The Last Gift (part two)
Part 1
Time was frozen and Morgana would be there in seconds. He had to start time again. He had to find a way, he -
Merlin’s mind caught on to this and held, and he did the only thing he could think of.
He froze.
The footsteps rounded the corner, he could tell by the way the echoes changed, and then they slowed as they neared where he stood.
He stayed completely still, as still as he had ever been, all the while begging whatever part of him that controlled the flux of time to choose now to restart the world. He wondered, not for the first time, how he had not made efforts to divine the counter spell to this freezing of time, if one such spell did exist, instead taking the it-will-happen-when-it-happens easy way out.
"Curious," Morgana said, and Merlin managed not to flinch. She stopped close to him, and leaned in, perhaps examining his face. At least he had closed his eyes.
There was no way she could know. Merlin wanted for all the world to give one, full shudder, because it was freezing even in the castle halls, and he was brimming with adrenaline. He thought up a plan of attack, realizing the only weapons he had were his mainly-reliable magic and his intermittently brilliant brain.
It was at this moment that he was struck by another idea.
The two were alone in the long hallway, no other person to show the passage or stopped quality of time. Merlin could, then, pretend that time had come unstuck, and Morgana would not, at least for another minute, notice that nothing had changed. For all she knew, the world had resumed, Merlin with it.
Thankfully, though, Morgana moved on abruptly before he could make any decision. He stayed completely still until her footsteps had faded, after which he allowed himself only briefly to collapse, before following her.
He tailed her down two corridors and up one flight of stairs, all the while creeping on tip toe in his soft leather boots so as not to announce himself as she had. When he saw where she was headed, he veered off and took up a post in the upper corridor that looked down into the chapel. From that vantage point he could see the stain-glass walk and Morgana clutching the hands of Morgause. Merlin hunched down, and listened.
“How could this be?” Morgause was saying. “The world stopped and the king is gone missing. I don‘t understand it, sister.”
“Nor do I. It bears all the signs of magic.”
"We have long suspected there was a mole inside of Camelot, and it seems this one is working against us, siding with the king."
“Why then we might capture the royal advisers and the court physician one by one, so that when the King returns it is to an empty court. If we find this person along the way, we shall deal with that as it comes.”
Merlin considered stopping the both of them in some magical fallout, but if they couldn’t find the king, and he stuck by Arthur, it might be best to leave this one.
“Who’s to say how long the enchantment may last?" Morgause said. "For it is indeed an enchantment, there is no doubt in my mind.”
“But how is this possible?”
“You and I both know that Camelot’s very walls are riddled with magic. But who could it be? Such power could not have gone without notice.”
Merlin had learned his lesson, it all seemed clear now. He would just respark time and after that would make sure that he didn’t wish too ardently for an extra hour to do work, because this was what happened. He would never complain again.
These were his quick and panicked thoughts as he closed his eyes tightly, and wished for time to resume. He pushed out faint tendrils of magic, but all that happened was Morgause gave a faint gasp, and said, “What was that! Sister!” and Morgana said, “I felt it as well.”
Merlin sighed. Nothing ever went well, did it?
He sat by to listen in on the rest of their creepy conversation. Deciding now was the time, he pulled out his small blade and lump of wood, and began whittling.
*
When Morgause finally said her goodbyes, Merlin sped off to Arthur's to protect the prince, leaving a pile of curled wood for some maid to wonder at later on. He heard the sound again, the sound of his impending discovery, and saw that he had not quite run fast enough.
Would he never be rid of her? The clacking of heels to flagstone made as if to head Merlin off before he could reach the wooden door which meant solace and perhaps a dresser to hide in until time became unstoppered once more.
He outright sprinted down the hallway, soft on his toes and breathing in an adrenaline rush that brought tears of panic to his eyes. The worst that could happen if she were to catch him involved questions he would not be able to answer, and Morgana exposing him, unaffected as he was by powerful magic, and Merlin being beheaded or possibly burnt at the stake, thus catalyzing the downfall of the crown and entire kingdom.
He reached Arthur's chamber door on a skid, just when he thought the footsteps might round the corner. He wrenched at the handle, then remembered that the door pushed the other direction and near fell inward in his haste. He clicked it closed with an exaggerated softness, on a held breath, latch snapping into place.
He leaped across the entry room and frenzied into the chamber where Arthur was positioned just as Merlin had left him, standing near the table, reaching for the grapes or possibly his goblet of still-warm cider.
