[Fic] Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (‘After this, therefore because of this.’) - derryere
[ Part I] | [ Part II] | [ Part III] | [ Part IV] | [ Part V]
[ Part VI]
(Part VII)
It took an entire day, from before sunrise until just after sunset, for Camelot’s army to march out of sight of the castle, and somewhere along the massive line of moving bodies Arthur was riding out in his gleaming armor with no concept or understanding of the danger he was charging headlong into. Merlin watched the last battalion until they were nothing more than a dark, indistinguishable smudge on the horizon, and when he looked down from his tower he saw two more figures on the battlements doing the same. Lady Morgana’s head was recognizable even at a distance in the fading light, and her long skirts fluttered helplessly like a pennant in the wind, so dark they were nearly black against the washed white stone of the castle. Another figure stood pressed at her side in a simple homespun dress and with a mess of curly ringlets tied at their nape, and Merlin all at once missed the liberty he’d once had to stand down there beside them, to draw comfort from Gwen’s gentle presence and Morgana’s proud fortitude. Their strength would have been welcome when all Merlin wished to do was grab a horse and chase after the army that had slipped over the horizon.
Life was subdued in the castle for the first few weeks and Merlin passed many conversations in the halls being carried out with whispers and long silences. Everyone seemed to move slower and more carefully about their daily activities, as if one wrong step might inadvertently change the outcome of the reports that began arriving after the first week. The infrequent news never offered clarification one way or another on the true status of the war - the armies had engaged, the fighting had stalled, Odin had given ground, Uther’s men were pressed back, etcetera - and there was never mention of when the fighting would be coming to an end. Winter was a few months off yet, but the waning season had already begun leaving the nights a bit cooler, turning the constellations a little further along their circular path, and Merlin prayed that Uther was not foolish enough to risk a campaign between two armies in the snow.
A month passed, then two, and somewhere in the interim Arthur’s fifteenth birthday slipped by without the pomp and celebration that years past had seen. Merlin spent the day fearing that Arthur was celebrating his birthright on the wrong end of a javelin or an ill-thrust sword, once more wondering if he should have disobeyed the Prince and come along anyway. Regular reports of the war came in steadily almost once a week that inevitably filtered through the castle network; counts of the dead and notices of the honorable deaths of knights and the Pendragon’s personal guardsmen that had given their lives for their kingdom, but thankfully never news of the Prince or King’s demise in battle. Additional missives would also occasionally arrive with the lists of the dead, postscript mentions of lesser known individuals, serfs drafted into combat or townsmen that had joined the fight along the way, and somewhere in there Merlin thought he saw Arthur’s hand, defying convention in an attempt to give just tribute to all that had fallen in battle and not just those of noble birth. As long as those notes arrived with each breathless messenger, Merlin slept a little easier at night. Which was to say, still not much at all.
It was more difficult than he had expected to be among those left behind, to be confined to a castle that felt a hundred times emptier without its sovereign present. The Curia Regia had remained as acting figureheads until Uther’s return, and for the most part all of the servants and cooks and chambermaids had remained at their posts - but the guards were staffed at a third of their normal numbers, and from the highest turrets to the low town, the undercurrent of fear that drifted among the people tainted the air with a sense of apprehension that was unnerving. Simply moving about the city on his errands was enough to bring the gravity of the situation to heel, to see the long faces on the women who wondered if their husbands and sons and brothers would return at all, to watch children abandoning their careless games for groups of hushed congress, heads bowed and eyes haunted by a kind of disquiet that no child should have had cause to feel at that age. Merlin had hated war then and he hated it now, both for the cost of lives and for those who were too often left behind to pick up the shattered pieces. But most of all Merlin hated being left behind when he could be somewhere else doing the most good, saving lives instead of delivering potions for warts and poultices for scraped knuckles, and each day that passed felt more suffocating than the last.
In an unexpected turn of events, Merlin found himself sharing meals with Morgana not long after the army had departed, who seemed more at ease with vacating her chambers now that the castle had lost its King and Prince to borderlands beyond Camelot’s sight. It had begun as a few chance meetings outside of Gaius’ chambers during the first week, often just as Merlin was arriving to share supper with the physician and Morgana was on her way out, eyes looking hollow and tired, haunted by whatever nightmares and visions were being fueled by the war. While never exceptionally close to Morgana, Merlin had always been plagued by an acute feeling of sympathy for the woman, despite what disparagements the dragon had frequently cast upon her in their conversations. Perhaps it was the state of seeing her so unnerved, still unaware of the true origin of her reoccurring night terrors (Gaius had still not told her the truth, despite Merlin’s advice), or perhaps it was the memories he’d retained of an embittered woman, who had stood alongside the Druids with a sword in hand and cleaved remorselessly through Camelot’s soldiers - but something halted Merlin the third time they bumped into each other in such a manner, and he found himself inviting her to stay.
What began as a whim had turned into a frequent gathering, and a few days later Morgana brought along her new maidservant, a shy and soft spoken Guinevere that blushed with very little prompting and was utterly devoted to her Lady’s every need. Morgana seemed to adore her and spent more time affectionately teasing and coddling the younger girl than treating her like a servant, which only made Gwen blush harder and fall into the familiar stammer that Merlin had quickly grown fond of after meeting her in the future. Merlin had only occasionally passed the quiet girl in the castle halls over the last few months, and they had rarely made eye contact and never spoken during the chance encounters. Gwen’s naturally shy disposition had always prompted her to nod deferentially in passing before continuing on her way, and Merlin had always felt a pang of guilt upon seeing his old friend, too many memories of darker times, the loss of her father and her Lady and her constants in life. To have her sitting across from him and Gaius at the supper table did not dull the edge of regret that Merlin felt when he thought of how thoroughly her innocence would be snatched away in a few years, if Fate really was the inexorable mistress she had proven to be thus far, and the weight of that knowledge gave his disposition a somber edge during these nightly meetings.
Coupled with his worry over Arthur’s safety on the battlefield and his own resentment over being banned from lending his aid, Merlin knew that he was not the most desirable character to be around, and the vaguely sympathetic looks Gaius had been giving him since the army had left the castle spoke volumes. In the mysterious ways that women have these were picked up by both girls in short order, and pretty soon Merlin found himself surrounded by indulgent smiles and soft hands that would pat him at random moments with awkward promises of everything turning out all right. Most of the time the conversation could be on something entirely unrelated and it would still garner these responses, which baffled as much as warmed him at first from their open affection, but after a time Merlin realized that his face had to be permanently stuck in some expression of melancholy to prompt the actions so often. Truthfully, there was something cathartic in being surrounded by company that he considered to be among his closest friends, and as the weeks went on he tried to tell himself that their support was making the hours and the days more bearable. This was probably a lie, but Merlin felt that they deserved the credit for trying so hard anyway.
Samhain came and went on a wet and chilly night, and Merlin, Gaius, Morgana, and Gwen had all gathered in the physician’s room by some unspoken agreement, collectively huddled around a flickering hearth and listening to the pop of sap as each drew their own kind of comfort from the company at hand. Morgana and Gwen had sat huddled under a shared blanket, their loose hair spilling and tangling together in a dark curtain, and Merlin and Gaius had shared a bench, shoulders pressed in silent companionship. In soft words they’d each taken turns speaking of the dead, sharing treasured memories and giving life to moments that were sometimes bittersweet and sometimes beautiful. Morgana had spoken of the joyful years at her father’s side and her regret that she had not been closer to her mother before she died. She’d also confessed her resentment at being expected to conform to the role of a noble woman when her father had allowed her to train like a knight, and in the end she had cried on Gwen’s shoulder for the man so recently snatched away from her life. Gwen had shared what hazy memories of her mother she could piece together, a kind woman that had always smelled of lavender and the soap the laundresses used in the castle, and voiced her fears that her father would never find another to love as deeply as he had loved her. Gaius expressed his regret for the loss of friends and family and allies he had been unable to save over the years, and it was unspoken that many of these had perished at Uther’s hand. And in a fit of silent mourning, Merlin had stubbornly brushed away tear tracks each time another fell for the countless deaths he had been responsible for, and by some unspoken understanding the others had let him be.
*~*~*
It hadn’t begun snowing but sometimes Merlin could swear that the air felt cold enough for it. His warming spell would often wear off during the night and no matter how diligently he banked the coals in the stove they would be out by morning, which often left him shivering and watching cloudy puffs of air escape his lips as he dressed. The tower was not the most pleasant place to be in the wintertime and he rarely hesitated to bundle up in his robes, usually placing a good three or four layers on underneath, and a few socks between his toes and his boots for good measure. The cold always had a way of making him feel restless anyway, like the sting against his skin was a sharp reminder to keep moving, and as long as his feet and fingers were well protected he looked forward to the sudden cold snaps and the way it seemed to hold the world in suspension without him needing to use magic to get the same result.
There had been no official word yet of Camelot’s army returning for the winter, but from what tidbits had been leaked from the last few reports, Merlin thought it was easy to detect an undercurrent of impatience on Uther’s behalf to have this war either brought to an end or for a cessation to be declared. Both kings seemed particularly stubborn, which was not as surprising as one might have thought, and Merlin had heard no word of Odin or Uther broaching the topic of calling for a truce or for a peace treaty to be drafted between their kingdoms. Merlin did not know what history or underlying hostilities sat between the two kings, but nothing in his mind seemed dire enough to justify sending off hundreds of men to die for a disagreement, as the weeks dragged on it seemed like this was a war that was not going to be won within a single season, and that was perhaps the most distressing realization of all.
On a frosty morning still a few weeks before mid-winter, Merlin took himself to the kitchens to collect breakfast for Gaius and himself, feeling sympathetic for the man’s aging bones that were no doubt giving him pains on such a cold day, especially if the illusion of age on his own frame was anything to go by. He’d been able to smell the grease of cooking fat not even halfway across the castle, and once drawn in by the scent he managed to coax the head chef into giving him a couple of the warm mince pies and jelly rolls they’d baked that morning. Merlin took his spoils along the corridors to the physician’s rooms, chewing on one of the smaller pies as he walked and paying the price for his impatience by burning his fingertips on the steaming pastry. It was worth it to taste the tender meat as it fell apart on his tongue, and Merlin decided that hot pies were another reason he genuinely enjoyed the winter season; living in a castle with its well-stocked kitchens made even being tutor to the Prince a desirable occupation. Not that he would ever share that sentiment with anyone, ever.
Merlin was fingering one of the warm, glazed fruit rolls when he reached Gaius’ rooms, and he pushed open the door absently without bothering to knock. This not only made his entrance go unnoticed initially, but also brought him up short when he’d taken a few steps and realized that Gaius was not alone.
"-m so sorry," Gwen was saying, her soft voice pitched with worry and her hands fluttering helplessly in the air. Her clothes were rumpled and some of her brown curls had fallen out of the tie at her nape. It didn’t look she’d been awake for very long. "I didn’t know what else to do. She was… and then… I didn’t…"
"It’s alright my dear, you did the right thing," Gaius said soothingly, placing both hands on her arms to still her nervous movements. Gwen’s palms moved to clasp in front of her, fingers twisting together with worry, and her head bowed as her shoulders shook on an indrawn breath.
"What happened?" Merlin demanded, closing the door and stepping toward the group. Only then did he notice the third figure in the room, hidden by the fall of Gwen’s skirts. Morgana sat on a stool swaddled in a thick blanket, looking pale and haunted, her shoulders hunched and knuckles white where she clenched the folds of the blanket in her hands. Her hair was in disarray and Merlin could see that her eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed, as though she’d been crying.
