Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was completely dark in the cave when Merlin woke up—so dark that he was not entirely sure if he had actually succeeded in opening his eyes or not. He spent a brief moment taking stock of his body before he dared move it, but there was no pain indicating an injury. He just felt a little…off, somehow, but that might just be because he had been lying on the cold ground for however long he had been unconscious.

Various grunts echoed through the cave, informing him that his friends were still there and also waking up.

“What happened?” Arthur’s voice said, somewhere in the darkness.

“Must have been some sort of spell,” Merlin answered, his voice coming out a tad higher in pitch than intended. “See, didn’t I—?”

“Yes, fine, you told us getting rained on was better than seeking shelter in the creepy cave that wasn’t on any of our maps. Happy now?”

“Not particularly.”

Merlin clambered to his feet, immediately tripping and almost falling over as he stepped on the hem of his…robes? Struck by the sudden fear that he had accidentally transformed himself into his Dragoon persona, his hands flew to his chin, feeling for a beard, but he found none.

“I feel…weird,” Percival said, interrupting Merlin’s attempt to figure out why he was wearing something other than his usual breeches.

“Me too,” Gwen agreed. “I— Uh. Something’s wrong with my voice?”

She sounded more or less like she always did to Merlin, and he frowned and asked, “Are you all right? Any injuries?”

“Merlin, is that you?” she asked in return. “Something’s wrong with your voice too.”

She might have a point there, actually. It was still higher than usual.

“We need light,” Leon said.

A split second later, the cave was bathed in the cold, blue light of a glowing orb floating above their heads. Merlin’s heart all but stopped in his chest as fear flooded him. He had not meant to summon the light! How could he have been so careless? He—

Wait. He had not summoned it. After two and a half decades of practising magic, he knew very well what it felt like when he cast a spell, and this was not it. But then where had it come from?

“Who did that?” Arthur exclaimed, obviously wondering the same. He was looking wildly around the cave, blinking against the harsh light.

“Perhaps it’s the cave itself?” someone suggested. “It’s magical, right?”

Merlin turned towards the unknown voice, surprised to see a child standing among them. The boy could not be more than nine winters old, and though he looked very familiar, Merlin could not remember ever seeing him before.

“Who are you?” Arthur asked warily.

The boy frowned. “What do you mean? It’s me, Gwen?”

“No, that’s Gwen,” Percival said, pointing at the girl standing beside the boy. “Or…is it?”

“What? I’m Elyan, you— What happened to you?!”

There was so much wrong with this picture that Merlin did not know where to begin.

There was Percival, whose voice and face were definitely his own but whose body was decidedly not. The mountain of a man had shrunken in stature and build, now resembling nothing so much as Merlin during his early days in Camelot—all gangly and scrawny.

The person claiming to be Elyan looked very much like Gwen, only a younger version of her. She was a little shorter than usual, her face was rounder and more youthful, and her body was not filling out the simple dress she wore the way it normally would. If Merlin had to guess, he would say that she looked to be around thirteen—if, indeed, it was her and not Elyan.

Oh. That was whom the young boy standing beside her reminded him of.

“Is that…me?” Gwen-Elyan asked weakly, staring at the boy.

“Elyan?” the boy asked, eyes widening. “Why are you in my body? And where did you get that dress from? I haven’t seen that in years.”

“What is going on?” Arthur asked exasperatedly.

“Maybe some light would help us figure it out,” Leon suggested, again. “Does anyone still have their torch?”

“Leon, we have light.”

“Oh. Then I suppose I’ve gone blind.” Only Leon could have taken this news with such equanimity.

Merlin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let me get this straight; Leon is blind, Gwen and Elyan have switched bodies and turned into younger versions of themselves, and Percival is…small. Anyone else experiencing any strange changes?”

Off to the side, Gwaine waved his arms in a bid for attention. He had been uncharacteristically quiet up until now, and Merlin soon understood why as he pointed to his mouth which was moving without so much of a peep coming out of it.

“You’ve lost your voice?” he asked.

Gwaine nodded vigorously.

Arthur huffed. “At least some good has come out of this mess, then.”

Gwaine pouted.

“What about you?” Merlin asked Arthur. “Do you feel different?”

“No,” Arthur replied quickly, but there was something shifty in his eyes which belied his words. “You should worry about yourself.”

“Me?”

“Merlin, you’re a girl.”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “So you keep saying.”

“No, really. You’re obviously still you, but you’re definitely a girl.”

“What?” He looked down at himself. “Oh.”

He was not wearing robes, after all; he was wearing a dress. Beneath the blue fabric, the unmistakable curves of a modest bosom protruded from his chest and when he brought his hands to his hips it was to find that they were a bit wider than normal while his waist had narrowed some. Further examination indicated that what felt a lot like one of his neckerchiefs was tied around his head instead, and beneath it his hair was pulled back into a plait which reached down to his mid-back.

Well, that explained his voice. Her voice? Compared to Leon, he had gotten off easy.

“All right,” he— she sighed. “I’m a girl and you’re…something. I’m sure we’ll figure out what’s wrong with you sooner or later.”

“I feel fine,” Arthur lied.

Gwen—no, Elyan—cleared his throat. “How do we break this spell? I don’t want to be my sister a second longer than I have to. No offence, Gwen.”

“None taken. I don’t want to be a boy either; boys are gross!” Her eyes widened. “I’m…sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

Merlin smothered a laugh, reminding himse— herself that the situation was rather serious, despite it all. Who knew, whatever was going on with Arthur might prove to be more sinister than Percival losing his muscles or Merlin gaining a couple of novel body parts…

She took a look around the cave, searching for clues as to how this had happened and what might be done about it. She could no longer sense the undercurrent of magic that had been thrumming through the earth as they entered the cave before cresting and knocking them out. Perhaps the spell had exhausted the cave’s natural magical reserves for the time being.

She was about to give up the search when something caught her eye. Some distance away, there appeared to be etchings in the cave wall. Curious, she stepped away from the group to investigate them, but this far from the glowing orb, the light was a bit too dim to make out the writing. Luckily, the glowing orb followed the others when they noticed Merlin slipping away and went after her.

“What did you find?” Arthur asked.

She squinted in concentration, trying to make sense of the inscription. “I’m not sure. It’s written in an ancient script.”

“Can you read it?”

“I think so. Some of Gaius’ books are written in it. Give me a moment…”

It took several minutes before she was sure enough of her translation to deliver it to the rest of the group, most of whom had dejectedly sat down on the ground while they waited.

“All right,” she said at last. “As far as I can tell it says something along the lines of, ‘Whosoever enters this place shall not emerge the same as before. Only through accepting the…uh…lesson of self shall they be returned to such as they were, and they shall be better for it.’”

“‘The lesson of self?’ What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Percival.

“I’m not sure. Could be that my translation is off, but it sounds like your typical moral spell to me.”

“Moral spell?”

“Yeah, you know, the ‘learn your lesson or stay cursed forever’ kind of deal.”

“What lesson am I supposed to learn from turning into my sister?” Elyan squeaked, then looked horrified at having made such a girlish sound.

Merlin shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think you’re stuck like that until we figure it out.”

“Is there no other way?” Arthur asked, glancing uneasily between the de-aged siblings.

“Doesn’t seem like it, but we should ask Gaius for a second opinion. I don’t think there’s much more to be learned here.”

“Great. Just great.” Arthur heaved a weary sigh, then squared his shoulders resolutely. “Very well. Let’s find our way out and head for Camelot. Percival, help guide Leon.” With that, he started walking towards the mouth of the tunnel through which they had entered the cave, flinching slightly when the magic orb of light followed them as soon as they started moving.

Gwaine sidled up to Merlin as they walked, drawing her attention by laying a hand on her shoulder. He raised his eyebrows and nodded towards the glowing orb and made some sort of questioning expression.

“What?”

Gwaine mouthed something Merlin did not entirely follow.

“I have no idea what you’re saying. Sorry.”

While his words were not audible, his resigned sigh was, and he made a gesture which clearly meant, “Never mind.” After a moment of walking on in mutual silence, he bumped his shoulder against Merlin’s, and when she turned her head to look at him, he mouthed what looked like, “You okay?” and gestured vaguely at her general appearance.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him. “Really. Compared to everyone else, this is not so bad.”

Gwaine gave her an exaggerated once-over, his eyes raking over the changes in her figure, then sent her a cheeky wink and mouthed, “Not bad at all,” or something to that effect.

Torn between flushing red and rolling her eyes, she gave his shoulder a playful shove. “Ever the chevalier, Sir Gwaine.”

He laughed silently and bumped their shoulders together one last time before turning his attention to the path ahead of them again, allowing Merlin to fight her blush in peace.

As luck would have it, their horses were still waiting for them at the mouth of the cave, and if any of them had switched bodies with each other it did not seem to faze them in the slightest. The ride home from the cave was not all that long, but it was still a bit of an adventure, especially for Merlin, Gwen, Elyan and Leon. Merlin and Elyan had to get used to mounting and riding their horses while wearing dresses and Leon’s reins were tied to Percival’s saddle as his blindness prevented him from guiding his horse himself.

Gwen, meanwhile, was struggling a bit with the fact that she was now a boy half the size of her former self riding on a rather large horse. Despite having shortened her stirrups, she was sliding around and looking uncomfortable to the point that Elyan eventually called the whole company to a halt.

“Come on, Gwen,” he said. “You can ride with me. We won’t be too heavy for my horse like this.”

She scowled petulantly. “I’m not a baby, Elyan! I can—” She interrupted herself, screwing her eyes shut and shaking her head lightly before looking up and smiling sheepishly. “Sorry. What I mean to say is thank you for that kind offer; that sounds great. Could someone help me get on his horse?”

“I’ll lift you,” said Percival, but then he hesitated, dejectedly looking down at his spindly arms. “Or maybe not…”

Arthur huffed and dismounted. “What kind of husband would I be if I didn’t help my wife?” He glanced at Gwen. “Or my, uh, husband…?” he amended awkwardly.

“Wife,” she said decisively.

“Wife,” he agreed with some relief.

With Arthur’s help, Gwen was quickly transferred to Elyan’s horse and as they continued on she looked a little more secure where she sat in front of her brother, bracketed by his arms as he held the reins.

“What lessons do you reckon we’re supposed to learn from all this?” Elyan asked after a while.

“Dunno,” Percival replied. “Maybe I’m supposed to learn not to rely too much on my strength? Isn’t that what you always say in training, sire?”

Arthur looked over at him, considering this. “Perhaps in the beginning, but your swordsmanship has improved significantly since then. What I’m wondering is what Merlin has done that necessitates turning into a woman to learn a lesson.”

“Why do you assume I’ve done something?” Merlin exclaimed defensively.

“You do spend an awful lot of time in the tavern. For all I know, you’re one of those men who turn into lecherous bounders when they get too deep into their drinks.”

Arthur’s smile was teasing, but Merlin’s hackles rose nonetheless. “First of all, I’m almost never at the tavern. Secondly, I very rarely drink recreationally, and thirdly, I don’t start harassing people when I do. Oh, and fourthly, I’m not even a man anymore.”

This last bit earned her a few sideways glances.

“You sort of are, though,” Elyan pointed out.

Merlin snorted and gestured at herself. “I thought Leon was the blind one. Does this look male to you?”

“But you’re still Merlin, aren’t you?” Percival asked. “Just in another body?”

“Yes? A female one, thus making me a woman?”

“Do you mean that you feel like a woman?” Leon asked, sounding curious.

Merlin narrowed her eyes, starting to feel as confused as her friends looked. “What do you mean ‘feel like a woman?’”

“Like you felt like a man in your old body,” Leon clarified.

“I…feel like Merlin? Just like I always have?”

Arthur gave him a strange look. “Are you saying that you never felt like a man?”

“I didn’t need to feel like a man; I was one, despite all your inane jokes to the contrary. And now I’m a woman.”

“Well, I still feel like a man,” Elyan said with great conviction. “Physically turning into a teenage girl doesn’t change that.”

“And I feel like a girl,” Gwen agreed. “I mean, like a woman.”

A trace of doubt started to creep into Merlin’s mind at this, but she quickly dismissed it. “But that’s different. You two aren’t in your own bodies. I’m still me, only I’m now who I would’ve been if I’d been born a woman.”

“I don’t know,” Percival mused, “I think I’d still feel like a man if that happened to me.”

Merlin snorted. “Right.”

“I’m serious.”

Merlin stared at him for a second before her gaze flitted over the bemused faces of her friends, taking in their nods of agreement with Percival. “You’re having me on,” she said.

When they all shook their heads she looked to Gwaine in a last desperate attempt to find some support, even though she knew he would not be able to give it verbally. She was mildly surprised to see a thoughtful look on his face as he studied her, quite unlike the bewilderment she was met with from the others.

Meeting her eyes, Gwaine said something inaudible which she could not make out by reading his lips, then frowned in frustration with his own muteness and simply shrugged instead.

Feeling not at all enlightened, Merlin looked back at the others, shaking her head as she said, “If you say so.”

Arthur cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Well, Merlin, I always said you were a girl’s petticoat. You want to be a woman? Go ahead. At least now you’ll fit into those dresses you’re always sneaking off with.”

