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i.
His son is dead.
He is alive, and his son is dead, the blow of magic having burned through his small body. His blue eyes now stare vacantly into furious clouds, head lolling back against Arthur's bloodstained arm as Arthur holds him close.
An enemy he should have contained is responsible for this. An enemy who comes after them with golden eyes and whose feet send the earth into convulsions of fear; who wields a dragon whose fires burn even at the mists.
Morgana will be inconsolable—their boy; their son.
Dead.
"Arthur!" Morgause calls from a distance—he can barely hear her over the rush of blood in his eardrums.
His son is dead, and Emrys will pay if Arthur has to rend him limb from limb himself. Arthur takes up his sword and heads towards the mists which protect Avalon.
"Arthur, stop—" There are hands on him, pressing him down, and he's too hot. The voice he knows, maybe. Thinks he does. Knows he does: Merlin.
"Can't you do anything for him?" Another man's voice, pained.
"I—yes, but—" Frustrated, and Arthur strains against the hands holding him down.
"Here." Older voice; male, but different, deeper.
"Oh yes, this will help him," Merlin says, sneering. Arthur can picture the face he's making, face twisted and exasperated and he wants to laugh but can't catch his breath—he's drowning.
"Merlin, he's terrified, maybe a sedative—" Softer, a woman's voice, worried.
"He's had sedatives for eighteen months, Gwen, I'm not going to give him—Arthur, stop!" Merlin snaps, and Arthur's eyes snap open. Not drowning—everything's clear and open. "I've got you."
"Where—?" he manages.
"My home."
"You haven't got a home." He's still unsure about—he's unsure about almost everything, everything a swirling mass of confusion. But he does remember that Merlin didn't have a home, though he doesn't know how—there's a disconnect between what he knows and what he's…aware of.
"He's got a house," a tall man with red hair says dryly, but he's smiling like he can't stop. "He's also got a talking owl that even he can't explain. God, it's good to see you again."
His vision goes blurry and unfocused on the edges the longer Arthur stares at him, trying to know him, as clearly the man knows him.
"Arthur…" Merlin says. "Do you know who this is?"
When Arthur looks at Merlin, and his vision clears. He doesn't look at the other man; it hurts his head too much. "No."
"Do you know her—can you name anyone in this room?"
"No." There's a pretty dark woman, a man with too much hair, an old man whose eyebrow can't permanently be in that position, the redhead, and Merlin and so he amends: "You."
The old man looks like this is very bad news, and Arthur closes his eyes because he can't endure the betrayal on their faces; can't watch them swim vaguely in front of his eyes.
"Here," Merlin says quietly.
There's a potion. Arthur shakes his head fervidly.
"It's okay," Merlin murmurs. "It's okay. You don't have to."
He touches Arthur's cheek, and Arthur falls asleep.
Morgana smiles at him from a mirror, her eyes amber and glowing, and he recognizes the sour tang of this place as the future: of a possible future.
"Arthur, we never—" his queen says, wretched, the misery making her look older than she truly is—like a mother and grandmother, and suddenly he is uncommonly furious with her, hurt and betrayed. "Arthur, stop, just listen—"
"To your excuses?" Arthur demands, his eyes hard and his fist curling tight, shoulders tensing. "Elaine is dead because he was incapable of doing the hono—you were my friend," Arthur yells at Lancelot, who flinches as though struck, and Arthur's hands itch for his sword, though he does not entirely comprehend why: does not comprehend the words coming from his lips. "My first knight. And this—this is how you—get out. Get out of my kingdom."
"Arthur, Mordred's men are descending upon us, you need every last man—" Lancelot attempts reason, holding his hands out and taking a step closer, trying to quell Arthur.
Arthur strides across the room then and does pull his sword: the sharp edge of Excalibur's blade draws blood on Lancelot's throat, and Gwen lets out a miserable gasp. She looks like she doesn't understand how it got here, to this point.
"Get out," Arthur says, low and dangerous, and he is not confused anymore, "of my kingdom."
