Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Merlin has been acting oddly.”

Morgana feels that she should probably be offended that her husband is thinking about another woman in their marriage bed. Especially considering they’re both in that bed, in their silken bedclothes cuddled close with his hand stroking up and down her back. Fortunately for Arthur, she’s not offended in the slightest. 

“What do you mean?” She readjusts her head so she can look at his face from her place against his chest. 

He meets her eyes for a moment and his whole face goes soft and loving which makes it very easy to continue being unbothered. 

“I don’t know. I just figured she’d be happy with the Druids coming in a few weeks to help repeal the magic bans,” he sighs and looks up at their ceiling, cast in the warm glow of the candles. “It just seems like she’s… restless.”

Morgana hums. She likes to think she’s a good queen because she’s a good friend and a good wife (among other things) and she can’t say she hasn’t noticed it. “I have a theory.”

Arthur’s grateful gaze turns back to her. “I’m all ears.”

“Well,” she shuffles to lean up on her elbow beside him, propping her head up with her hand so that they can speak without hurting her neck, “Merlin is very goal oriented.”

Her husband makes a confused face. 

“Her goal for a large portion of her life now has been to keep you safe so that you can unite the lands of Albion and bring magic back to them,” Morgana offers. “Her goal is about to be fulfilled leaving her without a goal, without a tether. I have to admit I would be restless too.”

Arthur’s mouth does something complicated and considering. “So she needs a new goal? And then she’ll smile more again?”

“Perhaps,” Morgana says wisely. 

<>

“Court Sorceress?” Merlin voices incredulously from her place on the ground, elbows deep in a wash basin. Her normal jacket has been discarded and the sleeves of her blue tunic are shoved up to not get wet. 

Gwen wisely pinches her lips to avoid laughing from across the basin, Morgana’s plum and silver dress with the tear shaped jewels in her brown hands. While they can wash the couples’ clothing in the same tub, the process she has to go through is much more in depth and Merlin is already most of the way through Arthur’s and her own which she always sticks in. Easier to do them all at once anyhow. 

“Yes, an advisory position on my council,” Arthur says, he looks very proud of himself. “After all, when the Druids leave I’ll need someone to advise me on all things magic and I trust you.”

It’s a nice sentiment, it always makes Merlin feel warm when he brings up their bond and their trust. It just also seems a little silly. 

“I can advise you without some silly title and council seat,” she goes back to cleaning a pair of his training trousers with the scrub brush in her hand. “I’ve been doing it this long.”

Gwen nods her agreement, carefully ringing out the dress in her hands. “She has a point, Arthur, why bring this up all of the sudden?”

“It’s logical. I’ll have magical people from all over vying for a position like that in court once the ban has been lifted and the laws are set,” the king reasons. “If Merlin is already my Court Sorceress it won’t be a problem.”

A curl of discomfort settles in Merlin’s gut. She hadn’t considered that there would be other magic users so readily vying for a place in Camelot’s court after all this time. That discomfort grows into a deep concern as it occurs to her that those who would be vying for the position might have harmful intentions at heart. 

“It’s just a title then? Wouldn’t have to do much more than I already do? I’d still be your maidservant?” She questions rapid fire as she rinses the trousers. 

Arthur gives this confused look that she knows Morgana gets charmed by. “You’d still want to be my maidservant?”

Gwen rolls her eyes, getting to her feet to go and hang the dress to dry. “You really are thick sometimes, Arthur.”

“That’s treason,” the king mumbles before his eyes fly back to his own maidservant. “I figured you’d be happy to be rid of it all.”

Merlin rolls her eyes. “Being a lady at court would bore me into an early grave. Give me a title but I’d prefer to keep things how they are, thanks.”

Arthur makes a considering noise. 

Gwen joins him back at the tub pulling another of Morgana’s dresses from her basket. This one is a gorgeous royal blue with golden piping and bell sleeves. 

Merlin glances at the clothes consideringly wishing she’d sent the trousers with Gwen to be hung because her leg is definitely asleep from sitting on it. She subtly shifts off of it and contains a grimace, sending a look towards Arthur who is scratching his jaw deep in thought. 

The laundress’ daughter skips by as Merlin wrings out the trousers and she calls out to the girl. “Pricilla, would you mind hanging these with the others for me?”

“Yes, Miss Merlin!” The child gives a stunning, gap-toothed grin and takes the pants before continuing her path through the drying lines. She’ll bring some honeysuckle for the girl after she gathers herbs for Gaius later as thanks.

Arthur watches the girl go before his gaze snaps back to Merlin. “If you think you can do both then so be it, but I won’t have you getting behind,” he levels a finger at her, “and there’ll have to be some changes, I can’t just give my sloppy maidservant a title, people will think I’m going spare!”

“You aren’t?” Merlin and Gwen voice together, sharing an amused grin. 

Arthur huffs and throws up his hands, “Treason!”

<>

Arthur walks with purpose, arms laden with baskets and face split into a grin as Morgana struts next to him. The prospect of spending an afternoon with his two favorite women despite the mundanity of packing has him settled after the days council meeting. There are still a few older members of the council who disagree with his decision to remove his fathers ban and with Merlin only there as silent support rather than at the table by his and Morgana’s side, it can be taxing. 