“I don’t—!” Merlin sputtered. “I’ve never worn a dress in my life before today, thank you very much, and I didn’t say I want to be a woman, just that I am one at the moment.”

She decided against adding, I’m not saying I particularly want to be a man either, reasoning that Arthur was acting constipated enough about the whole thing already. He would surely spin her utter indifference towards what arrangement of body parts she happened to possess into something weird.

“Fine, you’re a girl. At the moment.”

“Good,” she muttered. “That’s sorted then.”

Unfortunately, Gaius had no better advice than to ride out the curse until they all figured out what lesson they were each expected to learn from it. At least that was what he told the group while they were gathered all together. As soon as he and Merlin were alone, he pulled out an ancient tome and started going through a list of counterspells in search of something which might be able to lift the curse.

“Here, try this one,” he said, pushing the book across the table towards Merlin.

She took a look at the spell indicated, studying it for a moment. It seemed relatively straightforward, and so she took a deep breath, pulling on her magic as she spoke the words…to no effect.

Something felt wrong. Very wrong.

“Hm, perhaps not, then,” Gaius muttered, retrieving the book and going back to leafing through it.

Merlin stared in horror at her hands. It had not felt as if it had been the wrong spell, it felt like there was something wrong with her magic. Trepidation rising inside her, she reached out towards a cup on the other side of the table and tried to make it move. She felt no response from her magic whatsoever as she tried to rouse it.

“Onbregdan,” she whispered.

Still nothing.

Starting to feel desperate, she turned to the nearest candle and said, “Forbærnan!”

Not even a spark.

“What are you doing?” Gaius asked, looking up at her.

“Something’s wrong,” she choked out. “My magic… I think I’ve lost it.”

Gaius’ eyebrow rose as concern coloured his features. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I can’t reach it. It’s like it was never there.”

“That is grave news indeed.”

Merlin bit her lip, trying to stave off the despair clutching at her. Until now, she had considered herself the luckiest among the bunch—excepting Arthur, whose curse had not yet manifested itself—but losing her magic was a problem. She needed it, not just to attempt to break this curse but to protect Camelot. What use was she without it? It was only a matter of time before someone tried to kill Arthur for the millionth time, or perhaps his curse would put him in danger somehow, or—

“Merlin, calm yourself,” Gaius said kindly, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm.

“I need to get it back.” She shot up from the bench, starting to pace restlessly. “How do I get it back?”

“By breaking the curse.”

“How? I’d need my magic to do it.”

Gaius sighed and shook his head. “If the curse is powerful enough to steal magic such as yours, I fear that there may not be a counterspell that could break it. You will just have to muddle through and try to find out what lesson you must learn.”

“And that will bring my magic back?”

“That must be our hope.”

Her shoulders sagged as resignation settled over her. “Fine.” She turned and stalked towards the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to check on Arthur.”

Chapter Text

“Go away, Merlin!”

These are the thanks I get for worrying about you?

“Arthur! Open the door!” she called, impatiently knocking again even though he was already alerted to her presence.

“What part of ‘go away’ do you not understand?” came the irate reply from within Arthur’s chambers. “I do not wish to be disturbed!”

“Is this about the curse?” she asked. “I won’t laugh if you’re slowly turning into an ass again. Can’t make any promises if you start braying, though.”

“I’m fine! I just want to be alone.”

“Have it your way. Just let me in so I can grab your laundry.”

“Leave it. Take the evening off.”

Merlin blinked. Those were words she very rarely heard, and though it was obvious that Arthur was hiding something—most likely something curse-related—she decided that she was not going to look a gift day off in the mouth. Given the (relatively) benign nature of the others’ afflictions, it probably would not kill Arthur to spend the night stewing in whatever misery the curse was inflicting on him. Besides, now she could spend the rest of the evening digging through the library in search of anything that might clue her in on what she was supposed to learn from losing her magic on top of being turned into a woman.

“If you insist,” she said. “Just don’t blame me if you can’t find anything clean to wear tomorrow.”

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked away.

The following morning, Merlin was relieved to find the king’s door unlocked when she came to wait on him. Sneaking in silently, she set down Arthur’s breakfast on the table before going about her usual turn around the room to pick up stray articles of clothing to toss in the laundry basket. She was just about to draw away the curtains to wake him when a quiet whine drew her attention.

Turning to the bed, she found that Arthur was tossing and turning beneath the covers, his face scrunched up in what looked like agony. As she watched him, he suddenly drew a sharp breath, tensing and grinding his teeth before going limp again with a pained whimper.

She hurried to tug at the curtains, bathing the room in morning light, then she scurried up to the bed and laid a hand on Arthur’s shoulder.

“Arthur, wake up,” she said softly. “It’s just a dream.”

As she gave his shoulder a light shake, he jolted, eyes flying open. The next she knew, her wrist was caught in a vice-like grip while Arthur’s other hand fumbled under his pillow for something.

“Your dagger is in its sheath on your belt,” she said, trying not to wince, “which I found on the floor, by the way.”

Arthur blinked. “M’rlin?” he mumbled.

“Yes, it’s me.” When Arthur threw a look of sleep-addled panic around the room as if searching for something rather than ease his grip on her, she said, “You’re hurting me.”

It took a second for the meaning to sink in, but when it did Arthur immediately let go of her wrist, snatching his hand away. “Sorry. I…”

“Had a bad dream?” She drew back her arm, rubbing at the sore spot. In her old body, it might not have been quite as painful, but her wrists were a touch more slender now and somehow…squishier. She still had the reasonably fit musculature of someone used to performing the manual labour of a servant, but things like body fat and muscles were somewhat redistributed compared to what she was used to.

Arthur fell back against the pillows, running a hand through his hair to unstick it from his sweat-dappled forehead. “Yeah. God, it felt so real…”

“Want to talk about it?”

Predictably, Arthur shook his head dismissively. “It was just a dream.”

“Maybe that’s your curse,” Merlin quipped. “Bad dreams.”

“Maybe,” Arthur grunted, but he looked vaguely guilty as he said it and did not meet Merlin’s eyes.

Making the assessment that any clues as to Arthur’s real curse were unlikely to be needled out of him before breakfast, Merlin turned away to pick out an outfit from the wardrobe (which, thankfully, still housed plenty of clean clothes despite her not having been allowed to collect the laundry yesterday).

Arthur was still lazing in bed by the time she was finished, so she said, “Come on; up and at ‘em!” and reached for his blankets, starting to pull them away, only for Arthur to startle and drag them right up to his chin again.

“What are you doing?” he squeaked—not that he would ever use that word for the noise he had just made.

Merlin shot him an impatient glare. “Trying to get you out of bed. You have training this morning.” She gave the blankets another tug, but to no avail.

“I’m shirtless.”

“So?”

“So, you’re still a girl, as you so adamantly insisted yesterday.”

She stared at him. “I’m still me, though. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Well, it’s different now.”

Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “Arthur… Are you worried that I’ll be attracted to you?” When he flushed and looked away, she snorted, then burst out laughing at the sight of Arthur’s offended expression. “Oh my God, you are! Wow, that’s a bit arrogant, don’t you think?”

“Excuse m—?”

“Setting aside the fact that nothing’s really changed about me but my looks, you’re not even close to my type.”

“And what sort of exacting standards do you have that not even I live up to them?” Arthur grumbled petulantly.

Kind, brown eyes, Merlin thought, but said, “A good personality, for a start. Now stop acting like a child and get out of bed. I promise I won’t ogle you, nor will the sight of a shirtless man offend my ‘maidenly’ sensibilities.”

With a last roll of his eyes, Arthur acquiesced, flinging the covers aside and getting out of bed. Through some miracle, Merlin did not spontaneously combust when she laid eyes on his bare chest. Imagine that.

Arthur disappeared behind the changing screen to have a quick wash, and Merlin caught his sleeping breeches with practised ease as they were thrown over the screen, stowing them away in the laundry basket.

“Where’s Gwen?” she asked as she readied Arthur tunic for him. “I take it she didn’t sleep here?”

“God, no,” Arthur huffed. “It may be my wife stuck in there, but I’ll not share my bed with a prepubescent boy. Imagine what the court gossip would say.”

“…You may have a point there. Where did she sleep, then?”

“I think they put a pallet in Elyan’s room. Guinevere said something about it being like the good old days when they were children.”

“A family sleepover? Sounds nice.”

As their conversation trailed off, Merlin waited patiently for Arthur to come out from behind the screen. Judging by the sound of it, he was done washing up by now, yet she kept waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

“Arthur, you haven’t drowned yourself in the washbasin, have you?” she asked after a minor eternity.

“No,” came the curt answer.

“Then come out and let me dress you. You’ll be late to training at this rate.”

“I…can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s— It’s too weird, Merlin—you being a girl. I just can’t.”

She laughed in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. Just toss the clothes over the screen and go fetch George, will you? He can take over for you until you’re back to normal.”

“I’m sorry? You’d rather be stuck with George for the foreseeable future than let someone who has dressed you a thousand times see you naked?”

Arthur stuck his head around the screen then, looking vaguely embarrassed. “It’s not ideal, I’ll give you that, but I’m the king; I can’t have a maidservant!” Upon seeing Merlin’s crestfallen expression, he added, “Don’t give me that look. I’m not sacking you; you’ll have your wages, and you can come back to work when your curse is broken.”

“But that could take ages!”

“Think of it as a vacation; you’re always badgering me about getting one of those. And I’m sure Gaius would appreciate having you around more to assist him.”

Merlin stared at him silently for a long moment as she processed this. On the one hand, it was tempting to take the offer and run before Arthur could change his mind. She could use the break. On the other hand, how was she supposed to protect him if she was being kept at a distance? Although, she had lost her magic… She was not going to be much use to him like this anyway. Perhaps it would be better to get some time to herself so she could concentrate on figuring out the solution to her curse as soon as possible.

“Fine,” she said at length. “Have it your way.” She threw Arthur’s tunic unceremoniously over the back of a chair rather than over the screen as requested. “But don’t come crawling back to me when George starts driving you mental with his pedantry. I’ll see you when I’m a man again.”

She ignored Arthur’s exasperated, “Merlin…” as she strode off towards the door.

Chapter Text

“Come in!”

Merlin opened the door to Elyan’s room to find Young Gwen sitting on the edge of the bed with Young Elyan kneeling on the mattress behind her, plaiting her hair. No, wait— Gwen was plaiting Elyan’s hair. Right. Yes.

“Hello there,” Merlin said, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. “Thought I’d check in on you. Still cursed, I see.”

“As are you,” Elyan commented, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye so as not to have to turn his head and disturb Gwen’s work.

Gwen looked over at her properly, however, smiling warmly. “You make a very pretty girl. If we put you in one of my dresses, you could pass for a princess.”

“I’m just glad getting cursed came with a dress, free of charge,” Merlin laughed. “It was a very thoughtful curse in that regard. My old clothes wouldn’t have fit anymore, and this is much more practical than if I’d had to borrow yours. I don’t know how you stand it, walking around in all that silk all the time. I’d be too worried about spilling something and ruining it to enjoy it.”

“Believe me, I’m not used to it either. I still get nervous every time I eat soup.” She gave Merlin’s dress another once-over and said, “If you stay cursed much longer, I’ll see if I can’t find some of my old dresses to lend you so you at least have a few spares. I haven’t gotten around to giving them away yet. They should fit you well enough, even if you are still a bit taller than I am— Well, than I was. You’re a lot taller than I am right now.”

Merlin nodded gratefully. If she had still had her magic, she could simply have made sure that her only set of feminine clothes stayed clean, but, as it was, she would soon need at least another shift to change into while hers was being laundered.

Other than there being just one of it, she had no real complaints about her new dress. It really did seem like the curse had transformed her into what she would have been like had she been a woman all along, right down to her clothes. The dress was of a simple cut and was made from the same blue wool as the tunic she had worn on their excursion. It even had a little patch on the right sleeve in the exact same spot where she had mended her tunic after catching it on a branch a while back. It felt familiar, even though she was still getting used to the skirts.

“How are you two coping with the changes?” she asked, taking a seat on the bed beside the two siblings.

“It’s awful being Gwen!” Elyan exclaimed. “Ow!” he added when Gwen tugged on a lock of his hair in revenge. “I only meant that if I had to turn into a girl, I’d much rather be myself as a girl than my teenage sister. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to change clothes while keeping your eyes shut? I don’t want to see any of that!”

“He has a point there,” Gwen chuckled, tying off the plait with a ribbon. “It would’ve been easier if we had our own bodies, even if I had still turned into a boy and Elyan a girl.”

“But you still feel like yourselves?” Merlin asked.

“Yeah,” said Elyan. “But… I don’t know. I feel younger, but also the same, but also not?”

Gwen nodded her agreement and fell back onto the mattress, sprawled out on her back. “I know what you mean. I feel like myself, but I also have this urge to jump on the bed. I keep having to remind myself that I’m an adult woman, not a child. I just want to run and play, you know?”

“Then why don’t you?” Merlin asked. “Why not make the most of it and have some fun?”

She shook her head, sighing as she stared up at the ceiling. “I’m the queen. Word of the curse will soon spread through the court, if it hasn’t already. I still have to uphold decorum, even if I look like a little boy.”