Lancelot and Gwen leave, as though they can't understand quite what's happened. He stands at the window to watch them ride from the city. Exile means they will have to go to the isles: he has united all of Albion.
"Lancelot has a lot of friends," Gawain says quietly from his shoulder.
"Which is why they are only exiled, and not being hung," Arthur says, and then turns to the table and the maps. Merlin stands quietly in the corner, watching. "Get Brand and Enes in here—they will come from the water, and if we can hold the land—"
"We can hold the day," Gawain finishes, nodding agreement as he leaves to fetch them before pausing at the door to say, "Eat something, at least."
Arthur looks at the food at the end of the table, and then at his own hand, where Merlin is pressing an apple into his hand.
"Eat," Merlin repeats.
He wants to lean forward, press his mouth to Merlin's. Be absolved, lose himself in Merlin's body or perhaps find his way again—
But that was never who they were.
"Do you see why I had to protect you from this?" Morgana in the mirror whispers to him.
—the scene shifts—
He's sitting on the castle's stairs, gazing out on an empty courtyard, sky as low as a ceiling and as gray as the stones.
He is very alone, and lacks the strength to stand up.
"I do not blame you. I'm not certain that I blame him," his mother says, and he turns to look at her, sitting close beside him. She smiles and cups his cheek, and she smells of rotting fruit. He doesn't want to offend her, so he fights his gag reflex. "I made my choice, to abandon the Old Religion and join my own destiny with your father's. You were—" she breaks off with a sigh, dropping her hands to her lap. A blink, and she cups a goblet of swirling brown liquid. "You were meant to be born for only one destiny. Born to follow Uther's path. Or perhaps he was born to follow yours. Perhaps none of us had any choice, in the end."
She drinks the brown concoction down, and then looks across the courtyard. "None of us can fight our destiny."
Arthur follows her gaze, and watches his horse, laden with saddlebags and a sword which is not his, canters into the courtyard. Merlin follows.
Merlin sighs in a familiar full-bodied movement of pure exasperation. He sits down by the well, leans his head back against it, and then turns into a dragon.
"Here," his mother says, offering him a goblet with steaming red wine. He takes it, but startles and lets it fall as a voice rings across the strangely muted silence:
"Arthur! Arthur, where is our son?"
He turns his head to look for Morgana, and finds her coming from the west. Her feet are bare and her long dark hair is down. She's wearing a white gown, perfectly beautiful and entirely wrecked, with blood—Mordred's blood—staining the front of the gown.
"Uther is wrong, and he is blind," she says. "I had no one. We were happy. A family. You must punish them. You must avenge him."
Why are you doing this to me? Arthur wants to demand, but the words stick in his throat, and he is frozen as Merlin uncurls from where he's lain and lunges forward. Merlin eats her with a terrible snap of bones and tear of flesh, and then looks supremely satisfied with himself, burping a smoke ring as his tail flicks back and forth lazily.
Arthur's hands shake, and he feels too hot. He realizes this is because his mother's dress has turned to flames, and she is still leaning against him. She laughs and kisses his cheek and his skin burns. When he looks at her she's a burned, blackened corpse, blown away as ash on the wind, scattering down the steps, and Arthur looks at the only thing left: Merlin just blows a lazy smoke ring.
His mothers ashes turn to what he thinks are ants, scores of them; armies. And then they aren't ants, they're small soldiers—some wear the red of Camelot, and others are in their everyday wear. Fire flashes from the fingertips of those without uniform.
Arthur is falling, pitched forward by hands on his shoulders and then he is there, in the battle, standing in the midst of it with no weapon, no armor, not even leathers. Just pants, standing between the literal battle between magic and Camelot, and watching the mutual slaughter; they will destroy each other, and there will be nothing left. The ground itself is soaked with blood, and the armies spread as far as he can see in any direction. At the end of this, there will be a lake of blood here to remember this battle.
"Who will you choose?" Morgause asks him, lifting her helmet and wiping her brow, her sword slick with blood and her eyes glowing orange. "Which of us will you abandon? They lied to you."
