely baffled. Then Morgana starts laughing. Not a nervous or embarrassed laugh Arthur would’ve expected after a revelation like this, but an absolutely mirthful, loud and cackling laughter, like Arthur had just told an incredibly funny joke. Gwen’s not laughing, but she has wide grin on her face.

“What??” the blonde asks. “What’s so funny?”

“You… thinking..” Morgana gasps for air, drying her tears (that was a bit of an exaggeration of the situation in Arthur’s opinion). “Sorry haha,” she takes some deep breaths. “You thinking that me and Merlin like each other in that way. That’s so funny.” she’s still grinning and Gwen giggles. Arthur gifts them with his deadliest stare, but it doesn’t frighten them in the slightest.

“But it’s so obvious!”

“I think I know what happened,” interrupts Gwen. The Pendragon siblings look at her. “I mean I do see what Arthur’s talking about…” she starts then she blushes when she realises how natural the ‘Arthur’ sounded. The Prince smiles at him encouragingly. “..so I see it, you two do have a special bond.” she looks at Morgana. Then quickly continues because she sees that her Lady is about to interrupt. “It’s not necessarily love. I mean you have a special bond because both of you are the first person for the other who is.. Like them. Who went through the same thing. I mean, for Merlin, Arthur knew about him, his mother, and probably Gaius too, but I don’t think it’s the same. I don’t think any of us ,” she looks at Arthur, “could understand what it's like. To be an outsider, to have to hide who you are. I tried to imagine, but I couldn’t.” finishes Gwen quietly. Arthur looks down and thinks about it. She’s right. Finding the first person who can understand that really can create a special bond. But not necessarily love. It can be friendship too. There’s still one thing that’s bothering him though.

“Okay, I believe that Morgana does not have feelings for Merlin. But you can’t speak for him.”

“Oh, we can.” Morgana snorts. Arthur frowns.

“Trust me, women can see these things. He doesn’t like her like that.” Gwen nods smiling.

“What, you jealous?” Morgana grins.

“Why would I be jealous?” asks Arthur confused. There may have been a time long back then when he fancied Morgana but he always saw her more like a sister. And then it turned out she really is his sister, so now it would be even more weird.

-

Arthur watches Merlin and Morgana as the man lays out a bunch of candles. Morgana already managed to light one candle, control the size of the flame, light more than one candles, no matter how far they were. Today’s task, as Merlin called it ‘The Final Candle Task’, because after this they will move to the water element, was to control which candle or candles were lit and which weren’t.

To be honest Arthur watches just Merlin. He’d really like to watch Morgana too, but somehow his manservant always grabs his attention. The way his eyes sparkle when he talks about magic, the way he sometimes looks at him, and flashes him a bright smile… he just can’t look away. He felt obliged to marvel at this wonder called Merlin.

-

The Prince and his manservant sit quietly at the dinner table. No. That’s not quite right. The Prince and his friend sit quietly at the dinner table. Arthur spent years and years saying things like ‘if things would’ve been different we would’ve been good friends’ but now he’s not doing it anymore because things don’t have to be different, they are good friends. The Prince and his manservant, The Future King and a sorcerer, The Once and Future King and Emrys… Arthur thought a lot about telling Merlin what he read. At first he didn’t want to because what if there comes a day when Merlin doesn’t want to be here anymore, but the knowledge of this prophecy will keep him here. Arthur would never want that. Merlin staying only because of some destiny. But on the other hand, he knows that Merlin would never leave his side. He didn’t last time, he stayed until the very end. Why would he now? And he deserves to know about it.

He clears his throat, and Merlin looks up.

“So… I’ve been reading..” he starts. Merlin cocks an eyebrow.

“Wow, that’s surprising. I didn’t know you could read,” he grins. Arthur gives him a look. “Okay, sorry. So you’ve been reading. About what?”

“About magic.” the blonde says, and Merlin almost spits the food that’s in his mouth.

“Wait, really?” he exclaims. “Where did you find books on magic?”

“In the library.” says Arthur, and a small smile forms on his face when he sees Merlin’s bulging eyes. “There are a few Uther kept, in the restricted section. Where you can only go in, if you have a key.” he brushes his side slightly, so that the keys rattle. Merlin rolls his eyes.

“And didn’t Geoffrey find it worthy of telling the King that the Prince of Camelot suddenly took interest in magic?”

“Not really,” Arthur says smugly. “He was too busy sleeping.” Merlin laughs, and oh, what a beautiful laugh it is.

“Thank you,” he says with gleaming eyes.

“For what?” askes Arthur embarrassed.

“For caring.” shrugs Merlin. Arthur feels red creeping up his face. “So what did you want to tell me?” he asks, and Arthur’s grateful for the saving. He clears his throat.

“I’ve read about something. Something about the Once and Future King, and Emrys.” he says, and Merlin really spits his food this time. “Gross!”

“What??” asks Merlin, coughing.

“You know about that?” raises his eyebrows Arthur.

“Slightly.” says Merlin avoidant. “What do you know?”

“Well I sort of figured out that the Once and Future King is supposed to be me. It said that I’m supposed to unite the land of Albion, and bring magic back. And the book mentioned someone called Emrys, apparently the most powerful sorcerer ever to walk the earth, who is supposed to be standing by my side, and protecting me, helping me to become the Once and Future King. I uhh… well there’s not many sorcerers running around here so I figured that must be you..” finished Arthur, altering the story a bit. Because what should he have said, ‘oh I know you’re Emrys and I’m the Once and Future King because the sidhe told me when I died in the future’?

Merlind doesn’t look surprised.

“So you knew.” states Arthur. Merlin nods not looking at him. “How?”

“Well… there’s kind of one thing I haven’t told you yet…” he stats shyly. Arthur’s not surprised anymore. When someone is so used to keeping secrets as Merlin… well that can’t be undone in a short time. He gestures Merlin to continue. “So this is going to sound insane, but there’s a dragon under the castle. And-”

“You know about that???” exclaimed Arthur horrified. His mind is filled with flashes of flames and burnt corpses. Merlin looks at him shocked.

“I could ask you the same!”

“I mean of course I know about it, it’s my castle!” reasons Arthur not entirely truthfully, because really he didn’t know about it until it escaped and attacked his kingdom. “But why do you know about it is still a question. You didn’t get too close to it, did you? It’s dangerous you know.”

“ His name is Kilgarrah, and he’s not dangerous.” frowns Merlin annoyed. Then sighs and shakes his head. “Okay, maybe he would be if he escaped somehow, but only because he hates Uther.”

Arthur grinds his teeth.

“Speak.” Merlin winces at the harsh tone. and he starts talking fast.

“I’m sorry Arthur, I didn’t… doesn’t matter. When I first came to Camelot I heard a voice speak in my head. It kept calling my name. So I went looking for it. It led downwards, to a huge underground cave. And there was him, there was Kilgarrah. He told me I had a destiny, and it is to protect you, the Once and Future King, who is supposed to unite the land of Albion. Of course with how we started off, I didn’t believe him at first, since you were such a prat.” he chuckles. “But then I ended up saving your life at the feast, and I became your manservant, and as I started to get to know you better, I started to believe him. Although he never called me Emrys. The druids call me that. I don’t really know why, or what does that mean, but they do.” finished Merlin. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just didn’t know how to.” Arthur shakes his head.

“So… how much of this was real?” he asks, almost whispering.

“What do you mean?” frowns Merlin.

“Did you just stay, because of your ‘destiny’? Everything you did for me, your loyalty to me, was it just because that dragon told you to?”

“What, no!” Merlin’s eyes widen. “Arthur, no,” he reaches out, grabs Arthur’s hand, and squeezes it. Arthur feels his face heat. He’s not used to physical contact, but Merlin’s hand is warm and soft. It’s… not so bad. “I never would’ve done all those things only because I have to. I also wanted to. I… you’re a wonderful person Arthur, and I know that you will make a wonderful king. That’s why I’m here.” he says, and his eyes shine with devotion and… and lo-

No, that's bullshit. Arthur’s stomach feels funny. He clears his throat.

“And.. so, uhm,” he states. Merlin seems confused. Then suddenly he seems to notice that he’s still holding Arthur’s hand, chuckles embarrassed and lets go. “Right. So about the dragon.”

“Oh, yeah. I want you to meet him sometime.” Arthur raises his eyebrows. “I need to tell you something. I uhh.. So he has been helping me a lot. He’s really knowledgeable, and he told me a lot of things that helped me save you. For example, last time he told me how to defeat Sigan.”

“...And?” 

“Well he's the type who never does anything out of kindness, only for his own benefit. And well last time, when Camelot was on the verge of being destroyed, he said that he will help me only if I promise something.” Icy dread sets in Arthur’s heart.

“What did you promise him?” the warlock doesn’t answer. “Merlin, what did you promise him??”

“That.. I will set him free one day.”

Arthur feels as if his worst nightmare came true. So it was Merlin? Merlin set the dragon free. It was his fault.

No.

There must be some explanation. And based on what Merlin said, the dragon used him for his own benefit. But Arthur killed him once already, maybe he can again. He buries his face in his palms. Let’s hope that this time before half of Camelot dies.

“I know. I know he’s dangerous, that his hatred for Uther will likely drive him against Camelot if I set him free. But I was thinking about it in the last few weeks, and I think I have a plan.” Arthur looks up.

“What?”

“You.. you plan to repeal the magic ban, right?” Arthur nods. “So if you met him… If you promised him that we will set him free once you repealed the magic ban, then he won’t turn against us. Because you can only do that when you’re king, and he wants you to be king, he just hates Uther.” Arthur shakes his head.

“I don’t know. I really don’t trust him. Maybe.” he mutters.

“At least meet him. Give him a chance. I mean he did spend his last twenty or so years in an underground cave after Uther murdered all his kind. You can’t really blame him for being a bit bitter.” Arthur hums something that could mean agreement. “Look, you were an absolute prat too and I gave you a chance, didn’t I?” Merlin grins at him and shoves him a bit.

“Maybe I was a prat, but you were a clotpole and I still hired you,” retorts Arthur. Merlin lets out a surprised laugh.

“First, you didn’t hire me, Uther did, second, where did you hear that word?” he chuckles.

“What do you mean?” Arthur frowns.

“That’s not really a princely word,” states Merlin.

“I just looked at you and it fits you perfectly,” saves Arthur, after it occurs to him Merlin may not have called him that yet,so he's not supposed to know this word. Merlin rolls his eyes.

“Dollophead.”

“Clotpole.”

“Prat.”

“Buffoon.”

“Ass.”

“Idiot.”

“That’s not really creative is it?”

Arthur laughs, and he’s glad that they are back to the usual banter again.

Chapter Text

Arthur locks eyes with Gwen as he arranges Morgana's cloak on the horse. A silent understanding passes between them. They're both worried. The girls are visiting Gorlois’s grave, and as Merlin pointed out there's too many ways it could go wrong. Morgana waking up heaving and scared in the morning did not help. Unfortunately she didn't quite remember what her dream was about. All she remembers is her and Gwen next to a river which does not sound alarming but there's no body of water near the path between Camelot and Gorlois's grave.

"Be careful." Arthur says to Morgana. She just nods, and then they're riding away.

"They will be alright," says Merlin in a voice that suggests he's trying to convince himself.

