Archive of Our Own

The floors didn’t need to be scrubbed. The most spotless Merlin had ever seen them truly. Absolutely not needing of the extra clean as they so usually did. Taunting him with the absurd notion that they were perfectly pristine. Free of mud and dirt and dust. Cold and harsh against his knees. The chore surely going to be contributing to his back pain in the future.

And yet, it was so much better than what was expected of him today. He would gladly be here, doing this, then the alternative.

It was as good of an excuse as he could have come up with. Hiding the tears in the soapy water polishing the cruel ground. Alone. Completely alone as his mistakes multiplied for all to see down in the throne room. Forcing his isolation through the well-wishes of his friends and the push of what had become his family. He didn’t deserve it. He never had.

He had ruined everything with delusions of greatness, the hope for tomorrow, and one singular stupid spell. Killed his one chance to save all the people that were relying on him and any care Arthur would ever have for the likes of him in one vile moment, as he had cursed Uther to take his last breath.

Murderer. Failure. Destroyer of all he was supposed to create.

Now more obvious than ever with everything he was hiding from.

More drops floated down. Landing under his brush to be pushed into the rough stone under foot. Brushing his pain into duty. Used to clean instead of stain like they should have been. He half expected his fingers to be webbed through by blood instead of water, turned pruned by mistakes spilling innocents lives through his hands instead of soap crusting under his nails. Slippery with magic users deaths in place of the washing he was attempting.

Sniffles filled the air next to the methodical back and forth of bristles on stone. Marking the pain in his gaping chest with something real and his own. Hiding this grief for all he was seconds away from holding, before his nature had reared its ugly head and shined all its ugliness for the one that needed to see its beauty.

The punishment for his misgivings, for Uther’s death, would be for him to have to keep this all to himself. Penance for all the wrongs he had committed against the people he was trying desperately to save.

No one would see this pain. It would live inside of him like a beast. Carving him open from the inside out and eating all the hope he had left for a future brightened in golds. Left only in the spotless cracks of the floor.

That was what he was made to do. To keep the pain of his people inside. To fail everyone he was supposed to protect. To ruin all of his delusions of grandeur by displaying just how right people were to be scared of him. That was what the gods placed him on earth for. Being able to taste what he could have before he destroyed it completely.

Sick entertainment. Emrys was just sick entertainment to the gods that had crafted this demand of him. That was why he was tasked with this horrid responsibility he could never seem to get right. Always getting so close before destiny got her way and stripped him further to the bone each and every time.

Or maybe, he was just not good enough to live up to the guidelines gifted to him by fate. Maybe he was just born too destructive to be anything good. Maybe they had picked the wrong one to lead the once and future king.

“My child, you judge yourself too harshly.” The voice massaged something in his mind. Mending the broken with its song like quality. 

Snapping his head up. His chin jerking back, spurring a twinge of pain on the back of his neck as it was flung from its position bowed to having him blink upwards. Eyes growing dry as they were struck wide when they were met by this strangeness, yet his magic was dancing happily, perfectly content to sing along with the very evident power at work here and now, as if demanding he know she was not a threat at all.

Beautiful wasn’t the right word. Otherworldly more like. She stood tall, at least a few inches taller than him at the very least. Dark hair rolling in curls down her back and floating on wind that he couldn’t feel on his own skin. Surrounded in a shroud of darkness that looked to stir like the night sky, twinkling with stars and moons and planets far away. A crown bent from lightning shooting and crystallized atop of her head. Pupils filled completely over with gold that seemed to drip down her fine features in what acted like tears even with their mystical shimmer.

“Don’t ever think you are not exactly how I wished you to be” She whispered as she reached out with a hand that came across slightly transparent. The touch itself felt more like the kiss of the sun, more than the feeling of a thumb brushing away the slight cries still clinging to his skin. A slight peacefulness, like he was out in the fields he grew up in, before the responsibilities and duties started weighing him down.

There wasn’t really much of a response other than the soft sigh being carried out of him on the buzz of gentle magic. Light and relieving him of what felt like a crown heavily sitting on his head, feeling more like he could take to the skies than he ever had before.

“I see now, my ask was not a fair one for you. That it was my misgiving for placing it on your shoulders completely,” Her sweet smile had Merlin relaxing even deeper, as if the roll of the tide were sweeping him to a land of comfort, despite the twitch of the closure of his brow and the muddled thoughts of confusion left swirling in his brain. He should have been asking questions, he should have been preparing for another fight, he should have been bending himself backwards to protect those he cared for, knowing intimately how honey usual came with a bee sting. Yet here he was, gladly sitting at the mercy of softness she was providing, too tired, too exhausted to even think about trying to fight this kindness right now, “Don’t fret, my child, you are the furthest thing from alone. You have so many of my tokens that you have yet to take advantage of yet. But, for now, I am here to aid your plight”

Merlin was nearly scared to shake his head, in fear of removing the kindness of her touch from her skin. So desperate for the loving hum the brush of attention was crafting while it eased so many of his hurts, that he couldn’t bare to displace it for even a second, instead letting his disorientation persist through the deepening of lines on his face and the quiet words, “I don’t understand”

“You will, my child” Her eyes flared an even brighter gold, that had awe dripping down Merlin’s features through tears that still hadn’t dried up. A washing over of something compassionate and friendly filling his trembling body with the wish of stillness. Every bit of tension in his body dissipating into nothing at all. Darkness creeping in as his world started to narrow and tilt dangerously. Eyelids starting to droop as blinking became much more of a challenge. Fighting for one last look on the benevolent being he was at the feet of, while the brush used for polishing, toppled from his grip to softly clang against the freshly cleaned floors.

“You will” Repeated as this reality started to blend into a far more soothing one, made on flowers and meadows with the smiles of two knights there to guide his way. Warmed out in the sun instead of locked in Arthur’s chambers as his body finally found the ground, somewhere in between the harshness of stone and the overshadowing gentleness of grass.

“Sweet dreams, my dear”

“For the crime of sorcery, there is but one sentence I can pass” the words felt strange rolling off his tongue. Familiar. Something he had heard a million times over the years. Something he had practiced in the mirror a hundred times on top of that. But this, now, with a crown perched on his head and no one by his side, it felt, well, wrong.

It was his father who always did this bit. Cast the judgement onto the perpetrators. Let the duty of the law drip from a stiff upper lip. Breath in desperation and let it transform into verdicts. But his father was dead. Killed by the very thing that had this woman wailing at his feet, begging for her life. The practice she certainly participated in, given the mounting evidence against her. 

For the first time, this was his power to wield. His to direct, his to hold, his to seek out the evil his father showed him and follow his legacy to make sure he disposed of it. All of it sat on his brow, heavier than any crown, even with the surety sitting inside of him of knowing exactly what his father would do here and now.

So he pointed it at this woman, despite the pleas and the genuine pain on her features, the roll of tears down her young face and the quiver to her lip, he aimed his most powerful weapon and levied it against her for all to bear witness to the type of king he would be.

This was his heritage. This was what he could do to remember the good man killed by magic. This was what he was made to do with his limited time on this earth, with the power presented to him by birth, with the hatred his father had made sure to infuse into his heart.

“I sentence you to death”

The silence was the type that he was sure was made to suffocate. Solid as it pushed from his brows all the way to his lungs. His first verdict of this type. His first death, settling into the king’s crown he wore, binding to the metal as if it were a heated stone. His first show of what type of king he would be, proving which of his father’s laws he was choosing to uphold and which he wished to turn anew.

More than just a judgement on the guilty, it was an evaluation of who he was as well. On all he was, and was meant to be. Anubis, in the courtroom with them, ready to weigh his heart as worthy of kingship or not against the burden of lasting expectations. At this moment and every moment in the future. Held in the quiet as much as it was in the declaration of his decision. Letting the ruling stand for all it was while everyone watched on.

He was his father’s son. This was his birth right. And he had no intention of having his king look down on him with disappointment. Not with everything he knew to be true now.

A few breaths past as he was forced to sit with it. All the proof written in the lines he cast to this crying sorcerer. All he was going to stand for now and with every heart beat he had left.

But then, there was the scrap of chains across stone floors to fill the room as the guards took their cue and the cries fell even harsher from this witch while she was carried away. Sobs and screams, having a small section of weakness bloom inside of him filled with doubt he couldn’t afford to have any more. Forcing him to swallow it, pushing it all the way down as he straightened his back on his throne.

Before the doors could be opened to relieve them all from the weeping agony of this evil witch begging for their life, having the anger inside of Arthur’s body fizzle out more and more with every wail despite the effort he was putting into dismissing it as nothing more than the tells of a wicked woman as his father would have told him, his conviction starting to wilt around the edges with the screams of someone claiming to be innocent, every curtain in the room closed simultaneously. Torches and candles snuffed out like they were caught in a devilish wind that wasn’t evident in the blow of his hair or the tickle on his skin. Blanketing them all in a rich darkness that should have been common to the middle of the night and not the zenith of the day.

The so very obvious display of all that granted him this hatred, had him quickly standing and unsheathing his sword, letting the coolness of the pommel aid with the edge his teeth were sent to, ever so slightly, even as his flesh continued its crawling with the feeling of this unnaturalness shying across his domain.

There was a small part of him that held a bit of something nearing relief at the opportunity to fight something with his bare hands instead of his title. Using a weapon he was so much more accustom to than the one he was forced to stand in now that his father had passed. One that he had used before, and was much more ready to use again, than the one that used to hold excitement and now held nothing but the aching of responsibility and grief. A threat falling to the sharpness of his sword and not the sharpness of his word.

Of course, he could never be that lucky.

There was no bang, no pain, not much of anything at all for a long pause. Enough time for Arthur to take in the room and notice all the knights following the lead he set out for them, prepared for the offence necessary to get them through whatever villainy was about to befall them. And then time yet, where he was able to make a quick glance to verify that Gwen also stood, where puddles of comfort once sat, now held sharp intelligence in wide, dark eyes, scanning the scene unfolding with concern, her distracting lips caught between gentle teeth ever so slightly. Half of a second stolen just to make sure she was still safe before turning back to the nothing at all happening in front of them.

Swallowing as he set his posture, ready for anything so he would be surprised by nothing. Letting the command settle back into his voice to speak to the vile creature who dared to attempt to strike at the centre of his kingdom. “You only expedite your execution” he warned the still sobbing sorcerer, trembling as she was at the hands of his guards. The point of his sword directed towards her despite the distance being far too grand to be able to strike her down.

She shook her head desperately. “N-no Sire-re” her words were nearly completely triumphed by hiccups, desperation, and a bit closer to a prayer for his stomach not to tighten. Sparing a look to the men holding her to make sure they had also seen fit to have their weapons at the ready with the odd turn of her tone. “I-I don’t have the power to-“ Spoken just half a centimetre stronger as she continued to shiver as if she were left out without a cloak in the dead of winter.

And well, given her state, Arthur wasn’t truly sure what to believe. The genuineness of her grief so prevalent, the hope leaking back to the hopeless endeavour, the scared promise cast on every chocked breath, made it hard not to believe her declaration of powerless. And yet, taught as he was never to underestimate the efforts a magic user would go to wiggle their way out of the hands of fate cast upon them by the laws, he knew better to believe a liar. Harshness still latching to his tone as he spoke clear and damning, “If not you, who else?”

“Me” the answer came from nowhere and everywhere. Echoing around the room from wall to wall but always making its way back to Arthur’s ear on every bouncing turn. Something dangerous. Something not of this world. Something magical happening right under his nose. Shooting a heated, heavy, blazing rage through his veins with the daringness of this plight he needed to rid from the world.

It started with a slight glow. Red of bright flames appearing in a tight circle in the centre of the floor where the witch had been standing a minute earlier. Nothing more than a slight trickle of candlelight tracing around a predetermined path set without fuel of any kind as they all were forced to watch the slow progression.