"So did she, Arthur," Uther snaps, impressive in his battle armor, standing on Arthur's right. "She lied to you—took you from your kingdom and made you a puppet."
"He killed your mother," she spits, looking from Arthur to Uther, expression changing from compassion to hate.
"I thought I would give my own life," Uther snaps back.
"And then when you failed to get your way you made prey of your own people; brought babes to the slaughter—"
"I was protecting Camelot!"
Arthur looks between them, arguments sounding tinny and petty to his ear, and then behind them at the faces he recognizes, locked in this battle. Gawain and Lancelot against Magryth and Teige. Arthur has trained all four; they are all good men, men Arthur would have by his side.
And they are killing each other.
A heavy hand falls on his shoulder, and Uther commands, "Choose, Arthur."
Magryth crumples on Gawain's sword, and Lancelot falls, mud in his nose and mouth and ears.
"Merlin," Arthur says, because whatever choice there is, that is the only solution he knows.
The only ally who is his as much as he is theirs.
ii.
He jerks awake.
"You're still alive," Merlin observes from the doorway. "Well. That's good. How do you—"
"He feels like shit," another voice says, though Arthur can't pinpoint where the voice came fro—
"Did that owl just speak?"
He's not really expect the answer to be affirmative, but it's Merlin.
"Things went very strange after you left," Merlin says apologetically, sitting beside Arthur's bed. "Lay down. I'm—she did a lot of damage to you and I'm not sure I've managed to account for it all."
Arthur's mind shies away from that, and so he says instead, "Where are we?"
"My home. In the Forest Sauvage. Don't— stop it!" Merlin sighs.
There is a sugar pot attempting to beat a pan, which it has backed from the kitchen to Arthur's room, with its spoon.
"Oh yes, this very much the nice, quiet atmosphere he needs," the owl snipes from the back of a chair in front of a desk pushed against the wall.
"Do you mind?" Merlin demands, glaring at it. It gives him an irritable look, and flies off.
Arthur lays back down—this is too much. "Merlin."
"Yes."
"When you say things went very strange—"
Merlin shifts and looks aside. Arthur recognizes that look: guilt. Arthur waits him out, and Merlin relents, squinting out Arthur's window. "I um…came into my powers."
"I see." As he recalls, Merlin was always a bit…extreme. More powerful than anyone else, but there was always the promise that Merlin would surpass anyone's wildest imagining and pass straight into legend.
"I just haven't been able to really control the finer aspects," Merlin agrees as they watch a chair hurl itself at a pot with murderous intent through the doorway.
"Naturally." Arthur nods, and tries not to laugh: if he laughs he might cry, and he doesn't want to think about it—about any of it.
"I was distracted!" Merlin sounds defensive, as though Arthur is blaming him for a lack of discipline.
"Merlin, you saved me," Arthur says, and then makes himself look at him; gaunt face worn and hair too-long and curling. Stubble on his jaw, shadows around his eyes. "For that I will never blame you."
"Oh," Merlin says, and then takes one of Arthur's hands, sitting on the edge of the bed tentatively. "Do you—"
"No." No, he doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't know what he would say—what he could say.
I'm sorry that I got kidnapped, that I spent the better part of a year and a half thinking I was married to Morgana and that Mordred was my son. I'm sorry that I attacked Camelot; I'm sorry that I tried to kill you so earnestly; that I forgot everyone and thought I was Arthur de Bois. I'm sorry—
He falls asleep as Merlin's fingers brush against his jaw.
When he wakes it is still dark outside, but he's awake; a bit clearer but he doesn't trust his own memory, everything is murky as though his mind is a bowl of water someone's thrown dirt into, and he wants to fill in the blanks.
He sits at the desk and lights the candle, shutting the door so as not to disturb Merlin.
His eyes take a moment to adjust, to make sense of the words before him—it has been a long time since he read anything. He goes through the papers and scrolls on the table in his room (it's strange that he has a room in Merlin's house. It's strange that Merlin has a house).
