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Arthur is more than a little bit ashamed of her soul mark.
The words winding across her upper thigh are, of course, beautiful. They are deep red and underwater they almost look like they’re moving, like they might wash off. The handwriting is jagged and hurried, abrupt, which Arthur doesn’t much mind. They are just as gorgeous as they are eerie. They look textured but feel no different than her skin, and sometimes, when Arthur touches them, she almost thinks she can hear someone saying them, saying those words, which is ridiculous since Arthur doesn’t even know what the words are.
It isn’t that she can’t read them—although the angle is bad, peeking down at her inner thigh, Arthur is literate, and more than capable. But even if the script is familiar, the words themselves are foreign. Her mark has been there since before Arthur can remember, which means her soulmate is, at most, a few years younger than Arthur, and more likely than that older. The words are very pretty. The words themselves aren’t the problem.
Arthur wouldn’t mind nearly as much if they said something like, “You royal prat,” or, “I’m here to kill you,” or something equally insulting, even if understandable. She’s been kidnapped once or twice, and although the perpetrators tend to get away from her missing a couple limbs, there is much reason for people to insult her. She is a princess and she knows her father has enemies. Arthur really wouldn’t mind if her soulmate lived in Mercia and was plotting her death.
If only it could be so simple. (Her soulmate is probably plotting her death anyway, though.)
Arthur watches the script through the distorted surface of her bathwater and tries to mouth them to herself, even if the words are unintelligible (not that the handwriting is bad, because it isn’t; that’s not the problem). Under the soap-murked water, distorted, it almost looks like the mark is just a stain, spilled wine on the cloth of her skin. She absently rubs her thumb along the edge. Her soulmark doesn’t wash away. The first words she will ever hear out of her soulmate’s mouth are not an insult, nor a compliment, nor civilized words at all.
They are words written in the language of the Old Religion. They are the words to a spell.
Arthur doesn’t know what the spell is or what it does; King Uther has never searched for the meaning of the ancient letters etched into his daughter’s skin and Arthur has honestly never wished to know. They’re Arthur’s greatest shame. She hates those words. Arthur’s soulmark will be said by a sorcerer.
Sorcerers are evil. Arthur’s marked by evil, and it feels like a stain against her skin.
It is and forever will be her greatest indignity, her largest humiliation. She knows it is Uther’s. When she was younger it terrified him. She was all he had then. He didn’t trust her enough to have expectations for her. Now she’s older and she’s proven she isn’t going to drop dead at the next breeze. When he looks at her, sometimes, it’s as though he’s searching her for doubt, searching for what would cause those words to appear, like another mark may appear one day; like one day Arthur will say good morning and the word traitor will be inked into her forehead.
Sometimes (always), this bothers her, but mostly, Arthur likes to pretend the words do not exist.
.
Arthur’s hunting when it happens. She knows it’s coming. The words have been pulsing painfully against her skin for days—weeks, even—and Arthur assumes this means her mark’s match is growing closer. She hasn’t told anyone that. She doesn’t think it would be a good idea. Her words are a spell and meeting her soulmate will doubtlessly be a confrontation. Why worry Father?
There hasn’t been much to see on this particular hunting trip and Arthur knows unless she catches something large, Uther will be unlikely to allow her out alone again, but the stinging is distracting, even more so when Arthur is trying to track and kill a large, wild animal.
(Arthur went on a long, drawn out speech, mainly stressing that the larger the party was, the less game tended to appear, until Uther grew sick of her voice and sent her out by herself. She assumes he was extensively annoyed, since most times he keeps her close. Uther Pendragon has only one heir, and it’s her. This is the only time alone she’s had in years and likely the only time alone she will ever receive unless she catches something worthwhile. Although, knowing Uther, he will suddenly remember her reasoning and send one of his knights out instead, leaving her locked in the castle with nothing to do but destroy straw dummies or sew or something equally lacking.)
She’s wiggling her crossbow on her target, the deer clueless and right there, when she can almost feel the words of magic licking across her face, moving up and down her body. It feels like a touch, like someone is running their hand down her back, and suddenly she feels exposed, naked. Vulnerable.
The spell of sorts is broken when a tree to her left snaps in half like a toothpick and nearly crushes her. It spooks the deer, too, which Arthur is upset about, even if she’s moderately more upset over the tree trunk that’s smashed over her foot when she couldn’t dodge quickly enough.