Morgana knocks politely even though the door to the Physician’s Chambers is open and steps out of the way so that Arthur can bustle past her. She’s already moving smoothly towards Gaius for a greeting hug as Arthur drops the baskets on the bench next to Merlin. 

The maidservant pauses in grinding at some sort of paste and raises a brow at the baskets. “What’s this?”

“I told you two days ago, if I’m giving you a title some things are going to have to change.” Arthur crosses his arms, ready to stand his ground. “My Court Sorceress can’t be living in my Court Physician's closet.”

He sees Gaius and Morgana share a look out of the corner of his eye but elects to ignore it. 

Merlin snorts. “Where do you suggest I live instead? The stables? The knight's quarters? Your antechamber?”

Arthur wrinkles his nose at the thought. He would never feel comfortable being intimate with Morgana having Merlin right through the wall. The other two suggestions are just too preposterous to even think about. 

“Don’t be stupid, Mer lin, you’ll either choose a room in the House of Lords with the other council members,” he almost gives up the game when he sees the ways she practically sneers, “or you go with Morgana’s suggestion.”

The maidservant continues grinding her little baton thing into the bowl of paste, eyes moving to the other woman. “I’m sure your suggestion is much more palatable?”

Morgana gives the most radiant smile. 

“You’d be hung for murder by the end of the week if we put you in the House of Lords,” his wife insists, “Gwen and a couple of knights are cleaning up my old rooms for you.”

Merlin grimaces a little. “Don’t you think that’s a little much? Title and advisory position aside, I’m just a maidservant.”

“Be that as it may,” Gaius interrupts to hopefully be a voice of reason, “you’ve long since outgrown the room I can provide, my dear. I also think you would benefit from spreading your wings.”

Her paste is coaxed out of her hands by the old physician. 

“What about having easy access to an assistant?” Merlin worries at her lip with her teeth. 

The physician gives her one of his looks, stern brow and all. “Well I suppose I’ll finally be able to hire someone who wants the position and has time for it. I will have to retire some day and being Court Physician is a lot of work on top of Court Sorceress and King’s personal servant. Too much, I believe, for even you, Merlin.”

The maidservant sighs and wipes her palms on her trousers before seizing the baskets Arthur has placed in the bench. 

Arthur is quick to follow her towards her room, almost missing the quiet thanks his wife gives to Gaius. He knows that if the man hadn’t said anything they probably wouldn’t have been able to talk Merlin around to it. Merlin is, after all, stubborn as a mule and twice as slow. 

She flicks the latch with a brush of magic that turns her eyes gold and shoves the door open with her hip. 

Morgana finally catches up while Arthur is frozen in the door, looking at the room. It’s much cleaner than in their early days together, but also entirely cluttered. 

The tiny shelves are full of books and stray books litter her side table and the chair in her corner in leaning towers, almost like the cluttered shelves of Gaius’ in the other room. Three different staffs lean against one wall all carved, painted, and jeweled differently - clearly too magical in nature to be simple walking sticks. An old sword of Arthur’s leans next to them, one he hasn’t touched since she gifted him Excalibur, as well as an empty armor stand where she must keep his armor when it’s not in his rooms. 

There’s knick-knacks in the window. A wooden carving of a dragon. A fancily painted egg. A broken miniature shield from the tourney-board. A glass fairy. 

There’s a tiny jewelry box atop Merlin’s clothing cupboard that can’t hold much jewelry because she never wears any. Her single other pair of boots stand under the cupboard next to the small basket where she keeps her dirty laundry. 

She turns to look at them, raising her brows. “What?”

“We’re going to need more baskets,” Morgana offers up. 

Arthur is thankful for his wife because all he can think is that Merlin never seemed this settled before he was king. He realizes now that she must have had to be ready to run at any time for fear of execution. He realizes how much she had to hide. 

“Clothes and small things first,” Arthur says after he clears his throat, “we can make the knights gather your books, they’ve been getting lazy.”

Merlin snorts. 

<>

Leon was quite proud of himself, thank you. 

Not only did he contain himself when he heard that both Gwaine and Lancelot had once stayed in Merlin’s room but also her bed. His sternest look brought about some stuttering about how Merlin hadn’t been in the tiny bed with them and how uncomfortable it was that they would have rather been on the floor, which definitely softened the blow without revealing his feelings for the woman. 

He also is sure that he’s arranged Morgana’s old room perfectly to the memories that the other two knights have of the woman’s room, along with some obvious modifications. 

Instead of between the two windows, the bed has been moved to the corner across from them with its side tables so that the light will come through just right in the morning to wake her as usual. He’s also removed the bed curtains knowing that Merlin has always made fun of Morgana and Arthur for having them and that it might block the sun impeding her normal wake up. 

A desk has been brought in instead of the large dining table to sit across from the fire. A small wash tub has been placed in the alcove behind the changing curtains with the clothing cupboard just outside it because Merlin obviously doesn’t have servants to roll in a large bath like Morgana did. And finally-

“Are you sure she’s going to need these?” Percival  indicates the two tall bookshelves he’s just helped Leon stand between the windows where the bed used to be. 