-

Gwen is a good servant. She loves her Lady, and she's good at taking care of her. But what should a servant of Camelot do when she finds out that two of her best friends are illegal sorcerers? To be honest she's terrified. She would never do anything to rat them out, and in the past few months it became clear to her that Uther is indeed wrong about magic being evil and corrupting. She never saw Morgana so happy and full of life before, and her magic was beautiful. But Gwen is terrified. 

Terrified of what will happen to Merlin and Morgana if anyone finds out what they are doing. Terrified of what will happen to Arthur. Terrified of what will happen to her. Her friends didn't notice, because they got caught up in the excitement, but she is exhausted. She has dark circles under her eyes, and she became paranoid. The other servants who are her friends started to notice how quiet and twitchy she became and she's afraid it's only a matter of time until someone starts to interrogate her.

"You look troubled Gwen," Morgana breaks the silence. So she did notice. Gwen just smiles nervously. “You’re very quiet these days,” the Lady looks at Gwen like she’s staring into her soul.

Gwen opens her mouth to answer something, when suddenly battle cries disturb the silence of the forest. They are immediatelly surrounded by masked bandits, and really quickly they are in the middle of a battle scene. The bandits slaughter down the confused knights one by one. Gwen looks at Morgana helplessly, afraid and at a loss for what to do.

Suddenly they are both yanked down from their horses by bandits. Gwen starts to scream and kick her holder, and from the corner of her eyes she sees that Morgana is doing the same. Fortunately, one of the remaining knights quickly disposes of the men holding them, and then goes back into the battle.

“Gwen, head for the path! Go!” she hears her Lady shout. They both start to run, but not much further their path is blocked by a man, who seems to be the leader of the bandits.

“I warn you, I am Uther Pendragon’s ward. He’ll have your heads if any harm comes to me,” says Morgana in a wavering voice. The man removes his mask haughtily.

“I have no intention of harming you. At least not yet,” he says with a slight smirk. “You’re much more valuable to me alive,” he tilts his head, “Lady Morgana.”

So he knows who Morgana is. Then they will probably just ask for ransom from Uther. So at least Morgana won’t get hurt. Gwen on the other hand... a servant is worth nothing to them, they could kill her or worse-

No, Morgana would never let anything happen to her.

-

“Morgana’s party hasn’t returned to Camelot, there’s no sign of them anywhere,” Arthur reports to his Father, trying not to show how worried he is. Uther frowns, and looks away.

“Send riders to the outlying villages, I want every guard, every sentry looking for her,” orders Uther.

“I will dispatch them immediately,” bows Athur, and leaves the room. For once he does not complain about his Father’s reckless devotion to Morgana.

When they are back in Arthur’s chambers, and Merlin is putting his armor on him, only then Arthur lets his guard down. He sighs deeply. “It’s my fault.” Merlin raises an eyebrow.

“How come?”

“I shouldn’t have let them go, I should’ve known something is going to happen. Especially after Morgana’s dream.” Merlin shakes his head.

“Not everything is about you, you clotpole.”

“What?” Arthur furrows his brow. Merlin sighs as he starts to fasten the buckles on his armor.

“Morgana knew something was going to happen, better than everybody, after all she had the dream. But she didn’t care. It’s the anniversary of her father’s death, isn’t it?” Arthur nods. “That means, getting to Gorlois’s grave was more important to her than whatever was going to happen. It was her decision.”

Except her father is still alive, and doesn’t even bother to tell her that he is her real father, Arthur thinks bitterly.

-

Gwen is standing in the tent watching Morgana peek out. Her thoughts are swirling uncontrollably. Morgana told the maid her plan a few minutes ago, and she can’t help but think of every possible way it could go wrong. Morgana insisted on using her magic. She remembered her dream where they were standing next to a creek, and since Merlin already taught her a lot of water magic, she thinks she can get the stream to rise up and swallow a man or two. She can easily lure them there, she just needs to say she wants to bathe. They seem the kind who jump on an opportunity like this like kids on candy. But Gwen can’t stop thinking about the difficulties. Morgana never controlled this much water. What if she can’t do it? What if she can, but the men don’t die, and they will know Morgana is a sorceress, and word gets back to Uther? What if she loses control of her magic and the water swallows them too?

“He’s coming,” Morgana suddenly speaks. “You know the plan?” Gwen just nods nervously.

The man opens the curtains and smirks at them.

“I trust you are… comfortable?” He is mocking them.

“I demand to know where you are taking us.” Morgana uses her most high-end, resolute, descending voice, but the man does not falter.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” They stare at each other. “We have a long journey ahead of us. Get some rest.” He leaves. Morgana follows him after a few seconds.

“I wish to bathe.”

The man stops, and looks at her confused.

“You wish to bathe?”

“I am the King’s ward, and accustomed to certain standards. I’m sure you’re quite content to stink like a pig, but I am not.” Morgana tries to seem nonchalant.

The man steps closer to her.

“The Lady Morgana wishes to bathe!” he announces with a mocking tone. Morgana looks around nervous. “Who wants to help me guard her?” he asks, earning a lewd laughter from the others.

They are in luck: only one man came with the leader to guard them. Maybe the leader didn’t want to ‘share’ Morgana. She removes her cloak while visibly staring hard at the water. Gwen knows what she’s doing, they did this every ‘water lesson’: she’s ‘getting to know’ the water. It must be harder because it’s not still water. The leader must have misunderstood the staring, because he starts to speak.

“You may find the water a little icy,” he points out the obvious: it’s late autumn.

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Morgana says disgusted. She looks at Gwen, as she starts to untie her dress, who tries to look encouraging. “If you were any kind of gentleman, you’d give me some privacy,” Morgana scowls.

“Well unfortunately for you, I’m no kind of gentleman,” he grins.”Now get on with it,” he says as he walks closer ogling Morgana. She undoes the laces of her dress, and looks at Gwen uneasy, who nods nervously, backing away.

Morgana removes her dress, now standing in her underwear, and stares at the water, and then… nothing happens. Gwen looks at Morgana’s face, but her determined expression transformed into an expression of panic. She looks completely frozen, as her lips move but no sound leaves them. Gwen quickly realises that she needs to act before their plan is found out.

She pulls the leader’s sword out of the sheath, and with that movement, she attacks the other bandit who unfortunately already pulled his sword out, and blocks the blow. But she only needs one more swing of the sword, and the man falls to the ground. Her blacksmith's experience with swords sometimes comes in handy. Meanwhile Morgana comes to her senses, and successfully lands a right hook on the leader. Gwen throws the sword to her, and she attacks the man. Unfortunately she only managed to cut his arm, when they hear the other bandits get closer. They must have heard the chaos.

“Run!” shouts Morgana, and they run with all their speed towards the forest.

Gwen doesn’t know what direction they are running, she just trusts her Lady. And even if they’re going the wrong way, the priority is to shake the bandits off and get as far away from them as possible.

So far it’s not successful, they can hear someone tailing after them and some others a bit further.

Gwen knows she shouldn’t look back because it’s dangerous and slows her down, but she’s getting tired: her chest is burning and she gets slower, falling behind Morgana. She hopes if she sees how far the bandits are she can rest a bit, or if they are close she’ll have the motivation to run faster.

As she looks back, she huffs since no bandits can be seen among the trees.

The next moment sharp pain shots through her ankle, and she falls to the ground.

For a moment she’s dizzy with pain, then she senses Morgana grabbing her and pulling her up.

“Put your arm around my shoulder, come on,” she nudges Gwen and the maid complies.

But then she sees the bandits behind them, not too far, and realises that she can’t stand on her right leg. Morgana has no chance dragging her faster than the bandits run.

“No, no, we’ll never out run them,” she says desperately. “You must go on without me.”

“I’m not leaving you behind!” Morgana says but Gwen can see the fear in her eyes as she sees how close the bandits got.

“Go, get help!” pleades Gwen.

Morgana shakes her head, almost crying. “Take this,” she gives Gwen the sword, as she helps her up.

“Go!” Gwen cries, and Morgana flees.

Gwen hobbles behind a tree, determined to hold the bandits up until she can. When she hears the bandits get close enough, she holds her breath waiting for the last possible moment, then jumps out from behind the tree, getting the man running in the front.

Then the leader is next. He grabs the dead man’s sword, blocking Gwen’s blow quickly. Unfortunately he seems a skilled swordsman, and even though Gwen can handle a sword she’s far from good. She quickly goes into defence, blocking the man’s blows one after the other. She manages to hold off until the rest of the band arrives. Someone grabs her, twisting the sword from her hands. She kicks and screams until someone holds a funny smelling cloth in front of her face. The world goes black.

-

Arthur’s head is swirling with thoughts as they ride on the path Morgana was supposed to take. He needs to tell Morgana the truth about her father. She deserves the truth. So why hasn't he told her yet? He’s been here for half a year. Morgana told him about her magic almost two months ago. So what is he afraid of? That Morgana will get so angry at Uther that she’ll go savage, tries to take the throne from the King, and ruin everything Arthur’s been working on?

Yes, that’s exactly what Arthur’s afraid of. And he hates himself for it.

Despite that Morgana clearly knows that Arthur’s on her side in basically everything, she’s still prone to rash actions and following her heart. Or more like her anger. Restoring magic to the land needs careful planning and an extremely guarded approach, not overthrowing the current monarchy, and throwing magic on everyone like last time she did. Because for now both Camelot hates magic, and magic hates Camelot, suddenly dropping them together in a cage will only cause hatred and suffering. Arthur is pretty sure that this Morgana would do the same if she had the chance. He knows that she only had the best intentions and she would now too, but she does not see the big picture. And because of that Arthur needs her to stay put. He’s only afraid that if something really upsets Morgana she will not sit back and watch anymore.

He already sensed the impatience in her. Sometimes she would just ask about his future plans, nothing elaborate. Sometimes they would talk hours about the things they would do if magic was legal. Sometimes they would argue about something Uther did and Arthur could do nothing but just sit back and watch. Sometimes Morgana would just sit on her bed crying, repeating the word ‘why’, and Arthur would not be able to answer her.

He hates it too, the powerlessness. Not being able to do anything but wait and dream. But he has to. They need to do it the right way. For Morgana. For all the people with magic. For Merlin…

And Arthur is terrified. Terrified to give Morgana one last drop, not knowing if she’ll crack.

“Arthur!” Merlin’s voice pulls him out of his mind. He looks up.

On the road there are about a dozen bodies scattered, some of which seem to be bandits, but most of them are knights. Arthur jumps down from Llamrei.

“Check to see if anyone’s alive!” he orders.

The Prince pulls out a sword from one of his knights chest, which doesn’t belong to any of his men. He quickly recognises the design.

“This is Mercian craftsmanship.”

“Arthur.” Merlin hurries to one of the men lying on the ground. What, could he be alive?

But he quickly sees what caught his manservant’s attention: there is a note stuck to the body with an arrow.

“It’s a ransom note,” Merlin says. “They’ve taken Morgana hostage.” Arthur’s pulse slows down. Well that’s not the worst case scenario. Even if they can’t find Morgana and free her, his Father would pay anything to free her. He looks around searching for something to go on.

“The tracks lead off this way,” he says, then pulling his sword, he starts tracking.

They haven’t gotten much further, when he hears a branch break. The noise came from the way they are headed. He quietly switches his sword to a crossbow one of his knights are holding, then sneaks behind a tree. Whoever is here, they are going to have a surprise.