"Merlin," Gaius said as he turned, sounding surprised but not upset by Merlin’s presence. He looked back to Gwen. "Please stay by her side Guinevere, I need to speak to Merlin."
Gwen nodded and crouched down on the floor next to Morgana, prying the girl’s fingers off the blanket so she could clasp her hand in hers, and began speaking softly in an undertone to the distressed woman.
Gaius approached Merlin and drew him aside to speak out of earshot. "Gwen brought Morgana to me this morning," he explained in an undertone. "Apparently Morgana awoke screaming, and she was almost inconsolable. She’s been near catatonic since they both arrived."
"She had a vision," Merlin said in understanding.
"Yes, I believe so. But I do not know the cause of it, and she has not spoken once."
"If it’s that bad…" Merlin wondered aloud. "Do you think it has anything to do with the war? Could she have seen something terrible happening?"
"I fear-"
"No!" Morgana gasped behind them, and both Merlin and Gaius turned in surprise.
"My Lady?" Gwen asked worriedly. "My Lady what is it?"
"No, Arthur!" Morgana whimpered, her eyes wide and seeing something else beyond the walls of Gaius’ chambers.
Merlin quickly stepped away from Gaius and placed the plate of food on a table before he moved to crouch down in front of Morgana, putting him at eyelevel with the girl. "Morgana?" he asked softly, but she did not appear to hear him. "Morgana, it’s alright. You’re safe. You don’t have to be afraid. Just tell us what you saw. We can’t help if you don’t tell us."
"What do you-?" Gwen began to ask, but Gaius stepped up behind her and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder to quiet her.
"It’s alright my dear," he said. "Can you help her, Merlin?"
Merlin looked up and shrugged a bit helplessly. "I can try."
Gwen placed her other hand atop the one already clasping Morgana’s and squeezed the girl’s wrist reassuringly. She looked near tears. "Please, Morgana. It’s us. We’re here to help you."
"Morgana," Merlin said again, and he reached up to turn the girl’s face toward him. Her eyes were almost pale green in the light and an a few unshed tears were stuck to the corners of her lashes. "You must tell us what you saw."
"They were all dead," she whispered after a long moment, voice tremulous. "So much blood, and Arthur… he- no, I don’t want to see it!" Morgana covered her face with her hands, shoulders hunched and shaking.
Gwen moved to hug the distraught girl and Merlin sat back on his heels. "I don’t know if she can tell us anything more."
"Perhaps a mild sedative?" Gaius suggested, moving off to one of his shelves.
Merlin watched Gwen rock Morgana in the circle of her arms, speaking soothing words into the girl’s hair, and he couldn’t help envying Gwen’s unyielding loyalty to her Lady. Gwen possessed a strength unmatched by most, and her heart was one of the most generous and caring he’d ever met in his life - it might even be strong enough to carry Morgana’s secret without destroying her devotion to the other girl. Merlin knew all too well that how truly devastating lies could become if left to fester for too long, and the thought of watching Gwen and Morgana suffering that existence twisted him inside with guilt.
Gaius returned with a small corked vial, which he handed to Gwen. With Merlin’s help, they coaxed Morgana into consuming the draught, and all three collectively watched as the potion’s effects took hold over the course of a few minutes. Morgana’s breathing slowed by increments and her hands loosened their iron clutch on the blanket and Gwen’s hand, until eventually her eyes grew half-lidded and soft as the drug took hold.
"Morgana?" Merlin inquired again. Her attention turned onto him slowly, and a look of brief confusion crossed her face before it cleared into recognition.
"Merlin," she said softly. Her lips curved into a hint of a smile, though she sounded barely lucid enough to speak.
Merlin smiled back. "Hello. You had a bad dream last night, do you remember? You saw something terrible happen to Arthur. Can you tell me what happened?"
Morgana shook her head slowly before tipping it back to look up at the ceiling. Her eyes seemed to glaze over further. "I saw blood," she said in a near whisper. "And rain falling on the earth. There was… it was a scouting party. They were looking for something, but they weren’t alone. There were men hiding in the forest - they’d seen them coming. They walked right by them, hiding in the trees. They didn’t see it was a trap. Arthur… he tried to, but there were too many of them. So much blood!" she gasped, and Merlin and Gaius exchanged concerned looks as Gwen moved in to cup Morgana’s cheek and force her attention away from whatever she was remembering.
"Please stop," Gwen pleaded, looking at Merlin. He nodded and rose to stand, refocusing on Gaius.
"I think we know enough now," he said. "We don’t know when but… I think it’s easy enough to guess where, and how. I’ll have to leave immediately."
"What are you saying?" Gwen interrupted. She looked confused and almost angry, one arm around Morgana’s back as the girl leaned into the hold and dropped her head against her maidservant’s shoulder. "Why are you speaking like that? They’re just dreams."
Gaius’ eyebrows had begun to narrow in warning as Merlin opened his mouth to answer, but Merlin paid it no heed. He loved the physician like a father, but relying on the man to combat even more years of fear and prejudice than Merlin had suffered through was something he’d come to realize he could not do. "They’re not dreams. Morgana has the gift of Sight, to see visions of future events. She may become a very powerful witch someday, but she’s not yet strong enough to control them, which is why they come to her as dreams."
Gwen gaped in surprise, but did not release her hold on Morgana’s swaying form. Gaius looked thoroughly shocked that Merlin had so easily revealed the truth, but Merlin felt absolutely no regret for his actions.
"You’ve been wonderful, Gwen," he said, smiling at the girl. "Morgana has needed someone to care for her, and you’ve been the best friend she could have ever asked for. I know that you will continue to look out for her, and keep her ability a secret, won’t you?"
Gwen did not hesitate to nod earnestly. "Of... of course I will."
"Good! I had a feeling you would feel that way. Gaius, I would love to stick around and explain in more detail, but I should probably go and stop Arthur from getting himself killed. When Morgana’s more herself, tell her thank you for me, please? And please don’t keep her abilities a secret any longer; she has a right to know what’s going on more than anyone. If we’re going to keep Arthur alive and prevent Camelot from falling to pieces, we’re going to need her powers, maybe even more so than my own. And Gwen," he said, looking at the girl whose wide eyes were fixed on Merlin like he was speaking another language entirely. "Thank you, again. If there were anyone who I would choose to share my secret with, it would be you. You are the most loyal friend and the bravest person I’ve ever met, and I only wish I could have shared all of this with you sooner. Gaius will explain everything while I’m gone."
Merlin walked over to stand in the emptiest corner of the room, and nodded once toward the three figures who were watching him with varying degrees of surprise and wonder. He lifted his hand toward the ceiling. "Biddan ástelle büfan campstede!"
As the whirlwind leapt up to sweep him away, he thought he heard Gaius’ voice through the maelstrom. "Oh dear, I think he meant to say birihte."
*~*~*
It was the sudden expanse of blue surrounding him, rather than the lingering weightlessness and the strong winds still ripping at his clothes, which cued Merlin into something being wrong. He twisted around, only to find himself flipping helplessly end over end, battling a sudden gut-wrenching sense of nausea. Focusing on one thing was nearly impossible, but he managed to catch glimpses of a broad plateau of brown and gray, cut by a flat horizon of misty blue tipping in and out of his sight, and rushing up to meet him with an alarming speed. He was falling, falling fast and hard like a stone.
He wasn’t aware that he was shouting the words, but in the span of one heartbeat to the next he was jerked back, like a hand yanking hard on the neck of his robes, and all of the colors were suddenly brighter and sharper. He stretched his arms, flapping frantically, and let out a shrill call of relief that pierced the sky as his wings beat against the air and flattened his descent. The earth was no longer a muddy mirage of color, but a moving morass of bodies engaged in combat, swords and spear tips gleaming in the air and reflecting the morning sunlight.
Merlin coasted to catch his breath and adjust to the new sensations of sight and sound and smells, feeling the cold wind ripple over his feathers and tasting the scent of blood and smoke, thick and telling on the air. He drifted lower, riding the gusts of wind and pushing through the updrafts, until he could hear the shouting of men and the high whinny of horses being brought down in the mud. There were no individual faces to be made out in the melee and all of the colors held a sharp aura around them, like afterimages blurred one over the other, making it impossible to make out which men belonged to which army. He flew, swooping and gliding, waiting for a glimmer of recognition, a sign, something that would let him know he wasn’t too late.
The broad field was hemmed in by gently sloping hills, and there were wooded areas on their lee sides where the armies had not cut through for wood and timber to be burned. His sharp eyes caught a glimmer in one of the groves, no more than a momentary flash of metal glinting off the sun, and Merlin shifted to circle around and head for the canopy of trees. By the time he’d reached the forest the sounds of the battle being waged just on the opposite side of the knoll were muted with the distance, the tangy scent of blood no more than a memory on the wind as the trees rose up to meet him.
He managed to slip in through the trees without mishap and found a sturdy branch to perch on, which gave him a halfway decent view of the interior of the wood. There were sounds here above the usual noise of nature, bird calls and the rustle of leaves and brush and the quiet hum of insects, a faint clamor and voices somewhere off nearby but not far. Merlin winged his way through the upper boughs, pausing every so often to clutch at a branch and listen, and finally his journey ended above a gruesome looking tableau.
Two groups were fighting through the dense undergrowth and Merlin could see there were men hidden behind trees with crossbows in hand, letting loose fast flying bolts upon those that were running for shelter. In the middle a couple of stalwart figures were fighting with swords and maces and axes, but it was clear that the latter group was outnumbered and falling quickly. And there in the middle, open to the worst of the danger, was a familiar blond head fending off three men that were intent on pushing Arthur around to expose his back to the bowmen. It was an ambush, just like the one Morgana had seen in her dream, but Merlin had no time to think or wonder what had brought Arthur out here so far away from the battle. He dropped from his perch and let the spell dissipate as his feet touched the ground.
There was a satisfying splintering of wood as Merlin stepped out from around the tree, and he heard the shocked cries as the snipers suddenly found their crossbows shattering in their hands. No one had noticed him yet and Merlin ran to circle around behind Wessex’s men, chanting words under his breath the made his skin tingle and hum with the rush of magic as it fell to his bidding. There was a tearing sound underfoot, earth and roots parting, and then the screams came in earnest. Merlin only caught flashes of limbs and heads disappearing out of sight as the men were pulled into the ground, a trick he’d been looking forward to using again since sending the last of the bandits that had kidnapped Arthur to their early graves. By the time he’d dispatched with the last of the soldiers either hiding in the brush or attempting to run away as they watched their comrades disappear to the clutches of the earth, Merlin had reached a scene that made his heart stutter with cold dread.
Arthur was barely standing, squaring off against two men who looked more than capable of taking down the Prince where he stood. He was tripping backwards under their blows, only managing to barely keep them at bay with his sword, shield gone and probably somewhere far off and forgotten. The third man lay dead some a short distance away, but the rest of Camelot’s scouting party seemed to have either run off or been killed entirely, leaving only Arthur and his two opponents. All three were kitted in the heavy armor befitting a knight, which did not bode well for Arthur’s chances of surviving. Only Arthur and one of his adversaries had abandoned their helmets, coifs pushed back to expose their faces, and Merlin could see even at a distance that the Prince was panting heavily and flushed with sweat and exhaustion.