Anyway, Arthur limps home with nothing to show for her speech but a broken foot and damaged pride. She doesn’t tell Uther about the incident, mostly because she doesn’t want to worry him, partly because she’s embarrassed about the entire ordeal, and, secretly, because Arthur tells herself they weren’t the right words. She can’t pronounce the spell permanently inked across her skin—Arthur can barely even read the letters, to be honest, with the way the words are spread across her inner thigh in script which appears upside down to her eyes, and she doesn’t have the patience for writing it down to look at later—and a small, hidden piece of her wants to deny that they were even spoken. So Arthur doesn’t speak about it, and she tries her best to ignore Uther’s narrowed stare when she gives a shortened, edited version of how her left foot came to be damaged.
.
Arthur really does try to be a person worthy of Camelot’s love and devotion and respect and such, but honestly, being perfect loses its charm after you realize you’re supposed to be perfect all the time. She’s a little bit done with being perfect.
The villagers don’t appreciate it, probably don’t even care how hard Arthur tries for them. They don’t realize how hard it is, not while they skip through the streets and braid flowers through each other’s hair. Arthur wouldn’t be caught dead with flowers in hair, mostly because Uther will kill her if she participates in behaviors similar to those of a regular female person. Uther expects her to alternate between being his son and his daughter on a dime. Arthur’s mother has been long dead and Uther adamantly refuses to take another wife or produce more children, making Arthur his sole heir, despite her gender. She has to hold a sword and have shiny hair. She has to smile pretty and be capable of baring her teeth.
This means Arthur must be a respectable lady of noble birth. This means Arthur must be more skilled with a blade than the knights could dream of. This means Arthur is a daughter and a son, meaning she carries both burdens, and it would be easier if she had five older brothers, or, hell, younger brothers, just so Uther would have someone else to pick at. The pressure is a little bit hard to carry every moment of every day.
Perfection does not come naturally and it is not easy to maintain.
Not that anyone knows of or bothers with her struggle. Arthur’s royalty. She has servants to heat her bath water and she eats meals fit for a king. Who would think to sympathize with her? (Arthur hates to pity herself so, but thinking of it only makes her realize no one else will, which makes it slightly worse, so she attempts to skim past her more victimizing thoughts.)
She knows she’s being overly aggressive and relatively rude, and the knights who follow her around are definitely going to pass on their disapproving stares to her father. But here is a peasant man, looking oh so pleased and smug with himself as he shamelessly examines her body—Arthur is never wearing a dress in public again, not when the residents of Camelot are clearly more interested in what she would look like out of one than what she will do when she is their ruler—and Arthur’s supposed to be beautiful, supposed to be a good polite woman of good breeding and supposed to react to this the way any good polite woman of good breeding would, with a hand over her mouth and a strongly worded reprimand, but Arthur’s a knight, too.
She throws a broom at him, easily snaps the head off of one of her own, and half snarls, “If you want to look, you should do well to prove you deserve it.”
His eyes widen in shock, as though he hadn’t been blatantly—blatantly—blatantly doing something to her, even if Arthur couldn’t find the exact word—staring at her, and he actually has the audacity to say, voice tinged with earnest sincerity Arthur sees straight through, “I would never move against you, My Lady.”
She smiles and there are too many teeth. “If you do not wish to defend yourself, all the better for me,” Arthur says.
Arthur has already swept his feet out from under him and slammed a foot into his face—directly over his eyes so he can’t look up her dress—when she hears a girl’s voice. “Come now, my friend, you’ve had your fun.” Arthur looks up and meets the shockingly blue eyes of a smaller girl with dark hair, braided away from her face, and ears sticking out from her head in ways resembling a pixie. “Leave him alone.”
“Do I know you?” Arthur demands, pointing the stick in the girl’s face because Arthur certainly is not the one in the wrong and this peasant girl has no right to tell Arthur otherwise. How fucking presumptuous of her, of everyone, to think they have a right to control Arthur’s behavior or her thoughts or her wants or her actions.
The girl smiles, a little nervously, and says, “I do not believe so.”
For whatever reason, this makes Arthur angrier.
