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“Don’t forget to extinguish the candles before you leave, Merlin!”
“There are literally only three candles lit, and they are closer to you than me. With all the other work you have shoved on my shoulders, I think you should be able to complete this one task.” Merlin snarked back. Arthur had demanded on a hunting trip earlier that day, and guess what, they got attacked. What a surprise. It’s only like that happened every time they left Camelot borders.
“It’s your job.” Merlin almost wasn’t able to understand Arthur since his face was smushed directly into one of his many, fluffy, pillows. Merlin would have done anything to switch places with him at the moment.
“And yours is apparently to drag me into battles that could have easily been avoided.” The servant commented as he gathered all of Arthur’s bloodied and mud stained clothes into a basket.
“Oh do shut up and let me sleep,” Arthur waved a hand in the general area he assumed Merlin was in—he was completely wrong—and snuggled deeper into the covers. Merlin just sighed in response and continued to clean up him room; he did it silently though, not wanting to disturb his friend.
The cleanup took much longer than Merlin had expected or wanted. Every time he gathered up something strewn across the room he would notice something else that he had to deal with. This was honestly the second reason Merlin hated hunting trips. While Arthur got to lounge in bed afterwards, Merlin was stuck cleaning up his messes.
“The next time Arthur forces me to go on one of these trips I’m helping whoever attacks us.” Merlin whispered under his breath. He didn’t whisper quietly enough, however, and out of the corner of his eye Merlin noticed Arthur begin to stir. The servant froze, he knew if he alerted Arthur of his presence he would have a pillow thrown at him which he would then have to clean. Merlin was nothing if not determined to get out of every chore he could.
“Why are the candles still lit?” Arthur groaned to himself. “Can Merlin not even complete a task as simple as this?”
Merlin opened his mouth to refute the statement, pillow be damned, but Arthur moved before he could get a word out. With a wave of his hand, Arthur extinguished all of the candles.
…that was magic. Merlin stared at his king, his king who had just used magic, in pure shock. Arthur is a sorcerer. Arthur is the king of a kingdom that had outlawed magic and was a magic user himself. Arthur didn’t tell me about his magic. How many people know about his magic even? Does Gaius? Does Morgana? Arthur must at the very least. He must have actually practiced it as well to be able to cast that spell silently.
In the time it took Merlin to finish his mental breakdown, Arthur was fully asleep again, and the servant was able to sneak out of his chambers without alerting the man. He might have left some chores undone, but if Merlin didn’t leave that exact moment he was going to start shrieking, which would wake Arthur up, and then he would have a pillow thrown at him and have to talk to Arthur about the fact that he has magic. At the moment, Merlin wanted to do none of those things, and thus he left.
___
“Merlin are you alright?” Gaius asked as soon as his ward walked into their shared space. Merlin was slightly put off by the fact he was so easily seen through—it took him thirty minutes to look this put together—but then again Gaius was more perceptive than most.
“Yes,” Merlin replied, “but also no. I’m just having an existential crisis, ignore me.”
Gaius nodded in understanding. “Well, tell me if there is anything I can do.”
“Actually…” Merlin paused in the doorway of his room, “have you noticed anything odd about Arthur recently. Has he been asking more about magic and sorcery?”
“No.” Gaius replied, a confused look on his face. The look then changed into understanding and Merlin waited with bated breath for Gaius to say ‘yes Merlin, Arthur is a magic user. Sorry we’ve been keeping this from you this whole time’. He’s not sure what he would have done if Gaius had said that, but it would be nice to know. Instead, Gaius asked “do you think Arthur might be wanting to change the laws about magic?”
Merlin sighed, “well he probably should.” The warlock entered his room, collapsed face first onto his bed, and slept for almost a full day.
___
“Gwen, has Arthur acted strangely to you recently? Like he wasn’t himself?” Merlin stopped Gwen in the middle of the hallway to ask this question. He had still refused to accept that this entire time Arthur had had magic and not only did he not tell him, but Merlin himself didn’t notice it until years after he had met the prat. To save his sanity, Merlin was now considering either possession or a shapeshifter.
