MBB: The Promise Within 3/6
The Promise Within
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
~*~*~
“It’s good to see you up and about again, Arthur.”
Both men paused to look up. Morgana stood, framed by the doorway, Gwen just behind her. They both looked tired and worn to Arthur’s admittedly faulty eyesight.
If they looked so even to him, he wondered how bad it really was.
Morgana entered the room without waiting for his invitation, looking around curiously before nodding to Merlin. “Merlin. Would you mind helping Gwen fetch dinner? I think I should like to eat in here tonight.”
When Merlin glanced at him before obeying, Arthur dipped his own head in acceptance. Honestly, he was surprised she’d been put off as long as she had. Morgana was not known for her patience.
He waited until both servants had left the room before holding out a chair. Then he moved around to seat himself across from her. Without Merlin’s presence, the other colors of the room and those surrounding his companion threatened to overwhelm him, but he resolutely pushed the faint tick of illness away. He’d been learning how to hide such things since birth. He would not let this completely destroy all of his training any longer. “Morgana. A pleasure to see you as always.”
Determination was all well and good, but he still had to slouch back in his seat slightly, using the stability of the chair to stop the worst of it.
She was watching him carefully, waiting for some sign of weakness or a hint of what had kept him in hiding for so long. “Are you well, Arthur? Truly?”
The image of her distraught figure being led away when he’d gone off in search of the questing beast welled up in his mind and he offered her a genuine smile. For all that they bickered, he knew that she cared. They were as near to siblings as either had ever had and though the hormones of their teenaged years had threatened that relationship, he was happy to know that it was firmly returned to them. “I’m getting there, Morgana. Truly.”
He still wasn’t sure how he felt about all this magic business, but he had to believe that Merlin was right when he said it would get better. The only other options were madness or death and Arthur wasn’t quite far enough gone to accept either just yet.
Another long searching look and finally her smile blossomed. “I’m glad, Arthur. I’ve been terribly worried. Everyone has. Well… almost everyone.” She rolled her eyes, suddenly looking much more like the Morgana he was used to. “Some of the nobles have been annoyingly persistent in trying to discredit you. Mostly the same ones who want Merlin executed.”
“Executed?” Arthur sat up abruptly, regretting it when the rainbow splashed world seemed to swirl and spin. He had to grip the table tightly until the room stabilized around him again.
Her concern was back a hundred fold, but she didn’t question him. She simply waited for him to regain his bearings before continuing more cautiously. “When you disappeared, Merlin was the one that led Uther to you. He was quite obviously under the influence of magic. There are those in the court who are very displeased that Uther has allowed him to live in spite of it.”
Arthur rubbed his eyes and sighed. Morgana’s deep indigo was flaring with all sorts of random colors and they were mixing with the others in the room. At least she wasn’t as difficult to deal with as his father. Without Merlin at his side, visits from his father tended to be followed with long minutes spent heaving in a bucket. He appreciated the show of care, though, and would have endured much worse for the solid evidence that Uther cared as much as Merlin believed. “You don’t think Father will listen to them, do you?”
“Oh no. Honestly, I expect Uther would rather have them beheaded. They’re becoming quite an irritating thorn in his side. He’s made it quite clear that there are plenty of knights who would be thrilled to have a barony of their own and that no one is irreplaceable.” She smirked. “He hasn’t come right out and said ‘annoy me further and I’ll have you killed’, but he might as well have. They’re far less vocal now.”
He made a face. “Instead they’re using more subtle methods?”
“Of course.” Her laugh was as fetching as it ever was when it was directed at him and he forced the worry away. If Morgana wasn’t concerned about it, then he shouldn’t be, either. She had a good head for politics despite her sex. “They’ve all exposed their hands, though. He’s watching them now. In fact, I suspect Merlin will be well protected from future accusations of wrong doing simply because Uther will assume automatically that it’s another attempt by the court to get rid of him. Even accusations of wizardry would be dismissed out of hand and you know how unreasonable Uther can be about those sorts of things.”
That, Arthur decided, was very good news. Mere suspicion was often enough to send someone to a grisly end and whatever mercy Uther might show his own son, there was no doubt that the same mercy wouldn’t be extended to a servant, not even one so close to Arthur. Perhaps, especially one so close to Arthur.
There was a familiar knock on the door before Merlin pushed it open and deposited a tray onto the table. Coming in behind him, Gwen filled a pair of goblets with wine.
The deep, warm pool of gold spilled back into the room, seeping into every corner, subsuming all the other colors that had been pounding at his vision, and Arthur relaxed. This time when he leaned back, it was just to be more comfortable, not because he feared he’d tumble head first over the armrest.
He was fairly certain that Morgana noticed, but again, she held her own counsel. No doubt he’d hear about it at some point, though. Morgana never let anything go indefinitely. She had the tenacity and ferocity of a wild boar when she wanted to and she never forgot.
“So… tell me about this campaign to discredit me. Anything I should be concerned about?”
Morgana snorted, somehow managing to retain her natural elegance despite the rather inelegant gesture, her expression pleased. “Hardly. Uther is so much like an over-protective mother bear with a wounded cub right now that they’d be better off trying their hand with a real bear. They’d be less likely to lose any limbs. The smarter ones are waiting to see how your recovery goes.”
“Well,” Arthur met Merlin’s eyes. “Then I suppose I shall just have to make a full recovery and put an end to all their nonsense.”
Merlin fairly beamed at him.
Dinner was a pleasant affair after that and Arthur could admit to himself that he’d missed the somewhat competitive companionship he’d long shared with Morgana.
It was only later, as Merlin helped him prepare for bed, that he wondered over Merlin’s quiet admittance of Morgana’s own magic. He wondered over the years of Morgana’s nightmares and how badly she took each one. It was obvious to him that she had no idea what she was.
“Why haven’t you told Morgana?”
Merlin looked up, a curious expression on his face. “Sire? Arms up.”
Arthur sighed and raised his arms so that Merlin could tug off the tunic. “You said that Morgana’s nightmares are more than simple nightmares.”
“Yes. She is a Seer.”
“And?”
With a sigh, Merlin shrugged and continued undressing the prince. “And Gaius feels it’s too dangerous for her. I think originally he hoped the power would just shut itself away if she didn’t believe in it herself.”
“It hasn’t, though.” Arthur thought of all the warnings Morgana had given him over the years, though he’d heeded few of them.
Merlin paused and shook his head unhappily. “No. It hasn’t. I think it’s getting worse, honestly.”
“You told me that I had to learn to control this, that it was the only way. Doesn’t the same apply to her?” He’d thought he was dying and he’d been slowly fading away from that certainty. Morgana obviously thought she was going mad, was afraid of the nightmarish images that haunted her sleep and threatened her with visions of losing the people she loved. He wondered how long it would be before she snapped entirely. He wanted better than that for her. She deserved better than that. “She deserves to know, Merlin. It’s one thing to lie to my father about it, but if she truly goes mad over this, could you live with yourself?”
The sorcerer had no answer for that.
~*~*~
Merlin wasn’t entirely sure what he expected from a fully trained auramancer, but Gilius wasn’t it.
The quiet, unassuming man actually flinched when Merlin approached, looking as if the sorcerer were an attacking dragon.
“H-hello, Emrys,” Gilius dipped his head, deferent and respectful to Merlin in a way that most people were with the king. “Um.. L-lord Emrys?”
The sorcerer arched a questioning brow at Gaius who simply shrugged, not quite understanding it either. “Right. Hello, then. I didn’t know that you were a druid.”
“Oh, I’m not. I just… It s-seems appropriate.” Gilius looked between them for a moment, shifting uneasily before glancing at the door and edging a bit further towards the center of the room. “You’re umm… certain that the king won’t…”
Merlin offered him a smile, both amused and unnerved by the way the man kept looking at him, seemingly torn between running from the room and kneeling. “You’re safe enough.”
For a moment, they all just looked at one another before Gaius sighed and shook his head. “You were the only auramancer who answered my call, Gilius. No one else was willing to come into Uther’s kingdom and help Uther’s son.” He paused, one brow going high in question. “Why?”
“Oh.. Umm..” The man bit his lip, shrugging a little and shuffling a bit closer to Gaius, though he was still giving Merlin a wide berth. Focusing on the physician, he seemed a little less nervous, a little more coherent. “It’s… He’s the one, yes? He who shall unite all of Albion and restore magic to its rightful place? The Once and Future King?”
Merlin wondered if it was just him, or if everyone really did say it with full capital lettering and deep underlines.
“I suspect so, although it is often difficult to know who actually fulfills prophecy and who is merely a false promise.”
“Then…” He glanced over at Merlin again and blanched slightly at seeing the sorcerer’s attention fully focused on him. “T-that’s good enough f-for me.”
They shared a look over his head and Merlin had to cover up a smile at the long-suffering expression on the physician’s face. At least he hadn’t caused it for once.
“Very well. Thank you for your kind offer of help. Even if you can’t work miracles, if you can at least get him to a point where he’s able to leave his rooms again, you’ll be duly rewarded for the service.”
“O-okay. Is the prince… Umm.. I mean… C-can I see the prince?”
For all that he seemed like a stuttery, nervous little mouse, Merlin could sense the power humming under the man’s skin. It was similar to what he’d been feeling from Arthur and he relaxed, more confident that Gilius would be able to help the prince. “Sure. Just follow me and try to look inconspicuous.”
He ignored the snort from Gaius.
~*~*~
Arthur was nervous.
He didn’t like being nervous.
Merlin had been summoned down to Gaius. The look he’d given Arthur before he’d slipped out of the room had told the prince all he needed to know about why.
The auramancer was here.
A few days of failed meditation attempts and some truly foul potions and Arthur was more than ready to try just about anything else, but he still wasn’t sure how he felt about this.
It went against the grain to deliberately invite any sort of magic wielder into Camelot, even one who was supposedly coming to help him.
Trusting Gaius was one thing; he’d grown up safe and secure in the knowledge that Gaius was one of the few people with whom Uther Pendragon was willing to entrust his child and his ward. That long instilled trust hadn’t really been shaken by the revelation that Gaius had once performed magic. The knowledge had done more to shake his view of his father than anything else. He still found himself questioning what other lies he’d been told over his lifetime and he burned to know why Uther had turned his back on all things magical to the point of murdering even children on the vaguest of suspicions.
Merlin had always been the exception to every rule he’d ever had. Arthur would have liked to blame the magic for it, for the comfort and sanctuary Merlin offered him from everything, but he knew that he couldn’t. This thing between them had been there almost from the first moment they’d met and Merlin’s prattle about dragons and destinies and coins aside, Arthur knew that it would have been so whatever the circumstances. They were so ridiculously tangled up in one another that it was impossible not to trust Merlin, no matter how many lies and deflected questions lay between them.
And, he suspected, even his father in full possession of certain facts of wizardry would have found it hard to believe that Merlin could ever intentionally harm Arthur.