There was some sense in what she said, but Merlin could practically see the youthful restlessness simmering within her friend, and she feared that without a nudge out the door, Gwen might decide to stay isolated in this room indefinitely in an attempt to wait out the curse, and that seemed a crying shame.

“Why don’t you come with me to the forest this afternoon?” she asked. “Gaius wants me to pick some herbs for him. You could help me out, and maybe even climb a tree or two with no one around to judge you for letting loose a bit.”

She perked up at this, bounding up to her knees again with sudden vigour. “Oh, we could make it a picnic, and Elyan could come too! Please, Elyan, come with us, it’ll be so much fun! Please, please, plea—” She shut up abruptly, clasping a hand over her mouth in horror. Composing herself, she sat back on her heels and folded her hands neatly in her lap. “I mean, thank you, Merlin, that sounds wonderful. Elyan, would you like to join us?”

Merlin could not help laughing at the display. The studious dignity looked hilariously out of place on a young boy.

Elyan joined in on the laughter too, affectionately tousling Gwen’s short-cropped curls. “Sure, I’ll come too. I think I had better keep an eye on you so you don’t get yourself into trouble, you little scamp. Besides, I don’t have anything better to do, seeing as I’m excused from training until this blows over.”

“Great!” Merlin said, beaming. “This is going to be fun! I’ll pick you up when it’s time to go.”

“I need a volunteer,” Merlin announced as she entered the armoury.

She was pleased to find that the very people she had been looking for—namely Gwaine, Percival and Leon—had lingered there after the morning’s training session had concluded.

Gwaine looked up from the sword he was polishing with a bright smile, mouthing something at her which she did not catch, but which looked cheerful. She just smiled in return.

“What’s the job?” Percival asked, groaning as Leon’s fingers dug into a muscle in his scrawny back. Judging by the smell, Leon was massaging one of Gaius’ salves for sore muscles into Percival’s skin, presumably getting by on touch alone, as he seemed to be blind still.

“I’m taking Gwen and Elyan out to gather herbs. Gwen thinks we need an escort if we’re going into the woods.”

Merlin had shot down the idea at first, reminding them that she often went out for herbs by herself and almost never had any trouble—except when she did—but Gwen had insisted that their odd circumstances left them a bit vulnerable. That had reminded Merlin that she no longer had access to her magic, should she need to defend herself, and suddenly the idea of some additional security had not seemed as superfluous.

“Well, if Elyan is with you…?” Leon said, looking unseeingly in Merlin’s general direction with a slight frown of confusion.

“Elyan currently has the body of a thirteen-year-old girl. His sword is way too heavy for him, and he certainly doesn’t look very intimidating.”

“Right. I almost forgot.”

“I would go with you, but I’m not very intimidating at the moment either,” said Percival, looking forlornly down at his skinny body. “Also, I can barely lift my arms after the drills Arthur put me through this morning. Everything hurts.”

“And I’m not much use to anybody like this,” Leon sighed. “I couldn’t even join training.”

“I think someone wants to volunteer, though,” Percival snorted, looking over at Gwaine.

Gwaine was, indeed, raising his hand rather enthusiastically. Whatever it was he was trying to say was lost on Merlin, however.

“You want to come with?” she asked, lips twitching in amusement when Gwaine nodded eagerly. She tried her best to read his lips as he mouthed something in response, but with little success. “Sorry, come again?”

Huffing in frustration, Gwaine looked around as if searching for something, then put the sword aside and rose to fetch an object from across the room. It proved to be a double-slated, hinged wax tablet of the sort Gaius often used to make notes too unimportant to waste parchment on. After some furious scribbling with the stylus, Gwaine walked up to her and held out the tablet for inspection.

“It would be my honour, my lady.”

“I may be a woman now, but I’m hardly a lady,” Merlin protested, an unladylike snort of amusement supporting her point.

Gwaine grinned and retrieved the tablet to write something else. “Pretty enough,” it read when he held it up for her again.

It was not so different to Gwen’s compliment earlier, yet it brought a light flush to Merlin’s cheeks simply by virtue of coming from Gwaine. She tried to push away any thoughts about how she wished she did not have to turn into a woman in order for Gwaine to pay her that sort of compliment, but it proved futile.

In an effort to deflect attention from the all-too-real effect the words had on her, she put on an exasperated expression and jokingly said, “I should’ve known losing your voice wouldn’t stop your one-liners. Come on, then. You don’t need to be able to speak to protect us from bandits.”

Gwaine chuckled silently and wrote, “Let me wash up.”

“All right. I’ll head down to the kitchens to grab us a picnic basket. Meet us at Elyan’s room when you’re ready?”

“It’s a date!”

Merlin was sure that her blush must have been noticeable as she made her excuses and fled the room—a single thought filling her mind as she hurried down the corridors towards the kitchens.

If only it were…

Gwen’s idea to combine the herb gathering with a picnic was a brilliant one. It was a lovely day for it, and, as Arthur had so kindly made sure that Merlin had an unprecedented amount of free time on her hands, she felt no need to rush through their lunch. She had all afternoon to find the herbs, and there was nowhere she needed to be that evening either, come to think of it. She could get used to this.

Full and sated, she brushed the last crumbs of food off her hands and arranged herself on the picnic blanket to sit with her legs stretched out in front of her, using her arms as support as she leaned back against them to bask in the sun.

She felt utterly at peace as she watched Gwen and Elyan play-fight using sticks as swords a little distance away, looking like they were having the time of their lives. It had taken some doing to convince Gwen to let loose and give in to her childish impulses, and Merlin was very grateful that they had succeeded, for she had not seen Gwen this happy and carefree in ages.

“They’re adorable, aren’t they?” she murmured.

Beside her, Gwaine nodded. His lips were curled into a soft smile and it widened into a silent laugh as Elyan caught the tip of Gwen’s “sword” under his armpit and trapped it there, groaning theatrically as he feigned having received a mortal wound, dramatically falling to his knees without any care of potentially staining his dress.

“It must be weird, suddenly being so young again,” Merlin mused, grinning at Gwen’s jubilant victory pose. “Having all your memories of your adult life, but the body and urges of a child… I’m glad they’re having fun with it, but I wouldn’t want to change my curse for theirs for love nor money.”

Gwaine picked up his wax tablet and jotted something down on it. “And you? Any feminine urges?” it read.

She shrugged. “I told you, I feel much the same as always. The only thing that’s different is my body. And the clothes. I don’t suddenly feel a burning need to take up needlepoint, or whatever it is you imagine girls live for.”

Though she kept her gaze fixed on the playing siblings, she was aware of Gwaine studying her for a moment before writing on the tablet and holding it up in her line of sight.

“You really don’t mind?”

“Why should I?” she replied honestly. “I mean, ask me again if I get stuck like this long enough to get my, um, monthly courses, but so far the biggest annoyance has been dealing with long hair.”

A strand of said hair that had escaped her poor attempt at plaiting blew into her face as if to drive her point home, and she tucked it away behind her ear, making a mental note of readjusting the kerchief she had tied around her head in an attempt to keep it under control—just as soon as she could be arsed to.

“The only real downside is that Arthur is being weird about it, but even that just means that I get a break for the first time in forever.”

Well, there was also the separate issue of her magic being gone, but with Arthur acting even more prattish than usual, it was hard to feel that upset about not being able to protect him at the moment.

“Weird how?” Gwaine wrote.

“He seems convinced that it’s suddenly inappropriate for me to serve him,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’m not sure if it’s just that he’s too much of a baby to deal with the thought of a pair of breasts being in the same room as him while he takes a bath or if he thinks the court will make assumptions of indecency if he keeps a maidservant—as if I would let Arthur of all people seduce me even if he’d been inclined to try. He seemed a bit worried that I would suddenly start fancying him, actually. You should have seen his face when I told him he isn’t my type.”

If Gwaine’s wide grin and shaking shoulders were anything to go by, he could not only imagine it but found the image extremely amusing. When his hands were steady enough to write legibly, he asked, “What IS your type?”

Merlin could not prevent her eyes from flitting from the tablet and up along the arm that held it, lingering on the outline of firm muscles which the fine linen of Gwaine’s tunic could not entirely obscure, especially not where the slit in the neckline gaped wide open.

As heat bloomed in her cheeks—not for the first time that day—she cursed the fact that the man had chosen to forego his gambeson and mail for this excursion, apparently confident that his sword was all the protection they needed.

She really needed to get this blushing issue under control. Surely she had not blushed this much as a man? Was her new body more prone to it, she wondered, or was it just because she imagined that Gwaine was paying more attention to her in this body?

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she quipped after a pause that lasted just a second too long.

“Maybe I would,” came the answer, accompanied by a cheeky wink.

She turned her gaze back to Gwen and Elyan, who were still playing in the distance. This is temporary, she reminded herself, biting at the inside of her cheek to keep her emotions in check. Even if he means what I’d like him to mean, he’s only flirting because I look different now. If he’s actually interested, then it’s in this body, not in me, and even if it could eventually grow into something deeper, there’s no point when I could turn back at any moment.

She felt a pang of disappointment at the thought of eventually turning back into her old self, and she realised with a start that when she had been asked the previous day if she had secretly wanted to be a woman all along it had not been entirely truthful to say no. She had thought about it before all this, if only once or twice in passing as she wondered if, perhaps, she would have had a chance with Gwaine if she had been born a girl.

Well, now she was one, and Gwaine was flirting with her. Probably. She was sorely tempted to play along to find out for sure, but the thought of what it would mean for them if it actually went anywhere only for the curse to break gave her pause.

Come to think of it, did it have to break…? But no, she needed her magic back. Unless she could break just half of the curse? No, it was ridiculous to think like this. She had a destiny to think about—that needed to be her main focus. Besides, Gwaine had never given her the impression of being the type to settle, and she did not want to be just another conquest. Although, he had quit his roaming life to settle down in Camelot and had given no indication of regretting that decision so far…

Forcing herself to stop thinking too closely about all these confusing desires and what-ifs, she returned to the question posed to her, wetting her lips before saying, “I want what anyone wants in a partner: kindness and respect. Suppose it doesn’t hurt if they’re pleasing to look at, though.”

She observed Gwaine closely out of the corner of her eye, keeping a special lookout for any reaction to her intentional vagueness in regards to the gender of her hypothetical suitor. Admitting to an interest in men might seem safe while in the guise of a woman, but she had made a point of the fact that she did not feel any differently from her old self, so it would be just as much an admission of having liked men while she had been one. While that sort of thing was not, strictly speaking, prohibited, it was not commonly flaunted either.

Gwaine just nodded sagely, a warm smile on his face. Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he chuckled quietly and wrote, “So the OPPOSITE of Arthur.”

She burst out laughing, relaxing a little. “Exactly.”

They settled into a comfortable silence for a while after that, content to watch Gwen climb a tree while Elyan shouted encouragements at her from the ground. Gwaine busied his hands with erasing his side of their conversation with the flat end of the stylus, scraping at the wax on the tablet until it was smooth enough to carry new words.

“What about your curse?” Merlin asked eventually. “Any ideas as to what you’re supposed to learn?”

A sheepish grimace twisted Gwaine’s features at that, and he nodded even as he shrugged haplessly. “Shut up,” he wrote. When she raised an eyebrow, he hurried to point to himself and mouth, “Me, not you.”

“You think you need to shut up more?” she asked.

“I’m annoying,” he wrote.

Frowning, she sat up a little straighter and turned to face him better. “You’re not.”

“I am. Told you people get sick of me.”

“And I told you I didn’t. Still haven’t.” When Gwaine seemed unconvinced by this, she reached out and laid a hand on his knee, fixing him with an earnest look. “I enjoy talking to you. Often it’s the highlight of my day, running into you in the corridors, and patrols are always so boring if you’re not there to help while away the time with your stories.”

Gwaine ducked his head, glancing up at her almost shyly. It was not hard to read the word, “Really?” on his lips.

“Really. And today has been very nice too. You’re good company whether or not you talk, so if I were you I would get back to the drawing board when it comes to breaking your curse, because just shutting up more sure doesn’t sound like the right lesson to me.”

There was a hint of vulnerability in the small smile Gwaine gave her at this reassurance, and she privately vowed that the next time she heard any of their friends make a joke about him talking too much she would hex them into next week. That alone was cause to regain her magic as soon as possible.

“Thank you,” Gwaine mouthed.

Almost hesitantly, he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She had barely noticed it tickling her face, but the light brush of Gwaine’s fingers against her cheek and ear felt like a brand upon her skin for several seconds after he had retrieved his hand again. Dazed as she was by the tender gesture, she did not quite follow what Gwaine tried to say next.

“‘Deed…kelp with sack?’” was her best guess.

Gwaine dissolved into quiet laughter at her vain efforts at lip reading and reached for the wax tablet again. “Need help with that?” he clarified, pointing to her hair.

Her hand flew to the back of her neck where a cursory touch was enough to tell her that her plait was a loose mess by now with half the hair sticking out of it, and the kerchief was well on its way to sliding off completely.

“Damn,” she groaned. “I thought I knew how to plait after all those years of helping my mother do it, but it’s so much harder when it’s behind your own head.”

“Let me.”

“You know how to plait hair?” she asked, visualising Gwaine putting plaits into his own hair. It was not a displeasing image.

“Helped my sister.”

“Oh. All right, go on then. It’ll drive me crazy when we’re picking herbs otherwise.”