Imagine his surprise when he leaps from behind the tree only to find himself facing a muddy Morgana in her undergarments.

First relief sweeps over him at the sight of his sister, but when a moment later he notices that there are no brown curls and a bright smile behind Morgana, the icy claws of worry and dread are back.

“Where is Guinevere?”

-

When Gwen awakes, she's aware that someone's holding her, and someone is shouting like a madman.

“How could you let her escape? Heh??” loud clang. “You bring me this servant! She’s worthless to us!!” Servant? Are they talking about her? She opens her eyes, and her memories come flooding back.

Oh right. She’s held hostage. Only now Morgana isn’t here to protect her. There is no reason for the abductors to keep her alive.

She sees the leader stop and come closer. The man grabs her face, and turns it this way, then that way. Fear runs through Gwen. What are they going to do with her? Please don’t.. She wishes they would just kill her.

“Here,” he presses Morgana’s clothes into Gwen’s hand. “Put ‘em on.”

What?

“What are you going to do with me?” she croaks.

“Hengist has never met the Lady Morgana.” states the leader. Or not the leader? Hengist? Did she hear that name before? Is he the one asking for ransom money? “For all he knows, you could be Uther Pendragon’s ward,” the man grins, and Gwen suddenly understands. That Hengist pays this man to abduct Morgana, and Hengist asks for money from Uther. But this man has no interest in bringing his boss the actual Lady Morgana.

“I will not impersonate my mistress.” declares Gwen. But the man raises his sword to her neck. "Then you will die right where you stand."

The girl gulps. She could win a few days by pretending to be Morgana but once Uther doesn’t pay the ransom Hengist will realise that she’s not Morgana he’ll kill her. But Morgana can get help. She could be rescued before that would happen.

“Fine. But then I expect the best treatment,” she says haughtily. If she’s going to do this she might enjoy it a little. “I’m sure this Hengist expects the Lady Morgana to arrive in sound condition,” she says, and the man in front of her grins humorlessly.

-

“He won’t do it.” Arthur says, hanging his head.

“What?” snaps Morgana.

“He won’t send anyone after Guinevere. In fact if we argue with him he will forbid us from going, and if we argue about that, he might even lock us up,” explains the Prince. He knows he did the right thing when he asked Morgana to come to his room before going to the King, saying that he needs to talk with her.

“Why would he? Gwen saved my life, if I ask him-”

“No, Morgana,” Arthur shakes his head resigned. “You need to trust me on this, I know him better than anyone, he would never dispatch forces for a servant, even if you asked. Besides they are in Mercia, if we send Camelot’s official forces there we might start a war.”

“So you’re just going to leave her to those animals?? After she’s been such a good friend to us? To you?” Morana raises her voice.

“No, Morgana! Are you even listening? I’m saying that we shouldn’t argue with Father, and he will believe that everything is fine. Then I will go after Gwen with Merlin,” explains Arthur. Understanding sets in Morgana’s eyes.

“I will go with you,” she declares.

“No.”

Morgana and Arthur snap up their heads, looking at Merlin standing in the door, with Arthur’s armour in his hands. He must have just finished polishing it. Arthur tries to ignore the jump his heart just made. He might like it a bit when Merlin acts like he can give orders.

What do you mean no?” Morgana asks sharply.

“You just got back, I’m sure Uther put extra security to your room, it will be harder to sneak out if you’re with us. Besides, you’re hurt, you need to rest.” Morgana tries to interrupt so Merlin quickly continues. “And me andArthur are more than capable just the two of us. It’s even better that there will be no knights with us because this way I’m better than half of Camelot’s forces together,” he says and Arthur raises an eyebrow.

“Confident much?” he asks smirking and Merlin shrugs sheepishly. Morgana sighs.

“Alright, but if you die, I will kill you.” she says, shaking her head. “And… bring her back. Please,” she asks quietly. Arthur nods determined.

“We will.”

Chapter Text

Gwen’s stomach clenches when she sees the ugly stone castle they are riding to. When they arrive she is led to a hall, and a giant man greets them, who wears a seemingly valuable fur coat. Gwen supposes he must be Hengist.

“Kendrick! I was beginning to think you had failed me,” Hengist says.

“May I present, the Lady Morgana,” introduces Gwen her captor, who’s name is apparently Kendrick.

Hengist courtesies to her with an ugly smile, then walks closer. Gwen stares back at him with head held high as the man removes her hood. If she wants to make this believable, she needs to act like Morgana would in a situation like this.

“You’re as beautiful as they say, Lady Morgana,” says Hengist as he takes her in. Gwen’s stomach churns.

“I demand that you release me immediately,” she orders in a shaky voice.

“Just as soon as Uther pays your ransom,” nods Hengist. “In the meantime, you will be my guest.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’m not your guest, I’m your prisoner,” she snaps. Hengist’s face falls.

“As you wish,” he says. “Take her to the dungeon!” he orders, and a man grabs Gwen’s arm and starts dragging her away. She complies with a racing heart. So far she’s good. The question is how much time she has before Hengist realises that Uther is not paying the ransom.

She has been sitting in her cell for a few hours when a man comes down and whispers something to the guards. Then one of them turns to her.

 “Lord Hengist has invited you to dinner.”

Gwen wants to oppose, but her stomach rumbles at the thought of food. The guard grins and opens the cell door. She is led to what it seems like, a dining room. There are tables, but there is a big cage in the middle. Fear sets into her. What is that for? What if Hengist realised she’s not Morgana already? But it’s empty, and she’s led to the table, next to Hengist.

The food is not bad, and no one talks to her, so she just eats in silence. But when she almost finished her dinner, Hengist stands up.

“Silence!” he shouts. “Our royal guest, Lady Morgana has grown bored,” he announced in a mocking tone, putting his hand on Gwen’s shoulder. The maid feels she might get sick. “She needs entertainment!” he says grinnings, and the people laugh and cheer.

Suddenly, the back of the cage pulls up, and a man even bigger than Hengist comes out of the tunnel there. He raises his axe, and people cheer. Is there going to be some kind of fight?

“Bring on the challenger!” Hengist shouts, and a man in armour runs out of the tunnel.

Gwen looks at him and she feels her heart might stop. It’s Lancelot.

-

To be honest Arthur is at a loss as to what to do. He remembers that last time this happened, Lancelot was there. And he already resolved to step back and let Gwen and Lancelot fall in love. But he remembers that last time he was a prick and Lancelot realised that he likes Guinevere, so he was the one to step back and let Arthur and Gwen fall in love. And Arthur couldn’t let that happen. He wants Gwen to be happy, and Lancelot can make her happy. So he needs to surpass his feelings and not let Lancelot find out about it. But how does he do that?

According to Morgana he always wore his heart on his sleeve, and he has no idea how to not do that. Maybe he should ask Merlin, he thought bitterly.

He glances at the man riding next to him. Merlin is staring at the road ahead, seemingly deep in thoughts. His eyes are a darker shade of blue than usually, and Arthur feels his face heat for some reason. He quickly looks away.

“Do you think she’s alive?” he hears Merlin’s voice. He hesitates for a moment. He knows she is. But how much can he let Merlin know?

“I don’t know.” he answered after a while. “But the chance alone is worth it..”

Merlin doesn’t answer.

“Did you notice?” the sorcerer asks after a moment of silence.

“What?”

“She seems exhausted nowadays. She must be really worried for us.” Merlin mutters.

“Worried?” Arthur asks, confused. Merlin chuckles.

“You know that this magic lesson stuff is extremely dangerous. If we ever get caught…”

“But we won’t.” Arthur says firmly.

“She’s worried nonetheless. The least I can do for her is save her. So you’re right. The chance that she’s still alive is worth it.” Merlin says determined. Arthur smiles.

-

Gwen feels her heart might just stop when she locks eyes with Lancelot. He looks different than last time she saw him. Not just his hair, which is much shorter, but his eyes. They’re much more sad, and weary.

But what is he doing here? He’s not going to fight that… monster is he?

“Only one of you will emerge from the cage alive,” Hengist speaks, and Gwen’s heart races. No, Lancelot can’t do this, he’ll die! “Do you accept the challenge?” No, no, say no! Gwen pleads silently. Lancelot looks away from Gwen, and turns to Hengist, bowing his head. Gwen swallows.

Hengist signals with his head, and the man in the cage swings his sword at Lancelot.

Gwen watches anxiously but Lancelot blocks and avoids every blow with ease. But one swing then gets caught on his sword and he’s pushed back into the cage’s wall, and his opponent’s sword gets dangerously close to him. Gwen gasps. It’s clear that in terms of pure strength, Lancelot is no match for the guy.

The crowd cheers.

Lancelot manages to weasel his way out of the situation, and gets behind his opponent, panting. He’s heavy on the defensive, not managing one offense since the beginning of the spar. Then the brute kicks him heavy in the ribs, and he falls against the fence. The big man prepares for his final blow, but Lancelot quickly gets out of the way. Gwen’s heart is racing.

The crowd cheers and shouts.

Lancelot grips his sword as his opponent shouts a loud war cry, clearly angry with how long the fight has gone on. His swings clearly start losing precision, and gather more power, but Lancelot blocks them with more ease.

The crowd roars in anticipation.

Lancelot finally gets on the offensive, as he hits his opponent in the face with the hilt of his sword. It’s clear he’s much better at attacking than defending, with his quick and precise swings. The big man backs away, after Lancelot knocks his sword out of his hand.

The crowd goes crazy.

The man falls to the ground and Lancelot points his sword at him.

“Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!” the crown chants.

Gwen’s heart races for an entirely different reason now. He’s not going to kill him, is he? That wouldn’t be Lancelot.

As if hearing her thoughts, Lancelot glances at her. Hengist notices this, and looks at Gwen frowning. Gwen quickly tears her eyes from Lancelot.

The man looks back at his opponent, lying on the ground, fear in his eyes, and shakes his head. He lowers his sword, and leaves the cage. The brute looks at him with wide eyes.

When he reaches the table, he stops in front of Hengist, who throws him a sac of coins. So he does this for the money, Gwen thinks sourly. For living. That must be awful.

“What’s your name?” Hengist asks.

“My name is Lancelot.”

“You have proven to be a skillful warrior,” Hengist says, and he glances at Gwen. “I believe you may even have impressed our royal guest, Lady Morgana.”

Lancelot frowns confused, then raises an eyebrow.

“My Lady,” he bows. Gwen avoids eye contact.

“Next time you fight, do not expect any mercy,” says Hengist. “Release the wilddeoren.”

The back of the cage opens again, and a giant rat-looking creature emerges. The man in the cage screams ‘no’ in fear as he tries to get as far as he can. The thing looks blind, but it sniffs fervently, and he turns toward the man on the ground.

Gwen looks away and her dinner threatens to end up on the floor as the man screams in agony while being eaten alive. From the corner of her eye she sees that Lancelot looked away too. Then their eyes meet, and they know they are both thinking the same.

If Hengist finds out that Gwen is not Morgana, she’ll end up like that.

-

When Merlin realised his feelings towards Arthur, he never thought about jealousy. It’s selfish, he knows it, but he always thought the Prince is going to end up in an arranged, loveless but respectful marriage and he can always be at Arthur’s side.

But now Arthur seems to have fallen in love with Gwen.