Trusting a stranger, however, was almost more than Arthur could stomach.
If he hadn’t promised Merlin that he’d try, that’d he’d get control of this thing, he would have had the door barred and refused the meeting.
It didn’t help that he knew this man, this sorcerer, would know that he was nervous.
Merlin had decided that knowledge was the first step and he’d been reading the book of auramancy to Arthur, hoping that simply understanding what was going on would help.
In some ways, Arthur supposed it had.
All the horrible colors had actual meaning and he’d always been a quick study, his mind sharp and his memory clear.
He knew that the pretty indigo around Morgana meant that she was a seer and that the dark muddy blues edged with something almost black meant that she was afraid - of herself, of what the future held for them all, of Uther and what he could do.
He knew that the green, earthy colors around Guinevere meant that she was the most grounded of them all, balanced and in tune with the world and that the eroding pastels surrounding the edges meant that her ever-optimistic world view was fading away, being replaced by cynicism and doubt.
He knew that the bright emerald green, laced with silver around Gaius was the sign of a healer who held science and thought close to his heart and that the clumps of grey were fear and guilt.
He knew that the painful vortex of color around Uther was too complicated to sift through, that his father was both good and evil, a protector and a champion whose guilt and pain and fear was so intertwined with every other part of him that he’d likely never escape it all.
He knew that Merlin was powerful enough that the gold of his aura could sweep away everything else. Arthur suspected there was a lot more that he should be seeing from Merlin and he simply couldn’t because he couldn’t see around the gold.
Knowing didn’t block the pain or allow Arthur to see properly again. The book implied that a trained auramancer could go through life mostly normally, it just didn’t say how. The author seemed to take it for granted that anyone with the power would have been instructed from birth, that everyone would just know.
It was vexing.
Arthur hated starting out from the weaker position and he knew he would be in this. There was just no help for it. This Gilius would know that Arthur was nervous, would know that Arthur was vexed. He’d probably be able to read Arthur’s entire life story in every embarrassing detail and the best Arthur would be able to manage would be generalities.
Vexing didn’t even cover it.
The knock on the door made Arthur straighten up and he tugged at his sleeves and examined himself in the mirror. Merlin had been careful to make sure that Arthur was up and dressed - and bathed - each morning since his outburst, even if the prince never did anything more than brood in a chair over each miserable session of meditation with Gaius or entertain Morgana for a meal.
Arthur knew that it had gone a long way to ease minds about his well-being when Uther had entered his room for the first time to find him sitting at his table with proper clothes on again. He’d seen it then, the flares of lighter colors and the tension fading from Uther’s shoulders, and he hoped it meant that Merlin was right about his father.
“Enter,” Arthur called out, shaking his head, only to grimace at the way it made the world shudder unevenly and sent sparks of pain down his neck. It wasn’t the manner he’d have liked to greet this newcomer who would hold so much power over him.
“Arthur, the ... Specialist is here.”
He knew the story that Gaius had given his father and wondered how many such half-truths Uther had accepted over the years.
A small man edged into the door and around the other, approaching the prince. If he emanated any color, it was overwhelmed by Merlin. He dipped a slow, uncertain bow. “Gilius, sire. I’m… umm… That is…. I…”
Arthur arched a brow at the fearful glance Gilius sent towards Merlin. He waited another moment for the man to actually get out a coherent sentence before he lost patience and finished the introduction himself. It wasn’t as if there was anyone in the room who didn’t know exactly who Gilius was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do. “You’re the auramancer.”
“Yes. I…” Gilius shifted slightly before seeming to steel himself to turn and face Merlin. “I apologize, but..this would be far easier if you weren’t present, Emrys. I can’t… I c-can’t concentrate. You… th-here’s just…” He faltered at the end, all of his courage seeming to fade away although all Merlin had done was tip his head in question.
Merlin looked at Arthur, deferring to his prince as he only did when he felt it was important that Arthur make the decision. Arthur would never admit it aloud, but he’d pretty much given up trying to get that deference in any other situation and had even come to cherish Merlin’s insolence in the companionable manner it was given.
“Well, you’re the one that seems to think he can help,” Arthur replied, sighing with a shrug. “Might as well give him the chance to do it properly, shouldn’t you?”
Grinning, Merlin tipped his head in acceptance.
“Very well, sire.” The look he gave Gilius was edged with warning. “I will return shortly. If he’s in anything less than pristine condition, Uther will not be the one that you will have to fear.”
Gilius swallowed hard, and nodded violently. “Of course. I understand.”
Merlin smiled pleasantly and left the room, Arthur shaking his head at the silly theatrics. As if he needed Merlin’s protection. Perhaps he wasn’t in top form, but he could still hold a sword.
As soon as Merlin left, Gilius relaxed, shaking his head and no longer seeming quite as small. Only a sliver of color surrounded him once they were alone, hardly even noticeable and Arthur relaxed as well, thankful that he wouldn’t have to deal with anything more. “How can you stand it? He’s so…” He gestured widely with wild hands and wide eyes. “It’s intimidating. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.”
“Merlin?” Arthur blinked and glanced back at the door. “What are you on about? He’s just… Merlin.”
Merlin was many things, but intimidating had never been one of them.
The look on Gilius’ face was incredulous. “All that power? All that raw gold? It doesn’t burn you or… I don’t know… feel oppressive?”
“Well, no.” Arthur sat down at his table, gesturing for the auramancer to join him. Curiosity had ever been one of his defining flaws according to Morgana. “Is it supposed to?”
“I don’t know,” Gilius admitted. “I don’t know which of our reactions is the anomaly. As I said, I’ve never met a human with a golden aura. And even the rare dragon isn’t so… much.”
“There’s only one dragon left and you can’t be old enough to have met it before it was captured.”
The man just shook his head. “Only one of the ancient dragons from the clans. Not the only dragon left at all. And you’d be surprised. One of the advantages of auramancy is being able to prolong life.” Pursing his lips, he considered Arthur for a long moment. “How does Merlin’s aura feel to you?”
It was on his tongue to cut the man down to size for daring question him about something so intimate and private, or perhaps just to lie, but he restrained both urges. He could still hear Uther’s voice, drilling it into him that lying to his tutors simply wasn’t done. How could he learn if they didn’t have a good grasp on what he already knew?
And what good would it do, really, when Gilius could read the truth with or without his words.
“It’s… soothing. It feels… soft.” He glanced away and his voice dropped. “Like caring.”
Like love.
Mouth parting in surprise, Gilius leaned away for a moment, like he was trying to get a better read on what he was seeing.
Then he smiled. “Well, all right then. So. Gaius tells me that you’re biggest problem at the moment is controlling the influx. There are some very basic techniques that I can teach you for that. Once you’ve mastered them, it should help with the headaches and the vision. You’ll be able to See or not as you choose. Then, after that, we’ll get into the fun stuff.”
~*~*~
After his first meeting with Arthur, Gilius seemed to relax a little around Merlin. Not a lot, but enough that he wasn’t stuttering over every other word that came out of his mouth.
Merlin was burning with curiosity to know what they’d discussed, what they’d done, but both men had been closed mouthed and he’d had to be content with the fact that Arthur seemed okay.
It took another day or so before he made real improvement, but Merlin could tell that Gilius was impressed.
Apparently Arthur was a good student once he actually allowed himself to be taught. It wasn’t anything that Merlin hadn’t already known.
There were always things for a servant to do in a castle the size of Camelot, but without Arthur making unreasonable demands, Merlin had spent weeks stocking and cleaning the physician’s chambers until they’d both been glad when Arthur had needed him again.
Now, banished from the prince’s chambers for a good portion of the day again and with nothing else to do for Gaius, Merlin found himself at loose ends.
He helped out here and there, but too many of the other servants wanted gossip about the prince and Merlin wouldn’t have given it to them even if he could have. They’d tried bullying it out of him, but Merlin was no shy daisy who would fall under their pressure and he’d rounded on them, uncaring about how many there were, vicious and protective and angered that they’d dare.
The same magic that had been simmering in his blood all his life had only gotten stronger since his defeat of Nimueh and it had hovered there on the tip of his tongue, ready to lash out at his command, almost as if it had tasted blood once and wanted blood again.
He suspected that Uther’s timely arrival was probably the only thing that kept him from revealing himself in disastrous and homicidal fashion.
The king had dispersed the group with sharp warnings that if he heard any further gossip about his son, the best the culprits could hope for was being turned out without more than the clothes on their back. When they were gone, Uther had given him an approving nod and then kindly suggested that perhaps he should take a day off if neither the prince nor Gaius needed him.
Merlin had fled, magic still trying to bubble to the surface.
Arthur was more right than he knew. The magic was too easy, too close to his fingertips.
In a fit of confused desperation, he’d fled to the one creature besides Arthur that he could identify with anymore.
The dragon hadn’t looked particularly surprised to see him and Merlin wondered at that. At how the dragon seemed to know so much about random things and nothing about others.
That first time, there’d been no words between them. Merlin had paced on the ledge, grappling with his control, trying to force calm and the dragon had simply watched from his own perch.
As the days passed there were things Merlin wanted to ask, things that lingered on his mind.
He wanted to know about his father, wanted to know if the dragon had known that Nimueh would sacrifice his mother. He wanted to know why so many would sacrifice themselves for the hope that he would fulfill their promised destiny.
He couldn’t bring himself to ask, though. He hadn’t liked the last answers he’d gotten and sometimes even Merlin could learn from his mistakes.
Instead, they settled into an uneasy truce and quiet companionship.
He was primly informed that the dragon’s name was Kilgarrah one morning when he’d been telling a story about Will. Apparently, it was annoying being called nothing more than ‘Dragon’, especially by kin. The sorcerer suspected that Kilgarrah missed the connections and family he’d once had and hearing his true name on the tongue of another was as close as he could actually get.
Merlin didn’t dare bring his book of magic out of his room, but occasionally, he memorized the words of a spell and practiced in the cavern. Sometimes, the dragon watched on in private glee as Merlin failed or his spell did something completely opposite of what it was supposed to do. Sometimes, he was actually helpful, correcting Merlin’s form or pronunciation.
As the days passed, he even began offering a few other magical tips, spells, and other knowledge that Merlin suspected weren’t found in any of the few remaining books.
Merlin wasn’t quite willing to say that they were friends or even that they ever could be, but his fiery rage had faded away and Kilgarrah’s amusement stopped feeling malicious and hateful.
When he started doubting the sanity of what he was doing, spending his days with a creature he’d only recently wished a fate worse than death upon, Merlin shook it off.
Perhaps it wasn’t sane, but it felt important, like it was something he needed in order to get his path heading back in the right direction again.
That was good enough for Merlin.
~*~*~
“Close your eyes, Sire,” Gilius said softly from where he was settled beside Arthur. “Find your center and hold, all right?”
Obediently, Arthur let his eyes slip shut and concentrated on simply breathing.
