[Fic] Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (‘After this, therefore because of this.’) - derryere
[ Part I] | [ Part II] | [ Part III] | [ Part IV] | [ Part V]
[ Part VI] | [ Part VII]
(Part VIII)
Camelot’s forces returned victorious after a fortnight had passed, new treaty in hand and Odin’s first tribute of precious metals and grain stacked up by the wagon-full behind the parade of returning knights. Merlin braved the chilly air to survey the loud procession from the battlements, huddled up next to Morgana and Gwen resplendent in matching winter cloaks, as the caravan of brightly waving flags marched into the courtyard. The cheers that rose from all those who had turned out to witness the army’s return nearly drowned out the sound of the winds whipping across the rooftops, and it was hard not to feel swept up in the pride that practically radiated from all corners of the kingdom. Merlin watched King and son climb the main stairs together and disappear inside the castle with a mixture of apprehension and utter fixation, but he was ready to deny all of it if either Morgana or Gwen so much as blinked in his direction. They’d gotten uncommonly good on picking up on his moods the past few months, which had made the last two weeks particularly trying on Merlin’s complete lack of skills at acting nonchalant.
Both girls left him with variations of the same relieved but wary smiles as they departed from the balcony a few minutes later, and Merlin got to spend the remainder of the afternoon recasting warming spells under his robes and watching servants haul away the spoils of war and stablehands lead each horse off to the stables. By the time the celebratory feasting was underway (which doubled as a tribute to honor the knights of Camelot that had fallen in battle), Merlin had already snuck a plate of food away for himself and Gaius, and they spent the evening in the physician’s rooms eating tender roast hog and hot rolls and sampling the assortment of jellies and sauces and winter berries that had made an appearance for the banquet. Conversation was sparse and there was a gloom to the air despite how high Gaius’ fireplace had been stoked and how delicious the food was, and Merlin had a feeling that they were both missing the additional company they’d grown used to sharing. The freedom that had been granted by Uther’s absence from the castle would only be a distant memory with King’s return, and Merlin hated himself a little for even bothering to wonder whether the trade-off had been worth it.
Since his return from the battlefield their group had been nearly inseparable, tied together by the secrets they all shared and by Morgana and Gwen’s ceaseless curiosity about all things magic and what details Merlin was willing to divulge about the future (which often ended up being more than he’d intended to say, and Gaius had taken to glaring at them even before they got on the topic). Gaius had admirably explained to both girls the true nature of Merlin’s presence in Camelot while he’d been gone saving Arthur’s life (and getting lost on the way back, though he’d been understandably preoccupied at the time), and with Merlin’s help they did their best to allay Morgana’s reservations over the powers she hadn’t even been aware of having until that day. Merlin hadn’t intended to progress that to the point of taking her on as a pupil, and even now he couldn’t bring himself to fit that label to the casual lessons he had shared, as he hardly considered himself to be any sort of expert on magic when he’d only been aware of its true existence for half a decade. But as the days passed it had become apparent that Gaius’ own knowledge fell far short of Merlin’s practical experience, and time proved that Merlin was the best choice for helping Morgana explore the limitations of her powers - which made sense, but was still something he felt vaguely uncomfortable about.
They hadn’t even really made any progress up until a few days before the army’s return, when Morgana had finally managed to master a spell that moved a cup into her hand from across the table. Whatever ability gave Merlin the natural talent for moving things with his mind was a skill that seemed to have bypassed Morgana entirely, and while this baffled Merlin as much as Gaius seemed relieved to hear it, in the end Merlin had to agree that it was better if they didn’t have to worry about Morgana unconsciously summoning objects across the dinner table while she dined with Uther. Morgana’s dreams also seemed to have taken a respite for the time being, and though all of them attributed to that to the cessation of hostilities with Wessex, Merlin secretly wondered if pushing Morgana to consume her magic in practice had a draining effect on the power of her visions as well. Whatever the reason, it was a relief for all of them to see Morgana’s happiness and confidence blooming with each passing day, and Merlin’s memories of a lonely and broken woman began to fade into nothing more than the stuff of forgotten dreams.
Gaius’ rooms quickly became an impractical meeting place with the return of Camelot’s menfolk, so Merlin was pleasantly surprised when Morgana showed up at his chambers one mid-morning a few days later with Gwen in tow. Both girls were good company now that they could speak openly, and they’d even taken to insisting that Merlin drop his disguise while around them for the sake of, as Morgana had put it, ‘Not making us feel like we’re talking to someone old enough to be our father.’ Gaius had given Morgana the loan of his spellbook, the very same one he would have given to Merlin in the future, though with minor variations, as Merlin had added a few spells in the back and had taken to making notes in the margins over the years. Merlin had also insisted that Morgana leave the book with him at all times, as it would reduce the chances of a wayward servant or Uther stumbling upon a it in the Lady’s room, and almost overnight Merlin found it necessary to bring in several more chairs to accommodate the growing number of people he was keeping company with in the tower.
Arthur stayed away for a solid week after his return, too busy sorting out all the details involved with resettling into a castle they had abandoned for nearly three months to have time for things like biology and Ptolemy, and the knowledge was oddly liberating when it meant that Merlin didn’t have to be the one doing the avoiding this time around. He’d spent far more time thinking about and puzzling over the awkward kiss in Arthur’s tent than he wanted to admit, and even going on four weeks didn’t feel like enough time for him to wrap his head around what could have prompted the Prince’s behavior. Merlin wanted to chalk it up to post-battle stress after the fight in the forest, which sounded like a far safer explanation than wondering if it had been premeditated in the slightest. At least as long as they were both preoccupied with their own responsibilities Merlin didn’t have to worry about awkward encounters or, heavens forbid, repeat performances. And it wasn’t that he found Arthur repulsive, or that he had an issue with two men sharing a kiss, and he certainly wasn’t a prude no matter what Arthur accused him of being - but Arthur was only fifteen and hardly at an age when he should be going around accosting men almost twice his age. Twice his age and from the future and his tutor, for heaven’s sake.
It was just as well that Merlin had a reason for being sufficiently distracted by Morgana and Gwen showing up at his rooms at all hours throughout the day (always together, even Morgana wasn’t foolish enough to visit a man’s rooms without a chaperone), because when Arthur did suddenly decide to come back into his life, Merlin had plenty of excuses for not spending the time stupidly staring at the Prince’s mouth.
It was late afternoon when Arthur finally put in an appearance, barging unceremoniously into Merlin’s rooms and startling all three of them into a flurry of papers and shrieks of, "I thought you locked the door!"
Arthur stopped just inside the threshold and was staring aghast at what no doubt had to look like a very odd scene, with Morgana standing and facing the door with a knitting needle clutched in her fist like a weapon, and Gwen half out of her chair and attempting to shield Merlin’s face from view using an open book. Arthur blinked twice before pointedly closing the door behind him with a heavy slam that rattled the frame. "What," he demanded, "are you two doing here?"
"Erm, Arthur," Merlin began, batting the book away from his face.
Morgana straightened her shoulders. "Nothing that concerns you."
"You’re up here, alone, consorting with my tutor! How is that not my concern?"
"You’re being ridiculous, Arthur. I have Gwen with me." Said girl bowed politely in acknowledgement to the Prince before retaking her seat at the end of the table. "Besides, he’s not just yours anymore. You’ll have to learn to share."
"I bloody will not," Arthur huffed, throwing himself into the last empty seat. "You will both leave immediately. Merlin has lessons to conduct and I don’t have all day to wait while you three wrap up your needlework consortium."
"No, Gwen, we’re not leaving," Morgana said, halting the other girl’s rise from her seat. Morgana retook her chair and gave Arthur an arch look across the table. "We have just as much right here as you. We know about Merlin and why he’s here, so you can’t kick us out on the grounds of maintaining secrecy. Besides, Merlin’s been teaching me magic."
"He’s been what?" Arthur yelled.
Merlin groaned and folded his head in his arms.
"Don’t look so shocked, Arthur. Your face will stick like that," Morgana advised snidely.
Arthur swiveled around to look at Merlin, who was peeking through his fingers at the proceedings with barely disguised dismay. "Merlin, what possessed that pea-sized brain of yours to think that it would be a good idea to teach Uther’s ward in the magical arts?"
"She asked?" Merlin replied meekly. "And Gaius thinks it’s helping her control her powers better. No more nightmares for awhile now, right?"