It makes sense when he thinks about it: Gwen is a wonderful girl, and they are spending much more time together watching Merlin teach magic to Morgana. And he should be happy for his friend, happy for Gwen to have won the affections of a man like Arthur.

He looks at the blonde. They’ve been riding for two days without stopping, and without sleep, and he is exhausted but Arthur just keeps going. He tried to persuade him multiple times, to stop for at least a few hours of sleep, but the man wouldn’t budge.

“You know,” Merlin speaks up again. “We won’t be able to fight whoever’s guarding Gwen if we can barely stand from exhaustion.”

“We won’t have to fight anyone, if Gwen’s already dead because we arrived too late,” comes the answer. Merlin sighs.

They ride in silence for a few minutes, then the sorcerer speaks again.

“You know… I’ve never seen you like this about anyone.” Arthur looks at him, and Merlin swears for a second he seems nervous.

“What are you talking about?”

“Gwen. You really care about her, don’t you?” He asks in feigned nonchalance.

“Of course I do, she’s my friend.” Arthur answers in the same neutral voice.

“But is she?” Merlin stares at the Prince. He doesn’t look back.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you have feelings for her?” the sorcerer asks quickly before he could change his mind.

-

Arthur doesn’t answer for a moment. So Merlin noticed. Great. How will he hide it from Lancelot?

But that’s not today’s problem. What should he say to Merlin? The idiot is a good observer, he would know if Arthur’s lying. He could avoid the conversation but it would only delay it since Merlin is the most stubborn person he ever knew.

He could always just tell the truth.

“Not anymore,” words come out of him and surprise even him. Because they feel true.

“What do you mean…?” Merlin looks at him with wide eyes.

What does he mean? He loves Gwen: he knows that. That will never change. But is he in love with her?

“Not anymore,” he repeats himself. “There may have been a time when I had romantic feelings towards her, but I did not act on them, because I think she deserves better.” He quickly continues when he sees Merlin open his mouth. “You know my father. If he would discover a relationship between us, best case scenario is he banishes her, worst case scenario is he accuses her of magic and executes her.”  Merlin does not speak this time. “So best I could’ve given her is a promise. But how long will it be until I become King? Could be decades. It could be that an arranged marriage is forced on me until then.” he says. Merlin looks a bit guilty for some reason.

“You can’t let that happen,” the sorcerer says determined. “You will marry for love, I know it.” Arthur smiles at his friend gratefully.

“But I’m not in love with her anymore,” he continues. “I love her, she’s one of the best people I know, and I want the best for her. But that’s not me.” he says, smiling. “And maybe she could be the best for me, but I should love someone, for whom I’m the best too, shouldn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Merlin smiles back at him, and he looks a bit proud. “You know I’m impressed.” he grins mischievously. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet, not to be a pompous arrogant prat.”

“I think you are the one who’s starting to get a bit arrogant,” Arthur grins back at him. “Maybe I should put you in the stocks when we get back.”

“Try to do that, and we’ll see who will end up drenched in fruit,” the sorcerer wiggles his fingers towards him cheekily.

“That’s treason, you know,” Arthur lifts an eyebrow.

“Not if I do it to a dollophead.”

“I’m not a dollophead ! And it is!”

-

Gwen sits in her cold cell, wrapped in Morgana’s cloak when she hears footsteps from her small window. She looks up confused, because no one ever walks there.

“Gwen.”

Her heart jumps when she hears Lancelot’s voice, and she quickly climbs up on her bed, to see out the window.

“Lancelot,” she says happily when she sees him.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you.”

“I thought my eyes were deceiving me,” she agrees breathily.

“Why does Hengist think you are Lady Morgana?” he asks. Gwen looks around nervously if anyone’s listening before answering.

“He believes he’s holding Morgana for ransom.” she says. “When no ransom is paid he’ll realise the truth, and then he will throw me to those beasts.” she says with a lump in her throat.

“I will not allow that to happen.”  Lancelot says determined. The maid watches him desperately.

“What are you doing here?” she asks. “Are you one of Hengist’s men?”

“No.” Lancelot looks down ashamed.

“What became of you after you left Camelot?”

“There are few opportunities for men like me. So I have been earning my living the only way I know, with a sword in my hand.” he answers, and he shrugs weary. “It seems my destiny is to entertain men like Hengist.” Gwen shakes her head in despair.

“I don’t believe that of you. You were so full of hope.”

“I was wrong. The world is not like that.”

“I still see hope in you,” Gwen says emotionally as she grabs the bars on her window. “I do not accept it has gone.”

Lancelot looks at her with wide eyes. He gulps, and he slowly slides his fingers on hers. She feels her face heat and her heart race.

“I have thought of you often.” he smiles shyly. “Have you thought of me at all?”

She did. But…

“I thought I’d never see you again.” she says. Lancelot seems confused, he doesn’t know what that means. So she smiles back, and they just watch the other for what feels like a decade.

Suddenly they hear a door opening, so they quickly pull apart.

“Someone’s coming,” Gwen says.

“No matter what it takes, I will find a way to get you out of here,” Lancelot says, and he nods assuringly. “I will.” He smiles again, and leaves. Gwen quickly gets down from the bed.

The door to her cell opens, and Hengist walks in. She looks at him, trying not to show how nervous she is. The man seems mad.

“I have not yet received word from Uther that he intends to pay your ransom.” he says threateningly. “I was informed that the King is extremely fond of his ward.” Gwen’s heart is racing but she tries not to show how afraid she is. “Aren’t you surprised he’s content to leave you here to die?”

“How can I know the King’s mind when I’m locked in your stinking cell?” the maid spits angrily, while unshed tears sting her eyes. Hengist doesn’t answer.

“If I do not hear from Uther by dawn tomorrow,” he starts as he leans closer, “this stinking cell will be the last place you ever see.”

-

“We’re here,” Arthur gestures to a tunnel in front of them.

“What is this?” Merlin frowns.

“The tunnels of Andor. We can save a day’s riding if we go under the mountains instead of over them.”

Arthur and Merlin stare at the ominous holes, and Arthur is thinking what to do with the overgrown rodents in there. Merlin groans.

“Oh no, I know that face. I’m not gonna like this, am I?” he complains. “What’s in the tunnels?” Arthur is not looking at him.

“They’re… infested with wilddeoren,” he says guiltily.

“What are wilddeoren?” the servant asks, confused.

“They’re like giant…” Arthur says, spreading his arms wide, “...baby rats.” he puts his hands back together. Merlin grins relieved.

“Baby rats? They don’t sound so bad.”

“They feast on human flesh,” Arthur says quickly.

“Maybe we should go over the mountains.”

Arthur ignores him as a plan starts forming in his head.

“Wilddeoren are completely blind. They hunt by sense of smell,” he says.

“What are you thinking?” Merlin asks.

“I have no doubt we could fight them off if needed, but that would be wasted time. But could you… mask our scent with magic?” Arthur looks at Merlin who seems a bit taken aback. Maybe because it’s still rare that Arthur specifically asks him to do magic, and since the assassin he never asked Merlin to use magic on him . His stomach still acts weird when he thinks about the sorcerer’s golden eyes and the intense feeling of his magic in his abdomen.

“Uhh.. I could try,” he says. “I don’t know any spell for it but if it’s easy enough I can do it without the spell.” Arthur nods. He remembers this: spells are virtually only for directing the magic, making it easier, but more powerful sorcerers can use magic without spells if it’s simpler.

Merlin proceeds to awkwardly come closer to Arthur, and put his hand on his shoulder. He closes his eyes, and a concentrating expression is on his face. When Arthur feels the telltale buzzing of Merlin’s magic around him, the sorcerer opens his eyes, which shine in that beautiful shade of gold. It’s over too quickly, and Arthur lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

They look at each other, a bit at loss.

“Did it work?” Arthur asks uncertain. Merlin shrugs, then leans so close to Arthur that all the hair on his body stands up. His heart threatens to jump out of his chest as the sorcerer’s breath ghosts his neck. Then Merlin leans away, his ears a bit red. Yeah, it is embarrassing when you have to smell your friend.

“I didn’t feel anything, but my sense of smell is probably not as good as a wilddeoren’s, so we’ll have to be careful,” he says, then he does the same thing on himself. Arthur has seen him do magic countless times, with the magic lessons and all, but he doesn’t think he will ever get used to it. “I don’t know if it worked on me, some magic can’t be performed on oneself, can you check?” Merlin turns to him. Arthur feels his face heat.

He nods, and he leans into Merlin’s space. He smells his neckerchief, since the boy is always wearing it so it has to have some kind of smell, and this way he won’t have to get too close. He feels nothing, so he backs away.

“All good,” he nods. “Let’s go.”

Merlin nods, and follows him to the tunnels, leaving the horses tied to a tree.

-

Gwen is curled up on her bed. She is terrified. Uther obviously won’t pay the ransom or rescue her, she’s just a servant. Probably he even forbade Morgana and Arthur to come after her. Her only hope is Lancelot, but she hasn’t heard from him since yesterday. It’s dawn, and soon Hengist will come for her and kill her.

At least she got to see Lancelot one last time.

Just as she thinks this, she hears the voice of the man she’s thinking about. She quickly stands up on her bed, to see Lancelot looking in her window. When the man sees her he sighs.

“I was terrified I might find your cell empty,” he says.

“There has been no word from Uther,” Gwen shakes her head. “Hengist is growing suspicious.”

“You must keep up the pretence,” Lancelot says.”I will not allow you to die here.” He seems determined, but Gwen knows this face: it’s the face of a soldier, doomed.

“What about you?” Lancelot looks down.

“I have little to live for.”

“Do not say that,” the maid frowns.

“It’s the truth. For all my words, for all I believed, I have come to nothing.” Gwen grabs the bars desperately.

“You are everything that is right with this world!” she exclaims and Lancelot’s eyes widen. He holds her hand best he can through the bars again.

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” he says, eyes full of hope. Gwen swallows, her face hot.

“I didn’t even know I could feel this way about someone.” she confesses with tears in her eyes. Lancelot nods a small smile on his lips

“Then you have given me a reason to live.” Gwen smiles at him, and they just look at each other for a moment.

Then they hear someone coming down to Gwen’s cell.

“Be ready. I will come for you before nightfall,” Lancelot whispers then leaves.

-

Their walk through the caves is more or less uneventful. Sometimes they encounter wilddeoren but none of them show signs of noticing their presence.

When they reach the other side of the tunnel, they sit down for a few minutes on the riverside, and drink from the water. Merlin removes the spell from them, which gets Arthur thinking.

There is something he wanted to ask Merlin since he found out about his magic, but there was never the right moment for it. But now there’s only the two of them, and they’ve been walking for a long time in silence. So Arthur gatherers up the courage and clears his throat. Merlin looks at him curiously.

“I uhh, I always meant to ask,” he started. “Before I knew about your magic… Can you tell me the things that you did? That I don’t know about?” he asks. Merlin stares at him for a moment then chuckles.

“That’ll be a long list,” he says. “You have no idea how many times I saved your royal ass.” Arthur raises an eyebrow.

“Surely it’s not that much.”

“Pfft, it is, believe me,” grins cheekily the sorcerer. “First, do you remember Valiant? The knight with the snakey shield.” Arthur nods. “No one believed us that the shield was really enchanted, but when you were fighting him in the finals, the snakes just randomly came out, so everyone saw.”