Only once it closed in on itself, overlapping and meeting at the point closest to his feet, did it leap skywards with no other place to go. Going from a gleam to alleviate the darkness to a deafening crescendo of pure pain. Arthur, having to shield his vision while he waited for his sight to get adjusted to the glare of illumination now casting the room in radiant glint of oranges and reds instead of the shadows that wrapped around them a minute before. Instinct giving way to determination as he remembered his training and forced his stare back to the danger unfolding before them.

Fire burning higher than anything but a pyre could hope to achieve, slightly searing his irises to see the brutal blaze even when he blinked. Screams barely able to be heard over the crackling of horror he was looking down upon. Yet there was something not quite right about it. The luminance was not to be questioned, not in the slightest, not with the way it was branding his vision, but there was no more heat in the room than there was when all there was sunlight streaming through the windows.

As he blinked, it became apparent that the red glow of such a boisterous burn blowing in a breeze that he was sure wasn’t coming from the closed windows, was encasing what appeared to be an outline of a figure, shining slightly transparent as it was as if the flames themselves were just the ghost of verdicts long since passed.

Wisps of ash decorated the air with even worse blackness, yet there was no smoke sending anyone coughing, not even the smell of torches to dignify the sight as real in every way. Incineration and char but without it touching them in any way. Surely meant to scare, that part not to be questioned, but evidently more of a deterrent than a real threat.

The inferno raged its war high and mighty for another long instant before it set about blazing at a much more reason level. Or well, reasonable wasn’t the right word, given the lacking of kindling keeping it lit, lingering as it did while eating nothing at all, but it was the only word he really had for it. Easily jumped over if needing to get at an enemy without spilling burns down his entire front. Not that Arthur was all that sure it would actually be able to scorch anything but his pupils givens it strangeness.

It wasn’t where the strangeness, nor the magic ended though. 

A woman stood in the centre of the erupting of stormy combustion. Water dripping dangerously from hair and ripped clothing, down the stark features of her sunken face and through the harsh hollows of her neck, despite the flames seemingly still overtaking her in their determinate nature of agony cast in burns and scorch marks. A flare sitting in dark curls and over her head like an orange halo dignifying her straight from hell. Chains hung deadly as they scrapped across the floor, tight enough to have visibly worn at the wrists underneath, as Arthur continued his strange exploration over the apparition. Skin tinted in a sickly blue and pus oozing from blisters anywhere it could.

Around her neck sat a woven circlet of rope. Loose enough to not choke, just a constant threat waiting to clamp down on whatever this beast was. Blood flowing from wounds very clear in the swords run through her, the arrows sticking up like wings from her back. Red of so much suffering mixing with the blue collecting in puddles on his floor. Whiteness of a, once surely intricate dress and cloak, now soaked in fire and water and cut open to reveal such repugnance, stained in dark clots of humanness, to a beast that was surely not, left over from a time one might have called her as much.

Her skin stuck to her bones as if calling it home. Letting them all bear witness to every ugly ruthless twist where straight lines should have sat. Ribs broken apart as if someone were trying to gorge out her heart, collarbone dented and broken, fingers sitting at odd angles. All too much for one person to withstand. All too much for a person to live through.

When she did open her mouth it was as if a river had been held back by lips alone, flowing in a steady stream to meet the blaze everlasting at her feet. No sizzling, nothing really at all to dignify either as truly there, yet the gruesomeness of it had something very true setting up in his stomach. A knot digging tighter enough to fray and scratch its worry and disgust and hatred into his chest and throat. Festering into a bloody mess of loathing and crafting something ugly inside of him he hadn’t felt since magic took his father.

A display as horrid as this could only be from something as wretched as what caused the death of every member of his family. Magic once more refusing to be overtaken with the goodness that he was trying to bring into the world. Twisted and cursed as it always appeared to him, just showing all the more that his father’s teachings shouldn’t be forgotten so easily. That his weakness needed to be rooted out so that he would not fall to temptation of caring for these demons.

The voice shouldn’t have able to flow pour from a mouth so full, and yet there it was filling the room once more. Echoing darkness, sweetness twisted into cruelty, soft and whispering but still able to be heard as if she were standing directly at his ear, “You rule my kin so easily, while you know so little about that which you hate so much.” Strong and sure despite the pain evident on every breath. Nowhere near frail as she commanded the room so much more efficiently than Arthur ever hope to. Even the quietest of hints of breaths not making its mark as they all watched to see what her next move would be.

It was surely Arthur’s responsibility to be charging. His duty to make sure everyone was saved from whatever atrocious horror she had in store for them. His obligation to hold back the rotten core that magic would surely infect his country with. But, there were very little thoughts left in Arthur’s head as he was forced to look upon what looked to be agony appearing on this woman. A moment taken, a moment needed, a moment lost to his shock, to let her continue.

“I therefore, cast my own judgment.” The words struck with so much more power than Arthur thought possible. A king in her own right it would seem without the need to show it with the use of a crown of gold. Instead, the reds and oranges that seeped around her skull deemed her power and authority in this. The statement soaking into him as if it were some kind of brand pressed to his flank, forcing his body to stiffen and his next breaths to come in fast puffs. 

More drips trickling from her downturned lips where her voice should have been falling from, still not entirely sure how she was able to speak to them, but hearing it all the same, “Here my words, Arthur Pendragon, all those touched by magic will find themselves placed in the kindness of my eternal sleep, to flee from your decree against them, until such a day that you would see magic for that which it truly is.”

And with the ruling came gold flooded on a push of wind as her decree came to an end. Striking him and sending an odd rush into his body. Nearly a chill as every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Turning to see the others hadn’t been spared by whatever sorcery had just defiled them. 

Gwen, in all of her glorious beauty, was the one that had his swinging gaze stopping, draped in a brilliant gold as she was, curls falling from her braid to be swept by whatever curse had just been placed, until it dissipated into nothing more than air once more. She rubbed at her chest as the similar curious feeling apparently also spread in her as it had in Arthur. A moment of her doing the same as he had, taking stock in every one around them, before she, too, was meeting his eyes. The soft browns filled with confusion as much as concern as the little wrinkle between her brows made itself known.

And well, that sealed it, as Arthur forced himself to break her gaze and meet the threat of magic forced upon them all. Ready to charge, only to find that he was once more blinking at an empty spot on the floor. Not even charred or left wet. The destruction almost like a dream in of itself. Just complete barren as if she had never been to begin with.

Yet her presence was as sure as anything. Felt in the weird tingle setting up inside him and the sour taste left in his mouth from clamping his teeth shut. In the heat of something stronger than the fire could have ever been.

Only made that much more clear as the witch, still shackled and with the ugly lingering of tears welling up her features, let out an ugly yawn.

All of them were very clearly drawn to stare at her when she swayed dangerously. Paler than she was even as she was begging for her life. Sharp darkness crowding under her harshly blinking eyes. Sweeping left and right, head lurching from side to side, chains clinking and rattling together as she finally fell to her knees, her chest following the action and finding the floor not a second after, and her scalp following that a wink after that. 

Two steps lead him to be on level with everyone else, off the dais that set him apart from the herd, where he was forced to sit on a throne that felt a thousand times too big. Feet on solid ground as he looked out onto the mess of silence that now permeated the entirety of his court. Stuck completely still.

“Check her” Lucky that his voice had any authority left in it after the display they all had just sat through. Enough to let his next breath come easier as the guards standing around the damned witch did what he asked without question. Not lowering his guard, not yet, just letting go of the magnanimous fear that somehow all the respect his father had cultivated that he was supposed to hold now had evaporated in less than a candle mark.

Both knelt at by each of her sides, taking stock of her before the braver of the two cautiously reached out to grab at her shoulder. The shaking had no effect more than a tired whine quietly wailed. Eyelids refusing to budge from their position content is slacking position and muscles no longer needing to be wound tight enough to burst, happily relaxed and perpetually calm in sleep. Cries no more than a distant memory now that she was kept in a prison of dreams.

“She’s alive, Sire” One of them announced. He should probably have a name to place to his title, especially now that he was the one completely responsible for them all, but he was hard-pressed to find it in his throat. “Alive, but we can’t wake her”

A thought presented itself. A way to twist this magic to their own good. The use of it one final time to finally be rid of all that was unholy in their lands.

Arthur nodded to himself. As much as the magic was unseemly, the advantage was now with them. The opportunity his father always dreamed of. A glaringly obvious sign printed on every magic user's forehead, who was good and who was evil cast upon them. Such an obvious tell, easily definability in slumber and even more easily judged upon.

“Find everyone who can not be woken” His tone was surely not nearly as kingly as he needed it to be, slightly shaken with just a tad bit of excitement at the idea that magic would be ever sorcerers undoing, but it was a hard thing to hide. In the wake of his death, he was going to be able to end the war his father had started the day he was born. Able to avenge both parents he had lost to magic’s cruelty, as he turned to address every knight under his rule now. “Collect them all, and place them under our custody. This is our chance to rid their kind from existence entirely”

Lancelot didn’t have a second thought about where to go as he was ushered from the hall by the mass wave of exodus required at the king's behest. Orders being shouted in all directions and Leon already dolling out duties.

However, Lancelot was barely present for any of it, barely able to hear over the ramming rate his heart had climbed to, chiming its ugly beat in his ear. No, the need for orders was the furthest thing from his mind as he tried as best he could to slip away unnoticed from the crowd, hoping that the commotion might keep the bright red cape he wore a little bit hidden, praying that most of the attention would come from the developing problem presented by whatever spirit had landed this blow to Camelot’s heart, petitioning every god to save Merlin the fate that was surely spreading out amongst the populace by now.

His feet were surer than his mind at the moment, knowing by themselves, where Merlin would be. Guaranteed by the fact that it was one of the few places empty during the doomed meeting and therefore where a lonely warlock would find his forced isolation that much easier to maintain.

It had been shifting for a while now, the relationship Lancelot held so close to his heart, only exaggerated with Lancelot’s own brush with death to start shaping something entirely excited and new and caring and more, or at least it had for him. Merlin, though, seemed to retreat into himself the moment after saving him from the great beyond, and well, now that he thought he had to take on Uther’s murder as well, it had only amplified every scary need to keep away. 

He did not know how to explain to Merlin that he would gladly let himself be killed a thousand times over as long as the warlock was standing on his own two feet. He did not know how to explain to him that his value would always be worth a million times more than the knight’s life could ever hope to achieve. 

He did not know how to explain that his stomach fluttered when the warlock grazed by him on the way to save Camelot, that the world appeared to stop spinning whenever he was blessed to see that lovely smile in the few quiet occasions they could sneak away from all the importance they were responsible for taking care of, that words felt like they escape him entirely, like trying to catch smoke with nothing but his hands, every time the stars saw the warlocks worth as well and allowed his eyes to glow with their light, soft and royal and bloody beautiful in a way that knowing multiple languages could never hope to capture. And well that feeling, that glorious, wondrous feeling, led every decision he was to make.

So, even with knowing he was probably already being tasked with duties to carry out from the king himself, he couldn’t stop himself from going where his heart was forcing him too. Taking the steps that he had no hope of turning away from as he was guided to where he knew Merlin would be by his own deafening desires.

It shouldn’t have taken as long as it did to notice that he wasn’t alone. All that training, all that careful secrets keeping, all the scary devotion to someone that was forced to hide who they were, and it never occurred to him to turn around. Not until he was creaking open the King’s chamber doors, to spot the scene he was nearly expecting but dearly hoping wouldn’t be true, and the loud sound of a harsh intake of breath behind him had him whipping his head around. 

Gwaine made no attempt at all to hide the fact that he was quite certainly following in the knight’s footsteps exactly, barely a pace behind him as he craned his neck around Lancelot’s body to see inside the sliver of an opening Lancelot had arched the door in. More than enough, though, to see the pile that Merlin apparently had crumbled into.

Wide eyes took their time to carefully peel from the image that would surely haunt Lancelot every day until he died, to blink at him. Hazel filling in that all too observant way that he so rarely let anyone see. Quick and stripped bare from any humour as that gaze swung back to him.

