Work Text:
It takes a month after Arthur lifts the ban on magic for him to adjust to the fact that the people around him might actually start to use it.
Every other stall in the marketplace touts magical wares of one kind or another: potions, artifacts, charmed jewelry, books of spells. Squires trip their friends on the training field with a look. One of the laundresses who’s been cleaning up after him since he was a boy evaporates a grass stain with a single word. Arthur sees more druid tattoos in a single hour in the lower town than he has in his whole life while magic was outlawed.
It’s not like he didn’t think about it. In fact, in the midst of a hundred meetings with advisors and druids and concerned citizens alike, Arthur thought about little else. He just didn’t expect it to be so… present. So quickly.
Merlin was oddly quiet through the whole thing, his usual prattling and insistent advice completely absent. Even when Arthur went so far as to to prompt him, Merlin kept his silence on the matter.
Which meant the last thing he was expecting, upon entering Gaius’s chambers, was to find him using it.
Arthur stands, frozen, as a spell rumbles from Merlin’s chest. There’s a maid sitting by the table; Merlin’s hands are laid gently on her forearm. She’s looking apprehensively between his hands and his face and gasps when his eyes flare on the final word.
Merlin takes a stumbling step backwards from her. She hesitates a moment, then lifts her arm. Twists it one way. Then the other. Flexes her fingers.
She laughs giddily.
“Merlin, it’s good as new! Like nothing happened!”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
“No, not at all! I don’t know how to—”
When Arthur’s brain finally comes back into action enough to process the situation, he comes to the realization that he’s spying. And that Merlin will be on his case about violating his own lectures about knocking for weeks. (Although, frankly, it’s his castle. Arthur should be allowed to go wherever he good and well pleases.)
Arthur clears his throat. Because he’s the king, not some skulking servant.
Their heads whip around towards the sound impossibly fast. The maid leaps from her seat with a sputtered, “Your Majesty!” and drops into a curtsy. Merlin looks like he’s just found himself in the middle of a very bad dream. Like if he blinks enough times, Arthur will disappear.
“I’m looking for my crossbow,” Arthur says, surprising even himself with the nonchalant steadiness of his voice. “The one with the red patterning on the handle. Have you seen it?”
“Er- I believe Sir Leon borrowed it. Sire.”
“Ah. I shall have to ask him, then. Carry on.”
Then Arthur turns on his heel and escapes with utmost haste.
Merlin is practicing magic. Merlin is learning to use magic.
Which is allowed. Of course. No rules against it anymore, so why shouldn’t he? He’s Gaius’s apprentice. It’s not like Arthur doesn’t know that Gaius was once a sorcerer. Perhaps he’s expanding his physician practice to include healing magic once more, and taught a few tricks to Merlin. Perfectly reasonable.
Of course, all that logic doesn’t stop Arthur from feeling like the wind has been knocked out of him as he pictures familiar blue eyes set alight.
A set of heavy footsteps dash after him.
“Look, Arthur- I can explain. I swear.”
“Explain what?” Arthur asks, turning his head to acknowledge Merlin as he catches up.
Merlin stares. “The magic? That you just caught me doing? In Gaius’s chambers?”
“Magic is not illegal, Merlin, in case you’ve forgotten. In fact, I should rather hope you haven’t. Obviously, it’s none of my concern what methods you use to end that girl’s suffering. Or anyone’s. Although, I am rather impressed. It took years for Gaius to get anything useful about medicine through your thick skull, I’m shocked you picked this up so quickly.”
“Obviously,” Merlin repeats weakly.
“I’ll admit, it came as a surprise that you had interest in such a thing, but I can see the merit in having you study a few spells. Polishing my armour should take half the time, for one.”
“Your… armour.”
“Yes, Merlin, do keep up. My laundry, too. And mucking out the stables. And my baths.” Arthur claps Merlin on the shoulder a little too hard and grins widely. “We’ll make a competent sorcerer of you yet.”
*****
Merlin, to his credit, learns quickly.
He opens a window with a wave of his hand and Arthur chokes on his chicken. He lights the fire from five feet away and Arthur nearly trips over his own feet. He mends a tear in Arthur’s jacket and Arthur spends a good minute, later that night, just running his thumb over the spot, frowning, unable to work through the knot of emotions in his chest.
It’s fine if Merlin uses magic. It’s fine.
Perhaps it's the simple fact that Arthur never saw it coming. That he never would have imagined that Merlin would want this. Had he always been interested in it, but unable to pursue it? Had Gaius told him stories of the Old Religion with a tone of awe rather than the disgust with which Uther spoke of it? It's unsettling to have so many questions about a person he was sure he knew as well as himself.
But the more Merlin does it, the more Arthur just… gets used to it. Although he has no idea how Merlin is finding the time to learn all the new spells he's trying out daily.
It becomes just as routine as his chores. He extinguishes the candles with a whisper as he closes Arthur’s curtains each night. He cools and warms and cools Arthur’s bath over and over again until the king is satisfied. He makes three different cloths polish three different parts of Arthur’s armour simultaneously.