Gwaine grinned so excitedly that one would have been forgiven for thinking that she was doing him a favour by allowing him to help her out. He reached for a pouch on his belt and drew a comb out of it.

“You just carry that around with you wherever you go?” she laughed, pulling the kerchief off her head.

Gwaine shrugged and ran the comb through his own hair a couple of times, half in demonstration of its purpose and half to undo any damage the light breeze had done to his perfect coiffure over the course of the picnic.

“Fair enough,” Merlin conceded and turned around to present the back of her head to Gwaine, gathering her skirts around her to sit cross-legged.

He wasted no time in kneeling behind her to undo the blue ribbon (which was fighting for its life not to slip off the ends of her hair) before separating the mussed-up strands of her plait. It was immediately clear that he had been telling the truth about having done this before, for he was incredibly gentle as he started combing through her hair—far gentler than she herself had been when rushing through the unfamiliar chore that morning. There was nary a tug, even when he worked out the tangles that Merlin had simply given up on as she had been in a hurry to pick up Arthur’s breakfast.

It felt oddly intimate to have someone do this for her, especially with that someone being Gwaine. She caught herself holding her breath a few times without a clear idea why, and this problem only grew worse when he moved on to partitioning her hair into sections for the plait. He seemed to be going for something more complicated than what Merlin had settled for, and the feeling of his fingertips dragging across her scalp sent a thrill down her spine which made her breath stutter in her chest.

It was torture to have to sit there and try to hide how much she enjoyed the feeling of strong hands running through her hair with such uncharacteristic gentleness, yet she would have killed anyone who dared interrupt them. Every so often, Gwaine’s hands would brush against the skin of her brow or temple as he worked a complex plait into her hairline on the left side of her head, and every time it happened she had to subdue a shiver.

She did not realise that her eyes had fluttered closed somewhere along the process until the sensation of Gwaine touching her left hand startled her out of her trance. She looked down to see his hand curl gently around hers where it rested in her lap before lifting it up to the back of her head to press against the plait there, just beside the spot where he was pinching her hair to keep the plait from unravelling. She almost withdrew her hand before she recovered from the surprise and realised what was being requested of her.

“Hold here?” she asked.

Gwaine, naturally, had no easy way of confirming this without reaching for his tablet again, but his free hand fell to her shoulder, squeezing it once, which Merlin interpreted as a yes.

“All right.”

Satisfied that she had a good grip on the section of hair, Gwaine’s hands moved on to the other side of her head to repeat the procedure with just as much focus and care as the first time around.

Having a task to keep at least one of her hands busy helped her relax somewhat, and her breathing came a little easier than before despite the experience being no less thrilling. She absentmindedly watched Gwen’s tree-climbing escapades with half-seeing eyes, focusing on keeping her grip on the plait while revelling in the feeling of deft fingers working along her right temple.

Before too long, she was relieved of her hair-holding duty as Gwaine was ready to join the two plaits into one at the back of her head, and she returned her hand to her lap, resisting the urge to clench it in the fabric of her skirts. She failed in this endeavour when she felt the light brush of Gwaine’s knuckles against the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck, and she could only bite her lip and pray that he did not notice the shiver running through her at the contact.

And then—after an eternity and all too soon—it was over. The plait was tied off at her mid-back and Gwaine ran his fingers along it a few times to make sure everything was secure.

As Merlin noted him sitting back to admire his handiwork, she shot him a grateful smile over her shoulder and raised her hand to gingerly pat at her hair, trying to explore the results without disturbing the careful array. If only she had had a mirror to be able to fully appreciate the fruits of Gwaine’s labour.

“Thank you,” she said, shuffling around a bit on the blanket to face her friend again. “It feels…good. Um. Very secure. Well done.”

Gwaine was already writing on his tablet. When he turned it around, it was to show a single word pressed into the wax.

“Beautiful.”

“I’m sure it is.”

Something like fond exasperation crossed over Gwaine’s face, and he chuckled silently, lightly shaking his head as he parted his lips to mouth something at her.

He was interrupted by the sound of cracking wood from across the glade, followed by a high-pitched yelp and a pained grunt.

“Gwen! Are you okay?”

They both turned their heads to look over at the siblings, only to find that Gwen was no longer climbing the tree but lying in the grass beneath it, a frantic Elyan kneeling by her side. Sharing a look of concern, they jumped to their feet and rushed over in time to see Gwen sit up, ashamedly wiping at her eyes.

“I’m fine, Ely,” she said obstinately, but then her eyes caught on a rip in her sleeve where it must have caught on a branch during her fall and her bottom lip started wobbling. “Oh no! Dad will be so cross!”

“It’s all right,” Elyan hurried to reassure her. “It’s a clean tear; I’ll have that mended in no time! He won’t even be able to tell it was ever there.”

Gwen smiled shakily as she looked up at her brother who was wearing her face, making to speak before her eyes widened and something shifted behind her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “Dad’s no longer with us, is he?”

Elyan blinked. “And I can’t mend clothes to save my life.”

As years of briefly-forgotten memories settled over them again, the siblings exchanged a look laden with emotion, and Merlin realised that she had just gotten a brief glimpse into their childhood, only with the roles reversed.

Gwen had once told her that she had practically raised her little brother after their mother died, looking after him while their father worked and cooking for the whole family as soon as she was old enough to be trusted with fire. How many scraped knees and torn clothes must she not have patched up over the years? How many times had she abandoned her work to come to Elyan’s aid after he had played a little too roughly, while having no time to play herself, a child though she was?

Elyan sighed, standing up and reaching out a hand to his sister. “Come on, up you go.”

She took it gratefully, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

“Are you injured?” Merlin asked, finally remembering her training as a physician.

“Just a couple of bruises, I think,” Gwen replied, dusting herself off. “I wasn’t that high off the ground and children’s bodies are surprisingly hardy.”

“Do you want to go home?” asked Elyan.

“No, I’m fine. I’m all played out for today, though. Let’s pick some herbs.”

Merlin nodded, and they started walking back towards the blanket. Looking down at Gwen, she smiled and said, “It looked like you were having fun—until the fall, that is.”

She chuckled and rubbed at her neck, looking a little embarrassed of her childish conduct now that her adult self was back in control. “It was,” she confessed. “Did you know that I’ve never climbed a tree before?”

“What, never?” Elyan exclaimed.

“Not that I can recall. I was always so busy…”

He stared at her in mute shock as she knelt on the blanket and started gathering up the remains of their picnic. A moment later, he shook himself out of it and fell to his knees beside her. “Here, let me help you with that.”

Over their heads, Merlin and Gwaine briefly caught one another’s eye, exchanging a smile before fondly looking back down at their young friends.

The rest of the afternoon was spent picking herbs. Merlin could not remember ever having enjoyed the chore so much, and she could stow away her kerchief in her basket as her new plaits kept the hair out of her face admirably.

Not until she was preparing herself for bed that night did she notice the flower stuck into the end of the plait, and she was struck by the realisation that the green ribbon in her hair was not the same one that she had put in it that morning. Where her blue ribbon had ended up, she had no idea.

Chapter Text

Merlin was no stranger to complaining about her workload, but it was not until she was relieved of it that she was hit by the full extent of just how much of her time it ate up. Sure, Gaius took advantage of her newfound availability by making her run errands for him and assist him with patients and potion-making, but even that still left her with loads of free time when compared to the never-ending work of a servant.

To be fair, she suspected that Gaius was giving her quite a bit less to do than if she had truly been his apprentice full and proper—not just to give her space to work on breaking the curse but likely because he knew this was her first real break in years. It had been sorely needed, she realised.

In between assisting Gaius and researching morality curses, she often found herself drifting around the citadel, deep in thought. She often did some of her best thinking on her feet, albeit because she had rarely had time to sit down much before this.

On one of her aimless walks, she ended up by the training grounds and decided that she might as well watch the knights while she ate the apple she had meant to have for lunch but had ended up absent-mindedly toting around half the castle, all but forgotten.

She took a seat on a bench on the outskirts of the field, biting into the apple as she observed the goings-on. The heat of the day had driven most of the knights to forego their mail, and even in their shirtsleeves it looked like sweaty work. Arthur was nowhere in sight and instead Leon seemed to be in charge of training, shouting instructions at the men as he ran them through their standard drills. Percival stood by the sidelines as well rather than participating, saying something to the still blind Leon every now and then, prompting him to call out for a particular knight or other to improve his stance or mind his footwork.

Gwaine broke formation the second he spotted Merlin, waving cheerfully to her. She waved back, then laughed when Leon shouted for him to focus up. Even at this distance, Merlin could tell that the silent word Gwaine directed at Percival before complying was, “Traitor.”

A minute later—perhaps as an apology to Gwaine—Percival whispered something else to Leon, whereupon he nodded and called out, “All right, good work, men! Take five minutes of rest, then get back at it!”

Gwaine wasted no time in jogging up to Merlin while Percival followed at a slower pace, guiding Leon with a light hand at his elbow. In her inexpert opinion, the greeting Gwaine mouthed at her as he reached her looked to be something along the lines of, “Hello, you.”

“Hello to you too,” she said after swallowing a mouthful of apple, looking up at Gwaine with a smile. “Good session?”

He started saying something, but when he saw the incomprehension in her eyes he faltered, looking back towards the citadel before sighing and miming writing something on the palm of his hand while he shook his head.

“Don’t have your tablet with you? Well, I should probably practise my lip-reading skills anyway. We’ll make do.”

Gwaine smiled brilliantly at her before saying something inaudible, his mouth curling around the syllables with exaggerated care.

With some concentration, she managed to decipher it to mean, “‘Grand so?’”

He nodded proudly, taking a seat beside her on the bench.

Their friends caught up with them then, and Merlin said, “I’m surprised to see you leading the training, Leon. How come?”

“Apparently Arthur is indisposed. He hasn’t joined us for training since that first day after getting cursed.”

“But it’s been four days. That’s not like him.”

“He hasn’t been to council either. I was hoping you would know why?”

“No, I haven’t talked to him since having my vacation forced upon me…” A frown etched itself into her brow as she realised that she had not even seen Arthur in days—not even a brief glimpse around the castle. Gwen had bemoaned the fact that he was avoiding her as well, come to think of it, though she had blamed that fact on her curse making things awkward between them. “Has anyone seen him outside his chambers at all?”

They all answered in the negative.

“Think he’s sick?” Percival asked.

“I doubt it. George is too much of a stickler for procedure not to tattle to Gaius if that were the case. My guess would be that he’s too embarrassed by his curse—whatever it is. It must be something he doesn’t want the court to see.”

“Perhaps you could speak to George about it?” Leon suggested. “Maybe he can give us some clue as to what the curse is, at least.”

She sighed and took another bite from the apple, speaking around it as she muttered, “Yeah, I’ll do that… Can’t promise I can get the prat to let us help with the curse, though. He can be worse than a cat that’s got its claws stuck in a barley sack when it comes to accepting assistance.”

She could feel Gwaine’s silent laughter shaking the bench they sat on, and even Leon smiled at the joke.

“Do what you can,” he said. “The sooner he resumes his duties, the better for the kingdom. And without my eyesight, I can only do so much when it comes to training the men.”

“Looks like you’re doing a great job, all things considered. You and Percival work well together.”

Percival ducked his head. “I’m just his eyes, is all.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” she protested. “You have a keen eye, and from what I’ve caught from over here, you seem to have many insightful observations on the men’s performance.”

Blinking in surprise, Percival asked, “Really?”

“Really.”

“I agree,” Leon said. “I couldn’t do this without your help. Now, I think it’s time to get back to work. Keep an eye on Sir Brennis’ form for me, will you? He’s been sloppy since coming back from his injury.”

Smiling excitedly, Percival started guiding Leon back to the centre of the training grounds, shouting, “Break’s over!” at the men lounging in a shaded spot at the other side of the field.

Merlin turned her head to look at Gwaine, who was making no move to get up from his comfortable spot on the bench. “You heard him; no more lazing about,” she teased, bumping her shoulder against his.

He grinned conspiratorially and pointed to Leon before covering his eyes with his hand, saying something which the gestures helped her interpret as, “Leon won’t notice.” He finished it off by holding a finger in front of his lips as if asking for her discretion in this matter.

She chuckled and whispered, “My lips are sealed. It’s Percival you have to worry about.”

As if on cue, Percival chose that moment to look back at them and yell, “That includes you, Gwaine!”

Groaning inaudibly, Gwaine shook his head in resignation. Instead of immediately getting up, however, he reached out and wrapped his hand gently around Merlin’s wrist, his thumb rubbing lightly over the pulse point. As she froze, he took advantage of her surprise by ducking in to steal a bite right out of the apple in her hand before bounding to his feet with a triumphant smile, chewing smugly on the ill-gotten spoils of his trickery.

“Oi!” She levelled an affronted glare at him, the effect of which was probably undercut by the fact that she could not keep the laughter out of her voice as she cried, “You owe me for that!”

He just laughed silently, shooting her an unrepentant wink over his shoulder. As he made his way towards the other knights who were reluctantly stepping back into the summer sun, Merlin noticed him removing something that had been tied around his wrist. He raised his arms and brushed his hair back, gathering it into a small ponytail and tying it up as well as the length allowed with…a blue ribbon.

