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All things considered, Leon had no idea how he made it back to Camelot alive. Primarily because of the dragon, of course- He was sure that the blow the beast had dealt him was fatal, gurgulling something metalic as his vision faded out. He was sure.
He was wrong. Hallucinating, even- a product of the dragon's smog, almost impossible to avoid amid the burning hill. When he next blinked his eyes open he felt sore from falling to the ground, but little else. No cut from his hips up to his ribs, no clogging in his lungs he couldn't breathe through. Only the cloud of smoke atop him, thick even in the open clearing, and the monstrously guttural sounds of the dragon not far off.
Leon decides that his collapse had been a blessing in disguise, bringing him close enough to the ground to clear his lungs of the poisonous, probably magical smoke, and kept his position as low to the ground as he could as he crawled back to the-
Well. He was thinking back to the battle, but there wasn't much of one to return to. His fellow knights lay scattered across the clearing, some only visible as their chain-mail reflected the infernal flames near them, others consumed by said fires and writhing for an escape made impossible by their molten armour. in the middle of the clearing stood two figures, both silhouetted by the flames that laid too far away to provide detail. It barely mattered. One was the unmistakable form of the Dragon itself, and the other-
The other, was a man that the dragon bowed to.
Leon tries to understand what they're saying, as he crawls closer, but it's useless. They don't speak in the hissing cadence of The Old Tongue, but the words are undeniable magical anyway. They echo off the trees and make use of inhuman growls and grumbles that would tear any man's throat to shreds. Not a man then, of course not. Before him- barely a few meters away now- stood a sorcerer with command over a dragon.
Unable to do anything else, Leon tries to come up with some sort of plan. He spots the prince, lying prone at the dragons feet, and hopes against hope that he somehow isn't dead. If he can....distract the sorcerer, maybe, lead him to give chase away from Camelot? It would barely buy anyone time though, with how easily the dragon or sorcerer could dispose of him. He likely wouldn't even make it out of the clearing- And that was all assuming there was anyone alive to attempt to recoup.
He'd never felt more useless then he did here, desperately casting about for anything he could do, if not to save his own life then even just one of his knightly brothers or, please God please, Prince Arthur. The sorcerer and dragon had gone silent, and Leon's stomach turns in horror as the dragon lifts its wings and flies off-
...But, not towards Camelot. In fact, it heads the opposite direction, moving so quickly that the beat of its wings goes silent after only a few minutes, and then it's gone, leaving only the sorcerer in the clearing.
Leon knows how to vanquish sorcerers. He's rather practiced in the craft. Silent in his approach and sure in his stroke, he pushes his sword between two ribs and forward through his heart. It wasn't an honorable attack, but neither was the dragon's reign of terror. The sorcerer gasps, twisting to face him, and it's still too dark to see but he feels dread and recognition stirring in the back of his mind-
"Sir Leon?" The sorcerer- Merlin- choked out, flinching away and then whimpering as the sword slid against his guts and he fell over, unable to support himself. Leon dropped the sword and fell to his knees beside the wounded servant, but flinched back instead of helping the sorcerer.
"Merlin." He breathed, knightly duty to protect stuck between the defensive and offensive. The king had always insisted that anyone could be a secret sorcerer and that, as defenders of the realm, they must remain constantly vigilant. Still, Leon never would have imagined....
"Oh- shit. Oh no, no-" Merlin mumbled, trailing off as his eyelids fluttered closed and his breath stilled.
"How could you?" Leon demanded, though he knew the boy was far gone to respond. "You- You betrayed Camelot, you led Prince Arthur-" Leon stopped short, scrambling to his feet. "Arthur."
Where was the prince? Was he- he had to be alive. God, how was he going to explain-
"What- what happened?" A familiar voice demanded, struggling to sit up. Leon rushed to Prince Arthur's side.
"The threat has been dealt with." He said. He couldn't find a way to voice exactly how he had dealt with it.
"He's gone?" The prince asked, squinting at the sky skeptically.
"He is." Leon nodded, and tried to imagine the dragon's dreaded snout instead of Merlin's horrified face. "Camelot is safe."