Morgana nodded in the affirmative as she picked up her knitting. "Really, Arthur. Do you want me to wake up half the castle every time I dream about you catching a splinter?"
Gwen giggled softly, though she quickly schooled her face when all eyes turned in her direction.
Arthur sighed and knocked his head audibly against the top of his chair. "This is still highly inappropriate, Morgana."
"What, Merlin?" Morgana said, sounding rather scandalized. "Merlin’s absolutely harmless. He’s sweet but he’s hardly my type."
"He’s also right here," Merlin grumbled, and Gwen gave him a vaguely sympathetic look as she pulled at a knot in the skein of yarn Morgana had made a mess out of earlier.
"Morgana, you do realize that he’s not really this scruffy harmless old man with an extreme fondness for books?"
"Yes, Arthur, I hadn’t noticed," Morgana snapped.
Merlin could feel a headache coming on. "Look," he said, slapping a hand down on the cluttered tabletop. "I think we’re all perfectly capable of sitting in the same room and acting like adults. Morgana, you can keep on practicing that spell we were going over earlier, and I can help Arthur catch up on his studies. Does that sound alright with everyone?"
Arthur sat up straight in his chair and lifted a finger to wag it in Morgana’s direction. "From now on, you’re not allowed in these chambers unless I am here to accompany you. Is that understood?"
Morgana threw a book at him. "Just try and stop me."
Merlin put his head down on the table and gave serious consideration to finally going about fixing the lock on his door.
*~*~*
Despite Merlin’s worries to the contrary, things never got a chance to get too awkward between he and Arthur because they rarely spent any time alone together, which Merlin was grateful for, even if he did occasionally wonder what the discussion might have been like if they’d had a whole afternoon alone to themselves. It wasn’t terribly hard to imagine that there would have been a lot of general avoiding of anything remotely related to tents and battlefields, and in the end it would be one slip of a word before things exploded and it all blew over in a matter of minutes (which seemed to happen more often than not between them, Merlin was beginning to notice). What short periods of time they did end up having together usually involved Merlin stubbornly burrowing between the pages of a book while Arthur preoccupied himself with his own studies. If they did speak at all it was usually Arthur sharing outrageous stories and silly rumors that made Merlin laugh in spite of himself, or Merlin complaining about how utterly boring life had been in Camelot while everyone had been off beating each other with swords. They didn’t talk about the battlefield and they didn’t talk about magic, and if Merlin ever started to suspect that Arthur was staring at him for longer and longer periods of silence, Morgana and Gwen had impeccable timing for showing up and dissolving any lingering tension in the room.
When Merlin wasn’t holed up in his rooms or entertaining his company with simple tricks and bits of fuzz that flew around their heads like mayflies, Morgana and Gwen were fond of dragging Merlin out of doors, especially once the weather deemed it finally time to dump snow on Camelot, and once the first storm had cleared the drifts nearly reached the top of the first story windows on the castle. Winter was almost mild in comparison to the one they’d endured the year before, and each day Merlin awoke to white-capped roofs and barren, pristine fields stretching in all directions toward the horizon. Only the occasional flurry came through to replenish the powder with fresh snow, and there were days upon days of cloudless blue skies and crisp air and a tiny yellow sun that always set far too quickly for Merlin’s liking.
There was large pond just below the castle that became a favorite spot for townsfolk and castle servants alike once the weather turned cold enough, and Merlin suffered through a growing assortment of bruises each time he was pulled onto the ice by a laughing Morgana. Gwen and her Lady were naturally graceful on the slick surface in a way that Merlin could only admire helplessly from whatever snow bank he usually ended up collapsing atop of, and though they always mocked him Merlin figured that while he was in disguise he was allowed to be old and grumpy about things like bruised knees. But the most memorable days were when the younger knights and squires came out led by a grinning Arthur, carrying buckets of snowballs they’d frozen overnight, and then it was all out war for hours while everyone tried to avoid being hit by the painful projectiles and people scrambled to build ever more elaborate fortifications and there were never clear sides or teams, just white balls being lobbed through the air toward anything that moved, and Merlin could hardly remember the last time he’d had so much fun or laughed so hard or gotten so cold.
Morgana gave him a pair of sad looking mittens for Yule, the first pair made using the spell she’d figured out for making the knitting do itself on its own, and Merlin accepted them with pride even while she grumbled about needing more practice. Gwen gave him a tiny yellow handkerchief she’d embroidered with his initials, Gaius gave him a new teapot to replace his old cracked one that had taken too many hard landings on the table, and Arthur left him with a full cask of wine and the threat that he was going to get Merlin good and sloshed in the near future - Merlin hid the barrel under his bed in the hopes that Arthur would forget about it if he didn’t see it every time he entered his rooms. Somehow that didn’t end up working out quite as well as he’d planned, and on the twelfth night Merlin found his chambers playing host to everyone but Gaius (who still complained about the excessive amount of stairs) quite late into the evening, aforementioned barrel of wine open and rapidly emptying into their cups. They all got terribly drunk and there had probably been gross abuses of magic going on, or at least that’s what Merlin could only guess had happened when he woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and found his room transformed - there was real grass on the floor and silk drapes around his windows and a mountain of colorful pillows hiding half of his room and a full grown beech in the corner Archimedes had taken for himself and a narrow divan he’d somehow wound up falling asleep on and sharing with the Prince of Camelot. Merlin had promptly untangled himself from Arthur and fallen off the sofa, and from that day on sworn off touching wine again for the rest of his life.
By the time the snow began showing signs of thawing and there was more mud around the castle than ice, Morgana had mastered a handful of practical spells for things like keeping bed sheets warm and lighting candles and winding balls of yarn, Gwen had taken it upon herself to peruse Merlin’s spellbooks for the sake of research into Morgana’s visions, and Arthur had succeeded on working his way through the entirety of Greek history. He was well on his way to conquering Roman as well, though Merlin thought that he could be making far more advancements in other areas of study if he would only stop arguing with Morgana every ten minutes, namely learning the Welsh he’d been trying to drill into his head for over a month with little success. Arthur had discovered that insulting Morgana in other languages wasn’t as fun when she didn’t know what he was saying, so their creativity rarely went beyond Latin and Frankish when they were feeling particularly petty. Which was how, in the end, Merlin ended up teaching the language to everyone present, and Arthur’s superiority only lasted for the few days it took for him to realize that Morgana was picking up on the nuances faster than him - it was amazing how dedicated Arthur turned to studying with a little healthy competition thrown into the mix.
By Imbolc Merlin had thrown all of them out of his room with threats of conjuring toads in their beds if they didn’t leave him the hell alone for at least three days out of the week. He’d only been a few creative words away from literally climbing the walls out of sheer desperation, and the horrible feeling of claustrophobia had probably been creeping over him for a while if his spectacular blow-up was anything to go by. Merlin abandoned the castle that very same morning and spent two whole days solely in Archimedes’ company, and they camped out in the forest together looking like a pair of oddly mismatched flock-mates, one tawny owl and one tiny merlin swooping and wheeling carelessly through the late winter sky. When Merlin finally returned to the tower he found a curious assortment of gifts on his table that were probably meant to be apologies for nearly driving him to insanity, and the next time he saw the girls each of them hugged him tightly and said they were sorry for not thinking of his feelings sooner. Arthur was oddly sober about the whole ordeal, though he did clap Merlin apologetically on the shoulder when Morgana chastised him for being an insensitive prick.
Spring came around as lovely and temperate as winter had been, and Merlin’s demands for enough privacy so that he could at least pretend that he had his own rooms worked out nicely when Arthur returned to his daily training and Morgana and Gwen were happy to trapeze about out-of-doors most afternoons to enjoy the sunshine and the explosion of wildflowers that had taken over the fields and slopes surrounding the castle. The warmer weather also brought in a regular revolving door of visitors to Camelot and some more permanent residents, which usually included Lords, their wives, their retinues, and in some cases their sons applying for knighthood and young daughters hoping to catch the eye of said knights. For the most part these dealings completely passed Merlin by, save for what he heard from Morgana when she complained at length about air headed nobility and pimply faced knight-hopefuls, or when Arthur showed up in the evening in a snit over whoever had managed to stupidly injure themselves that day on the training grounds.