He was getting better at centering himself. Honestly, it wasn’t that much different than a warrior’s state of concentration and once he’d noticed the parallel, he’d found it easier to slip into the meditative state.
From there, Gilius had walked him through the basic steps of shutting the extraneous colors away from his life and then letting them back out.
In less than a week, he could do it on his own without much thought except right after waking or if he was particularly exhausted. He suspected alcohol would also effect his control.
For the moment, he’d decided to adopt a policy of temperance.
“All right.”
“Good. Now, keep your eyes closed and reach out for the feel of the auras around you. Don’t do anything with them, just… Feel them.”
Another deep breath and Arthur nodded slowly. Every color and shade of aura had a specific feel, sometimes it felt like a texture brushing against the new senses he’d developed. Sometimes, it felt more like a temperature, blazing heat or icy cold and everything in between. Even within those sensations, though, there was another layer, something unique to the living being the aura was attached to.
He doubted he could have explained it to Merlin or Gaius if they’d asked.
He wasn’t good at telling the sensations apart yet, but he was getting better. The more familiar he was with a person the easier it was. Arthur was certain that he’d be able to walk blindly through the courtyard full of people and instantly know Merlin, his father, Gaius, and Morgana. He was a little less certain about Guinevere and his knights, though he thought it wouldn’t take much practice to change that.
Today there was only Gilius and Gaius. Arthur wasn’t sure where Merlin had gotten off to, but Gilius had decided it’d probably be best to practice this without Merlin around to drown everything else out.
They were in the physician’s shop and that was practice enough. Everything that had an aura was a sensation brushing against his senses and everything had an aura, it seemed.
The prickly, slightly acidic feeling belonged the potions that littered the room.
The musky feeling that brought to mind running a hand over a freshly harvested field of grain was the herbs and flowers that Merlin had so diligently harvested. Arthur could still feel a faint hint of Merlin’s magic on them.
The stones felt rough against his mind, but far softer than they felt against his fingers.
The cot that had held so many patients over the years was layered with feeling, the icy cold of grief and the warm tickle of happy relief.
Ancient knowledge pressed out heavily from the books that lay scattered around, some more so than others. More than one felt dark and dangerous. He could feel something heavier and slightly off coming from Merlin’s room. Merlin’s spell book, he thought. It had the most unique feel of any of the others and was permeated with the soft warm feeling he was accustomed to feeling from Merlin’s magic.
Gaius felt like warm earth overlaid with the mingled sensations of his potions and herbs.
Gilius was always hard to pin down. He held his own aura in tight control and he only leaked it a bit during these sessions. Otherwise, he was practically non-existant except to Arthur’s most basic, non-magical sight. He’d even hinted more than once that he could wrap his aura in such a way as to fool even that sense, but Arthur wasn’t sure if he believed that or not.
“All right, Arthur. Today we’re going to take this a bit further, okay?” Gilius shifted slightly and the feel of Gaius moved closer. “Most fortunately, Gaius managed to knick himself earlier this morning. Healing is the most common active use of auramancy and, happily, one of the easiest.”
A hand wrapped around Arthur’s wrist lightly and Gilius urged him to hold his hand forward, palm down. Then his other hand was moved slightly under it, palm up.
He could sense the moment Gaius’ hand moved between his own.
“Right then, first thing is to find the damage. Wounds will always make an aura feel slightly... Off, I suppose is the best way to explain it. The bigger the hurt, the worse that is. This is just a small thing, so you might have a hard time pinpointing it without opening your eyes, but try. Sometimes your physical sight can fool your other sight into dismissing a deeper wound as nothing significant. That does improve eventually, once you learn to start trusting your senses and using them more instinctively.”
For several minutes, Arthur couldn’t feel anything different than usual. He was about to give up when he finally noticed the wound. If he hadn’t been looking for it so diligently, he’d have missed it entirely, like a briar bush in the middle of a field of wheat.
“I have it,” he murmured.
“Very good. All right, now I want you to imagine that Gaius’ hand really is made of earth and sort of… brush the good earth over the damaged bit.”
Arthur almost opened his eyes and he knew his hands faltered slightly. “How exactly am I supposed to do that?”
“I know, I know, it sounds odd.” Gilius laughed while Gaius snorted. “Once you’re an old hat at this, you won’t need to imagine anything. You’ll be able to do this sort of thing easily, with barely a thought at all. Right now, though, this is the easiest way to learn it.”
“Right, okay.” It sounded more than odd, it sounded absolutely mental, but Arthur had learned to trust that Gilius knew what he was talking about. He concentrated a little harder and tried to do as he’d been told. Imagining the dirt was easy. It was the rest that he couldn’t quite manage.
Finally Gilius sighed. “My lord, if you don’t believe it will work, then it won’t. A great deal of your ability will always come from your belief that you can do it. When you doubt, you will fail.”
Arthur took a deep breath, searching for his center again.
How many times had his faith in his sword skills been the only thing that had saved his life?
How often had his father warned him that the people would not follow a king who did not have conviction of self?
Another deep breath and Arthur pushed. Even in the privacy of his imagination, he suspected he hadn’t quite managed it as the soft brush of earth became a landslide.
“Whoa, whoa, okay. Stop!”
His eyes flew open as another sensation, something like sweet melons and cool metal rushed over his hands. He only caught the tail end of Gilius’ hasty reparation of his own mistake, the old physician’s hand seeming to morph from something young and fresh back into it’s usual aged state.
Gaius bore it with nothing more than an arched brow, but Arthur couldn’t help but flush slightly, feeling like he’d just been scolded.
“It’s all right, Sire,” Gilius reassured him. “The first time never goes quite right. That’s why I chose such a small injury.” He grinned. “You did heal the cut. You just also healed the old age and the arthritis and the spots and everything else.”
With a snort, Gaius moved away, back to his own potions brewing, cut free.
“What did I do, exactly? I mean… what is the image of brushing earth over it meant to represent?”
Gilius shrugged. “It will be different for each wound that you heal while you’re still learning because the image has to relate to the individual. That isn’t the important bit. Basically, what you’re doing is manipulating a person’s aura, filling in the hole, or brushing away the blemish. You’re encouraging the aura to heal the damage. In the same way, you can damage the aura yourself, but that should only ever be done if your life is in danger.” He bit his lip for a moment before continuing. “Most auramancers believe that healing is the easiest because it’s what we’re meant to be doing. Harming another’s aura is painful, my lord. And every time you do it, it gets a little easier, but you will damage your own, just a little bit. And then a little more. On and on, until what’s left is just a rotting, diseased mess. It’s not very pretty when that happens.”
The corruption his father was so insistent lay at the heart of all magic, Arthur thought, turning it over in his mind. He could see it, he supposed, how one might fall into the downward spiral.
He had no intention of falling into that trap himself, but he could see it.
“What if a wound is so grievous, the damaged bit of aura so great, that there isn’t enough left to fill it?”
There was a moment of hesitation, then Gilius dipped his head slightly. “It is possible to use the aura of one person to heal another, but I don’t recommend it. It’s difficult to keep track of both the one you are healing and the one that you’re borrowing from. It’s very easy to accidentally murder one person to save the other. In a pinch, you can use your own to start the healing process and then move to the patient’s once enough of his aura has recovered to make it feasible. It can be just as dangerous, and potentially suicidal if you do get distracted, but it’s much harder to lose track of your own aura than one outside of yourself.”
Arthur didn’t need to be able to sense Gilius’ aura to hear the agony of experience in his words.
He took the advice to heart and prayed that he’d never have to go through it himself.
~*~*~
Arthur was lying in bed, resting, when Merlin slipped in.
“You look better, Sire.” His voice was pitched soft enough that Arthur only barely heard it.
He cracked open an eye and peered at the dark haired man moving about the room, tidying things idly. Merlin looked restless and unsettled and quite unsure what to do with himself.
With training, Arthur had learned to shut away most of the aura stimuli that had been flooding his eyes and mind, but the golden pool that surrounded Merlin remained, fainter, less overwhelming to his senses, but always present. Gilius was confident that with more practice, he’d be able to block even that out, but truthfully, Arthur didn’t mind.
Now that he wasn’t rendered effectively blind and incapacitated by the onslaught, it was much easier to be accepting of his condition and he still found Merlin’s aura to be a soothing counter-balance to the other stressors in his life. He’d asked Gilius what that meant, but his current tutor would only smile enigmatically and tell him that it was something he’d have to figure out on his own.
Gilius really was much more confident and self-contained when Merlin wasn’t around spooking him.
“What have you been doing, Merlin?” he asked as he let his eyes slip shut again. “Lazing away the days? It won’t last forever, you know. I imagine the stables are in a sad state these days, lacking your tender care. And my armor will see use again soon enough. Even Gaius feels I’ll be able to return to my duties in no time at all.”
“I’m sure the stables are fine since, you know, there are actual stable boys to clean it.” Merlin snorted. “And you know I never give your armor anything less than perfect care, even when you give me a list of insane tasks that aren’t even in my job description. I did look it up once, you know.” He shrugged as he made another circuit of the room. “You have your training, I have mine.”
That caught Arthur’s attention and he pushed himself up to sit, a sliver of worry settling in his mind. “If you get caught-”
“I won’t get caught, sire.” Merlin smiled. “Someone would have to venture down near Kilgarrah to catch me and I can’t imagine Uther or the guards doing that.”
Arthur arched a brow. “Kilgarrah? Some new tutor Gaius has summoned for you?”
“The dragon. Although, don’t spread that around, all right? I don’t think he’d like it if everyone in Camelot knew his name. It’s taken me a year to get it out of him. Not that I’d really asked before, I suppose. I was fine just calling him ‘Dragon’, but apparently he grew weary of answering to that.”
“The dragon.”
“Mmhmm.” Merlin’s smile grew wider, as if announcing that he was spending his days with a massive fire breathing reptile were nothing more than a great joke. “We don’t talk much, but the cave is a good place to practice some things and I think it humors him to critique my techniques.”
He remembered vaguely that the dragon was one of the sources of Merlin’s knowledge of prophecy, that the sorcerer occasionally went down into the caverns for advice. Somehow he hadn’t quite equated that with spending actual time with it. Arthur scratched his head for a moment, considering, then shrugged it off. “I can understand that. I certainly find a great deal of humor in critiquing your technique with a sword.”
“Ha ha ha,” Melrin replied, rolling his eyes and tucking away a stray tunic that he’d found. “Well, as with yours, most of his critique is simply aimed at amusing himself at my expense. Some of it is actually useful, though.”
“I’m hurt, Merlin. Truly,” Arthur quirked a grin at the other man. “I put a lot of time and effort into whipping you into shape, you know. It’s not easy on my side of things either.”
“Right. Because beating me up is soooo hard for you. I can tell.” Merlin rolled his eyes and finally settled on the edge of Arthur’s bed near Arthur’s hip. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, concern welling up in his eyes as he picked at the coverlet. “You’re really better now, right, Arthur? The training is helping?”