“Of course she’s going to need them,” Leon huffs, more confidently than he feels now that he’s being questioned. “She’s going to be Court Sorceress so her collection of books is going to grow soon and I’m sure she has at least a few.”

“Too right!” Arthur’s voice booms through the door startling Gwen who had been making up the bed with fresh, non-silken, sheets. He walks through first with a sword in hand and an armor stand under his arm. “I have Gwaine, Lance, Elyan, and Mordred collecting them now.”

“Put those by the cupboard over there,” Merlin tuts, using her hip to nudge the king out of the way as she comes in with two large baskets in her arms. 

Leon feels a curl of annoyance that Arthur didn’t help her with them and has to remind himself that-

“I’m the king, I’m supposed to be giving the orders here!” Arthur seems more amused than offended and is already moving to do what she said as the queen joins them. 

The queen’s arms are laden with staffs. A natural wood one with a large blue gem at the top. A white one that has been carved to fit many colorful geodes in its thickness. And then there’s one Leon recognizes, long and thin with a metal seam in the middle that splits apart to reveal a thin blade. 

It’s been painted since he shoved it in her hands during Morgause and the Dark Sister’s siege of Camelot when they intended to spell Morgana into stealing the throne. He’s sure that at least half the knights had known about Merlin’s magic then but at the time he hadn’t known who and he’d desperately wanted to give her a way to protect herself without threat of execution. 

The lovingly done red and gold swirls shine in the sunlight of the window and he wonders if she painted them herself. 

Queen Morgana holds up the three staffs. “Where do you want these?”

“With the other weapons, by Arthur,” Merlin answers. She sets the baskets down on the bench at the foot of the bed, unstacking them to settle them side by side. 

The queen leans them against the wall beside the sword with far more gentleness than her husband and Leon shakes himself out of his stupor. Making his way over to Merlin, he peers into her baskets. “Anything we can help with?”

Merlin cracks a smile, the shorter strands of hair that normally hang around her jaw framing her dimples perfectly. “Honestly I was most worried about coming in here and it being-” she makes a derisive noise and waves her hands at the royals. 

“I mean it’s still way too much,” she continues, “but at least it’s not like it used to be. I don’t think I could have handled all that.”

Gwen snorts. “You can thank Leon for that. He made us take down all the tapestries and bring in candle dishes instead of all the candelabras. Moved around all the furniture and took out the unnecessary bits.”

Leon manages not to flush under the attention but it’s a close thing. He completely fails at not being besotted by the even larger smile Merlin directs his way. “Thank you, Leon, at least someone around here has some sense.”

Queen Morgana scoffs.

Merlin makes a show of rolling her eyes and digs into one of the baskets. Out come a few little knick-knacks followed by scrolls, inkwells, quills, a very small wax sealing kit with uncolored wax, and a very thin dagger that must be used primarily as a letter opener. 

Leon rescues the items carefully and takes them over to the desk to arrange in an effort to give the woman some space. Queen Morgana is already at the desk, elegantly perched in the chair, giving him a knowing look. He elects to ignore it, focusing on his task. 

“You really should have a rug brought in,” Arthur informs. He has his hands on his hips looking around at the bare stone floors with furrowed brows. 

“Don’t be such a mother hen,” Merlin snips, pressing one of the baskets into his hands, “it will just be another thing I have to clean.”

“It gets cold in the castle during the winter,” the king comments. He’s following behind Merlin even without her saying so and she throws open the clothing cupboard to inspect its bare insides. 

“So I’ll get the supplies and ask if Cecelia’s daughters can practice by making me a floor mat before the snows. Much easier to clean than a rug.” She reaches into the basket but pauses when she sees Arthur’s confused face. “Cecelia is the weaver in town that the castle employs, her daughters Grace and Venna will be old enough to start apprenticing in a few years and need to practice.”

Leon is once again taken by the care and attention Merlin has for people. 

“Right,” Arthur says slowly. 

He looks down at the basket in his arms. “You have no dresses.”

Leon can’t see her face but he can practically hear the servant’s eye roll. “I can’t very well wear dresses stomping after you in the forest or the training grounds.”

She’s saved from whatever foolish thing the king is about to say when the other knights file into the room, hands full of books. Gwaine whistles as he looks around. “Our Merlin, moving up in the world!”

Elyan and Mordred move past him, carefully putting their cargo down on the shelves. Leon knows Merlin will be up organizing them later. 

Lancelot is the last in with the largest load of books but clearly heard Gwaine’s comment. “Planning a coup then, Merlin?”

“Oh yes,” Merlin assures him, closing the cupboard before pulling the final two items for Arthur’s basket: a small jewelry box that goes atop the cupboard and a pair of boots that go below it. “I’m thinking right after the winter solstice when all the nobility is fat and lazy.”

Queen Morgana lets out a very unladylike sound of glee to rival her husband's fierce glare towards the maidservant. He’s always been sensitive about his weight though. 

With all of Merlin’s books haphazardly strewn about her shelves she can finally usher the large group out of her new rooms. She gives Arthur a scathing look when he moves to protest, “If you want your dinner on time you’ll let me organize my room in peace.”