“Yeah, I always thought that was an amateour move, either he had no control over his own shield, or he was just really stupid,” nods Arthur then his eyes widen. “Wait that was-”

“-me, yes,” Merlin grins. “I made the snakes come out so everyone would see.”

“And you performed magic in a place where all of Camelot’s magic haters were??” Arthur exclaims, horrified. “You’re even more of an idiot than I thought,” he shakes his head.

“Hey, no one ever found out!” Merlin says a bit offended. “Well, besides you. And… and Lancelot,” he admints sheepishly. Arthur gapes.

“Lancelot?? When? How?” Lancelot knew all this time? Even when he was a knight, and he never told Arthur? Even Lancelot thought Arthur would kill Merlin if he found out? As if he were capable of anything to hurt the idiot. Merlin, oblivious to his inner turmoil, continues talking.

“Well me and Gaius told you that the griffin only can be slayed with magic, but you and your thick head didn’t listen, and went to fight it. Lancelot and his noble stupidity went after you, so I followed him. There was no one conscious, and Lancelot charged at the griffin with his lance, so I used a spell to make the lance stronger so it could kill the griffin. Little did I know that it would burst out in blue magical flames…” Merlin rambles as he’s casually telling Arthur the tale of How He Managed To Save Camelot Once Again.

“So you killed the griffin, not Lancelot?” he asks, frowning.

“Well I would say it was teamwork,” Merlin says shyly. “It was Lance who landed the blow after all. But he didn’t think that and part of it is the reason he left Camelot in the end, saying he doesn’t want to take credit for something he didn’t do.” Arthur chuckles.

“Yeah, that sounds like Lancelot,” he says, earning a weird glance from Merlin. Oh yeah, he’s not supposed to know the knight as well as he does in this timeline, after all they only actually met a couple times. “And what else?”

“Well there was that afanc… it could only be killed with fire and wind, but there was no wind down there so I magiced some,” the sorcerer said casually. “Oh, and actually I was the one who cured Gwen’s father and I confessed because I didn’t want her to suffer the consequences of something I did. But no one believed me,” Merlin raises an eyebrow and grins at Arthur, who is rubbing his temple. The idiot really had no self preservation.

“You can’t be that stupid!” he exclaims. Merlin chuckles, and Arthur looks at him questioningly.

“Nothing, it's just… I remember when I used to complain to Gaius about when will anyone recognise me for who I am, and he replied with ‘One day Merlin’ and I asked ‘One day what?’ and he said ‘One day people won’t believe what an idiot you were’. And that’s exactly the case now,” he grins and Arthur can’t help but smile.

“See, Gaius is always right.” Merlin raises his eyebrow.

“Really? I’ll remind you the next time you pretend your injury is not as bad as it is so you can go back to training sooner,” he warns, and Arthur pales.

“Okay, I take it back!” he backtracks.. “So is that all?”

“Hah not at all,” Merlin scoffs,and suddenly Arthur remembers something and his eyes widen.

“Wait! When we were in Ealdor, the sorcerer was you, not your friend right?” he asks, and Merlin goes quiet for a second.

“Yeah. Will was just protecting me.”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says quietly.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, then Merlin speaks up.

“Do you remember Sophia?” Arthur frowns. Sophia, Sophia… Then it clicks and his face heats. She was one of his embarrassing crushes, like Lady Vivian. Merlin giggles when he sees his embarrassment. “Here comes the catch. She put  a love spell on you, that’s why you behaved so stupidly. I mean more so than usual.”

“Wait what? A love spell??” Arthur asks horrified, ignoring the insult. Merlin nods.

“She and her father weren’t even humans. They were sidhe.” Arthur’s eyes widen. The sidhe were the ones who revived him: those tiny blue fairies. But he’s probably not supposed to know what they are so he asks.

“What are the sidhe?”

“Well I’m not exactly sure to be honest. But they are tiny, ugly blue people with wings basically. And they are immortal,” Merlin says.

“Immortal??”

“Yeah. They live in another world, where you can enter from the Lake of Avalon,” the sorcerer explains, and Arthur once again recognises the name. Avalon is where Merlin was taking him when he was dying. Where he was revived.

“So what were these two doing in Camelot?” the Prince asks. Merlin grimaces.

“That’s the catch: the sidhe like to dump their criminals into our world. Sophia’s father killed another sidhe apparently, so they punished him by making him and his daughter into mortal people here. That’s the worst punishment for a sidhe apparently,” he shakes his head. Arthur frowns.

“Wouldn’t it be a bigger punishment if they just killed them right away? Also why would they punish Sophia for her father’s sin?” Merlin shrugs.

“I don’t really know. They don’t seem to have a soul so probably they just don’t care. Also, I think for a creature that is prepared for living forever, slowly dying over the years is worse than dying right away.” Arthur nods.

“Yes, that makes sense. So why did they put a love spell on me?”

“Because if they offer the soul of a mortal prince, they could’ve gone back to being immortal. So they hypnotised you, and kidnapped you to Avalon. I just arrived in time to thwart the ritual, but I managed to save you. Again,” Merlin raises an eyebrow grinning. Arthur rolls his eyes.

“Thank you,” he mutters. Merlin’s head snaps toward him, and a surprised smile appears on his face.

“You’re welcome,” he says happily. Arthur matches his smile.

“Is there anything else?” he asks, and thinks about the time he was brought back to. The questing beast. The sidhe told him it was Merlin who saved him, by making a deal with the Old Religion, and taking someone else’s life. He never dared to ask him about it, but maybe now is the time. Merlin stays quiet for a few seconds, so Arthur speaks again. “Because from what I heard, the bite of the Questing Beast is terminal and there is no cure. Somehow I’m here anyway,” he says nonchalantly, and Merlin looks at him with wide eyes.

“Is that when you realised I have magic?” He seems a bit confused, but Arthur catches the opportunity since he never really told Merlin how he knew.

“More or less,” he shrugs. “I got suspicious, not at you at first, but Gaius. So I started watching him, and you too since I thought if Gaius uses magic you probably know about it. And since I watched you more closely than before I noticed things,” he says. Well, it’s a good enough excuse, as Merlin nods. Maybe Arthur’s becoming like him with the lies. He shudders. He hates lying, but if he told Merlin the truth… the sorcerer is overly cautious and protective, and Arthur thinks there is definitely hope for Morgana. Maybe even Mordred, though he doesn’t know how to make it happen. He wants to go look for him sometime before he has to join that bounty hunter team for survival. And if he only told part of the truth that would be still lies. “So what did you do?”

Merlin is quiet for a moment, and he’s not looking at Arthur.

“The Questing Beast’s bite has indeed no cure, not even magic. What I did is not technically magic, though Uther would definitely think so,” he starts. “I had to get help from the old religion. If someone drinks water from the cup of life, they live, no matter their injury or ailment.” Arthur nods, he remembers that cup: it saved Leon’s life, but caused quite the trouble for them afterwards. “To cure someone from death, another life must be sacrificed, that’s the rule,” Merlin continues, and Arthur shudders. “I wanted to sacrifice my life. The problem was, the only priestess of the old religion I knew was Nimueh.”

“Nimueh??” Arthur exclaims. He remembers her: a powerful sorceress who hates his Father. Come to think of it, he hadn’t really heard from her since he tried to poison him but Merlin ended up drinking it. He doesn’t say anything to Merlin wanting to sacrifice himself, because honestly he’s not even surprised anymore. The idiot really just has no self preservation.

“Yeah.. and she wasn’t really cooperative. She agreed to give me the water, but not to take my life, she chose someone else. My mother. She was dying as you gained strength, so I went back to persuade Nimueh not to take someone else’s life instead of mine. But Gaius was faster, he apparently thought it’s a good idea if he sacrifices himself instead of me or my mother, and Nimueh agreed. I tried to persuade her when I got there, but she attacked me. So.. so I killed her. To save Gaius. Her life was given for yours,” Merlin finished, not looking at Arthur, who was speechless. So Merlin killed that powerful sorceress and that’s how he’s alive.

“Wow. So that’s why we haven’t heard from her in awhile,” he says. Merlin nods, letting out a careful smile. He seems relieved when Arthur smiles back.

“So uhm,” Merlin clears his throat, “yeah, basically that’s all,” he says easily. “I mean there are more but not as memorable as these.”

Arthur is deep in thought. So Merlin has the annoying habit of saving Camelot in secret. There were already like a dozen times in this timeline it happened, Arthur doesn’t even dare thinking about how many times it happened in his timeline. And now he’ll never know. He clears his throat.

“You know… I’m grateful,” he says. “I know I don’t say it enough. But thank you,” he looks at Merlin who is smiling.

“I know.”

-

Gwen’s heart is racing as she’s dragged up to the throne room and pushed into the cage. She thinks this is the end so first she doesn’t hear Hengist calling Morgana’s name.

“Morgana!” Hengist almost shouts and Gwen’s head snaps towards him. He’s also in the cage which calms Gwen down a bit, they won’t release that beast when their leader is also in there. “I keep asking myself,” starts the man, pointing to his bald head. “Why does Uther not pay the ransom? He is a rich man,” he continues as he walks slowly towards Gwen. “Why would he leave his beloved ward to suffer a slow and terrible death?”

“I don’t know,” Gwen shakes her head, eyes wide with fear as she slowly backs away. “Please. Please…” she begs as Hengist grabs her hand aggressively.

“It must be very upsetting to know that Uther has abandoned you,” he says without an ounce of sympathy. “It seems that no one in this world cares for you.” he leans so close that Gwen can smell his stomach churning breath.

“I don’t know why he doesn’t pay, please I don’t know,” she pleads. Hengist pushes her away.

“Take her to her cell.”

The guard roughly drags her though the castle and pushes her into her cell. She collapses onto her bed, and suppresses her sobs into Morgana’s cloak.

A few hours have gone by. Gwen is laying on her bed, staring into nothing, when she hears steps. Then suddenly her cell door opens, and Lancelot stands there. Happiness flutters in her. Because she might escape, but also because she can finally see Lancelot not just through bars.

“We haven’t a moment to lose,” the man says, and Gwen grabs his extended hand.

They are running through the dungeons, when Lancelot stops them at a tunnel.

“Follow this tunnel. It will take you out beyond the castle walls,” he says. “I will buy you as much time as I can.” Gwen shakes her head.

“I’m not leaving you,” she grabs Lancelot’s hand. 

“You must.”

“No! I will not leave you here to die,” Gwen says desperately.

“I would die for you one hundred times over,” Lancelot says gently as he grabs her face with his hands. “Live for me. Or everything that I am has been for nothing.”

Gwen’s heart is beating like crazy. She doesn’t  know if it’s because they are being pursued, and they have to go or they’ll get caught, or if it’s because she knows Lancelot won’t persuaded and he’ll die here for her, of if it’s because of Lancelot’s words, his hands on her face, his breath on her lips… He’s so close, and Gwen can’t think about anything else but how much she wants to kiss him.

So she does.

And it’s wonderful. Gwen thinks she could do this for the rest of her life… But it’s also a goodbye. Because Lancelot won’t be persuaded.

“As long as I live, my feelings for you will never fade,” she says, and tears are stinging her eyes.