Arthur smiled faintly, his heart warming as he considered how much he mattered to Merlin. It was more than the concern of a servant for a master, a subject for a king. Merlin had always shown him more care and loyalty than such simple things could account for. At the same time, he was unafraid to tell Arthur when he was being stupid in great detail, usually with as many unflattering words as possible. Arthur knew without a doubt that he could tell Merlin anything and the sorcerer would keep his confidences. He also knew that regardless of how Merlin felt about it privately, he’d show nothing but support in the face of others.
He didn’t need his father to tell him how rare that was for a royal.
Whether he was right about anything else that was between them, whether they ever took that step or not, Arthur would cherish what Merlin already gave him.
“I’m fine, Merlin. Honestly.” He nudged the other man with his knee. “Thank you.”
“For what, sire?”
“For being you.”
~*~*~
Arthur flipped through his mother’s book and sighed.
“What is it?” Merlin asked, looking up from a tunic he was mending on the foot of the prince’s bed. Dark hair fell over his forehead and one elegant hand left his task to push it back. He’d need a haircut soon, Arthur thought.
Mending had been in the original list of tasks he’d set for the other back when they’d first been thrust together. After the first horrible results, he’d relented and told Merlin that the castle did have girls trained to do it. Eventually, Arthur had stopped suggesting that he send the tunics out, though his servant wasn’t a particularly skilled seamstress. He’d come to realize at some point that Merlin seemed to find some sort of peace in the work and the prince could never begrudge him that, even when it did mean that his day to day clothes weren’t as pristinely mended as they could have been.
His formal robes and jackets were a completely different matter, though.
“Arthur?”
“Huh?” For a moment, he forgot that he’d been asked a question and he had to shake his head and think about it. “Oh, nothing.”
With a soft laugh, Merlin set aside the tunic and stood, stretching a little before padding over to join Arthur where he was sitting at the table. He leaned against Arthur’s side, head settling on Arthur’s shoulder and peered down at the book. “Something wrong with the book?”
“You mean besides the fact that it just assumes I already know what I’m doing? No, nothing at all.” He blew at the hair that was tickling his nose. He was definitely going to suggest a hair cut in the near future. “It has a basic color chart, but says nothing about the colors having any actual depth or feeling. None of the meditation or basic healing is mentioned here. It just jumps straight into more complicated uses. Who knows what else I’ll learn that isn’t in this blasted book. It’s just… there aren’t many auramancers left to teach any children born into this, right?”
Merlin nodded. “Yeah. Gaius only knew a handful in all of Albion.”
“Gilius is close-mouthed about it, but I get the same feeling from him. It just doesn’t seem right. I mean… if a child shows natural aptitude in medicine, there is always someone he can learn from. Knights always teach their skills to squires.”
He reached up and brushed a hand through Merlin’s hair, enjoying the soft richness. Maybe he didn’t need a haircut after all.
“There aren’t a lot of sorcerers running around at all, Arthur.”
“I know.” That was the point, though. He knew that Merlin had struggled, trying to learn on his own until he’d come to Camelot and found Gaius and the single spell book. “I just… if the book is going to exist at all, they should damned well have included an introduction of the basics.”
Merlin pulled away enough that he could look at Arthur’s face, then he smiled and resumed the close position. “It offends the teacher in you, doesn’t it, Arthur?”
He wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but he supposed that was true. “I guess.”
Merlin reached out a hand, hovering it over the pages of the book. He spoke a few soft words of unfamiliar language and the book glowed golden for a moment. When the glow faded, it looked thicker. “There you go. Write it yourself. Don’t ask me for a quill, though. I haven’t learned a spell for that yet.”
Leaning forward, careful not to disrupt Merlin’s head, Arthur flipped through the book. At the very end, there was an entire sheaf of new, blank pages.
With a grin, he bumped his head against Merlin’s. “I guess that magic has to be useful for something other than slaying monsters, eh?”
“Oh, you’d be amazed at what all I do with it,” Merlin quipped with a cheeky grin.
~*~*~
“It’s beautiful, don’t you think?” Arthur asked, his voice soft and reverent as they settled on the rocks by the water’s edge. The small waterfall splashed down into a tranquil pool. Around them, the forest was peaceful, quiet but for the sounds of nature going about it’s business. “Morgana and I used to sneak away when we were children and come here on warm days for picnicking. She was a horrible hoyden, of course. Little wretch always insisted on swimming around and pretending she was a mermaid. Called me a prude for scolding her about it.”
In truth, he’d been horribly embarrassed, as much by her daring as by his own reactions to it. Morgana had always been beautiful, even as a girl, and his body had appreciated it long before he had.
Merlin nodded and glanced at him curiously. “Do you see it differently now?”
He knew what Merlin meant. He quirked a grin and gave Merlin a wry look. “Honestly, Merlin, if I were to try looking with that, all I’d see is you.”
The smile on Merlin’s face grew bashful and the sorcerer turned away to hide his pleased look. It was too late, though. Arthur had seen it.
“Merlin…” It was on the tip of his tongue to push, to put it all out between them at last, but when Merlin looked up again, eyes bright and mouth curved with pleasure, Arthur felt the words slip away. This thing worked best when they didn’t speak of it. “Do you swim?”
Blinking in confusion, Merlin was silent for a moment before shrugging, a wry look on his face. “If by ‘swim’ you mean, ‘won’t drown if you fall in’, yes. If you mean ‘swim’ as in ‘properly float and move limbs in something approaching gracefulness’, then no. We splashed about as children, of course, but there wasn’t really any need to do more than that. I can sort of…” He paused to hold his hands up and flap them a bit. “Paddle around to stay above the surface if I have to. Even then, if I’m in the sort of dire straights that requires it, my magic would probably kick in and help get me out of it quick enough.”
“Would you care to learn?” Arthur asked, already stripping out of his outer layers. “The water is always refreshingly cool during the summer, but it’s very deep.”
Merlin tilted his head to the side, giving the water an uneasy look. “Sire… For the sake of being honest, I suppose I should admit that I’m uneasy near such bodies of water.” He paused and shrugged again. “Well… Actually, I guess the absolute truth is that I’m uneasy with you around such bodies of water.”
“I assure you, Merlin, I’m well able to keep myself afloat. I’ve been able to swim since I was a small child.” There was something in the way that Merlin bit his lip and averted his eyes, that tugged at Arthur, though. He’d have liked to think it was because Merlin was overwhelmed by his nearly nude body - he could work with that, make a joke of it or take it more seriously, perhaps reach across the expanse and push - he didn’t need auramancy to tell him it wasn’t. He sighed as he stripped out of his under layers. Usually it was difficult to get Merlin to stop speaking. It was only when it was actually important that he grew reticent and secretive. “What is it, Merlin?”
“Do you remember Sophia?”
Arthur shuddered at the close call he’d had, there. “Unfortunately. I can’t believe I fancied myself in love with her. She wasn’t that beautiful.”
“Right… About that…” Merlin hesitated and sighed. “You were enchanted. Sophia and her father were Sidhe.”
The expression on Merlin’s face was enough to still any instinctive protest Arthur might have made. And as he thought about it, that certainly explained a few things. He wondered how many of the odd things that had happened to him since Merlin had arrived at Camelot had magical explanations. Somehow, he expected the answer to that was ‘most’. “Well that’s a relief. The only other explanation I’d been able to come up with was a bout of temporary insanity.”
“Don’t joke about it, Arthur. The only remotely humorous thing about the entire situation was your reaction the morning after.”
Arthur snorted. “I really must be a fool to have believed that preposterous story the two of you cooked up. Even if you could have knocked me over the head with a stick, you wouldn’t have. Not even to save me from my own stupidity.” Merlin would have come up with something else, something that didn’t involve sticks and concussions, he was sure. “You’re a horrible liar, Merlin. If everyone wasn’t convinced your brains are addled, there’s no way you’d have survived so long.”
“It was the best I could come up with. We weren’t expecting you to forget. Would that we could all forget it so easily.” Merlin sighed and tipped his head back, staring at the sky for a long moment. Arthur was tempted to take a peek at his aura, but he knew it wouldn’t do much good. Though he’d come far under Gilius’ tutelage, and far more quickly than the older auramancer had expected, he still hadn’t managed to see through that all encompassing sea of gold that surrounded his friend. He took comfort in the fact that Gilius hadn’t managed it any better and that it didn’t feel oppressive to him as it did his tutor.
Even if he could have seen through the gold to the colors that would have told him more, he still wasn’t as good as he’d have liked with reading the more minute details. Hopefully he’d get better.
“What happened, Merlin?”
Another moment of hesitation, then Merlin capitulated. “They were exiles. They needed a princely sacrifice so that they could return to their home in Avalon.”
“Me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Merlin nodded regardless. “Yes. Sophia ensorcelled you and they led you to the lake that serves as a gateway to the other realm.”
“You killed them.” Even knowing the power Merlin wielded, it was difficult to imagine. Arthur thought of the wary hesitance that Gilius had shown around Merlin.
The sorcerer offered a twisted little smile and Arthur didn’t doubt the honesty of his words. “It wasn’t the first time I killed for you, Arthur, nor the last. There are times when I am as much your weapon and your shield as I am your servant and friend.”
“That doesn’t explain your aversion to water.”
“It took me longer to find you under the surface than it did to defeat the Sidhe. I thought I was too late, that you’d drowned.” Merlin shuddered slightly and looked away. “It was a very near thing.”
“Merlin…”
Merlin turned back to him, eyes far too dark and serious for such a beautiful, sunny day. “What if I’d been too late, Arthur? You have no idea how many close calls you’ve had. What if I’m late next time? What am I supposed to do then? What am I supposed to do with- … without you?”
Mindful of his nudity, Arthur hesitated a moment before reaching out and tugging Merlin close. “You weren’t too late, Merlin. You’re never too late.”
Merlin’s head fell forward and settled on Arthur’s shoulder. He took a shuddering breath, the puff of warm air making the prince shiver faintly despite the heat of the day. “Kilgarrah says that we’ve gone and turned destiny up on it’s ear. He hasn’t any idea what path lies before us now or how we’ll fair on it.”
Unsure about the nonsequitor, Arthur shrugged. He hadn’t met the mysterious dragon held captive under the castle yet, but he knew that Merlin had forged some kind of friendship with it. “I have faith that between the two of us, we’ll muddle along somehow. Now, are you going to strip and let me teach you that water is nothing to fear, or are you going to make me stand here in the buff all on my own while you soak my shoulder?”
That startled a laugh out of Merlin. “‘M not crying.”
“Of course not, Merlin,” Arthur replied as with as much condescension as he could manage.
“Prat.”
Funny how Merlin could always make that sound more like an endearment than an insult.