Merlin had never honestly felt he needed protection, not when they'd faced the Afanc way back when, not when they'd been confronted by undead skeletons and the castle was crumbling around them. Not ever, not until now, when this treacherous game had put Merlin's heart on the wire.
He was having horrid flashbacks to games of hide-and-seek in the blip of a town that he had grown up in, how the blind panic of the hunt had sent him diving into pig troughs and hay bushels alike, just to avoid that moment of being caught, of being grabbed from behind or being seen, which had seemed like the worst occurrence in the world.
Now, with Morgana’s footsteps falling ominous and slow, closer and closer, Merlin succumbed to cowardice, and slid into the space between Arthur and the table, using him as a human shield.
Careful footsteps clicked into the antechamber.
And, now that he was safe, to Merlin's intense and bone-shaking relief, time sped up.
"Merlin," Arthur breathed against his face.
"Adjusting your collar, sire," Merlin muttered. He belatedly gripped Arthur's shirts as an alibi and tried not to tremble with the stress of the situation.
He could feel Arthur's breath on his cheek, smelled the sweet tang of cider, and Arthur, never unbalanced and constantly compensating, shifted his feet and drew out of the grape-lunge in order to evolve to this new configuration of bodies.
"Weren't you on the other side of the room?" Arthur asked him, speaking so close that his nose brushed Merlin's on the exhale.
"No," Merlin said. It was a lie and also the truth.
He searched Arthur's surprised eyes, silently begging for credence.
The internal door clicked open, and Arthur looked but Merlin didn't, out of horror and relief. Instead, he examined Arthur's jaw from up close, his smallish ears and the soft forward-brush of his hair. He ignored Morgana's very presence, while Arthur said, "Morgana," which was greeting enough for the both of them.
Even so, Merlin tensed and Arthur must have felt it, because then he put a hand casually to Merlin's shoulder, a staying motion.
"Am I interrupting something?" Morgana asked.
"That's just Merlin," Arthur told her. "Surprisingly attentive to the state of my jackets."
Merlin fussed a bit demonstratively at the fabric, and Arthur slid the hand down Merlin's arm, arresting the flutter.
"What can I do for you?"
"It's nothing," Morgana said.
"Out with it, Morgana, what do you want?"
Morgana flicked her eyes momentarily to Merlin, where he stood to all intents and purposes encircled in Arthur's arms, one hand still gripping at the soft cotton of Arthur's tunic.
"I wanted a word with Merlin, but it can wait."
"Aren't we a little old for secrets?"
"Secrets?" Morgana batted her eyelashes, and Merlin finally looked her way to downright glare at her over Arthur's shoulder while his head was turned.
"Yes, secrets. Forcing the likes of Merlin to run about, sneaking gifts for the knight that's caught your fancy - you know, youth-type antics that might keep Merlin from his work in the stables."
"Oh, you take the fun out of everything," Morgana said. "I'm sure you don't require Merlin attend you all day."
Merlin silently pleaded with him to say no, as if Arthur didn’t always give in to her eventually.
"Alright," Arthur said. "Lord knows your flirtation with the entirety of the populous raises morale. I'll send Merlin by this evening."
"Raises morale? Is that all I'm good for?" Morgana chided. "Well, pleased you think I'm useful."
The hand that held Merlin seemed the only thing restraining him. Morgana turned just as she was closing the door behind her. "Oh and Arthur?"
"Yes?"
"Has anything seemed odd today?"
"Still on about this?"
"I'm not sure, I just have a feeling."
Morgana's eyes looked momentarily haunted.
"Oh you and your feelings," Arthur said. "But now that you mention it, Merlin here-” Merlin tensed and leaned back against the table. "Has done a frightfully decent scrub-down of my chambers. I can see the floor for the first time in months, so yeah, I'd call that pretty odd."
“How terribly mundane, Arthur," Morgana said. "I’ll leave you two to it.” She smiled a smile that twisted when Arthur looked down at the table grain. Merlin caught it though. "See you soon, Merlin."
The latch clicked back into place. He stared at it, sagging a bit, relief rushing like tea energy straight through him and leaving him heady.
So used to Arthur's manhandling was he, that he barely noticed Arthur placing one bare hand on either side of him at the table's edge, bracketing Merlin in against the wood, saying, "Where were we?" It took his a moment, and by then Arthur was opening his mouth against the smooth of Merlin's neck, and Merlin went warm all up his front despite the winter's chill that was all pervasive.
But before he could even respond, appropriately or in-, there came another rapping at the wood of the door.