“Not at all. Why? Should I be concerned?” The question seemed to be moot as Gwen was already looking concerned.
“Probably not.” Merlin cryptically replied. He decided to test the waters further. “He’s just been a bit more accepting of magic recently. Which isn’t bad, but usually when a Pendragon begins to be accepting of magic, magic is involved.”
“Oh,” The stress instantly drained out of Gwen’s shoulders. “You had me so worried for a second.” The servant looked around, and seeing that no one was nearby—which was intentional on Merlin's part, he’s not completely useless at espionage—continued. “Arthur has always been accepting of magic. It’s just hard for him to show it because of Uther and the expectations people have put on him.”
“Are you sure? Arthur has never once been sympathetic to any sorcerer we have wandered upon.” Merlin was now considering testing Gwen for possession too.
“I should clarify.” Gwen sighed and hiked the laundry basket she had been holding this entire time onto her hip. “Arthur knows that magic isn’t innately bad, and it was Uther that forced it to become the way it is today, but he’s never had a good experience with sorcerers so it’s hard for him to be sympathetic to magic users. I’m sure you understand that viewpoint.”
Merlin nodded. “Why wouldn’t he talk to me about it?” That was what hurt the most. Not that Merlin had any right to be hurt that Arthur had hidden something from him.
“Who knows. Maybe he just didn’t want to lose you.” Gwen gave a soft smile. “I won’t say any more, you need to talk to him yourself.” With that, she continued to walk down the hallway, leaving Merlin to stand there in contemplation.
___
“Morgana, I have your sleeping draught with me. May I bring it in?” Merlin called out. He would have just opened the door and entered, but the last time he did that Morgana almost set him on fire because he caught her changing. Thankfully, Morgana settled with kicking him out instead, although he’s not sure if that was due to a reticence of using magic in general or a fear of accidentally killing him.
“Come in.” Morgana called out. She was seated at her desk, working on some paperwork Merlin was ninety percent positive she stole from Arthur after being disappointed with his progress on it.
“Where do you want me to place these?” Merlin shook the sleeping droughts, hoping to bring Morgana’s attention to them.
“On the bedside table.” Morgana didn’t even look up from her work. “I don’t know why Gaius keeps making them for me, I don’t have problems sleeping anymore.”
“Just in case, apparently.” Merlin replied. He’s pretty sure it was mostly because Gaius didn’t want to explain flaming curtains again instead of actually helping Morgana sleep. “Speaking of that, though, what changed?”
Morgana looked up questioningly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, your dreams used to prevent you from sleeping entirely. Now, you have no trouble. What did you do?” Merlin knew exactly what had changed; there was a reason multiple books about prophetic dreams appeared in Morgana’s way over the past few years. No matter what the dragon said, Merlin refused to believe Morgana would turn evil and what would you know, he was right!
The question was solely to figure out whether or not Arthur had helped with her dreams. Because if he had, that meant both of them had known about and used magic for years.
“Meditation helped quite a bit actually.” Morgana said with a wry smile on her face. “But what you actually wanted to know is if Arthur helped me.”
“Uh,” Merlin froze like a deer in headlights. He felt like he should be better at lying at this point, but alas, he was not. Morgana laughed at the guilty look that had appeared on Merlin’s face and looked very proud that she managed to get that reaction out of him.
“He did. Or well, we helped each other.” Morgana answered. “Now get out of my room and back to work.”
“Sir yes sir,” Merlin took the dismissal with happiness and basically ran out of the room. It was moments like that that made the warlock very happy Morgana didn’t turn evil like the stupid, cryptic dragon had predicted.
___
Merlin’s unofficial avoidance of Arthur came to a stop a sad two days after it had begun. The king barged into Gaius’s workspace and Merlin was not fast enough to dive under the nearest table.
“There you are Merlin! I swear, for someone whose job is only to care for me I never seem to see you. At least you weren’t wasting your time at the tavern this time.” Arthur exclaimed as he strategically put himself between Merlin and the door. Not that Merlin would have run, but he had to admit he had considered it. “Instead, you were bothering all of my closest friends with random questions about me!”
