Chapter Text
Merlin always loved the piano. His fondest and earliest memories were of happily bashing away at the yellowing ivory, uncoordinated and uncaring, enjoying the strange sounds and revelling in the tactile element of just thumping something. He'd 'write' songs for his mother, and Hunith would laugh, a joyful tinkling sound that was every bit as infectious as Merlin's own childish giggle, and hug him and tell him it was 'wonderful, darling', and he'd play it again, and even though it would be a completely different series of notes, a completely different sound, every time, every rendition, she'd dance and clap along and his little heart would be near to bursting with something akin to sunshine.
It didn't change as he grew. He'd come home from school happy, knees and elbows and face all smudged from grubbing about in the dirt with Will all lunchtime, sling his bag haphazard along the side of the stool and just play , nothing in particular; or race himself to see how fast he could play that scale his mother had shown him the week before, and he'd be so lost in the world of sounds and the movement of his fingers that he wouldn't notice that it was getting dark, and that he was hungry, starving even, until Hunith would come up behind him and gently card her fingers through his hair (always dishevelled), and tell him it was dinner time, homework time, chore time, or talk time if he'd been particularly fidgety and misbehaved at school.
When Merlin was feeling down, or off, or that indefinable something , he told it to the keys. He poured his heart out, all his sadness, his fear, his loneliness, especially on the nights that his mother would have to work and Uncle Gaius would come over, ostensibly to babysit, but really to teach Merlin filthy words in foreign languages, then read the paper and fall asleep on the couch. When Merlin would come home every Sunday, after visiting his father, starched in his Sunday best, dark and sombre, he let his anger and his grief flow directly through his hands and out through the keys, conjuring up violent storms and raging gods, the sound full and wrathful and heartbreaking in its intensity, and he'd sit there and play until it was easy to forget what he had lost, easy to smile again, to joke, to pull faces and be sweet and to make the tired lines disappear from around his mother's eyes.
When Merlin was twelve and starting high school, Uncle Gaius offered Merlin lessons - proper, official lessons - and Merlin felt like all his Christmases had come at once. Suddenly there were new songs, new notes, new rules, new things that he never before knew you could do with your fingers and the keys, and he devoured everything Gaius threw at him. Soon he could write songs, real, proper music, written down by him, to be played the same way again and again as many times as he liked, because he knew how and it was like magic, like a whole new world had opened up to him. Will good-naturedly called him names for it, but he still snuck into the music rooms with Merlin sometimes at lunch, to keep him company as he tinkered on the fancy electronic piano with the built in metronome; and because Hunith and Gaius always took Merlin out for lunch after, he tagged along to all of Merlin's exams and sat next to him being as supportive as Will knew how, which was to slap him on the back and call him a girl, while Merlin quietly hyperventilated and begged not to be thrown out in the rubbish when he forgot the circle of fifths or failed his practical by mixing up his right and left and telling the examiner, when asked about the life and loves of this particular composer, or the date that particular piece was written, that Beethoven went to school on Mars in the early 1940s, and was exceedingly rubbish at geography but rather fond of knitting.
So it came as no surprise to anyone when Merlin announced, about half way through his final year of school, that he'd decided to audition for The Albion Conservatorium of Music, on both piano and composition. Will had laughed and said Merlin had better get used to being in the handout queue with all the nuclear physicists, at which Hunith had clocked him upside the head and just asked that Merlin try to refrain from practicing at three in the morning, because Mrs Epps next door was really getting very upset with him and was probably going to make a complaint to the police. Gaius had been gruff and said "I should hope so, all the effort I've put into you," and then presented Merlin with a homemade dampener that slipped neatly between the hammers of the upright and effectively solved the 3am Mrs Epps dilemma, while simultaneously allowing Hunith a lie-in on Saturday mornings for the first time in years.
What did come as a surprise to everyone though, was that Merlin got into the Albion Conservatorium. Practically self taught and with no money or family name behind him, and a 'totally rubbish' audition if you asked him ("I was shaking ," Merlin wailed, "My hands were shaking so much I could barely play, it was awful!" "You're a right drama queen," Will had rolled his eyes and said, "now shut up, I'm trying to listen to the telly."), Merlin at first rang up the university and asked if there'd been some mistake, and hadn't this acceptance letter better have gone to anyone else? But it wasn't a mistake, and Merlin may have deafened his mother and the long-suffering Mrs Epps with his whoop of delight.
*****
Arthur Pendragon had been born to music. His father Uther was one of the foremost conductors of his time, and his mother had been a highly respected harpist, in great demand, before her premature death shortly after Arthur was born. Some might say that music was in Arthur’s blood, that he was always going to be a musician because with such parents, such a pedigree, love and understanding and passion for that world couldn't fail but live within him, too, it was practically genetic. Some might say that he didn't ever have a choice, and that raised in any other household he might have become a builder, a baker or a candlestick maker; that it was unfair to raise a child without options like Arthur would be raised. If you asked Arthur as an adult, he might allow both to be true, to a degree. If you asked Arthur as a child, he'd tell you that he was going to play the violin because he liked it, and it was that simple.