Breathes coming in pants all around. The heavy weight of anxiety stretching to Lancelot’s shoulders despite their rising nature. The stomach churning worry having his vision narrow as he tried to think through just how exactly he was going to get through Gwaine to get Merlin out. That he might have to turn his sword against the knight setting something horridly thick in the back of his throat.

And then, there something like a decision playing out in Gwaine’s eyes. Faster than anything Lancelot could hope to follow. Lightning would have taken longer to strike than the slight nod to Gwaine’s head as he shoved his way past Lancelot, into Arthur’s chambers, pushing past doors and walking with determination in every stride, all while saying, “We need to get him out of here.”

Something loosened in Lancelot’s chest just a tad, when Gwaine knelt down next to Merlin, cautiously taking in the fact that he was in fact breathing, before gently running the back of his finger across the side profile they were privy to while the man was obviously trapped in sleep, calm and serene and humming just a bit into Gwaine’s careful touch. 

Giving Lance enough time to break from his ridiculous, heart throbbing, stupor, to make his way over to Merlin’s other side. Lending his own tender caress to make sure he could feel the rise and fall of his lungs through his back, the coolness of the dorachan touch of death, never fully leaving the warlock even if Lancelot wasn’t really brushing past skin, just the scratchy tunic that he would love to replace for him. Radiating off of him as if he somehow he was stuck perpetually in winter despite the temperate sunshine streaming through the windows.

The similarity of the death that Merlin could easily have fallen to, if he were less blessed by the goddesses of old, and the state he was in now, did something ugly to Lancelot. Veins taking on the chilly conditions that had stuck to the warlock, and breaths coming a little shallower as he verified that air still passed in and out of charming, magical lungs. Needing to turn away from the image just as to not fall to fear before he could serve as the protection Merlin deserved, half expecting the lights of the Vilia to appear, ready to nurse Merlin back to help. 

But no, they were on their own this time. Magic wasn’t about to be their saviour once again, not when it had just been deemed unworthy of life by their king and sent into slumber by such a spirit.

It was quite clear what the warlock had been doing while the rest of them were caught up in all that they were. Soapy water half haphazardly rubbed into stone, dampening his trouser legs, tear tracks carving pink paths down startlingly white skin, and yet, now, in the tranquillity of sleep, he looked nearly happy. Lips ticking up ever so slightly, muscles more placid than Lancelot had ever witnessed, pupils drifting slowly underneath closed eyelids as if trying to take in the stillness of a whole new world. Soft and quiet and nearly joyful despite the circumstance, or really, because of the circumstance, making it feel like this was not something that they should be interrupting, not something they should be trying to disturb, as if Merlin were a fairytale of old, and they were to build him a glass coffin, so everyone could see what they had selfishly tried to upset the image of.

This, though, was no fairytale, and Merlin wasn’t waiting for true loves kiss to save him from a sleeping curse, he was waiting for a king to come upon him and throw him in the dungeon. What they were supposed to be doing given the knights code that they swore to on the floor of an abandon castle.

The curiosity was cresting. Knowing the loyalty they were bound to with a king who would surely find treason in the fact they were about to conceal a magic user right under their nose fairly personally. It was not something to be taken up lightly.

“Did you know?” it seemed only right to ask Gwaine, given the speed at which he had turned to their side in a world that would see Merlin hanged for such a divergence from the law.

Another quick glance in Lancelot’s direction, warm brown eyes, cushioning the cliffs edge they had just fallen over with no hope of making it back to where they started. “No.” he whispered as if they didn’t both know that there was simply no way for Merlin to be awoken right now, “I knew you two were hiding something but never in my wildest fucking dreams, did I expect it to be this” Contemplating the entirety of Lance’s body even as he never stopped with his sweet caressing of Merlin’s lovely features, “I, maybe stupidly, assumed it was something else entirely”

More calculations were levied against Lancelot through the use of a compassionate, worried stare. Something else living there too. Something twitching and alive and shredded in a million different directions full of strange hope and sadness both.

There was something in that look that had Lancelot reaching out with the hand not rubbing slight circles against frigid flesh. Closing over Gwaine’s wrist to feel the thumping pulse of a strong heart beating a bit too quickly. Though, that could have just been the lurching anxiety similarly growing in Lancelot’s stomach with their current predicament.

There wasn’t time to really question in, as Merlin hummed and tucked his head deeper into the crevasse of his arms, drawing the attention back to the matter literally at hand instead of the heated tension that was beginning to blossoming in the air of their stolen moment. Gwaine clearing his throat as he moved those fond eyes back to the settling warlock, leading Lancelot to follow.

“We should move” Gwaine said, “It's not like we can expect Arthur to stay out of his own chambers forever”

“He won’t be asleep forever” Lancelot’s certainty was much more pronounced in the words than they were in his mind. Speaking to existence the world he would absolutely live in again. One full of soft smiles and blue eyes flashing over with golds. Refusing to entertain the possibility of another reality.

There was a twitch to Gwaine’s jaw, as if he were chewing on the words he wanted to say. Fingers drifting across surely cold skin as he took the time to debate if he wanted to speak his mind or not, finally deciding that it was something Lancelot apparently needed to hear, “No” he declared, sure as anything, “no he won’t. But you really expect Arthur to find the good in magic quickly?” How harsh reality could be, even when carried on such a smooth and velvety voice, “Now? After everything?”

It only grew the pit opening up even further in his stomach. Since it wasn’t like the king was keen on magic in the best of times, and now, after the perceived betrayal of the only sorcerer that had been willing to aid him, was certainly not the best of times.

Gwaine must have been able to pick up on the worry he had caused relatively swiftly even with every distraction pulling his awareness away from Lancelot himself, “He’ll wake again” The touch this time was returned with a thumb running over the hand that had yet to be removed from Merlin’s frame, “Even if I have to beat sense into Arthur to make sure it sticks” And the sincerity in that was so palpable that Lancelot had to swallow just to get past the thickness planting its presence in his throat, “But firstly, let's get Merlin to safety, before we start knocking around idiotic kings, yeah?”

The only thing Lancelot could think to do was nod. But it was more than enough for Gwaine, who gave him in return a half of a smile, not nearly as loud and emboldened as he was typical to wear but something quiet and half scared, trying to comfort in the way that came naturally to a man so keen of laughter. 

Kindness in even the small acts. Squeezing Lancelot’s hand one last time before carefully pulling away. Leaving a small tingle of electricity stirring in his wake.

It was quite nearly perfect. Well no. None of this was what Gwaine would describe as perfect. A nice picnic in the woods away from all duties and chores with just the few people he trusted, sharing food and laughs in the tender spotlight of the spring sun surrounded by wildflowers that he could pluck and present to Merlin in a small show of the drowning affection he had for the man, now that would be perfect.

Still, though, this was so close to working out that he felt the need to give it the label.

He should have known better than to jinx himself, especially with the rotten luck Camelot was apparently drenched in. Probably a consequence of standing on the neck of the magic embedded into the land, if Gwaine were to give it half a thought about it, really.

The revelation nearly felt stale, honestly. Magic should have stirred something of an emotion up in him. Secrets stacked on lies stacked on fibs all crumbling down with the brightness of truth with Merlin’s collapsed form. All tied up in a bow as Lancelot had made it so clear that he had certainly been privy to the truth. Anger, guilt, sadness, jealousy, something should be screaming inside of him of the unfairness of this.

And yet, there was very little left in him but worry. Fear, so consuming that he didn’t know if he would feel anything else ever again. Sending him rushing to do anything he could to get Merlin out of this reality, even if that included dragging his unconscious, drool worthy, ass outside of Camelot’s borders for good.

Arthur had already showed just how out for blood he was now that he was left to rule, with the horrifying display in the courtroom. If a woman screaming for her life with the only charge levied against her being the use of spell work, he was sure as hell not going to wait around and see if Arthur’s heart would be thawed enough by a friend doing the same.

Not that Merlin was in much of a position to beg for anything right now. The only proof of life in him the small smile and the slight nuzzling he was doing into both Lancelot and his touch. Sleep clearly taking him far away from the atrocities that had been playing out by a vengeful king, only about to be made all the worse. Nearly a mercy if it hadn’t been for the fact that Arthur’s chambers would probably be the worst hiding spot in all of history to keep this secret buried. Only maybe beaten by the throat closing idea that, if today had gone to plan, Merlin would have been trapped by Arthur’s side when the spirit made her declaration, and it could have been Merlin the guards were dragging away and not the prisoner they had already condemned.

So, for now, Gwaine was forced to do the concealment bit that Merlin was surely much better at than anyone gave him credit for. Gently turning him over and settling him into his arms as he made a move to stand.

For all that Merlin was skinny, he was also rather tall. The weight in his arms somehow more and less than he imagined it would be, when he, maybe slightly too often, crafted a scenario in his head where he could see to lifting Merlin with a much different connotation than sleep. Heated and usually involving one of their tongues sitting behind the other’s cheeks as the thoughts tended to turn too.

Still, he had no plans on dropping him, and neither apparently did Lancelot have any plans to see either of them back on the floor, as he kept a heated hand on Gwaine’s forearm, right below the edge of his chain mail so that Gwaine could feel the strong, tight grip he was using, in a manner that was just a tad bit distracting, to help with the strange new balance he was trying to adapt to with his arms full of Merlin. 

Always the gentlemen it would seem, as he waited for Gwaine to nod before he so much as loosened his hold. Not letting go, but no longer showing the use of his muscles through the embrace to quite as much of a tongue swallowing degree. Instead, taking a heartbeat to let delicately balmy eyes sweep over the sorcerer’s positioning, having something warm infect Gwaine’s chest when he tucked the loose hanging arm of Merlin, into his body so it wasn’t flopping with every slight movement, but not before making sure to seal the movement with a touch of the back of Merlin’s worked hands, still slightly webbed from his time scrubbing at floors given the wrinkles he could see, to his soft looking lips.

Gwaine was usually one to know when his presence was no longer welcome. When his flirts were rejected or the tavern maids patience had run thin. Trying to make sure to time his escape at just the right time before people started to get sick of him. One too many bad experiences overstaying his welcome making him a near expert in picking up on the slight changes in people when they were ready for him to leave.

And yet, despite the intimacy in this beat gifted to Merlin from the noblest of the knights, there was not even a singular second where Gwaine questioned his presence tangled in the mess of limbs that they were. Lending his strength to this endeavour and letting his own care for Merlin shine in the little circles he was able to draw with his thumb to the knees he was currently carrying. A sense of strangeness crawling under his skin in just how right it felt for the three of them to be here together, a sense he had quite literally never felt before blooming something soft and far too real on every heart beat.

Merlin’s sweet little hum as Lancelot made sure he was settled had the feeling only worsening, growing more vivid and practically painful as he turned his gaze just in time to witness the slight snuggle into his body that Merlin was doing, completely subconsciously, sending his lips twitching upwards.

“Well at least he’s cosy” Gwaine didn’t mean for it to come out as sincerely as it did. Really meaning for it to be a joke to lighten the strange twist of a mood they found themselves stuck in. But, well, that damned emotion sprouting into something all encompassing as it was, made his jab for some normality into a perfectly pleasant comment. The acid already leaching into his shoulders easily forgotten when presented as a nose rubbed against his chest with the quiet of sleep plastered in comfort looking shifts, the soothing addition of Lancelot’s company only making him search more for forthrightness where he should be playing for a joke.

It did, at the very least, have a bit of a smile break through on tanned skin, tight as it was against what they were currently facing. “Should be ready then?” Lancelot asked in a hushed tone, clearly letting the fear win over his voice without a care to hide it. Getting Gwaine to finally start taking the path laid out in front of them, step by step leading to the door.

He hadn’t thought to close it on their way in, what with the way he was caught completely off-guard with every revelation that had been cemented into his head in half a second when he saw Merlin on the floor. Following Lance had been a split second decision made off of nothing at all but the flap of a red cape turning in the wrong directions, and now he had tumbled into a world he had no clue how to handle, other than to do as he always tried to and protect Merlin with everything he had to give. So, no, with all the excitement of the occasion, he hadn’t really thought to pull the door shut, and apparently, even with all the perfectness that had basically intertwined with the man’s being, Lancelot hadn’t either.