Gwen is lacing her arm through Lance’s already and Percival and Gwaine have their heads bowed together. Mordred offers an easy smile, probably communicating with Merlin mentally which Leon wishes he could do as well, maybe it’d stop the words from all getting stuck inside when he talks to the woman. 

He tries. Opens his mouth to say something witty like, ‘Would you like company while you plan your coup?’ and stay to help her with her books. Instead what he says is, “Let me know if you need anything, Merlin.”

Her eyes turn away from the king whose wife is extracting him from the room and they soften. “Thank you, Leon.”

In the hall, Leon sighs. 

It’s for the best, he thinks, as he always does. A woman like that wouldn’t want a knight, and if she did he could never be an option with Arthur, Lancelot, and Gwaine at her call. 

<>

“Do you think she likes her new room?” Arthur worries. 

Morgana catches Gwen rolling her eyes as she pours them both wine. She’ll leave once Merlin gets here with dinner same as every night. 

“Merlin has deserved a room promotion since her first year putting up with you,” the queen says easily, lifting her goblet. “I’m sure she’ll settle in just fine.”

“I would have preferred a day off,” Merlin tuts as she shoulders her way into the room. The tray in her hands is full of smoked ham cuts and thick potatoes, the gravy boat sloshing dangerously but never spilling. She settles it on the table and begins to unload it. 

“A new title hints at less days off, more work since you insist on remaining a servant,” Arthur has his subtleties but this is not one. 

“A week with George as your manservant and you’d be singing a different tune,” the maidservant snipes back, moving Arthur’s food in front of his usual spot. She pauses to squeeze Gwen’s hand in a silent goodbye as the darker skinned woman settles the wine pitcher and reaches for her cloak. 

Arthur, predictably, makes a sour face at the mention of George and Morgana decides not to tell him that Merlin and Geoffrey have been training George up to take the stewards position when the old man retires. 

It’s more fun when she gets to watch Arthur squirm a bit. 

“I don’t see why Morgana can’t be the Court Sorceress anyway,” Merlin huffs, being much more gentle as she sets out Morgana’s food. “She’s a priestess after all.”

She smirks at the other woman. 

“Merlin you know far more practical magic than me,” she reminds before sniffing and turning her nose up regally, “and besides, I am the queen.”

Merlin sputters out a laugh and Morgana lets the facade fall, taking up her utensils. 

Merlin snags one of the bread rolls and leans her hip against the table. “The Druid group you stayed with while in hiding was the first to answer our summons, yes?”

Ham halfway to her mouth, Morgana pauses. “Yes? Arthur is supposed to get the itinerary to you and Leon by the end of the week for changes and approval.”

She looks to her husband, who pauses chewing to nod at them, confirming that he’s on time so far. 

“Why?” She finally takes a bite, enjoying the smoky flavor of the meat. 

Merlin tears a bit off her stolen roll. “Lifting the ban and submitting new laws is a good thing but it paints a target on our backs from the people who allied with Uther because of that ban and the people who might think Arther is lying to hurt more magical people.”

It’s been discussed in council meetings but hearing Merlin say it clearly makes Arthur concerned. Her words have always held more weight to him. 

“Druids are peaceful people. I need their view on what they taught you so that I can help you figure out how to best use it to your advantage,” Merlin says and she has this look in her eyes like she’d never fight again if they could all be safe. 

“They should be some of the first to arrive,” Morgana assured her friend, “I’ll introduce you to Illiana as soon as I can.”

The maidservant gives her a more bittersweet look than what her face is usually capable of. “I’m sure she’ll find me.”

Emrys, a voice in her head reminds her. But all she can see is Merlin, Arthur’s silly maidservant and their dearest friend. To her Emrys is a folktale, a faceless legend that Merlin is being forced to live up to. 

<>

Merlin is talking to some children again. The little boys that come and watch the knights train today. She’s crouched down to their level, looking up at them with a big smile on her face. 

She still looks scruffy and boyish, her red neckerchief askew and her sleeve’s awkwardly pushed up her arms to combat the heat. But she also, somehow, looks like how women do in the markets, motherly. 

Arthur lets his gaze move back to the knights. He doesn’t get to train with them much now that Leon is first knight and he should really be paying attention to the new battle arrays they’re working on. He manages a few minutes, corrects Mordred and Percival on their stances even. 

His attention is taken again when he sees his maidservant rise to her full, gawky height. 

She reaches into the barrel of broken equipment and looks around before pulling out two child sized wooden swords that Arthur knows weren’t there before. Passing one to each boy, she points at the squires and younger knights on the other side of the field who are practicing forms. She badly imitates one of the forms with an invisible sword and the boys go racing off to get a closer look leaving her smiling after them. 

Arthur turns back to the other knights, considering. 

Their plan is to start trying for a baby after the Druids all leave and the ban is officially lifted, though he and Morgana haven’t told anyone aside from Gaius wanting it to be a surprise. Now he wonders if perhaps Morgana wouldn’t mind them telling Merlin… he’s sure she’s confided in Gwen after all. 