When Arthur was three, he had his first proper music lesson. His teacher was ancient, Russian, and short tempered. He was every inch a dragon, and Arthur was terrified of him. His tiny fingers had difficulty on the sharp strings of his violin, his arm ached, and everything sounded scratchy and unpleasant, but at the end of the lesson Uther had clapped him on the shoulder and told him he’d done very well, and Arthur decided right then and there he was going to be the best violin player in the entire world, because it would make his father proud of him.
When Arthur was five (nearly six!), Uther remarried. His stepmother was a tall, proud, serious woman named Elaine, who snuck Arthur sweets when Uther wasn’t looking, and never scolded him for tracking mud through the house. Arthur quite liked her, even if he barely got to see her. She was the first Viola in the Camelot Philharmonic, and was always at rehearsals or performances. She always smelt of Lily of the Valley and was always so impeccably dressed that Arthur was afraid to touch her, lest he ruin her outfit somehow. She brought with her a daughter Arthur’s age from a previous marriage, Morgana. Arthur liked Morgana a fair bit less than he liked her mother. Morgana was sneaky, and fussy, and got her own way a lot , which Arthur didn’t approve of because Morgana getting her way meant Arthur wasn’t getting his , which was just not on. He had to share his toys, and even his music lessons! Actually, that last one wasn’t so bad, because with backup, the teacher wasn’t quite so scary. Even if he was delighted with Morgana more often than not, and despairing of Arthur, who tended to get distracted and forget what he was supposed to be doing, which Morgana was always teasing him about. She could be very mean when she wanted to be.
When Arthur and Morgana were eight, Elaine was killed in a car accident, and Arthur’s world got turned upside down. Uther had never been very jovial, never smiled much, but now he was hard and cold. He systematically removed every single trace of both of his wives from the house – all the photographs were removed from the walls, everything packed up in boxes and hidden away in storage somewhere. The only thing that remained was Elaine's viola, given to Morgana to keep, and Igraine’s harp, which had never been moved from its pride of place in the sitting room, but that nobody was allowed to touch. Morgana was like a shadow of her former self. She didn’t say anything mean to Arthur – she didn’t say anything at all. She just ghosted from room to room looking pale and tiny, which frightened and upset Arthur more than the fact that his father was unhappy or that he’d just lost his sort-of-mother, because Morgana being prickly and competitive, loud, and in Arthur’s face every waking second was as sure as the sun rising every morning. When she did finally speak it was only to yell at Arthur to leave her alone and then hit him, hard, and he was so relieved that he let her, didn’t even duck when she swung again, which made her madder and madder because he wasn’t fighting back, and when she finally got tired of him not reacting, she sat down on the floor and cried, and Arthur hugged her awkwardly and tried to ignore the fact that he might have been crying too, just a little.
Morgana threw herself heart and soul into her music after that, seemingly finding comfort somewhere in the notes, and Arthur followed suit, because it wouldn't do for Morgana to be better than him at anything, and that was how it went. It also seemed to make his father happy - as happy as Uther ever was, anyway, and Arthur might have been young, but he already counted his father's approval as one of the most sought after, and difficult to obtain, treasures of the earth. For years, he practised till his fingers were blistered and his elbows sore, his neck and arms aching with the effort of keeping his violin raised for all those hours. He practiced and he practised and he practised because it was important to him to beat Morgana, important to him to prove to his father that he could be good, be worthy - and then all of a sudden, one day, it made sense to him. One day he got up, began his routine (always the same - scales, finger exercises, revision of exam pieces with fifteen minutes of an unrequired but challenging song at the end for 'fun'), and instead of being notes on a page, and sounds in-tune but scratchy and always a little unappealing to his ear, the music sang . It spoke to him, it whispered in his ear, and he finally got it - got the look on Morgana's face when she closed her eyes and just let fly, understood her excitement and the passion of his teachers. He felt the music, and it finally became not a chore but a privilege, a reward, to lock himself in his room and just play.
Arthur had always known that he was going to be a musician, had always known that one day he would play with orchestras the world over, because he was Uther Pendragon's son and there really was no other option before him. He hadn't minded that, not really, he knew he could do it and he knew he could have a good life with it. Now, though, Arthur knew that was what he wanted, more than anything, and when he practiced it wasn't to gain his father's approval or to show Morgana that he really was better than her (because he was, and one day she would admit it, dammit), it was because he wanted to, and because something deep inside that he couldn't or wouldn't name needed to hear, to feel, to create music in order to keep going. Music became as vital as oxygen.
Both Arthur and Morgana auditioned for the Albion Conservatorium of Music, and both were accepted. It was the happiest day of Arthur's life, and after a formal dinner of congratulations for the both of them that Uther insisted he take them on, where they'd sat for hours in a posh restaurant, starched and ironed and being classy but restrained, Arthur and Morgana came home and locked themselves in Arthur's room, dancing merry jigs and laughing, trying to outplay each other (the competition might be entirely friendly now, but it was always there) and properly celebrating through song.