He reads Geoffrey's meticulous record of Arthur's capture, of Gawain going out and returning with Arthur's nine knights' bodies but not his, and the king, sick with fever, sending out search party after search party, all of them returning empty handed and without news.
Two weeks after Arthur disappeared, the dragon returned to Camelot and was stilled, quieted by Merlin of Ealdor, who was revealed as a great sorcerer when he protected Camelot, and Arthur wonders what that must have been like.
Uther Pendragon never recovered from his illness entirely, and Merlin of Ealdor had powerful allies within Camelot's court (Arthur reads between the lines here that this was Gawain and perhaps Gaius. He wonders if Gaius committed treason: kept the man he swore to serve and stood beside during the Purge compliant and ill for love of a boy who was not even his. Arthur does not even know if he's upset: part of him bristles against the thought, but his father is…wrong. Morgause wasn't right, but Uther is wrong).
Gawain, being Uther's nephew through his wife was Uther's only claimable heir, and as he was not named Crown Prince of Orkney (because King Lot is a dithering idiot), he could be named Heir Apparent of Camelot. He approves of the choice; for two years, since coming to Camelot, Gawain had been Arthur's second, and it was a wise move on his father's part. Gawain had the loyalty of the knights, and the barons would acknowledge his blood claim upon the throne.
In the span of four months, Gawain began ruling as Prince Regent. He has been on the throne for over a year now, and Geoffrey notes that he is much respected.
For the first time Arthur realizes that perhaps he has been rescued for naught—that perhaps he will stay here in Merlin's house in the middle of the forest where there is a talking owl and vicious furniture.
That perhaps he has nothing to return to.
He returns to bed, because the dreams and prophecies and murky memories are suddenly preferable to what might be his reality.
iii.
"How is he?"
Arthur recognizes the voice and pushes the covers off reluctantly and prepares to stand. He would have liked to have slept longer, or put this off.
"He's…he remembers me. I don't know how much else of any of it he remembers or has…managed to work through," Merlin says, audible through the open door.
"I'm entirely compentent, Merlin," Arthur sighs loudly, and pulls himself out of the bed, which instantly makes itself. Arthur watches that with a lifted brow, and then walks into the kitchen, scanning for the owl, who has decided it's high time Arthur shaved. It's been two months: Arthur supposes he might have a point.
Not that he'll admit the owl is right.
"Gawain," Arthur greets, because it is Gawain, and he knows him this time.
"Arthur," Gawain says, and beams at him a bit foolishly before pulling Arthur into a tight hug. "The people will be—they'll just be so pleased. Ecstatic. Really."
"Your cape is new," Arthur observes, pulling back just enough to survey Gawain, and the circlet in his red hair; the gold dragon on his arm.
"I am your heir."
Arthur reaches out and touches the crown almost fondly. It suits him. "You are Prince Regent," he corrects.
"Oh for heaven's sake," Merlin mutters, rubbing the back of his neck in exasperation.
"I am your servant, sire," Gawain disagrees, and falls to his knees, rough hands warm around Arthur's.
"Can you follow such a weak king?" Arthur asks Gawain, because he needs to know. It's been eighteen months and a handful of days, and Arthur was subsumed entirely into a different life. There may be no return from that: there will certainly be none if he does not have Gawain.
"I see no one in this room befitting that description," Gawain says seriously, withdrawing his hands from Arthur's. He reaches up and pulls the circlet from his hair without hesitation and then offers it with steady hands. "I only kept this for you for a while. I have no intention of being anyone's king."
Arthur breathes through his nose once. Twice. Gawain looks entirely certain, and willing to stay on his knees until Arthur takes it from him. He lifts his chin slightly, shoulders sliding back, and reaches out a hand which does not shake, fingers brushing against the cool metal.
"Here, let me," Merlin says gently, and Arthur is absurdly grateful to him as he takes it from him, turning it this way and that before settling it on his head—a familiar weight made strange by long absence.