Merlin hardly even noticed a change in their daily lives when Lord Cynric and his recently widowed sister Lady Edith came around to visit in mid-spring, and in all honesty he wasn’t even aware of the party’s existence in the castle until an off-handed comment from Morgana spurred a few minutes of frantic whispering between herself and Gwen. It was the first he’d heard of them and neither girl seemed inclined to elaborate what had prompted their discussion while Merlin was in earshot, which was fine, as castle gossip had been swirling around him for weeks and Merlin knew he could hardly be expected to keep track of all of the Lords and Ladies and sons and daughters occupying the empty rooms in Camelot’s castle. He’d even forgotten their names when Morgana began giving Arthur tight-lipped, accusative stares whenever they happened to be in the same room together, and Merlin had already made solemn oaths to steer clear of the arguments and sibling-style rivalries that sprang up like clockwork between the two. Arthur, who only seemed marginally less cross these days with his latest batch of squires, always ignored the look, and Merlin decided to show at least a little bit of manly solidarity by suggesting that it was time for the ladies to retire when Morgana’s ire grew into that look like she wanted to leap across the table and strangle Arthur to death. And Merlin knew that Uther would be very upset if he lost his only son and heir, so it was all for the best, really.
*~*~*
These things always eventually came to a head, Merlin had learned, which was why the day after Morgana had used magic to try and knock Arthur unconscious with two of Merlin’s more delicate leather-bound tomes, he escaped the castle to spend the afternoon engaged in more lofty pursuits. While some might argue that experimenting with turning himself into a fish could be viewed as a waste of time, Merlin found the experience highly memorable and met with great success. He had honestly never realized before just how deep the castle’s pond went, or how immense the variety of life was once you got below the surface and began exploring. And algae was surprisingly delicious once you lost most of your taste buds and sense of smell.
It was early evening by the time Merlin exhausted himself on doing laps through the pond as a stone loach, and he flew back to the castle looking forward to a quiet evening and a warm meal and his comfortable bed. He passed Archimedes leaving the tower for his nightly hunt, and managed to land on the stone ledge beside his open window with much more finesse than he’d been able to in the past. And that’s when he heard the raised voices.
Morgana and Arthur were squaring off in the middle of the room when he poked his head inside, braced in mid-argument by the look of things, though it seemed like events hadn’t quite progressed to the point of things being thrown. All of Merlin’s books and candlesticks were still in their original places.
"I’m so happy we’re not family because I could never be related to someone so stupid!" Morgana was shouting.
"I never asked for a sister who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s affairs anyway!" Arthur yelled back.
"What were you thinking! Were you even thinking at all? Arthur you can’t just go around acting like-"
"No one assigned you as my keeper, Morgana! What I do with my life is my own decisions. I should have known you wouldn’t mind your own business - castle gossip not in a healthy enough supply for you these days?"
Morgana snorted. "Oh please, like I would waste my time skiving out your dirty exploits. You’re even stupider than I thought if you thought you were actually succeeding in keeping this a secret!"
This was around the point where Merlin figured it would be good idea if he either left or made his presence known, since he’d begun to feel vaguely guilty about hiding on the window ledge and spying on his own room. He must have made some noise, however, as Morgana spun around to face him, and she looked relived after the initial flash of surprise disappeared.
"Good, Merlin, come in here! You’re supposed to be Arthur’s mentor; maybe you can talk some sense into his thick hormone-ridden head."
Merlin hopped off the windowsill and changed back so that his boots touched the floor when he landed. No matter how many times he used a transformation spell in front of them, Arthur and Morgana still had matching expressions of amazement on their faces. Merlin felt himself flushing and brushed down his jacket and tunic. "Um, so, did something happen?"
"No," Arthur said tightly, causing Morgana to whirl around to face him.
"You’re not seriously trying to argue that this is appropriate Arthur!"
"If we’re going to start throwing words like that around, I can think of plenty of things Uther would love to hear about, like stealing the knight’s practice equipment - I’m fairly certain that was you and Guinevere I saw just last week out on the western slope, wasn’t it?"
"Don’t you dare drag Gwen into this," Morgana hissed. "And my sword training is hardly comparable with you trying to populate the kingdom with bastard children!"
"Woooah," Merlin said, coming around the table. "Would someone care to enlighten me?"
To Merlin’s surprised, Arthur flushed and crossed his arms over his chest. Morgana looked on with a frown and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Arthur has, how shall we say it, been caught in flagrante delicto with Lady Edith. And he’s an idiot if he thinks that Uther won’t have his head when he finds out what he’s been up to!"
"Oh," Merlin said faintly in understanding. He glanced back at Arthur and saw the Prince pouting even as he glared at Morgana, both of his cheeks a healthy pink, and Merlin found himself unable to stop a similar flush from crawling up his neck at the sight.
"And my father won’t find out as long as you don't go running off to him, Morgana. You don’t even have any proof!"
"What, are we supposed to wait nine months for the proof to come back and show itself at court?" she snapped, and Arthur groaned aloud.
"God, Morgana, could you be any more vulgar?"
"I have to be if it means I have more sense on my shoulders than you and your dick combined!"
Even Merlin blanched at that one, and Arthur looked ready for the floor to hurry up and swallow him whole. "We… we haven’t even," he ground out, flushing.
"Well I suppose that’s a little better then," Morgana sneered, still looking angry and like she wanted to slap Arthur around the head a few times.
"Um, so what exactly is the problem?" Merlin ventured.
"He has a point, Morgana. I’m hardly stupid enough to get the woman pregnant," Arthur said defensively.
"And you so conveniently forgot to mention the part where this woman is seventeen years older than you!"
"Really?" Merlin squeaked in surprise. Arthur shifted and looked down at the floor, frowning.
"You can’t argue for the lady’s honor being at stake," he said stubbornly. "She’s already a widow."
Morgana sighed. "Arthur, I don’t know what that woman is playing at, or what she’s told you, but you have to stop this, immediately. If your father or her brother found out… what could have possibly made you think that this was a good idea?"
Arthur’s head was bowed and he didn’t answer, but Merlin thought he saw his eyes flicker briefly across the room to where he was standing. Something hot and nervous lodged itself in Merlin’s chest, and he turned to head for his stove, intent on making a pot of tea.
"Arthur," Morgana said again, quieter. "I was lying about everyone knowing. It was just… there was a rumor the Lady was entertaining someone, and then my maid Betty saw you leaving her rooms a few weeks ago. I swore her to secrecy, Arthur. No one else knows. I was hoping you’d stop and see sense, I’m sorry."
Arthur uncrossed his arms and straightened. "Thank you for your discretion, Morgana."
Morgana frowned at the cool tone, while Merlin watched covertly from his corner while he nursed his boiling water. "Arthur, I was serious. This can’t continue. You have to-"
"Yes, I heard you the first time," Arthur snapped, making a sharp downward motion with his hand. "It won’t… it was the plan anyway."
"Was it," Morgana intoned suspiciously.
Arthur grumbled with frustration. "Yes, Morgana. The Lady and her brother already have plans to leave Camelot in less than a fortnight."
"I see," she said, and her features softened slightly. "You had to know this wouldn’t last, Arthur."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "My god, save your simpering for someone who actually needs it. Do I look heartbroken or ready to throw myself off the nearest battlement?"
Morgana sniffed. "Fine. See if I ever care about your royal hide again."
"Fine," Arthur snapped back. He looked aside to make eye contact with Merlin for the first time that evening and Merlin felt the ridiculous urge to blush again, which was absurd, and he swallowed thickly. But Arthur simply nodded at him once before turning around and leaving the tower, and the door only rattled a little in its hinges. It was an improvement, actually.
Merlin floated the pot of hot tea over to the table and sat down. Morgana joined him with a sigh and summoned her own teacup, and Merlin was pleased to see that she was getting much smoother using wordless magic. They sat for a few minutes in silence, nursing their respective steaming drinks.
"Are you okay?" Merlin asked quietly after a bit.
Morgana crooked a smile at him and set her cup on the table. "I am, thank you. We don’t talk about it much, but… I do think of him like a little brother sometimes. A really annoying, pig-headed, stubborn little brother, but he makes me want to look out for him anyway."
"That’s probably why you have visions about him," Merlin pointed out, and Morgana’s look turned thoughtful.
"I hadn’t really thought about it," she admitted. "I haven’t had any in awhile, but you said I did in the future, didn’t I?"
Merlin nodded and sipped his tea. "A few times, yeah. The ones I knew about at least."
"I’m rather surprised I didn’t see all this coming," she muttered, lips pressed against the edge of her cup. "It might have saved all of us a lot of headaches."