And at first, Merlin gets tense after every spell. His shoulders hike all the way up to his ears and he sends nervous, furtive glances in Arthur’s direction as though at any moment he might explode and rescind his lifting of the ban, say that it was a ruse to trick Merlin into learning magic so he could arrest him.
With every passing day that Arthur allows it, though, with every act of magic that is received neutrally, Merlin relaxes. More than that, he glows. He teases Arthur more than ever, magicking things out of his reach when he's being a prat. The cheekiness in his eyes when he stops a thrown pillow in midair is brighter than Arthur ever saw it when he used to dodge them. He laughs louder. He smiles freely.
It’s… well. It’s altogether lovely, actually. And Arthur has a hard time keeping mixed feelings about anything that makes Merlin look like that for very long.
“Feels strange, doesn’t it?” says Gwen to him one day as they watch Merlin float a banner up to the rafters in the throne room. It’s Arthur’s birthday in two days; the first since he became king.
“Hm?”
“Merlin, doing magic.”
“I certainly never would have predicted it,” Arthur says, “but—and don’t tell him I said this—he’s actually got quite a knack for it.”
“I suppose Merlin’s never really been predictable.”
Arthur laughs. “Definitely not.”
Gwen’s smile turns bittersweet. “It does make me wonder, though. About Morgana. Perhaps things would be different if your father had been more like you.”
“Most of his advisors say that the other way around.”
Gwen hums, but doesn’t say anything more.
Merlin is talking animatedly with the servant lifting the next banner out of a basket. His cheeks stay stretched into a grin as his eyes go molten gold—so different from the way Arthur has known that colour in the past. Glaring, full of hatred and spite, seeking revenge.
On Merlin, it’s just warm.
“I think about her too,” Arthur says quietly. “Whether she could’ve been happier in Camelot the way it is now. She’s part of the reason I did it. I remember how she was with the druid boy, and if she thought she’d be hunted the same way… I can’t imagine how frightened she must have been.”
Gwen squeezes his arm.
“As for Merlin… it took some getting used to, but… it feels oddly right, in a way.”
“How do you mean?”
“I can’t explain it. It’s like he was always meant to use it.”
“He’s always cared for people,” says Gwen. “This just gave him a new way to do it.”
“Perhaps.”
Gwen gives him another little smile and goes back to her work.
There’s been a diminished sense about her for a long time, ever since Morgana disappeared. Like she’s wilting with every day that passes without her.
Arthur understands. It’s hard, besides the ordinary grief of missing her, to reconcile the things she did with the woman he would have trusted with his life a hundred times over. To know that for so long, she was plotting against them, trying to hurt them, and to know that Uther’s regime had pushed her that far—it’s nigh impossible to reckon with.
It was true, what he said to Gwen. Morgana was one of the reasons Arthur legalized magic. But it wasn’t just her; it was everything, all his life. His father’s death was the tipping point.
Arthur remembers pacing his chambers the morning after Odin’s assassin attacked, wondering if the king would live, wondering what this would mean for Camelot, desperately trying to think of something he could do. He very nearly asked Gaius to find a sorcerer to help.
But he couldn’t go through with it. At first, because it would defy everything his father had ever stood for. And then, because of memory after memory of executions. Of an entire life spent watching countless people hanged and drowned and beheaded for pursuing the exact path of desperation Arthur was considering.
How could he possibly stand before them, as crown prince, as king, knowing he had done the very thing he kept in contempt?
Gwen herself had nearly been executed on the mere suspicion of such an act of magic. Arthur would never have been able to look her in the eye again if he’d used magic to save his own father.
So Uther passed on, and Arthur became king. And after many months of internal debate and seeking out of druids and sorcerers and small-time magic users of far-away lands, he made the decision to change things once and for all.
Merlin’s new talent is an unexpected side-effect, to be sure. But it's one Arthur can handle.
“Well, don’t you look constipated.”
Arthur startles as Merlin jostles his shoulder.
“Something on your mind?” asks said side-effect.
Arthur clears his throat. “Yes, tell me what you think. Which sounds better for teaching you to mind your manners: target practice, or an evening in the stocks?”
“Hm. Hard to say. Shall I go and fetch your dinner while you think on it, sire?”
“You do that.”
*****
Of course, things never stay peaceful in Camelot for long.
It’s in the midst of the feast in Arthur’s honour that things go awry. Everything beforehand is lovely—bards sing grand tales in the corner, knights and nobles and serving staff alike chat amiably, food is stacked high on the tables. Merlin tops up Arthur’s goblet when he remembers that that’s his job, not gossiping with Gwaine, but Arthur doesn’t hold it against him altogether much. He stays close, and passes the most salient pieces of information on to Arthur, and that’s what matters.
Merlin’s describing a particularly scandalous encounter between Lady Garrington and Sir Kay when the doors to the throne room burst open.
A harried-looking young man stumbles through them and stares nervously around at the room, seemingly unprepared for all the attention that turns on him at once.
“Y- your majesty,” he stutters. “Urgent news.”
Arthur stands. From the corner of his eye, Merlin sobers beside him, battle-ready in his own way.
“Deliver it.”
“There’s been an attack, sire, on one of the northern villages. It’s King Odin, and he- he wished for you to be given a message.”
“Yes?”