There's a moment where they all three stand there in Merlin's home, where even the furniture is still. Something has clicked into place, like a link in chain mail restored.
"Looks far better on you than it did on me," Gawain decides, nodding and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. "Damned pollen," he mutters, sniffing and blinking before continuing, "Lancelot wants to visit. He and um—Gwen, they're—"
"They want to get married, is what it is," Merlin says in exasperation, kicking aside a chair, which hastens out of his way. Gawain and Arthur watch, and Arthur's glad Gawain's here and obviously seeing it all— otherwise he'd be certain he was mad (Merlin is not an authority on madness, either its presence or absence).
"Oh," Arthur says, and remembers the dream, which maybe wasn't. Good. Perhaps they have averted that future after all. "Why haven't they?"
"You…" Gawain says, long-suffering. "You do remember that bit of a thing you and Gwen had going."
"Morgana was taken and that ended," Arthur points out. "So it's what, two years and some months?"
"That's what I said. But apparently shagging you didn't make me an authority," Merlin mutters as he sets about making tea. "Oh for—I'll be back," he informs them, and then begins talking to the furniture and heading out. "Bloody owl, who knows where…"
Arthur and Gawain watch him go. "Tell me he didn't—" he lets it hang. Gawain knows as well as Arthur that it would be very bad if Arthur was seen to be in love with Merlin—not on the heels of his stint as Morgana's husband. He cannot rule if he is seen to be overly influenced by Merlin. The people will embrace Merlin as Arthur's advisor and give him no undue credit for Arthur's actions, and Arthur will be a strong king with his people's respect. If he is seen as Arthur's consort, Arthur will be weakened and seen as a puppet.
"Spread that around? No. I'm not sure he had to," Gawain says, sitting at the kitchen table.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you were lost, and he went…he brought the dragon in, Arthur," Gawain says, spreading his hands in frustration as he tries to put it all to words: Arthur knows the taste of that frustration. "They scoured the countryside and your father couldn't lift a hand against him. It was fine, for a bit. About six months, your father just acted as though he was hunting him—I'm not sure how much of that was an act, come to think. Put a price on his head. Then Cendred thought it would be a good time to attack Camelot and violate the treaty your father had with him. We beat them…badly. He's damn useful in a battle—Merlin, not Cendred, he's useless— and the dragon's not bad either. So, once you're back in fighting shape, we can go conquer Cendred's kingdom. It'll be excellent. Lancelot and I already have it all plotted out."
"He's a woodcutter's son and you're incompetent at strategy," Arthur points out. He's sure there's more to the story—that Merlin, whose morality is relatively ambiguous at the best of times—was a horror to be seen. It likely took Gwen, Lancelot, Gawain, Gaius and Hunith together to keep him…sane.
"Ah, yes. Well, that's why we haven't attacked yet," Gawain allows, and then a real smile breaks out across his face, clear as dawn's first light. "We've been waiting for you."
iv.
Arthur dreams (remembers).
Wakes up with Morgana in his room, and frowns at her in shock. "Morgana, what on—where have you been?"
"Arthur, you must come with me," she says urgently, taking his hand in hers and he's confused but so glad to see her that he sits up, letting her pull at him. "You don't understand, but it will be clear—"
"Arthur?" Merlin calls from the antechamber, and there's a creak of a bed as Merlin got up. "If you're sleepwalking again I'll strap you to the bed, see if I—Morgana."
Morgana's face, upon seeing Merlin, darkens considerably. "You."
"What are you doing here, Morgana?" Arthur demands, because the look she's giving Merlin—once, when they'd been children, she'd thrown Tristram into the lake in full armor. She'd had that expression on her face. He isn't sure what the equivalent of throwing a knight in full armor into the lake would be in this situation, but he doesn't care to find out.
"You don't understand," she says to Arthur. "They've been lying—all of them. Even him—"
Merlin starts to approach her and then she's gone in heavy, fluid-looking black smoke that gathers on his ceiling and then seeps through the beams.