"I think the yelling probably wouldn’t have been able to be helped," Merlin said, chuckling, which got a wry grin out of Morgana.
"You seemed surprised about it," Morgana remarked after a moment. "Did you really have no idea? If Arthur had told anyone, I’d have thought it would have been you."
"I really didn’t," Merlin admitted, though he frowned as he thought back on everything that had been revealed during Arthur and Morgana’s argument. He didn’t remember exactly when Lord Cynric and Lady Edith had arrived, though he did know that Morgana’s thinly veiled looks of anger had been going on for the better part of three weeks. In all that time, Merlin couldn’t really say that he’d seen a change in the Prince, though there had been one or two occasions where he’d shown up unusually late to Merlin’s rooms, which at the time he’d just figured meant that practice had run late or Uther had asked to see Arthur beforehand. And it was true that Arthur had seemed more… loose lately, he supposed. He hadn’t been complaining as much about the knights and the quartermaster’s training schedule, or about the meetings with his father, and he supposed that maybe there had been some signs there all along. Not that Merlin had ever thought… well, he didn’t really make it a point to think about Arthur like that, let alone contemplate that he was even capable of having trysts in the bedroom.
Merlin groaned aloud, and Morgana gave him a sympathetic look. "Did something just kick you in the back of the head?" she asked, unable to suppress a tiny smirk.
"He’s only fifteen," Merlin mumbled, rubbing his eyes as if that might banish the direction his thoughts had been headed in.
"Really, Merlin. You were a boy once. I think you should know better than anyone what it’s like to be that age," she said sweetly.
"I try not to remember that I might have been that dumb and hormone driven at some point in my life."
Morgana grinned. "Well, I consider this to be a crisis well-averted. Lady Edith will leave in a week, Uther won’t ever need to find out, and if Arthur was telling the truth, we won’t have to worry about little blond children running around Camelot in a year."
Merlin laughed in spite of himself. "Arthur is lucky to have you, Morgana. Really."
Morgana put down her empty cup and rose to circle around the table. She surprised Merlin by pulling him into a tight hug, his face mashed up uncomfortably under her breasts. "He’s not the only one who has me," she said kindly, and patted Merlin’s hair once before letting him go. Merlin figured his face was probably bright pink from the gesture, but she only grinned and bid him goodnight with a wave before leaving the room, thankfully with much less pomp and bluster than Arthur had earlier.
*~*~*
Arthur did cut things off with Lady Edith, fairly quickly it seemed, as he spent the next two days after Merlin caught him and Morgana arguing in his rooms sulking quietly over his lessons. But the attitude seemed mostly affected for Morgana’s benefit, who after the first two hours had begun to look more and more like she was feeling sorry for Arthur’s loss of his… well, whatever kind of arrangement he’d had going on with the Lady. Once Morgana and Gwen were out of the room Arthur’s face had cleared and he’d behaved as normal as ever, even going so far as to tease Merlin over his embarrassment while he’d stood witness to Morgana’s ultimatum. Merlin had never been aware that he was a person who could be made to blush easily, but with Arthur there was apparently some kind of residual awkwardness that like to manifest itself by making his ears burn any time Arthur casually mentioned some detail of his time spent with the Lady Edith. Which were definitely things that Merlin did not want to hear, because it was improper and immature, and Merlin didn’t like the way it made his stomach knot unpleasantly any time Arthur brought up her name. It took more than a week for Arthur to finally take Merlin’s threats of throwing him out seriously (and after Merlin had be forced to do it twice), before he let the entire matter drop with the promise never to speak of it again, still looking oddly smug all the while.
Merlin could have hoped, in vain, that it would be the last time he would ever find himself hearing about Arthur’s adventurous pursuits, but like Morgana had pointed out, Arthur was fifteen after all. For a time anyway it seemed that whatever curiosity had been in the Prince’s system was now absent, or at least so far suppressed by his knighthood training and matters of state and border patrols and taxation disputes, that there was no chance for another incident to present itself. And Merlin at least figured he could catch the signs better the next time around, now that he knew what to look for. Not that he was particularly interested in knowing what Arthur got up to in his spare time, but Morgana did have a point - populating a kingdom with bastard children, whether with visiting noblewomen or chambermaids, was never a good idea.
The mild spring weather rolled over quickly into a wave of humidity that had made Merlin seriously consider packing up to move farther north, but the early summer rainstorms were frequent and Morgana liked to point out that the roads were too muddy for traveling most of the time and that Merlin would probably get struck by lightning if he tried to make the trip as a bird. But she’d always sounded wistful when she said it, like she secretly agreed with Merlin’s dreams for a more temperate climate, and Merlin had wondered if he needed to worry when he caught Morgana and Gwen searching through his books for spells on manipulating the weather. He took some comfort in knowing first hand that they were particularly complicated incantations that Morgana was nowhere near ready to attempt - and if he found himself feeling a bit choked up at the sight of his two friends sitting side by side and reading a book on magic of all things, it was his right to feel a bit soppy that the future was turning out to be so different and better before his very eyes.
Merlin didn’t like going out-of-doors if he could help it in the summer, especially when he was capable of conjuring cold breezes to swirl around the interior of his chambers anytime he liked, but for some reason Arthur began finding it necessary to bring Merlin along whenever he was charged with inspecting the crop fields and hamlets around the city. This usually only happened about once a week and had, several times, turned unexpectedly into overnight excursions when Arthur was feeling in no particular hurry to get back to the castle. They were always accompanied by at least a few guards and a knight or two, which made finding an inn with enough rooms for all a bit of a hassle each time it happened, and Merlin suspected Arthur of being a terrible liar when Merlin was forced to share a room with the Prince nearly every time. If he was lucky he got a cot or a thin mattress to sleep on at the foot of Arthur’s bed, and it didn’t help that Arthur would halt his grumbling protests by reminding Merlin of his self-appointed duty as Arthur’s sole protector, which was unfair when all Merlin wanted was a decent place to sleep to soothe away the ache of sitting on horseback all day.
But the trips weren’t all that bad, even with the summer heat and the rain, because any misery Merlin experienced was guaranteed to be shared by Arthur, and Merlin didn’t mind getting wet when it meant that he could torment the Prince later by withholding a drying spell until he felt ready to give it. This and other similar petty acts of revenge might have explained the routine with shared rooms and only one bed, but Merlin chose not to dwell on fingering blame when he could hardly excuse his behavior any better than he could Arthur’s. They usually made a good time of it anyway while away from the castle, and Arthur preferred riding ahead and talking to Merlin rather than hanging back with the older knights his father usually assigned to be sent with them. Merlin had to admit privately that he’d missed having time alone with Arthur, and maybe Arthur thought so too, if the frequency of their overnight trips was anything to go by.
Merlin also had a good head for remembering numbers, which was Arthur’s justification for taking him along in the first place, while Arthur was better with remembering names and locations, so when they got back to Camelot they usually ended up working together to assemble Arthur’s report, calculating crop yields and surplus estimations for the coming winter. The trips also had the added benefit of inspiring the very first time Arthur ever thought to ask Merlin about growing crops using magic, which had led to more questions about using it to construct better irrigation ditches and regulate the rainfall, and Merlin had ended up being so stupidly thrilled over the whole discussion that he’d spontaneously offered Arthur the one thing he’d been thinking about for almost a year but hadn’t found the right time to bring up before.
Which was how they found themselves, one week later, running for their lives through the upper canopy of the King’s forest from a hungry goshawk that had decided Merlin and Arthur would make an ideal noonday meal of fresh squirrel. And maybe Arthur was right that being turned into a tree rat, as he’d put it, wasn’t exactly the most ostentatious of all the possibilities that Merlin had saved up, but it was still infinitely more fun that being cooped up inside the castle. Merlin could tell that Arthur loved the whole experience despite his complaints, even if they did spend most of their time fleeing from predators or overly curious females of the species, because Merlin had never seen Arthur smile so much just from the memory of it when they talked in the evenings, or laugh so well as he did when he told stories to Morgana and Gwen of their adventures falling out of trees and being nearly eaten alive. And Merlin’s heart continued with the ridiculous habit of swelling with happiness at inappropriate moments, like when Arthur grinned at him while they walked back to the castle in the evening, or when Morgana and Gwen fussed at him to remember to put on his disguise when he left his rooms, or when Gaius pulled him aside and told him that maybe his ways of keeping secrets hadn’t been the right thing to do after all, and that he was proud of the progress Merlin had made. The future was unfurling, bright and hopeful before his eyes, and Merlin treasured every moment of it.