And, as such, neither one of them had really noticed it opening even wider, the creaking apparently limited to the barest cracking of the hinges, and not when it was pushed open wide, since apparently the gods fancied them their little play thing far more than they did much anyone else. Not until it was left banging against the stone wall and a wide-eyed group of people stood at the barrier to their hide-out blinking right back at them, jerking both Lancelot and him to a sudden stop of steps and breathes alike.

All Gwaine’s thought out, or, well, as thought out as they could possibly be with such a short time frame to really think and all the times he found himself getting rather distracted, plans crumbling as all eyes in the room snapped to the unconscious man blissfully unaware of the tension rising worse than the ocean while your hands are shackled lower than the high tide line. A growing unease as the same understanding that had hit Gwaine harder than any wave could have, barrelled into Gwen, Leon, and Arthur, holding weapons in hands already.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there. All absorbing exactly what this meant, all that Gwaine and Lancelot had just lost and all that had to happen now. Just watching each other as if all of them were prey in front of a predator, a deer seeing the bolt about to pierce their skin and not being able to get out of the way.

It couldn’t last forever, the energy only mounting in that way Gwaine felt whenever a tavern brawl was about to start. The second before a storm unloaded its weighted clouds on all their heads. The moment just before he was about to find himself hit over the head with a fist or drenched completely with rain.

And well, Gwaine knew a bit too well that it was much easier to dodge if you were the one that took action first.

So, with eyes following his every movement, harsh and worried and fearful all the same right about now, he turned his back on the lot of them, letting the heavy air back into his closed lungs as he forced himself into motion. Taking the few steps, making sure to step around the sections of floor that Merlin saw fit to scrub raw, not wanting to slip as much as he didn’t want to ruin the hard work pushed into cleaning it, to find his way to the side of a bed fit for a king. Perfect, in his opinion to lay Merlin down upon.

Bountiful pillows and plush blankets maybe even enough to keep Merlin warm and snug, sunk under the sorcerers weight as Gwaine slowly lowered him upon the rich mattress. So much more right for the man than the terrible cot in Gaius’s back room, even if the knight was sorely missing the privacy extended to them tucked in a back closet of the citadel right about now. Luxury in silks and feathers but not in the solitude of knowing no one would see to attacking them, so very different from the way that he saw to seeing Merlin asleep in his short stint staying in his chambers when he made it to Camelot that first week before the titles started to rip them apart on Merlin’s insistence.

Making sure to settle him in a position that wouldn’t leave a crick in his neck or tingles in his hands, tucking his hands over his stomach and leaving dark strands of hair to fall across crisp white pillow cases.

A slight moan fell from plush parted lips as Gwaine finally removed his touch. Agitated enough to make a small crinkle on a pale forehead, eyes still stubbornly sealed shit, but with a slight twitch to concern over, having just slightly too much regret with having to leave what his heart insisted was the right choice, to face whatever stupidity Arthur was about to unleash, to not try to smooth out every wrinkle. 

His thumb rubbed at the space right above his nose, like he was straightening up a bed, until every line was removed and the peacefulness of sleep returned to pristine, fae features. Bending at the waist to leave one last brush of skin on calming unease. “You’re going to be just fine” whispered directly into Merlin’s hairline, dark hair tickling over his lips as he made sure to leave him with even just the slight offer of generosity that he had time for.

Because quite simply he was going to be. Gwaine wouldn’t allow him to be anything but.

“Right” Gwaine said, loud and clear as he spun his attention back to the matter at hand, noting that only Gwen seemed to turn away from the pair of them, kindly lending Merlin and him some much appreciated privacy, even if it hadn’t altered the others stares to any degree. Ever the lovely one, truly, especially compared to those who were supposed to be surrounded by holy worth who were burning a hole into Gwaine’s skull with their piercing glares.

Lancelot’s eyes, though, were having a hard time choosing between watching the moment unfold and making sure no one was coming to stab them in the back. Strangely, there was never even a question in Gwaine’s mind if he would keep any knifes directed at himself instead of them as he settled Merlin, just an all encompassing truth inside his chest that said he would. Like how one might know innately how to breath. Protection extending its warm hug to encompass more than just Merlin, to wrap his lovely arms around him too, even just metaphorically.

“I don’t suppose that spirit’s curse caused all of you to go blind, did it?” stated with the grandest smile Gwaine could muster as his hand found its way to the pommel of his sword. A seen threat surely, but maybe, if fate had any care for them at all, brushed away as a leisurely gesture while he kept his posture loose. A habit of a scoundrel that saw enemies where there were friends and not someone gearing up for battle.

A step towards his fate and away from a piece of his heart, feeling like there was no right move he could make. Just putting one foot in front of the next and praying that he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life. Finally had him rounding the bed. 

The split between the group still just barely inside Arthur’s chambers and the both of them ready to defend Merlin with their lives felt far larger than the space of the, albeit very sizeable, rooms. A chasm made of rhetoric and ideology that Gwaine refused to cross. Standing by and watching Arthur take out his vengeance had already been a difficult task to swallow, but now there stood a piece of Gwaine’s heart in the line of fire, and well, that wasn’t something he was willing to wager.

But then Arthur took a step. Teeth gritted and eyes loosing their muddled quality as he finally evidently realized exactly what all of this meant. That they were not about to stand idle for someone so worthy of soft sheets to be thrown in the dungeons.

“No” Arthur gritted out, “I suppose not”

The smile slipped from Gwaine’s lips with that. Nodding to himself as he granted the truth to be written in the loud and very final sound of metal being pulled from its sheath. Sword firmly in hand but held back entirely by Lancelot’s hand to his chest, even without having the knight turn to look at him, just placating both Arthur and him with hands up in both directions.

“Sire, you know Merlin’s loyalties” He spoke sure and strong, the only hint of stress being in just how tightly bound his muscles looked to be. “He has proven that over and over again”

There was something of a cold chuckle coming from Arthur, something brutal and cruel and harsh and hurt, punctuated by a deadly swing of his sword through the empty space between them, “I know nothing. He has betrayed our greatest law, and therefore is as good as a stranger” A shaky breath was stolen, hot with anger and betrayal, having Gwaine set his jaw for a fight that was surely about to begin. “He’s as good as a criminal”

The argument still sat thick on Gwen’s tongue. The one she had started preparing as soon as that woman had sat in front of Arthur’s feet. The one she was saving for a moment alone, to approach it with the care she knew he needed at this time. Understanding and openness for everything he had gone through in the last moon cycle while also showing him every way he wasn’t his father. Following him to his chambers, hopefully to steal a second of his time before disaster could come, and he would do something that he couldn’t take back.

But then they had been presented with this.

There wasn’t time to absorb it. Only a second to have her decision ready before the battle would surely be waged. Winning for either of them, meaning losing for both.

So, as Arthur took another lethal step, towards doing untold damage to not just himself but everyone standing, or sleeping, in the room, she did too. Scurrying to place herself in front of him and sternly sitting a hand to his chest plate. Fire licking at her throat to stop Arthur from following a path so fatal to them all.

The glare turned to her, hot as anything and more searing than he had even looked at her under the curse of love he was put under when Vivian came to town. Hurt barely even trying to be concealed behind the rage written into furrowed brows and tight fists.

It didn’t deter her in the slightest. Setting her shoulders and staring straight into his eyes, she announced, “No one is being taken anywhere”

The anger fizzled just a tad, being triumphantly trampled by care and confusion for her, all in one. His unoccupied hand coming to rest over the interwoven nature her fingers were collecting his chain mail with. “Guinevere, I’m doing this for you,” There seemed to be no lie there, nothing but concernment with her safety. Yet, there was no doubt in her mind that even if he believed it to be true, it didn’t make it honest, keeping the real reason from even himself.

“No” she whispered slightly more gently this time, showing him the same compassion he was showing her with the lightness of her voice, while also shaking her head to make sure the point hit home, “You are doing this in an attempt to bring back your father, Arthur”

“Guinevere, your father was killed because of magic”

“No,” She repeated for the second time, with an endeavour to push even more love into her tone without letting it drop any of the firmness as she explained exactly how wrong that read of the situation was “My father was killed because of yours, Arthur” It was a truth that she had known the second they had pulled her fathers body from the dungeons, something only reaffirmed with the conversation she had with Merlin afterwards, but clearly, it was not a thought that had ever come to Arthur, felt in the quickness at which every breath came and went even as she dropped his gaze just to gather herself a bit for the next part, “And I would never hold that against you, but it doesn’t mean I can watch as you turn into him”

“What are you saying?” he asked not unkindly. Worry and fear clear as he reached out to carefully tuck a stray curl behind her ear. Directing her to look back into his stormy blue eyes, so easily with just a gentle touch. 

“I’m saying, Arthur, you have a kind heart and a good sense of right and wrong” Returning his caress with her own run of a thumb over his check so much closer than they would usually dare with company, yet entirely necessary despite the others surely watching them at the moment, “Does this feel kind or right to you?” She could see the kernel of uncertainty start to unfold, planting a seed she knew existed in him and see if it would flower into something beautiful, “Merlin is a friend, who has saved your life more times than I can count” The smooth skin lessening the tightness of muscles, “Arthur, we don’t even know how this curse works”

And well, that bit maybe would have worked. Him, softening his posture and his eyes as he heard what she was saying, even allowing a small, nearly invisible smile to be pointed at her for half a heartbeat. It had been helpful, had been heard, had been working that stubborn mind of him, up until the point it wasn’t. 

Usually she loved just how outspoken Gwaine could be, but at this occasion she wished for nothing more than for him to keep his mouth closed. As close as they were to either breaking through or damning them all, though, she couldn’t really fault him, “Listen to the lady, Arthur” 

Fast as ever, he was breaking their slight hold on each other, as if just remembering the company they held, to turn his ire back to the knights, completely reminded of the fact that there were others currently having pointed weapons at him. “You don’t get to direct the orders here, Sir Gwaine” The title taking on a sneer as Arthur took a heated step forward.

Gwaine didn’t back down, nor did Gwen really expect him too, not after the display of affection they had all just been witness to, the one that she couldn’t watch fully, with just how damn intimate it was, bent over Merlin’s sleeping form and taking such diligent care with every tiny detail of comfort. Instead, Gwaine followed footing for footing. The distance between them shortening even just a slight measure each.

She shot a quick glance at Lancelot, who appeared to be just as perturbed by the situation quickly deteriorating as she was, arm still out from where it was holding Gwaine back earlier, now a fixture of a last line of defence between Merlin and the war about to take place, gaze jumping from person to person without slowing, and chest fully exposing just how quickly his breaths were coming. 

She didn’t have to wait long for him to catch her eye, just how much he was staring at them all, leading him to look at her eventually, probably a testament to how thick the tension was that he was able to feel her pleading just through the barest of seconds of attention she was sending him.

There was a similar understanding obvious in both of them, a begging for things to be different in mushy browns, but all too aware of the people they were with leading to a clashing of swords in one way or another. That this was not a conflict that could be fought with carefully tested arguments, or soft words of affirmation, that neither one was going to bend so easily.

And there was nothing either of them could do about it.

Her teeth sunk deeply into her lip as Lancelot seemed to apologize with nothing but a look. A depth to him that became so clear when pushed to do what was right. A sad little, barely there, smile pointed at her for just a heartbeat, before he was looking back at the two sizing each other up and permitting his own sword to join the fray. A choice made and a stance taken that wouldn’t be easily undone.

A crestfallen breath caved its way out of her lungs, burning with pain and brimming with sadness, as she closed her eyes. This was it. This was the moment that would surely be all of their undoing. She had done all she could to stop what was coming, and she had failed. The rich tapestry woven by trust and devotion was about to unravel entirely, only leaving behind frayed bits of string and yarn. Not at all able to be strung back together into the beauty it once was, not with the very thing keeping it together, tattered and ripped apart entirely. Faith was how they had form, belief in something more, better than themselves casting them as equals, and they had both just shown exactly were that very faith truly lied, curled up and sleeping on a bed made for royalty as Merlin was.