He’ll bring it up after training. 

<>

Arthur is looking at her weirdly. 

Morgana seems to be holding back amusement, albeit poorly. 

Merlin carefully sets their dinner down in front of them, considering her best course of action. She doesn’t take long to consider because the way Arthur is looking at her is turning her stomach. 

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything!” Arthur practically jumps. 

Morgana lets a little wheeze spill out of her before pinching her lips shut and purposefully pulling them down. Clearly, whatever it is, she finds it hilarious. 

Merlin summons up a stern look in his direction. “What.”

The king chews the inside of his check for a moment. “Have you ever considered motherhood?”

The dam finally breaks and Morgana’s body is riddled with loud laughter. It grows so hard and fast it sounds as if she’ll cease to breath and the maidservant grimaces, pressing the wine goblet closer to her. 

“Why do you ask?” She says, voice strained, when the queen finally starts to catch her breath and takes the goblet. 

“Well,” Arthur takes a breath, it’s the sort of breath he takes when he’s been thinking about something which is usually never good. “A couple of things really. For one, Morgana and I are planning on trying for a baby after the Druids leave.”

“Congratulations,” Merlin tilts her head towards the other woman. Morgana tips her goblet towards the maidservant in a false toast. 

“And for another, I just keep seeing you with kids. You’re really good with them,” the king shrugs. 

The sorceress sighs and swipes a handful of olives from his plate. He doesn't even bother to look falsely offended so she knows he’s serious. 

“Of course I’ve considered it,” she breathes. She’s considered it off and on throughout her life, less when she first moved to Camelot, more right after Arthur became king. 

Both royals are looking at her with a bit of surprise and she chooses not to be offended. She would be a great mother, thank you. 

“It’s just not really in the cards for me.” Merlin pops an olive into her mouth and shrugs. “Gotta be married for that and men like that don’t marry girls like me.”

She says it absently. Her thoughts are more focused on how her mother used to be treated for having her out of wedlock than keeping any secrets. She loves her mother but she doesn’t want that. 

Morgana’s smirk is what has her tensing. 

Arthur springs forward in his seat. “Guys like that? Guys like what? Mer lin, do you fancy someone?”

Merlin shoves the rest of the olives into her mouth in attempt to hide the grimace. 

“ Mer-lin !”

“ Ar-thur ,” she mocks in the same tone of voice. “Eat or I’m taking it back to the kitchen.”

Arthur shields his food from her, ready and able to fight over it. He gives her his best puppy eyes which have never worked on her in all their years of companionship. “Why wouldn’t someone want to marry you?”

The maidservant frowns. “You’re joking right?”

“You know he’s not,” Morgana says, pushing her food around her plate, “he’ll just keep pestering you.”

Merlin knows that. 

Arthur is like a tick, latching on and sucking the blood out of any information he wants to be privy to but isn’t. You either have to snatch him off and distract him or tell him what he wants to know. It’s a very good and very bad thing about him. 

She rallies her fingertips against the table, considering her options. 

“Men like women who are beautiful or who need saving. Often both.” She refills Morgana’s wine. “I’m not beautiful and I don’t need saving”

Arthur frowns at her. 

“You are beautiful though,” his eyes flick to his wife who is hiding her mouth behind her goblet, “maybe not like Morgana but no one is like Morgana.”

Merlin tries not to smile at them but she can’t help it, she’s always been glad they were able to come back together after Uther. She’s always been pleased to know her friends were able to find love. 

The king manages to pull his gaze away from his wife. “You deserve to marry someone who sees that. You could marry anyone , I made it legal.”

The maidservant focuses on collecting Morgana’s dishes. “Well the heart wants and all that. We can’t all be Gwen, having handsome knights falling at our feet.”

She considers trying to swipe his half full plate and Morgana must sense that she’s through with this conversation. “Finish your food, Arthur, Merlin must be tired.”

<>

“You look tired,” Leon voices and then immediately cringes when he runs into Merlin outside the kitchens. 

She’s pulling her hair out of the normal mess of a bun she keeps it in, scrubbing her hands through the mess of half curls and rioting waves. She sighs when he says it, dragging her hands over her face before pinning him with a look. “Arthur.”

Well that explains it. 

“Bothering you with the Court Sorceress thing still?” He asks, moving to walk next to her, he can walk her to her room now without getting Gaius’ hairy eyeball even if she doesn’t realize it. “Anything I can help with?”

“No, nothing like that.” She slides her hands into the pockets of her trousers and he takes a minute to appreciate the way her hair brushes her shoulders all dark and messy. Nights like this she almost relaxes, the slope of her shoulders not so tense under her baggy clothes and her pace unusually slow. “He’s just enjoying wedded bliss and thinks it should be like that for everyone else.”

Leon’s heart sinks at the thought of Arthur trying to set her up with someone. “I see… I hope he’s not making you uncomfortable.”

Those wide blue eyes get wider with shock. “Oh no! Nothing like that. Just a little sad I guess.”

“Sad?”

“All my friends are pairing off and I’m still pining away,” she yawns, reaching out for the latch to her room. She blinks and then gives him a smile that’s so utterly lovely despite the exhaustion at the edges. “You didn’t have to walk me all the way back.”