[Part IX]
[ Part VI] | [ Part VII]
(Part VIII)
Camelot’s forces returned victorious after a fortnight had passed, new treaty in hand and Odin’s first tribute of precious metals and grain stacked up by the wagon-full behind the parade of returning knights. Merlin braved the chilly air to survey the loud procession from the battlements, huddled up next to Morgana and Gwen resplendent in matching winter cloaks, as the caravan of brightly waving flags marched into the courtyard. The cheers that rose from all those who had turned out to witness the army’s return nearly drowned out the sound of the winds whipping across the rooftops, and it was hard not to feel swept up in the pride that practically radiated from all corners of the kingdom. Merlin watched King and son climb the main stairs together and disappear inside the castle with a mixture of apprehension and utter fixation, but he was ready to deny all of it if either Morgana or Gwen so much as blinked in his direction. They’d gotten uncommonly good on picking up on his moods the past few months, which had made the last two weeks particularly trying on Merlin’s complete lack of skills at acting nonchalant.
Both girls left him with variations of the same relieved but wary smiles as they departed from the balcony a few minutes later, and Merlin got to spend the remainder of the afternoon recasting warming spells under his robes and watching servants haul away the spoils of war and stablehands lead each horse off to the stables. By the time the celebratory feasting was underway (which doubled as a tribute to honor the knights of Camelot that had fallen in battle), Merlin had already snuck a plate of food away for himself and Gaius, and they spent the evening in the physician’s rooms eating tender roast hog and hot rolls and sampling the assortment of jellies and sauces and winter berries that had made an appearance for the banquet. Conversation was sparse and there was a gloom to the air despite how high Gaius’ fireplace had been stoked and how delicious the food was, and Merlin had a feeling that they were both missing the additional company they’d grown used to sharing. The freedom that had been granted by Uther’s absence from the castle would only be a distant memory with King’s return, and Merlin hated himself a little for even bothering to wonder whether the trade-off had been worth it.
Since his return from the battlefield their group had been nearly inseparable, tied together by the secrets they all shared and by Morgana and Gwen’s ceaseless curiosity about all things magic and what details Merlin was willing to divulge about the future (which often ended up being more than he’d intended to say, and Gaius had taken to glaring at them even before they got on the topic). Gaius had admirably explained to both girls the true nature of Merlin’s presence in Camelot while he’d been gone saving Arthur’s life (and getting lost on the way back, though he’d been understandably preoccupied at the time), and with Merlin’s help they did their best to allay Morgana’s reservations over the powers she hadn’t even been aware of having until that day. Merlin hadn’t intended to progress that to the point of taking her on as a pupil, and even now he couldn’t bring himself to fit that label to the casual lessons he had shared, as he hardly considered himself to be any sort of expert on magic when he’d only been aware of its true existence for half a decade. But as the days passed it had become apparent that Gaius’ own knowledge fell far short of Merlin’s practical experience, and time proved that Merlin was the best choice for helping Morgana explore the limitations of her powers - which made sense, but was still something he felt vaguely uncomfortable about.
They hadn’t even really made any progress up until a few days before the army’s return, when Morgana had finally managed to master a spell that moved a cup into her hand from across the table. Whatever ability gave Merlin the natural talent for moving things with his mind was a skill that seemed to have bypassed Morgana entirely, and while this baffled Merlin as much as Gaius seemed relieved to hear it, in the end Merlin had to agree that it was better if they didn’t have to worry about Morgana unconsciously summoning objects across the dinner table while she dined with Uther. Morgana’s dreams also seemed to have taken a respite for the time being, and though all of them attributed to that to the cessation of hostilities with Wessex, Merlin secretly wondered if pushing Morgana to consume her magic in practice had a draining effect on the power of her visions as well. Whatever the reason, it was a relief for all of them to see Morgana’s happiness and confidence blooming with each passing day, and Merlin’s memories of a lonely and broken woman began to fade into nothing more than the stuff of forgotten dreams.
Gaius’ rooms quickly became an impractical meeting place with the return of Camelot’s menfolk, so Merlin was pleasantly surprised when Morgana showed up at his chambers one mid-morning a few days later with Gwen in tow. Both girls were good company now that they could speak openly, and they’d even taken to insisting that Merlin drop his disguise while around them for the sake of, as Morgana had put it, ‘Not making us feel like we’re talking to someone old enough to be our father.’ Gaius had given Morgana the loan of his spellbook, the very same one he would have given to Merlin in the future, though with minor variations, as Merlin had added a few spells in the back and had taken to making notes in the margins over the years. Merlin had also insisted that Morgana leave the book with him at all times, as it would reduce the chances of a wayward servant or Uther stumbling upon a it in the Lady’s room, and almost overnight Merlin found it necessary to bring in several more chairs to accommodate the growing number of people he was keeping company with in the tower.
Arthur stayed away for a solid week after his return, too busy sorting out all the details involved with resettling into a castle they had abandoned for nearly three months to have time for things like biology and Ptolemy, and the knowledge was oddly liberating when it meant that Merlin didn’t have to be the one doing the avoiding this time around. He’d spent far more time thinking about and puzzling over the awkward kiss in Arthur’s tent than he wanted to admit, and even going on four weeks didn’t feel like enough time for him to wrap his head around what could have prompted the Prince’s behavior. Merlin wanted to chalk it up to post-battle stress after the fight in the forest, which sounded like a far safer explanation than wondering if it had been premeditated in the slightest. At least as long as they were both preoccupied with their own responsibilities Merlin didn’t have to worry about awkward encounters or, heavens forbid, repeat performances. And it wasn’t that he found Arthur repulsive, or that he had an issue with two men sharing a kiss, and he certainly wasn’t a prude no matter what Arthur accused him of being - but Arthur was only fifteen and hardly at an age when he should be going around accosting men almost twice his age. Twice his age and from the future and his tutor, for heaven’s sake.
It was just as well that Merlin had a reason for being sufficiently distracted by Morgana and Gwen showing up at his rooms at all hours throughout the day (always together, even Morgana wasn’t foolish enough to visit a man’s rooms without a chaperone), because when Arthur did suddenly decide to come back into his life, Merlin had plenty of excuses for not spending the time stupidly staring at the Prince’s mouth.
It was late afternoon when Arthur finally put in an appearance, barging unceremoniously into Merlin’s rooms and startling all three of them into a flurry of papers and shrieks of, "I thought you locked the door!"
Arthur stopped just inside the threshold and was staring aghast at what no doubt had to look like a very odd scene, with Morgana standing and facing the door with a knitting needle clutched in her fist like a weapon, and Gwen half out of her chair and attempting to shield Merlin’s face from view using an open book. Arthur blinked twice before pointedly closing the door behind him with a heavy slam that rattled the frame. "What," he demanded, "are you two doing here?"
"Erm, Arthur," Merlin began, batting the book away from his face.
Morgana straightened her shoulders. "Nothing that concerns you."
"You’re up here, alone, consorting with my tutor! How is that not my concern?"
"You’re being ridiculous, Arthur. I have Gwen with me." Said girl bowed politely in acknowledgement to the Prince before retaking her seat at the end of the table. "Besides, he’s not just yours anymore. You’ll have to learn to share."
"I bloody will not," Arthur huffed, throwing himself into the last empty seat. "You will both leave immediately. Merlin has lessons to conduct and I don’t have all day to wait while you three wrap up your needlework consortium."
"No, Gwen, we’re not leaving," Morgana said, halting the other girl’s rise from her seat. Morgana retook her chair and gave Arthur an arch look across the table. "We have just as much right here as you. We know about Merlin and why he’s here, so you can’t kick us out on the grounds of maintaining secrecy. Besides, Merlin’s been teaching me magic."
"He’s been what?" Arthur yelled.
Merlin groaned and folded his head in his arms.
"Don’t look so shocked, Arthur. Your face will stick like that," Morgana advised snidely.
Arthur swiveled around to look at Merlin, who was peeking through his fingers at the proceedings with barely disguised dismay. "Merlin, what possessed that pea-sized brain of yours to think that it would be a good idea to teach Uther’s ward in the magical arts?"
"She asked?" Merlin replied meekly. "And Gaius thinks it’s helping her control her powers better. No more nightmares for awhile now, right?"
Morgana nodded in the affirmative as she picked up her knitting. "Really, Arthur. Do you want me to wake up half the castle every time I dream about you catching a splinter?"