“Run. Don’t stop running until you are well away from here,” Lancelot says, as he gives her a gentle push towards the tunnel. She backs away, but lingers for a second, watching Lancelot. “Run. Run!” the man says firmly, as they hear men running towards them, dangerously close.

Gwen turns around and starts running.

She can still hear when swords clash. A scream of pain. It’s not Lancelot. She doesn’t stop.

-

Arthur huffs in relief as they see the castle through the bushes. He knows that last time they got just on time, and if he did anything differently now, if they are even a second late… He doesn’t even dare to think what would happen. And Merlin doesn’t know this, but Arthur’s been worried about Lancelot too, not just Gwen.

“We’ll have to scale the castle walls,” he says as he takes notes of the guards' whereabouts. Merlin looks a bit sceptical.

“Maybe there’s another way in,” he says. Now it’s Arthur’s turn to look sceptical.

“Why don’t you go and knock on the front gate? I’m sure if you ask nicely they’ll hand Gwen over to you,” he says sarcastically. Merlin rolls his eyes.

“Well not that, but I could disguise ourselves to look like guards of the castle,”  he says as a matter of fact. Arthur looks at him wide-eyed.

“Do you have a plan?” he asks. Merlin nods.

“I could disguise both of us as guards, but I think it would raise questions why two rando guards are outside the castle walls without order,” he says, and Arthur nods agreeingly. “So I’ll only disguise you, and you’ll pretend you have caught me trying to climb up on the walls. They’ll probably think I wanted to steal, so they’ll bring me wherever they are keeping the prisoners. And that’s where Gwen will be,” Merlin finishes outlining his plan. Arthur nods, a bit impressed. But then he frowns.

“It’s a good plan but I would prefer it if I were the bait, not you,” he says, but Merlin shakes his head.

“You have Camelot’s armour on, it could induce war. So I’d have to disguise you too, make you look like you’re a peasant. And then wouldn’t it be easier if I just disguised you?” Arthur grimaces, he still doesn’t like it. Merlin raises an eyebrow. “You know I can protect myself. Probably better than you,” he says, and Arthur knows he’s right, but he can’t help but worry. The sorcerer sighs. “And you’ll be there the whole time, with a sword. If I disguised you to look like a peasant I’d have to take away your sword,” he says, and the Prince winces. That’s true.

“Okay, do what you have to do.”

-

Gwen tried. She really tried. For Lancelot.

As she’s being dragged through different tunnels, she can only think about how she failed Lancelot. He was ready to die for her. But now all will be for nothing.

She sees light at the end of the tunnel, and she recognises the cage in the throne room. And Lancelot is there, tied up.

When he sees Gwen, despair displays on his face. Gwen could cry. Now they’ll both die. For nothing. Lancelot could’ve lived. She killed him.

She distantly hears Hengist laughing, but she only pays attention to Lancelot as they drop her to the ground next to him.

“You thought she got away?” Heginst asks, grinning. “No, you failed her,” Gwen could kill him in that moment.

Lancelot looks at Gwen with his big sad eyes. Gwen shakes her head. Lancelot didn’t fail her. She failed Lancelot.

-

Arthur, now in a different armour that he’s used to, drags Merlin along with him as gently as he can for an outside viewer to still think that he’s being rough. The guards at the gate look at him questioningly.

“I found this man trying to scale the castle walls. He was probably trying to steal,” he says, trying to keep his voice neutral, as he gives Merlin a shove. The guards look at each other then shrug and grin.

“Don’t bring him to the dungeons. The wilddeoren is feeding tonight anyway, bring him straight to the throne room. He can die with the maid and that rando,” one of them says, and the other nods. Merlin’s eyes widen.

“No, no please no, I’m sorry!” he shouts, providing a convincing performance as Arthur drags him through the gate. Oh please don’t let them be too late.

As soon as they’re out of sight they start running.

“Do you know where the throne room is?” Merlin asks panting.

“Not sure. But all the castles are built on the same basis, and the throne room is always in the middle,” Arthur says.

They meet no one in the corridors. Everyone must be in the throne room, that’s the only explanation. Arthur feels sick that everyone would want to watch something like this.

While they don’t know the exact location of the throne room, they are in luck: they can hear cheering and chanting from one direction. As they run towards it, the sound gets louder.

The door to the throne room is open, and there is a crowd gathered. They blend in easily.

Arthur grabs Merlin’s arm and drags him though the crowd near the cage in the middle so they can see. He hears Merlin gasp as they see Gwen and Lancelot tied up in the middle. Arthur supposes Merlin’s surprise is because of Lancelot.

“What do you say? Shall I spare them?” shouts a huge man standing up behind the table. He must be Hengist, Arthur thinks.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” chants the crowd and Arthur feels anger bubbling inside him. They don’t even know them, and they wish for their death.

He sees Gwen and Lancelot whisper something to each other. Do they have a plan, or is it just a goodbye? Then they intertwine their hands behind their backs.

Arthur is surprised to realise, he’s not jealous. He feels Merlin’s eyes on him, and he gives him a little smile.

“When I say now, we jump over the fence, into the cage, okay?” he whispers to the sorcerer who nods.

“Release the wilddeoren!” Hengist shouts, and the back of the cage pulls up. The wilddeoren comes out sniffing fervently. It doesn’t now the right direction yet because there’s so much people around, and Arthur takes advantage of that.

“Now!” he shouts, and they climb into the cage. The wilddeoren immediately targets him, but he manages to cut Lancelot and Gwen’s ties before blocking the beast with his sword. He sees Merlin landing beside him from the corner of his eye. The sorcerer throws Lancelot a sword, which Arthur has no idea where he got from.

“Arthur! Merlin!” Gwen exclaims, surprised. Merlin hurries to her side helping her up while the two knights engage with the wilddeoren.

“What are you doing here Arthur?” he hears Lancelot panting mid fight.

“I came to save Gwen,” Arthur answers. ‘And you’, he thinks but he doesn’t say it out loud because that would raise questions. “You?” he asks back because he should be surprised by Lancelot being here.

“Likewise.”

Arthur then hears Merlin chanting a spell behind them, and a loud crash. He glances back, and sees the chandelier on the ground, Hengist next to it. He seems to have barely avoided it as it fell down. Arthur turns his head back towards the wilddeoren, concentrating on the fight. The beast is much tougher than he would’ve anticipated.

“The tunnel! It’s our only chance,” he hears Merlin’s voice, so he and Lancelot start evading the wilddeoren, so they would get closer to the entrance of the tunnel.

Then he sees that Hengist is already in the cage, with a drawn sword.

He grabs Gwen and Lancelot, and jumps into the tunnel.

“Merlin! Now!” he shouts, and he doesn’t have to explain what he means.

“ Beclysan, ” he says in a deep throaty voice, and the gate separates the tunnel and the cage falls down, trapping Hengist with the wilddeoren.

Gwen and Merlin start running in the other direction, while Arthur has to drag a stunned Lancelot with him. They are accompanied by the screams of Hengist as they flee.

-

It’s already dawn when they stop. Arthur blocked Lancelot’s questions until now saying they’ll talk when they are far enough.

Now they are sitting around a fire that Merlin lit with a flick of his wrist and Lancelot clears his throat.

“So… does anyone care to explain what is going on here?” Merlin chuckles.

“Well as you probably already guessed, Arthur and Gwen know about my magic,” he says, and Lancelot nods, scratching his head.

“Wait Lancelot knew about it too?” Gwen chimes in. Merlin nods.

“Since the griffin,” he says.

“Since the griffin?!” she exclaims.

“He found out by accident!” Merlin defended.

“Excuse me?” clears his throat Lancelot. “Can we get back to my case?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Gwen says with a small smile.

“So.. since when?” he asks.

“Well, Arthur knows for about half a year now, maybe?” Merlin wonders. “And Gwen and Morgana for two months maybe.”

Lancelot doesn’t even seem to be stopping on the fact that Morgana knows it too anymore. Instead he looks at Arthur with a look that says ‘what happened?’. Arthur understands: the Prince Lancelot knew was so long ago, he changed so much since it must seem really out of character for him to be so comfortable with Merlin’s magic. He just gives a small shrug in answer.

“And how come it’s only the two of you?” Lancelot asks. It’s Arthur’s turn to answer.

“We are in Mercia. If an official delegation of knights of Camelot comes here to attack a Mercian castle then it could very easily start a war. Besides me and Merlin are more than enough for a mission like this,” he explains, and Lancelot nods understanding.

“So the King knows about it?” he raises an eyebrow, and sighs when Arthur gives him a small grin. “Thought so.”

“Also, Gwen’s our friend so obviously we would come after her. It took a lot to convince Morgana not to come with us,” Arthur says, and Gwen smiles at him. Lancelot frowns a bit but otherwise doesn’t react.

-

Gwen dragged Lancelot with him with the excuse of collecting firewood so she can finally be alone with him. But now Lancelot is really only collecting firewood, and he doesn’t even look at her.

“So.. what now?” Gwen breaks the silence. Lancelot finally looks at her. “You uhh… you didn’t regret anything, right?” she asks, scared of the answer. Lancelot’s eyes widen.

“No! No,” he shakes his head. Gwen gives him a small smile.

“Good. I didn’t either,” she says, and Lancelot’s cheeks turn pink. Gwen thinks it’s adorable. “So, will you come back to Camelot?” she asks. Lancelot’s smile falls, and he looks down.

“What about Arthur?” he asks quietly. Gwen frowns confused.

“What about him?”

Now it’s Lancelot’s turn to frown.

“Is it not- Isn’t there something between you two?” he asks, and Gwen’s eyes widen. Then she laughs out loud making Lancelot twitch. Is this how Morgana felt when Arthur accused her of having feelings towards Merlin?

“Oh lord, there is not!” she exclaims grinning. “I mean he is a nice guy and all but we are just friends,” she says. Lancelot looks confused.

“Then why did he come after you risking so much? Maybe there isn’t anything between you two, but he must have feelings for you,” he says, but Gwen waves her hand.

“No, that’s just what he's like. Stupid and noble. What, you wouldn’t go after Merlin in a situation like this?” she asks. Lancelot raises an eyebrow.

“What, you’re saying I’m stupid and noble?” he asks and Gwengrins sheepishly.

“Maybe, but that is one of the reasons I like you,” she says, and she only realises what she said when Lancelot’s face turns bright red. Then she feels her face heating up too, and she looks down. She clears her throat. “And uhmm, yeah, so Arthur has feelings for someone else anyways so definitely not me,” she says.That catches Lancelot’s attention and he looks up.

“Really? Who?” he asks and Gwen grins.

“Didn’t you notice how he looks at Merlin?” she asks. Lancelot’s eyes widen.

“What? Arthur and Merlin?” he asks, then he appears to have lost deep in thought. Then he nods.  “Yeah, I can see it happening.”

“See?” Gwen grins. “And how else would you explain Arthur accepting magic so easily when he was taught that magic is evil from literally birth? Because Merlin has it!” she says, and Lancelot nods again.

“Yeah, I thought that was a bit weird too,” he says. Then he smiles and turns to Gwen. “I like you too,” he says, and it’s Gwen’s turn to look like a tomato.

-

They must be a day’s riding from Camelot now. The horses they left at the end of the tunnels were still there, but there were four of them for two horses. Not only they had to share, and Arthur doesn’t know how much longer he can last with Merlin pressed up against his back, they had to rest the horses every few hours and get down on foot.