Apprehensively, the messenger draws a smooth gray river stone from his bag. He places it on the floor and it begins to glow a stark white.
“Arthur Pendragon,” comes Odin’s voice from the stone, echoing as though speaking in a wide cavern. “You play at being a king when at your heart, you are a coward. Too long have your sins gone unpunished. Too long have I sent men to do my work for me. Surrender your lands, or we will march on Camelot with strength unforeseen.”
Then the light fades back into the stone.
All festive conversation ceased when Odin began to speak; the room is utterly silent. Arthur can’t decide what to focus on first. What are Odin’s numbers? Where might he plan to attack first? Since when has he had access to magic?
Knights and advisors jump from their seats into action. Pale-faced guests scurry away as servants take the hint that the feast is over and begin clearing dishes and cutlery.
“Get ready to convene council in the morning,” Arthur tells Leon. “And send scouts to the northern border, we need to know where we’re vulnerable.”
“Yes, sire.”
“Merlin, with me.”
Merlin gives a small nod and sticks just behind Arthur's shoulder for the rest of the night.
When they’re finally able to retire to Arthur’s chambers, both their boots scuff exhaustedly against the cobblestone floors. Merlin undresses him with clumsy hands and drooping eyelids and smacks his lips after every yawn. Arthur’s gaze flickers down to them each time.
“Not exactly the birthday you expected, was it?” Merlin asks, folding his feast attire.
“Can’t say it’s worse than last year.”
“No, I suppose not.” Merlin returns with a nightshirt and smooths it onto Arthur’s chest, tugs on the hem to get it situated. Then regards him with a contemplation that breaks through the exhaustion. “What are you going to do?”
Arthur sighs. “Ride out as soon as possible, most likely. Odin can’t have gotten an entire army past our border without us knowing about it until now, so he’s got to be with a small group, an elite team. If we can find that team, and get him to surrender… we may avoid war altogether.”
“And if we can’t?”
“The Knights of Camelot have a reputation for a reason.”
Merlin’s work preparing Arthur for bed is done, as it seems is his line of questioning.
Nightclothes finally donned, Arthur collapses onto his mattress, only to groan.
“The sheets are cold, Merlin."
Merlin quirks an eyebrow. After a beat, he pulls the covers on top of Arthur, then whispers a spell. At once, it’s as though warm stones have been under them all night waiting for Arthur’s arrival. Arthur wasn’t entirely expecting it, but he’s no longer so taken aback. He supposes it did sound like that was what he was asking. (Arthur’s not even sure what he was asking.)
“Handy, that.” Arthur says quietly.
Merlin’s answering smile warms him far more than the spell.
“Goodnight, Arthur.”
“Goodnight.”
*****
The knights are utterly entranced by Merlin’s magic.
Elyan spends a good ten minutes trying to get a fire lit on their first night out while Merlin takes care of the horses and collects firewood. He offers the flint to Merlin with a sigh when he returns.
“We all know you’re best at it,” he says, pressing it into Merlin’s palm.
Arthur’s laying out his bedroll and listening to the exchange. He watches Merlin curl his fingers over the flint, then stare purposefully at the fire pit. At once, the damp logs are set ablaze.
Elyan gapes.
“Good thinking, Merlin,” says Leon appreciatively, clapping him on the back.
“That’s just not fair,” Elyan mutters. “You don’t even need that spell, you were already good with the flint.”
Merlin shrugs. “Easier this way, though, isn’t it?”
Gwaine joins them and pats Elyan on the shoulder consolingly. “You never know,” he says. “Maybe our great wizard Merlin here could teach it to you someday.”
“Sod off,” says Merlin.
Arthur comes to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Merlin, regarding the fire.
“Gwaine might be onto something,” he says. “If you’re not here, it could be useful for one of us to know that spell. I’ve known many a cold night hunting that could’ve been eased with a fire like that.”
This seems to take Merlin completely off-guard. He lets out a choked, nervous half-laugh.
“I- it’s really not that simple.”
“If you can learn to do it, surely the finest knights in the land can.”
“I mean…” Merlin balks at all the eyes on him. “With some practice, maybe. It’s not out of the question. But magic takes time. It’s like… finding a muscle you’ve never had to use before. One that not everyone has.”
Arthur can’t help but think that Merlin found that muscle rather quickly, considering.
It becomes routine over the next few nights for all of them to look expectantly to Merlin once the camp is set until he kneels and whispers to the fire pit. Leon, Gwaine and Elyan insist on before-bed lessons, which are a rapid disaster. Arthur doesn’t partake—his sword has done him just fine so far, and besides, it’s rare he goes anywhere and doesn’t bring Merlin.
The first step is learning the word.
“For-bear-nan,” Merlin instructs. “That second r should be in the back of your throat. Er, yes, Elyan, sort of. No, no, you’re- you’re getting there, honestly.”
It sounds fine from Merlin’s mouth, but Arthur rather thinks his knights sound more like hacking cats than sorcerers. He keeps that to himself.
The next is, well, the magic bit. Merlin tells them to hold out their hands towards the wood. He describes the feeling of drawing on magical power, tells them how the word channels it and gives it shape, how they’ll have to find the source of it for themselves.
That catches Arthur’s attention. “You do magic all the time without spells,” he points out.