Thankful for the dark concealing his flush, Leon offers her his own smile. “Oh it was no problem, Merlin. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Leon.”

<>

“Merlin needs dresses.”

Gwen and Morgana look up from their tasks with clear confusion on their faces as they stare Arthur down. Morgana marks her place in her book and rests it in her lap to give him her attention but Gwen doesn’t even do him the service of pausing in her embroidery. 

“Where did you get a stupid idea like that?” The maidservant asks. 

“Treason,” he points out, absolutely no heat behind his words. 

Both women gift him smiles for the comment. 

“For one thing, my Court Sorceress needs to be property dressed,” he presents this first because he knows both women will agree and they clearly do, sharing a look between them. “And second, Merlin doesn’t think she’s beautiful.”

Gwen’s eyebrows fly upwards and her needle finally pauses. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“She said it last night.”

The maidservant looks to Morgana for confirmation and with an almost regretful look in her eyes the queen nods. “It’s true.”

The younger woman pins Arthur with her gaze again. “What exactly did she say?”

“ Men like women who are beautiful or need saving. Usually both, ” Arthur quotes, “ I’m not beautiful and I don’t need saving. ”

Gwen finally sets her embroidery hoop down in her lap, looking heart broken. She chews her lip with a crinkle in her brow. “I can’t believe she feels that way.”

Arthur figures she means the beauty part because they all know Merlin can save herself and most of the time is saving everyone else along the way. 

“I don’t think a couple of dresses are going to help that though,” Morgana says, and while he appreciates her input he doesn’t appreciate the disagreement. “Though I do agree that she needs them at least for court and council.”

“So you’ll help,” he says, focusing on that part. 

His wife nods. “A few dresses like Gwen’s that she can wear for everyday and council meetings, and some fancy ones for feasts and such.”

“You’re the best!” He leans down and kisses her around a smile. 

When he pulls away he catches Gwen’s sad face and it reminds him of the other thing Merlin said. “ We can’t all be like Gwen, having handsome knights falling at our feet ,” he repeats under his breath. 

The maidservant clearly hears him because her eyes bulge in shock. 

“She’s in love with a knight,” Arthur realizes aloud. “A knight . That’s why she thinks she has to be some damsel in distress to get noticed!”

“You don’t think it’s Lance do you?” Gwen asks worriedly, looking between the two of them. 

Well he hadn’t . 

“If it were Lancelot she would have said something,” Morgana assures her maidservant. 

It doesn’t seem to assuage any of Gwen’s fears, or Arthur’s for that matter. 

<>

Morgana could almost commend her husband for waiting for Merlin to at least be clearing their dishes to ask. That is, she would commend him if she knew it were patience rather than fear that kept his mouth shut. 

Merlin is three plates from escaping when Arthur decides to speak. 

“So he’s a knight then?”

Merlin pauses, lifts the plate.

Then sets the plate back down, and stares at Arthur for a moment. 

“The man you fancy,” Arthur clarifies, voice strained. 

“I thought we finished this conversation yesterday.” A moment of silence follows her comment and she sighs, putting the plate back on the tray. “If I tell you yes will you drop it?”

“No probably not,” the king admits, though he does look pained by his admission. 

Morgana almost wishes she hadn’t finished her wine just so she had something to do while she watched this house fire go up. 

Merlin’s lips thin. “Yes.”

“Is…” Arthur has to clear his throat. “Is it me?”

The maidservant glares straight at Morgana like this travesty is her fault and she hasn’t been sworn to secrecy for months after finding the servant practically swooning over Leon. Then something mischievous sparks in those eyes and a giddy laugh starts to bubble in Morgana’s chest. Oh she does so adore her husband’s best friend. 

“Well…”

“ Mer lin…” 

Morgana has heard Arthur say Merlin’s name a hundred thousand times over the years. This time it’s confused, concerned even. 

“There were some times over the years…”

“ Mer lin!”

Alarmed, shocked. 

“Usually when you were doing something stupid and honorable and brave so I really should have cottoned on to my type quicker, but no it isn’t you.”

“ Merlin! ”

Somehow both upset and relieved. 

Morgana finally lets her laughter bubble out. Who knew Arthur’s insistence on finding Merlin happiness would end up being such an amusing thing to witness? She can only imagine the kinds of things that are going to happen when he gets his hands on the knights and that just makes her laugh harder. 

Merlin, of course, takes the opportunity to escape before Arthur can bring up Lancelot. 

<>

Merlin is carrying a stack of new chainmail to the armory from the smithy when Gwen manages to corner her. The good thing about Gwen is that the woman is ruthlessly practical even when she’s freaking out and she takes the first few mail shirts from Merlin’s arms and keeps them walking as she babbles. 

“Arthur might have let it slip the other day - among a few other surprising things - that you maybe, possibly, if he isn’t entirely mistaken by your tone of voice - that is,” she sucks in a breath, “have feelings for one of the knights.”

Merlin stumbles but manages to not drop any of the heavy metal shirts. She readjusts them in her arms. 

“Please tell me that idiot isn’t just spreading that around,” she says weakly. 