Gwen giggled softly, though she quickly schooled her face when all eyes turned in her direction.
Arthur sighed and knocked his head audibly against the top of his chair. "This is still highly inappropriate, Morgana."
"What, Merlin?" Morgana said, sounding rather scandalized. "Merlin’s absolutely harmless. He’s sweet but he’s hardly my type."
"He’s also right here," Merlin grumbled, and Gwen gave him a vaguely sympathetic look as she pulled at a knot in the skein of yarn Morgana had made a mess out of earlier.
"Morgana, you do realize that he’s not really this scruffy harmless old man with an extreme fondness for books?"
"Yes, Arthur, I hadn’t noticed," Morgana snapped.
Merlin could feel a headache coming on. "Look," he said, slapping a hand down on the cluttered tabletop. "I think we’re all perfectly capable of sitting in the same room and acting like adults. Morgana, you can keep on practicing that spell we were going over earlier, and I can help Arthur catch up on his studies. Does that sound alright with everyone?"
Arthur sat up straight in his chair and lifted a finger to wag it in Morgana’s direction. "From now on, you’re not allowed in these chambers unless I am here to accompany you. Is that understood?"
Morgana threw a book at him. "Just try and stop me."
Merlin put his head down on the table and gave serious consideration to finally going about fixing the lock on his door.
*~*~*
Despite Merlin’s worries to the contrary, things never got a chance to get too awkward between he and Arthur because they rarely spent any time alone together, which Merlin was grateful for, even if he did occasionally wonder what the discussion might have been like if they’d had a whole afternoon alone to themselves. It wasn’t terribly hard to imagine that there would have been a lot of general avoiding of anything remotely related to tents and battlefields, and in the end it would be one slip of a word before things exploded and it all blew over in a matter of minutes (which seemed to happen more often than not between them, Merlin was beginning to notice). What short periods of time they did end up having together usually involved Merlin stubbornly burrowing between the pages of a book while Arthur preoccupied himself with his own studies. If they did speak at all it was usually Arthur sharing outrageous stories and silly rumors that made Merlin laugh in spite of himself, or Merlin complaining about how utterly boring life had been in Camelot while everyone had been off beating each other with swords. They didn’t talk about the battlefield and they didn’t talk about magic, and if Merlin ever started to suspect that Arthur was staring at him for longer and longer periods of silence, Morgana and Gwen had impeccable timing for showing up and dissolving any lingering tension in the room.
When Merlin wasn’t holed up in his rooms or entertaining his company with simple tricks and bits of fuzz that flew around their heads like mayflies, Morgana and Gwen were fond of dragging Merlin out of doors, especially once the weather deemed it finally time to dump snow on Camelot, and once the first storm had cleared the drifts nearly reached the top of the first story windows on the castle. Winter was almost mild in comparison to the one they’d endured the year before, and each day Merlin awoke to white-capped roofs and barren, pristine fields stretching in all directions toward the horizon. Only the occasional flurry came through to replenish the powder with fresh snow, and there were days upon days of cloudless blue skies and crisp air and a tiny yellow sun that always set far too quickly for Merlin’s liking.
There was large pond just below the castle that became a favorite spot for townsfolk and castle servants alike once the weather turned cold enough, and Merlin suffered through a growing assortment of bruises each time he was pulled onto the ice by a laughing Morgana. Gwen and her Lady were naturally graceful on the slick surface in a way that Merlin could only admire helplessly from whatever snow bank he usually ended up collapsing atop of, and though they always mocked him Merlin figured that while he was in disguise he was allowed to be old and grumpy about things like bruised knees. But the most memorable days were when the younger knights and squires came out led by a grinning Arthur, carrying buckets of snowballs they’d frozen overnight, and then it was all out war for hours while everyone tried to avoid being hit by the painful projectiles and people scrambled to build ever more elaborate fortifications and there were never clear sides or teams, just white balls being lobbed through the air toward anything that moved, and Merlin could hardly remember the last time he’d had so much fun or laughed so hard or gotten so cold.
Morgana gave him a pair of sad looking mittens for Yule, the first pair made using the spell she’d figured out for making the knitting do itself on its own, and Merlin accepted them with pride even while she grumbled about needing more practice. Gwen gave him a tiny yellow handkerchief she’d embroidered with his initials, Gaius gave him a new teapot to replace his old cracked one that had taken too many hard landings on the table, and Arthur left him with a full cask of wine and the threat that he was going to get Merlin good and sloshed in the near future - Merlin hid the barrel under his bed in the hopes that Arthur would forget about it if he didn’t see it every time he entered his rooms. Somehow that didn’t end up working out quite as well as he’d planned, and on the twelfth night Merlin found his chambers playing host to everyone but Gaius (who still complained about the excessive amount of stairs) quite late into the evening, aforementioned barrel of wine open and rapidly emptying into their cups. They all got terribly drunk and there had probably been gross abuses of magic going on, or at least that’s what Merlin could only guess had happened when he woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and found his room transformed - there was real grass on the floor and silk drapes around his windows and a mountain of colorful pillows hiding half of his room and a full grown beech in the corner Archimedes had taken for himself and a narrow divan he’d somehow wound up falling asleep on and sharing with the Prince of Camelot. Merlin had promptly untangled himself from Arthur and fallen off the sofa, and from that day on sworn off touching wine again for the rest of his life.
By the time the snow began showing signs of thawing and there was more mud around the castle than ice, Morgana had mastered a handful of practical spells for things like keeping bed sheets warm and lighting candles and winding balls of yarn, Gwen had taken it upon herself to peruse Merlin’s spellbooks for the sake of research into Morgana’s visions, and Arthur had succeeded on working his way through the entirety of Greek history. He was well on his way to conquering Roman as well, though Merlin thought that he could be making far more advancements in other areas of study if he would only stop arguing with Morgana every ten minutes, namely learning the Welsh he’d been trying to drill into his head for over a month with little success. Arthur had discovered that insulting Morgana in other languages wasn’t as fun when she didn’t know what he was saying, so their creativity rarely went beyond Latin and Frankish when they were feeling particularly petty. Which was how, in the end, Merlin ended up teaching the language to everyone present, and Arthur’s superiority only lasted for the few days it took for him to realize that Morgana was picking up on the nuances faster than him - it was amazing how dedicated Arthur turned to studying with a little healthy competition thrown into the mix.
By Imbolc Merlin had thrown all of them out of his room with threats of conjuring toads in their beds if they didn’t leave him the hell alone for at least three days out of the week. He’d only been a few creative words away from literally climbing the walls out of sheer desperation, and the horrible feeling of claustrophobia had probably been creeping over him for a while if his spectacular blow-up was anything to go by. Merlin abandoned the castle that very same morning and spent two whole days solely in Archimedes’ company, and they camped out in the forest together looking like a pair of oddly mismatched flock-mates, one tawny owl and one tiny merlin swooping and wheeling carelessly through the late winter sky. When Merlin finally returned to the tower he found a curious assortment of gifts on his table that were probably meant to be apologies for nearly driving him to insanity, and the next time he saw the girls each of them hugged him tightly and said they were sorry for not thinking of his feelings sooner. Arthur was oddly sober about the whole ordeal, though he did clap Merlin apologetically on the shoulder when Morgana chastised him for being an insensitive prick.
Spring came around as lovely and temperate as winter had been, and Merlin’s demands for enough privacy so that he could at least pretend that he had his own rooms worked out nicely when Arthur returned to his daily training and Morgana and Gwen were happy to trapeze about out-of-doors most afternoons to enjoy the sunshine and the explosion of wildflowers that had taken over the fields and slopes surrounding the castle. The warmer weather also brought in a regular revolving door of visitors to Camelot and some more permanent residents, which usually included Lords, their wives, their retinues, and in some cases their sons applying for knighthood and young daughters hoping to catch the eye of said knights. For the most part these dealings completely passed Merlin by, save for what he heard from Morgana when she complained at length about air headed nobility and pimply faced knight-hopefuls, or when Arthur showed up in the evening in a snit over whoever had managed to stupidly injure themselves that day on the training grounds.