Just as the taste of defeat came all too bitter in her mouth, overpowering any last ash that had come with the loss of this quarrel, the sound of the last voice that had yet to speak up, announced itself, in a way that had them all stopping on a dime, to focus solely on this strangeness. 

“Stop” Leon said through the thickness of a yawn far too grand to be stifled even through the layers of aims he pushed forward to conceal it. Half mushed around the edges and only really loud enough to be heard with the dead silence they had all fallen into as everyone prepared in their own way for battle.

Shuffling in between the two groups in a way that, even through all the years Gwen knew him, through all the late nights and early mornings they had spent when she was running after Morgana and he was getting the brunt of being a new recruit, she had never witnessed. The muddled quality of his features, and the dragging of his feet so bizarre it crashed all the building stress crafted in the very air itself, into a million pieces. Gather all the focus of the room onto this odd display of un-first-knightly behaviour, truly against nearly every fibre of Leon’s being to show weakness as clearly as he was now.

Sword, looking more like it was in the hands of a child, barely above being pulled across the floor, rather than standing tall as he was trained to hold it through every injury, every fight, every exhausting endeavour. Leon, half tripping on himself as he violently sought to shake the clear fatigue wearing him down from his mind. Other hand half raised as he gestured a bit wildly at Gwaine’s quickly furrowing brows and Lancelot's exploding worry, “Put yo-your weapons a-away” broken and half slurred, between the jerks of his fluttering lashes.

Sure as she was that no one else sounded capable of it right now, Gwen rushed forward, not with Gwaine and Lance still half guarding Merlin and Arthur’s rapidly growing eyes. Easily moving between the two groups to catch the sword that Leon finally let out of his loose grip so he could instead push his hand into his forehead, before he could stab himself through. Quickly handing it over to Arthur, in an absent sort of way, as she sought to make sure he didn’t find himself crashing into the floor, given just how unstable he was presumably at the moment.

Carefully, she reached out to grab his elbows, allowing the near instant offload of weight into her ready arms. Gripping tight to him and directing him to follow her backwards steps as she coordinated them to find the closest seat at hand. Arthur’s table wasn’t the most comfortable option in the room, a seat by the fire probably far more favourable, but it was the best she could do while keeping a man nearly twice her height aloft. And no sooner had she pulled out the chair for him, without leaving him completely unattended with fingers still finding purchase in the exposed bits of padding his armour exposed, was he slumping into it, so improperly that she was stuck still for an instant.

Enough of a time for Leon to lay his arms on the table, feigning a pillow, and his head to fall into place atop of it. Breath evening and body slumping completely as he came to rest. Soft snores lifting from the clearly slumbering man a second later. Much too deep of sleep to happen in such a short amount of time for it to be at all natural.

“What?” Gwaine’s voice broke her from the haze of confusion as she noted just how stunned the others were as well. Spinning her attention around to see where he was shooting his own confounded look to Lancelot, “Leon too?” trying to vocalize all the daft ideas that were apparently running wild in more than just her head. 

Lance, for his part, didn’t look to have any more answers for them. Shrugging with a squint never leaving Leon’s form. “I don’t-”

But before he could claim ignorance, for better or worse with all that was happening. Gwen’s own mind spun in just the right way. The puzzle pieces slotting into place carefully and directly. Painting a clear picture of all their mistaken beliefs.

They didn’t bloody know how this spell works.

“Touched by magic” she repeated the lines as if they were somehow holier than any prayer. The spirit’s words clearing away the baffled turn with something sure taking shape, something that satisfied all the facts, something that assured a way to get Merlin out of this as much as it did cement in her head his guilt. Focusing once more on Arthur as she cleared the space between them once more, “Touched by magic, Arthur”

“Guinevere?” Clearly not gathering all she was trying to convey.

“That’s what she said” shaking his shoulders in her terrified excitement. “The spirit, she said anyone touched by magic” 

“Oh no” Lancelot said, leeching some of her anxious energy, shifting ever so slightly, as he appeared to find the breadcrumbs she was leaving with every word.

“Oh no?” Gwaine repeated picking up on the nerves both her and Lancelot were radiating in spades, though, going by the lurking confusion left over in his tone, not gathering all they had yet.

“What do you mean, Guinevere?” Arthur asked, completely ignoring the two knight’s having their own struggle of alarm to trace the map she was crafting.

“Leon, he was cured by the cup of life. The druids saved his life.” infected as she was by the cool tendrils of truth and fear, all she could do was bare the reality for all to pick up on, “He was touched by magic”

There was a long moment of silence as she dropped the declaration like a hot coal, left burning them all with authenticity even as it drove blood to turn to ice. Calculus happening is the sweeping of Arthur’s gaze, trying to read her statement as if it were a book. 

“That wasn’t his choice” Arthur finally landed on, shaking his head while he tried to deny all that she knew was true.

Gwaine didn’t give her the chance to respond, “I don’t think she was asking if it were their choice or not” an unease to him more so than there had been when he was about to attack Arthur, even if he was so vehemently attempting to keep up the breeziness that so very rarely slipped out of place. Presumably struggling to decide what to stare at, Lancelot, Merlin or the two of them, as his body refused to disentangle the tension that had infused the second it became clear there was danger afoot for the sleeping servant.

This time the interruption didn’t come with fists and fights and flying insults. No, the dawning horror written in the tight muscles on Arthur’s features had all fear of retribution falling away to nothing at all. The deepening of lines on his face, proof enough that he still wasn’t completely following all she was saying.

Her hand came to rest over her mouth as she thought through the rest of what was said during the incursion, wading through the interaction all over again to try to see if there were any other holes they might have missed. Only stirring an ever-growing dread in his stomach as she remembered what her original argument was going to be when she came into these rooms in the first place, “Arthur, you ordered anyone who was asleep be taken to the dungeons”

He just shook his head even harder at that. His fathers ring running over his forehead where the heavy weight of a crown he was trying to fit into still sat, “We don’t know that they don’t have magic”

For his part, Arthur didn’t look nearly as convinced as he had when the interaction started. Only added too when Gwaine snorted out, “If Leon has magic than I think we all need to start looking out the windows for the flying pigs that are surely about”

And even though she would have probably undertaken a way to soften that blow, to go about it with a bit more tact, she couldn’t deny the fact that Gwaine was right. If Leon had truly picked up sorcery they were all going to have to start looking out for hooves overhead. The idea so downright outlandish it simply wouldn’t stick inside of her skull. Leon, the first knight, the one who followed orders first and asked questions second, the person who had only just started breaking down the large walls of propriety he forced himself to sit on top of, with the introduction of true friends in the knighthood, had taken to casting spells in his, very rare, free time.

An impossibility, really, that everyone here knew. Routing her mind back to the only answer that made sense. “Arthur” half a plea and half a demand for him to see how ridiculous he was being. Desperate for him to look at the picture they were being drawn in for what it was.

As if on cue, another violently loud yawn filled the room. Suspense creeping up her spine as she followed the noise to the logical conclusion.

Lancelot stood, holding tight to Arthur’s bedpost and, even so, still swaying as if he were the only one of them set on a boat in the middle of a brutal storm. No longer guarding what he was so admittedly striving too early, but obviously barely holding onto consciousness with every slowing breath.

Slowly, he sunk to his bottom, a feather drifting on a rocking breeze. Riding down, nearly in slow motion in front of them. Gentle and gradual and still much too quickly for them to stop it. Sword shrill as it landed in a heap at out of a slack grip.

“Lance?” Gwaine’s speech, no longer even seeking to attempt to hide the disturbing concern. Struggling as he was to divert his attention away from Arthur, and yet, struggling as he was not to keep his eyes on the dropping knight. Desperation clambering up his throat so completely, it sent Gwen’s own heart aching. “You have got to stay with me, mate”

It didn’t matter. There was nothing to be done. Those soft browns that had conveyed an apology and the wish for better only a few minutes before, were already lost to them. Head lulling as his back rested against the frame of a bed he was set to defend. No quiet finally words, no delicate well-wishes, nothing more than a slumped form stilling completely.

A new set to Gwaine’s jaw as he was met without an answer. Something more akin to a cornered animal turning his stare back at them, trying to protect their hurt partner from what they believed was a threat. Tightening his hold on his sword as he took quick stock of the fact that there was another body added to the pile of them quickly stacking up. Moving the shield he was creating with his body to include the restful knight as well.

“See” Gwen begged. Forcing Arthur to see the most noble of them had also seen to the same fate. Trying to avoid the idea of conflict once more. Not all that sure that Gwaine would see to holding his own punches if he were the last line keeping the two of them safe.

Arthur, though, obviously had picked up more than just Uther’s rhetoric, burying his head in the sand as he seemed content to do at the moment, “Lancelot chose his side. We can’t be sure that he isn’t much the same as the rest of them” 

She shook her head. Wishing for a way to convince his just how wrong that was, just how sure she was that she was right, just how much his father’s words felt foreign coming from Arthur’s lips.

Of course that was when her own unnatural yawn fought its way out of her chest and to her lips, tasting of fright as much as freedom.

It was not all that dissimilar to the one time Morgana had forced them to go to the lake for a swim and proceed to tackle him under the waves. His heart hammering in his chest and the air being knocked completely from his lungs that couldn’t be so easily filled again, now that the icy water was over his head. Sending his skin tingling with fear and cold alike.

And this time, there wasn’t his father there to demand she let him back up again. No direction from someone with a greater title to point him in the right direction. No light of the sun to guide him to the surface once more. Not anything at all left to show him what his decision needed to be, other than Guinevere’s yawn filling his ears and sending him sinking faster than a rock to the lake bed below.

The other’s betrayal, horrid and sending shooting pain through, yet this one, if it were true was the one that crushed his chest enough that he was sure his heart would stop, his lungs would remain empty forever, his body would turn to ice with the lack of warmth the Guinevere provided. If this were true it was something he was sure he wouldn’t be able to come back from. Too tangled in weeds and muck and darkness to manage his way to the shore this time. Not strong enough to lose this pillar of love and care as he had the others.

She was already starting to wilt. Having him reach out and grab at her shoulders to shake some life into her, ever so gently. Needing to see her, fully before it was too late. To hold the truth before it could be lost to him completely. “Promise me” his voice was twinging on mania, and there was simply not a care left in him to try to keep it a bay like a good king would, “Promise me you have never used magic, Guinevere.”

Her perfect features, warm and sweetly dripping with compassion, were already starting to slacken with sleep, yet, her strength shined through as she forced her eyes open wide to look him dead in his own, seriousness written in the set of her chin and the cast of her lips in a straight line, “I swear to you Arthur”

It would have been unimaginable that she was lying. Not with the stare she was levying at him, forcing him to believe her every word, with the sparkling of brown eyes daring him to believe her. He brow’s soft and gentle even with the fierceness at which she was defending not just herself but everyone around her. 

So, before he could really think it all the way through, think of what this meant, think of all he was going to have to fix because of just how wrong he was, he was nodding to her, dropping his shoulders as he warmed completely to the idea that she had been trying to get him to see. Driving him to kick up from the bottom of the lake to force his own way out of the darkness he created for himself.

With that, it was as if her strings had been cut. Lovely shoulders drooping with a touch of a smile on her lips for a singular second before her knees were giving out under her and her body was only being held up by his hold, forcing him to drop his swords to sweep her up or let her fall to the floor. 

It wasn’t even a choice.

She fit perfectly in his arms, made to be there really. Cradled in his hold as delicately as he could manage. Soft breathes tickling at the exposed parts of his collarbone as he searched for comfort for her.

The options of where to put her were dwindling more and more by the second. He refused to leave her anywhere but with the highest of softness, far too fitting to her soul than the harsh floor would have been. Not with just how precious she was. His own bed, barely even good enough for her, yet the best option he had, even with it slightly occupied.

