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“How on earth do you royals wear these things for more than a few minutes? They’re so uncomfortable!” Merlin complained as he pulled the too-big crown from the top of his head, setting it down on the table and casting an incredulous look Arthur’s way.
Arthur didn’t answer.
“That was a question for you to answer,” Merlin pressed, with eyebrows raised so high that he worried for a moment they would come off of his forehead. It was then did Arthur react, standing rigidly by the door with his hands clasped behind him. When their eyes met, different shades of blue waged war on each other, but it was clear the victor happened to belong to the one whose fingers were delicately touching the jewels adorned on the golden circlet. Merlin smiled. Arthur scowled.
“Oh, I’m uncertain as to how, for I am but a mere manservant,” Arthur bit out. “But I would imagine it is something you would have to get used to, my Lord.” There was such a saturated amount of acid and sarcasm in his tone that it would be impossible to miss, and Merlin surely caught it. It only made him smile all the more, giving Arthur a taste of how it felt to be on the opposite end of the titles of prince and manservant.
It was Arthur’s fault, anyway. Merlin had no intention of following through with the bet he made at the tavern the other night. They were both drunk, Arthur more so than Merlin, when the prince declared (rather loudly) a challenge to his manservant that he could beat him in a game of dice. Merlin never backed down from challenges, and he was as much above his head in mead as every other man at the Rising Sun. However, it was the declaration that if by some strange and rare occurrence that he lost, Arthur swore he would take over Merlin’s duties for one day, just to see if they were really as hard as Merlin complained about. He hesitated for a moment, and Arthur huffed and called him a coward in that instant, as if Merlin had something to lose in this bet.
Which, he didn’t. This was all on Arthur, and his proverbial striking of a nerve that made Merlin stand and take the bet with an incensed, ‘you’ll regret it’ coming from his lips as he unsteadily grabbed the dice and shook them within his fist. Laughter and cheers erupted as the two of them stared at each other in that instant. Arthur was grinning, Merlin frowning.
And if you asked Merlin, he would swear up and down that magic had nothing to do with Arthur’s loss that night. It was pure dumb luck that replaced their expressions so suddenly as if they had been plastered on the moment the dice landed and it was to Merlin’s favor. He wore this big dumb smile over Arthur’s horrified one, but said nothing. The tavern’s patrons had done all of the shouting and prodding and applause in Merlin’s win over the mighty Prince of Camelot. And Merlin was kind enough to escort his newly acquired manservant back to his chambers to sleep off his drunkenness, the two of them stumbling back into the citadel where Arthur managed to fall into bed. Merlin, however, slumped to the floor right by the bed, and the two of them slept just like that the rest of the night.
This hadn’t been the kind of drunken experience where one forgot everything they did the night before. Arthur had hoped that Merlin would have forgotten when he woke him well into the next day. But when Merlin stood there every bit as hungover as the prince with no breakfast or so much as a jug of water in hand, not to mention that quirk of a grin that never bode well for anyone, he knew very well that the other man’s memory was every bit as lucid as his own. And Merlin was wasting no time in wanting to take a dip into the royal life.
Of course, Merlin couldn’t experience every bit of what it was like to be a prince. There were responsibilities that Arthur had no choice but to accomplish—none of them fun, at that. But as a servant brought breakfast up to Arthur’s chambers and he was picking up the clothes that he had managed to discard in his drunken sleep overnight, Merlin was laying back in bed with his arms behind his head and held an expectant look to Arthur to bring him his meal. Which made Arthur want to strangle Merlin with the pant leg of his trousers in that instant.
Merlin paced about Arthur’s chambers with his arms crossed, a finger touching his chin as he ran down a mental list of all of the tasks that Arthur had to accomplish today. “Right, so Arthur,” he began, wondering if he managed to tense his name as accurately as Arthur tended to whenever he called out his name. He went along with it. “I need you to clean my chambers, wash my clothes, polish my armor—”
“You don’t have any armor to wear. And these are my chambers!” Arthur protested as his hands flew up in a dramatic wave.
“—feed my dogs, muck the horses—”
“My dogs, and dear God I am not mucking the horses,” Arthur grumbled out loudly. Surely this wasn’t how he sounded like when he ordered Merlin around, was it? Merlin stopped and turned to face Arthur with this mocking grin forming on his lips and Arthur couldn’t help but blanch a bit in reaction. He would have likely taken a step back with Merlin’s approach had the door not practically be at his back. Not the mention, there was no way he was going to back away from Merlin, of all people.
“You’re not going to muck the horses? Really? The brave and powerful Arthur Pendragon afraid of a little horse manure now is he?”
Well, that was a kick to the gut. And Arthur was none too amused by it either, as he clenched his fists into balls and narrowed his eyes. “I am not afraid of horse manure, Merlin.”
“What was that again?” Smile.
“Shut up.”
“Hey, you can’t answer your prince like that!” Merlin protested with a hand to his chest, looking indignant. For a moment, Arthur wondered if he really was insulted. But he didn’t back down; if Merlin was going to play the spoiled prince, then he was going to play the role of the insolent manservant.
“Oh, my apologies. Shut up, Sire.”
With that, Arthur whirled around and left his chambers before he did something he regretted. Namely, punching Merlin square in the face.
“You know, if I had actually said that to you, you’d probably have me sent to the stocks.” Merlin said with a bit of an indignant pout on his lips, leaning back against the hay as he watched Arthur shovel horse dung. Arthur was trying not to gag, stopping to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He only looked over to Merlin to shoot a glare at him, and Merlin shrugged a bit, as if saying, ‘you would have!’