~*~*~
Continued in Part 4
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
~*~*~
“It’s good to see you up and about again, Arthur.”
Both men paused to look up. Morgana stood, framed by the doorway, Gwen just behind her. They both looked tired and worn to Arthur’s admittedly faulty eyesight.
If they looked so even to him, he wondered how bad it really was.
Morgana entered the room without waiting for his invitation, looking around curiously before nodding to Merlin. “Merlin. Would you mind helping Gwen fetch dinner? I think I should like to eat in here tonight.”
When Merlin glanced at him before obeying, Arthur dipped his own head in acceptance. Honestly, he was surprised she’d been put off as long as she had. Morgana was not known for her patience.
He waited until both servants had left the room before holding out a chair. Then he moved around to seat himself across from her. Without Merlin’s presence, the other colors of the room and those surrounding his companion threatened to overwhelm him, but he resolutely pushed the faint tick of illness away. He’d been learning how to hide such things since birth. He would not let this completely destroy all of his training any longer. “Morgana. A pleasure to see you as always.”
Determination was all well and good, but he still had to slouch back in his seat slightly, using the stability of the chair to stop the worst of it.
She was watching him carefully, waiting for some sign of weakness or a hint of what had kept him in hiding for so long. “Are you well, Arthur? Truly?”
The image of her distraught figure being led away when he’d gone off in search of the questing beast welled up in his mind and he offered her a genuine smile. For all that they bickered, he knew that she cared. They were as near to siblings as either had ever had and though the hormones of their teenaged years had threatened that relationship, he was happy to know that it was firmly returned to them. “I’m getting there, Morgana. Truly.”
He still wasn’t sure how he felt about all this magic business, but he had to believe that Merlin was right when he said it would get better. The only other options were madness or death and Arthur wasn’t quite far enough gone to accept either just yet.
Another long searching look and finally her smile blossomed. “I’m glad, Arthur. I’ve been terribly worried. Everyone has. Well… almost everyone.” She rolled her eyes, suddenly looking much more like the Morgana he was used to. “Some of the nobles have been annoyingly persistent in trying to discredit you. Mostly the same ones who want Merlin executed.”
“Executed?” Arthur sat up abruptly, regretting it when the rainbow splashed world seemed to swirl and spin. He had to grip the table tightly until the room stabilized around him again.
Her concern was back a hundred fold, but she didn’t question him. She simply waited for him to regain his bearings before continuing more cautiously. “When you disappeared, Merlin was the one that led Uther to you. He was quite obviously under the influence of magic. There are those in the court who are very displeased that Uther has allowed him to live in spite of it.”
Arthur rubbed his eyes and sighed. Morgana’s deep indigo was flaring with all sorts of random colors and they were mixing with the others in the room. At least she wasn’t as difficult to deal with as his father. Without Merlin at his side, visits from his father tended to be followed with long minutes spent heaving in a bucket. He appreciated the show of care, though, and would have endured much worse for the solid evidence that Uther cared as much as Merlin believed. “You don’t think Father will listen to them, do you?”
“Oh no. Honestly, I expect Uther would rather have them beheaded. They’re becoming quite an irritating thorn in his side. He’s made it quite clear that there are plenty of knights who would be thrilled to have a barony of their own and that no one is irreplaceable.” She smirked. “He hasn’t come right out and said ‘annoy me further and I’ll have you killed’, but he might as well have. They’re far less vocal now.”
He made a face. “Instead they’re using more subtle methods?”
“Of course.” Her laugh was as fetching as it ever was when it was directed at him and he forced the worry away. If Morgana wasn’t concerned about it, then he shouldn’t be, either. She had a good head for politics despite her sex. “They’ve all exposed their hands, though. He’s watching them now. In fact, I suspect Merlin will be well protected from future accusations of wrong doing simply because Uther will assume automatically that it’s another attempt by the court to get rid of him. Even accusations of wizardry would be dismissed out of hand and you know how unreasonable Uther can be about those sorts of things.”
That, Arthur decided, was very good news. Mere suspicion was often enough to send someone to a grisly end and whatever mercy Uther might show his own son, there was no doubt that the same mercy wouldn’t be extended to a servant, not even one so close to Arthur. Perhaps, especially one so close to Arthur.
There was a familiar knock on the door before Merlin pushed it open and deposited a tray onto the table. Coming in behind him, Gwen filled a pair of goblets with wine.
The deep, warm pool of gold spilled back into the room, seeping into every corner, subsuming all the other colors that had been pounding at his vision, and Arthur relaxed. This time when he leaned back, it was just to be more comfortable, not because he feared he’d tumble head first over the armrest.
He was fairly certain that Morgana noticed, but again, she held her own counsel. No doubt he’d hear about it at some point, though. Morgana never let anything go indefinitely. She had the tenacity and ferocity of a wild boar when she wanted to and she never forgot.
“So… tell me about this campaign to discredit me. Anything I should be concerned about?”
Morgana snorted, somehow managing to retain her natural elegance despite the rather inelegant gesture, her expression pleased. “Hardly. Uther is so much like an over-protective mother bear with a wounded cub right now that they’d be better off trying their hand with a real bear. They’d be less likely to lose any limbs. The smarter ones are waiting to see how your recovery goes.”
“Well,” Arthur met Merlin’s eyes. “Then I suppose I shall just have to make a full recovery and put an end to all their nonsense.”
Merlin fairly beamed at him.
Dinner was a pleasant affair after that and Arthur could admit to himself that he’d missed the somewhat competitive companionship he’d long shared with Morgana.
It was only later, as Merlin helped him prepare for bed, that he wondered over Merlin’s quiet admittance of Morgana’s own magic. He wondered over the years of Morgana’s nightmares and how badly she took each one. It was obvious to him that she had no idea what she was.
“Why haven’t you told Morgana?”
Merlin looked up, a curious expression on his face. “Sire? Arms up.”
Arthur sighed and raised his arms so that Merlin could tug off the tunic. “You said that Morgana’s nightmares are more than simple nightmares.”
“Yes. She is a Seer.”
“And?”
With a sigh, Merlin shrugged and continued undressing the prince. “And Gaius feels it’s too dangerous for her. I think originally he hoped the power would just shut itself away if she didn’t believe in it herself.”
“It hasn’t, though.” Arthur thought of all the warnings Morgana had given him over the years, though he’d heeded few of them.
Merlin paused and shook his head unhappily. “No. It hasn’t. I think it’s getting worse, honestly.”
“You told me that I had to learn to control this, that it was the only way. Doesn’t the same apply to her?” He’d thought he was dying and he’d been slowly fading away from that certainty. Morgana obviously thought she was going mad, was afraid of the nightmarish images that haunted her sleep and threatened her with visions of losing the people she loved. He wondered how long it would be before she snapped entirely. He wanted better than that for her. She deserved better than that. “She deserves to know, Merlin. It’s one thing to lie to my father about it, but if she truly goes mad over this, could you live with yourself?”
The sorcerer had no answer for that.
~*~*~
Merlin wasn’t entirely sure what he expected from a fully trained auramancer, but Gilius wasn’t it.
The quiet, unassuming man actually flinched when Merlin approached, looking as if the sorcerer were an attacking dragon.
“H-hello, Emrys,” Gilius dipped his head, deferent and respectful to Merlin in a way that most people were with the king. “Um.. L-lord Emrys?”
The sorcerer arched a questioning brow at Gaius who simply shrugged, not quite understanding it either. “Right. Hello, then. I didn’t know that you were a druid.”
“Oh, I’m not. I just… It s-seems appropriate.” Gilius looked between them for a moment, shifting uneasily before glancing at the door and edging a bit further towards the center of the room. “You’re umm… certain that the king won’t…”
Merlin offered him a smile, both amused and unnerved by the way the man kept looking at him, seemingly torn between running from the room and kneeling. “You’re safe enough.”
For a moment, they all just looked at one another before Gaius sighed and shook his head. “You were the only auramancer who answered my call, Gilius. No one else was willing to come into Uther’s kingdom and help Uther’s son.” He paused, one brow going high in question. “Why?”
“Oh.. Umm..” The man bit his lip, shrugging a little and shuffling a bit closer to Gaius, though he was still giving Merlin a wide berth. Focusing on the physician, he seemed a little less nervous, a little more coherent. “It’s… He’s the one, yes? He who shall unite all of Albion and restore magic to its rightful place? The Once and Future King?”
Merlin wondered if it was just him, or if everyone really did say it with full capital lettering and deep underlines.
“I suspect so, although it is often difficult to know who actually fulfills prophecy and who is merely a false promise.”
“Then…” He glanced over at Merlin again and blanched slightly at seeing the sorcerer’s attention fully focused on him. “T-that’s good enough f-for me.”
They shared a look over his head and Merlin had to cover up a smile at the long-suffering expression on the physician’s face. At least he hadn’t caused it for once.
“Very well. Thank you for your kind offer of help. Even if you can’t work miracles, if you can at least get him to a point where he’s able to leave his rooms again, you’ll be duly rewarded for the service.”
“O-okay. Is the prince… Umm.. I mean… C-can I see the prince?”
For all that he seemed like a stuttery, nervous little mouse, Merlin could sense the power humming under the man’s skin. It was similar to what he’d been feeling from Arthur and he relaxed, more confident that Gilius would be able to help the prince. “Sure. Just follow me and try to look inconspicuous.”
He ignored the snort from Gaius.
~*~*~
Arthur was nervous.
He didn’t like being nervous.
Merlin had been summoned down to Gaius. The look he’d given Arthur before he’d slipped out of the room had told the prince all he needed to know about why.
The auramancer was here.
A few days of failed meditation attempts and some truly foul potions and Arthur was more than ready to try just about anything else, but he still wasn’t sure how he felt about this.
It went against the grain to deliberately invite any sort of magic wielder into Camelot, even one who was supposedly coming to help him.
Trusting Gaius was one thing; he’d grown up safe and secure in the knowledge that Gaius was one of the few people with whom Uther Pendragon was willing to entrust his child and his ward. That long instilled trust hadn’t really been shaken by the revelation that Gaius had once performed magic. The knowledge had done more to shake his view of his father than anything else. He still found himself questioning what other lies he’d been told over his lifetime and he burned to know why Uther had turned his back on all things magical to the point of murdering even children on the vaguest of suspicions.
Merlin had always been the exception to every rule he’d ever had. Arthur would have liked to blame the magic for it, for the comfort and sanctuary Merlin offered him from everything, but he knew that he couldn’t. This thing between them had been there almost from the first moment they’d met and Merlin’s prattle about dragons and destinies and coins aside, Arthur knew that it would have been so whatever the circumstances. They were so ridiculously tangled up in one another that it was impossible not to trust Merlin, no matter how many lies and deflected questions lay between them.
And, he suspected, even his father in full possession of certain facts of wizardry would have found it hard to believe that Merlin could ever intentionally harm Arthur.