Merlin hardly even noticed a change in their daily lives when Lord Cynric and his recently widowed sister Lady Edith came around to visit in mid-spring, and in all honesty he wasn’t even aware of the party’s existence in the castle until an off-handed comment from Morgana spurred a few minutes of frantic whispering between herself and Gwen. It was the first he’d heard of them and neither girl seemed inclined to elaborate what had prompted their discussion while Merlin was in earshot, which was fine, as castle gossip had been swirling around him for weeks and Merlin knew he could hardly be expected to keep track of all of the Lords and Ladies and sons and daughters occupying the empty rooms in Camelot’s castle. He’d even forgotten their names when Morgana began giving Arthur tight-lipped, accusative stares whenever they happened to be in the same room together, and Merlin had already made solemn oaths to steer clear of the arguments and sibling-style rivalries that sprang up like clockwork between the two. Arthur, who only seemed marginally less cross these days with his latest batch of squires, always ignored the look, and Merlin decided to show at least a little bit of manly solidarity by suggesting that it was time for the ladies to retire when Morgana’s ire grew into that look like she wanted to leap across the table and strangle Arthur to death. And Merlin knew that Uther would be very upset if he lost his only son and heir, so it was all for the best, really.
*~*~*
These things always eventually came to a head, Merlin had learned, which was why the day after Morgana had used magic to try and knock Arthur unconscious with two of Merlin’s more delicate leather-bound tomes, he escaped the castle to spend the afternoon engaged in more lofty pursuits. While some might argue that experimenting with turning himself into a fish could be viewed as a waste of time, Merlin found the experience highly memorable and met with great success. He had honestly never realized before just how deep the castle’s pond went, or how immense the variety of life was once you got below the surface and began exploring. And algae was surprisingly delicious once you lost most of your taste buds and sense of smell.
It was early evening by the time Merlin exhausted himself on doing laps through the pond as a stone loach, and he flew back to the castle looking forward to a quiet evening and a warm meal and his comfortable bed. He passed Archimedes leaving the tower for his nightly hunt, and managed to land on the stone ledge beside his open window with much more finesse than he’d been able to in the past. And that’s when he heard the raised voices.
Morgana and Arthur were squaring off in the middle of the room when he poked his head inside, braced in mid-argument by the look of things, though it seemed like events hadn’t quite progressed to the point of things being thrown. All of Merlin’s books and candlesticks were still in their original places.
"I’m so happy we’re not family because I could never be related to someone so stupid!" Morgana was shouting.
"I never asked for a sister who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s affairs anyway!" Arthur yelled back.
"What were you thinking! Were you even thinking at all? Arthur you can’t just go around acting like-"
"No one assigned you as my keeper, Morgana! What I do with my life is my own decisions. I should have known you wouldn’t mind your own business - castle gossip not in a healthy enough supply for you these days?"
Morgana snorted. "Oh please, like I would waste my time skiving out your dirty exploits. You’re even stupider than I thought if you thought you were actually succeeding in keeping this a secret!"
This was around the point where Merlin figured it would be good idea if he either left or made his presence known, since he’d begun to feel vaguely guilty about hiding on the window ledge and spying on his own room. He must have made some noise, however, as Morgana spun around to face him, and she looked relived after the initial flash of surprise disappeared.
"Good, Merlin, come in here! You’re supposed to be Arthur’s mentor; maybe you can talk some sense into his thick hormone-ridden head."
Merlin hopped off the windowsill and changed back so that his boots touched the floor when he landed. No matter how many times he used a transformation spell in front of them, Arthur and Morgana still had matching expressions of amazement on their faces. Merlin felt himself flushing and brushed down his jacket and tunic. "Um, so, did something happen?"
"No," Arthur said tightly, causing Morgana to whirl around to face him.
"You’re not seriously trying to argue that this is appropriate Arthur!"
"If we’re going to start throwing words like that around, I can think of plenty of things Uther would love to hear about, like stealing the knight’s practice equipment - I’m fairly certain that was you and Guinevere I saw just last week out on the western slope, wasn’t it?"
"Don’t you dare drag Gwen into this," Morgana hissed. "And my sword training is hardly comparable with you trying to populate the kingdom with bastard children!"
"Woooah," Merlin said, coming around the table. "Would someone care to enlighten me?"
To Merlin’s surprised, Arthur flushed and crossed his arms over his chest. Morgana looked on with a frown and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "Arthur has, how shall we say it, been caught in flagrante delicto with Lady Edith. And he’s an idiot if he thinks that Uther won’t have his head when he finds out what he’s been up to!"
"Oh," Merlin said faintly in understanding. He glanced back at Arthur and saw the Prince pouting even as he glared at Morgana, both of his cheeks a healthy pink, and Merlin found himself unable to stop a similar flush from crawling up his neck at the sight.
"And my father won’t find out as long as you don't go running off to him, Morgana. You don’t even have any proof!"
"What, are we supposed to wait nine months for the proof to come back and show itself at court?" she snapped, and Arthur groaned aloud.
"God, Morgana, could you be any more vulgar?"
"I have to be if it means I have more sense on my shoulders than you and your dick combined!"
Even Merlin blanched at that one, and Arthur looked ready for the floor to hurry up and swallow him whole. "We… we haven’t even," he ground out, flushing.
"Well I suppose that’s a little better then," Morgana sneered, still looking angry and like she wanted to slap Arthur around the head a few times.
"Um, so what exactly is the problem?" Merlin ventured.
"He has a point, Morgana. I’m hardly stupid enough to get the woman pregnant," Arthur said defensively.
"And you so conveniently forgot to mention the part where this woman is seventeen years older than you!"
"Really?" Merlin squeaked in surprise. Arthur shifted and looked down at the floor, frowning.
"You can’t argue for the lady’s honor being at stake," he said stubbornly. "She’s already a widow."
Morgana sighed. "Arthur, I don’t know what that woman is playing at, or what she’s told you, but you have to stop this, immediately. If your father or her brother found out… what could have possibly made you think that this was a good idea?"
Arthur’s head was bowed and he didn’t answer, but Merlin thought he saw his eyes flicker briefly across the room to where he was standing. Something hot and nervous lodged itself in Merlin’s chest, and he turned to head for his stove, intent on making a pot of tea.
"Arthur," Morgana said again, quieter. "I was lying about everyone knowing. It was just… there was a rumor the Lady was entertaining someone, and then my maid Betty saw you leaving her rooms a few weeks ago. I swore her to secrecy, Arthur. No one else knows. I was hoping you’d stop and see sense, I’m sorry."
Arthur uncrossed his arms and straightened. "Thank you for your discretion, Morgana."
Morgana frowned at the cool tone, while Merlin watched covertly from his corner while he nursed his boiling water. "Arthur, I was serious. This can’t continue. You have to-"
"Yes, I heard you the first time," Arthur snapped, making a sharp downward motion with his hand. "It won’t… it was the plan anyway."
"Was it," Morgana intoned suspiciously.
Arthur grumbled with frustration. "Yes, Morgana. The Lady and her brother already have plans to leave Camelot in less than a fortnight."
"I see," she said, and her features softened slightly. "You had to know this wouldn’t last, Arthur."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "My god, save your simpering for someone who actually needs it. Do I look heartbroken or ready to throw myself off the nearest battlement?"
Morgana sniffed. "Fine. See if I ever care about your royal hide again."
"Fine," Arthur snapped back. He looked aside to make eye contact with Merlin for the first time that evening and Merlin felt the ridiculous urge to blush again, which was absurd, and he swallowed thickly. But Arthur simply nodded at him once before turning around and leaving the tower, and the door only rattled a little in its hinges. It was an improvement, actually.
Merlin floated the pot of hot tea over to the table and sat down. Morgana joined him with a sigh and summoned her own teacup, and Merlin was pleased to see that she was getting much smoother using wordless magic. They sat for a few minutes in silence, nursing their respective steaming drinks.
"Are you okay?" Merlin asked quietly after a bit.
Morgana crooked a smile at him and set her cup on the table. "I am, thank you. We don’t talk about it much, but… I do think of him like a little brother sometimes. A really annoying, pig-headed, stubborn little brother, but he makes me want to look out for him anyway."
"That’s probably why you have visions about him," Merlin pointed out, and Morgana’s look turned thoughtful.
"I hadn’t really thought about it," she admitted. "I haven’t had any in awhile, but you said I did in the future, didn’t I?"
Merlin nodded and sipped his tea. "A few times, yeah. The ones I knew about at least."
"I’m rather surprised I didn’t see all this coming," she muttered, lips pressed against the edge of her cup. "It might have saved all of us a lot of headaches."
"I think the yelling probably wouldn’t have been able to be helped," Merlin said, chuckling, which got a wry grin out of Morgana.