So, he crossed the room. Careful to give a wide berth with just how ready Gwaine seemed to slit his throat, though he noted, ever so slightly, with just how distracted he was on keeping Guinevere aloft at the moment, that he appeared somewhat opposed to attack with her standing, or in this case sleeping, in his way. Running wild gaze over him and always standing between him and the row of bodies, but letting him pass without an assault.

Just as Gwaine had, he settled her as thoughtfully as he could, on his pillows and sheets. Tucking away a curl from irritating her even with the unnatural, compulsory, sleep striving to keep her under. Déjà vu assaulting him with just how much this situation rhymed with the last time a sleeping curse hit them. How this time was different and yet so similar. The weight of getting the ones he loved safe stuck to just his shoulders now, no helping hand from Morgana or Merlin to alleviate some of the stress. It was his judgement that would sink them or show them how to swim.

He watched over her for one last second, breathing her in and drinking up all he could have of her beauty even in stillness. Searching for any bit of agitation that he could ease for her. A glimpse possibly of a future where every night he could gaze upon such a loveliness, if only he could make himself worthy of her.

A soft hum alerting him to the fact that he had done all he could for her.

But, for all he wanted to, it was not something that could last forever; to see this in the gentle glow of sunrise and fall asleep to it every night was not his to have yet. Made all that clearer the second he stepped away only to have to dodge a clumsily thrown attack.

Gwaine looked half awake. Apparently starting to be affected by the same affliction the rest of them had while Arthur’s attention was somewhat stolen away. Easily allowing for his to duck under the sword sitting far too heavily in the knight’s hands.

“What are you doing?” Arthur insisted, easily able to disarm him with a shove and a twist of the man’s wrist, given how it looked as if the knight were travelling through honey more and more with each passing breath, “I understand now that the spell isn’t just putting to sleep those that use magic”

It didn’t seam to appease the mad man as he was expecting, Gwaine set instead to throw his slowing body at him now that the sword had spun halfway across the room. “You don’t get it, do you?” Gwaine snarled as he clawed at Arthur’s armour, trying desperately to stay standing despite the extra pull that gravity had on him, “It doesn’t matter if they have magic or not, they’re still dedicated to you, to the king you could be, you bloody idiot. And you not understanding that,” forcing his way through a yawn to finish the statement “will lead to all our undoing”

He was caught blinking at the declaration. Piercing through every wall Arthur had put between him and magic users, all the distance breeched and all the thoughts of evil sorcerers turned on its head. The vitriol at which Gwaine had spoken of treason, had spoken against the very laws his father had based his entire reign upon, as easy as if he were pointing to the sky and declaring it blue, shaking something loose that had long since been buried. Stirring something he deemed as forbidden so very long ago. His father’s voice drowning out any of his own thoughts on the matter.

The knight’s knees hit the floor, looking like he was cursing the sleep pulling at his body as much as he was Arthur at the moment. Strength failing much completely even as he clung to the precipice of sleep he was being pushed over.

The anger prevalent in Gwaine’s eyes was hotter than any flame, but the energy left in them was depleting by the second. No longer able to drag them open for more than a heartbeat before they were falling close yet again. His body rocking back and forth, tousled by the waves of exhaustion he so clearly was fighting tooth and nail.

“If you hurt them,” Violently shaking his head, in such a different manner than Leon had, frenzily scattering his ridiculous hair in all directions. Harshening his grip even more attached to Arthur’s front, like it was the only thing left between him and a doom so much worse than death. Taken into the tug of slumber kicking and screaming it would seem. “You best kill me too. Otherwise, I swear Arthur, I will spend every moment I have left making sure what was done onto them is performed on you, tenfold”

Still, the curse set upon them was apparently stronger than any mortal could hope to be, even with all the toughness Gwaine touted, all the protectiveness embedded into every motion the man had, all the capable vigour he always appeared to hold onto. And so, it wasn’t another second before the knight was falling forward into Arthur’s stomach, snoring worse than a boar as his fingers slipped out of the rings of the armour he was trying to tear to bits, to sit slack at his sides.

Arthur let himself step backwards, leaving Gwaine to fall forward onto the cold, damp floor. Not that it looked to bother him, as gone to the world as he was to be in a matter of seconds. The only sign of discomfort being the thump of skin on stone and a bit of a louder snort as that large nose made its way to the ground.

And as funny as he would have found that at any other time, now there was nothing but cold terror running through his veins, as he took stock of the quiet huffs and sleepy hums and realized it left him no one. No one in the room to fight or scream at or listen to. No other opinions other than his own to be voiced. No one to bounce ideas off of, no one to tell him no, no one to hold his hand and guide him where he was supposed to go.

Just him, alone with nothing but his thoughts. 

That and the weight of all he cared for resting firmly on his shoulders in such a different way than he liked it. No battle to win, nothing to hit, just his own opinion to weigh on everyone he loved souls.

It was a horrendous burden. One that no man should be able to shoulder. Worse than Atlas cursed to hold the sky. Cracking his collarbones and twisting his neck to the point he was sure he would never be able to stand straight again under the weight of a crown he never asked for. 

His own verdict sentencing all of the people he needed the aid of to an eternal rest. Nearer to death than they were close enough to give him an answer. A problem he wasn’t sure how to solve. A fate he was forcing on all of them.

It only became clear how deeply he relied on the people he cared for when they were gone. How desperate he was for the direction he used to have in spades when it was ripped from him. The decisions he was supposed to make tasting slightly less like acid when he was given a firm nod or a soft look of respect.

But there was none of that left. No father here to set him along the right path. No friends giving him their ear along with their voices. No brown eyes blinking with a sparkle telling him he was doing right without any words at all.

All that was left was bodies surrounding him. Closed eyes and stillness. Only deemed as alive by the slight rise and fall of each of their chests.

He couldn’t take the sight of it. Shaky breath after shaky breath leading every step backwards. Tracing a trail he had taken so many times as prince, in such a foreign way now. Sure as he was that the ground was cracking under the load he was carrying. Sure as he was that no one was at his back. Sure as he was that there was no route for him to figure this out on his own.

There was something in him that needed it. Some weakness, his father would have said, to be weeded out. Something undeserving of time and energy now that the crown had been passed along and the hard verdicts needed to be reached. A horrid flaw on his very character that would only lead to his downfall.

But his father wasn’t here to push those words onto him any more. Just the ghost of a voice running circles in his head he was desperately trying to hold onto before it could fade as well. The sighting of a deer before it took off through the woods, leading him forced to check for tracks in hopes he might get it in his cross bow again.

Yet he was gone. In a much more real sense than the people left to slumber in his chambers, whose opinions on the matter set a warmth in his chest rather than a voided emptiness that his father’s declarations always left him with.

Those connections, those bonds, they made him better, forcing him to look at the situation from so many different angles instead of from his place on top of a gilded throne. Granting him an image of the world he was usually blind to and compelling him to be better, to be the man that deserved the prize of their company instead of demanded it.

Stuck as he was at the whims of beliefs he couldn’t afford to have questioned, otherwise the entire image he held of his father be set to flames. Though, now, he was being driven to see the other side of it. Guinevere’s kind words rattling around his skull with a sense of yearning that had his chest aching. Lancelot’s declaration of loyalties spinning the tickle of wishes around his stomach. Gwaine’s insistence that the weapon people use in aid of his rule wasn’t as important as the actions they took, putting that bit of righteousness back inside his veins that had been missing since he was standing over the cold remains of his father.

It left one undeniable truth in its wake. Despite all his attempts, he was never going to be his father. He was never going to fill the shoes left behind by his predecessor.

And maybe, just maybe, that wasn’t the terrible hurdle of lacking in his character that he thought it was. Maybe he was supposed to let his heart guide him instead of his history. Maybe his turn holding the title of king was meant to be marked by his beliefs and not the remembrance of what he thought he was supposed to do.

His back made it to the door, banging against it and letting the hammering of his heart jump even higher with the contact. The shock of fear left him with a rattle to his very bones.

A moment to try to collect himself, trying to pull the image of a king back in place, before deeming it not a possibility with just how rattled he was, and instead barely containing the fact that he was fleeing from his own room to himself. In his rush, setting new bruises to his skin as he bounced from wall to wall. Though he needn’t have had to worry about the unkingly manner he was presenting, not with the new horror that presented itself when he opened the door.

The bodies weren’t limited to his chamber. Sleep finding every person in his path. Needing to step around similarly collapsed bodies, the innate feeling of blood running like ice in his veins exploding with every careful footprint, to make it to the only place he could think to go to fix this. The only place he could think had any hope to cast a judgement on all of Camelot.

Stumbling and jerking in all directions as he desperately tried not to look upon all he had managed to ruin within his first few weeks of the throne being solely his. All his father’s work laying on the dirty floor, waiting for his boot to crush it.

Yet here he was, moving towards where his heart was guiding him. Ignoring the loud voice in his head, commanding him to attack this with a sword and a fist around its neck, to listen to the soft one so easily ignored when it was so tender, reminding him that to lead is to listen and begging him to look through the lens of kindness he wasn’t sure he possessed. 

The room was no longer harshly dark. The light of day streaming through wide open windows with the smell off fresh dirt drifting on a sweet breeze. Spring announcing itself with pleasantries and tenderness after a winter harsh with cold.

No flames met him. No flowing water. No blood or gore or agony at all. Just a woman. Perched on the throne that deemed the king of this kingdom, the one that held all the power and was ready to use it to determine how the world should turn. Attire cleaned and pressed, reds of a crown of flames, replaced entirely with twigs and thorns twisted around each other. Petals placed wildly in curls and cascading down her outline, vines wrapping around wrists and stringing into a necklace where once the constant threat of death sat. Every piece of pain replaced with new growth and vivid greens.

There was no part of him that had any doubt as he fell to his knees at her feet. Chained by the weight of duty to the people he was desperate to serve. No weapon in his hands, completely at the mercy of the magic holding hostage all that he cared for. Needing to beg for so much more than his life.

“You have to remove the curse”

A tilt to her head, not all that sure she was staring at him with just how much gold sat where eyes should have been, and yet having an innate sense of being perceived, of being weighed for his actions. “It is not my spell to break.” this time her voice was like a bird chirp, echoing as if said into an open field, and without the block of water, clearly coming from the gentle raise and lowering of her chest, “It is yours”

Arthur shook his head. Not wanting to have that power any more than he wanted to hold his father’s. Not sure that he could do what was demanded of him. Not ready to admit to his father’s misgivings even with just how sure the other’s words rang true. “You tricked me”

“I did no such thing” It wasn’t snapped at him, presented with a care of a tutor waiting patiently for a lesson to be learned instead of the anger he was used to for speaking out of turn. As if they had all the time in the world to find themselves exactly where they were supposed to be. “I spoke of exactly what my kindness would do. I told no lie or fib. You just did not understand the place magic has in your kingdom. Your ignorance does not make me a trickster, it makes you inexperienced.”

There were tears prickling at the edges of his eyes. The pain of all he was trying to achieve no longer the cleaned road he thought it was, taunting prickers pointed underfoot and fallen trees blocking his path. “I was just trying to follow the edicts my father installed in me”

Genuine compassion shined brighter than the sun in the look she gave him, softening all the stark lines of her features, as her lips twitched with sincerity, “Your father is not worth the pedestal you wish to see him upon. You are your own man, Arthur Pendragon, and as such, you have your own decisions to make.” The words hit hard. Truth written in every line, proven over and over again in the past day. Council was needed and the voices around him important, but at the end of the day it was his own choices that were going to lead them to ruin or salvation. “Pain is not the way to stop hurt. I know you understand that, now more than ever.”

The tears fell, something far too common recently. “Why?” It was the only response he had left. Not even sure which part he was asking an explanation for, yet needing one any way.

“You sought to continue your father’s reign of terror, to destroy me.” Finally raising from her seat to take the few steps necessary so that he was crowding at her feet, staring upon his fate in such an absolute way that his neck twinged with the angle, “But I am not some weed you can pull from a garden Arthur Pendragon. I am embedded into every flower, every leaf, every stem, every piece of life on this earth.”