He’s aware that Lancelot was watching him the whole time. He’s still watching him. Last time he disappeared almost immediately, but now he’s come with them until now, so Arthur must have done something different, something right. But Lancelot probably still suspects he has feelings towards Guinevere, why else would he be watching Arthur?

So he did his best to leave Lancelot and Gwen alone as much as he could, sending them away or going away with Merlin on some alibi ‘mission’. And it seems to be working since a small smile seems to appear on Lance’s face everytime Arthur drags Merlin with him with an excuse to leave the two of them alone.

They are sitting around the fire when Arthur speaks up.

“So you’re coming back to Camelot with us, Lancelot?” he asks. Gwen’s head snaps up and he looks hopeful.

But Lancelot looks down and a small frown appears on his face. Arthur’s eyes widen. What he doesn’t want to come back?

“I don’t think the King would like that,” he says. Arthur frowns.

“Why wouldn’t he like that? You saved Camelot! I can probably persuade him to knight you,” he says, smiling at his once best knight. Lancelot shakes his head frowning.

“Merlin saved Camelot-”

“It was teamwork!” interrupts Merlin. “I only made your weapon strong enough, but you slayed the griffin.”

Lancelot doesn’t speak for a moment. He looks at Gwen who looks back at him heartbroken.

“You know,” the knight starts speaking. “All this time.. I was on a really bad downhill,” he says, hanging his head low. “I earned my living by performing in brutal fights, to entertain men like Hengist.”

Arthur’s eyes widen. He never really knew how Lancelot ended up in that castle, what he was doing all this time. Guess he knows now. That sounds… that sounds awful.

“I’m not the man you all think I am,” Lancelot continues. He sees Gwen opening her mouth, so he quickly continues. “But I want to be.” He looks at Arthur. “Your respect means a lot to me. That you want to knight me despite the first code of Camelot. But I need to prove myself, now more than ever that I’m worthy of that respect,” he says, and Arthur nods. He understands. “And you,” he turns to Gwen, who has tears in her eyes. Lancelot brings up a hand to caress her cheek, and he smiles at the girl gently, lovingly. “I also need to prove to myself that I am worthy of your affections.” Gwen sob-chuckles at this and whispers something that sounds like ‘stupid and noble’. “I know I’m being selfish, and I’m sorry. I can’t ask you to wait for me. But if you do… you’ll make me the happiest man alive,” he finishes, and Gwen smiles at him teary eyed, and she nods.

Arthur smiles. At the end Lancelot is making Gwen wait too. But he can make her a hundred times happier than Arthur ever did. And Gwen will wait for him. After all, she waited for Arthur too didn’t she?

“And you,” Lancelot turns to Merlin now. “Look out for them,” he says only this, and then the two smile at each other. Arthur can’t even protest that Merlin doesn’t need to look out for him, more like he needs to look out for Merlin, because Merlin starts being loud as ever.

“You! Will write to us.” Merlin all but orders Lancelot who seems a bit frightened, but nods.

“I will. And if I settle down somewhere for longer I’ll write the address so you can write to me too,” he smiles.

The next morning they send off Lancelot with one of the horses, which Arthur insists he keeps. It’s not one of the well-bred, more expensive ones anyways.

The goodbye is teary, well only for Gwen and Merlin, Arthur definitely does not shed a tear or two. And if he does, who can blame him? He hasn't seen the bastard since he died for the second time .

Gwen drags Lance behind a horse to give him a goodbye kiss. Arthur turns away to give them some privacy, and he has to drag Merlin with him, because the idiot shows no intention of turning around and he just stands there gawking.

Before Lancelot rides away, he turns back and smiles at them.

“Don’t you forget about me!"

Chapter Text

Arthur remembers. He remembers as soon as that... creature sets foot in the throne room. ‘Lady Catrina my ass’ he suppresses a scoff. Nevertheless, it’s quite hard to imagine the monster she actually is under the broken, beautiful lady. He supposes her story must be at least partially true: they really did get news about the fall of the House of Tregor. Probably the real Lady Catrina is also dead then, he thinks, hanging his head low, mourning their allies.

But they were in a dire situation too: the troll.

Even if last time everything worked out, the solution wasn’t really to Arthur’s liking. Being that close to death without being able to do anything about it, his life being in someone else’s hands entirely… even if it was Merlin. Arthur shudders at the thought.

It’s not only that: Uther’s embarrassment of being publicly known for marrying a troll, if possible, made him hate magic even more. Then at the first tiny, unlikely sign of magic he called that witchfinder who almost got rid of Gaius. He wouldn’t even dare to think what would happen now if a witchfinder comes to Camelot. Arthur admits that the bastard is good: he accused Merlin of magic after being here for only a few days. If he realises what’s going on in Arthur’s and Morgana’s chambers every few days they’re gone. Merlin’s gone for sure, and probably Gwen too. Not him and Morgana, his Father was blind to whatever his children were doing, he would believe they were enchanted before believing the truth.

So Arthur would do anything to keep Uther from having any more bad magic-related experiences.

But how should he act?

First he has to confide Merlin, Morgana and Gwen for sure. Gaius could help too. But he can’t just tell them that the Lady Catrina is a troll. How would he know?

He could tell them he has a bad feeling about her. Then they could investigate. Yes, that might just work. Then they have to get rid of her before she enchants his Father.

-

Arthur excuses himself from dinner, after not being able to stomach the troll flirting blatantly with his Father, and soon Morgana follows him too.

“Well, that’s an interesting turn of events,” his sister speaks up, chuckling.”If it continues like this, we might just find ourselves with a new Queen.” Arthur just groans.

“Can you come to my chambers? I need to speak with you,” he says, not commenting on Morgana’s words. “Bring Gwen too.”

The sorceress furrows her eyebrow, and nods, probably thinking it’s a magic thing. She turns around, and leaves towards her chambers to find Gwen, and Arthur waits for her.

When they enter his chambers, Merlin is there, busying himself. He looks up confused when he sees Morgana and Gwen, they weren’t supposed to have a magic lesson today.

“What’s up?” he asks.

Arthur opens his mouth, then closes it, not knowing how to start. Probably best is to ask Merlin about her, he is usually observative in these things, maybe he noticed something already.

“What do you think about Lady Catrina?” he asks. Merlin immediately lights up.

“Oh, she’s really nice! She asked for my name and even thanked me for my services,” he says smiling, confusing Arthur. “Why?”

“That’s what you call nice? Where did you grow up, a barn?” he asks, and Merlin rolls his eyes.

“First of all, almost,” he says, referring to his house in Ealdor. Arthur remembers, it was really not too far from a barn. “Second, visiting nobles usually don’t notice my presence. And even that’s better than when they do,” he says and Arthur furrows his brow.

“What do you mean?” Merlin shakes his head.

“Nobles usually aren’t very nice to servants,” he says. “But that’s not the point, why did you ask what I think of Lady Catrina?” Arthur opens his mouth to answer, his mind still on what bastards could have been rude to Merlin, but Morgana precedes him.

“Uther and Lady Catrina seem to uhh.. take a liking to each other,” she says grinning, and Merlin makes a face. “Arthur just probably wants to poke his nose in other people’s business and see if Catrina has genuine feelings towards Uther or just wants to take advantage of him,” Morgana rolls her eyes. Arthur shakes his head.

“Don’t you think that there is something wrong with her?” he asks. The others look confused by the word he chose.

“What do you mean by ‘wrong’ ?” Merlin asks slowly.

“I mean weird. Like she just waltzes in here alone with only her servant, no soldiers, surviving a horrible war yet she doesn’t seem as traumatised by it as a fine Lady her standing should, and immediately starts flirting with Father. At first it may seem like she’s just trying to secure her place after hers is not anymore, but we are old allies with the Tregor family, my Father would grant her a place to stay and a similar life as she had before ‘till the end of her days, without her ensnaring him, and Catrina should know that,” gabbles Arthur with one breath, fearing that one of them will cut into his word. But no one speaks so he continues. “So that would mean she wants Camelot and all her wealth to herself. But that’s not the Catrina I know. The Catrina I knew was kind, honest, and brave. She would never do something like this.”

“So what, you’re saying that she is not Lady Catrina at all?” Morgana asks, half joking, she doesn’t mean it. But Arthur nods.

“That’s exactly what I fear.”

The other three start talking at the same, different protest, that this is a bit too far.

“-look, look!” Arthur cuts their word. “I’m not saying I’m sure of it,” he says. Well he is, but he can’t say that. “I’m only asking you to help investigate the situation. If she is the Lady Catrina then no harm done. But if she isn’t and we just let her roam around the castle doing whatever she pleases… well the damage could be far bigger than the bother of looking into the situation a bit.”

“He’s right about that,” Merlin says. “This is not my first rodeo,” he refers to the past times when there was an attack on Camelot. “If there’s even a chance… I didn’t think there was a chance since she seems nice but if Arthur says it’s weird I believe him.”

Arthur feels a warmth in his chest and he smiles gratefully at Merlin. Although it’s a bit shameful that last time when Merlin told him about these events he didn’t believe him one bit…

“Okay,” sighs Morgana. “How should we do it?”

“Well,” Gwen speaks up. “If she isn’t the Lady Catrina then that would mean either her, or her servant has magic, since they can make her look like the Lady.”

“Exactly,” Merlin nods. “We have to find out if one of them has magic.”

“And how do we do that?” Arthur asks excitedly. Wow, he’s really good at this manage-things-from-the-background-secretly thing. If it’s this easy, no wonder Merlin could do it for so long.

“Her chambers are right beneath yours,” Merlin says, thinking out loud. “It would be easy to spy on her from here.”

Arthur snorts. The others look at him confused but he just shakes his head. He vaguely recalls something like this from last time.

“You would like that wouldn’t you?” he teases Merlin who rolls his eyes, ears a bit red. Arthur scowls. Merlin shouldn’t take liking to a troll! Even if she does look nice now, the thought of Merlin liking her makes his stomach churn. It’s a different kind of nausea from the one he feels when he thinks about his Father and the troll, which is a bit weird, but Arthur dismisses it.

“But there is no guarantee that even if one of them is a sorcerer they will use magic in her room, so I don’t know how effective that would be. The other option is I could see if there’s something about aura-revealing spells in my book,” Merlin finishes, essentially ignoring Arthur’s remark.

“Aura-revealing spells?” Gwen asks, confused. Morgana’s eyes light up.

“Ooh, I know this one! Everyone who used magic at least once has a magical aura. What it looks like depends on the person, their affinity, what kind of spells they use most, and how often. But it’s always there, it’s just normally invisible. However, there are spells that can make it visible,” she says, and Merlin nods proudly. Arthur mulls it over. The spying is 100% effective, because last time Merlin found out that way. Do trolls even have an aura? But if he looks at it from an outside perspective, the aura revealing does seem more effective, and he doesn’t want to push his luck on making the others suspicious.

“Maybe there are spells to reveal someone’s true form?” he speaks up. The others look at him questioningly. “If we do the aura thing then the only thing we find out is one of them used magic at least once. And that fact alone is not a crime. Well, it is, but you get the point,” he adds as Merlin raises an eyebrow amused at the statement. “And if her true form is revealed we kill two birds with one stone since we also find who she really is,” he finishes, and Merlin nods.