“Then what do you think you’re doing, calling me your friend?” The way she says it implies Arthur thinks herself better than this common girl, that Arthur believes herself to be above everyone in the street. The peasant girl clearly takes offense.
“I suppose I wouldn’t be friends with such a prat,” the girl spits haughtily, which is slightly laughable but mostly pitiful. Arthur is the master of looking above it all and this girl’s attempts are lacking.
“Don’t speak of things you know nothing of,” Arthur orders darkly and the girl raises herself up, pointedly tilting her head up in challenge.
“Who do you think you are? The king?” The way this girl says it is mocking and Arthur isn’t sure exactly what about her is being made fun of. But Arthur already knows she will never be king, not when she is burdened so with her gender. A woman cannot be King of Camelot and Queen is a worthless, empty title.
This has, naturally, always made her bloody furious.
Arthur smirks. “The second best thing, actually,” Arthur explains, and even though she knows the guards don’t particularly enjoy Arthur’s company, they can’t arrest her, and they’re probably just panting for the chance to arrest someone, so Arthur waves her hand in dismissal and watches the peasant girl be taken away.
“I would give you the same treatment as him,” Arthur calls, kicking at the peasant man’s body and not bothering to watch as he scrambles away from her, “but you look a bit too delicate for that.” The girl scowls, and the look in those sharp blue eyes makes something almost like guilt coil in Arthur’s stomach. It doesn’t matter. Arthur certainly can’t waste thoughts on peasant girls, not when she needs to remove this horrible, disgustingly feminine garment from her person immediately.
Even if the sleeves are quite softer than she’s used to, and the bodice significantly more accommodating, Arthur doesn’t have time to allow herself to become complacent, to be comforted by pretty dresses or sweet perfumes. She already has soulmark sorcerers and all of Camelot to worry about.
Arthur watches the peasant girl’s dark braid swing behind her as she’s pulled toward the dungeons. She stares a moment longer, before catching herself. She shakes her head, turning on her heel and starting back to the citadel, purposely taking a longer route, one which won’t cross paths with the guards.
No.
Arthur has no need for pretty things.
.
Merlin’s never thought much of soulmarks, and now that hers has been confirmed by the heir of Camelot and said heir has done nothing but be cruel, Merlin’s dismissal of soulmarks only feels more validated. She doesn’t think it will be hard to foster the seed of hate she’s developed for Princess Arthur of Camelot. It is significantly easier to follow this train of thought when in the stocks, but Merlin digresses. Privately, Merlin thinks the only reason she hasn’t been hanged for her insolence is because King Uther has decreed it improper for a woman to be strung up. After all, there would be a clear view up her skirt, and no one deserves such shame, especially not when they are, you know, dying.
An over ripe apple smashes directly into Merlin’s forehead, and chunks of fruit dribble over her left eye.
Merlin really, really hates Arthur.
Merlin eventually stops flinching every time someone walks past her, realizing with a start that a lull in fruit torture has begun. She breathes a sigh, half relieved and half horrified of what’s to come, when a woman carrying a laundry basket attempts conversation, a new and welcome prospect.
“It’s quite brave, what you did,” the woman says. Merlin frowns and wrinkles her nose. “To Arthur, I mean.” Arthur. Just the sound of the name sends echoes of hate up Merlin’s spine.
Hatred can be a feeling running down someone’s spine. Shivers can carry emotion. Shut up.
“It seems quite stupid, when I think back on it,” Merlin admits. No one can really think she’s brave when she’s hunched over in the stocks like this, humiliated. The woman laughs easily.
“No one is willing to stand up to our Lady,” the woman explains, brushing a curl from her face. The woman has dark, exotic eyes, almond shaped and softer than Merlin’s used to from Ealdor and hair slightly lighter than Merlin’s own. She is blissfully free of fruit.
“I can’t understand why,” Merlin mutters, glancing around and almost sighing in relief at the lack of fruit. Then she notices a young boy now hefting a cabbage and her heart drops, while a new wave of resentment for Arthur wells up in Merlin’s chest. “She’s a total prat.”
“Arthur isn’t a bad person,” the woman says, words weighted. Merlin glances up at the woman best as possible from her position trapped within the stocks, attempting to convey her disbelief. “Just sheltered,” the woman says. She looks away from Merlin, like she’s a little embarrassed to be trying to defend Arthur. “She takes great offense to things a normal woman would understand, and often…” The woman laughs lightly. “...takes things too far.”