It took a second for the implication to register with Merlin, but when it did she hurried to reach back to pull her plait around to her front to inspect it. Her eyes widened as she belatedly realised that the green ribbon tying it together (perfectly securely, courtesy of Gwen’s assistance that morning) was actually suspiciously reminiscent of the one Gwaine usually used to tie his hair up during training, meaning that the blue one he was now using was almost definitely hers.

Perhaps he had mixed them up while plaiting her hair on the day of their picnic, accidentally using his own out of habit? But would he not then have noticed the mistake when he pocketed the wrong one? Unless he had switched them on purpose?

Her stomach made a somersault at the idea of Gwaine putting his own ribbon in her hair as a…a token while openly wearing hers around his wrist—perhaps out of convenience should he need it, like now, or perhaps just waiting for her to notice…

She swallowed and looked up, searching out Gwaine among the knights who had resumed their training under Leon’s instructions and Percival’s watchful eye. Already, some of Gwaine’s hair had escaped the confines of the ribbon and fallen forward to frame his face. Tying it up only really served to keep it off his neck, helping him stay a little cooler, for not all of it was long enough to reach the ribbon at the back of his head or stay put in it for long.

Turning back to the ribbon in her own hair, she ran the ends of it between her fingers, pondering its meaning. Assuming that it had been intentional, was this gesture just a device pulled from Gwaine’s extensive seduction kit, or was it meant to signify something deeper? Given his status as a knight, wearing a token of hers was almost like wearing her favour—albeit one given unknowingly—and that steered the whole situation dangerously close to proper courting.

But surely Gwaine did not want to actually court her? Sure, his flirting had grown more and more blatant during the past couple of days, but he knew as well as she did that this was temporary—that she would turn back into her regular old self at some point. What did he plan to do then? And even in the extremely unlikely event that he would want to court Merlin as a man—if he was actually capable of attraction to her male form, which he had never given any indication of—it was just not done. Not openly, at least…

No, it was much more likely that he simply wanted sex, maybe not for just a single night, but not beyond the duration of the curse either. Perhaps that ought to insult her, but she was not so blind as to doubt that Gwaine cared deeply for her as a friend—be she male or female. If he was prepared to actively pursue her, then he must believe that their friendship was strong enough to survive the physical aspect of their relationship inevitably coming to an end. She knew him too well to think that he would ever use her and forget her as soon as the fun was over. Their friendship was much too important to him for that.

But even if Gwaine was confident that they could remain friends afterwards, she did not know if her heart could take it. Obviously, she knew that people were often intimate with their friends (or total strangers) with no expectations of permanence; the servants in the citadel loved nothing more than to gossip about it. She had even had a couple of hurried trysts with a stable boy or two herself—well, himself, at the time—and, on one memorable occasion, a scullery maid, but she had been nowhere near as closely acquainted with them as she was with Gwaine, and she had not had feelings for them.

It seemed to her that getting a taste of the forbidden fruit only to have to go back to watching it dangle just out of reach again would be torture. And yet…it seemed just as torturous to keep denying herself when she knew—or was reasonably sure, at least—that the sweetness she so craved was finally within her reach, if only for a limited time.

Seized by the irresistible urge to lay eyes on Gwaine in the vain hope that it would help her make sense of the situation, she refocused her glassy gaze and turned it to the training field once more, only to see—

Oh, you shameless rake!

Perhaps she should have expected to find that Gwaine had discarded his sweaty tunic in favour of training bare-chested—he did it all the time, after all, much to Arthur’s annoyance—but this time he knew that she was watching as a spectator, not just hovering by the sidelines to pass Arthur his weapons like she normally did. This time, it felt like he was putting on a show for her benefit.

And what a show it was. Though torn between amusement and exasperation at his brazen peacocking, she could not deny that it had the intended effect on her. What, was she not supposed to enjoy the sight of rippling muscles beneath sweat-glistening skin? Come on. She had been sneaking peeks for years while pretending to sort through the weapon racks or polishing armour; the only difference now was that she was encouraged to look.

Perhaps it would have been better for her resolve and sanity if she did not, but the temptation was too strong, and she was driven not only by lust but curiosity as she felt the stirrings of arousal in her loins. It was a somewhat different experience in this body, and the small portion of her brain that was not busy admiring the swell of Gwaine’s biceps as he swung his sword was observing her body’s reaction to the display of strength and skill with almost clinical fascination.

The heat pooling in her groin was familiar to her, but of course the results were not as visually extreme as in her old body. A thrill ran through her at the realisation that an onlooker would have no clue as to her arousal apart from the flush in her cheeks, which could easily be explained by the sun. There was no cock to tent her clothes and give the game away if she let herself get carried away by desire—no erection that needed to be obscured or willed away lest it make anyone around her uncomfortable.

As long as she kept her outward demeanour impassive, she could drink her fill of the enticing sight before her, and no one would be any the wiser unless they stuck a hand up her skirt and felt how slick she was growing between her legs as she let herself indulge in the fantasies she usually had to keep at bay.

She felt a dull throb of excitement in her groin at the thought of Gwaine’s hand doing just that, smoothing up along the soft inside of her thigh until he reached the dark curls covering her sex, slipping his fingers between her folds before plunging into the wet heat of her cun—

Gwaine’s eyes met hers from across the field and she almost jumped out of her skin. Instantly filled with the fear that her every dirty thought was writ plain in her expression after all, she immediately averted her eyes, her face burning as she snatched her hand away from the green ribbon which she had absent-mindedly been playing with all the while.

Suddenly self-conscious, she crossed her legs out of some old instinct to hide her arousal, which proved a mistake because oh, that actually felt quite good, especially if she clenched—

Nope!

Her legs fell open again as she bit at her lip and reminded herself that some (more or less) innocent ogling was one thing, but actively chasing pleasure in public was quite another, especially if Gwaine was watching her.

Painstakingly hauling her mind out of the gutter, she sprang up from the bench, awkwardly smoothing down her skirts. Only then did she realise that she had dropped her half-eaten, wholly forgotten apple when she had startled. If her expression had not given her away to Gwaine, that had surely done the trick.

Cursing her traitorous libido, she bent down to retrieve the apple before turning on her heel and hurrying away towards the citadel without daring to look back at the knights even once. She had better things to be doing, such as giving the apple a rinse before finishing it so as not to waste food and finding George to start untangling Arthur’s curse, for example—the latter of which she probably ought to have been given a little more precedence these past couple of days.

Chapter Text

Speaking with George had cleared up exactly nothing about Arthur’s curse. All he had been able to tell Merlin was that the king had let him dress him only that first day, and that all subsequent interactions between servant and master had consisted solely of food and chamberpots and the like being passed through a barely-ajar door when absolutely necessary. The brief glimpses George had caught of him through the crack in the door had not given him cause to fear that the king’s ailment was physical as he had looked healthy enough, if, perhaps, a bit tired. The only thing of note that he could report was a faint smell of smoke wafting through the door at one point.

More concerned than ever, Merlin had marched straight to Arthur’s chambers to confront him. If he was dressing himself, then something was really wrong. The absolute prick had refused to let her through the door, though, just telling her that he was fine and to go away at increasing volumes until he had finally threatened to have her banished if she did not piss off that instant.

She was pissed off, all right, and as blasting the door to smithereens with her (currently missing) magic was not an option, she left in a right huff, pettily leaving him to stew in the pigsty that his chambers must surely resemble after four days of neglect. Perhaps the wisest course of action was to retreat and try again the next day with a cool head and a new and improved plan instead of standing in front of a locked door, hurling insults that probably would have gotten any other servant banished, in all honesty.

The only thing saving her from going to bed with a frown on her face that night was what awaited her when she got back to her room. On her bedside table sat an apple atop a note reading, “Sorry for making you drop yours. —G.”

Of course, this still resulted in her lying awake far too long, studying the charming gesture from every possible angle and dissecting the way it made her feel—emotionally and physically.

The next morning saw her wake with a renewed determination to get to the bottom of the Arthur mystery once and for all. Realising that she would need to be strategic in her approach, she set course for the knights’ quarters first rather than heading straight to Arthur’s chambers.

Gwen’s voice called, “Come in!” when she knocked on Elyan’s door.

She let herself in, and to her pleased surprise she was met with the sight of the decidedly grown-up siblings separating from a hug, smiling and wiping at their glistening eyes as they turned to her.

“You’re adults again!” she exclaimed. “Are you yourselves too?”

Gwen nodded happily. “Our own bodies and everything.”

“You figured out your lessons, then?”

Elyan looked to his sister with wistful affection. “I think I needed the reminder of just how much Gwen has given up for me. Because of her, I got to have a childhood, but it came at the cost of her own, and how did I repay her? By abandoning her and letting her grieve our father alone. I never thanked her enough for everything she’s done for me, and for welcoming me back, despite it all.”

“Of course I did,” she said, reaching out to take his hand. “You’re my brother, Elyan! I love you.”

“And I love you, my sister. I’ll do better to show it in future, and to take care of you, for a change.”

Merlin beamed at the touching scene. “Was that the whole of it, or was there something you needed to learn too, Gwen?”

Her smile turned a little sheepish and she bit her lip before confessing, “I think I just needed to let loose a little. I never had much time to play as a child, and now that I’m queen I’ve been so preoccupied playing that role to perfection to make the court forget their reservations about my common background. I had such a great time with Elyan these past days that it reminded me of just how long it has been since I did something just for the fun of it.”

“Let’s have more of that in the future, yeah?”

“Definitely.”

“What about you?” Elyan asked. “Any ideas about your lesson?”

Merlin blinked, realising with a trace of shame that lately she had been thinking more about what it would mean for her and Gwaine—not that there was a them—if the curse was broken than about how to break it. In fact, she was becoming increasingly hard-pressed to remember the arguments for ever breaking it.

“Ah, no, not really…” she said, chuckling uneasily. “Most of the stories I’ve come across in my research tell of men being cursed to take the form of a woman because they wronged one or disrespected the entire sex as a whole. And, well… I, uh, hope I wasn’t the kind of guy who would do that and not even notice…?”

Gwen shook her head and reached out to give Merlin a reassuring pat on the arm. “Don’t worry, you never gave me cause to think of you as anything other than a perfect gentleman. I’m sure it’s not that.”

Merlin nodded gratefully. A small voice in the back of her head piped up with the reminder that there was one woman she had wronged, but her failings with regard to Morgana had nothing to do with her gender, so she doubted that was it. If anything, it was more likely that losing her magic was punishment for pretending that she had none when Morgana most needed a peer to confide in…

Shaking herself out of this maudlin line of thought, she said, “The search goes on, then, but it’s not my curse that worries me at the moment. It’s Arthur’s.”

Both Gwen and Elyan grew immediately serious.

“Is he in trouble?” Elyan asked.

“Have you spoken to him?” was Gwen’s question. “He will not let me see him.”

“He’s not seeing anyone,” Merlin sighed. “Even George isn’t allowed to enter his chambers. Whatever his curse is, I bet it’s what’s causing his reclusiveness. I was hoping you would help me convince him to tell us what’s wrong so we can help, Gwen.”

“Of course, I’ll do anything in my power.”

“Then let’s go talk to him.”

“Arthur? It’s me. Will you open the door?”

Gwen and Merlin waited breathlessly for a reply, their ears pressed to the door to Arthur’s chambers, listening after the slightest sound.

After a moment, Arthur’s voice called back, “…Elyan?”

Gwen huffed a small laugh. “No, it’s Gwen. Our curse finally broke; I’m my old self again.”

A shuffle could be heard from inside the room and Arthur’s voice sounded slightly closer as he said, “I’m relieved to hear it.”

“I’m worried about you, though. Would you let me in, please?”

A pause, then, “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I just…can’t. It’s not safe.”

“Not safe for whom?”

“You.”

Merlin frowned at that, deciding to speak up. “Is your curse making you violent?”

She was fairly sure that she heard Arthur grumble, “Oh, great. Merlin’s here too,” before raising his voice to say, “Not…as such, no.”

“But you might accidentally hurt us?” Gwen asked.

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

“I— I can’t tell you.”

Merlin and Gwen exchanged a look that was equal parts concerned and frustrated.

Taking a step back, Gwen put her hands on her hips and said, “Arthur Pendragon! When I married you, I vowed to stand by you in sickness or in health, for better or for worse, but I can’t do that if you won’t let me. Now, if you won’t open this door I’ll have Elyan fetch his old tools and disassemble it bit by bit. Whatever you’re hiding, I’m not afraid. Merlin and I can handle ourselves, so just let us in so we can help you!”

For a long moment, there was only silence from within, but, at long last, Merlin heard the sound of the bolt being drawn aside.

Finally.

She allowed Gwen the honour of opening the door, which she did with only the briefest hesitation before tentatively stepping inside. When Merlin followed, it was to find the chambers in a state of such disarray that she could not take it all in at once. It was so much worse than she had imagined it would be, even knowing that they had been exposed to five uninterrupted days of Arthur’s negligent treatment.

As she had expected, there were articles of clothing strewn all over, but, more notably, the chairs that usually surrounded the dinner table were also scattered across the room, many of them broken. The table itself had been tipped over and carelessly shoved to the side of the room, bearing several scorch marks and stains, as did the walls and several of the curtains that were drawn in front of the windows, shrouding the room in twilight. The only source of light besides what little filtered in around the edges of the curtains was a glowing orb of cold, white light hovering near the ceiling in the centre of the room, drawing the attention of both Merlin and Gwen.