“I-” not all that sure what he wanted to say. Not all that sure if denying it would do him any good now. Not sure if he could let himself believe all the others had so easily accepted.

“I was cast in your vision of what you wanted of me. As close to death as you could get me, as close to death as your father wished me to be” Continuing with another missing piece of the half filled in puzzle he was holding. Seemingly declaring her magic itself as he crowded at her feet. She stood tall and strong, seeming to glow with not fire but with warmheartedness, just to prove how alive she was, how wrong he had been. “Now, though, you see what I truly am. Alive in every single soul, born again as easy as a flower blooms when the sun hits it after a cruel winter” Patience and tolerance embedded into her very being as she held compassion in every word, “To kill me would be to kill yourself and everyone you cherish”

He had to avert his eyes, less he broke apart entirely. Bowing his head as to not have to see the generosity where there should have been vengeance. “I’m so sorry” It didn’t feel right, all the blood on his hands staining them more than he could ever wash. It wasn’t enough, not with the horror running its course through him at knowing what he did now, all the agony cast in his father’s name by his sword, never going to be cleared off his ledger. 

But still, the surrounding energy vibrated as if to sing the loveliest of songs. Having him lift his chin to see a merciful smile pointed at him where a sword should have been, as if it were a perfect response, as if it were truly any penance at all. 

“You are as much my son as anyone's, my dear” A soft touch, brushing away the tears and leaving the lovely tingle of basking in sunlight after being forced in the shadows for years, “Born from my will, given breath from my grace, taught to love by my heart” Tender and gentle even as it shattered the picture that he had for his father all the more as the ideas he long since buried were once more completely unveiled, light to a subject he nearly wished to be kept in the darkness. The question of his mother’s death, finally having an answer he nearly wished it wouldn’t.

She seemed to understand. Generosity and warmth the only thing he saw when he looked at her, “Magic has and always will live in all of us, but you more than most have been touched by my grace, given my champion, even” The statement felt far more charged than even the verdict cast upon them, “Don’t forget that”

And with that last sentence, before he could even question what she meant by that, she bent at the waist to place a brush of a kiss upon his forehead, a mother checking the temperature of her child.

Then all he knew was darkness.

Birds were chirping. Singing sweetly in the warm haze Merlin found himself. Joyous and happy and light enough that he was set to smile before he could even blink his eyes open. The last bits of a lovely dream dripping away to the kindness of reality. Having something delicious settle in his throat from an illusion blending deliriously with real life. Slow and leisurely making the journey to the direction of such a lovely song. Dallying with the time between to see if the two worlds would blur into one.

Taking his time, enjoying every last second as he dawdled back into his body. Ready for his time awake and yet savouring the in between just a little as well.

A thought, so rarely awarded to him when he was forced to wake, usually asking the world itself to pause for a few extra minutes of much-needed rest. But, well, something just felt different about this morning. A feeling close to setting a bone, fleeting pain leading to something stronger, harder to fracture again, in its place, intertwined in the very atmosphere itself. Temporary hurt letting strength replace it. Agony sapping away till you wake up and forget you were ever hurt.

He felt rested. For the first time in gods know how many years, he wasn’t dragging himself out of bed, but wandering into it with the unhurried movements one might approach a wild animal they were attempting to pet. Barely perceived steps and with the attempt to show the tenderness in his frame. Relaxed and careful but excited all the same for the possibility of fur between his fingers, not thinking of if he caught teeth there instead.

A lovely sun painting the skies in oranges and pinks when he finally let his eyes flutter open, gentle and amble as he was allowed to be at the moment. Red curtains hanging wide enough to let the brilliant morning sky spread its golden rays onto his skin.

Wait.

His fingers slipped through silk sheets, far too soothing, far too rich for the likes of his own bed. A pillow far too soft under his head, a mattress that he was sinking into and not a cot forcing him to conform to its shape at his back, a canopy woven tight sitting above him.

He wasn’t in his bed, evidently hadn’t even made it to his room. Somehow he had managed to fall asleep on Arthur’s, ridiculously comfortable, bed.

And he wasn’t alone.

The strangeness only seemed to be growing as he turned enough to catch sight of a dark set of curls and glowing serene features in the early morning light. Body not tucked under the sheets, presumably just plopped on top of them as he was. Caught still in sleep, but it was surely Gwen he was sleeping next to.

Fear never really appeared in his stomach over the fact that she was lying next to him. Not with all the times they had slept so close, every time a brutality had her scared to sleep alone, or she refused to leave his side on the rare occasion when the horrors of Camelot became all too present in his life and he couldn’t hide the panic. But there was more confusion beating his brows together. Not a memory in place of how they made it like this in the first place.

As cautiously as he could as to not wake her, he made it to a seat. Careful and quiet as he extracted himself from her personal space. Alerted to the fact that there were certainly more snores than what Gwen could have produced, lining the room, as he did so.

And well, he couldn’t say the tangle of perplexity he found himself in, managed to lessen when he laid his gaze upon the source of the loudest of the snoring.

Gwaine, face down in the centre of the room, sleeping as if he were placed on the comfort of a king’s bed and not the harsh looking floor. A twinge of sympathetic pain for the wrong was his head was crocked surely going to leave his neck aching. Merlin made a note in his mind to grab him some muscle soothing salve for the soreness he was positive was going to be affecting him for a while yet as he sat resolute in the idea of moving him to something a bit more fitting for him.

The lurching of an almost memory being plucked from somewhere he wasn’t quite sure he could follow. A cloud of sweetness around it usually constituting the most precious of dreams saved from the harshness of reality. A field and smiling faces beckoning him into their gentle holds. The touch of softness lasting on his lips from an illusion of a kiss. Or maybe, two.

His feet hit the floor with the realization that he apparently slept with his shoes on, pushing the beautiful near memory away from the front of his mind to be left to the times when his head would once again hit a, probably much less soothing, pillow. Apparently having not even taken a second to undo the buckles in his rush to find sleep, so he could save himself the hassle of having to wash the sheets.

Oddness only growing as he tried to recall how that happened in the first place. Evoking the touch of the sun on tear stained cheeks as he tried to connect the dots of how it was that he had managed this, yet not finding much more than an overcoming of acceptance to a fate he had no clue about warming him from the tips of his fingers to the bottom of his covered feet. Forgiveness embedded into bones meant to hold the weight of the world. Something truly right, fitting into a slot carved out by pain and horror and bad decisions.

It was softness where there once had been harshness. Comfort overpowering hatred. Love sitting where he thought he had crushed it to nothing.

Absently he made it only a few steps forward, unaware he was really still moving at all given all the peculiarities swirling around his head, before his foot managed to find contact with something that he was sure shouldn’t have been there. Knowing these rooms damn near upside down with the amount of times he had cleaned them and yet completely ignorant to this foreign obstacle set in his path, sending him sprawling to the ground with an umph.

It didn’t have the response of any object. Lurching to undo the intertwined nature he found himself with a sharp intake of breath that shouldn’t come from the inanimate. Having Merlin swing his head around and raising his hand in defence of whatever was currently haunting Arthur’s chambers, instinct from too many threats trying to overtake them all leaving him just a little bit jumpy, despite the wash of relaxation that clung to him after such a pleasant sleep. Confusion mixing with anticipation to try to overtake the loveliness of comfort that he found in the pleasantness of dreams.

Only it wasn’t nearly the threat that he thought it might have been, being met with the blinking surprise of Lancelot’s doe eyes, instead of a sword poised to kill. Nearly as dangerous though, with just how much he could lose himself to them, if he let himself fall like he was a little bit desperate to do at the moment.

“Merlin?” he whispered, in a sort of shocked way that was usually saved for seeing the dead. Stuck still in the strange position he jumped to at the ready for an attack. Standing over where Merlin was collapsed in a heap.

It left him sort of unsure of what to say, the pain in his shin certainly pointing to the fact that he wasn’t one with the undead, unless death now came with bruises. A sense of familiarity with the look he was giving him, from the last time he found himself on death’s doorstep during the Dorocha attack, having something ugly scratch at the corners of his mind. A reminder of everything Merlin nearly lost that day staring at him as if it were him he had to watch out for and not the other way around. 

Yet, it wasn’t enough of a reason to run away, now. His will power finally running dry with the taste of all him still sitting on his tongue, so much more addicting than he could ever turn away from, even through the fugue state of a dream. The long pushed away longing crescendoing into loudness so pronounced he couldn’t hope to plug his ears against it. Overpowered blooms of warmth unfurling like flower blossoms under the light of spring sun, telling him that any pain would be worth it, just to have it for real, at least once. 

All of it was too much to put into words, though. Landing on the one thing he could think of at the moment with all the confusion and yearning around this entire situation suffocating his brain of anything better, “Yeah?”

He wasn’t quite sure what response he was expecting, not really sure whether he would be able to absorb it if it was any more curious than it had been with his strange wake-up call. But the one thing he absolutely wasn’t expecting was for Lancelot to cup his outstretched hand between the warm fingers of his own and bow his head in an almost prayer, just to whisper, “Oh, thank everything” to the flesh lovingly trapped in fervent calloused custody of care and kindness. 

And well, that was nothing at all to the next second where he was leaving a pleasantly tingly kiss of his lips across the sensitive skin branched over the back of his palm. A soft caress wishing to taste his pulse apparently, with a passion of saying hello after being forced to say goodbye. Worry so evident melting into nurture. Gentle and sweet and really rather chaste but embedded with enough reverence that it sent heat, long since gone from his body, slowly returning with this addition, all the way up to his ears. Sending the entire world spinning much too quickly even when time seemed to stop entirely with the new-found possibility of actually having this in this world as he did in the tenderness of sleep.

The snort behind him didn’t let them sit there as long as Merlin was craving they do. Though, he wasn’t really sure how long that would have truly been. If the ivy and flora would have overtaken them and the rest of Camelot before he got his fill or if he would have had the will power left inside to finally break the connection. Will power that just yesterday would have never let the sweet touch last with the poison that he tended to be to the ones he loved, but now, the attractiveness of a dream floating through his mind of safety and reciprocated love, so close to reality he could taste the sweetness of want on his tongue, had him only breaking apart with the announcement of further discomfort from Gwaine.

“Erm” Merlin muttered, dragging his eyes away to glance at the ludicrous position that the knight had clearly launched himself into. Though, really he was one to talk, given his current strange position half sprawled on the floor with his grip caught like a sailor in view of a siren, with Lancelot refusal to let go, “I was going to check on him”

Lancelot’s gaze made quick work jumping to catch on to what Merlin was saying. Working to look behind him without ever moving away from the closeness they were sharing. A challenge that appeared far too easy for the knight, stepping close enough for Merlin to breathe in the scent of polish and metal with just a hint of the smell that hang existed in him since the day that he had been pushing Merlin out of the way of a griffins claws, grass and daisies and dirt all infused into his very being.

The air caught in his chest, as if it too longed for the very essence of him to never leave. The old fear that he couldn’t protect anyone from the beckoning of death chirping in his mind to keep him living inside his lungs even if it stopped him from existing with the halt of his breath.

But something was louder this day, something of a reassurance that their time together was more worth keeping than the idea that it might not last forever, something compassionate and kind letting the oxygen out of its confines so that he might be allowed more. The promise that it wasn’t his fault living in a dream of green fields and smiling features, the oath of starting a new bit of relationship being more enticing than the sense of doom that he swore was overtaking him for the past weeks.

Lancelot grimaced, breaking Merlin from the strange contentness he was so distracted by. Reminding him of his original goal when he looped their fingers together and started moving towards the downed knight.

Merlin was quick to overtake him. Just too much worry sitting in him not to find his feet shuffling over, even with the distraction of the heat spreading into him from the point of contact of hands linked together.

Bending down to brush away the hair that was sitting so peculiarly in front of his closed eyes. Looking him over with a squeeze of reassurance from Lancelot’s preoccupation with his other hand. The jingle of armour alerting him, without the need to look, that Lance had followed him down, and a careful graze over Gwaine’s cheek, tenderness embedded into the motion and clemency tugging at the strings of fate as it wound deeper around Merlin’s heart.