Arthur growled loudly and close to Merlin's ear, "What now, who is it?" and Merlin shoved him away with a splayed hand to the chest, whining, "You're always shouting," and Arthur gave him an unimpressed look before stepping away to receive a missive from the hand of Harlois who was now standing in the threshold.
"Hm," Arthur said. He didn't read the note, instead favoring Merlin with a considering look. "Have you noticed..."
Merlin waited.
"...but no."
"Arthur?"
Arthur made an abortive gesture with his left hand, and Merlin gripped the table edge behind him.
"Get going," Arthur finally said. "Check that Sir Leon has completed drills before it falls dark. It will be impossible to train in an hour."
"It's been unseasonably bright today," Merlin countered, because today was chilly, but as far as he was concerned it had been sunny for well over ten hours, rather than the three.
Arthur frowned at him, as if to say You're wrong, and also you're blatantly ignoring the fact that I was pressing you against a table just then.
"I've got a meeting with my father's advisers," was all he said aloud, and Merlin took this as a dismissal. Arthur never required his services at the meeting with advisers, not since that time Merlin had waved at him during a meeting, and the consequences which had followed.
He backed away and out of the room, a hand itching to touch his neck, just there, with Arthur looking on all the while.
Merlin’s whole life seemed to be a back and forth between the castle and the town. He went down to the practice field in a dream state, the crunch of his boots against the frosty grass a constant in an otherwise confusing world.
He narrowly avoided a group of charging knights. When he reached Sir Leon and asked about the status of the men and how drills were going, the conversation instantly turned on its head.
"Arthur sent me to tell you to finish training before dark."
"We're nearly finished here," Sir Leon told him.
"Alright then, I don't see why he thought you wouldn't be," Merlin said. He secretly suspected that Arthur wanted to get rid of him, but couldn't, in good conscience, let him go without direction.
“I’ve seen how you look at him," Sir Leon said, a propos of very little.
Now, Leon was a serious man, one who was constant and brave, and whom Merlin looked on as something of a friend. So to have the man confront him in such a way, with a calm assurance, a tone that left no room for doubt, Merlin shifted on his feet at the shame of it.
“Please don’t tell him,” he said.
He felt Sir Leon’s gaze like a heavy thing, appraising. If Arthur were to hear it from his most trusted knight, captain of the guard, well…it would ruin everything.
“Don’t tell him?” Sir Leon said. His breath puffed out, icy in the epic air of noontime. "Don't tell him?" He called over to the group of knights. “Do you hear that, Sir Pellinor, Sir Hayden. Don’t tell him, he says!”
A few men looked up.
“You are nothing if not honorable,” Sir Leon told him.
“Pardon?”
“Look at those men, Merlin,“ Sir Leon said to him. Merlin scrunched up his brow and pursed his lips and flicked a quick look to the watching knights. “Look at them.“
“I’m looking,” he said.
“It is the life goal of each and every one of those men,” Sir Leon said. “That our Prince and Lord see how we feel about him.”
“Wha-”
“It is the thought that wakes us at the wee hours of the morning to start patrol, it is the thought that lulls us to sleep each night. It is this thought that drives us to the ends of the earth should Arthur so wish it, and the thought which haunts these halls when we are asleep. That he should know our faith in him and feel it undivided until the end of his immortal days.”
“Oh!!” Merlin said. “Oh! You think I’m faithful to him. Oh yeah, that. Fine, yes, very good.”
“It is that fidelity!” Sir Leon bellowed, and at this there rose a rabble of calls of assent and concurrence. “It is that pure promise of allegiance! Which you, humble servant, seek to hide, so good is your heart! So pure your intentions! So willing are you to suffer the flames and the winters, however hot or cold (respectively) they might be!”
“Really, that’s quite nice of you to say, but,” Merlin attempted to step back and away from the spotlight, but Sir Leon was not finished, and the other men were drawing near, drawn like fire to the wick by the intractable fervor of his impassioned words.
“O, Merlin!” he cried in a literary-device sort of way.
“Yes?”
“You are so just.”
“Um.” Merlin said, because here was something he felt definitively was not true.
He had been doing some thinking lately, and he saw that he was pretty far skewed to sticking by Arthur, despite the possible wrongs he was doing. He took it on faith, he knew Arthur’s heart to be in the right place, that he was closer to an embodiment of ideals than all the men Merlin had ever met. But Merlin wouldn’t go so far as to call himself ‘just.’ No, he was pretty much the opposite, killing anyone who threatened Arthur’s life and suffering minimal grief over their truncated life spans.
