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It took Arthur a few days to notice something amiss with his new manservant.
Well, not with Merlin himself — Arthur knew there was something obviously wrong with the boy the minute he decided to backtalk a nobleman, and then tried to punch him in the face. The fact that, not even a full day later, he had made another pitiful attempt to beat Arthur up, after discovering he was the prince, was evident proof that Merlin must have been dropped on his head as a child hard enough to leave permanent damage. A sad business.
But no. What Arthur meant was — there was something amiss with Merlin’s daemon. In the sense that she didn’t seem to be there.
It wasn’t unusual, actually, for Arthur not to take notice of servants’ daemons, in much the same way he didn’t take much notice of the servants themselves. It was the job of a good servant to be discreet and unobtrusive, and that extended to their daemon.
Merlin, however, was far from a good servant. He seemed capable of mustering a modicum of respect when talking to Arthur now he was in his service, but only enough to keep his head attached to his shoulders. Arthur didn’t entirely mind. He even admitted — if only to himself — that it was somewhat entertaining, when it wasn’t infuriating.
“I’m only saying,” Merlin prattled on, as he helped Arthur out of his armour, “that since you made such a fuss about your armour being spotless for your training session, you could’ve avoided literally rolling in the mud as soon as it started.”
“I was demonstrating a defence move, Merlin,” Arthur said. “I can’t skip fundamental parts of a knight’s training just because you’re too lazy to do your job.”
“Right.” Merlin unfastened Arthur’s right vambrace. It took marginally less time than it would have taken Arthur to do it himself. Small progress. “And it definitely had nothing to do with me saying jousting tournaments look a bit stupid.”
“Of course not,” Arthur said. “I gave that statement the consideration it deserves — which is none. In fact, I had quite forgotten about it.”
Merlin stepped over Dreya’s tail to get to Arthur’s other side, muttering something under his breath. Dreya turned her amber lion eyes on Merlin.
“You don’t talk to her,” she said, startling Merlin so much he dropped the pieces of armour he was holding, which in turn startled Arthur himself.
“Sorry!” Merlin apologised over the loud clanging and Arthur’s swearing, bending to retrieve what he had dropped.
Arthur paid him no mind. He was too busy looking quizzically at Dreya. Daemons seldom talked to humans other than their own. Dreya almost never did. Her addressing a servant was literally unheard of.
Dreya didn’t look at Arthur. She kept her gaze on Merlin, as unperturbed and unreadable as a sphinx.
“Sorry,” Merlin repeated when he was upright again, red in the face, though it wasn’t clear if because of his clumsiness or over being addressed so unexpectedly by Arthur’s daemon. He glanced at Arthur, as if to make sure it was all right to respond, before looking nervously down and saying: “I don't…?”
“Talk to her,” Dreya repeated. “Your daemon. You said something just now, but you weren’t talking to her. Just to yourself.”
Arthur said nothing. For no reason he could discern, a wave of embarrassment washed over him.
“Is there a difference?” Merlin asked, with a disconcerting note of curiosity in his voice.
“Of course,” Dreya said.
Arthur cleared his throat. “Ignore her,” he said, not looking at either of them.
For once, thankfully, Merlin did as he was told, and continued to remove Arthur’s armour in silence. Dreya didn’t ask any more questions, but she kept her eyes fixed on Merlin throughout.
* * *
“What was that about?” Arthur asked Dreya later, once they were alone in their chambers.
“There’s something odd about him,” Dreya said.
“Yes,” Arthur said, slightly irritated. It wasn’t like Dreya to state the obvious. “So we’ve established. Right from the start, actually. I’m pretty sure you were there.”
“His daemon.” Dreya moved to where Arthur was sitting, on the edge of their bed, and put her big head on his thigh. “You’re not at all curious about her?”
“You can’t go about telling people things of that sort,” Arthur said, side-stepping her question. “It's… it’s strange.”
Just because someone’s daemon wasn’t immediately apparent, it didn’t mean one could start asking intrusive questions about them. Dreya should know better. It wasn’t the first time they encountered such a person, and it wouldn’t be the last, because there were daemons of every sort — including tiny.
And when did they start caring about servants’ daemons, anyway?
“You didn’t answer my question,” Dreya observed.
Arthur flicked her on the nose, and she twitched her whiskers in annoyance.
“Let’s go to sleep,” Arthur said.