"You seemed surprised about it," Morgana remarked after a moment. "Did you really have no idea? If Arthur had told anyone, I’d have thought it would have been you."
"I really didn’t," Merlin admitted, though he frowned as he thought back on everything that had been revealed during Arthur and Morgana’s argument. He didn’t remember exactly when Lord Cynric and Lady Edith had arrived, though he did know that Morgana’s thinly veiled looks of anger had been going on for the better part of three weeks. In all that time, Merlin couldn’t really say that he’d seen a change in the Prince, though there had been one or two occasions where he’d shown up unusually late to Merlin’s rooms, which at the time he’d just figured meant that practice had run late or Uther had asked to see Arthur beforehand. And it was true that Arthur had seemed more… loose lately, he supposed. He hadn’t been complaining as much about the knights and the quartermaster’s training schedule, or about the meetings with his father, and he supposed that maybe there had been some signs there all along. Not that Merlin had ever thought… well, he didn’t really make it a point to think about Arthur like that, let alone contemplate that he was even capable of having trysts in the bedroom.
Merlin groaned aloud, and Morgana gave him a sympathetic look. "Did something just kick you in the back of the head?" she asked, unable to suppress a tiny smirk.
"He’s only fifteen," Merlin mumbled, rubbing his eyes as if that might banish the direction his thoughts had been headed in.
"Really, Merlin. You were a boy once. I think you should know better than anyone what it’s like to be that age," she said sweetly.
"I try not to remember that I might have been that dumb and hormone driven at some point in my life."
Morgana grinned. "Well, I consider this to be a crisis well-averted. Lady Edith will leave in a week, Uther won’t ever need to find out, and if Arthur was telling the truth, we won’t have to worry about little blond children running around Camelot in a year."
Merlin laughed in spite of himself. "Arthur is lucky to have you, Morgana. Really."
Morgana put down her empty cup and rose to circle around the table. She surprised Merlin by pulling him into a tight hug, his face mashed up uncomfortably under her breasts. "He’s not the only one who has me," she said kindly, and patted Merlin’s hair once before letting him go. Merlin figured his face was probably bright pink from the gesture, but she only grinned and bid him goodnight with a wave before leaving the room, thankfully with much less pomp and bluster than Arthur had earlier.
*~*~*
Arthur did cut things off with Lady Edith, fairly quickly it seemed, as he spent the next two days after Merlin caught him and Morgana arguing in his rooms sulking quietly over his lessons. But the attitude seemed mostly affected for Morgana’s benefit, who after the first two hours had begun to look more and more like she was feeling sorry for Arthur’s loss of his… well, whatever kind of arrangement he’d had going on with the Lady. Once Morgana and Gwen were out of the room Arthur’s face had cleared and he’d behaved as normal as ever, even going so far as to tease Merlin over his embarrassment while he’d stood witness to Morgana’s ultimatum. Merlin had never been aware that he was a person who could be made to blush easily, but with Arthur there was apparently some kind of residual awkwardness that like to manifest itself by making his ears burn any time Arthur casually mentioned some detail of his time spent with the Lady Edith. Which were definitely things that Merlin did not want to hear, because it was improper and immature, and Merlin didn’t like the way it made his stomach knot unpleasantly any time Arthur brought up her name. It took more than a week for Arthur to finally take Merlin’s threats of throwing him out seriously (and after Merlin had be forced to do it twice), before he let the entire matter drop with the promise never to speak of it again, still looking oddly smug all the while.
Merlin could have hoped, in vain, that it would be the last time he would ever find himself hearing about Arthur’s adventurous pursuits, but like Morgana had pointed out, Arthur was fifteen after all. For a time anyway it seemed that whatever curiosity had been in the Prince’s system was now absent, or at least so far suppressed by his knighthood training and matters of state and border patrols and taxation disputes, that there was no chance for another incident to present itself. And Merlin at least figured he could catch the signs better the next time around, now that he knew what to look for. Not that he was particularly interested in knowing what Arthur got up to in his spare time, but Morgana did have a point - populating a kingdom with bastard children, whether with visiting noblewomen or chambermaids, was never a good idea.
The mild spring weather rolled over quickly into a wave of humidity that had made Merlin seriously consider packing up to move farther north, but the early summer rainstorms were frequent and Morgana liked to point out that the roads were too muddy for traveling most of the time and that Merlin would probably get struck by lightning if he tried to make the trip as a bird. But she’d always sounded wistful when she said it, like she secretly agreed with Merlin’s dreams for a more temperate climate, and Merlin had wondered if he needed to worry when he caught Morgana and Gwen searching through his books for spells on manipulating the weather. He took some comfort in knowing first hand that they were particularly complicated incantations that Morgana was nowhere near ready to attempt - and if he found himself feeling a bit choked up at the sight of his two friends sitting side by side and reading a book on magic of all things, it was his right to feel a bit soppy that the future was turning out to be so different and better before his very eyes.
Merlin didn’t like going out-of-doors if he could help it in the summer, especially when he was capable of conjuring cold breezes to swirl around the interior of his chambers anytime he liked, but for some reason Arthur began finding it necessary to bring Merlin along whenever he was charged with inspecting the crop fields and hamlets around the city. This usually only happened about once a week and had, several times, turned unexpectedly into overnight excursions when Arthur was feeling in no particular hurry to get back to the castle. They were always accompanied by at least a few guards and a knight or two, which made finding an inn with enough rooms for all a bit of a hassle each time it happened, and Merlin suspected Arthur of being a terrible liar when Merlin was forced to share a room with the Prince nearly every time. If he was lucky he got a cot or a thin mattress to sleep on at the foot of Arthur’s bed, and it didn’t help that Arthur would halt his grumbling protests by reminding Merlin of his self-appointed duty as Arthur’s sole protector, which was unfair when all Merlin wanted was a decent place to sleep to soothe away the ache of sitting on horseback all day.
But the trips weren’t all that bad, even with the summer heat and the rain, because any misery Merlin experienced was guaranteed to be shared by Arthur, and Merlin didn’t mind getting wet when it meant that he could torment the Prince later by withholding a drying spell until he felt ready to give it. This and other similar petty acts of revenge might have explained the routine with shared rooms and only one bed, but Merlin chose not to dwell on fingering blame when he could hardly excuse his behavior any better than he could Arthur’s. They usually made a good time of it anyway while away from the castle, and Arthur preferred riding ahead and talking to Merlin rather than hanging back with the older knights his father usually assigned to be sent with them. Merlin had to admit privately that he’d missed having time alone with Arthur, and maybe Arthur thought so too, if the frequency of their overnight trips was anything to go by.
Merlin also had a good head for remembering numbers, which was Arthur’s justification for taking him along in the first place, while Arthur was better with remembering names and locations, so when they got back to Camelot they usually ended up working together to assemble Arthur’s report, calculating crop yields and surplus estimations for the coming winter. The trips also had the added benefit of inspiring the very first time Arthur ever thought to ask Merlin about growing crops using magic, which had led to more questions about using it to construct better irrigation ditches and regulate the rainfall, and Merlin had ended up being so stupidly thrilled over the whole discussion that he’d spontaneously offered Arthur the one thing he’d been thinking about for almost a year but hadn’t found the right time to bring up before.
Which was how they found themselves, one week later, running for their lives through the upper canopy of the King’s forest from a hungry goshawk that had decided Merlin and Arthur would make an ideal noonday meal of fresh squirrel. And maybe Arthur was right that being turned into a tree rat, as he’d put it, wasn’t exactly the most ostentatious of all the possibilities that Merlin had saved up, but it was still infinitely more fun that being cooped up inside the castle. Merlin could tell that Arthur loved the whole experience despite his complaints, even if they did spend most of their time fleeing from predators or overly curious females of the species, because Merlin had never seen Arthur smile so much just from the memory of it when they talked in the evenings, or laugh so well as he did when he told stories to Morgana and Gwen of their adventures falling out of trees and being nearly eaten alive. And Merlin’s heart continued with the ridiculous habit of swelling with happiness at inappropriate moments, like when Arthur grinned at him while they walked back to the castle in the evening, or when Morgana and Gwen fussed at him to remember to put on his disguise when he left his rooms, or when Gaius pulled him aside and told him that maybe his ways of keeping secrets hadn’t been the right thing to do after all, and that he was proud of the progress Merlin had made. The future was unfurling, bright and hopeful before his eyes, and Merlin treasured every moment of it.
[Part IX]