“You, Merlin,” Sir Leon said, and Merlin was nearly thumped two feet into the ground by the pat of comradery at his shoulder. “You are nothing, if not honorable. Nothing if not a perfect image of a faithful servant to the crown. You would do anything-”
“Well, not anything-” Merlin shrugged.
“-to ensure his perfect happiness-”
“Within reason!”
“-so do not hide this, as if it is something to feel embarrassment for or something shameful,” Sir Leon seemed to have returned to his main point. Merlin was reeling with the amount of words that the normally terse man had thrown at him, most of them flattering, only some of them true.
“I can’t help but feel you’ve got it a bit wrong, but let’s agree to disagree,” Merlin said. But then the others began to pipe in.
“I see you carry my liege‘s armor all over the castle grounds, how it shines like silver, without complaint,” one knight said. “My squire, on the other hand, is a whiny boy of fifteen years who can barely get a grass-stain off my plate mail.”
“Ah,” Merlin began.
“You do a lot of heavy lifting,” Sir Owain told him, thumping him on the arm like Merlin was another knight, when he really, really wasn‘t. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed. Even though you‘re, frankly, very tiny, and it pains me to watch.”
“Well, it’s not all bad,” Merlin said.
"You always carry Arthur back after banquets."
Merlin had magic to thank for that one.
"You haven't even taken time off to go to town and get more than one outfit!"
"I can buy clothing?" Merlin asked.
“You’re the best of confidants,” said a knight he had never seen before.
"You put up with rooming with and doing chores for Gaius."
"Not that he's a bad chap, but...he always seemed a bit touched in the head, old age perhaps."
"Yes, you haven't gone back to your kingdom, despite everything. Instead, you've stayed on to be Arthur's servant where you are weekly imperiled by those who seek to strike the crown-"
"-even when a bat shit insane dragon unleashed itself upon the castle."
“Ok, I’d better be going now. Arthur, ah-” he said. “Arthur needs…something. Goodbye.”
He scurried off, and the last thing he heard was someone declaring, “You see? Always thinking of the prince.”
“Good man, good man.”
*
He arrived with the afternoon snack just past the hour, and Arthur gave him a chicken leg and forced Merlin to partake in the hot cider that tasted faintly of burnt apples because Merlin had underestimated the power of his heating spell.
"Kitchens don't usually mess this one up," Arthur sighed, and drank deeply of his goblet, looking morose.
Merlin was on edge and his pulse was rocketing all over the place.
"You're looking twitchy," Arthur observed.
He waved a conceding gesture at the silver platter that was loaded with sticky buns, even though Merlin hadn't asked and didn't necessarily want to intoxicate himself with sugar. He sat heavily, wincing at how he had just sat on the lump of formed wood in his pocket, and shifting to take a roll anyway, prying it from the knotted braid of pastry with a delicate forefinger to thumb picking motion.
"I'll need my dogs walked as well as my cape laundered. There's a footprint on it from where you were following too closely behind me."
Which was an outright lie because it had been the wind which had blown the cape in a surprising billow, and it had caught around Merlin's person in a sweep of suffocating fabric. That is why it had been trampled upon, and Arthur knew it, the git.
He thought darkly how Arthur could well be against magic because he didn't need it; being royalty, he simply waved his hand at whatever he wished for and it was done.
Merlin thought of this, and considered the dredges of cinnamon and nutmeg in the bottom of his glass at a close distance, nose in his cup.
Arthur snorted and kicked at Merlin's ankle from under the table, and when Merlin looked up he found Arthur's gaze, and it was sure, and open, and unwavering.
*
Merlin failed to stop stopping time. The day was about twice as long as it should have been, or at least that’s how tired he felt.
The next two times time shifted into a standstill, he sprinted to Uther’s chambers and moved the man so that no sorceress could come to reap her revenge. But on the third time, which lasted only fifteen minutes besides, he could find no trace of Uther. He realized the man could be any number of places, out of the castle or inside of it, in one of a hundred rooms. He realized he would have to leave it up to some sort of fate. He was too tired for this.
He spent an hour seated at Gaius' work bench, whittling, but arrived at Arthur’s chambers only a second later as far as the general populous was concerned, carrying the evening meal on a flat tray.
He took up his place by the door and then Arthur's body went soft and his other foot fell from where it had been raised mid-step, and Merlin looked at his own feet and waited for his breathing to slow.
The crackling sound of the fire filled in for what had been an eerie silence, and Merlin's heart slowed as well, calmed and his stomach growled.
"Oh sit down, Merlin,” Arthur said immediately. “I'll not be held accountable for a servant who's too distractable to feed himself."