Trusting a stranger, however, was almost more than Arthur could stomach.
If he hadn’t promised Merlin that he’d try, that’d he’d get control of this thing, he would have had the door barred and refused the meeting.
It didn’t help that he knew this man, this sorcerer, would know that he was nervous.
Merlin had decided that knowledge was the first step and he’d been reading the book of auramancy to Arthur, hoping that simply understanding what was going on would help.
In some ways, Arthur supposed it had.
All the horrible colors had actual meaning and he’d always been a quick study, his mind sharp and his memory clear.
He knew that the pretty indigo around Morgana meant that she was a seer and that the dark muddy blues edged with something almost black meant that she was afraid - of herself, of what the future held for them all, of Uther and what he could do.
He knew that the green, earthy colors around Guinevere meant that she was the most grounded of them all, balanced and in tune with the world and that the eroding pastels surrounding the edges meant that her ever-optimistic world view was fading away, being replaced by cynicism and doubt.
He knew that the bright emerald green, laced with silver around Gaius was the sign of a healer who held science and thought close to his heart and that the clumps of grey were fear and guilt.
He knew that the painful vortex of color around Uther was too complicated to sift through, that his father was both good and evil, a protector and a champion whose guilt and pain and fear was so intertwined with every other part of him that he’d likely never escape it all.
He knew that Merlin was powerful enough that the gold of his aura could sweep away everything else. Arthur suspected there was a lot more that he should be seeing from Merlin and he simply couldn’t because he couldn’t see around the gold.
Knowing didn’t block the pain or allow Arthur to see properly again. The book implied that a trained auramancer could go through life mostly normally, it just didn’t say how. The author seemed to take it for granted that anyone with the power would have been instructed from birth, that everyone would just know.
It was vexing.
Arthur hated starting out from the weaker position and he knew he would be in this. There was just no help for it. This Gilius would know that Arthur was nervous, would know that Arthur was vexed. He’d probably be able to read Arthur’s entire life story in every embarrassing detail and the best Arthur would be able to manage would be generalities.
Vexing didn’t even cover it.
The knock on the door made Arthur straighten up and he tugged at his sleeves and examined himself in the mirror. Merlin had been careful to make sure that Arthur was up and dressed - and bathed - each morning since his outburst, even if the prince never did anything more than brood in a chair over each miserable session of meditation with Gaius or entertain Morgana for a meal.
Arthur knew that it had gone a long way to ease minds about his well-being when Uther had entered his room for the first time to find him sitting at his table with proper clothes on again. He’d seen it then, the flares of lighter colors and the tension fading from Uther’s shoulders, and he hoped it meant that Merlin was right about his father.
“Enter,” Arthur called out, shaking his head, only to grimace at the way it made the world shudder unevenly and sent sparks of pain down his neck. It wasn’t the manner he’d have liked to greet this newcomer who would hold so much power over him.
“Arthur, the ... Specialist is here.”
He knew the story that Gaius had given his father and wondered how many such half-truths Uther had accepted over the years.
A small man edged into the door and around the other, approaching the prince. If he emanated any color, it was overwhelmed by Merlin. He dipped a slow, uncertain bow. “Gilius, sire. I’m… umm… That is…. I…”
Arthur arched a brow at the fearful glance Gilius sent towards Merlin. He waited another moment for the man to actually get out a coherent sentence before he lost patience and finished the introduction himself. It wasn’t as if there was anyone in the room who didn’t know exactly who Gilius was supposed to be and what he was supposed to do. “You’re the auramancer.”
“Yes. I…” Gilius shifted slightly before seeming to steel himself to turn and face Merlin. “I apologize, but..this would be far easier if you weren’t present, Emrys. I can’t… I c-can’t concentrate. You… th-here’s just…” He faltered at the end, all of his courage seeming to fade away although all Merlin had done was tip his head in question.
Merlin looked at Arthur, deferring to his prince as he only did when he felt it was important that Arthur make the decision. Arthur would never admit it aloud, but he’d pretty much given up trying to get that deference in any other situation and had even come to cherish Merlin’s insolence in the companionable manner it was given.
“Well, you’re the one that seems to think he can help,” Arthur replied, sighing with a shrug. “Might as well give him the chance to do it properly, shouldn’t you?”
Grinning, Merlin tipped his head in acceptance.
“Very well, sire.” The look he gave Gilius was edged with warning. “I will return shortly. If he’s in anything less than pristine condition, Uther will not be the one that you will have to fear.”
Gilius swallowed hard, and nodded violently. “Of course. I understand.”
Merlin smiled pleasantly and left the room, Arthur shaking his head at the silly theatrics. As if he needed Merlin’s protection. Perhaps he wasn’t in top form, but he could still hold a sword.
As soon as Merlin left, Gilius relaxed, shaking his head and no longer seeming quite as small. Only a sliver of color surrounded him once they were alone, hardly even noticeable and Arthur relaxed as well, thankful that he wouldn’t have to deal with anything more. “How can you stand it? He’s so…” He gestured widely with wild hands and wide eyes. “It’s intimidating. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.”
“Merlin?” Arthur blinked and glanced back at the door. “What are you on about? He’s just… Merlin.”
Merlin was many things, but intimidating had never been one of them.
The look on Gilius’ face was incredulous. “All that power? All that raw gold? It doesn’t burn you or… I don’t know… feel oppressive?”
“Well, no.” Arthur sat down at his table, gesturing for the auramancer to join him. Curiosity had ever been one of his defining flaws according to Morgana. “Is it supposed to?”
“I don’t know,” Gilius admitted. “I don’t know which of our reactions is the anomaly. As I said, I’ve never met a human with a golden aura. And even the rare dragon isn’t so… much.”
“There’s only one dragon left and you can’t be old enough to have met it before it was captured.”
The man just shook his head. “Only one of the ancient dragons from the clans. Not the only dragon left at all. And you’d be surprised. One of the advantages of auramancy is being able to prolong life.” Pursing his lips, he considered Arthur for a long moment. “How does Merlin’s aura feel to you?”
It was on his tongue to cut the man down to size for daring question him about something so intimate and private, or perhaps just to lie, but he restrained both urges. He could still hear Uther’s voice, drilling it into him that lying to his tutors simply wasn’t done. How could he learn if they didn’t have a good grasp on what he already knew?
And what good would it do, really, when Gilius could read the truth with or without his words.
“It’s… soothing. It feels… soft.” He glanced away and his voice dropped. “Like caring.”
Like love.
Mouth parting in surprise, Gilius leaned away for a moment, like he was trying to get a better read on what he was seeing.
Then he smiled. “Well, all right then. So. Gaius tells me that you’re biggest problem at the moment is controlling the influx. There are some very basic techniques that I can teach you for that. Once you’ve mastered them, it should help with the headaches and the vision. You’ll be able to See or not as you choose. Then, after that, we’ll get into the fun stuff.”
~*~*~
After his first meeting with Arthur, Gilius seemed to relax a little around Merlin. Not a lot, but enough that he wasn’t stuttering over every other word that came out of his mouth.
Merlin was burning with curiosity to know what they’d discussed, what they’d done, but both men had been closed mouthed and he’d had to be content with the fact that Arthur seemed okay.
It took another day or so before he made real improvement, but Merlin could tell that Gilius was impressed.
Apparently Arthur was a good student once he actually allowed himself to be taught. It wasn’t anything that Merlin hadn’t already known.
There were always things for a servant to do in a castle the size of Camelot, but without Arthur making unreasonable demands, Merlin had spent weeks stocking and cleaning the physician’s chambers until they’d both been glad when Arthur had needed him again.
Now, banished from the prince’s chambers for a good portion of the day again and with nothing else to do for Gaius, Merlin found himself at loose ends.
He helped out here and there, but too many of the other servants wanted gossip about the prince and Merlin wouldn’t have given it to them even if he could have. They’d tried bullying it out of him, but Merlin was no shy daisy who would fall under their pressure and he’d rounded on them, uncaring about how many there were, vicious and protective and angered that they’d dare.
The same magic that had been simmering in his blood all his life had only gotten stronger since his defeat of Nimueh and it had hovered there on the tip of his tongue, ready to lash out at his command, almost as if it had tasted blood once and wanted blood again.
He suspected that Uther’s timely arrival was probably the only thing that kept him from revealing himself in disastrous and homicidal fashion.
The king had dispersed the group with sharp warnings that if he heard any further gossip about his son, the best the culprits could hope for was being turned out without more than the clothes on their back. When they were gone, Uther had given him an approving nod and then kindly suggested that perhaps he should take a day off if neither the prince nor Gaius needed him.
Merlin had fled, magic still trying to bubble to the surface.
Arthur was more right than he knew. The magic was too easy, too close to his fingertips.
In a fit of confused desperation, he’d fled to the one creature besides Arthur that he could identify with anymore.
The dragon hadn’t looked particularly surprised to see him and Merlin wondered at that. At how the dragon seemed to know so much about random things and nothing about others.
That first time, there’d been no words between them. Merlin had paced on the ledge, grappling with his control, trying to force calm and the dragon had simply watched from his own perch.
As the days passed there were things Merlin wanted to ask, things that lingered on his mind.
He wanted to know about his father, wanted to know if the dragon had known that Nimueh would sacrifice his mother. He wanted to know why so many would sacrifice themselves for the hope that he would fulfill their promised destiny.
He couldn’t bring himself to ask, though. He hadn’t liked the last answers he’d gotten and sometimes even Merlin could learn from his mistakes.
Instead, they settled into an uneasy truce and quiet companionship.
He was primly informed that the dragon’s name was Kilgarrah one morning when he’d been telling a story about Will. Apparently, it was annoying being called nothing more than ‘Dragon’, especially by kin. The sorcerer suspected that Kilgarrah missed the connections and family he’d once had and hearing his true name on the tongue of another was as close as he could actually get.
Merlin didn’t dare bring his book of magic out of his room, but occasionally, he memorized the words of a spell and practiced in the cavern. Sometimes, the dragon watched on in private glee as Merlin failed or his spell did something completely opposite of what it was supposed to do. Sometimes, he was actually helpful, correcting Merlin’s form or pronunciation.
As the days passed, he even began offering a few other magical tips, spells, and other knowledge that Merlin suspected weren’t found in any of the few remaining books.
Merlin wasn’t quite willing to say that they were friends or even that they ever could be, but his fiery rage had faded away and Kilgarrah’s amusement stopped feeling malicious and hateful.
When he started doubting the sanity of what he was doing, spending his days with a creature he’d only recently wished a fate worse than death upon, Merlin shook it off.
Perhaps it wasn’t sane, but it felt important, like it was something he needed in order to get his path heading back in the right direction again.
That was good enough for Merlin.
~*~*~
“Close your eyes, Sire,” Gilius said softly from where he was settled beside Arthur. “Find your center and hold, all right?”
Obediently, Arthur let his eyes slip shut and concentrated on simply breathing.