Merlin rooted around behind one of the trees until he found a discarded crossbow bolt, and with a whispered word sent it flying toward the other bare headed man, who was in the middle of swinging an axe around toward Arthur’s exposed side. It slid straight through the man’s skull and he dropped to the ground where he stood, blood gushing out of his temple where the bolt had found its home. Both Arthur and his final opponent turned in surprise to look for the source of the arrow and Merlin did not hesitate to step into the clearing, hood thrown back and eyes glowing gold.
"Put down your weapon, and I will spare your life," Merlin called out, advancing slowly toward the pair.
There was a tense moment where neither man moved, the forest eerily silent with absence of swords clashing and men crying out, and Merlin’s attention remained focused on the last remaining man, who was outfitted in armor that was as equally blood splattered and dirty as Arthur’s own. But in a completely unexpected move, Arthur lunged with his sword drawn back, and Merlin watched in surprise as the Prince shoved the blade home through the vulnerable side of the knight’s breastplate before the man could even turn to parry the thrust. The larger man went down with a pained grunt and did not move as Arthur withdrew the length of his sword, the end dripping blood upon the forest floor.
"I was pretty sure he was going to surrender," Merlin said somewhat disbelievingly. "Was that really necessary?"
Arthur turned slowly to look at Merlin, and there was nothing in his expression but tired eyes framed in a face that looked thinner than Merlin remembered. The Prince’s chest was heaving and his hair was matted with sweat and dried blood and dirt, and without saying a word he sank to his knees, one hand on the pommel of his sword as the tip sunk into the earth. Merlin hurried over to his side.
"What’s wrong? Are you hurt?" Merlin crouched beside him, hands hovering uncertainly in the air.
Arthur blew out a deep breath and Merlin saw that he’d shut his eyes. When he remained motionless and said nothing, Merlin began to grow slightly alarmed.
"Arthur, what are you doing?" he asked warily.
Arthur seemed to be trying to control his breathing, and it took a moment before he answered him. "I’m hoping that when I open my eyes you will have gained to good sense to go away and leave me be."
Now Merlin was even more confused. "That’s an awfully ungrateful thing to say when I just saved your life."
At this, Arthur blinked his eyes and looked aside to glare at Merlin. "And I had explicitly told you that your services were not needed."
"Look, if you’re worried someone’s going to go running back to tell the King that a sorcerer saved your life, I’m pretty sure that all of your men are dead. Which you would have ended up being as well if I hadn’t come, so I’d appreciate a little more gratitude and a little less of your prat side, if it pleases you, sire," he bit out sarcastically.
Arthur hung his head once more and sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if you know who I am," he said tiredly.
"A pain in my backside," Merlin retorted as he reached out to wrap an arm around Arthur’s shoulders. It was a good sign that Arthur didn’t shake him off as he helped him to stand, and mostly out of habit Merlin began tugging at the leather buckles to loosen the heavy armor. Arthur seemed to have suffered another growth spurt while he’d been away, and Merlin was surprised to realize that he could only barely see the top of the Prince’s head as he stood behind him. When he’d gotten the chest piece and spaulders off, Arthur stepped away to approach the knight he’d slain, and he crouched down beside the body to pull off the man’s right glove.
"Who was he?" Merlin asked curiously.
Arthur slipped a heavy looking ring off the man’s middle finger and held it up to the light. "Reinald of Wessex, Odin’s oldest son."
Merlin blinked in surprise. "Oh, so that means…"
"It means there might be a way to bring this battle to an end."
Despite what reassurances this should have brought, Arthur’s face was still grim and shuttered, and Merlin shifted from side to side. "Should we do something with the body?" he asked after a moment.
"No," Arthur said, rising and walking back toward Merlin to pull his sword free from the ground. "We’ll let Odin’s men deal with it. The son of a King deserves a proper funeral."
"Right," Merlin agreed absently, glancing back at the still body and its lonely ungloved hand. Something about the situation still felt off, like a worrying ache that he wanted to probe at longer until it revealed its true cause. Arthur was already stumbling off through the underbrush away from the battle site, and Merlin turned to catch up with the Prince’s halting steps. "Um, Arthur, your armor?"
Arthur ignored him and kept walking, and Merlin was forced to keep pace or be left behind. He cleared his throat. "I take it the fighting’s not going so well?"
"Whatever gave you that impression," Arthur replied dryly, using the flat side of his sword to part the way through a denser patch of brush.
"No one’s thinking of calling a truce? Winter’s going to set in any day now." Merlin shivered as a telling gust of colder wind whisked through the trees, and he looked up to see a patch of gray clouds had rolled in across the sky. Morgana had said there would be rain.
Arthur didn’t reply and continued to walk just slightly ahead. Merlin tried not to feel frustrated, but enduring months of the same sort of silent treatment had worn on his soul, and the last encounter they’d had before Arthur had left Camelot hadn’t faded from his mind as much as he would have liked. And all of it seemed so childish now when Arthur had been seconds away from losing his life not a few minutes earlier, and Merlin didn’t understand how a person could just shrug that off and not see how foolish it was to continue carrying around whatever lingering anger they felt.
"Arthur-" Merlin began, but Arthur whirled around to cut him off.
"What are you still doing here?" he demanded. "You’ve done your business and now you’re free to leave."
"I can’t make sure you get back to your camp safely?" Merlin asked, bristling. "I promise to keep out of sight, if you’re that worried about being spotted in the company of a sorcerer."
Arthur scowled, and the first fat raindrops began to fall on the forest floor. "You’ve seen what was necessary, and while your efforts to play at my keeper are commendable, I can promise you that your devotion to the task is unwarranted. Go home, Merlin."
"Now just wait a minute," Merlin protested as Arthur turned to go. "I really did just save your life back there, can’t you at least say a ‘thank you’ before kicking me off?"
"Only if it will make you leave me alone!" Arthur said. He looked tired and angry and though Merlin couldn’t say why, something in him rebelled at the expression. Arthur wasn’t allowed to act like he was the only one hurt by all of this.
"I don’t know why I even bother," Merlin snapped, a petty and twisted coil of hurt unfurling inside him. "If you’re that ashamed of me, if you’re that sick of me, why don’t you tell me to leave!"
"I am telling you to leave!" Arthur yelled. The rain had begun falling harder and in collectively heavier drops from the tiers of leaves overhead. "I told you not to come, but you did anyway. I told you I could take care of myself, but now you’ve seen to that so you can go back to changing the future or whatever it is you’re here to do. Just leave me out of it!"
Merlin blanched, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. "You can’t mean that."
"Why wouldn’t I?" Arthur asked, stepping closer to him. "You spent the first year we knew each other lying to me!"
"But not about the important things! I taught you all about magic and you were okay with it! Why did that have to change just because you found out I can do it, too? I said I was sorry months ago but you hardly even look at me anymore! How am I supposed to get you to trust me again if you won’t even talk to me?"
"To do what?" Arthur shouted. "So you can change the future? So you can stop me from murdering hundreds of people, from sending my own men to their deaths? You’ve already decided it’s going to happen, so what’s the point!"
"But that’s not the point!" Merlin insisted. That worrying ache was getting stronger, like a bruise that couldn’t help wanting to be pushed and poked at. Arthur’s blond hair was plastered to his head and Merlin could feel the cold water running down under the collar of his robe. "I came back to make sure that you didn’t hate magic this time, you idiot!"
Arthur let out a frustrated sounding growl. "It was never about that, and you know it! You’re just going to keep on following me and watching me, waiting for me to cock it up, and you’re never going to leave me alone even when I’m telling you to go away. You don’t care about anything else and you’re never going to let me forget about it and I wish you’d never told me!"
"No, wait… what?" Merlin asked, blinking through the curtain of rain. Arthur’s face was twisted up harshly and his cheeks were flushed high with color again. Something was trying to slot into place, something that Merlin could feel he’d been missing while so wrapped up in his own fears and regrets. "The only thing I’ve only been waiting for is for you to finally forgive me! I can’t change who I am. It’s only messed up because you can’t seem to get past that!"
"Why should I care when you’re just waiting for me to lose my mind!" Arthur yelled. His hands were balled into fists and he looked seconds away from throwing a punch at Merlin’s face.
"What are you-" Merlin started, and then it came to him - so crystal clear that he could have hit himself for taking so long to realize that they’d been arguing on two completely different tangents all along. "Wait, you think… Arthur it’s not like that!"
"Isn’t it?" he demanded, swinging the sword through a wild arc in the air. "You came back to fix the past, to stop Camelot from going to war. You said it was my fault!"
"No, Arthur, wait," he tried, stepping toward the young man, but Arthur was stumbling back, sword tip dragging through the mud under his feet. "Stop, listen to me! That future I told you about - it’s not set in stone. Those things won’t happen. It was just one of many paths, one of many possibilities. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen for certain. Things are already changing! Can’t you see that?"
"And how am I supposed to live with myself?" Arthur hollered, sounding suddenly so raw with anguish that it stopped Merlin in his tracks. "You told me that I… that I did all of those horrible things, to my own people! What kind of King could I hope to be, when somewhere inside me there’s this terrible thing that can kill without remorse or reason? I don’t even know who I am anymore!"
It was as if months of silence were abruptly making sense, and Merlin knew he was realizing too late how terribly wrong he had been all along. He’d been so fixated on his own secret, on the thing that had broken he and Arthur’s relationship in the past, that he hadn’t been able to see much it must have traumatized Arthur to discover that there existed a part of him that could destroy his own people for the sake of revenge. "Arthur…" Merlin pleaded. "You can’t think like that. It wasn’t even his fault. I’m as much to blame for what happened. That future doesn’t even exist yet!"
"You don’t know that, you said you didn’t know anything for sure. I don’t want that future. I won’t become a murderer! I won’t!" Arthur shouted, raindrops and tears flying from his lips with every choked word.
Merlin tried to approach him again but Arthur staggered back with a sob and attempted to backhand him away, the edge of his gauntlet catching him across the shoulder in a glancing blow. Merlin winced from the pain and, in an uncharacteristic move, abandoned all attempts to be gentle and lunged instead, knocking Arthur back hard enough that he dropped his sword before they regained their footing. Arthur struggled heroically against the tight hold at first, but the wet chainmail and his drenched surcoat and the force of the falling rain made movement extremely difficult, and Merlin could feel exhaustion and something more painful wracking the Prince’s limbs. He gathered him closer, wrapping his arms around his shoulders to hold him firmly against his chest, and felt more than heard Arthur let out a final, wrenching scream against the wet fabric of his shoulder.
"God, Arthur, I’m so sorry," Merlin apologized, running one hand across any parts of Arthur’s exposed skin that he could find - atop his bowed head, pushing through the soaked strands, behind his ear and his cheek and the chilled curve of his jaw. "It’s alright. You’re not him. You’re not. It won’t ever; it’ll never be you. I will make sure of it, I swear on my life."
Arthur’s hands were fisted in his robes and Merlin felt the motion as he shook his head in denial. He shifted to place his hand on the back of Arthur’s neck. "Listen to me, Arthur. I didn’t come to the past to tell you about the stupid decisions you made later in life. I came back because I’m the one that messed everything up. Everything was my fault, the war, the deaths, betraying you, letting Camelot go to war - I did it. I’m responsible for all of it and I have lived with those regrets every day of my life, but none of it was your fault. Do you understand me? None of it."
"You said I went insane," Arthur said against his neck, sounding muffled and pained by the very thought of the words.