“I can’t get rid of it,” a small voice said. “It only goes out when I try to sleep.”

They looked over to see Arthur pressed up against the wall on the farthest side of chambers, separated from them by both his bed and his desk. There was no way he could have gotten all the way over there in the seconds between his unlocking the door and their entering.

Arthur looked as much a mess as his chambers. His tunic was on inside out, his hair was tousled and greasy, and the dark circles beneath his eyes spoke of many nights of restless or insufficient sleep. Apart from the obvious weariness, he looked to be in decent health physically, but there was a wild look of dread and desperation in his hollow eyes.

“Oh, Arthur…” Gwen breathed, hurriedly walking towards her husband.

Arthur’s hand shot up in a warning gesture and he exclaimed, “No, stay back!”

Even at this distance, it was impossible to miss the bright flash of gold in Arthur’s eyes as an invisible force pushed Gwen back several yards, her feet dragging across the floor. Merlin reacted just in time to step behind her and catch her before she could topple over backwards. Instead, Gwen’s back slammed into her chest with enough force to punch the breath out of them both.

Ow, my bloody tits! Merlin thought, but elected not to comment aloud on this newfound vulnerability of her feminine body, instead focusing on helping Gwen regain her balance as they both stared at Arthur.

“I’m sorry!” he said, taking half a step towards them before faltering and backing away again, pressing his back against the wall. “I didn’t mean to! I would never—! Forgive me, Guinevere.”

Gwen closed her gaping mouth with a click, wetting her lips before saying, “It’s all right. I’m fine, Arthur. You didn’t hurt me.”

“You have magic,” Merlin said bluntly.

“It’s the curse. It was just little things at first, but it’s spiralling out of control. You should go; it’s not safe to be around. I’m not safe.”

Merlin’s mind was awhirl with thoughts and emotions after this revelation, initially struck by the fear that this would only harden Arthur’s heart further against magic. He was clearly terrified of the power within him. Upon further reflection, however, she wondered if this might not be the best thing that could have possibly happened.

If her guess as to what lesson the curse was trying to impart on Arthur was correct, then there were only two possible outcomes. If he learned to accept magic—to see that it could be a force for good—it could very well lead to his lifting the ban and returning magic to the land. If he did not, the curse probably would not break, leaving him with no choice but to learn how to control the magic within him. With a little luck, getting it under control would help him learn not to fear it, which, in turn, might eventually open his eyes to the fact that merely having magic was not a source of corruption, thus (hopefully) leading to ultimate acceptance as well.

Hope welled up within her with such force that it was a struggle not to tear up. She had not felt this optimistic about fulfilling her destiny in years. How ironic that it was not her magic but Arthur’s that might be the key to the prophesied future she had so long hoped for.

She could not entirely quell the smile spreading across her face, but she tried to make it look reassuring rather than giddy as she strode up to the nearest window and parted the curtains.

“No!” Arthur cried. The curtains drew themselves right back into place. “Someone outside might see the light.”

“No, they won’t,” Merlin said confidently. “I’m helping you get rid of it.”

“How?”

“Just…trust me, all right?”

Arthur looked like he wanted to argue, but Gwen said, “Let her, Arthur. I’m sure she knows what she’s doing.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Arthur nodded. He stayed frozen in his spot as Merlin moved around the room, letting some much-needed sunlight into the musty chambers, but when Merlin moved to part the curtains of the last window behind the desk, he scrambled along the wall to put more space between them, squinting against the brightness of the sun.

“Relax, Arthur,” she said with a disarming smile. “If you don’t want to hurt me, you won’t. You have more control of the magic than you think.”

“You sound very sure.”

“I am.” She threw the last curtains open, then turned around and nodded towards the middle of the room where Gwen was still lingering uncertainly. “See? The magic light is gone.”

Both Gwen and Arthur looked up in surprise at the empty spot where the glowing orb had been only moments earlier.

“How?” Arthur asked.

“I’m guessing the magic acts according to your emotions—reacting to your wants and needs. Letting in the sun meant that you didn’t need the additional light, and so it went out.”

Arthur stared at her in astonishment. “Did you know that would work?”

She shrugged. “It’s what happened to the light you summoned in the cave. It disappeared as soon as we got out into the sunlight, didn’t it? And you said the light only goes out when you try to sleep—in other words: when you need it to be dark.”

“Oh.” Arthur blinked dumbly a couple of times. “That’s actually almost clever of you, Merlin.”

“It’s very clever,” Gwen corrected him, cautiously stepping a little closer to them both.

“Why thank you, Gwen.”

“But if it acts on my desires, why would it attack Guinevere?” Arthur asked, still pressed against the wall in the corner of the room.

“It didn’t,” Merlin explained patiently. “You were trying to protect her by pushing her away from what you believed to be the danger: yourself. You just lack the skill to control how much power you put into the spell.”

“I appreciate the sentiment?” Gwen quipped, gingerly taking a seat on the side of the four-poster bed (which had very obviously not been made in days).

Arthur took a deep breath, relaxing minutely. “Right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it at all.”

“That too will get easier to control with a little practice.”

“Practice?” Arthur said, raising a sceptical eyebrow. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Merlin, but I’m the King of Camelot. I can’t exactly be seen practising magic.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Arthur,” she huffed, sitting down beside Gwen on the bed, “but you’re going to be seen doing it if you don’t practise control at the very least. You’re going to have to go out in public sooner or later, seeing as you’re the King of Camelot.”

“She’s right, you know,” Gwen said. “People will have noticed your sudden disappearance already. They need reassurance that their king is well, and that he has not abandoned them.”

Arthur floundered for a few seconds before the fight left him and his shoulders sagged. “You’re right.” Walking as slowly and carefully as if he were walking on a knife’s edge, he made his way towards the desk, flinching when the chair pulled itself out for him with excessive force, slamming into the wall behind it. Sighing wearily, he dragged the chair back into place and sat down on it. “I just don’t know if I can do that before breaking the curse. I know I deserve this punishment, but there must be a way to end it. I cannot serve my people like this.”

“‘Punishment?’” Gwen and Merlin asked in chorus.

Arthur dragged a hand through his hair, mussing it up even further. “You said this curse is trying to teach each of us a lesson, right? Well, mine is clearly meant to show me the error of my ways in going against my conscience and using magic to attempt to save my father. In retribution for using magic, it has cursed me with magic of my own.”

Merlin’s heart sank like a stone upon hearing these words. Her earlier optimism seemed naive in the face of Arthur’s interpretation of the situation. How was she supposed to make him see it as something positive when he was convinced that it was something more akin to divine retribution for his sins?

“Arthur, I’m not sure that’s true,” Gwen said gently, saving a dumbstruck Merlin from immediately coming up with something. “Elyan and I are happier than ever after having gone through this. For us, it was not a curse but a blessing.”

“How can you possibly see being turned into your nine-year-old brother as a blessing?” Arthur asked, frowning.

“Because it taught me that I have neglected the child within me for too long. My lesson was that I have been far too serious of late, denying myself opportunities for relaxation and diversion out of some misguided belief that abstaining from such things were part of my duties as a queen. For me, breaking the curse meant learning how to take care of myself, and I am glad for it. It has changed me for the better.”

Arthur considered this in silence for a moment. “I did not know you felt that way. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry—learn from it instead. I’m sure the lesson is applicable to you as well. I know how heavy the crown weighs on you.”

A reluctant smile tugged at Arthur’s lips as he looked at Gwen with the kind of soft gaze that was reserved solely for her. “Wise and observant as always, my dear Guinevere. Still, just because it was positive for you doesn’t mean the same is true for us all. What about the others? Any theories as to their lessons?”

“Well, Elyan’s was perhaps a little more like a kick in the behind,” Gwen admitted. “It reminded him that my childhood may have suffered a little so that his could be all the better, but the end result is still that our bond is stronger than ever. I believe he is happier for it as well. As for the others, I’m not sure…”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Merlin said. “Leon’s blindness has robbed him of his ability to fight, but he’s slowly being reminded that his worth goes beyond his skill with a sword—that he is a good leader who gives wise counsel, is an excellent judge of character, and knows each and every knight’s strengths and weaknesses.”

“That is all true,” Arthur agreed, “but surely he knows that I made him First Knight for good reason? Are you telling me he’s been blind to this the whole— Ooh. I see.”

“That’s sort of poetic, actually,” Gwen said. “Have you told him you figured it out?”

“No, should I? I was thinking that maybe the lesson would stick better if he figured it out himself, but maybe that’s just delaying it unnecessarily…?”

Arthur hummed thoughtfully. “Give him another couple of days. If he’s still doubting himself then, tell him.”

“Percival’s lesson must be something similar, then,” Gwen mused. “Losing his physical strength to be reminded of his other strengths?”

Merlin nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. He looked so surprised and happy when Leon and I called him insightful yesterday. People often assume he’s stupid just because he’s big. I’d say he’s well on his way to figuring out that it isn’t true, and that others know it too.”

“Another positive one, then, if you’re right,” Arthur said. “And I guess making Gwaine shut up for longer than a second is a blessing in and of itself.”

Merlin bristled at that. “That is exactly the sort of thing that had him convinced that his lesson was to learn that he’s annoying at first—as if he didn’t already think he was—and I’ll thank you not to repeat it where he can hear it.”

“Well, he is a bit, you have to admit…”

“I disagree,” Gwen said. “I think he’s charming and chivalrous, takes life more seriously than you might guess at first glance, and is far more sensitive than he likes to let on.”

This response was much more eloquent than the vicious glare Merlin had levelled at Arthur in lieu of saddling him with a curse to really worry about, and her features brightened as she smiled at Gwen and said, “That’s more like it.”

“I’m not saying he’s not a good man,” Arthur said defensively. “Of course he is, but you can’t deny that he talks a lot.”

“What, it’s a crime to want attention now?” Merlin spat, perhaps a little more venomously than intended, judging by Arthur’s raised eyebrow. “Maybe if you gave him some, you’d find that he’s more than the fool he thinks he has to play to entertain people enough to make them want to include him. That’s his lesson, if you ask me—to learn that he doesn’t have to put on a façade or be the loudest person in the room to get people to notice and love him. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make it even harder for him to believe it.”

Arthur looked a little taken aback by this vehement defence of Gwaine, but he eventually nodded and said, “Very well. That makes five positives. What about your curse?”

That broke her out of her righteous indignation, making her falter and stammer, “I— I don’t know…”

This was not untrue, per se, seeing as her only theories so far had been leaning more towards the punishment variety and it now seemed that she ought to explore more positive possibilities instead.

“You seem to have everyone else pegged but you can’t figure yourself out?”

“As Gaius says, it’s sometimes easier to diagnose your patient than yourself.”

“What do you make of it?” Arthur asked Gwen.

She cocked her head and gave Merlin a considering look. “I’m not really sure either. I think I’ll keep any guesses to myself for the moment being.”

Merlin was relieved that Gwen had chosen not to brainstorm aloud. If she eventually had to resort to an outside opinion, she believed she would really rather prefer for Arthur not to be in the room for it. Tactful was not an adjective she would ascribe to him in matters like these (whatever these matters turned out to be).

“All right,” Arthur huffed, straightening his posture. “Lay it on me; what’s your diagnosis for me, then? How on earth is anything good meant to come out of my having magic? Unless it’s to gain a better understanding of it to be able to combat it all the better in future?”

This was the moment she had been waiting for—her moment to convince Arthur that magic was not the evil he had been raised to believe—but now that it was here, she found herself choked-up and tongue-tied. There was so much she wanted to say, so many arguments she had rehearsed in her head lying awake at night, but where even to begin? And how to do it without casting suspicion upon herself?

Unexpectedly, Gwen stepped in in Merlin’s stead, candidly saying what she was struggling to put into words. “Arthur… You’re not meant to fight it. You’re meant to accept it.”

Merlin’s head snapped to the side, and she stared at Gwen in undisguised astonishment—not prompted by the fact that she had come to the same conclusion as Merlin so much as because it sounded like she actually thought that it was the right thing to do.

“Excuse me?” Arthur asked, looking just as stunned.

“I believe the curse—if that even is the right word for it—is trying to make you understand magic better in order to help you let go of your fear of it,” Gwen continued gently. “I think it wants you to see that it is not pure evil but a tool like any other.”

Her heart swelling with gratitude and affection for her friend, Merlin bit her lip to stop it from trembling. She had no idea that this was how Gwen felt about magic.

“To what end?”

“To lift the ban, of course.”

Arthur’s lips thinned into a displeased line. “I will not be extorted into changing the law by some curse.”

“But you’re not being extorted. You have been given an opportunity to learn more about that which you fear so that you may re-examine your biases against it. This is a good thing.”

“You believe the law to be unjust?” Arthur, his voice carefully level.

“I believe punishing each act of magic with death to be needlessly harsh,” she replied diplomatically. It was clear that she too felt the tension in the air and was conscious of treading lightly. “But no, I do not consider all magic an evil, nor all who wield it wicked.”

There was a lump growing in Merlin’s throat that was becoming increasingly hard to swallow down.