Merlin blanches. “Yes, well. I’ve had more practice, haven’t I?”
To their credit, they really try. They put a level of energy and emphasis behind the word that borders on ridiculous. But three nights of their journey go by without even a glimmer of gold in any of the knights' eyes.
“You may be right, Merlin,” Leon says, embarrassed after a particularly boisterous attempt. “Perhaps we’ll leave the magic to you.”
Gwaine and Elyan agree emphatically.
That doesn’t mean they stop being intrigued by Merlin’s magic, though. On the contrary: Arthur’s knights begin to heap a truly unnecessary amount of praise onto his manservant. Merlin’ll be lucky if his head hasn’t swollen three sizes by the time their quest is over.
Lighting fires and doing chores, Arthur learns alongside his knights, is just the surface of Merlin’s talent.
When they get lost, Arthur and Leon spend a good half hour bent over their maps, trying to fathom out where they possibly could have gone wrong while traversing the valley. Arthur tries (and fails) the whole time not to be distracted by all the pacing and hand-wringing Merlin’s doing as he cares for the horses. When it gets bad enough that one of them whinnies nervously, Arthur straightens and glowers at him.
“Alright, out with it.”
Merlin jumps. “What?”
“You’re stressing me as much as the horses. What do you want.”
“I-” Merlin clamps his jaw shut. Then forces himself to open it again. “I could use magic to find the path, if you wanted. Sire.”
“Really?” Leon asks.
“I can’t lead us directly to Odin, but… it would get us a good deal closer.” Merlin stares straight at Arthur the whole time he explains. Waiting for permission.
Arthur sighs. “Well, get on with it then. No point wasting more time on our finely-crafted maps when they’re apparently useless with a sorcerer around.”
Merlin grimaces a little at that. He moves past the two of them a ways, then crouches to lay his hand on the earth. The knights watch with interest, Arthur with some skepticism.
It’s a short spell, Merlin’s voice deep and strong as he intones it. There’s a churning in Arthur’s chest at the power in his words that he doesn’t quite know what to do with.
When Merlin lifts his hand, Arthur can’t see anything to suggest that something has changed. Merlin, though, stands and cocks his head to the right, as though listening to something. Like a song only he can hear, a cue only Merlin is privy to.
“This way,” he says, jogging back to fetch his horse before leading it off into the trees.
Gwaine goes to get his, then pauses when he sees Leon and Elyan looking to Arthur.
Arthur swallows around the lump in his throat (how difficult must that spell be compared to getting stains out of laundry?) before urging them to follow.
The spell leads them well—right up until they’re ambushed by a pack of bandits.
They’re ruthless, but clumsy, untried. Overconfident. Arthur dispatches a few with ease, ducking their wide swings and ignoring their leering shouts, all the while maintaining his usual tab on Merlin. Making sure he’s far enough from the battle. His knights, too, make quick work of them, and for a brief moment they share a relieved exhale when the danger seems to have passed.
A moment swiftly interrupted by the whizzing of an arrow flying in from the tree line.
And perhaps if Arthur had already let Merlin out of his peripheral, he wouldn’t have seen it—not that there would be any reason to hide it—but Merlin’s eyes spark to life, and the arrow aimed straight for Gwaine’s heart buries itself into a tree trunk beside him instead.
There’s a heartbeat of shocked, silent stillness.
Elyan grips his sword and goes to check for the perpetrator.
Gwaine is looking at Merlin in awe. He strides over to him, grips his shoulders and shakes him excitedly. “You saved my life!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Merlin says, grinning, a bit ruffled.
“I owe you one, mate. No spell or anything, that was amazing!” Gwaine slings an arm around Merlin and smirks back at Arthur. “Wasn’t it, sire?”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “Perhaps Merlin wouldn’t have had to be so impressive if my finest knights had been more aware of their surroundings.”
“Princess is just whiny he didn’t notice him either,” Gwaine mutters to Merlin.
Arthur pretends not to hear that.
*****
Merlin and Arthur take first watch that night.
Arthur watches Merlin more than he watches for trouble. He looks the same as he always has done, Arthur thinks. Shabby clothes. Shock of black hair against pale skin. High, rounded cheekbones. Shoulders a little broader than they used to be, maybe, but still gangly as ever otherwise, his legs all sprawled out next to the fire pit. The same degree of distractingly gorgeous that he was the day Arthur met him.
Nothing that suggests the glowing embers of power he now possesses.
Merlin catches him watching and nudges his thigh with the toe of his boot. They’re sitting facing each other, Arthur’s legs stretched out beside Merlin’s.
“Constipation again, sire? You may want to talk to Gaius if it’s getting persistent.”
“Shut up,” Arthur says, forcing his gaze to the fire instead.
“Seriously. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s something.”
“It’s not.”
“Clearly, it is!”
Arthur groans in frustration. “You are insufferable, do you know that?”
Merlin grins. “I know. Tell me anyway.”
The night is quiet and clear as Arthur stares at his godawful excuse for a manservant. There’s a popping sound from a wet log. Arthur shifts onto his elbow, contemplating.