"…Right," Arthur says, looking at the space where Morgana had been. "You saw that."
"I did, yeah," Merlin agrees, nodding, sucking his lips in in that way he does, sometimes, when he's at his most longsuffering.
"And you heard…?"
"Yeah."
Arthur nods. "Right. You're lying about…?"
"The magic."
"Right. Yes. Right." Arthur knows about the magic. He'd been—furious at first. Not because of the magic, but because of what Merlin had let him do: had let him think. Arthur had vacillated between his father's ideas of magic and his own and Merlin had basically thrust him into his father's ideals, which—they were bad for the country, his father was—wrong.
("To stop you from killing him!" Merlin had protested at the time, eyes red: damp and furious at once. "Arthur—I was protecting you—I was trying—you never do it for yourself, and I—"
And Arthur had kissed him because the idiot wouldn't shut up.
Merlin had stared at him after, and apparently hadn't figured out to shut up because he immediately said, "I—"
"'Am an idiot,' yes," Arthur finished for him. "You did magic in the middle of the courtyard, Merlin. And then the dragon whose voice happens to carry told you your—how did it put it?—'petty magic' couldn't stop it."
"Oh." Merlin had looked utterly gobsmacked, and Arthur choses not to believe it was because Arthur'd been silent on the matter for five months. "Oh."
"Such an idiot," Arthur had muttered, and Merlin had thrown himself at Arthur, and yes, idiot, but also very talented (as long as it didn't come to cleaning.)
Morgana stands in the forest, and Arthur damns everything—he should have brought Merlin.
One by one his knights fall dead and Druids materialize out of the woods. He's immobilized—can't reach for his sword, just sits, stupidly, and lets them pull him off his horse and manhandle him into a sitting position. Morgana smiles and says, "Arthur, it's for the best. You'll see: we can save Camelot."
He remembers hands, fingers pinching his nose shut and hands finding weak spots to press, forcing his mouth open and potions that burn sliding down his throat. Languages he doesn't understand, being carried and then in Morgause' castle, Morgause herself coming down and smiling, kissing Morgana's forehead and saying to Arthur, "Welcome home, my prince."
He's going to kill him.
Avenge his son. He gets halfway through the mists with his hand tight around his sword then stops, staring at Emrys, who is waiting at the boundary, golden eyes glowing.
He has a moment remembering the arch of a back, laughter, tangled sheets and limbs and laments about wet spots in a bed. A sense memory of tight pressure around his cock, slide of lips and hot air panted into shared space.
"Merlin," he says, stupidly. The word means something, but he doesn't know what, can't—can't swim to the surface of that line of thought.
"Merlin," he says again, louder, and Emrys, who is talking to the dragon, turns to look at him.
Emrys is Merlin.
"You—you remember?" Merlin asks, staring and walking towards him. The dragon hunches defensively, eyes narrowed.
"You brought a dragon," Arthur says blankly, because he doesn't remember—he can't answer that question—and then, "I don't feel well." Merlin laughs and catches him when Arthur falls into his arms.
"The dragon, actually," Merlin informs him, grunting a little as he shifts them, and it takes Arthur a moment to realize that what they're doing? Is riding the dragon. "Last of his kind."
"Oh, naturally," Arthur agrees magnanimously.
The dragon says something in a language Arthur doesn't understand, and as soon as Arthur clears the mists his ears begin to ring, the sound growing louder, obliterating all thought. His vision blurs, and he feels like he's at sea, and it becomes easier to sink into unconsciousness than to struggle against it.
He wakes up, looks around the quiet house. The owl is asleep on the back of a chair in the kitchen, and Merlin is asleep in his own room. Arthur stands and watches him sleep, remembering that he's still sorting it all—his brain is trying to parse it all.
He's safe here.
Merlin came for him.
It's as though he's finally pulled away the cobwebs. He feels, finally, surefooted in what he knows; in the series of events.
All the same, he takes his sword and puts it under his pillow, hand grasped around the hilt. Only then can he sleep soundly.
v.