“Magic got your father killed.”

“Uther’s laws got him killed,” Gwen corrected him. “Magic prolonged his life.”

“What do you mean?”

“The plague. Uther had me arrested for curing my father, and though I was innocent, someone placed that poultice in his bed. I know that everyone accepted that the plague simply ended when that monster was slain, but I have no other explanation than sorcery for my father recuperating before everyone else. Someone healed him; I know not who or why, but I’m grateful they did.”

Arthur studied his wife in silence for so long that Merlin was starting to go a little light-headed from holding her breath in anxious suspense of his reaction to this while also trying not to look too guilty or touched by Gwen’s gratitude for her clumsy attempt to help her father back when Nimueh’s plague had struck.

“This is truly how you feel?” Arthur asked at long last.

“Yes. I have seen the same horrors wrought by magic as you, but I have seen enough good also to make me believe that it is how you use it that matters, not if. It saved my father, saved Ealdor, and I have a feeling it may have saved Camelot more times than we are aware. I think, in your heart of hearts, that you feel it too, or you would not have put an end to the persecution of the druids as you did.”

Clasping his hands atop the desk and rubbing absent-mindedly at his mothers ring, Arthur considered this before looking to Merlin, asking, “And what do you make of this? You have often cautioned me against the dangers of magic, and you seem unsettled by it even now.”

Fighting to regain control over her expression and her strained breathing, she frantically searched for something to say—something clever, something that would sway Arthur once and for all, something cautious but effective…

She found no words but dangerously true ones, and despite her fear of revealing too much too soon she choked out, “Arthur… Every opinion I’ve ever expressed on magic has been coloured by fear of a law that would see me convicted as a traitor for even insinuating that I sympathise with sorcerers.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath and continued, “If I seem unsettled, it is because I have a personal stake in the matter. I— I have…had loved ones with magic, almost all lost to me because it had to be kept secret, and I would have them remembered as heroes and innocents, not traitors and criminals.”

She knew the tremor in her voice and limbs must be noticeable, but she could do nothing to stop it. Even though she had left out her biggest secret, what she had admitted to was still closer to the truth than she had ever come before, and it was not without risk.

“Who—?” Arthur started, but then realisation dawned on him. “William. Right.”

Perhaps she ought to have taken this chance to come clean about who had cast the spell that saved Ealdor, but she could not bring herself to do it. She just nodded, a tear falling down her cheek at the jerky motion. “And I loved a druid girl once. I couldn’t save her. Will, Freya, my father… I couldn’t save any of them…”

Gwen reached out for her hand at the same time as Arthur said, “Your father?”

Realising that she might have revealed something a little too close to the truth, she drew back from Gwen’s comforting touch and sprang up from the bed, swallowing down tears as she bowed awkwardly and said, “Excuse me, sire. I should go speak to Gaius about possible means to get your magic under control.”

Without waiting for a response, she fled towards the door, ignoring Arthur’s perplexed voice crying out, “Merlin, wait!” She could feel his instinctive magic trying to block her from reaching the door, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through it, probably succeeding mainly thanks to Gwen’s appeal that he let her go. She dared not look back to thank her but simply unbolted the door and ducked out of it before she could embarrass or incriminate herself any further.

Chapter Text

Merlin strode down the corridor as fast as her legs would carry her, heedless of which direction she was headed. She just needed to get away. Perhaps if she put enough distance between herself and Arthur’s chambers, she would be able to shake the fear that he would come rushing after her to demand answers or berate her for keeping this from him or declare her a traitor and drag her off to the dungeons.

That last part was probably not wholly rational, given his surprisingly calm reaction to Gwen’s admission that she sympathised with the plight of magic users, but it was a deep-seated fear which had been smouldering in her mind for years at this point, and her agitated state of mind only served to stoke those flames.

Her swift pace was not helping her breathing calm down in the slightest, and after some time she was forced to stop walking to catch her breath. Slumping back against the wall of whatever corridor her feet had carried her off to—they all looked the same through the blurriness of tears—she drew a shuddering breath and tried to hold it in her convulsing chest as long as she could before releasing it in a stuttering, chopped-up exhalation. She repeated this procedure a number of times with a hand held to her midriff, concentrating on feeling it expand a little more with each breath as she gradually managed to deepen them.

She had gotten her breathing more or less under control by the time she heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching her, but she did not regain awareness of her surroundings quickly enough to look up before she felt hands close around her upper arms.

Instinctively, she flinched and tried to shake them off, but backed up against a wall as she was, there was nowhere to run. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, her wet eyes squeezed tightly shut. She did not want to see Arthur’s anger or fear or disgust, nor the cold eyes of a guard dispassionately performing his duty. “Let me go! Please. I’m sorry!”

To her surprise, the hands fell away immediately, and she braced herself for whatever might come next—most likely an accusation or a blow, her panicked mind supplied.

She received neither. Instead, there was the lightest of touches to her quivering chin, tipping her head up ever so gently. Startled, her eyes flew open, and as soon as they focused enough for her to recognise the blurry face in front of her, all the fight seeped out of her, leaving her weak, weary and weepy.

“Oh, it’s you,” she sighed, her shoulders sagging in relief.

Gwaine raised his hands to cradle her face in them, gently wiping at her tear-stained cheeks with his thumbs as he mouthed words that could only be, “What’s wrong?” His brow was furrowed in concern.

“I— I—” she tried, but her voice simply would not carry her words far enough to explain, and so she did the next best thing and surged forward to wrap her arms around his torso, burying her face in his shoulder.

He must have been on his way back from training, for the back of his tunic was a bit damp and the smell of fresh sweat was rather strong, but she could not care less about that at the moment. All she cared about was that the strong arms that wrapped around her shoulders in return held her not like she was something fragile but like they were holding together what was already broken, firmly and securely. She cared that her friend was willing to let her moisten his tunic even further as she let go of the cage she had tried to shove her fears back into and sobbed into his shoulder. She cared that he did not push her away so that they could try to communicate, instead holding her close and making soft shushing noises into her hair—one of few sounds he could still make. She cared that he cared.

Slowly, slowly, her sobs turned into sniffles instead, and the tremor in her shoulders gradually abated as her breathing calmed once more. As Gwaine made no move to be the first to let go, she allowed herself to linger a little longer within the embrace, turning her face towards his neck instead to settle in a little more comfortably—though more comfortable did not necessarily mean completely comfortable, as Merlin had only shrunk a couple of inches in her transformation, bringing them to about equal height, but a little crick in the neck was a small price to pay for the emotional comfort the hug afforded her.

Like this, Gwaine’s bristled cheek rested against her smooth one instead of against her hair, and the soft prickling of his beard and the warm touch of skin against her face made her breath stutter in her chest for a completely different reason than before. Glancing over his shoulder, she noted that his hair was messily tied up from training, and her heart skipped a beat as she caught a glimpse of the ribbon in his hair. Still blue. Still hers.

Oh. I love him.

This realisation should not have come as a surprise, and nor did it. She had known for years that she had feelings for Gwaine, and they had probably developed into Feelings quite some time ago. This was just the last step in the bureaucratic process. All the paperwork had been filed, the court of her heart had been petitioned, and the motion had been passed and ratified into law, marking her as officially In Love—and that was that.

If she had not been so worn out from crying, she might have added this to the list of things to worry and overthink about, but as it was it just filled her with a sense of calm. Gwaine was holding her, she was in love, and things would probably turn out all right—somehow, at some point, probably.

“Thank you,” she breathed, finally letting go of the last of her tension.

Gwaine said nothing (nothing audible, at least), but turned his head slightly to press the lightest of kisses to her temple.

Smiling wearily, she gently extricated herself from the hug with no small amount of reluctance, pleased when Gwaine did not fully let go but let his hands fall from her shoulders down to rub soothingly up and down her arms. There was still concern in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to worry you.”

Gwaine opened his mouth to not-quite speak, but closed it again, taking a look around them before nodding his head to the side. She allowed him to gently guide her a few paces further down the corridor and into an alcove, sitting them down on a seat that was built into the stone by a small window.

Right. This would probably have been a better place to have a breakdown than out in the open like that, but she had not exactly been thinking clearly enough to pay much attention to her surroundings. Besides, Gwaine might not have found her if she had had the presence of mind to hide away.

Gwaine’s hands slid down her arms to curl around her hands instead, and he angled himself on the seat to face her, fixing her with a sober look as he mouthed, “Are you hurt?” as clearly as possible.

She shook her head.

“Are you in trouble?”

This question she had to think about. Now that she had calmed down some, she could examine the situation from a more rational angle. “Probably not.” Not yet, anyway. “I don’t know how Arthur will see me after this, but I don’t think I’ll need to pack my bags and flee the city.”

This did not seem to reassure Gwaine all that much, because the furrow in his brow grew ever deeper as he asked, “What happened?”

She hesitated only for a second before deciding that she might as well tell the truth. It was already out there, after all, and it might be a good test to gauge Gwaine’s attitude towards magic. She had never really been able to put a finger on it. He certainly knew a surprising amount about magic weapons and creatures, and though he had pulled his sword on the cryptic Keeper of the Bridge to the Perilous Lands, his reaction to subsequently having the sword magically turned into a flower had been little more than mild annoyance at the inconvenience.

Squaring her shoulders, she looked him dead in the eye and said, “I told Arthur that my father was a sorcerer.”

That was evidently not what Gwaine had been expecting to hear, because his eyebrows rose and he blinked owlishly a couple of times as he processed this, but then he just nodded as if it made perfect sense and calmly asked something else. Probably. She did not really catch it.

“You don’t mind?” she asked.

Realising that she had not understood him, he simply shook his head and squeezed her hands, smiling reassuringly.

“Oh, good,” she sighed, letting out a little breathless chuckle. “I mean, I had thought—or hoped—that you wouldn’t, but you know how it is with these things, you can never be too careful, really.”

He nodded his understanding to this and mouthed something along the lines of, “What did Arthur say?”

“I…sort of ran away before he could really react,” Merlin admitted sheepishly. It seemed a little childish, all of a sudden, but at the time she had felt like she was teetering dangerously close to the brink of confessing to far more than Arthur would have been ready to hear. “Gwen was there too, and she seemed to take it well. I’m sure she’ll be able to talk him down if needed, but I don’t know what to say if he starts asking me about my father. Even telling him his name could mean real trouble. I’m not sure he’d want me around anymore after that.”

Arthur may have been prepared to work with her father to defeat Kilgharrah, but that did not mean that Balinor would have been welcome to stay afterwards, either in Uther or Arthur’s Camelot, and she had to assume that it was common knowledge that the power of a Dragonlord was inherited upon the father’s death.

“Why?”

She had the truthful answer on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back after reminding herself that they were still in a (relatively) public place where someone could walk past at any moment and overhear something they really should not.

“I’ll tell you someday,” she said instead. “Soon. I’d love to tell you about him, really, but I’d love it even more if I could actually understand any questions you might have.”

Gwaine huffed in silent amusement and nodded his head in a way that clearly conveyed the meaning, “Fair enough.” He then said something indistinct.

“‘Something, something, behave?’” she guessed, frowning.

“Be. Safe.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll try my best.”

Gwaine pointed at her. “You go—” He pointed at himself. “—I go.”

“What? If I have to leave Camelot?” Her mouth fell open in surprise as he nodded solemnly, not a trace of hesitation in his eyes. “I couldn’t ask that of you,” she said weakly.

Mirth crept into his expression then, and he winked as he mouthed, “Try to stop me.”

“I haven’t even told you why I’d be going!”

He just shrugged.

Overcome with astonishment and affection, Merlin stared at him for a long moment. Then, before she could think better of it, she ducked in and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

“I’ll keep you posted, then.”

Gwaine beamed at her.

Chapter Text

Merlin managed to avoid Arthur for the rest of the day following the possibly-inadvisable confession about her father, and for most of the day after that also. Although, it might be more accurate to say that she managed to avoid anyone specifically sent to find her on Arthur’s behest. It was exceedingly easy to avoid Arthur himself, seeing as he still kept to his chambers.

At least Gwen had managed to convince him to let a few people in on the secret of his curse. George was now allowed inside the chambers to clean, and Arthur had met with a couple of council members to reassure them that their king was still of sound mind and body and perfectly capable of ruling—just from within the privacy of his chambers for a little while yet.

Gaius was one of the select few who was allowed not only to know the truth of Arthur’s situation but to actually enter his chambers in order to give him lessons in how to control his wild magic. Gaius had suggested that it might be good if Merlin joined in on these lessons, but she had wriggled her way out of this under the pretext of not having a good excuse for why she should be there and surely Gwen would suffice as moral support, Arthur actually listens to her, and seeing as you’ll be busy making sure Arthur doesn’t burn down the citadel someone ought to be doing some physicking around here so I’ll pop down to the town and do your rounds for you, happy to help, pip-pip, see you later!

Despite having been upset at first that she had mentioned her father to Arthur at all, she knew that Gaius also disapproved of her procrastinating speaking any further on the topic, but he had at least promised that he would not tell Arthur anything himself. Unfortunately, he had also promised Arthur that he would pass on a message to her, which he did when their paths inevitably crossed in the infirmary on the eve of the second day.

“Arthur wants you to know that he’s not angry, and that you are not in trouble for having consorted with sorcerers.”