He was getting better at centering himself. Honestly, it wasn’t that much different than a warrior’s state of concentration and once he’d noticed the parallel, he’d found it easier to slip into the meditative state.
From there, Gilius had walked him through the basic steps of shutting the extraneous colors away from his life and then letting them back out.
In less than a week, he could do it on his own without much thought except right after waking or if he was particularly exhausted. He suspected alcohol would also effect his control.
For the moment, he’d decided to adopt a policy of temperance.
“All right.”
“Good. Now, keep your eyes closed and reach out for the feel of the auras around you. Don’t do anything with them, just… Feel them.”
Another deep breath and Arthur nodded slowly. Every color and shade of aura had a specific feel, sometimes it felt like a texture brushing against the new senses he’d developed. Sometimes, it felt more like a temperature, blazing heat or icy cold and everything in between. Even within those sensations, though, there was another layer, something unique to the living being the aura was attached to.
He doubted he could have explained it to Merlin or Gaius if they’d asked.
He wasn’t good at telling the sensations apart yet, but he was getting better. The more familiar he was with a person the easier it was. Arthur was certain that he’d be able to walk blindly through the courtyard full of people and instantly know Merlin, his father, Gaius, and Morgana. He was a little less certain about Guinevere and his knights, though he thought it wouldn’t take much practice to change that.
Today there was only Gilius and Gaius. Arthur wasn’t sure where Merlin had gotten off to, but Gilius had decided it’d probably be best to practice this without Merlin around to drown everything else out.
They were in the physician’s shop and that was practice enough. Everything that had an aura was a sensation brushing against his senses and everything had an aura, it seemed.
The prickly, slightly acidic feeling belonged the potions that littered the room.
The musky feeling that brought to mind running a hand over a freshly harvested field of grain was the herbs and flowers that Merlin had so diligently harvested. Arthur could still feel a faint hint of Merlin’s magic on them.
The stones felt rough against his mind, but far softer than they felt against his fingers.
The cot that had held so many patients over the years was layered with feeling, the icy cold of grief and the warm tickle of happy relief.
Ancient knowledge pressed out heavily from the books that lay scattered around, some more so than others. More than one felt dark and dangerous. He could feel something heavier and slightly off coming from Merlin’s room. Merlin’s spell book, he thought. It had the most unique feel of any of the others and was permeated with the soft warm feeling he was accustomed to feeling from Merlin’s magic.
Gaius felt like warm earth overlaid with the mingled sensations of his potions and herbs.
Gilius was always hard to pin down. He held his own aura in tight control and he only leaked it a bit during these sessions. Otherwise, he was practically non-existant except to Arthur’s most basic, non-magical sight. He’d even hinted more than once that he could wrap his aura in such a way as to fool even that sense, but Arthur wasn’t sure if he believed that or not.
“All right, Arthur. Today we’re going to take this a bit further, okay?” Gilius shifted slightly and the feel of Gaius moved closer. “Most fortunately, Gaius managed to knick himself earlier this morning. Healing is the most common active use of auramancy and, happily, one of the easiest.”
A hand wrapped around Arthur’s wrist lightly and Gilius urged him to hold his hand forward, palm down. Then his other hand was moved slightly under it, palm up.
He could sense the moment Gaius’ hand moved between his own.
“Right then, first thing is to find the damage. Wounds will always make an aura feel slightly... Off, I suppose is the best way to explain it. The bigger the hurt, the worse that is. This is just a small thing, so you might have a hard time pinpointing it without opening your eyes, but try. Sometimes your physical sight can fool your other sight into dismissing a deeper wound as nothing significant. That does improve eventually, once you learn to start trusting your senses and using them more instinctively.”
For several minutes, Arthur couldn’t feel anything different than usual. He was about to give up when he finally noticed the wound. If he hadn’t been looking for it so diligently, he’d have missed it entirely, like a briar bush in the middle of a field of wheat.
“I have it,” he murmured.
“Very good. All right, now I want you to imagine that Gaius’ hand really is made of earth and sort of… brush the good earth over the damaged bit.”
Arthur almost opened his eyes and he knew his hands faltered slightly. “How exactly am I supposed to do that?”
“I know, I know, it sounds odd.” Gilius laughed while Gaius snorted. “Once you’re an old hat at this, you won’t need to imagine anything. You’ll be able to do this sort of thing easily, with barely a thought at all. Right now, though, this is the easiest way to learn it.”
“Right, okay.” It sounded more than odd, it sounded absolutely mental, but Arthur had learned to trust that Gilius knew what he was talking about. He concentrated a little harder and tried to do as he’d been told. Imagining the dirt was easy. It was the rest that he couldn’t quite manage.
Finally Gilius sighed. “My lord, if you don’t believe it will work, then it won’t. A great deal of your ability will always come from your belief that you can do it. When you doubt, you will fail.”
Arthur took a deep breath, searching for his center again.
How many times had his faith in his sword skills been the only thing that had saved his life?
How often had his father warned him that the people would not follow a king who did not have conviction of self?
Another deep breath and Arthur pushed. Even in the privacy of his imagination, he suspected he hadn’t quite managed it as the soft brush of earth became a landslide.
“Whoa, whoa, okay. Stop!”
His eyes flew open as another sensation, something like sweet melons and cool metal rushed over his hands. He only caught the tail end of Gilius’ hasty reparation of his own mistake, the old physician’s hand seeming to morph from something young and fresh back into it’s usual aged state.
Gaius bore it with nothing more than an arched brow, but Arthur couldn’t help but flush slightly, feeling like he’d just been scolded.
“It’s all right, Sire,” Gilius reassured him. “The first time never goes quite right. That’s why I chose such a small injury.” He grinned. “You did heal the cut. You just also healed the old age and the arthritis and the spots and everything else.”
With a snort, Gaius moved away, back to his own potions brewing, cut free.
“What did I do, exactly? I mean… what is the image of brushing earth over it meant to represent?”
Gilius shrugged. “It will be different for each wound that you heal while you’re still learning because the image has to relate to the individual. That isn’t the important bit. Basically, what you’re doing is manipulating a person’s aura, filling in the hole, or brushing away the blemish. You’re encouraging the aura to heal the damage. In the same way, you can damage the aura yourself, but that should only ever be done if your life is in danger.” He bit his lip for a moment before continuing. “Most auramancers believe that healing is the easiest because it’s what we’re meant to be doing. Harming another’s aura is painful, my lord. And every time you do it, it gets a little easier, but you will damage your own, just a little bit. And then a little more. On and on, until what’s left is just a rotting, diseased mess. It’s not very pretty when that happens.”
The corruption his father was so insistent lay at the heart of all magic, Arthur thought, turning it over in his mind. He could see it, he supposed, how one might fall into the downward spiral.
He had no intention of falling into that trap himself, but he could see it.
“What if a wound is so grievous, the damaged bit of aura so great, that there isn’t enough left to fill it?”
There was a moment of hesitation, then Gilius dipped his head slightly. “It is possible to use the aura of one person to heal another, but I don’t recommend it. It’s difficult to keep track of both the one you are healing and the one that you’re borrowing from. It’s very easy to accidentally murder one person to save the other. In a pinch, you can use your own to start the healing process and then move to the patient’s once enough of his aura has recovered to make it feasible. It can be just as dangerous, and potentially suicidal if you do get distracted, but it’s much harder to lose track of your own aura than one outside of yourself.”
Arthur didn’t need to be able to sense Gilius’ aura to hear the agony of experience in his words.
He took the advice to heart and prayed that he’d never have to go through it himself.
~*~*~
Arthur was lying in bed, resting, when Merlin slipped in.
“You look better, Sire.” His voice was pitched soft enough that Arthur only barely heard it.
He cracked open an eye and peered at the dark haired man moving about the room, tidying things idly. Merlin looked restless and unsettled and quite unsure what to do with himself.
With training, Arthur had learned to shut away most of the aura stimuli that had been flooding his eyes and mind, but the golden pool that surrounded Merlin remained, fainter, less overwhelming to his senses, but always present. Gilius was confident that with more practice, he’d be able to block even that out, but truthfully, Arthur didn’t mind.
Now that he wasn’t rendered effectively blind and incapacitated by the onslaught, it was much easier to be accepting of his condition and he still found Merlin’s aura to be a soothing counter-balance to the other stressors in his life. He’d asked Gilius what that meant, but his current tutor would only smile enigmatically and tell him that it was something he’d have to figure out on his own.
Gilius really was much more confident and self-contained when Merlin wasn’t around spooking him.
“What have you been doing, Merlin?” he asked as he let his eyes slip shut again. “Lazing away the days? It won’t last forever, you know. I imagine the stables are in a sad state these days, lacking your tender care. And my armor will see use again soon enough. Even Gaius feels I’ll be able to return to my duties in no time at all.”
“I’m sure the stables are fine since, you know, there are actual stable boys to clean it.” Merlin snorted. “And you know I never give your armor anything less than perfect care, even when you give me a list of insane tasks that aren’t even in my job description. I did look it up once, you know.” He shrugged as he made another circuit of the room. “You have your training, I have mine.”
That caught Arthur’s attention and he pushed himself up to sit, a sliver of worry settling in his mind. “If you get caught-”
“I won’t get caught, sire.” Merlin smiled. “Someone would have to venture down near Kilgarrah to catch me and I can’t imagine Uther or the guards doing that.”
Arthur arched a brow. “Kilgarrah? Some new tutor Gaius has summoned for you?”
“The dragon. Although, don’t spread that around, all right? I don’t think he’d like it if everyone in Camelot knew his name. It’s taken me a year to get it out of him. Not that I’d really asked before, I suppose. I was fine just calling him ‘Dragon’, but apparently he grew weary of answering to that.”
“The dragon.”
“Mmhmm.” Merlin’s smile grew wider, as if announcing that he was spending his days with a massive fire breathing reptile were nothing more than a great joke. “We don’t talk much, but the cave is a good place to practice some things and I think it humors him to critique my techniques.”
He remembered vaguely that the dragon was one of the sources of Merlin’s knowledge of prophecy, that the sorcerer occasionally went down into the caverns for advice. Somehow he hadn’t quite equated that with spending actual time with it. Arthur scratched his head for a moment, considering, then shrugged it off. “I can understand that. I certainly find a great deal of humor in critiquing your technique with a sword.”
“Ha ha ha,” Melrin replied, rolling his eyes and tucking away a stray tunic that he’d found. “Well, as with yours, most of his critique is simply aimed at amusing himself at my expense. Some of it is actually useful, though.”
“I’m hurt, Merlin. Truly,” Arthur quirked a grin at the other man. “I put a lot of time and effort into whipping you into shape, you know. It’s not easy on my side of things either.”
“Right. Because beating me up is soooo hard for you. I can tell.” Merlin rolled his eyes and finally settled on the edge of Arthur’s bed near Arthur’s hip. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, concern welling up in his eyes as he picked at the coverlet. “You’re really better now, right, Arthur? The training is helping?”