“Distractible!” Merlin exclaimed, but then proved Arthur’s point a bit by heading back into the outer room, tray still in hand, to check that the window was fully closed.
Merlin finally placed the tray at the table and then reached for a chunk of bread, mind humming, bread, mh, delicious, love me some bread. He slathered it with warmed butter and dipped it in a bowl of still-hot soup, thermodynamics just as affected by the time-freeze as the rest of life even though it was two hours later, no wonder Merlin was half-starved.
He listened to Arthur moving about the room, picking things up only to replace them crooked, haphazard, and he felt a warm flood in his chest as he drank soup and his body warmed as the fire thawed him out.
"Hang on a moment," Arthur finally said. Merlin looked up, his hand shoved shamelessly deep in the bowl of Mercian-harvested nuts. "Something strange is going on here. I could have sworn I was working on a deposition a moment ago, but now…”
Merlin had organized those documents the last time he'd been in the room, had rolled them without thinking of the continuity issues and had put them in a drawer.
"Scrolls?" he asked.
Arthur looked perturbed at his own forgetfulness. Merlin thought of Morgana and perhaps Morgause lying in wait, and thought of how Merlin’s very presence was possibly keeping Arthur alive, and he tried not to feel guilty for lying once again.
"You are getting on in your years-"
"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur told him. "Anyhow, I'll need you here late."
Merlin appreciated this game, that Arthur cared that his rooms were frigid and allowed Merlin to curl up in front of the fire under the guise of working late. But tonight Merlin was feeling on edge, from having been awake for far too long and knowing that somewhere in the castle another plot was afoot, and also there was no way he would finish his gift in time if he didn't use the time he had. He wished once again that he had figured out how to harness the power to stop time, so that it was less unwieldy and more directed and maybe he could stop time for a bit so he could take a nap, but he somehow never managed to work out the more straightforward bits of magic, so this would have to do.
“I’d really better go, Arthur,” Merlin said. “I have, I have things I need to get done-”
“Oh, right,” Arthur said. “I told Morgana I’d send you by.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t forget,” Arthur said, sounding like he had decided against feeling crestfallen. Merlin felt a tug in the chest region at the implication, but really he was just extremely exhausted and couldn’t be held accountable for anything he said or felt.
"I've really got to go, Arthur," he said again.
He stood, and the warmth left him almost immediately when he moved away from the fire. There was really no other place he would rather accidentally fall asleep, but he had to go.
Arthur gave him an unreadable look, and nodded once.
"At least be useful and help me dress," he said.
So Merlin went to the cupboard, and laid nightclothes out onto the bed. He moved in to helped Arthur out of his jacket and then stripped him of his tunic, fingers brushing Arthur along the sides and once at the neck, little moments that Merlin accidentally catalogued to later hold up to the light.
He didn't go to Morgana's, because that would be some sort of suicide. When he got back to his small tower room, his knees were knocking it was so cold. He magicked his pallet to lay out over by the small hearthfire, only stalling to figure out how to squeeze the mattress through the tiny door. Gaius stirred in the darkness, and Merlin created a small light under his covers to see by as he continued his rough whittling. He fell asleep almost immediately.
*
The next morning felt like a continuation of his dream.
He must have willed it in his sleep, because the world was still. It could be felt in the way the light came in cold through the small window, like a gauze over air, before-thunderstorm flat. Merlin poked his head out the door just to be sure, and saw that the halls were completely silent, not a sound, a pause in time.
Well-rested now, Merlin was pleased at the extra minutes. He ducked back into his room to do a bit of early-morning whittling.
Time was a series of starts and stops. Merlin had never thought of it until then, but now that he was mucking around with it, it was apparent, how it was all fluid until he stopped it and then it began again. The Sidhe and others, who knew how many, lived at a different pace, humans moving sluggish and dumb to their eyes. It was all pretty relative, and it mucked about with Merlin’s head. He doubted if he would ever experience time in the same way again.
After a while, he left Gaius’ chambers with a feeling of success that came with having achieved something so early in the morning. The figurine was done. It was … meaningful, he hoped, a figure of a unicorn, to mark the time Arthur had saved his kingdom through a show of valor and humility. It was simple, it was something Arthur would never have thought to ask for himself.
It was…rather ugly.
Merlin’s head felt clear anyhow, the untethered feeling of a stopped world, his movements too fast, as if he was stalking ahead instead of taking careful steps.
But as he neared the kitchens, the faint murmur of activity made itself heard. A feeling of unease coiled suddenly in his stomach.