Merlin nodded sagely, folding her hands atop the table they were sitting at. “He’s furious, isn’t he?”

“Well…he is hardly happy that you are avoiding him,” Gaius said, raising a reproachful eyebrow, “but I believe he is mostly curious. He has questions.”

“Which I don’t know how to answer!”

“Then I suggest you think of something, because he wants to see you at your earliest convenience.”

“By which he means, right this minute?” Merlin muttered.

“I should think so.”

“Well, what if that isn’t convenient? Maybe I have plans!”

The eyebrow climbed ever higher. “And do you?” Gaius asked, by which he meant, Yeah, right.

“Um, Gwaine wants to see me…” was the first thing Merlin could think to say. This was probably even true, in a sort of general sense.

Perhaps it was the gods taking pity on her that made the door open at that very minute, revealing a gaggle of excited knights, among them Gwaine.

“Are you coming to the tavern with us, Merlin?” Elyan asked.

“…because we’re going to the tavern!” Merlin concluded, smiling triumphantly and shooting up from her bench.

“We’re celebrating me!” Percival declared, loud and proud. He raised his arms, flexing his massive biceps in demonstration.

“Oh, very well,” Gaius sighed, reluctantly accepting defeat. “I am glad to see you restored to your old self, Sir Percival. Congratulations on breaking the curse.”

“Yes, congratulations,” Merlin agreed, bounding over to her friends. “I assume the plan is drinking you stupid to celebrate figuring out that you’re actually quite clever?”

“How did you know that was his lesson?” Leon asked.

She smiled secretively and tapped the side of her head, “Because I’m psychic.”

The gesture was, of course, wasted on the still-blind Leon, but Elyan laughed and said, “I wish you were, then Gwaine wouldn’t have to bother with that damned tablet, poor sod.”

Gwaine shrugged in a what can you do? sort of way, then slung one arm around Elyan’s shoulders and the other around Merlin’s and started leading them away down the corridor.

“Bye Gaius!” she called back over her shoulder. “Don’t wait up!”

“Don’t forget you have a conversation waiting for you tomorrow!” he returned, somewhere between exasperated and amused. Probably leaning more towards the former, though.

Is having it drunk an option? she thought miserably.

As it turned out, going out drinking was actually rather more enjoyable when one could actually drink without having to worry about ending up accidentally using magic in front of a crowded tavern. It was slightly less enjoyable as a woman, however, seeing as a good portion of men apparently lost all compunctions about what might in overly polite terms be called décolletage-appraisal when they were inebriated.

She almost wished that she had worn her considerably less revealing blue dress instead of the lilac one she had borrowed from Gwen’s stash of not-yet-donated clothes from her servant days. The boned lace-up bodice paired with the relatively low-cut neckline made sure that her modest but respectable bosom was put on display—not indecently so, by any means, but enough to draw the eye, if one was so inclined.

She was relieved to find that no one dared actually approach her while surrounded by knights known to be favoured by the king, and none of her friends gave her reason to feel self-conscious. Leon could not so much as tell the colour of her dress, Elyan was probably deeply conditioned not to pay any untoward attention to the shapes filling out his sister’s clothes, Percival seemed to forget that she even had breasts these days more often than not, and Gwaine… Well… Maybe she was not so averse to him stealing a glance or two, as long as he kept it classy, which he could be trusted to do.

She soon forgot all about her appearance as she was swept away by the intoxicating mood (and beverages) around the table. Three out of seven curses reversed was cause for celebration, and Leon hesitantly announced that he had some theories he was entertaining regarding his own, though he would be neither begged, goaded, nor bribed into telling them what they were.

At some point, after several rounds of competitive lip-reading and a game or three of try-to-convince-everyone-you’re-psychic, Elyan, Percival and Leon ended up engrossed in a debate on what kind of wood was most suitable for a certain type of shield, or some other such knightly nonsense. To be quite honest, Merlin had tuned them out the moment the words split-resistance and boss convexity had been used in the same sentence and instead turned her focus to Gwaine, who either had no strong opinions on the matter or could not be arsed to write them down fast enough to keep pace with the passionate discussion.

Whatever the case, he seemed perfectly content to miss out on the debate and talk to Merlin instead—or write, rather, seeing as her lip-reading proficiency seemed to worsen exponentially with every sip of mead she took.

“This is great,” she mused, feeling warm and content and pleasantly abuzz with drink. “Wish I could join you more often. Seems I’m missing out on a lot of fun.”

“More fun when I could talk.”

“You’re not enjoying yourself?” she asked, frowning. He had seemed happy enough until now.

Gwaine made a hurried gesture to disabuse her of that notion, shaking his head with a sheepish smile. He made a quick amendment to his tablet, making it read, “I’m More fun when I could talk.”

Faulty grammar aside, the message came through loud and clear, making her heart twinge. “I told you, you’re good company either way.”

His smile turned a touch too self-deprecating for Merlin’s taste and he glanced over at their friends before looking back at her and mouthing either, “Yoo-hoo,” or, “To you.” Probably the latter.

“To them too,” she insisted, lowering her voice. “You don’t think they keep inviting you just out of pity, do you?”

Gwaine shook his head, which would have been great if he had not also shrugged while doing it and looked down rather dejectedly at the stylus he was fiddling with.

“Gwaine…” She dragged her stool a little closer so the sides of their legs were touching under the table and laid a hand on his wrist to still his restless hands. “They invite you because they want to spend time with you, because they’re your friends and they— we love you. We’re all rooting for you to break your curse for your own sake, not because we think you’re boring without your jokes or whatever it is you’ve convinced yourself of.”

Gwaine looked somewhere between touched and uncomfortable, and his smile was somewhat strained as he nodded and mouthed, “Thanks,” avoiding looking her in the eye all the while.

Unsure if she had made things better or worse, she opted for a slight change in tactics. Tentatively, she slid a finger beneath the cuff of Gwaine’s sleeve, seeking out the blue ribbon she knew to be tied around his wrist. She traced it lightly with her fingertip as she confessed, “I do rather miss your voice, though.”

The change in Gwaine’s demeanour was instantaneous. His eyes fell to their hands before flitting up to meet hers, and his smile grew much more natural and flirtatious as he mouthed, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, grateful that her cheeks were already flushed from the alcohol. Hopefully, that would disguise the fresh blush rising in them.

She was not sure what had caused her to make the switch from trying to convince herself that it was a bad idea to encourage Gwaine’s sudden interest in her to actively flirting back like this. Perhaps it had been the long-overdue realisation that she loved him, or perhaps his acceptance of her father being a sorcerer, or his vow to leave Camelot if she did, or perhaps it was simply the alcohol.

Either way, she felt emboldened to give in to Gwaine’s irresistible magnetism, and only the presence of their friends made her reluctantly draw her hand away from the enticing warmth of Gwaine’s skin so as not to arouse suspicion. She kept her thigh pressed against his beneath the table, however, and it remained there as the conversation turned to lighter topics, with Merlin putting her quest to bolster Gwaine’s self-confidence out of mind for the moment being, not wanting to risk making him too uncomfortable.

Eventually, they ended up discussing Leon’s curse again. Percival and Elyan were busy trying to explain the secret to the perfect arm-wrestling form to some mates a table over, and so it fell to Merlin to pass on everything Gwaine wrote or mouthed to Leon, who could read neither lips nor tablets in his current condition.

“I’ll bet you anything that I’ve already got yours figured out,” Merlin said, perhaps a little overconfidently.

“Oh, really?” Leon laughed. “I’ll take that bet. What are we playing for?”

“I’ll…polish your armour for a week if I’m wrong, but if I’m right, you have to switch places with me next time Arthur decides to use me for target practice. Oh, Gwaine says, ‘She is very good at polishing.’ Which I am, second only to George.”

Leon hummed thoughtfully, finally nodding. “All right. Deal. So what’s your theory?”

“Nuh-uh,” she said, wagging a finger. “If I’m right, you’ll learn the lesson better if you figure it out yourself. I’ve already shared it with Gwen and Arthur, so they can vouch for my figuring it out days ago.”

“But if you tell me and you’re right, then I get to stop being blind now,” Leon protested, not unreasonably. “I’m sure I could endure a good while longer if necessary, but my duties are suffering as a result—”

“Are they, though?” Merlin cut in. “You’ve actually taken on more duties in Arthur’s absence, and you’re performing them admirably, if you ask me. Hold on, Gwaine is nodding and writing…that you’re a tyrant on the training field, which I’m gonna assume is a compliment in this case.”

Gwaine grimaced and made a little wiggly, “Eeh…” gesture with his hand, but Merlin elected not to pass this on.

“My point is,” she continued, undaunted, “that a little bout of blindness can’t stop someone like you from excelling in their duties. Only the other day, I was talking with Arthur and Gwen about your impressive knowledge of all the knights’ abilities and of how valuable your counsel and leadership is, especially in times like these. Never doubt that. Arthur doesn’t.”

Leon looked taken aback by being on the receiving end of such candid compliments, and he processed it in silence for a moment before smiling and saying, “Thank you, Merlin. I’m glad to be able to be of service still.”

“I know. You’re doing great.”

Leon nodded and took a thoughtful swig of his drink.

When Merlin turned Gwaine’s way it was to find him watching her intently.

“What?” she asked.

He smiled softly and said something unintelligible.

“One more time?”

Making the (correct) call that she would not get it on a second go either, he reached for the tablet and wrote, “Good friend.”

She ducked her head and shrugged. “I try.”

Perhaps it was the way Gwaine’s leg pressed a little more firmly against hers at that or perhaps the fact that she had continued drinking since their earlier conversation that made her want to help him too by giving him another push in the direction of breaking his curse.

Looking between Gwaine and Leon, she felt an idea take form and said, “Gwaine, would you mind getting me a new drink?” When he glanced at her still half-full tankard and raised an eyebrow, she put a finger in front of her lips with a meaningful look, then made a scooting sound with her stool and turned her head to call, “Cheers, mate,” over her shoulder.

“What?” Gwaine mouthed, bewildered.

She silently shushed him again before turning to Leon and asking, “Leon, I’ve been meaning to ask… What do you think of Gwaine?”

She could feel Gwaine freeze at her side while Leon lowered his tankard with a confused frown.

“What do I think of him? Just in general?”

“Yeah.”

Still looking puzzled, Leon considered this, then said, “Well, you could do a lot worse, that’s for sure.”

As soon as the implication of his words hit her she sputtered and exclaimed, “What?! No, I didn’t—! That’s…not what I’m asking.” Blushing furiously, she studiously avoided looking to the side to see what Gwaine thought of this assumption. “I just— Arthur made one of those jokes about him that aren’t really funny the other day, and I just wanted to make sure that— Well, that people don’t actually mean them, I guess…” she trailed off lamely. Already, she was starting to doubt the wisdom of her plan, but she was in too deep to pull out now.

Leon sighed. “I see. No, I think it’s mostly the sort of thing that somehow became a running joke and now gets repeated because people want to seem witty but can’t think of anything original.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Arthur, all right. Luckily, Gwen was there to join me in jumping to his defence. She shot Arthur down immediately and called Gwaine charming and chivalrous.”

“She’s a good judge of character,” Leon said. “I’ve known her all my life, and if she thinks someone is worth befriending, then so they are—and I’d say the same goes for your judgement. You two certainly weren’t wrong in this case.”

Relieved that the conversation was headed the right way again after the initial hiccup, she smiled and said, “He’s a good man. Arthur said so too.” Still, she kept her eyes on Leon, too craven to look at Gwaine, but through the connection of their thighs she could feel that his other leg was bouncing restlessly beneath the table.

“And a good knight,” Leon agreed. “I’ve never met a fighter like him before; his style is as unorthodox as it is effective. It’s given me a lot of new ideas for drills, actually. If I’m hard on him in training it’s only because I want to make sure he appreciates the importance of incorporating a measure of self-preservation into his fighting. I know that he would gladly lay down his life for any of us, but I’d hate to see it actually happen; it would be a true shame to lose such a knight, and even more so such a friend. Men like him are a rare breed.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Merlin said, smiling warmly.

“It’s strange, this curse. With me blind and him mute, it’s like he just disappeared, even if you can relay what he’s writing. Feels strange to miss someone when they’re right beside you. Guess I’d gotten used to hearing his voice every day; it’s been far too quiet around here this past week.”

Merlin was about to respond to this, but she forgot all about it when Gwaine suddenly rose from his stool, silently stalking away. She almost called out after him, but stopped herself just in time to not give the game away to Leon. Instead, she jumped to her feet and said, “Um, excuse me, Leon. I have to—”

“Go after him,” Leon said, shaking his head in amusement. “Make sure he believes what I said.”

Her eyes widened as she realised that her little ploy had not gone unnoticed. “You— Never mind. Thank you.” She hurried to grab the tablet from the table and excused herself with a quick, “Sorry, by the way,” then she set off after Gwaine.

A cursory glance showed her that he was not to be found inside the tavern, and so she made her way towards the door, finding that her inebriation was much more noticeable now that she was standing up and moving about. She was not so drunk as to have trouble walking in a straight line—no more trouble than usual, that was—but she wondered if she might not have thought twice about her plan if she had been sober. It did not seem all that clever all of a sudden, nor like something a good friend would do.