“Gwaine was right,” he says finally. “About the magic. All the knights are.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is-” Arthur grinds his teeth a moment. “It is impressive. In its own way.”
Merlin lets out a startled laugh. “Compliments burn on their way out of your mouth, don’t they?”
“Like bile.” That makes Merlin laugh more, and Arthur chuckles along with him, feeling the tension he’s been carrying bleed away a bit. This, he knows. This, he can manage. “I’m serious, though. You’ve got a talent for it.”
“Thanks,” Merlin says, like he’s unsure where this is leading.
“Did Gaius talk about magic at all? Before the ban was lifted?”
Merlin squirms. “A little. He told me he used to practice it with the woman he was going to marry, before the Great Purge. Healing magic, mostly.”
“And he taught you all these spells?” Arthur asks.
“He got me a book, actually. Told me to study it carefully.” Merlin smiles slightly. “It’s gone pretty well so far.”
Arthur scoffs. “I’ll say.”
Arthur feels like he doesn't even know where to start, what else to ask. The magic thing happened so casually, so much like it had always been a part of their lives, that it felt strange to start with the basics. He tries anyway.
“What does it feel like? Using magic?”
“You weren’t listening to the knights’ lesson?”
“Obviously, Merlin, I had to supervise and ensure you didn’t accidentally turn them into frogs,” Arthur says. “But you’re you. You don’t describe things in terms of muscles unless absolutely necessary.”
“True.” Merlin inhales, rubs his palms together, and then whispers into the fire. The smoke gathers in wisps and thick strands and moves together into the shape of a dragon. As it slowly beats its wings, Merlin explains, hushed. “It’s like… when it flows through you, everything at once is possible. Like you’re connected inseparably to the earth, to every life. Like a single wave of your hand could alter fate.”
Arthur swallows. Merlin’s eyes are bright—he’s leaned forward as he’s spoken, the dragon twisting in the air beside them. Arthur resists the nonsensical urge to drag him in and kiss him senseless.
“You feel that way when you heat my bath, do you?” he says instead.
Merlin’s smile is a flash of white teeth. “Sometimes.”
The dragon dissolves back into ordinary smoke.
“Why do you ask?” says Merlin.
Arthur shrugs. “Just curious. I suppose I wanted to understand your sudden commitment to the craft.”
Merlin’s lips firm into a line at that. He takes a deep breath. “Listen, Arthur, there’s something—”
Leon snores loudly from across the camp. Arthur barks a laugh.
“He’s done that since we were kids. Would never admit it though.”
Merlin’s answering smile is strained.
“Come on,” Arthur says. “We should get some sleep. I’ll wake Gwaine.”
“Yes, sire,” Merlin says quietly.
And it’s only as Arthur is drifting off to sleep that he wonders what Merlin was going to say.
*****
They find Odin's camp in the morning.
“Stay low,” Arthur whispers to Elyan and Leon.
The camp is small, as Arthur thought it would be. It’s just before dawn, and the king of Cornwall sleeps in a small brown tent while his six-person entourage huddles as close to the fire as they’re allowed. No one’s on watch, which strikes Arthur as odd. It puts him on guard, but nothing else about the campground looks suspicious. Perhaps Odin simply got arrogant.
The tent and the people surrounding it sit between two steep hills. Arthur signals to Gwaine and Merlin, who are sitting atop the one across from him, telling them to get ready.
They sneak down from either hill and approach the camp, careful with each step where they put their feet. The knights’ swords are already drawn and when they're close enough they take positions holding them ready at Odin’s knights’ throats. Merlin goes silently to each servant and ties their hands and feet with rope.
When they all nod to Arthur, he strides into the tent.
Only to find Odin wide awake.
“Your highness,” Odin sneers. “Come to surrender?”
"Why should I?" Arthur asks, keeping his sword raised. "Your men are at our mercy, and you're certainly no match for me."
Odin grins sardonically. “Perhaps not one-on-one. But a proper king likes to be prepared.”
From outside the tent comes the thunderous rumble of footsteps. Dozens of them. Arthur whirls around, taken aback, then dashes back out through the tent flaps to the sound of Odin’s laughter.
A small battalion of men is bearing down from either hill, dressed proudly in Cornwall colours.
“RUN!” Arthur shouts. Gwaine, Elyan and Leon parry away the few attacks that come their way and then obey, sprinting away from the swarm. Arthur follows, grabbing Merlin by the jacket as he passes to drag him along.
“I thought you said Odin couldn't have an army!” Merlin complains over the din of men yelling and chasing them.
“He couldn’t, it doesn’t make any sense!”
As if in answer, Arthur feels a blast of heat directly behind him. He chances a look over his shoulder as he keeps running and finds a scorched, smoking crater where he and Merlin were a mere five seconds ago. Behind it stands a hooded figure, hand outstretched.
And isn’t that just perfect.
“Sorcerer,” he hisses to Merlin.
“What?!”
“Come on!”
Honestly, Arthur thinks, the sorcerer is a bit overkill on Odin’s part. They’ve got enough to deal with just with the leather-clad warriors converging on them on all sides. Arthur keeps having to pause in their escape to fight off the ones that catch up. Merlin has figured out a way to push some backwards with his magic, which proves to be an effective strategy, but against the swarm, it’s not enough. Merlin’s expression is getting more and more desperate and Arthur is sure he looks about the same.
