Chapter Text
This day was just not working out for Arthur.
First his servant had woken him at an ungodly hour, which had him questioning whether he had any sleep at all. Then said servant had served him a completely inappropriate breakfast, which only managed to weigh him down later in training. His favorite sword breaking in a very unfortunate accident involving Sir Percival couldn't possibly be his servant's fault, but not providing the knight with any appropriate first aid certainly was. And finally, when the bells rang to notify an emergency, his servant was nowhere to be seen. This led to him facing off against Morgana and her army with only half of his armor on and no sword in hand.
He was seriously considering to have George flogged, when all of this was over.
He never should have given Merlin leave to visit his mother. Sure. It had sounded like the right thing to do at the time. Hunith had unfortunately broken her arm, which was bad enough in and of itself. But according to Merlin right now was the middle of harvesting season, which apparently was the one time a farmer could not afford to be incapacitated. So being the generous king he was, Arthur had given Merlin two weeks to go back to Ealdor and help his mother out.
Things only went downhill from there.
For weeks there had been some civil unrest at the border to Lot's kingdom. Now the skirmish finally seemed to escalate. So he was forced to send his best men to deal with it. Of the Knights of the Round Table only Sir Percival had remained... Until his knee got injured in training, which had absolutely nothing to do with Arthur being sleepy. No. Kings are never sleepy. And the wound hadn't seemed that critical at first. Usually Merlin would just wrap it up and everything would be quite well again after a bit of rest. Not today.
Today was the day Morgana decided to have another go at the crown. She had swept through the citadel with her mercenaries and met little to no resistance until she arrived at the courtyard, where Arthur had rallied a last stand with his knights, which at this point mostly consisted of untested recruits. So it came as no surprise to Arthur, when the witch bellowed a spell and he lost control over his body. He saw all of his men frozen in place and was forced to his knees by Morgana's command.
The only thing he could move was his head, so he tried to at least take a closer look at his enemies. Even from this limited position he could see that they were vastly outnumbered. The mercenaries seemed well trained and were well equipped. Every man was carrying at least one close range weapon as well as a crossbow. While some of them were guarding the knights, the others were currently herding scared civilians into the courtyard. Seeing their king on his knees in front of the mad witch didn't seem to give them much hope for their current dilemma.
Morgana however was clearly enjoying this as she leisurely circled around him with a taunting smile on her lips. "Well, dear brother. I had expected a bit more resistance from you. Is that all you've got? Or did you finally decide to hand the throne back to its rightful queen?"
"You are no queen of Camelot. You lost that right, when you turned against us and betrayed your people."
Her mood immediately soured. "I turned against you?! No, brother dearest. You turned against me long before I left. You and your father would have killed me on the spot, had you known who I am and what I can do."
"I would have–" He couldn't finish that sentence. To be true, he didn't know what he would have done. Morgana saved him from formulating an answer, when she went on.
"Yes. You and all of your rotten people would have watched in glee as I burn to an agonizing death on the pyre. So I think it's high time to return the sentiment." With a nod all of her men loaded their crossbows and took aim... at the civilians.
"No! Morgana! They have nothing to do with this. Your quarrel is with me. They have done nothing wrong!" He was pleading. He knew that, but he didn't care. There was nothing else he could do to protect his people from this grueling end.
"Have they now? I don't need people, who would rat out their neighbors to a tyrant king. And as you seem to care for them so dearly, I will make sure that you watch as they scream and bleed and die a slow and just as agonizing death! Guards!" In a way that was eerily similar to his father, she raised her hand in an unmistakable command and...
"NO."
Arthur shuddered. He had heard a lot of commands in his life. Being the son of the king himself meant being exposed to high authority on a daily basis. His father had possessed what little prince Arthur had dubbed the 'king-voice'. Whenever he used his king-voice, there was no argument. No one ever dared to disobey the king-voice. But never in his life had Arthur heard anything remotely like that one word that had just rung through the courtyard. That spoke of power. That spoke of absolute authority. Disagreeing with that would certainly mean signing your own death sentence. The mercenaries seemed to agree as they hesitated. Some cautiously lowered their aim.
"What?!" Compared to that voice Morgana's reaction sounded more like a tiny squeak. Arthur would have almost laughed at it, had the situation not been so dire.
"Who dares defy me, the Last High Priestess of the Old Religion and rightful Queen of Camelot?!"
Somewhere in the further part of the peasant crowd a little commotion broke out as people presumably tried to move out of the way for someone. Morgana must have missed it however because she kept squeaking at no one in particular.
"Too much of a coward to come forth? Are you just going to hide behind all these peasants? That is quite alright with me. I will slaughter every single one of them until I have found you little rat. Guards!" As one all the mercenaries hefted their crossbows back onto the by now panicking crowd of civilians. Arthur could do nothing to stop it. He was utterly helpless against her magic and felt nothing but shame as he closed his eyes in front of the terror that was about to unfold. But then...
"NO. NO MORE."
Arthur realized with a start that he knew this voice. But that was impossible. That was impossible on so many levels. He could never... With one last push the crowd parted and revealed none other than Merlin. Except that he wasn't Merlin at all. At least he didn't seem so to Arthur. Merlin was supposed to be his clumsy idiot of a manservant that always had a glint of an impertinent grin in his eyes. So this couldn't be his Merlin. Granted, he wore the same raggedy clothes he always did, but that was where the similarities stopped. This Merlin held himself like a king. Gone was the stumble in his step. His posture was straight and his eyes spoke of a grim determination he wouldn't have thought possible. His whole demeanor seemed to radiate power.
"I have hidden for far too long. But NO MORE."