"I think if any man is hurt enough, if he were to feel what I caused him to feel, he can be capable of terrible things," Merlin admitted, grimacing and glancing upward. He felt the warmth in his eyes as he stared at the evergreen canopy, and within a few seconds the sky directly overhead had cleared to a pale, winter blue, leaving them in a bright patch of sunlight even as cold drops continued to rain down.
"Arthur, I really never meant to hurt you," Merlin continued, softer, speaking into the top of Arthur’s head. "You’re brave and just and smart and you care about your people. You trusted me with your life and you protected me even though I was just your servant, but I did a horrible thing and I betrayed that trust. I’m the only one to blame for what happened, not you. I turned you into something you’re not, something you never should have become. I made you into a monster and it wasn’t you, it wasn’t you."
Arthur shifted in his arms and Merlin thought he heard the tail end of a wet inhale. Arthur’s voice was quiet when he spoke. "How can you know for sure?"
Merlin closed his eyes briefly. "You were right, I can’t say for certain how the future is going to turn out. But isn’t it better that we know about these things? Shouldn’t it mean that we’re already changing the outcome, just by knowing how it went wrong? You said you won’t become that man in my time, and I believe you. Completely. I trust you, Arthur, I always have. It just took me awhile to realize I should have acted on that trust sooner."
Arthur moved to step back and Merlin released him, the wet sleeves of his robes dragging his arms down to hang by his sides. They stood facing each other in silence for a long moment. Arthur’s eyes were lined with red but he looked calmer, more in control than he had when they’d been screaming at each other earlier.
"Why didn’t you?" he asked, and Merlin had to glance away. The intense blue of Arthur’s eyes was almost level with his own now.
"There were a lot of reasons. But I think, toward the end, I let there get to be so many that I forgot why I’d kept it from him in the first place. I didn’t want to leave him," he admitted, throat tightening.
Arthur said nothing for a moment, until Merlin felt a hand touch his shoulder. "I don’t think he would have wanted you to leave, either."
Merlin smiled uncertainly and shook his head. "I’ll never know for sure, will I?"
There was no answer for that which either of them could give, and Arthur let his hand fall away with a look of understanding that Merlin had never have expected to see on the Prince’s face. Merlin rubbed a hand across his eyes and blinked back the prickle he could feel stinging somewhere in their sockets. Things had been shared which could not be easily dismissed, and Merlin felt just as raw and open as Arthur was probably feeling at that moment. It was as if they were destined to constantly clash and wrangle each other’s lives in unpredictable and life altering ways.
"We should get that ring back to your father," Merlin said. Arthur looked down at the signet clutched in his hand, as if he’d forgotten it was there.
"I didn’t want to kill him," Arthur said softly. "But he knew who I was, too. I think they followed us into the forest just for the opportunity. One of us was bound to die in the encounter."
Merlin was brushing his hands down the front of his clothes, drying the fabric as they went, and he looked up to watch Arthur’s solemn countenance deepen into a frown. "I’m not one to judge when it comes to taking a life, but I think you did the right thing. He knew what he was getting into. You just happened to have a sorcerer on your side that doesn’t want to see you dead."
Arthur scoffed, but he was also smiling slightly. "A sorcerer who can’t obey even when he’s given a simple order."
"Let’s not get into that again," Merlin warned. He stepped around the Prince and placed a hand on his shoulder, drying the clothes under his touch, and felt Arthur shiver under his hand as the magic swept over him. "We should go before it starts raining again."
Arthur collected his sword and together they traveled to the edge of the forest, using the slope of the hill and the cover of the trees to circle back toward Camelot’s encampment on the northern side of the field. Merlin accompanied him as far as he could go before the risk of being spotted by scouts on the outskirts became too great. When they prepared to part ways, Merlin transformed back into the falcon while Arthur watched, which got him a pleasantly appropriate look of gobsmacked surprise. And then Arthur smirked.
"You do realize that you’ve changed into a merlin? How very unoriginal of you."
Merlin could only ruffle his feathers indignantly, even when in all honesty he hadn’t known exactly what sort of bird his magic had picked. It wasn’t something he would admit to the Prince anyway.
Arthur headed in the direction of his men and Merlin took off for the trees, but it was difficult to resist loitering around longer to make sure that the Prince arrived safely. He watched Arthur head straight for one of the posted sentries on the edge of the camp, and almost at once he was whisked off to one of the larger pavilions that held the Pendragon pennants draped alongside the entrance. Merlin watched as a messenger was dispatched toward the field of battle, and in less than a quarter hour a full garrison of knights on horseback charged back into the circle of tents, Uther in the lead with his helmet already off and in the hands of a waiting page as he dismounted and strode inside the tent. Merlin waited until Arthur emerged, almost an hour later, and watched as the Prince carried himself stiffly over to another moderately sized tent a short distance away from Uther’s. Less than a minute later a serving boy came stumbling out, looking surprised and bemused by his dismissal. The boy shuffled off toward one of the cooking fires, but didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry.
Merlin launched himself out from the trees and flew across the camp. He alighted on the ridgepole of Arthur’s tent and walked across the sturdy canvas to where a circular flap had been propped open, a thin line of smoke curling away from the brazier that sat inside on the floor. Merlin wiggled through the small opening and slipped inside.
Arthur was sitting on his pallet taking off his boots, and he looked up in surprise as Merlin practically tumbled into the tent and landed in an embarrassing heap of feathers on the floor. Arthur stared at him blankly for a moment, as if he’d forgotten exactly why there would be a merlin sitting by his feet and staring at him expectantly. Then he got up and moved to lace the ties on his entrance flap closed, and Merlin released the transformation.
"Well?" he asked quietly, though Arthur was still staring at him in surprise. "Oh come on, it’s not that impressive!"
"Look at it from my end someday," Arthur muttered, moving to sit on the edge of his cot again.
"So what happened?" Merlin whispered. He’d moved to join Arthur on the bed, which got him a frown for his impropriety that he ignored. "Is Uther going to call a truce?"
"He’s sent the ring with a messenger to Odin’s camp," Arthur said, peeling off his remaining boot and letting it thunk against the floor before he moved to stand. "Unless Wessex is some sort of half-wit, or a relation to you, he should accept the terms my father included along with the directions I provided to Reinald’s body."
"Oh, that’s a relief to hear," Merlin sighed. "I can’t tell you how worried everyone’s been back in Camelot. All of the servants walk around like we’re about to be attacked any day, and I don’t think the council members really have any clue what they’re doing without Uther there, and poor Morgana’s had nightmares almost every night since you left… oh bugger."
"What is it?" Arthur asked. He had his arms over his head and was attempting unsuccessfully to wriggle free of his chainmail.
Merlin got up to help pull off the heavy hauberk. "Erm, I may have… told Morgana and Gwen that I’m a sorcerer."
"You what?" Arthur yelled, but the shout was muffled as Merlin yanked the padded surcoat over his head. When Arthur emerged he was glowering and his hair was pulled up wildly in several directions. "Why would you tell Morgana? And who’s Gwen?" he hissed.
"Guinevere? She’s Morgana’s maidservant. And um… well it couldn’t be helped. I was rushing off to save your life. If it hadn’t been for Morgana, I wouldn’t have… erm, well I suppose I have to tell you as well."
"Tell me what?" Arthur demanded, crossing his arms.
"Okay, but you can’t get mad, because this wasn’t my secret to tell. And don’t yell anymore or you’ll bring the guards running over here," Merlin cautioned. He bit his lip. "It’s Morgana. She’s has magic. She’s a Seer, actually. I mean she has visions of the future. In my time she would have nightmares that would come true, but because she didn’t know how to control her powers she would only see them as dreams. And it seems like it’s happening the same way now because she had one last night, of you dying in that forest, Arthur. That’s how I knew to come find you."
"God, Merlin," Arthur groaned, turning away, and he dropped his head into his hand. "What will it be next? Is half of the Camelot secretly populated with sorcerers? Next you’ll tell me my own father is one!"
"Stop making so much noise," Merlin hissed, waving his hands frantically. "And no, I’m pretty sure that’s all of them." He raised his eyebrows sheepishly when Arthur came back around to face him, frowning. He didn’t look angry at least, which was a relief. "You won’t say anything, right?"
"Of course not," Arthur sighed in exasperation. He sunk down to sit on his pallet once more. "But I want you to tell me exactly how many people know about this. About all of it."
Merlin wrung his hands and joined Arthur on the bed again so he could speak quietly. "Well, Gaius is really the only one who knows everything. He cornered me the first night I came to Camelot and interrogated it all out of me. It was a bit unnerving, actually. You know, of course. Morgana and Gwen only know that I’m a sorcerer, though I told Gaius to fill them both in when I left, so I imagine that means all five of us know now. About myself and the future and Morgana."
Arthur rubbed his brow tiredly. "Alright, but I refuse to allow this to go any further. The more people who know, the more danger you’re placing yourselves in. I feel I’ll have a hard enough time protecting you lot from my father as it is."
"Some of us can take care of ourselves," Merlin said mulishly. "Who’s saved whose life more times than the other, huh?"
"As if you could let me forget it," Arthur said as he stood, but there was a hint of a smirk around his mouth. He walked to the opposite side of the tent to pour a cup of water from a pewter jug left in the corner, and drank heavily enough to warrant a refill shortly after.
Outside the tent came the perpetual noises of horses and the jangle of tack and boots moving across the ground, and off in the distance Merlin could hear shouting and the cries of the wounded. The air smelled damp from the recently fallen rain and smoky from the cooking fires, but inside the tent the air was cool with the touch of winter, and Merlin could feel how hard packed and solid the earth was under his feet. He ran his hand over the bundle of furs that were serving as a top blanket on Arthur’s bed, only half-aware that he was pressing magic into the mattress and blankets to thicken and plump them for better protection against the chill. When he looked up Arthur was watching him with acute exasperation.
"Um, you know, so you don’t get too cold," Merlin explained, flushing. He dusted off his hands and stood. "I suppose I better get going. I’m sure Gaius and the others are worried."
Arthur had put down his cup, and he approached Merlin until they were facing each other. "Thank you, for your help earlier," he said, inclining his head slightly.
Merlin smiled, warmed by the unexpected praise. "I’m just glad I got there in time to help. You should thank Morgana when you get back to Camelot."
Arthur nodded again. "I shall remember to."
When neither one moved, Merlin shifted on his feet. "Um, you weren’t injured earlier, were you? I forgot to ask in all of the… well, the after. Do you need me to look at anything?"
Arthur rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Merlin was gearing up for a retort when Arthur’s hand grabbed the front of his robes and hauled him forward and down. Arthur’s dry lips mashed against his clumsily, cutting off Merlin’s small yelp of surprise. Merlin’s nose had gotten crushed against Arthur’s cheek, but the fist under his chin prevented him from moving even that little bit. Merlin let out a muffled sound and Arthur scraped his teeth across his bottom lip once, roughly, and Merlin found it even more difficult to draw in a breath.
Arthur released him with a shove that sent Merlin stumbling back two steps, gaping and blinking in confusion. Arthur’s cheeks were pink and his chest was hitching for air like he’d just sprinted around the campsite. He licked his mouth, once, and smirked, which sent an uncomfortable flutter through Merlin’s stomach and down to his toes.
"Better hurry back, then," Arthur said gruffly.
Merlin didn’t even pause to think about what spell to use - between one blink and the next he found himself on eye-level with the floor, and he scampered with all due haste out of Arthur’s tent, bushy tail bristling and squeaking unintelligently the whole way.