“Or I would have made you eat this horse manure,” he muttered in an irritated voice, piling the last of it onto a bucket in order to take it out to discard. Merlin couldn’t help but laugh in that moment, standing and grabbing said bucket, setting it aside in order to reach for the clean stacks of hay to give to the horses. Arthur was filthy at this point, having changed by the stables into something better appropriated for mucking the horses, and he was covered in sweat, dirt, and bits of hay all around. There was probably some manure on him too, but Arthur really didn’t want to think of that after having shoveled so much of it.
Merlin had been rightfully brutal to him whenever he had the chance. It was annoying at first, then frustrating, and at times infuriating. It allowed Arthur perspective, wondering if Merlin was exaggerating just how Arthur treated him and how much work he had to do. His body ached in places he didn’t even think existed. From hanging up clothes to feeding and running with the dogs to mucking these awful stables, he was exhausted. It didn’t help that when he wasn’t fulfilling this bet to Merlin, he was taking care of his actual responsibilities such as working the training grounds, going on patrol, and learning the maps of Camelot’s defenses and being taught the history of this land. He had even dozed off while Geoffrey had been talking to him, and didn’t even notice when the court genealogist ultimately gave up and left a book for Arthur to go over later on.
Arthur was only happy that today wasn’t a day that he went out hunting. He didn’t even want to know what a disaster that would have been, Merlin with a crossbow trying to hunt down animals.
“You forget the part of having to carry all of that precious cargo,” Merlin had no problem in reminding him.
“I was more afraid of you shooting me into a tree,” Arthur retorted.
“Hey, I’m not that bad with a crossbow!”
“After seeing you with a sword, you’ll have to excuse my lack of confidence in what you’re saying Merlin,” Arthur sighed out, tossing aside the gloves that were used to muck the horses earlier. The day was almost over, Arthur having been surprised with how quickly it had passed. From his chambers, he watched the shades of orange and red blend together against the blue skies as an almost purple shade spread amidst the few clouds there. He loved watching the sun set and the day transition into night; it represented the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new to him. And today had certainly been a chapter that Arthur felt he would be going back to occasionally.
By this point, Merlin had stopped the role reversal and Arthur couldn’t have been more thankful. Arthur sat down at one of his seats nearby the fireplace while Merlin started the fire up. He welcomed the warmth of the flames, stretching his arms out to welcome them to his chilled limbs. He was still filthy and required a bath, but before Merlin went to prepare for it, he gestured for him to sit down across from him on the opposite seat. Merlin did so, with an uncertain gaze. He wondered as to whether he might have gone too far with this bet, having pushed the prince more than he should have. All Merlin wanted to do, honestly, was to give Arthur a taste of what it was like being his manservant, and he knew he didn’t even have him to half the tasks that were done on a daily basis.
“So,” Arthur began.
“So…” Merlin echoed, tapping fingers anxiously against the armrests of the chair.
Arthur met Merlin with a steady gaze and an undiscernible expression. He was quiet for a moment, looking to the fire briefly before he eventually spoke. “Do I really treat you like that?” His tone was of genuine curiosity, with a hint of concern and perhaps guilt. It surprised Merlin for a moment, and he opened and closed his mouth as if having an answer and then losing it. His eyes were full of thought, before finally they met with the prince’s gaze. He nodded, subtly, enough for Arthur to notice.
He then added quickly, “Minus throwing things at you, of course. There were some things that I obviously couldn’t make you do. But for the most part, yeah, you treat me just like that.”
“Not exaggerating, either?” Arthur pressed.
“I kind of wish I was,” Merlin huffed with a laugh. “Wouldn’t be so bad, then.”
“Ah,” Arthur replied, falling silent then. He really had no idea, and it had been strange, having it all thrown back in his face for him to experience first-hand. He reflected on what Merlin said, of things that he couldn’t have made the prince do because it was too much of a risk to his image, regardless of the reason behind it. Beforehand, he didn’t think Merlin really had much to do and that he was complaining over such menial things. Surely, it couldn’t have been that much hard work. This was why he had made that bet despite being intoxicated; he really did think that it wasn’t such a big deal.
But then he lost the bet, had woken up today and had done what was likely a fraction of what his manservant did on a daily basis and he was completely worn out. He didn’t even want to imagine how tired he would have been if he had to do it all. It had opened Arthur’s eyes, and those eyes were now looking to Merlin as the other man picked at his nails as if he were expecting a sort of punishment for what he had done.
Arthur really didn’t understand Merlin half the time. Sometimes he was headstrong, fearless and had no trouble fighting the prince with everything he said and did. Then there were other times, such as now, that Merlin looked so timid. Almost afraid, except Arthur really couldn’t chalk it up to Merlin being afraid; it was more Merlin felt bad for the prince for reasons that he wouldn’t explain and Arthur would never know beyond his own curiosities.
“Well, go and prepare my bath, Merlin,” he finally said, standing so that he could undress. “Then, go and give yourself the rest of the evening free.”
Merlin couldn’t stand up faster, ready to bolt out of the room then. At least, until he heard those next words which nearly made him fall over his feet. “Wait…what? The rest of the evening free?” Did Arthur get an early dip into the wine or something? He turned around and raised his eyebrows.
It was then did Arthur grinned and nodded. “Unless…you’d rather work—”
“Nope! Rest of the evening free sounds perfectly fine to me!” Merlin replied with a grin, turning to grab the door in order to exit and prepare Arthur’s bath.
“Oh, Merlin!”
He stopped halfway out the door, and turned his head. “Yeah?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Noted.” The door then shut with a click.