When he shoved open the door to the kitchens, the front room was a hot bustle of activity. General servants had joined kitchen staff and were busy at a multitude of culinary endeavors: rolling giant barrels to a stove and emptying them into pots to make mulled wine, shelling and crushing almonds for the marzipan paste, and creaming milk for the puffs of chantilly on pastries.
“Oh no,” he breathed.
“Merlin,” a man said ominously. “Arthur’s breakfast’s near gone cold. After you take this ask if he can send you down, we need all the help we can get.”
Merlin took the plates and kicked the door closed behind him. Oh no, oh no.
He slumped against the wall for a moment, thinking that of course the halls had been quiet that morning, quiet enough that he could mistake the lack of activity for a pause in time. All servants were down here preparing for the Christmas feast!
It was probably nearing ten o’clock, and Arthur was going to be furious.
He ducked a tin cup that went wide anyways. It clanged and dented against the wall, and Merlin stood, adjusting his neck flap.
“Right, we’ve got meat meat and more meat," he said. "Any more meat I can get you?”
He ducked a pillow, which had, unlike the cup, actually been aimed at his head. Arthur’d only attempted to maim with pillows since Merlin had made it clear that punching was not an exchange of friendly affection.
“Can you really not manage to get out of bed until I arrive?” Merlin had often wondered, and today was the day he asked it aloud.
“I don’t see a reason to leave bed," Arthur growled. "If I haven’t got my breakfast, Merlin, I can’t start my day.”
“I was, um, held up. In the kitchens,” Merlin lied.
“You‘ll be needed in the kitchens today, as it is,” Arthur told him. "I hope they have you carrying something heavy. No get out."
*
There was nothing to say about the kitchens, except that Merlin found, through quite a bit of concentration and wishful thinking, he could stall the stalling of time, and over the long, surprisingly warm day, there was only a minor blip, an extra hour where he sat and sipped slowly an entire bucket of water and completely redid an entire sheet of quiche that he had managed to burn. He also picked up the apples he had knocked over and magicked a table leg back on.
Good grief.
*
He tried to get back to his room that afternoon, but at the door he heard an unmistakably private conversation.
"Are you quite sure, sire?"
"It is as I told you, physician. I was seated at my desk one moment and then I awoke under my bed. Not once, but thrice."
No, Merlin wasn't needed here at all. He tugged the door shut once more, softly, silently, and then he fled.
*
He entered Arthur’s rooms in the evening with a gift under his arm that Leonard in the kitchens had asked him to take down to the pub, since Merlin would be making a run down there before the feast anyhow.
He went to stoke the fire, and then came to stand by the table, where Arthur was still poring over documents.
“I’ve got something for you,” he said.
“If it’s another missive from my father, tell him that I can come speak to him in person if it’s so important, on Christmas eve of all times. Or at the banquet, even.”
“It’s not from your father, it’s-” Merlin drew himself up straight, tightening his fingers around the wrapped object in his pocket. “It’s from me.”
Arthur’s eyes softened.
“Gwen told me a gift should be simple," Merlin stammered. "And Gaius said that a person who had everything should be given something they would never ask for themselves -"
“A bit like you, then,” Arthur pointed out.
"- and an old woman selling cider told me it should be meaningful - stop smiling that way -"
“Merlin,” Arthur said. He touched Merlin at the shoulder.
"I mean, it’s not much. I just made it, is all, and thought perhaps-”
“Merlin,“ Arthur said again. “I’ve already opened it.”
This drew Merlin up short. He slipped his hand into his pocket again and felt the figurine, which was definitely still there.
“What?”
Arthur went to his desk and opened a drawer. He pulled out what appeared to be some piece of armor, perhaps a shoulder plate. When Arthur drew nearer once again, Merlin could see that Arthur's name had been etched into it. It gleamed in the firelight.
At once, Merlin knew that this was the gift he had been searching for for an entire day.
“You left it on my table," Arthur told him. "I thought I had made it clear that I liked it."
This was elucidating, to say the least.
“Arthur," Merlin began, but Arthur went on, a careful nonchalance to his words.
“I don’t make it a habit of buying gifts for servants, but you have been through a lot of battles this year, and you did drag me out of the way when I was shot by Cenred’s men in the forest that one time, and on my quest which you were verbally asked not to follow me on at least thrice by myself and others, well, your allegiance, such as it is, wouldn’t allow you to stay away. I suppose that does warrant a gift.”
“Arthur-” Merlin stepped towards him, and felt the entire wrongness of the situation drop over him.