“Arthur,” Merlin says, sending another one of Odin’s men flying. “There’s something else I can do.”
Arthur kicks one in the back, grunting. He can hear the clanging of blades and Gwaine shouting with the other knights ahead of them. “Now’s not the time for your little magic tricks, Merlin!”
Merlin glares. “Go catch up with the others.”
“Don’t be stupid—”
“Go!”
And then, before Arthur can fully impress upon Merlin that he’s lost his mind if he thinks Arthur’s leaving him by himself in the middle of an army, Merlin’s eyes flash and he’s lifted off the ground and pushed through the air towards his knights.
He lands surprisingly softly at Leon’s feet, who looks down at him, shocked.
“I’m going to kill him,” Arthur swears. He pushes himself angrily off the ground and blocks a blow aimed at Leon’s back. There are fewer men here—only a handful, really, which Gwaine, Elyan and Leon have under control. “Take Gwaine and Elyan and get out of here. I’ll get that idiot and we’ll find you.”
“Sire-”
“That’s an order, Sir Leon.”
Leon swallows and nods.
Down in the valley, Merlin is chanting loud, hands to the earth once more. Arthur runs towards him, heart racing at the sight of him surrounded. His magic has made him cocky, overconfident like the bandits, and he’s going to get himself killed—
Thick vines burst up from the ground, twisting and frothing, tying down Odin’s men where they stand.
Arthur stops. The other sorcerer roars a spell in retaliation, producing an enormous fireball like he must have sent at Arthur and Merlin before. Arthur watches Merlin’s back as he rises slowly, lets the fireball approach his palm, and then stops it a foot away. He closes his hand into a fist and the fireball shrinks and then swirls out of existence.
Merlin stands alone, holding his own against an army and a powerful sorcerer with ease. And perhaps Arthur could have accepted it, rationalized it, found an explanation for how Merlin acquired such vast power from scratch in the span of a month.
Except then Merlin raises his other hand, intones another spell, and sets the hot air in front of him to twisting into a whirlwind. A tornado that he shoves outward, that sets everyone’s hair whipping into their eyes, that sends the other sorcerer scrambling backwards.
Arthur knows that magic. He saw it years ago, in Ealdor. Where the sorcerer who conjured it died.
Or so he’d thought at the time.
Merlin takes a few jogging steps backwards, then turns to run away properly. He stalls when he sees Arthur and goes ghostly white.
“You-”
Arthur turns on his heels so Merlin doesn’t see his face. “Let’s go.”
The two of them escape in silence, both checking over their shoulders if anyone’s following them. No one does. After a good half hour, Arthur lets them rest. He leans his forehead against a tree and pointedly avoids looking at Merlin.
“How long,” he pants, “does that spell last?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wonderful. Truly exceptional.”
They’re along the very edges of Camelot’s border now. The terrain is mostly unfamiliar to Arthur, and he’s got no indication as to where the knights might have gone.
In the distance, there’s a clap of thunder. Arthur swears.
*****
“Are we going to talk about this?”
The rain sweeps in all at once, a sheet of unforgiving cold. Arthur is drenched to the bone. His boots are soaked through, and he can hear Merlin’s teeth chattering, and he’s angry.
He should have known. His knights couldn’t even get a spark going over three whole days of practice. Merlin would have had to be some prodigy to have mastered so many things in such a short time.
But even if that were somehow true, it wouldn’t matter. Because Will didn’t conjure the tornado in Ealdor. Merlin did. Which means he isn’t exactly a new student of the craft.
“Talk,” Arthur grits out, “about what.”
“I know you’re angry with me.”
“Oh, really?”
Merlin stomps around to face Arthur, forcing him to slow down. “You saw. With Odin’s men.”
“Funnily enough, Merlin, I’m not blind.” Arthur tries to walk around him, but Merlin blocks him.
“You don’t have anything you’d like to say? Nothing?”
“You seemed perfectly happy not to talk to me about this before,” Arthur says icily, “so I’m not sure why we should now.”
“Arthur-”
“How long have you been practicing magic?”
Merlin’s shoulders are hunched; he’s hugging his thin jacket close in the rain. He shivers as he inhales. “I was born with it.”
And there it is.
“So all this time—” Arthur gestures between them— “everything you said about studying, about Gaius teaching you—”
“It was true,” Merlin insists. “Just- not how you thought. Gaius did teach me, he did give me the book, but- it was when I first came to Camelot. My mum sent me away because of it.”
Arthur nods to himself. Clenches then unclenches his fists. “And you never told me.”
Merlin’s expression crumples. “I wanted to. I swear I did, but-”
“Magic was illegal. Good thing I changed that particular law, isn’t it? You’d think, Merlin, that that might’ve been the time to tell me!”
“I was trying to find the right time, and then—you walked in when I was using it in Gaius’s chambers, and I just—didn’t know how. It felt easier, just to leave it at that. I had no idea how to even begin.”
“You made me feel,” Arthur spits, rain splattering on his face, “like a fool.”
There are tears in Merlin’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.
They stare at each other for a few breaths. Arthur hangs his head, lets his wet bangs drip onto the ground.