* * *
A few weeks later, Arthur had to admit the situation had become rather weird. It wasn’t just that they had yet to catch a glimpse of Merlin’s daemon, it was that Merlin — as Dreya had immediately observed — never addressed his daemon in Arthur’s presence. Arthur didn’t even know her name — and not because he hadn’t bothered to remember it, like with his previous servants, but because Merlin had never mentioned it at all. He acted like… like his daemon wasn’t even there.
It could have been protectiveness, but Merlin’s ease in insulting Arthur gave him no reason to suspect he had any sense of self-preservation. Or any sense at all.
And for all that Merlin complained about putting up with Arthur, he didn’t seem to dislike him. He had risked his own life to save Arthur’s twice now, and although the first time might have been a reflex, Arthur thought the second meant Merlin didn’t consider him a complete jerk. Unless Arthur’s initial assessment was correct, and there was indeed something not quite right with Merlin’s brain.
So — assuming Merlin was in possession of all his faculties — it wasn’t fear of Arthur, and it wasn’t dislike. But it was something. What was it?
* * *
“Is this necessary, father?”
The king dropped his fork on the plate with a clunk. Morgana didn’t flinch but Fiadh, coiled around her neck, gave a little hiss, almost like a yelp.
“I beg your pardon?” Uther asked, voice like ice over a frozen lake — cold, with a threat of danger underneath.
Arthur trod on.
“It is a choice to use magic,” he said, calmly. “But no one has any influence over the form their daemon takes. I don’t see how it is fair to punish the boy for it.”
Uther’s stern gaze hardened further. With his furrowed brow and his thunderous face he looked almost bear-like. Or perhaps it was Kadira who looked Uther-like. It was hard to tell, sometimes.
“Fair,” Uther repeated, incredulously, the word underlined by a growl from Kadira at his side. “You think sorcerers concern themselves with fairness while they plot to destroy my kingdom?”
“Father—”
“When you are king, is that what you’re going to tell your subjects while they watch their homes be pillaged and burned, their families be slaughtered? That at least you were a fair ruler?”
Arthur unclenched his hand and put his fork down. “We are not talking about a pillaging horde, father,” he said through his teeth, looking at his plate. “We are talking about a boy.”
Uther looked at Arthur with eyes brimming with fury. For a moment Arthur thought it might spill out, and that his father would start shouting, or send his own plate and goblet flying to the floor.
“We are talking about a sorcerer,” Uther said after his pause, spitting out the word as if it tasted foul. “And the evil must be eradicated at the root.” He took a swig of wine from his goblet, a signal that he considered the matter closed.
Arthur excused himself shortly after, and he and Dreya retired to their rooms for the night.
* * *
“It’s barbaric,” Morgana told Arthur the morning after, as she watched him get ready for the execution.
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Arthur said levelly, keeping his eyes on the mirror as he clasped his cape around his neck.
“At least I’m not going to stand next to Uther and watch, like— like a complete coward,” Morgana said, half-choking on her rage.
“No,” Arthur agreed. “You’re going to hide in your room and cry instead. That’s braver.”
Morgana gasped, and Fiadh hissed in indignation.
“You're— you’re sick,” Morgana said, before storming out.
Arthur sighed and looked at Dreya.
“Did you have to be so horrible?” she asked.
“Forgive me for not being in the best disposition on the day I must watch a twelve-year-old be put to death,” Arthur snapped, “for the high crime of having a… a magic pheasant for a daemon.”
“A phoenix,” Dreya supplied, calmly.
“Have you seen my belt?” Arthur asked, ignoring her. “I swear it was on the nightstand when we woke up.”
“No,” Dreya said.
“No it wasn’t, or no you haven’t seen it?” Arthur asked, flinging open the doors of his wardrobe. A pile of undershirts tumbled onto the floor. “Oh, for— We haven’t got all day! Where on Earth is Merlin?”
On the east side of the castle one of the alarm bells started to ring, its sound spreading through the courtyard like wildfire.
There was no execution that day. Miraculously — or perhaps, magically — the boy escaped. Arthur didn’t try too hard to find him, nor did he mention to his father the mysterious and timely disappearance and reappearance of his belt, and the set of keys attached to it.
* * *
“We’ve never seen so much as a stir under his clothes,” Dreya mused. “She’s got to be smaller than a mouse.”
Arthur kept his eyes and his attention on his reports. They had no business wondering what was or wasn't stirring under Merlin’s clothes.
“Quieter, too,” Dreya went on. “She never makes a sound.”
“That must be nice,” Arthur muttered.
“Some kind of insect, perhaps.”
Arthur wrote down 50 quarters of spiders, then swore under his breath and scribbled it out.
“A tiny ant that sits in his ear.”
Arthur put down his quill and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“And never shuts up, but we can’t hear her. That would explain a lot.” Dreya stretched luxuriously and rolled over to warm her other side in front of the fire, her tail thumping lazily on the rug. “Maybe it’s something a bit weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Like a flea. Or a leech. Or… or a tapeworm.”
“Don’t be disgusting.”
“What!” Dreya protested, with a flick of her ears. “It could happen.” She rolled onto her back, her big front paws curled in the air, and she yawned. Her fangs gleamed in the light of the flames. “Perhaps she’s not there at all.”
“That’s absurd,” Arthur said.
* * *
Everyone had a daemon. Everyone.
Except, sometimes… but no. Surely not even Merlin could be that stupid.
* * *
Arthur bumped into Guinevere on his way to the training field the next morning. She stopped and bowed her head slightly when she saw him approaching.
“My lord,” she murmured, keeping her eyes respectfully lowered while she waited for him to walk past her.
Arthur stopped. “Guinevere,” he said.
Guinevere looked up, startled. The white dove on her shoulder fluttered his wings nervously. Arthur didn’t usually stop to talk to Guinevere. He had no reason to.
“Sire?” Guinevere said.
He never had reason to look at her face so closely, either. She was quite beautiful. Not in the way Morgana was beautiful — a daunting and cold kind of beauty — but rather… the opposite. It was a comforting beauty. There was a warmth to it.
“Is there anything you need, my lord?” Guinevere asked, puzzled, and Arthur resurfaced from his thoughts.
“No. I— Yes.” Arthur cleared his throat. “You and Merlin are friends.”
Guinevere nodded, looking slightly alarmed. “Yes, my lord.”
“Good friends.”
“I… like to think so. I mean… I believe so. Yes.”
“Right,” Arthur said. “It’s just. I’ve been wondering… This is going to sound strange.”
Guinevere said nothing, looking up at him with her kind, dark eyes. She was starting to look more concerned about Arthur than herself.
Arthur took a breath. “You’ve seen his daemon.”
He didn’t phrase it like a question. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because it sounded slightly less creepy that way.
To his immense relief, Guinevere nodded. “A few times.”
“Right!” Arthur said, and nodded back, as if the two of them were having a perfectly normal conversation. “Right. I thought you might have.”
Guinevere said nothing.
Arthur also said nothing.
“Because, you see, I haven’t.”
“So I gathered, my lord,” Guinevere said. Whatever warmth Arthur thought he had seen on her face was rapidly evaporating. “If you’re asking me to tell you about Merlin’s daemon, I’m afraid it’s not my place to do so.”
Her words were proper enough, but her tone made it clear that what she actually meant was that it wasn’t Arthur’s place to ask. Mirsal squinted down his beak at Arthur, puffing up his chest. Arthur wasn’t sure if doves could scowl in disapproval, but if they did, he imagined it would look something like this.
“No, of course not. I understand.”
“Was there anything else, my lord?”
“No, that… was it. You may go.”
Guinevere curtsied quickly, lowering her eyes, and then she hurried towards Morgana’s chambers.
“You could’ve just asked Gaius,” Dreya pointed out, once Guinevere had turned the corner. “It would’ve been less awkward.”
“He would’ve said yes in any case,” Arthur replied, distractedly. “And he can lie as easily as breathing.” He tapped lightly on Dreya’s head. “Come on now. We’ll be late for training.”
* * *
What Arthur had forgotten to account for was Merlin’s utter lack of regard for propriety.
“So,” Merlin said, his voice muffled, due to him being half-inside Arthur’s wardrobe. “Gwen told me you’ve been asking questions about my daemon.”
Arthur choked on the water he was drinking.
“Sire?” Merlin stuck his head out, looking at Arthur in concern.
“I’m fine!” Arthur rasped out, thumping his chest with his fist.
Merlin grabbed a couple of shirts from the wardrobe. “Red or blue?” he asked, holding up first one and then the other, while Arthur tried to get his coughing under control. “I think blue. More flattering. I would’ve told you if you’d asked.”
“That… blue flatters me?” Arthur asked hoarsely, blinking back tears.
“About my daemon,” Merlin said, looking at Arthur as if he despaired of his intelligence.
“You can’t— You can’t just— ask something like that,” Arthur spluttered, feeling his face grow hot. “Forget it. It was just— forget it.”
Merlin shrugged and made as if to put the red shirt back in Arthur’s wardrobe.
“No,” Arthur said, feeling like he had to regain control of their conversation, somehow. “I’ll be wearing that one.”
Merlin laid the shirt on Arthur’s bed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, Merlin, I am perfectly capable of choosing what to wear for myself.”
“I meant about my daemon,” Merlin said, in the casual tone of someone commenting on the weather.
Arthur looked at Merlin. Merlin looked back at him, entirely unconcerned. He waited for Arthur to say something, and when he didn’t, he walked in front of Arthur’s desk and lifted his hands towards his own neck.
“What are you…?” Arthur started to ask, stunned, as Merlin moved his ever-present neckerchief aside and… oh, that should’ve been a clue. Merlin closed his fingers around the silver necklace he was wearing and fished it out of his shirt. There was a small glass bauble attached at the end of the fine chain, and Merlin bent at the waist to dangle it in front of Arthur’s face.
“There,” Merlin said, sounding as if he had won a bet.
Arthur’s eyes refocused on Merlin’s swinging pendant. There was a small insect crawling inside it — a beetle-like creature with iridescent, emerald wings. As Arthur watched her, she spread a second pair of wings, brown and frail-looking like autumn leaves. She buzzed against the glass, startling Arthur a little, and Merlin closed his hand around the bauble and plunged it back into his shirt.
“Satisfied?” he asked, adjusting his neckerchief so that it hid the line of his necklace again.
Arthur’s heart was beating slightly too fast. He wasn’t sure what to say. The truth was that he wasn’t — satisfied. He felt rather underwhelmed. Something about Merlin’s daemon felt… wrong. But how could he say that? That was the rudest thing imaginable. And what did it even mean, anyway? Merlin’s daemon’s form couldn’t be any more “wrong” than Merlin’s eye colour was. It simply was what it was.
“I’m sorry,” Arthur said, and Merlin’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “I didn’t mean to… You didn’t have to.”
“It’s all right,” Merlin said, matter-of-fact. “I don’t mind.”
Perhaps it was because he had only seen her for a moment, completely unprepared. Not that he was going to ask Merlin if he could have another look.
“Why do you keep her in that… thing?” Arthur asked instead, focusing on what was bothering him the most. He gestured at his own neck with a frown.
“For safety, mostly,” Merlin said. “Keeps her out of the way. In case, you know, some prat decides to chuck a boot at me out of the blue, or dump a bucket of water over my head.”
Arthur felt his face heat up again. “I wouldn’t have done any of that if you had warned me!”
“Oh, really? Most people wouldn’t need a reason not to do it. It’s called common decency. But perhaps that’s just for us common folks.”
“But why under your shirt?” Arthur said. He felt almost nauseous at the thought of Merlin’s daemon being trapped there, in the dark, for most of the day.
“Most people don’t like crawly things, daemon or not,” Merlin said, eyeing Arthur curiously. “And it won’t snag on anything this way. But she is used to it, don’t worry.”
“But you do let her out.”
“Yeah, of course,” Merlin said, a touch defensively. “Just not when I’m out and about, or doing my chores. She fell out of my sleeve and into a basin full of dirty dishwater once, that wasn’t fun.”
Arthur nodded. That seemed to make sense. When one had a daemon that could be so easily stamped on by accident, one had to learn to be careful, he supposed. He himself had never had that problem.
Arthur got up from his chair and went to his bed, picking up the red shirt. Dreya followed him, coming to sit between him and Merlin.
“Why blue?” she asked, and Arthur, halfway inside his shirt, realised with a jolt that she was addressing Merlin, like she had that time in the armoury. He pulled out his head to look at Dreya, but she was staring at Merlin.
Merlin looked surprised, but he recovered quickly. “Well,” he said, shifting his eyes from Dreya to Arthur. He flashed him a cheeky grin. “It’s just something Gwen said. Nothing important.”
“Merlin,” Arthur growled, his arms still inside the sleeves of his shirt.
“Well, she just happened to mention that she thinks the colour blue suits you. Not that you would care about it.”
“I don’t,” Arthur confirmed, staring at the other shirt on his bed with a scowl, as if it had just insulted the knights’ code of honour.
“Indeed. And why would you, sire? You are the prince, you can make your own choices.”
Arthur threw the red shirt on the floor with a half-muttered curse and grabbed the other one from the bed.
“Not a word,” he warned, turning to Merlin and pointing one threatening finger at his face.
Merlin closed his mouth. “No sire. Of course, sire,” he blurted out anyway, because he was apparently physically incapable of following orders.
When Arthur emerged from the collar of his blue shirt, he found Merlin looking at him with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes.
“Oh, go… go make yourself useful,” Arthur said, shooing Merlin away. He kicked the shirt that was lying on the floor in Merlin’s general direction. “And get this washed.”
“That is clean!” Merlin protested.
“Make it cleaner,” Arthur said, with an impatient wave of his hand. “There are other clothes that need washing, anyway.”
Merlin shook his head and scoffed before picking up the shirt from the floor. He quickly went around the bedroom, collecting random garments that had been scattered about — mostly by Arthur. At the door he paused to ask, in a tone that would have got any servant with a less lenient master backhanded:
“Will that be all, my lord?”
“Yes,” Arthur said, as he tugged up his trousers. Then: “No, wait.”
Merlin stopped and turned around.
“What’s her name?” Arthur asked.
The question seemed to surprise Merlin even more than Dreya speaking to him earlier. He stood in the doorway, eyeing Arthur warily from over his armful of clothes, and for a moment Arthur thought he wouldn’t answer.
“Aithusa,” Merlin said at length. “That’s her name.”
Arthur nodded. The name didn’t quite fit the tiny creature he had caught a glimpse of earlier and yet, somehow, it seemed to fit Merlin.
“Thank you,” Arthur said. “You may go now.”
Merlin bowed to him and left without another word.
* * *
Merlin, as it turned out, was precisely that stupid.
* * *
The bandit attack caught them entirely by surprise, as bandit attacks tended to do. The successful ones, at least.
“Oh, he’s feisty!” one of the thugs laughed, squeezing his arms tighter around Merlin’s torso. He seemed delighted by Merlin's attempt to headbutt him in the face. The falcon on his shoulder let out a series of staccato shrieks, almost like a chuckle.
“Jer,” one of the men restraining Arthur cried. “Jer, I don’t think this one’s a knight.”
Darya growled at the two dogs and the wolf that had surrounded her, forcing her to lie flat on the ground.
“What do you mean, he’s not a knight?” asked the bandit who was holding Merlin — Jer. “Look at his clothes, boy.”
“I am looking!” the other bandit said. “It’s you that’s not looking. When did you ever see a knight wearing a cape like this, uh?” He grabbed a handful of Arthur’s fur-lined cape and flapped it around. “Or a sword like this one? Look at the hilt! That’s real gold, that is.”
Jer sighed and pushed Merlin towards another man, who grabbed him by the elbows. He walked in front of Arthur and asked his fellow: “So?”
“So?” the other man repeated, as if in disbelief of his thickness. “So he must be the prince.”
Jer gave Arthur an appraising look, from his face to his boots. Then he looked at Arthur’s horse, then at Arthur’s servant. Arthur tried to keep his face as blank as possible.
Jer grabbed Arthur’s chin. “The prince,” he jeered. “Is that right?”
“Don’t touch him!” Merlin shouted, and received a punch to his stomach for his trouble. Arthur tried not to flinch at his groan.
Jer let go of Arthur’s face and turned to Merlin, laughing.
“Or what, boy?” he asked. “What you gonna do?”
Merlin, still half-bent at the waist, glared up at him. “Or you’ll regret it,” he wheezed.
Jer burst out laughing again, followed by the rest of his men. They seemed to find Merlin’s display of stubborn, idiotic bravery hilarious. For his part, Arthur wished Merlin would just shut up.
“Let him go,” Arthur said. “He’s just a servant.”
Jer turned to him. “So he can run back to the king and raise the alarm? I ain’t stupid.”
“You could have fooled me,” Merlin said.
Arthur closed his eyes. Oh, if they both made it out of this alive, he was going to strangle him.
Jer turned to Merlin again. “What did you say?” he asked in a gravelly voice, approaching him slowly. The bark and branches that littered the forest floor crunched ominously under his boots in the silence that had suddenly fallen.
“I’m sorry,” Merlin said. “You must not be used to people talking to you in complete sentences. I’ll speak slower. I meant you look stupid.”
Jer stared at him. None of his men moved.
“I realise it must be hard to tell when you spend your days surrounded by a bunch of half-wits,” Merlin went on, since apparently he had a death wish. “I mean, you seem the most intelligent one out of this lot. But still, a bit of an idiot. Sorry to break it to you.”
Jer grabbed Merlin by the front of his shirt and raised him off the ground and up to his own face with a growl.
“Don’t!” Arthur shouted, trying to tug his arms out of the other men’s grip. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying, he’s just a fool.”
“Oh, he’s a fool alright,” Jar said darkly, staring into Merlin’s defiant face, “but he knows exactly what he’s saying.”
Merlin kept glaring at him. If looks could kill, Jer would be lying dead on the ground.
“If he really is the prince,” Jer growled in Merlin’s face, “that’s lucky for him, ‘cause someone will pay a handsome price to get their hands on Uther’s son. But you…” Jer shook Merlin by the front of his shirt, hard enough to rattle his teeth. “We have no use for you at all.”
Jer stopped, and looked Merlin up and down, and only then seemed to notice the glaringly obvious.
“Where’s your daemon, boy?”
“No,” Arthur said, without even knowing what he was objecting to, the word squeezed out of his lungs by a sudden rush of fear.
“I asked you a question, boy!” Jer shouted when Merlin said nothing, and he grabbed him by his neckerchief. “What’s this?” he said then, spotting Merlin’s necklace, and he fished it out of Merlin’s shirt.
“No!” Arthur screamed as Jer tore Merlin’s necklace from his neck hard enough to break the chain. Merlin winced. Arthur thrashed pointlessly in the arms of his captors. “No, please.”
Jer raised Merlin’s pendant to his eyes. “Is that it?” he asked, flicking the glass. “This little thing? And here you’re acting all high and mighty. I could crush it with one finger.”
“No, please! I— I’ll give you anything!” Arthur pleaded, frantic, only half-aware of the words that were tumbling out of his mouth.
Jer turned to him. There was a cruel glint in his eye.
“Anything, uh,” he said. “Is that so? What is he, your little pet? Is that why he’s so snarly?”
Arthur tried to get his breathing under control. “His only fault is being a loyal servant,” he said. “Loyal to the point of stupidity, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it. Please, let him go.”
Jer turned back to Merlin. “See,” he said, pointing at Arthur, “I like his attitude a lot better. Why don’t you get on your knees and say ‘please’, and maybe I’ll let you go.”
Merlin was breathing hard through his nose. Arthur knew, from his expression alone, what he was going to say.
“Merlin—”
“I’m not going anywhere without him.”
Jer shook his head in mock disappointment. “Gods, you’re not even gonna be a little fun.” He dropped Merlin’s daemon on the ground and raised his foot.
“NO!” Arthur screamed, at the top of his lungs. “Please, don’t, please!”
Merlin’s face was drained of all colour. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if bracing himself.
Jer’s foot came crashing down. At the sickening crunch of breaking glass, bile rose in Arthur’s throat.
“No!” he wailed, half-blinded by tears. “No, no, no!” His desperation gave him a surge of strength, and he wrenched one of his arms free. He was immediately brought to his knees by a fist to the face, but he kept flailing about wildly, screaming, though he didn’t know what.
Someone was pinning him to the ground. Dreya was roaring with rage at his back, and he could feel her pain coursing through his body as the bandits’ daemons bit and clawed at her, trying to keep her down.
Arthur tried to look at Merlin’s body through the legs obstructing his view, but someone must still be holding Merlin up because Arthur could only see his boots, still planted where he was standing.
“Merlin,” Arthur called, pointlessly, twisting to look at Merlin’s face.
“What?” Jer said. He sounded confused.
“I told you not to touch him,” Merlin’s voice said.
Merlin?
One of the men holding Arthur down let go of him to grab his sword, and Arthur rolled onto his back.
Merlin was still standing. Merlin was… still breathing. Merlin was alive. Jer had taken a step back from him, holding his sword to Merlin’s chest with a trembling hand. While Arthur looked at Merlin in wonder, Merlin said, “I’m sorry, Arthur,” without even looking at him, which made no sense at all.
Then Merlin’s eyes flashed gold, Jer and the two men holding Merlin flew backwards, and Arthur understood.
* * *
“Arthur, I’m sorry,” Merlin said for the third time, as they made their way back to the castle in silence.
Arthur clenched his teeth and said nothing. His nose throbbed painfully. He hoped it wasn’t broken.
“Arthur,” Merlin tried again, after a while.
“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur said. He intended to leave it at that for the moment, to only speak once the anger bubbling up inside him had subsided into a more tolerable simmer, but he couldn’t stop himself. “What are you even doing here? I assume it’s not just for the thrill of it, so you must be either astonishingly stupid — I mean way, way more stupid than I ever imagined you capable of being, which is saying a lot — or the cleverest schemer in existence. Which one is it? Because I can no longer tell.”
They had both stopped in the middle of the path.
Merlin fidgeted on his saddle. “Yeah, that’s… kind of a long story.”
“Oh, great. There’s a story.” Arthur shook his head, then pressed his heels into the flanks of his horse. “I can’t listen to this right now. You can explain everything once we are back at the castle.”
When Arthur didn’t hear the sound of Merlin’s horse following him, he stopped again and turned. Merlin hadn’t moved. He stood on his horse as still as a straw dummy, his face pale and grim.
“Are you going to tell Uther?”
Oh. Arthur’s mind had been so preoccupied with thinking about Merlin’s lies and what he had witnessed him do earlier that he hadn’t had the time to think about his father at all.
“No,” Arthur said, and he found that he meant it. Merlin seemed to hesitate. It occurred to Arthur that if Merlin decided to bolt he wouldn’t be able to do much to stop him. He felt oddly reassured by it. “I won’t. You have my word.”
Arthur turned and resumed riding towards the castle. After a few beats, Merlin followed.
They were only a few miles from home when Arthur broke his silence again.
“Aithusa,” he said, and Merlin looked at him, wide-eyed. “That bit was true, wasn’t it.”
Merlin studied Arthur’s face. “Yes,” he said eventually. “That was true.”
Arthur nodded, wearily. “I suppose that’s a start.”
* * *
The story wasn’t actually that long. The long and short of it was — there was a prophecy. A king destined for greatness, and a sorcerer to help him achieve it. Two sides of a coin.
When Uther tried to sweep magic from the land and imprisoned the last living dragon in a cave beneath his castle, magic worked to restore balance to the universe.
It made a sorcerer for a king.
And a dragon for a dragon.
“Please, tell me she’s not in Camelot,” Arthur sighed, his head in his hands.
Merlin said nothing. Arthur sighed again.
“Would you like to see her?” Merlin asked. He sounded nervous, but also slightly hopeful.
Arthur peered at him through his fingers. “Sure,” he said. “Why not.”
* * *
Aithusa’s white scales gleamed like silver under the light of the full moon. It reminded Arthur of Morgana’s snake.
“Arthur,” Aithusa said, looking down at Arthur and his daemon with lizard-like blue eyes. Her voice was low and rumbling, but softer than Arthur expected. “Dreya. I am glad to meet you at last.”
“Likewise,” Dreya said.
“Merlin has told me quite a lot about you,” Aithusa said, and Merlin’s cheeks went pink.
“Oh?” Arthur said. It should’ve felt strange to be addressed by Merlin’s daemon like that, but it wasn’t at all. “A pack of lies, I assure you.”
Aithusa chuckled. It sounded like rocks tumbling down a mountain slope. “I hope not. He said you have all the makings of a great king.”
It was Arthur’s turn to flush.
“And an ego to match,” Merlin grumbled, bumping his shoulder against Aithusa’s foreleg. “There’s no need to feed it.”
Arthur looked at Merlin and Aithusa — a spindly young man, little more than a boy, really, and his amazing, impossible daemon — and he thought: Yes. This feels right.
* * *
When Arthur and Guinevere crossed paths again, a few days later, she gave Arthur a sweet, coy smile.
Something clicked in Arthur’s brain. It occurred to him, there and then, that Guinevere’s demure mien might not be due to shyness entirely, but that there might be something furtive in it.
“You knew,” he said, stopping in his tracks. Not accusingly, but like a man seized by a sudden revelation.
Guinevere looked up at him, her beautiful brown eyes filled with alarm.
“Sire?” she said, recomposing her features back into an expression of innocent puzzlement. Arthur would’ve found the artless attempt at deceitfulness aggravating, had it come from anyone else, but on Guinevere’s face it looked almost… endearing.
“About our friend’s… little secret.” Arthur wiggled his fingers as he said so. “Or not so little, I should say. I know too, now.”
Guinevere went pale. “My lord, I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Yes, you do. You’re not as innocent as you look, Guinevere.” Arthur smiled, in a way that was hopefully reassuring, to show that he didn’t mind that at all. When Guinevere still looked worried, he realised that an explicit, verbal reassurance probably wouldn’t go amiss. “You needn’t worry, I won’t breathe a word of it to my father.”
If Arthur had any remaining doubts about Guinevere knowing Merlin’s secret, the hope that filled her eyes at hearing those words was more than enough to clear them.
“You won’t?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
It saddened Arthur that she might not be sure about it, but he supposed it was a fair question.
“No,” Arthur said. “We both know what would happen if my father knew about it, and I’m not any more keen to see it happen than you are. And…” he hesitated. It was strange to admit to Guinevere something he had never dared to acknowledge, but something about her made Arthur feel that he could be honest with her, and still be safe. “I’ve never entirely agreed with my father’s stance on magic. I’ve had some time to reconsider things, since… well, you know. And I’ve been thinking that when I am king I want things to be different. Innocent people shouldn’t live their lives in fear.”
Guinevere listened to him speak with barely contained trepidation, like someone facing trial waiting for the judge to deliver their verdict. When Arthur finished talking and looked at her, she threw her arms around his neck.
“Arthur!” she gasped, sounding overjoyed, and she squeezed him tight.
Arthur stayed still for a moment, unsure what to do with his arms. Finally, he settled on an awkward pat on her back. The touch seemed to shock her.
“I mean, sire!” Guinevere said, jumping back. She smoothed her hands down the front of her dress. “My lord.”
Arthur cleared his throat. “That’s quite all right.”
“I knew you’d do the right thing,” Guinevere said, almost breathless with excitement. “Of course I knew it. But still, to hear you say it, it’s so… and I’ve been telling Morgana she could trust you all along…”
Arthur’s heart skipped a beat. “Morgana?”
He saw his own shock mirrored on Guinevere’s face. She moved her lips as if to speak, but no sound came out, and then she clapped her hand over her mouth.
“Guinevere…” Arthur said, slowly. “What did you think I was talking about?”
* * *
When Arthur told Merlin about Morgana, he didn’t even have the decency to look surprised.
“You knew,” Arthur said. Accusingly, this time.
“I didn’t know,” Merlin protested. “I only had a… very strong suspicion. But if I had known I wouldn’t have told you. It wasn’t my secret to tell.”
He had a point, Arthur conceded — however much annoyed he felt about it.
“Right,” he said. “Since I’m in an exceptionally forgiving mood, if there’s anything else you think I should know, now’s your chance to come clean. You have full immunity.”
Merlin crossed his arms and appeared to think about it. He was silent for an unnervingly long time.
"Your old training sword,” he said at last, “the one that went missing a few days before the tournament? I didn’t lose it. It got melted by a goblin.”
“A goblin?”
“Long story.”
Arthur nodded. Perhaps it was best not to know everything in full detail.
“I saved your life, by the way,” Merlin added. “You’re welcome.”
“Right. Thank you. Anything else?”
“Remember when you were training with Leon, and he hit you in the stomach with a mace? That was me.”
“Saving my life again?”
“No. You were being a prat.”
“Fair enough. Is that it?”
Merlin tapped his fingers against his chin, and thought about it some more. “Gwen really likes you.”
Arthur didn’t blush — because he was a knight, and not an innocent maiden. “I thought you were above sharing other people’s secrets,” he said.
“It’s hardly a secret. Anyone with a brain could see it.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
Merlin bit his lip, as if trying not to grin, and Arthur realised his mistake immediately. He valiantly resisted the urge to throw something at Merlin’s head, on account of his existing brain damage.
* * *
“Red or blue, sire?” Merlin asked the next morning.
“Blue.”
“Of course.”
“And Merlin? Get me some flowers, will you?”
“Flowers?”
“Flowers, yes. I trust you are familiar with the word.”
“How many?”
“What do you mean, how many? Just… enough for a normal person.”
“I see.”
“And wipe that daft grin off your face.”
Merlin tried to, but the grin only got wobbly, which made it even worse. “Gwen loves gillyflowers,” he offered, innocently.
Arthur nodded. “Very well. Gillyflowers it is.”
Merlin bowed and walked towards the door.
“Thank you, Merlin,” Dreya said, before he could walk out.
Merlin stopped, winked at her, and left.