Arthur took him by the shoulder and smiled into his face and said: “And yes, the little things. How you make the effort to warm my clothing before you dress me, and how you pretend not to watch out for me when I spar with the knights, even though there‘s nothing you could do for me were I injured.“
“I could!“
“Could you?“
“Well, probably not,“ Merlin admitted. He was, after all, quite bad at healing, magical or otherwise.
“So,” Arthur continued. “I took the liberty of sending your mother a load of supplies for the winter. Ealdor not being in our lands, I wasn’t provided a list of what their needs were, but I made a pretty good guess of it,” he laughed. “Food there was rather rotten, if you know what I mean, so I sent a bit of everything.”
“Arthur-” Merlin said. He was taken aback, and somewhat uncomfortable, because: “Arthur, that parcel was from Gwen.”
“Gwen,” Arthur repeated.
“Yes," Merlin said. "Um, sorry about that.”
Arthur looked at the gift once more, and then said. “Armor- Oh, right.”
There came a knock at the door, like providence.
“Ah, Guinevere,” Arthur said. She peered into the room.
"I don't mean to interrupt, but I was hoping I could speak with you."
Merlin shuffled back a bit.
“Thank you for the gift,” Arthur said to her.
“That’s quite alright, sire,” she said, smiling something secretive.
“I’ll go deliver this then, shall I?” Merlin said, feeling something like resignation settle. He took the gift he had to deliver and made a run for it, past Arthur and past Gwen in the doorway.
He should have thought this through, how of course Arthur didn't need silly things he had made, and even if he had accepted the wooden figure, he wouldn't have seen it for anything other than what it physically was, a strange reworking of a unicorn out of common oak wood.
“Merlin!” It was Gwen. He stopped, even though he wanted to get down to the pub quickly so that he could get out of the snow for good tonight, and maybe get into bed and flip through the magical book to look for a spell interesting enough to take his mind off of his current situation. He waited for her to catch up with him.
“Merlin, where are you going?”
“I’ve got to take this down to the pub.” He waved the package demonstratively.
"Take it down to the pub yourself? But why? What about delegation!"
"Dele-" Merlin asked.
"Oh Merlin," Gwen told him. She looked at him with fondness absolutely glowing on her face, and of course he couldn't be angry with her. "It's no wonder that you look so overworked. You've got to delegate."
"Well, I certainly won't be able to find anyone to take this down to the lower town tonight."
Gwen sighed, and squeezed his arm.
"Hurry back, Merlin. We‘re late as it is."
He took the front steps. He nearly slipped down them, covered as they were by a thin layer of black ice, and he had to grasp onto the head of a gargoyle to regain his footing. He was reminded of Arthur's brief time with that fool Cedric, the thief, and how the statues had come to life that night. He scowled as he unhanded the lizard.
He leaped down into the courtyard, and jogged down the thin path that knights had shoveled out of the layer of snow. He ran past a final straggler carrying a woven basket up the path to the castle, a kitchen maid who had made the hot chocolate. She greeted him as they passed and seemed surprised that Merlin recognized her, although he didn't, of course, know her name. There was never any time for that.
His feet crunched in the snow, and he went as quickly as he could, the air freezing his face. For the first time in a long while he missed his home. He knew without a doubt that it was frightfully cold in Ealdor. The little valley got the brunt of storms, as well as minor floods in the springtime when the snows thawed and ran fresh down the slopes into the main road of their village, but winter always meant sitting inside with the whole lot of them, drinking hot drinks and talking through the night.
The tolling of the bells rang out across the black sky and vacant town, dropping notes like the specks of snow that floated on the empty air. Merlin heard them from down the path, which was encrusted with a cracked mess of ice and sleet that was seeping through the tear in the soul of his left boot, among other places
It seemed a shame to be out in the cold while others were gathered in one of the town pubs or the main halls in the castle, which had been laid with straw and loaded up with platters of rabbit and boar, steaming and miles away. When he passed the Rising Sun, Merlin slowed and then went in, the door an easy pull to open, an eager revelation of the warmth within.
He hadn't counted the bells, the time must have been only seven o'clock at night, but it got dark so early this time of year Merlin felt it had been night forever. But coming in here, into a room lit to the corners by candles and filled to the point of brimming over with townspeople, soused to the point of loud merry-making, warmed Merlin in all places.
He felt a tug of resignation, however, when he realized he hadn't thought to put a few coins in his pocket before leaving the castle. He rarely used money on his own, only when Gaius wanted for something found in the market. All he had was the small parcel that was meant for Arthur.