In the moment he spared a glance to see the pains of attention Lancelot wore in downcast features and worry evident lines, for a knight that similarly stole Merlin’s focus, Gwaine seemingly focused in on the touch. Shooting up worse than an arrow moving from a bow string, to find himself blinking on level with the two of them as he found his knees.

Lancelot’s embrace of the knight had migrated down to keep him balanced with a solid grip to his arm, so alike Merlin’s outstretched hand as they both watched the man teeter dangerously. Creating something of a small triangle, the three of them. Three points of worry and concerned gazes jumping around and around to make sure not one of them was about to find themselves with more hurt. Wild breaths blowing like a tornado, combining and jumping and crafting magic in the centre of them all.

Before he could so much as stammer out an ‘Are you alright’, as crazed as this morning was leaving him slightly lagging, Gwaine was launching himself at him. Sneaking a hand across his chin, over the sensitive skin below his ear, drawing him close with a soft hold to the back of his neck, where the edge of his hairline beckoned him to land. All in a fluid motion managing to take his lips in his own with a passion of a lover finally reuniting, as if they had done this a million times before even though Merlin was fairly certain this was the first time he had been gifted this opportunity.

His eyes grew dry as he feared to even blink, not wanting this to be proven to be a dream if he was to close and open his lashes again. Not really able to move with how thick the shock set his muscles in, just completely still, arm still poised slightly out as if it were needed to try to catch the knight that had proven he surely didn’t need the aid. Having all air stolen from him as Gwaine tried to devour him entirely.

He wasn’t really given the chance to settle into it, either. Gwaine breaking apart as harshly as he entered the kiss, with barely a warning more than a slightly tighter hold to tug him in even closer before he was pulling back.

Merlin’s mouth was slightly parted, the same tingles infecting them as the back of his hand, silly looking surely as startled as he was tended to be right about now. Still, though they were moving slightly as he managed to whisper out, “What is happening?”

Gwaine just smiled at him, wide and large. As if that was answer in and of itself. And well, Merlin was starting to think maybe it was.

“Are you alright?” Lancelot broke in, supportively sending a pulse of positivity and fret up his arm with just a tightening of his hand. Doing the same to Gwaine, Merlin presumed as the smile spread between both of them.

With the pull of Gwaine’s engrossment came a final oddity as without removing his hand from Merlin’s own neck, he managed to finish out the strange knot that they found themselves in, gently taking one of Lancelot’s checks while he added a touch of a kiss to the other. “Fine, fine. Just a bit of a crick in the neck is all” He said, barely pulling away at all, only to follow it all up with a real slap to the knight’s chest “Don’t you dare ever do that again”

Merlin was having a real hard time processing anything that was happening at the moment, yet it seemed that his voice was the last thing to be lost to the confusion so prevalent, balking as the rest of him was, that bit at least managed a quiet. “Do what?”

But it was already too late, Lance already chuckling slightly, nose crinkling in that adorable way it did. “Wasn’t really my choice”

“No. No I got that bit” Gwaine stated while looking them both over, tone lightening all the more as he seemed pleased with the lack of whatever it was he was looking for, “A hell of a wallop, that spell. Still, you left me all alone to deal with that pigheaded arse”

“What?” At this point Merlin wasn’t all that sure he was talking at all. Maybe to many bizarre things stacking on top of one another had rendered him rather mute. Trying to understand the erratic twists and turns of the conversation that had surely already left him in the dust.

“Speaking of which,” Mischief, churning into something silky in the hands of Lancelot even with the slight flourish he brought Merlin’s hand along for the ride with, “We’re awake” Not quite a question in tone, but one sitting in arched brows all the same.

It was Gwaine’s turn to laugh, though this one was much more full than anything that had been presented so far, louder than anything else had been so far, “I told you I would beat some sense into him”

None of it helped. None of it made it make a lick more sense. None of it painting a picture that didn’t have a huge hole in the centre, “Into who?”

That bit must have picked up a bit of Gwaine’s excited brazenness. Finally inserting him firmly into the conversation as Lancelot turned melt worthy eyes to him, “Arthur” he said with another kind reminder of where they were linked, through a comforting squeeze.

It didn’t help the roar of anxiety that came with that, “Arthur?” Merlin choked out. High pitch with the reminder of a destiny that should have been coming first, yet had settled somewhere in the back of his mind after his, entirely satisfying, snooze.

“He definitely deserved it” Gwaine joked, half still caught in a laugh, though with a circling of his thumb to calm the creeping of Merlin’s shoulders.

And well, Merlin was sort of sure he did, as much as he wanted to bang some sense into him, though over what this time, he had no idea. “Someone’s going to have to explain to me what is going on”

Gwen’s voice chimed its sweet ring, groggy as it was, still gentle as it lit the room in a golden echo, reminding them all that their had been a reason for the quietness they had once been trying to hold onto in the early morning hour that had long since been abandoned for merry and confusion, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, hair frizzy and falling from the braid she probably set it in yesterday. “That is a long story, that we should probably find Arthur for, if we want the full tale”

Merlin’s gaze wound its way around the three of them, the crinkle of his brows visible in his sight as he took in the slight chuckles and the easy-going nature all of them were wearing without the burden of worry sparking over whatever it was they were all so casually joking about. “Alright” He drew out the word with the realization that everyone was being thoroughly tight-lipped at the moment. “If I wake Leon up, is he going to kiss me as well?” shooting his thumb to where the last of the knights sat asleep at Arthur’s table behind him.

Which only resulted in more laughter from Lance and Gwaine, after what Merlin thought was a rather reasonable question.

~

The battlement was lovely this time of year. A place to let the suns rays dance across his skin while enjoying the damn good view of the knight’s training. Gwaine and Lancelot sparing looking more like flirting as the teased and jabbed and laughed in the bright gilded sun after the events of the past few days.

Perfectly pleasant and altogether too luring to be anywhere else despite the chores he probably should have been attending to.

Since waking from what turned out to be a rather considerable spell, the days had been filled with such utter delights that Merlin was starting to wonder if he had woken at all. Sweet in the way that his teeth would surely start falling out if it were to continue like it was, peaceful and tranquil where worry should have started to flourish. Nothing but love surrounding him at all angles.

Lancelot and Gwaine had insisted on taking him on a real and true picnic. Seeming to have shared the temptation of a dream that he had apparently been trapped in. And well, somehow the dream seemed to pale in comparison to reality, golden and warm and shared between the three of them in laughs and comforts and flourishes of delectable treats.

Explanations had been offered eventually, slowly putting the story together in bits and pieces. What had settled into each of them explained as the kindness of a being so much grander than any of them. Retrieving the vaguest of impressions from the recesses of Merlin’s mind as it sparked back the strange moment he had held onto in Arthur’s chambers that he might have otherwise thought of as much of a dream as the rest of it. All given over in the safety of a forest, lounging comfortably practically in the laps of both Gwaine and Lancelot, with the pleas for shows of magic that had him smiling so very wide he seriously feared he might have done actual damage to his checks.

Gwen had, likewise, stolen him away for a lovely march through the market, like old times. Joined at the hip as they shared gossip and treats and talk of boys stupid in love. Just them without the responsibilities that seemed to be drowning them a week prior.

Even Arthur had been strangely kind. Offering him time away and making sure that his workload was unusually slight. A gift horse Merlin was absolutely staring into but one that he was enjoying nonetheless.

It was still so odd, and well, even with the hours of trying to understand, it seemed most people seemed perfectly pleased skipping right over what he had missed, to jump straight to a conclusion he wasn’t fully being filled in on. Arthur, choosing to not clarify how he, of all people, ended up curled at the foot of his throne, sleeping worse than a baby after a week of being kept up. Instead, just waving off Merlin’s worries to gather himself in his chambers and locking out the rest of the world for the better part of a week.

So, it was an unmitigated surprise to find the man strutting over to where Merlin had been very much enjoying the view and winks shot in his direction. Ignoring the calls of the others and the training he was surely missing terribly to find his way to Merlin’s side.

“You know,” He said after a moment of just both of them standing there. Arms crossed over his chest and gaze out on the slightly stilted Gwaine and Lancelot who were making a pale attempt to seem as if they weren’t watching the two of them slightly too closely. “There was something that didn’t make sense to me”

“Hm?” Merlin hummed back as he shot them both a smile and a nod to get them to relax just a smidgen. Sure as he was that he could handle whatever it was Arthur had stumbled into.

“And the more I thought it over,” Arthur turned to stare dead into Merlin’s eyes, like he needed to see him to slip the thing that was obviously bugging him into place, a thorn being plucked from skin and set on a flower stem, “the more I realized, it never really made sense”

“What?” Taking in the seriousness of the declaration with just a slight caution that it felt like the entirety of his world was about to be flipped on its head, as Arthur had a tendency to do.

“You” Eye’s glinting with something close to a dangerous idea, usually saved for times Merlin was about to absolutely humiliated. Causing a slight uneven shift between Merlin’s feet as he scrambled for an excuse without even knowing the problem. “You have never fallen under a spell, that I have seen and yet you were the first to fall to the enchantment. Before even Leon whose life had been saved by the cup of life”  

The gaze pointed at Merlin was so burning he feared it might actually scar, too smart, too already knowing for the puff of air Merlin tried to pass off as a laugh. Not able to run to his usual alibis with such thoughtfulness sitting in Arthur’s cocking brows. “What are you getting at?” Not even sure what he was really wishing it was, but never knowing with Arthur if he was able to actually manage to put together all Merlin was rather terrible at hiding.

“The more I thought about it,” His king continued, serious, but with a bit of that cockiness that tended to swarm his every action, as if the conversation were not over literal treason and instead just a match at some tournament. “The more I realized, the excuses and the strangeness and the shifty behaviour, it never really added up”

“Arthur-” It was too late. He had never been able to stop the inevitable, not once, destiny’s clutches too strong, Arthur’s stubbornness surely going to be discussed through history, but now more than most he felt the collapse of his entire future crumble as he tried to stop the words already decided on.

“And then I thought about what she told me, the spirit, the goddess, whatever she was,” Using his thumb to itch away the quirk of his forehead, so Merlin could be given a break from those sharp blues actively tearing away the last wall keeping him safe, “about me being given her champion. And well, it came to me pretty easy after that” 

Merlin was as desperate to stop the words as he was to hear them. Fear and excitement. Execution or freedom sitting just on the other side. His fate seemingly already chosen as it so tended to be, without his input of persuasion. Judged already without the need for a trial.

“You have magic” Declared easily with the only touch of disbelief presumably aimed at Arthur’s own inability to have seen it before.

There was something of the touch of sun attached to his skin at the statement, dragging the denial he was so close to using away from the light and instead replacing it with what he truly wanted to say, what he always wanted to say. A sense of peacefulness so close to the feeling of drifting to sleep. Ready as he was, after all that he had been through, for the truth to be known. So, with a straight back and finally meeting the eyes that returned to watch him over, he allowed the touch of magic he could feel dancing wonderfully under his skin to fill in the answer, 

“Yes,” Whispered but strong all the same “Yes, I do”

Arthur took a long moment to look at him as if it were the first time all over again. An understanding of who he was really have washing his socks and writing his speeches. But without the harshness Merlin was near certain would have sat there even just a week ago. “Alright then” he said with a nod to his head, as if it were something as easy to grasp as the sky being blue, “Come along, My father left us a lot of work to do”

The response surprised a laugh out of him, bright and airy. That this was the answer to it all, that all the pain, all the horror, all the tragedy that he had lived through, had finally cultivated to this. The beginning of a golden age brighter that the sun right at his fingertips, feeling damn near unreal. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if I woke up at all”

Arthur, of course, took that as an opportunity to flick him on the forehead. Hard enough to send Merlin’s hand rubbing over the area as he squinted at him, “There.” Arthur said, proud and tall, as he began the short trip back to the castle that should have had a cell waiting for him, now truly cast in gilded light. “Proof you did, you idiot”