[ Part VIII]
[ Part VI]
(Part VII)
It took an entire day, from before sunrise until just after sunset, for Camelot’s army to march out of sight of the castle, and somewhere along the massive line of moving bodies Arthur was riding out in his gleaming armor with no concept or understanding of the danger he was charging headlong into. Merlin watched the last battalion until they were nothing more than a dark, indistinguishable smudge on the horizon, and when he looked down from his tower he saw two more figures on the battlements doing the same. Lady Morgana’s head was recognizable even at a distance in the fading light, and her long skirts fluttered helplessly like a pennant in the wind, so dark they were nearly black against the washed white stone of the castle. Another figure stood pressed at her side in a simple homespun dress and with a mess of curly ringlets tied at their nape, and Merlin all at once missed the liberty he’d once had to stand down there beside them, to draw comfort from Gwen’s gentle presence and Morgana’s proud fortitude. Their strength would have been welcome when all Merlin wished to do was grab a horse and chase after the army that had slipped over the horizon.
Life was subdued in the castle for the first few weeks and Merlin passed many conversations in the halls being carried out with whispers and long silences. Everyone seemed to move slower and more carefully about their daily activities, as if one wrong step might inadvertently change the outcome of the reports that began arriving after the first week. The infrequent news never offered clarification one way or another on the true status of the war - the armies had engaged, the fighting had stalled, Odin had given ground, Uther’s men were pressed back, etcetera - and there was never mention of when the fighting would be coming to an end. Winter was a few months off yet, but the waning season had already begun leaving the nights a bit cooler, turning the constellations a little further along their circular path, and Merlin prayed that Uther was not foolish enough to risk a campaign between two armies in the snow.
A month passed, then two, and somewhere in the interim Arthur’s fifteenth birthday slipped by without the pomp and celebration that years past had seen. Merlin spent the day fearing that Arthur was celebrating his birthright on the wrong end of a javelin or an ill-thrust sword, once more wondering if he should have disobeyed the Prince and come along anyway. Regular reports of the war came in steadily almost once a week that inevitably filtered through the castle network; counts of the dead and notices of the honorable deaths of knights and the Pendragon’s personal guardsmen that had given their lives for their kingdom, but thankfully never news of the Prince or King’s demise in battle. Additional missives would also occasionally arrive with the lists of the dead, postscript mentions of lesser known individuals, serfs drafted into combat or townsmen that had joined the fight along the way, and somewhere in there Merlin thought he saw Arthur’s hand, defying convention in an attempt to give just tribute to all that had fallen in battle and not just those of noble birth. As long as those notes arrived with each breathless messenger, Merlin slept a little easier at night. Which was to say, still not much at all.
It was more difficult than he had expected to be among those left behind, to be confined to a castle that felt a hundred times emptier without its sovereign present. The Curia Regia had remained as acting figureheads until Uther’s return, and for the most part all of the servants and cooks and chambermaids had remained at their posts - but the guards were staffed at a third of their normal numbers, and from the highest turrets to the low town, the undercurrent of fear that drifted among the people tainted the air with a sense of apprehension that was unnerving. Simply moving about the city on his errands was enough to bring the gravity of the situation to heel, to see the long faces on the women who wondered if their husbands and sons and brothers would return at all, to watch children abandoning their careless games for groups of hushed congress, heads bowed and eyes haunted by a kind of disquiet that no child should have had cause to feel at that age. Merlin had hated war then and he hated it now, both for the cost of lives and for those who were too often left behind to pick up the shattered pieces. But most of all Merlin hated being left behind when he could be somewhere else doing the most good, saving lives instead of delivering potions for warts and poultices for scraped knuckles, and each day that passed felt more suffocating than the last.
In an unexpected turn of events, Merlin found himself sharing meals with Morgana not long after the army had departed, who seemed more at ease with vacating her chambers now that the castle had lost its King and Prince to borderlands beyond Camelot’s sight. It had begun as a few chance meetings outside of Gaius’ chambers during the first week, often just as Merlin was arriving to share supper with the physician and Morgana was on her way out, eyes looking hollow and tired, haunted by whatever nightmares and visions were being fueled by the war. While never exceptionally close to Morgana, Merlin had always been plagued by an acute feeling of sympathy for the woman, despite what disparagements the dragon had frequently cast upon her in their conversations. Perhaps it was the state of seeing her so unnerved, still unaware of the true origin of her reoccurring night terrors (Gaius had still not told her the truth, despite Merlin’s advice), or perhaps it was the memories he’d retained of an embittered woman, who had stood alongside the Druids with a sword in hand and cleaved remorselessly through Camelot’s soldiers - but something halted Merlin the third time they bumped into each other in such a manner, and he found himself inviting her to stay.
What began as a whim had turned into a frequent gathering, and a few days later Morgana brought along her new maidservant, a shy and soft spoken Guinevere that blushed with very little prompting and was utterly devoted to her Lady’s every need. Morgana seemed to adore her and spent more time affectionately teasing and coddling the younger girl than treating her like a servant, which only made Gwen blush harder and fall into the familiar stammer that Merlin had quickly grown fond of after meeting her in the future. Merlin had only occasionally passed the quiet girl in the castle halls over the last few months, and they had rarely made eye contact and never spoken during the chance encounters. Gwen’s naturally shy disposition had always prompted her to nod deferentially in passing before continuing on her way, and Merlin had always felt a pang of guilt upon seeing his old friend, too many memories of darker times, the loss of her father and her Lady and her constants in life. To have her sitting across from him and Gaius at the supper table did not dull the edge of regret that Merlin felt when he thought of how thoroughly her innocence would be snatched away in a few years, if Fate really was the inexorable mistress she had proven to be thus far, and the weight of that knowledge gave his disposition a somber edge during these nightly meetings.
Coupled with his worry over Arthur’s safety on the battlefield and his own resentment over being banned from lending his aid, Merlin knew that he was not the most desirable character to be around, and the vaguely sympathetic looks Gaius had been giving him since the army had left the castle spoke volumes. In the mysterious ways that women have these were picked up by both girls in short order, and pretty soon Merlin found himself surrounded by indulgent smiles and soft hands that would pat him at random moments with awkward promises of everything turning out all right. Most of the time the conversation could be on something entirely unrelated and it would still garner these responses, which baffled as much as warmed him at first from their open affection, but after a time Merlin realized that his face had to be permanently stuck in some expression of melancholy to prompt the actions so often. Truthfully, there was something cathartic in being surrounded by company that he considered to be among his closest friends, and as the weeks went on he tried to tell himself that their support was making the hours and the days more bearable. This was probably a lie, but Merlin felt that they deserved the credit for trying so hard anyway.
Samhain came and went on a wet and chilly night, and Merlin, Gaius, Morgana, and Gwen had all gathered in the physician’s room by some unspoken agreement, collectively huddled around a flickering hearth and listening to the pop of sap as each drew their own kind of comfort from the company at hand. Morgana and Gwen had sat huddled under a shared blanket, their loose hair spilling and tangling together in a dark curtain, and Merlin and Gaius had shared a bench, shoulders pressed in silent companionship. In soft words they’d each taken turns speaking of the dead, sharing treasured memories and giving life to moments that were sometimes bittersweet and sometimes beautiful. Morgana had spoken of the joyful years at her father’s side and her regret that she had not been closer to her mother before she died. She’d also confessed her resentment at being expected to conform to the role of a noble woman when her father had allowed her to train like a knight, and in the end she had cried on Gwen’s shoulder for the man so recently snatched away from her life. Gwen had shared what hazy memories of her mother she could piece together, a kind woman that had always smelled of lavender and the soap the laundresses used in the castle, and voiced her fears that her father would never find another to love as deeply as he had loved her. Gaius expressed his regret for the loss of friends and family and allies he had been unable to save over the years, and it was unspoken that many of these had perished at Uther’s hand. And in a fit of silent mourning, Merlin had stubbornly brushed away tear tracks each time another fell for the countless deaths he had been responsible for, and by some unspoken understanding the others had let him be.
*~*~*
It hadn’t begun snowing but sometimes Merlin could swear that the air felt cold enough for it. His warming spell would often wear off during the night and no matter how diligently he banked the coals in the stove they would be out by morning, which often left him shivering and watching cloudy puffs of air escape his lips as he dressed. The tower was not the most pleasant place to be in the wintertime and he rarely hesitated to bundle up in his robes, usually placing a good three or four layers on underneath, and a few socks between his toes and his boots for good measure. The cold always had a way of making him feel restless anyway, like the sting against his skin was a sharp reminder to keep moving, and as long as his feet and fingers were well protected he looked forward to the sudden cold snaps and the way it seemed to hold the world in suspension without him needing to use magic to get the same result.
There had been no official word yet of Camelot’s army returning for the winter, but from what tidbits had been leaked from the last few reports, Merlin thought it was easy to detect an undercurrent of impatience on Uther’s behalf to have this war either brought to an end or for a cessation to be declared. Both kings seemed particularly stubborn, which was not as surprising as one might have thought, and Merlin had heard no word of Odin or Uther broaching the topic of calling for a truce or for a peace treaty to be drafted between their kingdoms. Merlin did not know what history or underlying hostilities sat between the two kings, but nothing in his mind seemed dire enough to justify sending off hundreds of men to die for a disagreement, as the weeks dragged on it seemed like this was a war that was not going to be won within a single season, and that was perhaps the most distressing realization of all.
On a frosty morning still a few weeks before mid-winter, Merlin took himself to the kitchens to collect breakfast for Gaius and himself, feeling sympathetic for the man’s aging bones that were no doubt giving him pains on such a cold day, especially if the illusion of age on his own frame was anything to go by. He’d been able to smell the grease of cooking fat not even halfway across the castle, and once drawn in by the scent he managed to coax the head chef into giving him a couple of the warm mince pies and jelly rolls they’d baked that morning. Merlin took his spoils along the corridors to the physician’s rooms, chewing on one of the smaller pies as he walked and paying the price for his impatience by burning his fingertips on the steaming pastry. It was worth it to taste the tender meat as it fell apart on his tongue, and Merlin decided that hot pies were another reason he genuinely enjoyed the winter season; living in a castle with its well-stocked kitchens made even being tutor to the Prince a desirable occupation. Not that he would ever share that sentiment with anyone, ever.
Merlin was fingering one of the warm, glazed fruit rolls when he reached Gaius’ rooms, and he pushed open the door absently without bothering to knock. This not only made his entrance go unnoticed initially, but also brought him up short when he’d taken a few steps and realized that Gaius was not alone.
"-m so sorry," Gwen was saying, her soft voice pitched with worry and her hands fluttering helplessly in the air. Her clothes were rumpled and some of her brown curls had fallen out of the tie at her nape. It didn’t look she’d been awake for very long. "I didn’t know what else to do. She was… and then… I didn’t…"
"It’s alright my dear, you did the right thing," Gaius said soothingly, placing both hands on her arms to still her nervous movements. Gwen’s palms moved to clasp in front of her, fingers twisting together with worry, and her head bowed as her shoulders shook on an indrawn breath.
"What happened?" Merlin demanded, closing the door and stepping toward the group. Only then did he notice the third figure in the room, hidden by the fall of Gwen’s skirts. Morgana sat on a stool swaddled in a thick blanket, looking pale and haunted, her shoulders hunched and knuckles white where she clenched the folds of the blanket in her hands. Her hair was in disarray and Merlin could see that her eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed, as though she’d been crying.