"Are you drinking something?" came a growly voice of the innkeeper.
“No, I’ve got a package from your nephew I believe? And I was sent from the castle to pick up the certain port, I was told you’d know the one.”
“Ah, yes,” the man said. He ducked under the rough bar and came back up holding a dark bottle. “Don’t drink it yourself, boy.”
Merlin shook his head. He was jostled from behind while he stood blowing on his hands to try to thaw them. The idea of walking all the way back to the castle seemed impossible.
He caught himself thinking that he might briefly go sit in the corner and join a group of people, but while sitting without a drink in hand and no one to talk to would go over fine some days - he was no stranger to wanting for money - it would be downright depressing tonight, when where he wanted to be most was at the castle, even if he couldn’t imagine facing Arthur now, even if he only wanted to go to his own pallet in the far tower.
"Young man," a voice came. "Can I buy you a Christmas drink?"
He turned. A woman was waving him to a chair.
"No," he said, wanting to sit down, but instead he held the bottle to his chest. “Thank you though.”
The woman considered him.
“You look like you’ve got somewhere you’d like to be,” she told him. Merlin put his hand to his pocket once more, where he felt the useless present he had worked at.
“Tell me,“ he said. “How can I be sure-”
“You just know," she said to him, because it was probably obvious from his face what he was talking about. People could always tell.
Merlin nodded.
"Merry Christmas, my dear,” the woman said. “Now go.”
"Merry Christmas," he said.
He left through the door. Now the bite of cold air was like a catalyst, and his throat felt cold at the harsh act of breathing it in. Snow had begun to float down, and Merlin tugged the collar of his jacket a little tighter. He passed a few people in the streets, and exchanged greetings as they passed.
He started slowly up the long incline to the castle, and it wasn't quick, but it was something.
He still missed his mother and all the people he hadn’t seen properly for years. It was just cold nights like these, he thought, which led him to reconsider staying for a destiny. Maybe he could go back to Ealdor where, although he was different, he was the same as anyone in all ways that mattered.
He trudged up the path, clutching the bottle to his chest and feeling lousy. There came the distant sounds of caroling and he could have sworn the snow fell thicker the more he felt sorry for himself. Returning to the castle seemed a dangerous idea, for more reasons than one.
Merlin stopped. There came another noise now, perhaps a voice. It sounded distant, almost empty or gentle, but now that Merlin kept an ear out for it, he could pick out the questioning tone over the muffled drone of bawdy drinking songs, over the creak and slam of a distant door, and over his own shallow intakes of breath.
Merlin squinted uselessly up the dark, torchlit path to the castle. He was walking now, because his lungs hurt. No one was there. He pressed at a cramp in his side.
He resumed his wallowing. He had to get it out of his system, there was no question that he was staying, he just -
He rubbed snowflakes from his eyelashes with numb fingers, and when he looked up, far ahead, he saw a small figure appear at the portcullis, the unmistakable figure of Arthur in a jacket and boots, cast in grey and white tones in the moonlight.
"Arthur."
The name came out with a puff of frosty air, too quiet.
Arthur disappeared again, back over the drawbridge, and Merlin took off at a run before he had time to think of doing so. The snow crushed like a fine powder under his boots and he was thoroughly soaked from the ankle-down. There was a good chance he would slip and fall on his face. The thin air did nothing to slow him down, but this seemed like some race against time, Arthur walking away and Merlin too slow and plodding to reach him.
"Arthur!" he shouted. When he reached the drawbridge he nearly tripped over a wooden board and time hiccoughed long enough for him to right himself mid-hitch and then it sped again and he was through, through the archway and out into the bright night courtyard. "Arthur!"
Arthur was blued in moonlight and just mounting the steps, and he turned at the call, Merlin's voice made more frantic by the echoes that flung around the curve of the castle's inner walls and then up, out into the starry sky beyond.
"Merlin!"
“Arthur!” It seemed all he was capable of saying now.
“Merlin, you idiot! Where have you been?”
Arthur had stopped in the middle of the path, and was just watching Merlin struggle his way to him. The slight incline was probably to blame. Merlin jogged at a sluggish pace.
“Getting,” Merlin huffed. He held the bottle aloft as he struggled up the path, the liquid sloshing horribly. “Getting alcohol.”
“What in the-” Arthur said. “Merlin get over here! That better not be my present.”
They met in the center of the courtyard, two indistinct figures on a snowy night.
_____
EPILOGUE (for SS & everyone else ♥): AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER!