Lineage - Chapter 01: A Season's Pass

[nyxelestia]

Title: Lineage, Chapter 1: A Season's Pass

Rating: PG-13 (for now)

Summary: Thanks to his magic, Merlin always knew he had a weird heritage that his mother did not liking talking about. What he didn't expect was to find out she was a princess of the kingdom of Dyfed - making him heir to the throne. This changed...everything.

Pairing: Arthur/Merlin

Warnings: mentions of violence, swearing, some explicit sex (all later chapters)

Episode warnings: Makes hints to all of Season 1 and some of Season 2

Beta: jusmine984

Notes: On archery and its equipment: crossbows – which Arthur is seen using – were used by soldiers because they were easy to learn how to use and aim with, even though they couldn’t fire many arrows at once, and didn’t have much force behind them. Shortbows had more force behind them, and can fire more arrows in the same span of time in the hands of an expert. And longbows...well, didn’t really exist in Europe at the time, but as anachronistic as the show can be stretched…you couldn’t fire as many arrows so fast out of a longbow, but they had enough force to pierce armor. In other words, Arthur is apparently a terrible archer in canon. ^_^ Anyone else absolutely love that?

Prologue

Masterpost

~*~

“Merlin!” Arthur said, voice hushed as they watched the creature feast on its stolen bounty of cattle. “What is that thing?”

A few of the knights turned their heads from their spots on the ridge and drew closer as Merlin said, “A basilisk. If you look directly into its eyes, it can kill you.”

“So how do we kill it?” Kay asked.

“Er…” Merlin wasn’t about to tell them the magical way, so he said, “I’m pretty sure it can be killed by normal weapons, but it’s hard to get close to the thing in the first place. We have to shoot the eyes, first, and you would be best aiming from the neck – its poison is ridiculously lethal, so that would be the safest place to be.”

“Can you tell the best place to hit the damn thing?” Arthur said. “To kill it?”

“My best guess would be the center of the top of its head – between the eyes and a bit above it. Direct blow down, though, another strike a bit further up, towards the neck, wouldn’t be a bad idea…”

“So what are we doing, exactly?” Kay asked, looking between Merlin and Arthur.

“Get in close, and wait for me to shoot its eyes out, both of them – I’ll be using a flaming arrow,” Merlin said. “When it’s blind, get towards the neck, then attack the head from there. You’ll need two men for the sword, or spear, to get it through the skull, maybe three.”

The men nodded, and Arthur rolled his eyes at Merlin yet again giving orders without realizing it, but nodded towards them, telling them, “Fan out across the edges, and wait until my signal – we will attack with one quick strike.”

Nodding, they quickly obeyed and left the ridge, slowly circling around it towards the other sides, encircling the unaware beast.

“…and the magic?” Arthur asked after a moment, when they were out of anyone else’s earshot.

“It can be killed without magic,” Merlin said, still peering at the thing. “It’s just a lot harder without magic than with magic.”

Arthur nodded, and unsheathed his sword quietly, as Merlin pulled off and strung his bow, lined up an arrow, and with a whispered word, lit the end on fire.

“I still say you’re using magic to shoot,” Arthur murmured towards the bow as he eyed the basilisk carefully.

Merlin rolled his eyes. He’d long since given up trying to convince Arthur solidly that his good aim came naturally – though he admitted he had no idea how – and that he didn’t use magic.

Arthur brought up his hand in ready motion, and Merlin raised the bow in anticipation, squinting only slightly against the smoke from the flames blowing into his eyes.

Arthur’s hand swung down, and he released the arrow – and it landed straight into the basilisk’s eye.

The beast screeched supernaturally as its eye was burned out of its socket, and Merlin felt a pang of sympathy for the thing, but remembering the ruins of the village it had terrorized strengthened his resolve.

Another shot, and the beast was blind.

“This can go much faster, and safer, with magic,” Merlin hissed as Arthur prepared the more direct attack.

“If it doesn’t need magic, I won’t use it!” Arthur said. “You know this.”

Rolling his eyes, Merlin stepped back as Arthur charged, and in the mean time, fell back behind the ridge, hiding from sight as he pulled another arrow from his quiver and lit the tip with fire.

He kneeled on the top of the ridge again, and at Arthur’s cry of, “Merlin, now!” he fired, and watched in morbid satisfaction as it hit the beast’s underbelly, flames spreading quickly along the long line of its body.

After that, it was almost pitifully easy for the knights to kill the beast.

~*~

“How did it go?”

Merlin and Arthur looked up and Merlin rolled his eyes as Arthur said, “Hello, Hunith. Went well – big, dead snake carcass-”

“Which still gave Arthur three broken ribs,” Merlin said, pushing Arthur down on the patients’ cot as his mother, carrying the week’s laundry, closed the door soundly behind them.

He pulled off the bow and quiver and was already turning towards the basket of ready bandages as the bow and quiver floated to his room, while Arthur’s shirt was helpfully pulling itself off the prat as Merlin collected the poppy seed extract, rosemary, and Solomon’s seal for the ribs.

Already steeping the poppy for a painkilling tincture, Merlin started crushing the rosemary and the seal, separately, as Arthur said, “We still killed the thing!”

“Thanks to me,” Merlin said, as Hunith started cleaning the blood off Arthur.

“How on earth did you kill a basilisk?” Hunith asked, looking over Arthur’s wounds worriedly. “And these ribs-”

“Will be fine,” Arthur said, holding his arms away helpfully.

The process sped up by magic, Merlin mixed the powdered rosemary with magically warmed water as he said, “Yea, also thanks to me!”

Arthur rolled his eyes as Merlin glared.

Turning back, he used the rosemary mixture to create a paste with the crushed seal, and had small bowl of it ready as his mother finished cleaning up the wounds.

“Well. Merlin. Sire,” she said. “Good luck to you both – and Merlin, do not be late coming back, tonight. I have managed to borrow a copy of the Twelve Tables in Latin from Geoffrey, and we are going to practice, together.”

“Yes, Mother,” Merlin said, long suffering, ignoring Arthur’s smirk as he spread the healing paste over the wounds.

As she left, Arthur said, “Latin going well, then?”

Merlin nodded, before muttering, “Thurhhaele” as he carefully massaged the paste into the wounds. Arthur hissed as Merlin healed the wounds, magically, and both of them winced at the sound of bone setting itself correctly, but Merlin smiled at the results as he started wrapping the bandages around Arthur’s chest.

“There,” he said. “That should leave you with no more than some bad bruising by tonight. Any pain?”

“No,” Arthur said, before smirking and saying, “Need some help with your Latin?”

“No, thank you,” Merlin grumbled. He was really starting to regret agreeing to actually becoming Gaius’s apprentice in medicine. The man was insisting on educating Merlin in apparently everything, and his mother was apparently a sadist, not only agreeing to help, but having completely taken over and now expanding it well beyond simple medicine.

Mothers. Bloody nutters, the lot of them.

One day...

Arthur was still smirking, basking in his noble – royal – education which required Latin for no apparent reason.

“I don’t see what you’re complaining out,” Arthur said, as Merlin quickly checked over the dressings and bandages. “You can use magic to absorb languages like a sponge. I had to spend years on Latin before I could understand it – you’ve only been at it for a few months. Do you have any idea how useful a skill like that could be for me?”

“You would just use it to learn Gaulish to see if visiting Frankish royalty were really talking about you when they said they weren’t,” Merlin scoffed, satisfied with Arthur’s bandages and reaching for the git’s shirt.

“If I did, you’d learn it too,” Arthur said, before catching Merlin’s wrist. “If only to know who’s food to spike to cause minor dysentery when they leered at my delectable behind.”

Merlin glared as long as he could, before relenting under Arthur’s amused gaze. “Fine, fine, you have a point. Better neither of us learn Gaulish, then. If that Thuringian princess does want to bed you and have your heirs and become your wife or whatever it is she yaps about, I suppose I best not know.”

Arthur laughed. “You mean Radegund? Please, she’s not the kind of girl to do that. Besides which, she’s of the New Religion-”

“I’ve noticed,” Merlin muttered darkly, faintly trying to pull his wrist out of Arthur’s grasp and failing.

“-so she wouldn’t want to fuck me until after we get married. And if she finds out about us, well…I’m pretty sure she’s strict enough to care.”

“Huh?” Merlin asked.

“New Religion – in some places, it does not endorse love or marriage between those of the same gender.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea,” Arthur said. “Something in the Book of Genesis, I think, or maybe it’s Leviticus. Sodom and Gomorrah, wherever they are.”

“I think that’s Genesis.”

“You’ve read it?” Arthur asked, letting go of Merlin’s wrist, taking his shirt, but not putting it on.

Merlin shrugged. “My mother had a lot of books, when I was little – I don’t really know where she got them. She was heartbroken when she had to send them to Gaius for safekeeping.”

He looked over the bookshelf on the balcony, designated by Gaius to hold all of her books. It had been his place of comfort when he first got to Camelot, recognizing many of them from his youth. “I think Gaius may have used them to bribe her to stay – I’m not sure.”

Arthur laughed, curling his hand around Merlin’s upper arm as he tugged Merlin towards the spare room. “C’mon – Camelot doesn’t care about us, the priest doesn’t care about us, my father pretty much approves since you can’t threaten me with bastard children…even your mother approves.”

And Merlin blushed furiously at that, even as he locked the door behind him, remembering when he and Arthur had been snogging, half naked on Merlin’s bed, when his mother had wandered into his room. Instead of being a normal mother and spluttering and demanding Merlin get dressed, no, she had to grin at them and say, “About time,” and wander back out, shut the door, and yell at them to lock the door next time.

“You’re never living that down, are you?” Merlin moaned, even as he pulled off his own tunic, before dropping to his knees and pulling at the laces of Arthur’s trousers. He smirked, seeing the prat was already hard.

He really got too much of a kick out of Merlin dressing and undressing him.

Arthur started to say something, but Merlin stroked his fingers deftly over the bulge of flesh he found after undoing the laces, and Arthur groaned and backed up further to collapse on the bed, lifting his hips for Merlin to pull off the trousers, leaving him completely naked as Merlin chucked off his own breeches, before clambering onto the bed, atop Arthur.

A considerable amount of time later found Merlin and Arthur collapsing onto the bed after a round of wonderful, wonderful orgasms.

“Aren’t you glad I got you these linens?” Arthur asked with a smirk as Merlin slid bonelessly beside the other man.

Merlin rolled his eyes at Arthur’s words. “Please – you getting me these have nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with you wanting to ‘keep’ me.”

Arthur scoffed, to which end Merlin’s eyes flashed and the custom-made bow and quiver started floating around.

“You just needed to defend yourself, with the weapon you’re best at.”

They settled down, only for the second, slimmer book of magic to float up.

It seemed Gaius wasn’t the only one in Camelot to harbor illicit keepsakes, though where Arthur found this one was completely beyond Merlin.

“To defend me,” Arthur scoffed.

It floated down, and now Merlin’s new boots and certain articles of his wardrobe were dancing around in the air. Merlin, upon learning how much dancing clothes annoyed Arthur, made sure to do this at every opportunity.

“Well I can’t very well have my own manservant looking as you did, now can I? You were looking like I never paid you at all!”

One of the shirts hit Arthur squarely in the face, and he promptly yelled, “Assaulting the prince!”

Merlin scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Face it, Arthur – you like taking care of me, buying me stupid gifts and-”

“Stupid gifts? Clearly, I’ve been spoiling you-”

“Well that’s not my fault that this is the only way you could find to keep me as your own, what with how utterly possessive as you and how stupidly you-”

Merlin smirked as he found himself on his back, Arthur growling almost ferally as he pinned Merlin down by the wrists and hips using his hands and knees.

“Fine,” he said, mock-glaring. “Either way, everyone gets to know you’re mine.”

“…you’re the only one who knows that those gifts are to ‘keep’ me like some bloody mistress. Most people think Morgana’s tupping me!” Merlin said. He smiled gently as he added, “Though with all the rumors about us flying around, I’m sure they think we’re part of some orgy of rampant debauchery-”

“They’ll find out, one day,” Arthur assured before leaning down to capture Merlin’s lips with his own.

Merlin laughed into Arthur’s mouth. “Oh, please, Arthur – I was always yours.”

“Good,” Arthur said, before pulling himself close to Merlin again.

~*~

“Strike left! I said left!”

Merlin arched the sword towards the left at the last second, only barely fast enough to block Arthur’s next blow. However, he was still following its momentum when Arthur swung again, and Merlin was grateful for the dulling of the blade and the padding of the practice armor as it struck across his arm.

“OW!”

Arthur just glared as Merlin stepped back and rubbed at his poor, abused arm. “What was that for?!”

“I. Said. Left!”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Are you done with your near-daily abusing me ritual?”

“No,” Arthur said flatly. “You know exactly what I-”

“I’m not using magic in a bloody sword fight when you’re just beating me up to let off steam,” Merlin said, exasperated. “Now, if you want legitimate training and can’t get a knight-”

“Merlin!” Arthur said. “You need to know how to use a sword, and if it happens to be with your magic, that’s just fine by me.”

Another eye roll, and Arthur threw his hands up in the air in frustration as he started heading back for the castle. “You refuse to use magic for swords and yet with archery-”

“That’s entirely my own skill! You said so, yourself, my eyes are never gold with archery. Stop being jealous that I can use a longbow while you can still barely aim with a bloody crossbow-”

“That has absolutely nothing to do with it.”

“Nothing to do with it, my arse.”

“My arse,” Arthur growled, with a sharp pat to Merlin’s rear to emphasize the point. The warlock yelped and whirled around to find Arthur gripping his arm as he dragged Merlin back home.

Near to the castle as they were, they dropped all mentions of magic.

But that was about it.

“Really, Arthur, are you just ticked that I’m better with archery as your almost-mistress or because I’m your servant or because-”

“Swordsmanship has nothing to do with archery!”

“Then what the hell are we arguing about?”

Arthur growled, and just led Merlin inside, again. “Come on – if you’re not going to cooperate in practice-”

“-you mean cheat for your own masochistic pleasure-”

“-then I might as well have a good lie-in. Father’s giving a formal announcement, tonight, and I have to bloody be there.”

“Mm-hmm,” Merlin said, but keeping quiet and letting Arthur rant all the way back to his chambers.

As soon as the door was closed, Merlin helped Arthur off with his practice armor – he preferred to do this bit by hand – and magicked him into softer in-castle wear, while Merlin just spelled his own clothes clean before he and Arthur collapsed onto the bed. While Arthur shifted around to make himself comfortable, Merlin set-about healing all the bruises Arthur had left over from practice. Again.

He made a show of it, too. Always got Arthur to look guilty, which made him pout, which made Merlin, well…

He had good reason to make show of it.

As Arthur huffed and rolled his eyes, Merlin smirked and with a flick of his fingers, had an apple and some grapes floating over from Arthur’s fruit tray. Both fruit floating in the air, one the grapes broke off and landed in Arthur’s mouth while Merlin grabbed his apple by hand and bit into it.

“What happened to the lie-in?” Merlin asked a few minutes later, sarcasm and amusement tinting his voice.

“I have this annoying manservant distracting me with fruit,” Arthur said, before biting into the next one, then smirking at Merlin. “You know, the Romans used to considering being hand-fed grapes a sign of royalty. Usually, it was by slaves.”

Merlin dropped the grapes on Arthur’s face as he said, “You certainly treat me like a slave, half the time!”

“And those gifts you were just complaining about yesterday?”

“That’s the other half, where you treat me like your sex slave,” Merlin scoffed, taking another bite of his apple while Arthur picked up a grape and popped it into his mouth by hand while rolling his eyes. “Or worse – your mistress.”

Arthur laughed. “Of course you would consider being a mistress worse than a carnal slave.”

“Not like there’s much of a difference,” Merlin muttered under his breath.

Arthur laughed.

“So what’s this announcement thing going to be?” Merlin asked.

“King Roderick, of Dyfed, is going to be arriving within the week to re-establish the army exchange treaty,” Arthur said.

“Army exchange treaty?” Merlin asked, confused. He made it a point to keep up to date on Camelot’s legal precedents – mostly so Arthur could have someone to talk to when need be – but he didn’t remember this.

“It was long before you came here,” Arthur said. “A few years back, come to think of it. Anyway, his army’s in shoddy shape, and when his war with Gwent, he needed some of our troops to help him. We got some handy trading tariffs eased in exchange.”

Merlin nodded. “What’s wrong with his army, then?”

“He doesn’t command them well,” Arthur said, wrapping his lips around another grape Merlin levitated into his mouth. “He has a good heart, but he’s not a great king. He was a low noble, and even his brother – Rhodri – was just a warlord who seized Dyfed’s cantrefs and made them cooperate as a kingdom. He was good king, though. But Rhodri had depended on his daughter ruling after he died, not his brother.” Yet another grape floated into his mouth.

One day, Merlin would stop doing this out of habit, or instinct.

But until then…

“Now, that story I know,” Merlin said, somewhat-smugly, as they ventured back into territory he knew.

“Oh?” Arthur asked, amused, as yet another grape floated into his mouth. One day…

“The Lost Princess of Dyfed,” Merlin said. “Fell in love with some lord who then ran off with a kitchen girl during the last civil wars in Dyfed and the princess got so distraught that she ran after that lord and, depending on version, she finds him and his girl and kills them and then can’t return because of that, she has the lord’s child out in some backwoods – or by a river – and lives out her life as a hermit with her child, or she kills the child and wins back that lord’s heart, or something like that. She’s never dead, though, I never got that…”

“That’s because a few years after the actual princess ran away, she showed up once in Dyfed for her father’s funeral. It was completely unofficial, but everyone knew, anyway, especially since she just left, again, instead of trying to take back the crown from her uncle. And how do you know the story so well?”

“The princess’s name is Hunith,” Merlin said, and understanding passed over Arthur’s face. “Back in Ealdor, whenever someone told that story, they always roped my mother into the act – especially since she apparently has the same hair as the princess, or something like that.”

Arthur smirked, and yet another grape flew into his mouth. Biting and swallowing it, he said, “That must’ve been…fun…”

“Yeah,” Merlin said, fondly, childhood memories returning momentarily. “She used to find it absolutely hilarious. Even had this whole princess act for when she did the story – walked like a princess, talked like one, all that. Flawless, too.”

“Maybe she can join that Thespian troupe making its way around Camelot,” Arthur said, rolling his eyes.

Now Merlin laughed. “I’m sure she’d… actually, I think she’d hate it. She’s shy and all that, yeah? Doesn’t like people paying attention to her.”

“I always did think her walk was a little too graceful, at times,” Arthur mused. Merlin couldn’t tell if his tone was mocking or not.

“I got her to show me that act, once, the walking bit,” Merlin said. “And because she was insane and kept around a lot of books, I could actually talk like that, too. I ended up playing the lord, or king, usually, when we did.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Keeping so many books around isn’t a bad thing. As you said – she taught your whole village to read, with them!”

Merlin glared. Since when was Arthur on his mother’s side?

“Yeah, she did. But especially me. I don’t know why she found it so funny, but it was hilarious to her that I caught on, so fast.”

“She probably figured out you were using magic, too-”

“I don’t use magic in archery!” Merlin yelped.

He going to add ‘get Arthur to admit he was just better than him at archery’ on his list of Things That Would Happen One Day.

Arthur glared, before shaking his head, apparently deciding to drop it, for now. “So you can walk like a prince, talk like a prince – apparently you don’t want to, though…and you can almost read as well as one-”

“Give it a few months and I’ll be smarter than you,” Merlin muttered under his breath.

“-and you’re getting an education which, really, is generally only reserved for princes-”

“-I’m living with your old tutor!”

“-and if I didn’t know any better, I would start worrying that you were plotting to replace me or something,” Arthur finished with a victorious smile.

Merlin snorted. “I don’t have the royal prattishness, arrogance-”

“Watch it.”

“-stupidity, lack of self-preservation-”

“You’re one to talk!” Arthur yelled, launching himself at Merlin, pinning him to the bed and straddling him, pinning his wrists above his head. “You are the idiot who came to Camelot with magic, and you are the idiot who drank from the poisoned cup-”

“That was to protect you!”

“It’s my job to protect you!”

Merlin heard the door open, and Arthur groaned as Merlin smirked up at him. He’d locked the door, and Arthur had the best locks in the castle on his door, so the only person who’d be able to get in would be someone with magic, like Merlin…

…or Morgana.

“Am I interrupting something?” Morgana asked pleasantly, and Merlin craned his neck up to smile at her from beneath Arthur.

Gwen slipped in a moment later, and her eyes widened when she saw Merlin and Arthur.

“Oh, sorry!” she said, blushing furiously. “We’ll just-”

“It’s all right, Gwen,” Merlin said, using that borderline-magic-but-not-quite skill he’s been developing to slip his wrists out of Arthur’s grasp, and he crossed his arms as Arthur sat up, though didn’t dislodge from Merlin’s hips. “We were fighting.”

“Well,” Morgana said, smirking, as Gwen closed the door behind her and Morgana, and she leaned against the table. “Please, do continue… fighting.”

Arthur rolled his eyes at her – and rolled himself off Merlin – and said, “Not a chance, you voyeuristic tart.”

Morgana gave a purposefully-overdramatic, put-upon sigh, before seating herself in Arthur’s chair – and Arthur managed to only wince and his hands only twitched, at that, which was progress in Merlin’s mind – and she levitated some fruit in her and Gwen’s hands.

“So what brings you here?” Arthur asked, as Merlin sat himself up, sitting cross-legged on the bed. Immediately, all good humor drained from Morgana’s voice.

“I was taking a nap, and had a vision,” she said. “It was hazy, very unclear, but you two were apart for some reason.”

Merlin frowned, and Arthur sat up, suddenly alert.

“Apart?” he asked. “War? Kidnapping? Is one of us ridiculously unconscious or something-”

But Morgana was shaking her head. “Just physically apart. You’re still…I don’t know…together? Bonded? And you’re both perfectly fine…Merlin’s just…not here.”

Now Arthur’s frown deepened. “Us being apart yet being perfectly fine? That doesn’t make any sense!”

Arthur could have his unwittingly sweet moments, few and far in between as they were.

“Could you feel if this dream was literal or symbolic?” Merlin asked.

Morgana sighed. “I couldn’t feel if it was symbolic or literal…but you were wearing a crown of some kind, so I would have to guess it was symbolic.”

“Then maybe I’m still here,” Merlin ventured. “Erm… maybe a bad fight? I’d stay away from him and still look after him.”

“Mm,” Morgana said. “Perhaps… you were riding away on a white horse – though I suppose that could have just been Tempest, unless that was symbolic, too – and you were wearing a crown, and you were riding with several other nobles, too.”

Arthur and Merlin’s frowns deepened as they looked at each other. “Maybe,” Arthur ventured carefully. “You finally take up that offer from Mordred and Siorus-”

“I’m not going to leave you for the Druids!” Merlin cried out, exasperated. He was adding this to the list of things to make Arthur realize one day, as well.

“Well how else do you explain a dream where you wearing a crown and riding off with a bunch of other nobles means something?”

“I don’t think it was the Druids,” Morgana said, frowning at the fruit in her hand as Gwen held her other hand tightly. “Though to be honest, it was all somewhat confusing – I can never get a clear vision when Merlin’s in it. But the nobility looked like normal nobility… though if Merlin were with them and it was supposed to mean something, maybe it’s particularly powerful Druids or something…”

Arthur sighed in frustration. “Was he leaving willingly?”

“I don’t know! He wasn’t being dragged away, but…”

“Morgana-”

“I couldn’t tell – it was too vague. I was just seeing this, there wasn’t much emotional background like normal,” she said, equally frustrated as her brother.

“Well,” Merlin said, slowly, pondering the merits of sounding as flummoxed as the others versus sounding like he knew what he was doing. “The vaguer Morgana’s visions are, the more likely they are to actually happen and not just be a possibility… so if this is definitive-”

“You leaving is definitive?” Arthur said, glaring at Merlin. He seemed to like the idea less than Merlin…which was really saying something.

“If Merlin’s willingness isn’t clear,” Gwen suggested. “Perhaps he wants to stay, but simply has to go?”

“Maybe Uther’s going to find out about my magic,” Merlin offered rather unwillingly. “That’s one of the only things I can think of, off the top of my head, where I would leave willingly. And how I’m still bonded with Arthur – I’m sure even in exile I would still be watching over the prat.”

“And that crown?” Morgana asked. “And you were riding a white horse, and as this isn’t a literal dream, I don’t think it was Tempest, so it has to mean something…and the nobility – I still can’t understand that!”

“Maybe Merlin leaves with the powerful Druids when he has to go for some reason…?” Gwen suggested. She’d become quite good at interpreting Morgana’s dreams. And more often than not, Merlin wished she weren’t, so he could have an easier time believing she was wrong.

“So you’re saying that Merlin’s magic being discovered and having to leave Camelot with a bunch of Druids is going to happen?” Arthur growled, only barely hiding the panic in his voice at the thought.

“Only more likely than if her dream were clear, sire,” Gwen said. “The vaguer her dreams, the more likely they are to somehow happen. But with her symbolic dreams, we have been wrong just as often as we have been right. It could mean something else entirely, or even be literal-”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Merlin said, sardonically.

“Perhaps a combination?” Gwen said. “Dreams involving you usually are only half…so the two halves could mean two different things entirely.”

“So…it isn’t definitive?”

At the hopeful tone of Arthur’s voice, Merlin grabbed Arthur’s hand and squeezed. Arthur didn’t look back, keeping his eyes locked with Morgana, but he squeezed back, and let go obligingly.

“So, we can’t really figure out what’s going to happen,” Merlin said. “We know I’m leaving, but Arthur will still be fine. I gain some kind of power, but I have to leave for it. The rest is all guesswork.”

As a moment of silence followed, Merlin continued. “Then thinking about this anymore is pointless and will only make this one” - He jerked a thumb at Arthur. - “more nervous, and then I would have to deal with him, so we best just forget about it for now and wait and see-”

“You’re going to be leaving, Merlin. Excuse me for having trouble forgetting about it!” Arthur said. Merlin rubbed a thumb across the back of his hand again, and Arthur sighed, probably remembering past experiences where this type of guesswork would be absolutely pointless at best, and nerve wracking at worst. Turning to Morgana, he blankly asked, changing the subject, “What were you doing sleeping in the middle of the day, anyway?”

Never let it be said that Arthur was subtle.

“I had a headache from practicing my scrying,” Morgana said, rolling her eyes. Merlin frowned.

“Really? You’ve gotten so good, you shouldn’t be-”

“I was practicing with glass, not water,” she said. “It worked, though – I managed to see into the chambers of some lord a few floors below us, and it was just a few maids cleaning it but the detail I managed to see…”

As he and Morgana started chatting about scrying, Merlin felt Arthur slip his arm around Merlin’s waist and pull him close.

He did nothing but lean into Arthur’s touch, and wondered which of them would need it more.

~*~

Much, much later, after Uther’s official announcement which, for Merlin, mostly consisted of standing there and trying not to appeared to deadened by boredom, and a private dinner between Uther and Arthur as they discussed the best terms to negotiate with the Dyfed king – they really didn’t think too highly of the man – and trying not to appeared deadened by the boredom, Merlin found himself with Arthur, Gwen, and Morgana in Gaius’s chambers yet again.

“I’m sure the entire castle thinks we’re involved in some four-person bedding of debauchery,” Morgana said blithely after Arthur’s hissed warning when she just strode into the chambers. “Some visits to Merlin and Gaius in the late evening shouldn’t really affect the people’s opinions of us.”

“Gaius isn’t here,” Merlin said, dully, as he magically pulled some seats closer for them. “He and my mother are out trying to give some supplies to the town physicians.”

Morgana rolled her eyes and Gwen locked the door, before seating herself in front of the fireplace with a dress to mend, while Arthur continued scribbling notes across the parchment in his lap. Or pretending to, anyway – Merlin knew he liked to watch the magic he and Morgana practiced.

Merlin could tell namely because within a few candlemarks, whilst he and Morgana had spent the entire time trying to puzzle out how to conjure up mirrors in frames with a good amount of ornate detail – like proper craftsmanship, and they managed some basic, but solid, face mirrors by the end of it – Arthur had gotten extraordinarily little of his work done. He’d probably offer it up to Merlin’s mother as yet another ‘teaching experience’ which would result in Merlin doing all the work for him-

All four’s eyes widened when they heard the door move, and Merlin and Morgana quickly dropped the flames of magic just as the door opened, having lots of practice in emergency canceling of magic. One did not survive long in Uther’s kingdom, otherwise.

They relaxed, though, when Gaius and his mother came through the door.

“You’re back early,” Merlin half-said, half-asked bluntly.

“We met Gladys along the way, and the path to her home is longest,” Hunith said, setting down the empty basket. Taking in Gwen and Arthur’s busy hands and Merlin and Morgana seated across from each other before the fireplace, she added, “Practicing?” as Gaius closed the door behind them.

In response, Merlin and Morgana both conjured up small, but detailed, handmirrors in their palms. Hunith grinned in delight, while Gaius rolled his eyes and set about reordering the supply he’d gotten in return from the townsfolk.

“How were the rounds?” Merlin asked absently, as he and Morgana turned back to their mirrors, concentrating on detailing the detail. She was getting much better at it than him. He wondered if it was because her magic was just naturally inclined towards that, or if it was just because she was a girl.

Not that he’d ever tell her he thought that, or anything like that. He made that mistake once when she was trying to fit a knife in her bosom without it slipping down her dress, and, well…he was not eager to repeat that mistake. Ever.

His manhood and privates thanked him for it.

“They were fine,” Hunith said. “Getting cold – it will start to snow, soon, and the illnesses soon after.”

Merlin nodded, and Gaius said, “And that announcement – was it on the new crop rotation I’ve been hearing rumors about?”

“Those were just that, Gaius, rumors,” Arthur said. “But no. A foreign king – Roderick of Dyfed – will be coming to Camelot to reestablish the army treaties.”

“Within the week,” Merlin added sullenly. “Which means our choreload is about to skyrocket, which means-”

CRASH

They all looked over to see Hunith, pale, staring at her feet, where a jar of leaves had smashed against the floor.

“Mother,” Merlin said, jumping up immediately. “Are you all right?”

Slowly, Hunith nodded, shutting her eyes for a moment, and saying, “Fix that for me, will you, Merlin?”

As the others all looked on in concern, Merlin’s eyes flashed and the pot was back on the table, fully repaired, the leaves inside them.

Merlin never took his eyes off his mother. “Are you all right?”

After a moment, she snapped up, blood draining back into her face as she said, “I’m fine, Merlin,” using that imperial tone which Merlin knew for a fact could make Arthur double-take when she tried. “Just some dropped pots.”

“Are you sure-”

“Merlin!” She shook her head fondly, and Merlin relented, if somewhat suspiciously, and turned back to Morgana and the mirrors, keeping an ear out for his mother and his eyes on the mirror.

Which was why he missed the terrified glance she and Gaius traded.

~*~

A/N: Okay, yeah, I had a bit too much fun with sugardaddy!Arthur, as well. ^_^
 

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