"Merlin," Gaius said as he turned, sounding surprised but not upset by Merlin’s presence. He looked back to Gwen. "Please stay by her side Guinevere, I need to speak to Merlin."
Gwen nodded and crouched down on the floor next to Morgana, prying the girl’s fingers off the blanket so she could clasp her hand in hers, and began speaking softly in an undertone to the distressed woman.
Gaius approached Merlin and drew him aside to speak out of earshot. "Gwen brought Morgana to me this morning," he explained in an undertone. "Apparently Morgana awoke screaming, and she was almost inconsolable. She’s been near catatonic since they both arrived."
"She had a vision," Merlin said in understanding.
"Yes, I believe so. But I do not know the cause of it, and she has not spoken once."
"If it’s that bad…" Merlin wondered aloud. "Do you think it has anything to do with the war? Could she have seen something terrible happening?"
"I fear-"
"No!" Morgana gasped behind them, and both Merlin and Gaius turned in surprise.
"My Lady?" Gwen asked worriedly. "My Lady what is it?"
"No, Arthur!" Morgana whimpered, her eyes wide and seeing something else beyond the walls of Gaius’ chambers.
Merlin quickly stepped away from Gaius and placed the plate of food on a table before he moved to crouch down in front of Morgana, putting him at eyelevel with the girl. "Morgana?" he asked softly, but she did not appear to hear him. "Morgana, it’s alright. You’re safe. You don’t have to be afraid. Just tell us what you saw. We can’t help if you don’t tell us."
"What do you-?" Gwen began to ask, but Gaius stepped up behind her and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder to quiet her.
"It’s alright my dear," he said. "Can you help her, Merlin?"
Merlin looked up and shrugged a bit helplessly. "I can try."
Gwen placed her other hand atop the one already clasping Morgana’s and squeezed the girl’s wrist reassuringly. She looked near tears. "Please, Morgana. It’s us. We’re here to help you."
"Morgana," Merlin said again, and he reached up to turn the girl’s face toward him. Her eyes were almost pale green in the light and an a few unshed tears were stuck to the corners of her lashes. "You must tell us what you saw."
"They were all dead," she whispered after a long moment, voice tremulous. "So much blood, and Arthur… he- no, I don’t want to see it!" Morgana covered her face with her hands, shoulders hunched and shaking.
Gwen moved to hug the distraught girl and Merlin sat back on his heels. "I don’t know if she can tell us anything more."
"Perhaps a mild sedative?" Gaius suggested, moving off to one of his shelves.
Merlin watched Gwen rock Morgana in the circle of her arms, speaking soothing words into the girl’s hair, and he couldn’t help envying Gwen’s unyielding loyalty to her Lady. Gwen possessed a strength unmatched by most, and her heart was one of the most generous and caring he’d ever met in his life - it might even be strong enough to carry Morgana’s secret without destroying her devotion to the other girl. Merlin knew all too well that how truly devastating lies could become if left to fester for too long, and the thought of watching Gwen and Morgana suffering that existence twisted him inside with guilt.
Gaius returned with a small corked vial, which he handed to Gwen. With Merlin’s help, they coaxed Morgana into consuming the draught, and all three collectively watched as the potion’s effects took hold over the course of a few minutes. Morgana’s breathing slowed by increments and her hands loosened their iron clutch on the blanket and Gwen’s hand, until eventually her eyes grew half-lidded and soft as the drug took hold.
"Morgana?" Merlin inquired again. Her attention turned onto him slowly, and a look of brief confusion crossed her face before it cleared into recognition.
"Merlin," she said softly. Her lips curved into a hint of a smile, though she sounded barely lucid enough to speak.
Merlin smiled back. "Hello. You had a bad dream last night, do you remember? You saw something terrible happen to Arthur. Can you tell me what happened?"
Morgana shook her head slowly before tipping it back to look up at the ceiling. Her eyes seemed to glaze over further. "I saw blood," she said in a near whisper. "And rain falling on the earth. There was… it was a scouting party. They were looking for something, but they weren’t alone. There were men hiding in the forest - they’d seen them coming. They walked right by them, hiding in the trees. They didn’t see it was a trap. Arthur… he tried to, but there were too many of them. So much blood!" she gasped, and Merlin and Gaius exchanged concerned looks as Gwen moved in to cup Morgana’s cheek and force her attention away from whatever she was remembering.
"Please stop," Gwen pleaded, looking at Merlin. He nodded and rose to stand, refocusing on Gaius.
"I think we know enough now," he said. "We don’t know when but… I think it’s easy enough to guess where, and how. I’ll have to leave immediately."
"What are you saying?" Gwen interrupted. She looked confused and almost angry, one arm around Morgana’s back as the girl leaned into the hold and dropped her head against her maidservant’s shoulder. "Why are you speaking like that? They’re just dreams."
Gaius’ eyebrows had begun to narrow in warning as Merlin opened his mouth to answer, but Merlin paid it no heed. He loved the physician like a father, but relying on the man to combat even more years of fear and prejudice than Merlin had suffered through was something he’d come to realize he could not do. "They’re not dreams. Morgana has the gift of Sight, to see visions of future events. She may become a very powerful witch someday, but she’s not yet strong enough to control them, which is why they come to her as dreams."
Gwen gaped in surprise, but did not release her hold on Morgana’s swaying form. Gaius looked thoroughly shocked that Merlin had so easily revealed the truth, but Merlin felt absolutely no regret for his actions.
"You’ve been wonderful, Gwen," he said, smiling at the girl. "Morgana has needed someone to care for her, and you’ve been the best friend she could have ever asked for. I know that you will continue to look out for her, and keep her ability a secret, won’t you?"
Gwen did not hesitate to nod earnestly. "Of... of course I will."
"Good! I had a feeling you would feel that way. Gaius, I would love to stick around and explain in more detail, but I should probably go and stop Arthur from getting himself killed. When Morgana’s more herself, tell her thank you for me, please? And please don’t keep her abilities a secret any longer; she has a right to know what’s going on more than anyone. If we’re going to keep Arthur alive and prevent Camelot from falling to pieces, we’re going to need her powers, maybe even more so than my own. And Gwen," he said, looking at the girl whose wide eyes were fixed on Merlin like he was speaking another language entirely. "Thank you, again. If there were anyone who I would choose to share my secret with, it would be you. You are the most loyal friend and the bravest person I’ve ever met, and I only wish I could have shared all of this with you sooner. Gaius will explain everything while I’m gone."
Merlin walked over to stand in the emptiest corner of the room, and nodded once toward the three figures who were watching him with varying degrees of surprise and wonder. He lifted his hand toward the ceiling. "Biddan ástelle büfan campstede!"
As the whirlwind leapt up to sweep him away, he thought he heard Gaius’ voice through the maelstrom. "Oh dear, I think he meant to say birihte."
*~*~*
It was the sudden expanse of blue surrounding him, rather than the lingering weightlessness and the strong winds still ripping at his clothes, which cued Merlin into something being wrong. He twisted around, only to find himself flipping helplessly end over end, battling a sudden gut-wrenching sense of nausea. Focusing on one thing was nearly impossible, but he managed to catch glimpses of a broad plateau of brown and gray, cut by a flat horizon of misty blue tipping in and out of his sight, and rushing up to meet him with an alarming speed. He was falling, falling fast and hard like a stone.
He wasn’t aware that he was shouting the words, but in the span of one heartbeat to the next he was jerked back, like a hand yanking hard on the neck of his robes, and all of the colors were suddenly brighter and sharper. He stretched his arms, flapping frantically, and let out a shrill call of relief that pierced the sky as his wings beat against the air and flattened his descent. The earth was no longer a muddy mirage of color, but a moving morass of bodies engaged in combat, swords and spear tips gleaming in the air and reflecting the morning sunlight.
Merlin coasted to catch his breath and adjust to the new sensations of sight and sound and smells, feeling the cold wind ripple over his feathers and tasting the scent of blood and smoke, thick and telling on the air. He drifted lower, riding the gusts of wind and pushing through the updrafts, until he could hear the shouting of men and the high whinny of horses being brought down in the mud. There were no individual faces to be made out in the melee and all of the colors held a sharp aura around them, like afterimages blurred one over the other, making it impossible to make out which men belonged to which army. He flew, swooping and gliding, waiting for a glimmer of recognition, a sign, something that would let him know he wasn’t too late.
The broad field was hemmed in by gently sloping hills, and there were wooded areas on their lee sides where the armies had not cut through for wood and timber to be burned. His sharp eyes caught a glimmer in one of the groves, no more than a momentary flash of metal glinting off the sun, and Merlin shifted to circle around and head for the canopy of trees. By the time he’d reached the forest the sounds of the battle being waged just on the opposite side of the knoll were muted with the distance, the tangy scent of blood no more than a memory on the wind as the trees rose up to meet him.
He managed to slip in through the trees without mishap and found a sturdy branch to perch on, which gave him a halfway decent view of the interior of the wood. There were sounds here above the usual noise of nature, bird calls and the rustle of leaves and brush and the quiet hum of insects, a faint clamor and voices somewhere off nearby but not far. Merlin winged his way through the upper boughs, pausing every so often to clutch at a branch and listen, and finally his journey ended above a gruesome looking tableau.
Two groups were fighting through the dense undergrowth and Merlin could see there were men hidden behind trees with crossbows in hand, letting loose fast flying bolts upon those that were running for shelter. In the middle a couple of stalwart figures were fighting with swords and maces and axes, but it was clear that the latter group was outnumbered and falling quickly. And there in the middle, open to the worst of the danger, was a familiar blond head fending off three men that were intent on pushing Arthur around to expose his back to the bowmen. It was an ambush, just like the one Morgana had seen in her dream, but Merlin had no time to think or wonder what had brought Arthur out here so far away from the battle. He dropped from his perch and let the spell dissipate as his feet touched the ground.
There was a satisfying splintering of wood as Merlin stepped out from around the tree, and he heard the shocked cries as the snipers suddenly found their crossbows shattering in their hands. No one had noticed him yet and Merlin ran to circle around behind Wessex’s men, chanting words under his breath the made his skin tingle and hum with the rush of magic as it fell to his bidding. There was a tearing sound underfoot, earth and roots parting, and then the screams came in earnest. Merlin only caught flashes of limbs and heads disappearing out of sight as the men were pulled into the ground, a trick he’d been looking forward to using again since sending the last of the bandits that had kidnapped Arthur to their early graves. By the time he’d dispatched with the last of the soldiers either hiding in the brush or attempting to run away as they watched their comrades disappear to the clutches of the earth, Merlin had reached a scene that made his heart stutter with cold dread.
Arthur was barely standing, squaring off against two men who looked more than capable of taking down the Prince where he stood. He was tripping backwards under their blows, only managing to barely keep them at bay with his sword, shield gone and probably somewhere far off and forgotten. The third man lay dead some a short distance away, but the rest of Camelot’s scouting party seemed to have either run off or been killed entirely, leaving only Arthur and his two opponents. All three were kitted in the heavy armor befitting a knight, which did not bode well for Arthur’s chances of surviving. Only Arthur and one of his adversaries had abandoned their helmets, coifs pushed back to expose their faces, and Merlin could see even at a distance that the Prince was panting heavily and flushed with sweat and exhaustion.