"I thought Mordred was my son."
Merlin looks up from where he's sitting, reading one of his magic books (why, Arthur doesn't know, because at this point Merlin subconsciously thinks of something and it's done), and bats away a goblet. "What?"
"Mordred. I was going to kill you when I came out. You'd killed my son."
Merlin puts the book down slowly, frowning up at him.
"Arthur—you would have been eleven years old when he was born. If that. Who was—"
"Morgana." Arthur almost wants to laugh. He never even thought to question it. For a year and a half, he never though to think it odd.
Merlin stares at him. "She would have been—"
"Twelve, yes. It was just—She was—"
He can't get the words out. Can't express the betrayal; she'd been like a sister to him, and she did this to him. Used him so badly.
"Have you ever—?" he starts, and stops, because he doesn't know that he wants the answer. Doesn't want to know if Merlin has ever enchanted him.
"No," Merlin says. "I've wanted to, on occasion, and I've enchanted your armor."
He nods, relaxes. "So the whole place is a bit magic, then?"
"Gaius says all this should stop and go to being normal once I've got things sorted."
The owl snorts. Merlin casts a glare in its direction.
"How long's it been like this?" Arthur inquires.
"…I'd rather not say," Merlin decides, grinning slightly before busying himself with cleaning up.
"Merlin," Arthur says, sitting at the table. He feels a bit more himself. He knows what's real, he thinks—and if this isn't…this is the one he doesn't want to wake up from.
"A year," Merlin relents.
"And a half," the owl adds gleefully.
"So there's no hope," Arthur says.
"Probably not," Merlin agrees.
A bunch of grapes settle in front of him, and Arthur picks one up.
"It's not so bad," he muses, looking about. "What's your name?" he asks the owl.
"Archimedes," the owl replies, and then flies out the window.
Arthur looks at Merlin.
"He gives himself airs," Merlin explains, shrugging. "He's a pain, but—between him and Kilgharrah—"
"The dragon."
"The dragon," Merlin agrees, and hands him a plate. He eats better here than he did in Camelot—or Avalon. He'll no doubt get fat.
"Arthur—" Merlin breaks off, and then sighs in frustration and sits. "About the Druids—"
"They're good people," Arthur interrupts, because it's true. "They—they're my people. I can't be a king and selectively choose which subjects I'm going to care for and which I'm going to—"
"So what will you do?" Merlin asks, sitting on the opposite end of the table and sharpening Arthur's sword as though they are in Camelot, a few years ago before any of this happened.
Arthur knows what he has to do: knows that whatever decision there is to be made here it is his, and that Merlin will either argue it out with him or support him, but will not pluck the idea from his head.
Morgana and Morgause are exceptions, not the rule: creations of the Purge and bans, and there is a simple enough answer to that.
"Repeal the bans."
"With your father still alive?" It's not an argument.
"He's stepped down for Gawain. It's my kingdom. They're my people."
There's a long silence, while they both consider it, what it might mean.
"Can you defeat her, Merlin. Really?" Arthur has been afraid to ask; has been afraid to hear the negative.
"Yes."
"Them," Arthur presses. Because it will be the two sisters, not one or the other.
"Yes."
Arthur stands up, and says, heading back to bed, "I want to go back tomorrow."
"All right," Merlin agrees, and scrapes the stone down the blade again. "All right."
Arthur looks at the sword—his sword—Merlin's sharpening.
"Take me up," he reads. "Did it always say that?"
Merlin looks at it, then, "No. It was—it was meant for you, when the black knight came, what, three, four years ago? Gwen's father forged it, and the dragon's fire made it able to kill anything, but—you. It was made for you, and—"
"How did you get it to me?" Arthur asks.
"I met Teige," Merlin says. "He's…decent. Nice. It didn't sit well with him, and so I asked him to smuggle this to you. Hoped…magic doesn't work on dragon magic. The sword is dragon magic, so…"
"That's a bit of a stretch."
"I was a bit desperate."