“Is that why she was attacking that man?” Merlin asks. By the time Merlin had walked forward, she’d been simply witnessing a brutally one-sided assault. Pitiful, honestly, even more so with how quick the man was to roll over and take it.
“Yes.” The woman nods. She smiles fondly. “One cannot simply look at Princess Arthur, after all,” the woman says, voice only slightly humorous and almost completely free of any mocking. Merlin is impressed. “Not without the proper written agreements.”
“I’ll have to be careful then,” Merlin says flatly. The woman laughs again. It’s a nice sound.
“My name is Guinevere, but my friends call me Gwen,” Guinevere offers, smiling kindly and shifting the laundry basket in her arms. Merlin smiles back, awkwardly tilting her neck against the stocks.
“I’m Merlin. It’s been very nice talking to you, Guinevere.”
Guinevere’s smile widens. “When I said my friends called me Gwen,” Guinevere reveals, “I was suggesting we be friends, Merlin.”
Merlin gapes, and then she smiles wider. “Then it has been simply a pleasure meeting you, Gwen.”
The rest of the day is spent getting pelted with rotting produce, so all in all Merlin considers it a success.
.
Merlin sighs, blocking out most of the ramble spilling from Gaius’s mouth. “For Lady Helen…” Merlin isn’t sure how yellowing jam will help Lady Helen, but it isn’t her job to ask questions. Even so, that looks absolutely disgusting. “...Lady Morgana…” Perhaps it is not meant to be consumed, and instead should be spread across some kind of axe wound? Merlin contemplates this as Gaius continues to speak. “...mares…” Wait, were they speaking of horses? Hmm. It doesn’t appear relevant either way. “Owain...blind...at once!” Gaius stresses. Merlin nods distractedly.
“Understood,” she confirms lazily, picking a stray piece of rotting apple from her hair. It seems not all of it had been washed out, and Merlin’s nose wrinkles in disgust. She grumbles to herself and flicks the fruit from her finger.
“Are you even listening, Merlin?” Gaius asks, exasperated, and Merlin nods absently.
“Of course I am,” she says, and it is about as believable as if she were telling him her hair was purple. He stares at her and Merlin barely contains a wince (for the Triple Goddess’s sake, must he do that with his eyebrow?). Merlin feigns hurt. “Who do you take me for, Gaius?” Gaius’s expression does not change, and Merlin’s sours. “Point taken,” she mutters, looking away from him (the eyebrow). “Thanks for having such faith in me, Gaius.”
Gaius shrugs unapologetically. Merlin huffs, taking the two offered vials from Gaius’s hand. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just go off and do your bidding now,” she told him, only partly sarcastic.
“That is your job,” Gaius agrees, and Merlin scowls.
“Shut up,” she grouches halfheartedly, and Gaius laughs.
“Remember, Sir Owain is blind!” Gaius calls after her, and Merlin waves a hand dismissively.
“Yes, yes,” she murmurs, but she’s already forgotten, so it doesn’t matter much anyway.
Sweeping out the door and disappearing inside the castle, Merlin’s still huffing to herself in annoyance. “Excuse me,” she starts towards the guards stationed at the end of the corridor, masking her irritation with demure calm, “where could I find the Lady Helen?”
One of the guards just looks at her blankly. The other raises an eyebrow, looking her up and down. Maybe surprised at being addressed by a lowly commoner. The two men share a look.
Merlin lifts the pale yellow jam from her satchel, wincing only a little and forcing an accidentally meek smile. “Compliments of Gaius?” she tries. The guard on the left just keeps staring blankly at her, while the guard on the right makes an unattractive face.
Her smile wavers. This is going to be a long day.
“What do you want with Lady Helen?” the one on the right asks, sounding suspicious. “Is that…” He gasps, rather theatrically, Merlin decides. She hadn’t been informed Camelot’s guards were so dramatic. “...poison?”
Realization lights the guard on the left’s eyes. “You wish to poison Lady Helen?” he demands, sounding scandalized. “Wait... Compliments of Gaius? Are you trying to frame Gaius for murder?”
“How dare you!” the guard on the right cries, ignoring Merlin’s frantic head shakes of denial. “And when she’s finally in position to sing before the King, even!”