Merlin rooted around behind one of the trees until he found a discarded crossbow bolt, and with a whispered word sent it flying toward the other bare headed man, who was in the middle of swinging an axe around toward Arthur’s exposed side. It slid straight through the man’s skull and he dropped to the ground where he stood, blood gushing out of his temple where the bolt had found its home. Both Arthur and his final opponent turned in surprise to look for the source of the arrow and Merlin did not hesitate to step into the clearing, hood thrown back and eyes glowing gold.
"Put down your weapon, and I will spare your life," Merlin called out, advancing slowly toward the pair.
There was a tense moment where neither man moved, the forest eerily silent with absence of swords clashing and men crying out, and Merlin’s attention remained focused on the last remaining man, who was outfitted in armor that was as equally blood splattered and dirty as Arthur’s own. But in a completely unexpected move, Arthur lunged with his sword drawn back, and Merlin watched in surprise as the Prince shoved the blade home through the vulnerable side of the knight’s breastplate before the man could even turn to parry the thrust. The larger man went down with a pained grunt and did not move as Arthur withdrew the length of his sword, the end dripping blood upon the forest floor.
"I was pretty sure he was going to surrender," Merlin said somewhat disbelievingly. "Was that really necessary?"
Arthur turned slowly to look at Merlin, and there was nothing in his expression but tired eyes framed in a face that looked thinner than Merlin remembered. The Prince’s chest was heaving and his hair was matted with sweat and dried blood and dirt, and without saying a word he sank to his knees, one hand on the pommel of his sword as the tip sunk into the earth. Merlin hurried over to his side.
"What’s wrong? Are you hurt?" Merlin crouched beside him, hands hovering uncertainly in the air.
Arthur blew out a deep breath and Merlin saw that he’d shut his eyes. When he remained motionless and said nothing, Merlin began to grow slightly alarmed.
"Arthur, what are you doing?" he asked warily.
Arthur seemed to be trying to control his breathing, and it took a moment before he answered him. "I’m hoping that when I open my eyes you will have gained to good sense to go away and leave me be."
Now Merlin was even more confused. "That’s an awfully ungrateful thing to say when I just saved your life."
At this, Arthur blinked his eyes and looked aside to glare at Merlin. "And I had explicitly told you that your services were not needed."
"Look, if you’re worried someone’s going to go running back to tell the King that a sorcerer saved your life, I’m pretty sure that all of your men are dead. Which you would have ended up being as well if I hadn’t come, so I’d appreciate a little more gratitude and a little less of your prat side, if it pleases you, sire," he bit out sarcastically.
Arthur hung his head once more and sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if you know who I am," he said tiredly.
"A pain in my backside," Merlin retorted as he reached out to wrap an arm around Arthur’s shoulders. It was a good sign that Arthur didn’t shake him off as he helped him to stand, and mostly out of habit Merlin began tugging at the leather buckles to loosen the heavy armor. Arthur seemed to have suffered another growth spurt while he’d been away, and Merlin was surprised to realize that he could only barely see the top of the Prince’s head as he stood behind him. When he’d gotten the chest piece and spaulders off, Arthur stepped away to approach the knight he’d slain, and he crouched down beside the body to pull off the man’s right glove.
"Who was he?" Merlin asked curiously.
Arthur slipped a heavy looking ring off the man’s middle finger and held it up to the light. "Reinald of Wessex, Odin’s oldest son."
Merlin blinked in surprise. "Oh, so that means…"
"It means there might be a way to bring this battle to an end."
Despite what reassurances this should have brought, Arthur’s face was still grim and shuttered, and Merlin shifted from side to side. "Should we do something with the body?" he asked after a moment.
"No," Arthur said, rising and walking back toward Merlin to pull his sword free from the ground. "We’ll let Odin’s men deal with it. The son of a King deserves a proper funeral."
"Right," Merlin agreed absently, glancing back at the still body and its lonely ungloved hand. Something about the situation still felt off, like a worrying ache that he wanted to probe at longer until it revealed its true cause. Arthur was already stumbling off through the underbrush away from the battle site, and Merlin turned to catch up with the Prince’s halting steps. "Um, Arthur, your armor?"
Arthur ignored him and kept walking, and Merlin was forced to keep pace or be left behind. He cleared his throat. "I take it the fighting’s not going so well?"
"Whatever gave you that impression," Arthur replied dryly, using the flat side of his sword to part the way through a denser patch of brush.
"No one’s thinking of calling a truce? Winter’s going to set in any day now." Merlin shivered as a telling gust of colder wind whisked through the trees, and he looked up to see a patch of gray clouds had rolled in across the sky. Morgana had said there would be rain.
Arthur didn’t reply and continued to walk just slightly ahead. Merlin tried not to feel frustrated, but enduring months of the same sort of silent treatment had worn on his soul, and the last encounter they’d had before Arthur had left Camelot hadn’t faded from his mind as much as he would have liked. And all of it seemed so childish now when Arthur had been seconds away from losing his life not a few minutes earlier, and Merlin didn’t understand how a person could just shrug that off and not see how foolish it was to continue carrying around whatever lingering anger they felt.
"Arthur-" Merlin began, but Arthur whirled around to cut him off.
"What are you still doing here?" he demanded. "You’ve done your business and now you’re free to leave."
"I can’t make sure you get back to your camp safely?" Merlin asked, bristling. "I promise to keep out of sight, if you’re that worried about being spotted in the company of a sorcerer."
Arthur scowled, and the first fat raindrops began to fall on the forest floor. "You’ve seen what was necessary, and while your efforts to play at my keeper are commendable, I can promise you that your devotion to the task is unwarranted. Go home, Merlin."
"Now just wait a minute," Merlin protested as Arthur turned to go. "I really did just save your life back there, can’t you at least say a ‘thank you’ before kicking me off?"
"Only if it will make you leave me alone!" Arthur said. He looked tired and angry and though Merlin couldn’t say why, something in him rebelled at the expression. Arthur wasn’t allowed to act like he was the only one hurt by all of this.
"I don’t know why I even bother," Merlin snapped, a petty and twisted coil of hurt unfurling inside him. "If you’re that ashamed of me, if you’re that sick of me, why don’t you tell me to leave!"
"I am telling you to leave!" Arthur yelled. The rain had begun falling harder and in collectively heavier drops from the tiers of leaves overhead. "I told you not to come, but you did anyway. I told you I could take care of myself, but now you’ve seen to that so you can go back to changing the future or whatever it is you’re here to do. Just leave me out of it!"
Merlin blanched, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. "You can’t mean that."
"Why wouldn’t I?" Arthur asked, stepping closer to him. "You spent the first year we knew each other lying to me!"
"But not about the important things! I taught you all about magic and you were okay with it! Why did that have to change just because you found out I can do it, too? I said I was sorry months ago but you hardly even look at me anymore! How am I supposed to get you to trust me again if you won’t even talk to me?"
"To do what?" Arthur shouted. "So you can change the future? So you can stop me from murdering hundreds of people, from sending my own men to their deaths? You’ve already decided it’s going to happen, so what’s the point!"
"But that’s not the point!" Merlin insisted. That worrying ache was getting stronger, like a bruise that couldn’t help wanting to be pushed and poked at. Arthur’s blond hair was plastered to his head and Merlin could feel the cold water running down under the collar of his robe. "I came back to make sure that you didn’t hate magic this time, you idiot!"
Arthur let out a frustrated sounding growl. "It was never about that, and you know it! You’re just going to keep on following me and watching me, waiting for me to cock it up, and you’re never going to leave me alone even when I’m telling you to go away. You don’t care about anything else and you’re never going to let me forget about it and I wish you’d never told me!"
"No, wait… what?" Merlin asked, blinking through the curtain of rain. Arthur’s face was twisted up harshly and his cheeks were flushed high with color again. Something was trying to slot into place, something that Merlin could feel he’d been missing while so wrapped up in his own fears and regrets. "The only thing I’ve only been waiting for is for you to finally forgive me! I can’t change who I am. It’s only messed up because you can’t seem to get past that!"
"Why should I care when you’re just waiting for me to lose my mind!" Arthur yelled. His hands were balled into fists and he looked seconds away from throwing a punch at Merlin’s face.
"What are you-" Merlin started, and then it came to him - so crystal clear that he could have hit himself for taking so long to realize that they’d been arguing on two completely different tangents all along. "Wait, you think… Arthur it’s not like that!"
"Isn’t it?" he demanded, swinging the sword through a wild arc in the air. "You came back to fix the past, to stop Camelot from going to war. You said it was my fault!"
"No, Arthur, wait," he tried, stepping toward the young man, but Arthur was stumbling back, sword tip dragging through the mud under his feet. "Stop, listen to me! That future I told you about - it’s not set in stone. Those things won’t happen. It was just one of many paths, one of many possibilities. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen for certain. Things are already changing! Can’t you see that?"
"And how am I supposed to live with myself?" Arthur hollered, sounding suddenly so raw with anguish that it stopped Merlin in his tracks. "You told me that I… that I did all of those horrible things, to my own people! What kind of King could I hope to be, when somewhere inside me there’s this terrible thing that can kill without remorse or reason? I don’t even know who I am anymore!"
It was as if months of silence were abruptly making sense, and Merlin knew he was realizing too late how terribly wrong he had been all along. He’d been so fixated on his own secret, on the thing that had broken he and Arthur’s relationship in the past, that he hadn’t been able to see much it must have traumatized Arthur to discover that there existed a part of him that could destroy his own people for the sake of revenge. "Arthur…" Merlin pleaded. "You can’t think like that. It wasn’t even his fault. I’m as much to blame for what happened. That future doesn’t even exist yet!"
"You don’t know that, you said you didn’t know anything for sure. I don’t want that future. I won’t become a murderer! I won’t!" Arthur shouted, raindrops and tears flying from his lips with every choked word.
Merlin tried to approach him again but Arthur staggered back with a sob and attempted to backhand him away, the edge of his gauntlet catching him across the shoulder in a glancing blow. Merlin winced from the pain and, in an uncharacteristic move, abandoned all attempts to be gentle and lunged instead, knocking Arthur back hard enough that he dropped his sword before they regained their footing. Arthur struggled heroically against the tight hold at first, but the wet chainmail and his drenched surcoat and the force of the falling rain made movement extremely difficult, and Merlin could feel exhaustion and something more painful wracking the Prince’s limbs. He gathered him closer, wrapping his arms around his shoulders to hold him firmly against his chest, and felt more than heard Arthur let out a final, wrenching scream against the wet fabric of his shoulder.
"God, Arthur, I’m so sorry," Merlin apologized, running one hand across any parts of Arthur’s exposed skin that he could find - atop his bowed head, pushing through the soaked strands, behind his ear and his cheek and the chilled curve of his jaw. "It’s alright. You’re not him. You’re not. It won’t ever; it’ll never be you. I will make sure of it, I swear on my life."
Arthur’s hands were fisted in his robes and Merlin felt the motion as he shook his head in denial. He shifted to place his hand on the back of Arthur’s neck. "Listen to me, Arthur. I didn’t come to the past to tell you about the stupid decisions you made later in life. I came back because I’m the one that messed everything up. Everything was my fault, the war, the deaths, betraying you, letting Camelot go to war - I did it. I’m responsible for all of it and I have lived with those regrets every day of my life, but none of it was your fault. Do you understand me? None of it."
"You said I went insane," Arthur said against his neck, sounding muffled and pained by the very thought of the words.