Gwen gawks. “No! Oh no! Well… I don’t think so. I mean, I just happened to be there when he realized but I don’t know if he’s spoken to anyone else about it, other than the queen, I mean, because he talks to her about everything, of course.”

“Right.”

The other maidservant chews her lip. “It’s just, well I had wondered, I don’t want to press but… it’s not Lance is it?”

Merlin is halfway to laughing her out of the citadel when she starts up again. 

“Because if it is Lancelot I won’t be mad! I mean I might be a little upset that you hadn’t told me before because if I had known I would have never, and I know you and I weren’t exactly around each other when Lance and I got together but I’d like to think that we’re close enough friends that you would let me know and I just would never want to hurt you or make you uncomfortable by being close with him when you’re around and-”

“It’s Leon!” Merlin blurts after taking a cursory look around for anyone who could be listening. 

It’s just that Gwen’s face is going red from lack of breathing and Merlin knows that if she doesn’t tell the other woman who it is then Gwen will worry that she’s lied to spare her feelings. And then Gwen will stir herself into all kinds of a tizzy over it until they’re back here again. 

The younger woman is looking at her with large eyes, mouth working open and closed like a fish as she gapes. Finally she has enough sense and breath about her to softly question, “Leon?” 

“Leon,” she confirms just as quietly. 

“I would never have considered him,” Gwen admits. 

Merlin rolls her eyes. “Well we don’t choose who we fall for.”

The other woman’s posture goes stiff again. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Leon’s a good man, I’ve known him practically all my life. It just seems like you spend more time around Lance and Arthur and even Gwaine.”

Merlin hums awkwardly instead of answering as they pass a few guardsmen. 

“You really love him?” 

“I really do,” the sorceress confirms sadly, “and you can’t tell anyone , especially him or Arthur. Arthur might get it in his mind to force the poor man to marry me or something.”

Gwen tucks the mail into one arm and reaches out her hand, soft pretty brown against Merlin’s tatty blue shirt as she squeezes Merlin’s arm comfortingly. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Morgana knows,” Merlin offers, knowing how much the other woman hates secrets. 

“Oh thank the heavens!”

The sorceress lets out an undignified snort as she shoulders her way into the armory. The only one around seems to be Percival who is hiding with his current book near the shields. It’s late enough in the day that he’s probably avoiding being dragged off to the tavern by Gwaine. 

“Can, can I ask you something else?” Gwen questions soft enough to hopefully not disturb the knight as they lay out the chainmail. 

“Er, I guess?”

The other maidservant shifts nervously. “Do you not think you’re pretty?”

Percival has definitely stopped reading his book and if he hadn’t he would have been disturbed by the obnoxiously loud sigh Merlin lets out at the question. “I don’t understand why this is such a big deal to everyone.”

“Well it’s just, you don’t really seem like the kind of person to care about any of that stuff but from what Arthur said that you said, it seems like you maybe actually do care,” Gwen babbles as she fusses with the metal garments so the links won’t get damaged from being stored improperly. 

“I don’t care.”

“It seems like you might.”

Merlin attempts a halfhearted glare but it’s really very difficult to be upset with Gwen. Finally she sighs. “I’m not pretty or beautiful like you and Morgana and I don’t see what all the fuss is about me acknowledging that fact.”

Before Gwen can do something like try to assure her she’s beautiful like Arthur did, Merlin lays out the last chainmail garment in her hands. “I really have to get to Arthur before he decides to start a dowry or something to get me married off.”

Percival catches up with her ten feet from the doors to the castle. 

“You know,” he starts, voice careful but not necessarily soft, “the Druids always said that you were magic itself, the most powerful sorceress in all the lands.”

Merlin scoffs. “Of course they did. With their prophecies and their legends .”

The knight side eyes her as if he was trying to make a point and she flails her hand, starting up the steps. 

“They never told us what you looked like, just expected us to know you by feel I guess.” He shrugs as they pass through the open doors. “But I always heard about Lady Morgana when we would travel. How she was this blue eyed, dark haired princess, the most beautiful woman in Albion.”

That’s not an inaccurate description. 

“The first time I saw you, I thought you were Morgana,” Percival admits. “When you introduced yourself I thought you were using a fake name or maybe her sister. I didn’t realize who you really were until I felt you use magic.”

“Oh,” Merlin breathes. 

Oh, because Percival is always honest, always sincere. 

Oh, because she didn’t think she needed to hear something like that until he said it. 

She takes a breath and rubs at her stinging eyes so she doesn’t actually embarrass herself by crying. “Thanks, Percival.”

The largest knight shrugs again. “You don’t have to thank people for telling you the truth, Merlin.”

He sets off toward the library. 

<>

It takes a couple days and some mutual avoiding that Arthur tries not to feel sour about, but Morgana finally brings Arthur the new clothes for Merlin. Really, it shouldn’t be so easy to avoid his own maidservant but she follows a pretty specific schedule and he’s been very busy planning for the Druids’ visit lately. The itinerary is done at least and will be in her and Leon’s hands tomorrow. Maybe then she’ll return to bringing him and Morgana dinner again just to fuss about it. 