--
The prince wasn't injured, in the attack, but he was exhausted. Leon got an entire sleepless night to contemplate what he would tell the prince, once the inevitable confrontation came. Maybe not everyone had accepted it yet, but it was pretty impossible to miss the closeness shared by the prince and his manservant. Leon knew, better then almost anyone, how devastated Arthur would be at the death of his friend.
(Arthur was Merlin's friend, even if he was terrible at admitting or showing such things. Even if Merlin, the sorcerous snake, wasn't Arthur's.)
It was plain to see that the sorcerer had been killed by a sword, rather then burned or batted aside like the dragon's other victims; the prince would know one of his knights was responsible. Leon would confess, of course- the prince wouldn't be content until he had justice- or, at least, until he knew that he didn't need justice. Not for a man in league with the great dragon. A man who had betrayed Camelot in the worst ways possible, a man who-
A man who had saved the prince's life, time and again. A man who had trailed after them on patrols and hunts and even quests, making even the most tedious times bearable with his antics and banter. A man who had saved the king's life, twice- a man who Leon had trusted the word of, to let him do so.
....A man who, in the darkness of his own chamber, still smelling of smoke from the battle, Leon couldn't help but mourn.
--
A man who, come morning training, was whining as Arthur forced him to sit on the side and polish armour.
"Do you have any idea how hard scorch marks are to clean off iron?" Merlin demanded, rubbing the plate in his lap with a washcloth, "Because I sure don't! I'm not even sure you can!"
"You? Not knowing how to do your job?" Arthur laughed, "Will wonders ever cease?"
"Oi! I can do my job just fine, thank you very much." Merlin protested, polishing becoming more aggressive but no more effective. He looked up to glare at Arthur, a familiar and playful expression that now sent a shiver down his spine.
Especially when Merlin's eye caught his, and his frown solidified into something more authentically scornful, before dropping firmly back to the armour.
--
Leon is wise enough not to confront a sorcerer that can command dragons in front of the prince that favors and trusts the treacherous snake. He proceeds with training as usual, with the addition of herding everyone he could away from the 'servant'- especially Arthur, though that proved a bit fruitless. No matter what they were doing, Arthur seemed to always draw himself back to Merlin to make some quip or insult or demand before returning to practice. Before Leon would watch such behavior with fondness, and maybe even traces of relief that Arthur had such a loyal and close friend, even if they couldn't say so in as many words. Now he watched, and couldn't help but wonder if the air comradirie was induced by an enchantment of some kind.
(Though, in the back of his mind, he couldn't quite beleive it. It was a relationship he had watched develop slowly over nearly three years, at this point, and while their closeness gave Merlin a bit of sway with the prince, it wasn't enough for Arthur to just agree with him on everything. It was about enough for Arthur to disagree on pricipal, just to deny Merlin the satisfaction of being right, even on the occasions he was.)
After training, though, he heads straight for the royal dining room. Arthur has sent Merlin down to the blacksmith to commission a new set of armor, and the king often takes lunch alone now that Morgana is gone and Arthur is keeping himself busier then ever. He'll simply request an audience, and-
He stumbles, tripping over his own feet and hitting his head against a sconce. He straightens up and looks around, eyes passing over a startled servant girl and landing on-
"Sir Leon!" Merlin gasped, stepping up to him with big worried eyes that a part of him wanted to smile and reassure, even while the rest of him was resisting the urge to stumble back. "That was a nasty fall. Are you feeling alright?" He asked. He didn't wait for before reaching forward to grab Leon's arm. Leon flinched back hard, knocking into the wall (though, thankfully, not the sconce), and tried to grasp for a plan through the ringing in his ears and blood quickly clouding his eye. "Sir Leon? Oh, I'd better get you to Gaius. Honestly, after what happened last night I doubt any of you should be back in training. Arthur being bullheaded enough to push through exhaustion shouldn't mean the rest of you don't get a well deserved break, right? It reminds me a bit of how he-" Merlin rambled, talking his ear off all the way up the stairs to Gaius's tower. Leon stumbled out of his grasp about halfway up the stairs, only to be caught again by the sorcerer when he nearly fell down them. By the time the ground was finally even under him and his head was clear enough to think, he was sitting on a cot in Gaius's chambers with no Gaius in sight.
