Chapter Text
As Arthur fiddled with the clasps on his vambraces, he couldn’t help but start to drown in his thoughts. A lot had changed over the last several months and each new development left him more confused than the last.
Merlin had magic. Merlin had magic. It would be laughable if Arthur hadn’t seen it with his own eyes—the memory of how that special tidbit had come to light still bringing a grimace to Arthur’s face.
The last thing he expected to see when he barged into Gaius’s chambers after the tourney was Merlin surrounded by floating vials, seething in anger, his warm blue eyes turning the most stunning gold Arthur had ever seen.
Needless to say he ran from the room and had a rather unprincely panic attack against the legs of his desk, unable to get those gorgeous eyes out of his head.
After a few days of mutual avoidance, Gwaine tricked Arthur into following him to the grain store and locked him in, where a pacing Merlin waited. Tense silence turned to shouting, to shoving, to tears of frustration. It left Arthur heartbroken over Merlin’s fear of him, still reeling over the pain he felt over that lack of trust. As if anything could pry Merlin from his grasp, let alone something as trivial as sorcery.
Magic was nothing new to the prince, although he’d never admit it to his father.
During his fourteenth winter, Arthur and Leon had snuck out of the castle on a boyish whim to hunt fucking white foxes. In December. Idiotic in hindsight, but Arthur knew Leon was just humoring him–Uther's moods growing even more erratic and Arthur's desperation to leave the castle reaching a fever pitch.
The chill seemed manageable enough, until it wasn’t. A blanket of ice and snow suddenly descended over Camelot. Once bountiful crop fields suddenly withered and died, the fear of starvation abounded, and the wind howled like a warning to all who dared leave the confines of their homes.
The two blundering boys sought refuge in a cave and were nearly frozen solid. After two days, Arthur was about to give in to the lull of a deep sleep when he heard the voice in his head.
It was old and young all at once, soothing yet disquieting, a thousand voices mixed in one. It spoke of a Once and Future King, two halves of a whole, a partner and destiny he had yet to meet. It seemed to laugh at the idea of the Great Arthur Pendragon meeting his doom in a dark cave at 14, from nothing but a little cold.
Arthur remembered scoffing at that, as a little cold was probably the biggest understatement of the fucking millennia. The voice seemed to...giggle? Mentioning something about how that attitude of his would really meet its match eventually. It made him promise to remember what saved him, to one day liberate magic users all across Albion–and with Arthur’s nod, the bodies of the boys began to thaw and a single path of green grass littered with daffodils led them home.
It wasn’t a memory he thought of often, as death-by-becoming-a-popsicle was both terrifying and humiliating, but his recent discovery about Merlin brought it to the surface. He wondered about Emrys, about his future, but he quickly shoved it to the back of his mind and began to unpack the second piece of news that nearly turned his whole head gray–the arrival of Elain.
Elain was a niece of Ygraine’s and thus was doomed to receive attention from Uther–although she made it her mission to piss him off. That, combined with her penchant for mischief and wickedly sharp tongue, hadn’t exactly endeared her to her older cousin. She favored Ygraine, with her high cheekbones and light blonde hair, and Uther couldn’t be around her for too long before abruptly needing to leave the room, returning with red-rimmed eyes no one dared comment on.
The thought comforted Arthur, that despite the mess and sadness and death, Uther’s love for his mother remained.
That didn’t stop his cousin from being a conniving little shit though.
She was always watching, too observant for her own good and too bored not to wreak havoc on those around her. After her last bout at Camelot, in which she and Morgana united in an axis of terror against him–namely orchestrating a feast in his honor in which he had to wear his stifling formal robes and dance with the nasty daughters of simpering nobles, for four hours–Arthur prayed to any god imaginable that she would never find any reason to come back and serve as another pain in his ass, which was already full of a lot of pain, thank you very much.
Speaking of pains and asses, right. The point of the vambraces. Merlin was off doing errands for Gaius and the knights asked Arthur for an impromptu training session. Which…seeing as training ended up with his dearest friends on their backs in the grass, cursing the day Arthur was born, was frankly odd. He knew his moods as of late did not go unnoticed, and although he appreciated their extremely transparent attempt at giving him a target for his frustration, that didn’t mean he would go easy on them, especially with Gwaine deciding to pull all of Arthur’s focus by running his damn mouth.
The knight stood in front of him, smug grin plastered on his face. Blathering on about how Arthur was going “soft” and how the princess “seemed to be having his time of the month,” and just as Arthur had finally had enough of the frankly sexist goading, Merlin appeared, rushing toward the training ground breathing heavily. Eyes sapphire in the sunlight and cheeks slightly red and mouth open and kissable and ok let’s stop that train of thought before it leaves the station.
“Sire,” Merlin began, gasping for breath. “She’s here. She’s early. Uther has demanded your presence with Morgana in the throne room.”
Well shit.
Merlin looked just as panicked as he felt, having had to deal with Arthur's very noble and valid bitching about her visit since it was announced.
Elain wasn’t supposed to arrive for another week and a half. He had hoped to find some way to avoid her altogether, perhaps a hunting trip or a high fever or a random well he had happened to fall into!
Arthur sighed to himself. Locking eyes with his best friend.
The last thing he needed was Elain’s all-knowing gaze following him around the room–there are some things he just needed to keep to himself.