“We should go,” Arthur says finally, flat. “We have to find the others.”
“I may be of some help with that,” replies a voice that isn’t Merlin’s.
Arthur raises his sword automatically towards the sound and stops it short at the sight of a hooded old man. His lined face rings familiar to Arthur as he lowers the hood and regards them solemnly.
“My name is Iseldir,” he says. “Let me take you to our camp.”
*****
A hush falls over the druid camp when Arthur arrives. The few children who were running around are pulled close to their mothers, who whisper in their ears as they stare openly at him. One older woman has tears in her eyes—she curtsies when Arthur passes and mutters, “Thank you.”
He nods to her, wary of all the eyes on him. Behind him, Merlin remains uncharacteristically quiet.
Iseldir motions for the two of them to join him in his tent.
“I see Emrys has finally seen it fit to reveal himself,” he says, sitting cross-legged on the grass.
Merlin winces as they move to join him. Arthur frowns and asks, “Emrys?”
“That is what we druids call Merlin. His destiny has been written and foretold, as has yours, Arthur Pendragon.”
Arthur rolls his eyes skyward. “Anything else you’d like to get off your chest, there, Merlin? More secret names or unsung powers I should know about?”
“Pretty sure that covers it,” Merlin grumbles, shooting a nasty look at Iseldir. Then he pauses.
“You’re not serious,” Arthur says.
Merlin begins studying the sole of his boot very closely. “I’m also a dragonlord,” he mutters.
Arthur nods. Once, twice, three times, adjusting. “Right. No, of course you are. Why wouldn’t you be?”
Merlin squeezes his eyes shut, pained, and doesn’t reply.
Arthur turns his attention back to Iseldir, trying (and failing) not to let the hundreds of thoughts running through his mind about Merlin distract him.
(He’s a traitor. He doesn’t trust me. He’s a liar. He never trusted me. I loved him, god, I love him, it’s like Morgana all over again—I don’t want to lose him. Maybe I’ve already lost him. Maybe I never had him to begin with. Maybe—)
They’re all rather pathetic, so Arthur wrestles them into a neat box at the back of his head where they continue to shout at him, muffled.
“You said you’d help find our friends.”
“They are here, in the camp. We found them not an hour before you,” Iseldir says. “But, Emrys—we have a favour to ask.”
After a brief reunion with Leon, Gwaine and Elyan, Iseldir takes them to the very edge of the forest, near the border.
The sight makes Arthur’s stomach drop. The plains, once lush and green, are blackened and shrunken, like they’ve been painted with tar, or scorched in blazing fire. There’s not a living thing for miles. Merlin reaches down to touch a leaf, and when it crumbles at his touch, he looks devastated.
“Odin travels with a practitioner of magic of the darkest kind. He hid their battalion successfully, but the price of such power was a steep one,” Iseldir explains sadly. “He drew on the life force of the land, of the plants and trees, every living thing, leaving this in his wake. He set nature out of balance. If anyone can restore it, Emrys, even in some small way… it is you.”
Merlin nods shakily. “I’ll try.”
Members of the druid encampment gather around him, bringing talismans and hanging scraps of fabric where the forest bleeds into the wasteland. They enlist the help of the knights to carry logs for small fires. A couple of children set them alight with a wave of their hands and the knights glare daggers at them.
The old woman who curtsied gets Arthur to tie off one of the lines to the branch of a tree.
“Emrys will put things back to rights,” she says, a hint of reverence in her voice. “He always does.”
Arthur grinds his teeth. “Will he now.”
As he climbs down, the woman gives him a gentle smile. “I know you must be angry with him.”
“Not at all. Merlin is free to do what he pleases.”
That only makes the woman smile wider. “I have read many of the stories, your majesty. They told of the great deeds Emrys would do in your service, the world you would build together. But never could we have expected the devotion with which he would carry them out, the regard he would hold for you.”
Arthur glances over to where Gwaine is ruffling Merlin’s hair. “I don’t understand why he didn’t tell me.”
“That, I cannot explain. But I’ll tell you this instead: Emrys is powerful. He could have done anything, gone anywhere, used his powers for whatever he wished. But he chose to believe in you. And he chose to be your friend, not to fulfill his destiny, but because he cares for you. It has been clear in every story that every druid who has ever met him has told. You are the thing that matters most to Emrys in this world.”
Arthur doesn’t have the faintest clue what to make of that.
Once the area has been prepared with the symbols of the Old Religion, Iseldir bows his head to Merlin, then motions for the rest of them to step back. When Merlin crosses onto the dark earth, Arthur feels suddenly apprehensive, as if the landscape might rise and swallow him up.
Merlin tilts his chin up, lets his eyes droop closed, breathes in, like he’s savoring the wind on his face, like he’s alone enjoying a summer day. Arthur gets the nonsensical urge to run out and join him, to somehow do it for him, despite everyone’s confidence that Merlin will succeed with ease.
Merlin’s eyes open and they’re not just yellow: they’re shining supernaturally bright, like twin stars, as he begins his spell. Arthur can't help but watch with awe as the gold glow spreads from his irises out to fill his eyes and then spills out across his face, down his neck and shoulders and chest, until his entire body is incandescent and blinding. The magic expands further, out from under Merlin’s feet and into the ground until it’s pulsing in ripples across the scarred land.