“It’s medicine!” Merlin insists, mouth curling at each accusation. “For…” What had Gaius said again? “For her...um…” What did that guard say again? “...singing!”
“Hmm…” Guard on the left massages his chin, deep in thought. He stares hard at the rotten looking goo held within the tube in Merlin’s hand. “That looks pretty disgusting…”
“Is she really supposed to drink that?” Guard on the right demands. “You expect Lady Helen to consume such a horrifying mixture?”
“Of course not!” Merlin hastily denies. “She’s to, erm, rub it on her throat. Works wonders. Really. Honest. A true miracle in action.”
Guard on the left appears sold, although guard on the right still seems a little unsure and strangely self-righteous. “If it’s from Gaius…” Even though he doesn’t seem completely positive, guard on the right nods along with guard on the left.
“Then I guess it’s alright,” guard on the left decides.
“Great!” Merlin chirps. She tucks the vial back inside her satchel. “So, point me to Lady Helen, if you please?”
Guard on the left shrugs. “Somewhere in the left side of the castle, I think.”
Guard on the right frowns. “No, I think she was rooming closer to Lady Morgana’s quarters.”
“But I thought Lady Morgana’s chambers were on the left?”
Both guards pause, ’hmm’ing in thought. Merlin can’t stop herself from slapping the palm of her hand to her forehead.
This is going to be a long, long day.
.
Arthur doesn’t much act like a princess.
Oh, she does when it’s ordered of her. When kings from faraway places visit and knights crawl out of the woodwork to examine the citadel, Arthur is the perfect princess. She smiles at just the right time and demurely offers a hand before anything gets out of hand and it isn’t hard. She has a servant make her hair neat and then she says what she’s been taught to say.
But if she were to anonymously ask everyone in Camelot, no one would say they have a princess. They have Arthur, and it is most definitely not the same thing. The dignitaries see a wellborn girl with a delicate personality and a strange fondness for glittering metals. Camelot sees ruggedly, hurried braids; messy high ponytails; boots and armor clinking together as she returns with the hunting party. They see her sword before they see her pretty face, if they see her face at all, and when they do see her face, Arthur’s so angry about it no one really gets to take a good look.
There is only one royal child of Camelot. There will only ever be one. It’s Arthur.
.
Arthur and Morgana used to be like sisters. They used to do everything together, from sleeping to sewing to eating to exploring. They were always together, and always doing the same thing. At first, Uther likely found this endearing, before it began to strike the wrong cord in him. Arthur suspects Uther was still a little unsure of if she was his daughter or his son, and either way, an heir doesn’t have time to play, so Arthur was stolen from Morgana in favor of learning swordplay and dignity.
“People want to hurt me,” Arthur had explained solemnly to Morgana. “So I must learn how to protect myself.”
Morgana said, matter of fact, “I’ll learn, too, and then I can protect you.”
The exchange prophesied their entire relationship. Except, then Morgana had Gwen, and she didn’t much need to have Arthur as a sister, not when she had Gwen. Morgana and Gwen have an amazing closeness, and it isn’t that Arthur is excluded on purpose. It’s a puzzle, see, and Arthur doesn’t fit.
Which, you know, Arthur has always said was okay. She misses Morgana, but Arthur wants to have her own maidservant, her own closeness. After the first three, Arthur simply refused to have one. She could dress herself, and really, she’d much rather clean her own quarters than have to deal with Bridget or Caroline or any of them ever again.
There is also the problem of her soulmark. Arthur can’t allow anyone to see it. Even when she and Morgana were close, Arthur lied about it, told Morgana it was in an embarrassing place, and that it only said, "Let me help you with that." Morgana, of course, babbled for quite some time about how many different romantic situations those words could fit into, and Arthur had smiled weakly and nodded along.
Now that she has a maidservant, Arthur isn’t much sure what to do with her. Merlin does everything she’s supposed to—washes the armor and makes the bed and brings up breakfast and all that—but there isn’t anything like what Gwen and Morgana have. That’s probably to be expected.
“What does your soulmark say, Merlin?” Arthur asks once, stung by the need to know, by the way her own mark itches on her thigh. Merlin pauses in the doorway, the dinner meal tray still in her arms.