Arthur is chopping wood because he feels restless, and if he doesn't get back into shape Lancelot is going to slaughter him on the training field, and Arthur can't allow that.
"Arthur," Teige says, and Arthur turns to look at him, reaching for Excalibur.
Teige tracks the movement. He's a good man, dark skin and bright teeth, an easy smile and a penchant for using fire.
"You are Arthur Pendragon again, then?" Teige asks, though seems not to want the answer, tracking the blade Arthur won't put down, not yet. "What will you do now?"
"I go back to Camelot soon. The bans will be repealed."
Teige nods, scuffs his boot in the dirt and watches the grass for a long minute. Finally, he says, "And if I wanted to join your army, Arthur. If I wanted to be in Prince Arthur of Camelot's army. What would you do?"
Arthur stills, and sheathes his sword. "I would welcome you, and warn you that you'd have to contend with Merlin, which might be a bit of a chore, but if I can endure him—"
"You're different," Teige interrupts, looking up, expression surprised. "You're—"
Arthur waits, suddenly nervous again.
"Real," Teige decides. "I like you better like this. I'll let them know."
"Them?" Arthur repeats warily, and Teige shakes his head quickly.
"Not the sisters. They're…furious" doesn't cover it—no. Your men. Those of us who followed you. We'll be in Camelot in a fortnight."
And then he's gone.
Right. They have to head back, then.
Arthur walks back into the house—which, really, is a lot smaller outside than it is in, which Arthur is not thinking about because clearly it is a plot of Merlin's to drive him mad (except if he said that Merlin would go pinched and unhappy, so Arthur merely thinks it. Loudly)—and finds Merlin sitting at the table, head bowed.
"What is it?"
"You know how there were two destinies."
"Yes."
"Mordred's…was to kill you. That's why—I think we've created something entirely new," Merlin says. "It's all different. Gwen was supposed to be queen but now she's marrying Lancelot, and Kilgharrah has no idea what's going to happen next—well, he won't say as much, just talks about wind and wings and waves crashing upon the shore and I'm not sure what any of that means any more than I ever am—I mean, you're still—or you are again—The Once and Future King, but I don't—"
"Merlin," Arthur interrupts firmly, because he doesn't know what that means, to be the Once and Future King, but he does know it will make Merlin mad trying to discover its meaning; what its implications are.
"Yeah." Merlin looks at him, and he looks so young. They both are, Arthur supposes.
"It is a destiny of our own making. Surely that cannot be entirely bad."
Merlin looks at the broom sweeping the floor of its own accord and the furniture lifting obligingly out of its way. "It might be a bit odd, though," Merlin says.
It's a fair point, Arthur supposes, but it's something of a comfort, knowing that Merlin has all this power.
vi.
He comes into Merlin's room that night. He slides into Merlin's bed, and Merlin turns to look at him as Arthur's arms slide around him. Merlin kisses his forehead, cupping his cheek and tracing Arthur's face and neck and shoulders.
"I missed you," Merlin says softly, and Arthur can see how Merlin's been holding it in, trying to let Arthur have the space he needs to heal. Arthur knows, though, that this broke Merlin, too. "I missed you—I looked and I looked and then you were there. I'd found you but you weren't—you didn't know me. You didn't know—you were you. You were you but you weren't—"
"I am. You found me. I am," Arthur murmurs, pulling him in and kissing him.
There are chapped lips and bony hips and rough fingers with a gentle touch; broken edges in both of them from where they're just barely figuring out how to be put back together.
There's the weight of tomorrow, and he's not sure that he's ready to do this. Tomorrow, there will be no space for doubts, and no space for years after. But right now, in a small bed with his legs twined with Merlin's and Merlin's hand wrapped around his neck, Arthur can give himself the space to think that maybe it will be all right.
"Oh," Merlin says drowsily some time later (the bed has expanded a bit and the covers drifted over them. Arthur is very nearly asleep). "And if you think you're going anywhere ever again without me? You're mad."
Which, Arthur must conclude, is fair enough.