Slowly, shyly, green sprouts begin to form. They peak up from the darkness with trepidation, fed by Merlin’s light, then stronger, reaching towards the sky. Flowers and vines twirl upwards. A few small trees even struggle from the dirt. It's beautiful, Merlin's magic. Arthur feels suddenly very small in the wake of it.
Everyone around him is gasping at the beauty of it, the way nature is climbing its way back into life. But all Arthur can see is the way Merlin’s shoulders are starting to shake, the way his whole body is swaying back and forth; he can hear his words wavering.
“That’s enough!” Arthur says loudly to Iseldir.
“The ritual is nearly complete,” he answers.
Merlin’s face is pinched with effort. He stumbles over a word in the foreign language, then keeps going.
“Sod this.” Arthur takes a step towards Merlin and is stopped by Iseldir’s hand on his chest. He levels the most kingly look he can manage in response. “Unhand me. I don’t care what funny nicknames you have for him, he’s my servant, and he’s my responsibility.”
Iseldir just quirks an eyebrow and releases him.
Arthur jogs out across the field, now brimming with thick grasses and wildflowers that shine lazily gold as though drunk with the power. When he reaches Merlin, he grips his shoulders tight.
“Merlin. Merlin. It’s done, alright? You’ve done enough.”
Merlin blinks blearily like he’s half-dreaming. “Arthur… can’t. Have to finish. ’S your land. Your kingdom. Have to fix it.”
Arthur’s heart aches. He takes a breath, then moves his hands to cup Merlin’s cheeks. “You’ve fixed plenty. I cannot pretend to know how powerful you are, but—you don’t have anything to prove.”
Merlin leans back, almost child-like. “You’re angry with me.”
Arthur huffs. “Yes. Yes, obviously I’m angry with you. I’m always angry with you. But I don’t need any more flowers, alright? In case it’s escaped your notice, I’m not Morgana. This is not the way to win me over.”
“…you want me to come back with you.”
“Where else am I supposed to find someone to clean my boots?”
“With magic?”
Arthur rolls his eyes. “Whichever way you feel like that day. Although according to these people, it’ll be a slight waste of your talents. Now drop the spell, Merlin. That’s an order.”
The yellow light fades, and Merlin goes slack. Arthur catches him as he slumps forward and carries him back to the group. Gwaine grins cheekily at the bridal style.
“Not a word,” Arthur growls.
*****
Merlin stays groggy the entirety of their trip home. He mumbles some incoherent things about coins and dragons and flowers which Arthur doesn’t have even half the energy to try and parse.
And when Merlin is returned to Gaius’s chambers to rest up, and once reinforcements have been sent to check on the state of Odin’s men, Arthur starts drawing up plans.
Merlin enters quietly the next morning. He sets Arthur’s breakfast tray down on his desk and then frowns when he realizes that Arthur’s already dressed.
“Is… everything alright? Sire?”
“Quite. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.” Arthur motions to the chair. “Sit.”
Merlin raises his eyebrows.
“I said sit, Merlin.”
Merlin walks around the desk to the chair slowly, as though waiting for the moment Arthur will flip a switch and berate him for doing so.
“What is it?” Merlin asks warily.
"You were never just good with flint, were you?"
Merlin breathes in slowly. "No."
Arthur runs his fingertips along the table’s surface and approaches him, so he’s standing on the same side in front of him. “In light of recent events, I’ve been reconsidering your position as my manservant.”
“You’re sacking me?”
“No-”
“That is just ridiculous. I mean, honestly, even for you.”
“Merlin-”
“Perhaps you’ll reconsider when you’ve heard about the hundred things I’ve had to do to save your life, you ungrateful prat-”
“Merlin!” Merlin’s mouth shuts with a clack. “I’m not trying to sack you, you imbecile. I’m trying to promote you.”
Merlin blinks. “You are?”
“Yes. It’s high time we had someone in charge of magical affairs in this castle, especially if we’re to continue to face threats like that from Odin. If you want the position… it’s yours.” Arthur ducks his head, picks at a loose sliver of wood on the table. “But I have also been made aware that being who you are, having the power you have—you could go anywhere, do anything. I want to be clear that if there is… something you desire from the world, outside of Camelot, you are free to pursue it. I would not begrudge you that.”
Merlin’s already shaking his head. He reaches out to still Arthur’s fidgeting by laying his palm over the top of Arthur’s hand.
“There is nowhere I’d rather be than by your side,” Merlin says in that quiet, serious voice he only achieves on very special occasions. The one that sends goosebumps up Arthur’s spine. He looks meaningfully at Arthur. “All that I desire is already here.”
That’s as good a declaration as any as far as Arthur is concerned. “Me too.”
And it’s easier than Arthur could ever have imagined to close the distance between them chastely, gently, falling from one relationship into another as quickly as the kingdom had dissolved into an array of magic. The ease of blooming when one has been under constraints for so long.
“So,” Merlin asks, breathlessly, when they part. “Does this mean I get a seat at the round table?"
And Arthur laughs.