“None of your business, prat,” Merlin says, nose turned up in exaggerated offense. Arthur doesn’t ask again. There’s nothing between them like what Morgana and Gwen have. Despite herself, it aches. But it doesn’t matter. Merlin doesn’t like Arthur.
Or, well: that’s what Arthur thought, anyway, until Merlin goes and tries to die for her.
.
Arthur hates her soulmark, hates it with a passion, partly because her life is screwed because of it and mostly because it seems intent on ruining her life. Every time something important is afoot and Arthur needs to focus because hello the words across her skin decide it is a perfectly suitable time to explode with burning pain. It feels like her left leg is on fire.
Arthur knows Father has likely sent someone after her by now and she knows Merlin is, ’ya know, dying, but Arthur only feels slightly guilty when she rips back her armor and her chainmail and pulls her trouser leg open aggressively and jumps into the river, still weighed heavily by her armor. Arthur’s eyes very nearly roll back at the feeling of relief and she breathes a deep sigh. The flower is tucked safely into Arthur’s shirt, hidden beneath the bandages binding her breasts. Hopefully it won’t be damaged too badly by the trip home. Arthur pulls at the torn cloth of her pant leg, examining the bandages wrapped tightly around her thigh. They act only as a visual barrier to hide her soulmark; they’ve never been required to serve a health related purpose.
The white bandages are stained with dirt and...blood.
Arthur slices through the remaining barrier and barely keeps from recoiling. The words are leaking blood, like an open wound, and when she pokes at it gently, tentatively, she barely manages to contain a scream. What comes out is a choked hiss and Arthur furiously blinks back tears.
It gets worse.
A voice Arthur doesn’t recognize whispers words in a language she doesn’t understand and then Arthur’s biting her tongue to keep from screaming as she ducks into roll and barely avoids being smashed by a now-capable-of-flying boulder. A woman walks forward, head tilted sideways, and Arthur snarls, “Do I know you?” because really, at this point, Arthur’s only friend is dying, her soulmark is bleeding, and please, can’t the world just stop?
“I suppose you wouldn’t,” the woman admits and Arthur clenches her fists. Arthur sort of wants to cry, but crown prince(sse)s do not cry so Arthur bites her tongue harder, so hard she could taste blood. “What’s that?” The woman leaned closer and when Arthur tries to recoil, she realizes she can’t move. Arthur feels like her eyes are impossibly wide compared to the woman’s calm, scrutinizing stare.
The woman speaks.
The words make the air feel tight with static, with magic.
Arthur mouths them, but can’t understand them, and the woman pulls a glove from her left hand. The woman examines her wrist and as she’s pulling the glove back on, Arthur catches a glimpse of the words written there.
In handwriting eerily similar to Arthur’s own, she can catch Do I and a question mark. It’s all she can glimpse before the cloth slides back down over the woman’s wrist. When the woman looks at her again, her eyes are so blue Arthur thinks they could be made from crystal rather than flesh.
Do I know you?
Arthur thinks her blood has turned to ice. This woman isn’t her soulmate. She can’t be. The thought of it makes Arthur want to retch. It isn’t right. It isn’t right—but when has magic ever been?
“Go,” the woman dismisses suddenly, waving her hand.
“You…” Arthur swallows. “You aren’t going to kill me?”
The woman smiles, and this time, Arthur flinches. “It is not my place to kill you, Arthur Pendragon,” she says, not unkindly. “If you do survive this, tell your father I still live, and that I am coming for him.”
Strangely breathless, Arthur asks, “Who should I tell him lives?”
The woman laughs. It isn't like when Merlin laughs. It isn't like when Morgana laughs. The woman laughs, but it makes Arthur feel cold. “Nimueh,” she says, and the name feels like a physical hit, like Arthur’s been stabbed. “My name is Nimueh.”
Moments after Nimueh leaves, Arthur realizes there’s a long cut curving from the soft flesh under her hip to her ribs. Her soulmark has been bleeding, too, and her entire left leg looks bathed in browning, drying blood. Arthur can’t find the words her soulmate will say, not under the dry, caked blood and the small gushes of wet red. Arthur can’t even feel the pain.
For the first time in her life, Arthur is purely and genuinely terrified.
.
Arthur’s having some trouble seeing straight when the guards corner her. They aren’t on horses or anything, but there are a lot of them, and her own horse reels at the sight of them. The flowers tucked against her chest feel unbelievably heavy.