He felt a wave of dizziness and nauseous, but was sure it had little to do with the head wound.
"What do you want?" He hissed, squeezing his eyes shut against the light filtering through the window.
Merlin blinked. "To treat your concussion? Sir Leon, your pupils are as wide as an excited kitten." Merlin said, placing an empty bowl in his lap. Leon tries to glare at him, but struggles to tell the man apart from the nearby desk.
"I mean with the Prince. What do you want with Arthur?" Leon managed to mumble out a complete thought, trying to stay focused. He shouldn't.....He shouldn't be confronting Merlin by himself, that obviously didn't work last time, but he couldn't stop the accusation from falling out of his mouth.
"I want him safe." Merlin said, leaving no room for argument. The light dimmed in the room enough that Leon made another attempt at opening his eyes, Merlin standing by the curtains he had just untied. "It's all I've ever wanted. I would've thought you'd notice, by now."
"Safe like he was at the mercy of your dragon?" Leon tried to scoff, landing more towards a mumble.
"That's rich coming from you. Do you have any idea how rash it was to try and kill me last night?" Merlin hissed. He seemed to be shaking though, quite honestly, Leon's vision was notably unreliable at the moment. Though at least one of them was having memory issues because there was no trying on his part the night before; he had watched the breathe fade from the servant's body. He was dead. "I had just convinced Kilgharrah to leave! If I had actually died then what was your great plan?"
Leon scowled, but couldn't think of much to say. Couldn't think much at all. Was honestly impressed with himself for still following the conversation. "Good God, you named the beast?"
"Really? Does that really matter right now?" Merlin nearly growled.
"I-"
"No." Merlin shook his head, standing directly in front of Leon, unsettlingly still for the flighty man. "No, it doesn't matter. What matters is that if you tell anyone, then I will be killed. And if I, the only thing standing between Camelot and a very vengeful dragon, am killed, then Camelot will-" He faltered, taking a deep breathe and speaking so lowly that Leon felt his stomach twist (though he supposed, again, it could still just be the head injury) "-Camelot will be left nothing but a black glass floor before Arthur's reign even begins, and there will be nothing I can do about it. Can you at least understand that?"
Leon swallowed thickly and nodded, sending his vision swimming and his disorientated body following suit as he fell limp-
Merlin made a worried noise and managed to catch him before he tumbled off the cot, laying him down properly this time and fussing about with his usual lack of grace. All traces of intimidation, uncertainty, and even the underlying anger were wiped away in an instant, as Merlin bustled about trying to remember any of Gaius's teachings and Leon wondered helplessly what the hell he was meant to do, now. Surely he couldn't just do nothing?
--
(He does nothing.
He does nothing when he wakes up from a kingdom wide sleeping curse to find Lady Morgana kidnapped by an evil witch and Merlin with an unsettled coldness in his eyes that Leon shakily thinks he remembers being directed at himself, once or twice.
He does nothing when the Lady returns with a clear disdain and distrust of the sorcerrer in their midst. He thinks about confiding in her, but...There's something cold in her eyes, too, and he doesn't think it worth the risk.
He does nothing when new knights keep joining Arthurs rank, each one more fond of Merlin then the last. It turns his stomach when he considers the implications, but what could he say without sounding mad?
He does nothing when Mordred joins, although he feels a quiet kinship with the young man who seems to instinctively regard Merlin with respect and wariness in equal measures.
He does nothing, until one day he finds a box under Merlin's bed while doing a routine search (though not one technically sanctioned by the king; still, no one had stopped him yet, and someone had to know if Merlin was finally being corrupted by dark magic) and finding a gruesome and giant slug that seems to have no apparent interest in him. He slays it with ease, then drags Merlin out of the tavern he was gambling with the prince in to confront him.
He does nothing until he changes fate with the single stroke of his sword, and finally considers that maybe, maybe, Merlin is worthy of the trust Arthur places in him, even witht he accompanying secrecy.)