"I think if any man is hurt enough, if he were to feel what I caused him to feel, he can be capable of terrible things," Merlin admitted, grimacing and glancing upward. He felt the warmth in his eyes as he stared at the evergreen canopy, and within a few seconds the sky directly overhead had cleared to a pale, winter blue, leaving them in a bright patch of sunlight even as cold drops continued to rain down.
"Arthur, I really never meant to hurt you," Merlin continued, softer, speaking into the top of Arthur’s head. "You’re brave and just and smart and you care about your people. You trusted me with your life and you protected me even though I was just your servant, but I did a horrible thing and I betrayed that trust. I’m the only one to blame for what happened, not you. I turned you into something you’re not, something you never should have become. I made you into a monster and it wasn’t you, it wasn’t you."
Arthur shifted in his arms and Merlin thought he heard the tail end of a wet inhale. Arthur’s voice was quiet when he spoke. "How can you know for sure?"
Merlin closed his eyes briefly. "You were right, I can’t say for certain how the future is going to turn out. But isn’t it better that we know about these things? Shouldn’t it mean that we’re already changing the outcome, just by knowing how it went wrong? You said you won’t become that man in my time, and I believe you. Completely. I trust you, Arthur, I always have. It just took me awhile to realize I should have acted on that trust sooner."
Arthur moved to step back and Merlin released him, the wet sleeves of his robes dragging his arms down to hang by his sides. They stood facing each other in silence for a long moment. Arthur’s eyes were lined with red but he looked calmer, more in control than he had when they’d been screaming at each other earlier.
"Why didn’t you?" he asked, and Merlin had to glance away. The intense blue of Arthur’s eyes was almost level with his own now.
"There were a lot of reasons. But I think, toward the end, I let there get to be so many that I forgot why I’d kept it from him in the first place. I didn’t want to leave him," he admitted, throat tightening.
Arthur said nothing for a moment, until Merlin felt a hand touch his shoulder. "I don’t think he would have wanted you to leave, either."
Merlin smiled uncertainly and shook his head. "I’ll never know for sure, will I?"
There was no answer for that which either of them could give, and Arthur let his hand fall away with a look of understanding that Merlin had never have expected to see on the Prince’s face. Merlin rubbed a hand across his eyes and blinked back the prickle he could feel stinging somewhere in their sockets. Things had been shared which could not be easily dismissed, and Merlin felt just as raw and open as Arthur was probably feeling at that moment. It was as if they were destined to constantly clash and wrangle each other’s lives in unpredictable and life altering ways.
"We should get that ring back to your father," Merlin said. Arthur looked down at the signet clutched in his hand, as if he’d forgotten it was there.
"I didn’t want to kill him," Arthur said softly. "But he knew who I was, too. I think they followed us into the forest just for the opportunity. One of us was bound to die in the encounter."
Merlin was brushing his hands down the front of his clothes, drying the fabric as they went, and he looked up to watch Arthur’s solemn countenance deepen into a frown. "I’m not one to judge when it comes to taking a life, but I think you did the right thing. He knew what he was getting into. You just happened to have a sorcerer on your side that doesn’t want to see you dead."
Arthur scoffed, but he was also smiling slightly. "A sorcerer who can’t obey even when he’s given a simple order."
"Let’s not get into that again," Merlin warned. He stepped around the Prince and placed a hand on his shoulder, drying the clothes under his touch, and felt Arthur shiver under his hand as the magic swept over him. "We should go before it starts raining again."
Arthur collected his sword and together they traveled to the edge of the forest, using the slope of the hill and the cover of the trees to circle back toward Camelot’s encampment on the northern side of the field. Merlin accompanied him as far as he could go before the risk of being spotted by scouts on the outskirts became too great. When they prepared to part ways, Merlin transformed back into the falcon while Arthur watched, which got him a pleasantly appropriate look of gobsmacked surprise. And then Arthur smirked.
"You do realize that you’ve changed into a merlin? How very unoriginal of you."
Merlin could only ruffle his feathers indignantly, even when in all honesty he hadn’t known exactly what sort of bird his magic had picked. It wasn’t something he would admit to the Prince anyway.
Arthur headed in the direction of his men and Merlin took off for the trees, but it was difficult to resist loitering around longer to make sure that the Prince arrived safely. He watched Arthur head straight for one of the posted sentries on the edge of the camp, and almost at once he was whisked off to one of the larger pavilions that held the Pendragon pennants draped alongside the entrance. Merlin watched as a messenger was dispatched toward the field of battle, and in less than a quarter hour a full garrison of knights on horseback charged back into the circle of tents, Uther in the lead with his helmet already off and in the hands of a waiting page as he dismounted and strode inside the tent. Merlin waited until Arthur emerged, almost an hour later, and watched as the Prince carried himself stiffly over to another moderately sized tent a short distance away from Uther’s. Less than a minute later a serving boy came stumbling out, looking surprised and bemused by his dismissal. The boy shuffled off toward one of the cooking fires, but didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry.
Merlin launched himself out from the trees and flew across the camp. He alighted on the ridgepole of Arthur’s tent and walked across the sturdy canvas to where a circular flap had been propped open, a thin line of smoke curling away from the brazier that sat inside on the floor. Merlin wiggled through the small opening and slipped inside.
Arthur was sitting on his pallet taking off his boots, and he looked up in surprise as Merlin practically tumbled into the tent and landed in an embarrassing heap of feathers on the floor. Arthur stared at him blankly for a moment, as if he’d forgotten exactly why there would be a merlin sitting by his feet and staring at him expectantly. Then he got up and moved to lace the ties on his entrance flap closed, and Merlin released the transformation.
"Well?" he asked quietly, though Arthur was still staring at him in surprise. "Oh come on, it’s not that impressive!"
"Look at it from my end someday," Arthur muttered, moving to sit on the edge of his cot again.
"So what happened?" Merlin whispered. He’d moved to join Arthur on the bed, which got him a frown for his impropriety that he ignored. "Is Uther going to call a truce?"
"He’s sent the ring with a messenger to Odin’s camp," Arthur said, peeling off his remaining boot and letting it thunk against the floor before he moved to stand. "Unless Wessex is some sort of half-wit, or a relation to you, he should accept the terms my father included along with the directions I provided to Reinald’s body."
"Oh, that’s a relief to hear," Merlin sighed. "I can’t tell you how worried everyone’s been back in Camelot. All of the servants walk around like we’re about to be attacked any day, and I don’t think the council members really have any clue what they’re doing without Uther there, and poor Morgana’s had nightmares almost every night since you left… oh bugger."
"What is it?" Arthur asked. He had his arms over his head and was attempting unsuccessfully to wriggle free of his chainmail.
Merlin got up to help pull off the heavy hauberk. "Erm, I may have… told Morgana and Gwen that I’m a sorcerer."
"You what?" Arthur yelled, but the shout was muffled as Merlin yanked the padded surcoat over his head. When Arthur emerged he was glowering and his hair was pulled up wildly in several directions. "Why would you tell Morgana? And who’s Gwen?" he hissed.
"Guinevere? She’s Morgana’s maidservant. And um… well it couldn’t be helped. I was rushing off to save your life. If it hadn’t been for Morgana, I wouldn’t have… erm, well I suppose I have to tell you as well."
"Tell me what?" Arthur demanded, crossing his arms.
"Okay, but you can’t get mad, because this wasn’t my secret to tell. And don’t yell anymore or you’ll bring the guards running over here," Merlin cautioned. He bit his lip. "It’s Morgana. She’s has magic. She’s a Seer, actually. I mean she has visions of the future. In my time she would have nightmares that would come true, but because she didn’t know how to control her powers she would only see them as dreams. And it seems like it’s happening the same way now because she had one last night, of you dying in that forest, Arthur. That’s how I knew to come find you."
"God, Merlin," Arthur groaned, turning away, and he dropped his head into his hand. "What will it be next? Is half of the Camelot secretly populated with sorcerers? Next you’ll tell me my own father is one!"
"Stop making so much noise," Merlin hissed, waving his hands frantically. "And no, I’m pretty sure that’s all of them." He raised his eyebrows sheepishly when Arthur came back around to face him, frowning. He didn’t look angry at least, which was a relief. "You won’t say anything, right?"
"Of course not," Arthur sighed in exasperation. He sunk down to sit on his pallet once more. "But I want you to tell me exactly how many people know about this. About all of it."
Merlin wrung his hands and joined Arthur on the bed again so he could speak quietly. "Well, Gaius is really the only one who knows everything. He cornered me the first night I came to Camelot and interrogated it all out of me. It was a bit unnerving, actually. You know, of course. Morgana and Gwen only know that I’m a sorcerer, though I told Gaius to fill them both in when I left, so I imagine that means all five of us know now. About myself and the future and Morgana."
Arthur rubbed his brow tiredly. "Alright, but I refuse to allow this to go any further. The more people who know, the more danger you’re placing yourselves in. I feel I’ll have a hard enough time protecting you lot from my father as it is."
"Some of us can take care of ourselves," Merlin said mulishly. "Who’s saved whose life more times than the other, huh?"
"As if you could let me forget it," Arthur said as he stood, but there was a hint of a smirk around his mouth. He walked to the opposite side of the tent to pour a cup of water from a pewter jug left in the corner, and drank heavily enough to warrant a refill shortly after.
Outside the tent came the perpetual noises of horses and the jangle of tack and boots moving across the ground, and off in the distance Merlin could hear shouting and the cries of the wounded. The air smelled damp from the recently fallen rain and smoky from the cooking fires, but inside the tent the air was cool with the touch of winter, and Merlin could feel how hard packed and solid the earth was under his feet. He ran his hand over the bundle of furs that were serving as a top blanket on Arthur’s bed, only half-aware that he was pressing magic into the mattress and blankets to thicken and plump them for better protection against the chill. When he looked up Arthur was watching him with acute exasperation.
"Um, you know, so you don’t get too cold," Merlin explained, flushing. He dusted off his hands and stood. "I suppose I better get going. I’m sure Gaius and the others are worried."
Arthur had put down his cup, and he approached Merlin until they were facing each other. "Thank you, for your help earlier," he said, inclining his head slightly.
Merlin smiled, warmed by the unexpected praise. "I’m just glad I got there in time to help. You should thank Morgana when you get back to Camelot."
Arthur nodded again. "I shall remember to."
When neither one moved, Merlin shifted on his feet. "Um, you weren’t injured earlier, were you? I forgot to ask in all of the… well, the after. Do you need me to look at anything?"
Arthur rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Merlin was gearing up for a retort when Arthur’s hand grabbed the front of his robes and hauled him forward and down. Arthur’s dry lips mashed against his clumsily, cutting off Merlin’s small yelp of surprise. Merlin’s nose had gotten crushed against Arthur’s cheek, but the fist under his chin prevented him from moving even that little bit. Merlin let out a muffled sound and Arthur scraped his teeth across his bottom lip once, roughly, and Merlin found it even more difficult to draw in a breath.
Arthur released him with a shove that sent Merlin stumbling back two steps, gaping and blinking in confusion. Arthur’s cheeks were pink and his chest was hitching for air like he’d just sprinted around the campsite. He licked his mouth, once, and smirked, which sent an uncomfortable flutter through Merlin’s stomach and down to his toes.
"Better hurry back, then," Arthur said gruffly.
Merlin didn’t even pause to think about what spell to use - between one blink and the next he found himself on eye-level with the floor, and he scampered with all due haste out of Arthur’s tent, bushy tail bristling and squeaking unintelligently the whole way.
[ Part VIII]