So Morgana snitched. Gwen too probably. I should have expected that. Merlin groaned in the safety of his own head, but out loud his only reaction was to snark back at Arthur.
“If I show up you give me pointless jobs that take up time I could be using for more important duties!” Merlin defended his actions. The excuse wasn’t wrong, just not relevant in this situation.
“They take up time because you can’t manage to do them correctly!” Arthur refuted. “You didn’t even manage to put out the candles in my room two days ago.”
“I was going to! I’m sorry I was unable to stick to your royal schedule, but I was busy with all of the other jobs you had given me that very same day! It didn’t matter anyway since you put them out fine on your own, so I’m not quite sure why you gave me that job anyway.” Merlin argued back. Then he froze.
“So you did see.” Arthur’s entire demeanor changed at the news. Instead of the proud man Merlin called his best friend, Arthur almost seemed like he was curling in on himself. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? Because I have magic?”
Merlin’s shock that Arthur had just flat out admitted he had magic did nothing to stop himself from frantically denying the claim. “No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s not it at all. I was just surprised. I mean, it’s not everyday you find out that the monarch of the biggest anti-magic country is a sorcerer.”
“I’m a warlock actually.” Arthur then misinterpreted Merlin’s dropped jaw to be in confusion of the term instead of confusion that Arthur actually knew what he was talking about. “It means I’m born with magic, I didn’t study.”
“That’s cool,” was all Merlin could say when it became clear Arthur was waiting for a response. Arthur just shook his head fondly and turned around.
“Follow me, we have a lot to discuss.” Arthur left the room without looking back to see if Merlin was following. That could have been because he trusted Merlin to follow, or because he wouldn’t be able to handle seeing Merlin not.
___
Arthur led Merlin to the common meeting room of the Knights of the Round Table. Or Knights, The People They Are Meant to Kill, and Gwen as Merlin liked to refer to it too inside his own head. It was a lot cooler than being defined by the type of table they were sitting around. He was ninety percent positive Arthur had completely made up the reasoning behind the table just to look cool as well.
Without any hesitation, Arthur pushed open the doors and regally strode inside. Merlin followed quickly after. Sitting inside was Morgana, Gwen, Percival, Leon, Lancelot, Gwaine, and Elyan. Lancelot smiled guiltily at Merlin when he met his eyes.
“Welcome to the traitor club, Merlin” Gwaine called out after the door closed behind Merlin. Merlin almost broke out laughing, and he could see Lancelot holding back a smile too.
“You’re not technically traitors if the person you’re protecting is the king.” Arthur replied while he took a seat in one of the two remaining chairs.
“All of you knew already? About Arthur’s magic?” Merlin asked, and he couldn’t quite keep the hurt out of his voice.
“Arthur could never dream of successfully managing to keep a secret from me.” Morgana replied, obviously wanting Merlin to feel better. It slightly worked, in her defense. “And after he began helping me with my visions Gwen had to know. It would have been suspicious otherwise. My question is how you knew my dreams weren’t really dreams. Care to explain?”
“Gaius,” was Merlin’s immediate response, “he knew they weren’t dreams and after I came questioning too many times about how they were coming true he told me. Don’t blame him, I’m very persistent when I want to be.” It wasn’t even technically false.
“Trust me, we all know that very well after these past few days.” Morgana laughed. “Now that that’s explained, I’ll let Arthur tell his thought process. Just remember, I always thought it was stupid not to include you.”
“I wanted advice on how to change the magic laws in place without having my people hate me, which meant I needed to ask people from all parts of life. But, I know that knowing about my magic puts people at risk which is why I chose my knights. They know how to protect themselves.” Arthur faced Merin head on for the next statement. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know, I understand” Merlin was completely truthful in his statement. He had been using that same exact logic for years now.
“I’m hurt.” Gwaine interrupted, and leaned back in his chair. “I thought you asked me because you valued my opinion, not because I’m the least likely to die.”