“That’s true. Then I’ll look into that too, and if neither seems doable, we’ll do the spying. Morgana or Gwen will do the spying,” he adds and he sends a scowl towards Arthur. Then he sighs. “I hope you’re wrong, Arthur, she really did seem nice,” he says, and Morgana and Gwen nod.

When Morgana and Gwen leave for the night Merlin turns to Arthur, seemingly wanting to say something.

“What is it?” Arthur asks.

“I just, uhm…” Merlin fidgets with his sleeve. “I just wanted to say thank you,” he says. Arthur frowns.

“Whatever for?”

“Earlier, well you probably don’t even remember, but you were saying why would a spell that reveals one’s true form be better than one that reveals the aura,” the sorcerer rambles, his ears endearingly bright red. “And you said that having magic in itself is not a crime. I know it’s not a big thing, but it meant a lot to me. The way you said that so naturally, without thinking. It… truly meant a lot to me,” he finishes softly glancing at Arthur, who feels his face heat.

He really said that without even thinking. Because that is what he believes. And while that should be natural, for Merlin who lived his whole life hiding, probably thinking that Arthur would never accept him for who he is, it really must be a big thing.

Arthur doesn’t find the right words to answer. The way Merlin is looking at him, eyes full of hope, gratitude and happiness makes him a bit dizzy, his heart beating at his ribcage. Before he can think it through, he steps forward, wrapping his arms around his sorcerer.

Merlin all but melts into the hug, hiding his face in the crook of Arthur’s neck, breath tickling. Arthur thinks he might die. Why does Merlin have such an influence on him?

He never was touched much in this life. Mostly just pats on the back by knights, through the armour. He was a Prince, then a King after all. People don’t just touch Princes and Kings. But to Merlin, touching Arthur always seemed to come naturally. At first it was just smoothing out the wrinkles on his clothes, fixing the collar of his shirt, then ruffling his hair, bumping into him, and occasionally handshakes. But that was in the past-future. Since Merlin knows that Arthur knows about his magic he’s been even more touchy-feely than before. And now apparently hugging was one of their things as well.

The only other person who ever hugged him besides Merlin was Gwen, and she was his wife, so no wonder it was a bit weird for Arthur to hug Merlin. He must associate hugs with romantic relationships that’s why he’s weird about it. But hugging must be a friend thing as well amongst the common folk, since Merlin and Gwen always hug each other, and as Arthur knows there was never anything romantic between them.

Merlin is his friend, and friends hug each other. He would just have to get used to it.

It’s not so bad after all.

-

When Merlin wakes Arthur up the next morning he seems overly excited for the early hour. The Prince just stares bleary-eyed as the sorcerer starts explaining something rather enthusiastically. It’s something about Gaius? When Merlin realises that it’s too early for the Prince to register anything he says, he just grins and starts dragging him out of his bed. Arthur lets out a startled yelp as his back hits the hard stone floor.

“ Mer lin!” he exclaims, exasperated. “What was that for?!” he asks as he stands up rubbing his bottom painfully.

“Just a bit of help for you to wake up,” shrugs Merlin grinning. “Why, does your royal butt hurt?” he teases, earning a scowl from his Prince.

“Where’s breakfast?” grunts Arthur grouchily.

“On the table.”

Arthur sits down, pulling out another chair as well for Merlin to sit. It has become a habit for them to eat together since Arthur always gets more than enough food, and back when Merlin didn’t eat, the rest was always sent back to the kitchen which was a waste of good food in Arthur’s opinion. He suspected anyways that Merlin ate some of his food on the way from and to the kitchen, it’s easier this way. Arthur already started seeing the results of Merlin eating healthily, as he had started to fill out his baggy clothes and his face doesn’t look hollow anymore.

“So what were you saying before?” he asks.

“Oh!” Merlin exclaims, already forgetting he has something to tell Arthur. Seriously, the idiot forgets his own head sometimes. “I think you were right about the Lady Catrina!” he says and Arthur frowns. What already? “Yesterday evening, after I returned to my chambers, Gaius asked me to deliver a tonic to her. He didn’t say what it was for, only that she will know. But she didn’t! When I brought it back to Gaius he told me that the Lady Catrina had an incurable bone disease that caused her difficulty walking, especially after long rides and only Gaius’ tonic could bring her relief. But she’s walking as well as you or I do, so he grew suspicious, and when she didn’t know what the medicine was for he said the same thing you did: that maybe she is not, well her,” finishes Merlin, rambling excitedly. Arthur nods thinking.

So that’s how they found out last time. 'How unlucky must one be that the person they impersonate has a condition like this?" Arthur thinks amused. He opens his mouth to say something but Merlin is quicker.

“But even so I think we should go for sure in a situation like this. I don’t think that the King would believe us unless we have absolute proof of-”

“No, we can’t tell him!” cuts Arthur into his word sharply. Merlin looks confused.

“Why not?”

“Well if she’s not Catrina it means they use magic to make her look like it. And if we tell my Father, the way he looks at it, it’s another attack on Camelot or him. With magic. Do you really want to poke the sleeping dragon?” he asks and Merlin draws in a sharp breath.

“I didn’t think about that,” he says. “You really think his views on magic could be even worse than now?”

“I don’t know but there is one thing we must avoid at all cost. I fear after Sigan he is already more cautious about all magical seeming things. Remember, when Morgana set her curtain on fire and he arrested everyone he deemed suspicious?” Merlin nods pale. “I’m afraid if he has one more drop he will call a witch finder,” Arthur says quietly. Merlin's eyes widen.

“I heard about them, but… are they really good?” he asks.

“Some of them are.”

Merlin nods. They sit in silence for a few minutes.

“Okay, so no telling Uther,” speaks Merlin. “But it still would be useful to know who exactly are we up against, so I looked into the spells in my book. And I found a spell to reveal someone’s true form,” he says. “But it’s quite difficult. I don’t think I can master it in a short time. And we don’t know how much time we have. However,” he continues quickly before Arthur could say anything. “It’s a twinn hagorúna , or in other words, a so-called dual spell. Which means it can be cast by two people to make it easier,” he says, and Arthur nods.

They talked about those, although he didn’t remember their name in the language of the Old Religion. Some dual spells are supposed to do two or more things at once, so if one person tries casting it, it can be quite difficult to concentrate, and some just require so much magic it’s just easier if two people cast it simultaneously. Though, this must be the first option since Merlin has plenty of magic on his own.

“Twinn hagorúnas require the two sorcerers casting it to know each other’s magic well, but that’s not a problem for me and Morgana,” continues Merlin, and Arthur nods again. The two are literally doing magic together every week, for almost half a year now, they must know each other’s magic well enough for a… well dual spell. Arthur can never remember the fancy name.

“And can Morgana do it?” he asks. His sister is a powerful witch as far as he can tell, but she doesn’t have much experience, and he remembers Morgana telling them how she froze up when it came to using magic in a real situation.

“I’m sure she can,” Merlin says confidently. “Her part is easier than most spells I’ve been teaching her.

“It may be, but won’t she… freeze up?” he asks.

“She won’t. I trust her with this.”

-

Arthur is walking down the corridors nervously. Earlier that day they formed a plan: Arthur will invite the Lady Catrina to dinner, to ‘get to know her better’. They would eat in the small diner, where there are lots of dark corners to hide. Merlin and Morgana hide there before Arthur and Catrina are there, and during the dinner they cast the spell on her. The catch is the ‘true form’ would only be visible for the castor(s) of the spell so Arthur wouldn’t know if they succeeded and if they did, when. Fortunately for two people it’s an easy spell, the two succeeded only after a few tries. Merlin cast a minor illusion on Gwen, making her hair appear blonde, and they practiced on her. Arter maybe the fourth try they claimed that Gwen’s hair turned back brown for them.

So Arthur is now walking towards the Lady Catrina’s chambers, Gwen tailing behind him. It would be inappropriate to invite a Lady for supper in these hours with no servants for chaperones and Merlin is obviously not available so Gwen comes with him. She is walking directly behind him, which feels extremely weird for him since Merlin always walks right beside him.

Finally they arrive and Arthur knocks. No need to be nervous, even if they don’t succeed they have the mirror thing as a possibility.

Lady Catrina’s servant opens the door. As he sees Arthur his expression turns to a humble one.

“Your Highness,” he bows. Then he turns his head to speak into the room. “It’s the Prince, my Lady,” he says. Soon, Catrina appears at the door. She seems a bit rumpled, but she smiles as she sees Arthur.

“Prince Arthur. To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks. Arthur mirrors her polite smile, trying not to think of the foul creature her pleasant facade hides.

“I’ve come to invite you for supper my Lady,” he says, and Catrina raises an eyebrow.

“Whatever for?” she asks. Now this is where he has to be smart.

“It’s been long since we’ve properly talked to each other, I thought it would be nice to catch up. Also…” he trails off. “I’ve noticed that my Father has taken a certain… liking to you,” he says, and Catrina clearly seems pleased. Nice handling, he thinks to himself. “If there’s a possibility of him courting you, I want to make sure that you are right for him,” he declares, and the Lady nods, seemingly liking Arthur’s words.

“Well, I can’t say no to that,” she smiles. “Your father is a remarkable man you know," she says and Arthur has to surpass a scoff. “Jonas, prepare my bed while I have dinner,” she tells her servant, turning around. He bows, and Lady Catrina closes the door behind herself. Her gaze falls upon Guinevere.

“We haven’t had the luck to meet yet. What is your name?” she smiles at her, and Gwen blushes. Arthur frowns. What is this fuss, do visiting nobles really not show any kindness to servants like the bare minimum of asking their name?

“Guinevere my Lady,” she bows. They start walking down the corridor, Arthur and Catrina side by side, Gwen behind them.

“Since Merlin, my manservant, is busy with other tasks, Guinevere will be accompanying us for dinner,” Arthur explains. “She is the maidservant of Lady Morgana.”

“Is that so?” Lady Catrina asks. “With what tasks could he be busy at this hour?” Arthur gets a bit embarrassed, he didn’t think Catrina would ask. He quickly saves.

“He is also the Court Physician’s apprentice, he’s helping Gaius with something,” he explains. He sees a scowl appear on the Lady’s face at the mention of Gaius. No wonder why, Merlin told them that Gaius took his worries to the King, (before Merlin could ask him not to share anything they find out with the King) and though he dismissed them it is a possibility he asked Catrina about it. Arthur stops before the door of the small diner.

“We are here,” he says a bit more loudly than necessary, so that Merlin and Morgana hear him too.

They enter and see the table already laid. Arthur asked Merlin to prepare the feast for them since he doesn’t want rumors to spread if he asked a random servant.

Everything goes smoothly on his side, he pulls the chair out for the Lady, they talk about not important things, and Arthur can almost ignore that he is chatting with a troll. The only weird thing he notices is that Catrina does not eat. He does not ask her about it though. He knows she’s a troll anyways, she probably can’t eat human food, or she doesn’t like it, so she probably has an explanation prepared there’s just no point.

When they are finished, Arthur walks the Lady back to her chambers, and hopes that Merlin and Morgana succeeded at their part.

He and Gwen hurry back to his chambers, and they find Merlin and Morgana already inside.

As soon as Arthur sees the nauseated look on Morgana’s face he knows they succeeded. But he asks anyway.

“So?”

Merlin seemingly shudders as he opens his mouth to speak.

“She’s a troll.”