“I’m sorry, Arthur,” the guard closest to her says. She knows him—Brunor. He had been the first to teach her how to hold a sword properly. “King Uther demands we collect you. Get off the horse.”
Arthur thinks for a moment.
“No,” she says, and she has just enough time to see the shock—and something else, too, something that isn’t exactly civility and something she isn’t sure how to recognize—in their eyes before she kicks lightly at her horse’s flank and runs. Her leg protests at the movement. Arthur clings a little bit tighter to the horse, falling forward a little, clutching tight at the reins. Her head spins with each step. The horse whines as it slows to a stop in front of the castle, and it’s only when she forces herself off of it does Arthur realizes she’s stained the animal’s side and saddle red.
Arthur half limps past the guards, who stare at her but don’t stop her, and then Arthur forces open the door, limping only a little, and gently sets the flowers down on Gaius’s table. Gaius glances up, his eyes widen, and Arthur very carefully lowers herself to the floor beside Merlin’s cot. There’s no chair, so she settles there and tries to keep from yelping in pain as she lays her head against the side of the cot and reaches for Merlin’s hand. She squeezes it lightly, and Merlin makes a small noise.
“Fix her,” Arthur orders. Merlin looks awful—there’s sweat streaking over her face, her hair wet from it. Gaius reaches for Arthur, probably to pull her away or tell her Uther is looking for her. Another burst of pain flares up in Arthur’s leg, so instead of allowing it, Arthur snarls, upper lip curling, “Fix her.” Gaius mutters to himself across the room but Arthur ignores him in favor of closing her eyes. She is so, so tired.
Do I know you?
Gaius puts his hand on her shoulder and she shakes him off roughly. When he speaks, it’s with a ridiculously gentle tone, as though Arthur is a wild animal in needed of calming. “Arthur, you must—”
“You will not tell me what I must do,” Arthur interrupts sharply, curtly. No one other than her father has the power to give Arthur orders, and her pride won’t accept it from Gaius. Her pulse pounds in her ears. Arthur bites harshly on her own tongue to quiet her pained whimpers. Inhale. Exhale. “Now do as I say.” Gaius reaches forward, hand going towards her shoulder, likely in another attempt to force her from her spot at Merlin’s bedside, but Arthur bites at him, teeth clicking shut just after he reflexively pulls his fingers away. He turns away, starts grinding something at the table behind him.
My name is Nimueh.
A place in Arthur’s chest where she thinks her heart should be burns.
Do I know you?
After what must’ve been at least a hundred years, Gaius says, “I think this should work,” and Arthur blearily forces herself to her feet.
Merlin makes a small noise of discontentment when Arthur pulls their hands apart, and Arthur murmurs, more to herself than Gaius, “It damn well better.”
.
Merlin feels like she’s dying.
“...isn’t waking up. Why...waking up?” Something soft brushes against Merlin’s forehead and she chokes back a moan. There’s a feeling in her chest; a tight feeling, and Merlin finds she can’t breathe right. Her lungs stutter in her chest. She can’t inhale past the thickness in her throat. She blinks her eyes and meets Arthur’s and something on her back feels ridiculously warm.
“Thank god,” Arthur whispers, leaning over Merlin. Her blonde hair is hanging in damp tendrils around her face, sometimes flicking against Merlin’s cheek. Merlin sits up, slowly, and Arthur shifts backwards, so they don’t touch.
“Arthur?”
Merlin’s face feels clammy and Arthur leans forward, resting her forehead against Merlin’s. “I’m so glad,” Arthur murmurs, voice raspy. Arthur slips, face falling against Merlin’s shoulder, and Merlin wraps an arm around the other girl by instinct. Over Arthur’s head, Merlin meets Gaius’s eyes and raises an eyebrow.
Wait.
Merlin looks down.
Arthur’s side is caked with blood.
“Arthur!” Merlin cries, pushing her away and holding her by her shoulders. Her hands feel clammy, her chest gone tight again. Arthur’s eyes slip closed, head lolling back, and Merlin presses one hand to Arthur’s cheek in an attempt to keep her sitting up correctly. Arthur makes a weak noise of pain, nuzzling into Merlin’s hand, barely half-conscious and equally half-delusional.