Arthur smiled faintly, his heart warming as he considered how much he mattered to Merlin. It was more than the concern of a servant for a master, a subject for a king. Merlin had always shown him more care and loyalty than such simple things could account for. At the same time, he was unafraid to tell Arthur when he was being stupid in great detail, usually with as many unflattering words as possible. Arthur knew without a doubt that he could tell Merlin anything and the sorcerer would keep his confidences. He also knew that regardless of how Merlin felt about it privately, he’d show nothing but support in the face of others.
He didn’t need his father to tell him how rare that was for a royal.
Whether he was right about anything else that was between them, whether they ever took that step or not, Arthur would cherish what Merlin already gave him.
“I’m fine, Merlin. Honestly.” He nudged the other man with his knee. “Thank you.”
“For what, sire?”
“For being you.”
~*~*~
Arthur flipped through his mother’s book and sighed.
“What is it?” Merlin asked, looking up from a tunic he was mending on the foot of the prince’s bed. Dark hair fell over his forehead and one elegant hand left his task to push it back. He’d need a haircut soon, Arthur thought.
Mending had been in the original list of tasks he’d set for the other back when they’d first been thrust together. After the first horrible results, he’d relented and told Merlin that the castle did have girls trained to do it. Eventually, Arthur had stopped suggesting that he send the tunics out, though his servant wasn’t a particularly skilled seamstress. He’d come to realize at some point that Merlin seemed to find some sort of peace in the work and the prince could never begrudge him that, even when it did mean that his day to day clothes weren’t as pristinely mended as they could have been.
His formal robes and jackets were a completely different matter, though.
“Arthur?”
“Huh?” For a moment, he forgot that he’d been asked a question and he had to shake his head and think about it. “Oh, nothing.”
With a soft laugh, Merlin set aside the tunic and stood, stretching a little before padding over to join Arthur where he was sitting at the table. He leaned against Arthur’s side, head settling on Arthur’s shoulder and peered down at the book. “Something wrong with the book?”
“You mean besides the fact that it just assumes I already know what I’m doing? No, nothing at all.” He blew at the hair that was tickling his nose. He was definitely going to suggest a hair cut in the near future. “It has a basic color chart, but says nothing about the colors having any actual depth or feeling. None of the meditation or basic healing is mentioned here. It just jumps straight into more complicated uses. Who knows what else I’ll learn that isn’t in this blasted book. It’s just… there aren’t many auramancers left to teach any children born into this, right?”
Merlin nodded. “Yeah. Gaius only knew a handful in all of Albion.”
“Gilius is close-mouthed about it, but I get the same feeling from him. It just doesn’t seem right. I mean… if a child shows natural aptitude in medicine, there is always someone he can learn from. Knights always teach their skills to squires.”
He reached up and brushed a hand through Merlin’s hair, enjoying the soft richness. Maybe he didn’t need a haircut after all.
“There aren’t a lot of sorcerers running around at all, Arthur.”
“I know.” That was the point, though. He knew that Merlin had struggled, trying to learn on his own until he’d come to Camelot and found Gaius and the single spell book. “I just… if the book is going to exist at all, they should damned well have included an introduction of the basics.”
Merlin pulled away enough that he could look at Arthur’s face, then he smiled and resumed the close position. “It offends the teacher in you, doesn’t it, Arthur?”
He wouldn’t have put it quite that way, but he supposed that was true. “I guess.”
Merlin reached out a hand, hovering it over the pages of the book. He spoke a few soft words of unfamiliar language and the book glowed golden for a moment. When the glow faded, it looked thicker. “There you go. Write it yourself. Don’t ask me for a quill, though. I haven’t learned a spell for that yet.”
Leaning forward, careful not to disrupt Merlin’s head, Arthur flipped through the book. At the very end, there was an entire sheaf of new, blank pages.
With a grin, he bumped his head against Merlin’s. “I guess that magic has to be useful for something other than slaying monsters, eh?”
“Oh, you’d be amazed at what all I do with it,” Merlin quipped with a cheeky grin.
~*~*~
“It’s beautiful, don’t you think?” Arthur asked, his voice soft and reverent as they settled on the rocks by the water’s edge. The small waterfall splashed down into a tranquil pool. Around them, the forest was peaceful, quiet but for the sounds of nature going about it’s business. “Morgana and I used to sneak away when we were children and come here on warm days for picnicking. She was a horrible hoyden, of course. Little wretch always insisted on swimming around and pretending she was a mermaid. Called me a prude for scolding her about it.”
In truth, he’d been horribly embarrassed, as much by her daring as by his own reactions to it. Morgana had always been beautiful, even as a girl, and his body had appreciated it long before he had.
Merlin nodded and glanced at him curiously. “Do you see it differently now?”
He knew what Merlin meant. He quirked a grin and gave Merlin a wry look. “Honestly, Merlin, if I were to try looking with that, all I’d see is you.”
The smile on Merlin’s face grew bashful and the sorcerer turned away to hide his pleased look. It was too late, though. Arthur had seen it.
“Merlin…” It was on the tip of his tongue to push, to put it all out between them at last, but when Merlin looked up again, eyes bright and mouth curved with pleasure, Arthur felt the words slip away. This thing worked best when they didn’t speak of it. “Do you swim?”
Blinking in confusion, Merlin was silent for a moment before shrugging, a wry look on his face. “If by ‘swim’ you mean, ‘won’t drown if you fall in’, yes. If you mean ‘swim’ as in ‘properly float and move limbs in something approaching gracefulness’, then no. We splashed about as children, of course, but there wasn’t really any need to do more than that. I can sort of…” He paused to hold his hands up and flap them a bit. “Paddle around to stay above the surface if I have to. Even then, if I’m in the sort of dire straights that requires it, my magic would probably kick in and help get me out of it quick enough.”
“Would you care to learn?” Arthur asked, already stripping out of his outer layers. “The water is always refreshingly cool during the summer, but it’s very deep.”
Merlin tilted his head to the side, giving the water an uneasy look. “Sire… For the sake of being honest, I suppose I should admit that I’m uneasy near such bodies of water.” He paused and shrugged again. “Well… Actually, I guess the absolute truth is that I’m uneasy with you around such bodies of water.”
“I assure you, Merlin, I’m well able to keep myself afloat. I’ve been able to swim since I was a small child.” There was something in the way that Merlin bit his lip and averted his eyes, that tugged at Arthur, though. He’d have liked to think it was because Merlin was overwhelmed by his nearly nude body - he could work with that, make a joke of it or take it more seriously, perhaps reach across the expanse and push - he didn’t need auramancy to tell him it wasn’t. He sighed as he stripped out of his under layers. Usually it was difficult to get Merlin to stop speaking. It was only when it was actually important that he grew reticent and secretive. “What is it, Merlin?”
“Do you remember Sophia?”
Arthur shuddered at the close call he’d had, there. “Unfortunately. I can’t believe I fancied myself in love with her. She wasn’t that beautiful.”
“Right… About that…” Merlin hesitated and sighed. “You were enchanted. Sophia and her father were Sidhe.”
The expression on Merlin’s face was enough to still any instinctive protest Arthur might have made. And as he thought about it, that certainly explained a few things. He wondered how many of the odd things that had happened to him since Merlin had arrived at Camelot had magical explanations. Somehow, he expected the answer to that was ‘most’. “Well that’s a relief. The only other explanation I’d been able to come up with was a bout of temporary insanity.”
“Don’t joke about it, Arthur. The only remotely humorous thing about the entire situation was your reaction the morning after.”
Arthur snorted. “I really must be a fool to have believed that preposterous story the two of you cooked up. Even if you could have knocked me over the head with a stick, you wouldn’t have. Not even to save me from my own stupidity.” Merlin would have come up with something else, something that didn’t involve sticks and concussions, he was sure. “You’re a horrible liar, Merlin. If everyone wasn’t convinced your brains are addled, there’s no way you’d have survived so long.”
“It was the best I could come up with. We weren’t expecting you to forget. Would that we could all forget it so easily.” Merlin sighed and tipped his head back, staring at the sky for a long moment. Arthur was tempted to take a peek at his aura, but he knew it wouldn’t do much good. Though he’d come far under Gilius’ tutelage, and far more quickly than the older auramancer had expected, he still hadn’t managed to see through that all encompassing sea of gold that surrounded his friend. He took comfort in the fact that Gilius hadn’t managed it any better and that it didn’t feel oppressive to him as it did his tutor.
Even if he could have seen through the gold to the colors that would have told him more, he still wasn’t as good as he’d have liked with reading the more minute details. Hopefully he’d get better.
“What happened, Merlin?”
Another moment of hesitation, then Merlin capitulated. “They were exiles. They needed a princely sacrifice so that they could return to their home in Avalon.”
“Me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Merlin nodded regardless. “Yes. Sophia ensorcelled you and they led you to the lake that serves as a gateway to the other realm.”
“You killed them.” Even knowing the power Merlin wielded, it was difficult to imagine. Arthur thought of the wary hesitance that Gilius had shown around Merlin.
The sorcerer offered a twisted little smile and Arthur didn’t doubt the honesty of his words. “It wasn’t the first time I killed for you, Arthur, nor the last. There are times when I am as much your weapon and your shield as I am your servant and friend.”
“That doesn’t explain your aversion to water.”
“It took me longer to find you under the surface than it did to defeat the Sidhe. I thought I was too late, that you’d drowned.” Merlin shuddered slightly and looked away. “It was a very near thing.”
“Merlin…”
Merlin turned back to him, eyes far too dark and serious for such a beautiful, sunny day. “What if I’d been too late, Arthur? You have no idea how many close calls you’ve had. What if I’m late next time? What am I supposed to do then? What am I supposed to do with- … without you?”
Mindful of his nudity, Arthur hesitated a moment before reaching out and tugging Merlin close. “You weren’t too late, Merlin. You’re never too late.”
Merlin’s head fell forward and settled on Arthur’s shoulder. He took a shuddering breath, the puff of warm air making the prince shiver faintly despite the heat of the day. “Kilgarrah says that we’ve gone and turned destiny up on it’s ear. He hasn’t any idea what path lies before us now or how we’ll fair on it.”
Unsure about the nonsequitor, Arthur shrugged. He hadn’t met the mysterious dragon held captive under the castle yet, but he knew that Merlin had forged some kind of friendship with it. “I have faith that between the two of us, we’ll muddle along somehow. Now, are you going to strip and let me teach you that water is nothing to fear, or are you going to make me stand here in the buff all on my own while you soak my shoulder?”
That startled a laugh out of Merlin. “‘M not crying.”
“Of course not, Merlin,” Arthur replied as with as much condescension as he could manage.
“Prat.”
Funny how Merlin could always make that sound more like an endearment than an insult.
~*~*~
Continued in Part 4