“Out of all of us, you’re the most likely to die.” Arthur shot back instantly, and Gwaine burst out laughing. Then, almost like a switch was flicked, the Once and Future King became serious again and turned back towards Merlin. “I am planning on changing the laws on magic, and since you’re already involved I see no reason to not get your take on this situation. So, what do you think?”
“I think it’s brilliant.” Merlin gave a real smile to his friend and sat down in the last remaining open chair. Everyone relaxed, except Lancelot who already knew what Merlin’s response would be. “What’s the plan so far?”
“Although I’m going to legalize it, there will still be strict laws regarding its use. Nothing harmful or extravagant.” Arthur switched into business mode and everyone followed quickly after. Even Gwaine got his feet off of the table. “I also won’t admit I have magic until decades later. I don’t want anyone to believe I have an ulterior motive other than the happiness of my citizens.”
“You need to include actual examples of spells that are outlawed and ones that are okay. How many official spells do you two know, or is it all instinct?” Merlin had been thinking of this exact situation for a while, and was extremely excited to finally be able to talk about it. Arthur and Morgana exchanged glances with each other and winced.
“Not very many.” Arthur finally admitted. “I was able to liberate some books from the restricted section, but anything that went into too much detail about magic was burned.”
“A lot, sure, but not everything. Gaius lent me a spell book that contains a wide variety of spells. I can give it to you for a reference.” Merlin grew more and more confident as he kept talking. “That won’t be enough though. We’re going to need books on magic history so that we have examples as to how magic is useful to convince the people who will be extremely against it, while also providing ideas that people who contain magic can accomplish. I’ll ask Gaius if he has anything like that.
“And you have to consider what will happen to the druids. A lot are living on Camelot land, in fear of discovery and genocide. Will their existence be protected? How will that protection be enforced? Will they get housing? If so, where? What if they don’t want to belong to Camelot, what will you do then? To go along with that, what about magical creatures? At the very least there are many that need to go on no-hunt lists; we all saw what happened with the unicorn.” Merlin started to pace around the room, animatedly waving his hands as he finally got to talk out loud about all the plot holes that had appeared every time he tried to think about how to bring magic back to Camelot. After all of these years, he had discovered quite a few. “Even more importantly, what about–”
The warlock’s rant paused when Gwaine’s head hit the table and caused a loud thunk to reverberate around the room. “Look I’m all for the legalization of magic,” he mumbled into the table, “and I’m happy you have so much enthusiasm for the subject Merlin–although it’s a little surprising–but if I knew this meeting was going to be about policy I wouldn’t have shown up,”
Humor and relief dancing in his eyes, Arthur agreed with Gwaine. “Yes, Merlin, as much as I love you immediately trying to tear holes in any and all policies I’ve come up with, let’s save that for a later date.”
“Are you trying to ask me on a date? Oh my god I feel so special!” Merlin pitched his voice higher and fanned his face with his hands, causing the king to roll his eyes.
“As heartwarming as all of this has been, may we adjourn the meeting now? Unlike most of you, I actually have duties to attend to that I am unwilling to put off.” Morgana interrupted while clicking her nails against the wooden table.
“Unless anyone else has something to add?” The knights all shook their heads. Even if they did have something they wanted to add, no one was willing to risk Morgana’s wrath by saying it. “Then yes.” Everyone stood up to leave, but Arthur put a hand on Merlin’s shoulder, keeping him back. “Merlin?” A smirk had appeared on Arthur’s face, causing the servant to become wary. “How about you put out the candles.”
The warlock gaped at the king. “Are you serious? We both know it would be faster if you did it.”
Arthur only shrugged. “It’s your job.”
“Fine,” Not giving himself time to talk himself out of it, Merlin waved a hand and the entire room was plunged into darkness, causing ‘manly’ shrieks to erupt from the knights.
“Just leave it to you to be extra, Merlin,” Lancelot laughed. “How did you even manage to do that with the sun shining through the window?”
“...”
“WAIT WHAT THE-”