“Gaius,” Merlin manages, still pushing at Arthur uselessly, “what happened?”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to vacate that bed, Merlin,” he says tiredly.
.
It’s so strange, to look at another girl this way, because it doesn’t count. A woman isn’t an option, not for her and not for any other of her standing, because she’s a noble and she must marry and birth heirs and it’s so, so strange because it isn’t real, it’s never real.
There are, of course, fantasies and stories and rumors spreading through giggles over the castle and over the kingdom and over the world of brothels and sheets and a woman and a man and a woman and, of course, the women kiss, once or twice, whilst under the man’s supervision, but it isn’t real. They do it purely to please him and Arthur imagines they pretend the other is a man during and after.
It isn’t real. That is not a relationship base and it never will be.
Arthur’s never thought much about it before. It’s below her. She’s Arthur Pendragon. What’s servant gossip to her? But the more she thinks about it, the more abruptly horrifying it is to her, how this works. If her soulmate is Nimueh, no matter how sickening the idea may be, at least that would be justifiable. A horrid witch, twisted by magic, partly responsible for the Queen of Camelot’s death—being a woman only confirms the horror of it all, the disgust Arthur’s soulmark has always garnered. It feels wrong. It can’t be Nimueh. But that could be only wishful thinking. Why else did she let Arthur live?
Arthur’s always been ashamed of her soulmark, but she’s never thought until now it could taint her. And it must be tainting her—that’s the only reason Arthur could look at a woman and think this way. A woman can’t love another woman, but Arthur feels so disgustingly at peace, with some strange film of bliss over her eyes, all stemming and growing from something dumb as a woman accepting her, wanting her around, smiling at her.
Merlin accepts Arthur’s existence, doesn’t protest it. This is enough and it shouldn’t be.
See, Merlin is kind and wonderful and not always likable, exactly, but Arthur knows why Merlin does the things she shouldn’t do and who Merlin is and where she’s coming from and somehow this makes it better makes it more okay because the less excitable qualities are a part of her and nothing about Merlin could possibly be something Arthur doesn’t love. Everything about Merlin is something Arthur loves. It creeped up on her—somewhere between Merlin almost dying and the teasing Arthur loves to give her when Merlin slips and falls over during their daily sword lessons—somewhere behind a smile Arthur thought looked like a secret and a hand lingering on her own—it’s snuck up.
Arthur hates it. It isn’t real. It never will be. Merlin sees nothing where Arthur is imagining everything. There’s no future in it. Uther is preparing to sell Arthur to the highest bidder, to the most beneficial trade. Arthur could never endanger her people. She’s a woman and so cannot be king, but she’s a woman, and when the machine works correctly, it hunts and sews and smiles and shuffles around following orders and thinking of nothing.
When she isn’t working correctly, when she can’t manage it, Arthur follows Merlin around the castle and tries to think of anything but the way she wants to cry.
It isn’t as though Arthur plans to act on it. She won’t. In the same way Arthur would never endanger her people, she would never endanger the fragile line connecting her to Merlin. Sometimes and often and all the time Merlin is the only one willing to be on Arthur’s side. With each passing day, each passing almost-assassination on Arthur’s life and each following execution, Arthur clings to the line between her and Merlin more and more. Morgana has never been further from Arthur and Guinevere is just an empty, hollow face Arthur often sees and no one wants anything from Arthur except what they could steal from her (her dignity her clothing her life her pride her sword her future her happiness her throne her money her power and even maybe sometimes far too often Merlin because for some reason everyone wants Merlin dead or coveted or who the hell knows what).
Today the machine is not working, and Arthur trails behind Merlin during the deliveries the girl runs for Gaius. “I’ve no idea what this does,” Merlin shares, shaking a suspicious looking vial. The bile colored liquid inside barely swishes with the moment, sticking to the glass side like mud. “And I would never drink it.” Arthur makes a noise of agreement, nose wrinkling at the thought, and Merlin’s eyes catch. She whirls on Arthur. “Would you?” She brandishes the vial like a weapon and Arthur backsteps, sputtering refusals. “Drink it,” Merlin cries, shoving it in Arthur’s face.
“I would never!” Arthur defends, playing along, leaping back like Merlin’s an assassin and not Merlin. Merlin laughs and Arthur watches her and tries to think of anything but that there is nothing Arthur wants to do except cry.