Arthur hopes so. 

Not that he misses her or anything. He’s just curious about this knight she’s been secretly carrying feelings for. And she’d make an even more dreadful servant than ever if she decided to avoid him for the rest of their lives. 

Arthur takes a breath and calls on his most trusted knight to help him. The knight he knows wouldn’t laugh at Merlin. 

Leon looks nervously at the basket he’s been made to carry. “Sure, I have to say that I think this is a bad idea.”

“Your comment has been noted,” Arthur says, carefully opening Merlin’s door and sticking his head in. He scans the room just in case she isn’t actually mucking out his stables like she usually is around this time of the week. The room is clear. 

“I’d prefer not to be an accessory to this if it’s all the same to you,” the knight says but follows him in when Arthur beckons him. 

“You aren’t an accessory,” the king happily claps the other man on the shoulder before taking the basket out of his hands. “You’re a watchdog. Let me know if you see Merlin coming back up to the castle early.”

Arthur shoos his first knight towards the window and makes his way over to the cupboard. Surely Merlin will feel nice in some new clothes, pretty even. 

And he’s not even taking it out of her pay! 

<>

Leon takes charge of the basket full of the clothes that Arthur took from Merlin’s room. He assures the king that he’ll have them burned and makes a show of leaving the castle. 

Instead of taking them to be burned, he turns towards the knights quarters. All the clothes that are so old they’re tearing or so stained they’re unsalvageable go into the fireplace like he assures the king they would. 

The other clothes get neatly refolded along with the neckerchiefs (of which he’s kept all of them) and he pulls the two neckerchiefs that he’s been trying to work up the courage to give her from his desk. He layers the soft purple and red garments between the older neckerchiefs and re-closes the basket, hoping to get back to her room before she’s finished the stables. 

Unfortunately, he’s not in luck. 

He knocks first, even if he expects her not to be there, because he always knocks. It isn’t proper not to knock on a ladies door before entering. 

“Come in.”

Something about Merlin’s voice through the door is inherently wrong in a way that makes Leon’s instincts go haywire. It’s not angry but there’s definitely something there. An upset, a bone deep exhaustion.

He’s careful about opening the door in case she’s expecting someone else, perhaps a king that she can turn into a toad for taking her things. 

He doesn’t find an ambush waiting behind the door though. Instead he finds Merlin, kneeling in front of the cupboard, gazing into its depths. She sniffles and scrubs her arm across her face before looking over at the door. 

Her slack shoulders go tense at the sight of him. 

“Shit did we have a meeting today?” Her voice is still somewhat wobbly. 

“No,” Leon closes the door, shifting the basket under his cloak. “Not until tomorrow. Are you alright?”

She gives him the weakest, saddest smile, so brittle it might shatter. “Not really, but it’s stupid.”

“If it upsets you, Merlin, then it’s not stupid.”

She sighs, her brittle smile splintering as she looks back into the cupboard. Pushing herself up she shrugs.

“It really is though. If I weren’t so tired and I didn’t stink from the stables and Arthur and Gwen hadn’t been acting so weird with me lately, I probably wouldn’t even care,” she scratches her hands through her hair, the leather tie coming loose and hanging awkwardly half pulling her hair up. There’s hay in it, stark against the lovely dark mess. 

“But you do care,” Leon presses. 

“I do,” her voice wobbles dangerously and she sucks in a breath, clearing her throat. “I needed new clothes I guess, with this dumb title business. It’s just, I liked my clothes and he came and took them when I wasn’t here and I haven’t worn a dress since I was a child so I don’t even know really how to wear one!”

She realizes she’s flaring her hands around and drops them to scrub across her face. 

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think there’s much of a secret to wearing dresses,” Leon finds himself saying. He wants to tell her she’ll look beautiful in anything. “I think you just wear them like any other clothes.”

Merlin laughs and turns away from the cupboard to give him a truer smile. “You’re probably right. Sorry for freaking out on you.”

“I really don’t mind.” He doesn’t. 

The maidservant shakes her head. “No, it wasn’t right of me. I’m just being weird because I don’t really have Gwen around to ask if I look silly when I put one of those things on,” she waves towards the cupboard, “she’s joined Arthur in his insanity and they’re both unbearable right now.”

Leon gets the sense that this isn’t just about the Court Sorceress thing. 

“Anyway, what can I help you with?” She tilts her head at him questioningly. Her hair parts a little around one ear and it sticks out a little adorably making him wish she wouldn’t hide them so much. 

“Oh uh!” Leon shakes himself out of his stupor and pulls the basket from his cloak, holding it out to her. “I brought you this.”

She steps close, taking the basket with a confused furrow in her brow. She smells like horse and old hay rather than herbs, metal, and laundry soap. It doesn't stink like she claimed but he definitely prefers how she usually smells. 

Merlin flips the top of the basket open and her breath hitches. “My clothes!”

“Not all of them!” He rushes to say scratching at the back of his neck. “Just what I could rescue, but I think I managed to save all of your neckerchiefs at least.”

She touches the faded blue fabric of one of the aforementioned garments. “Won’t Arthur be mad?”

“I’d rather him be mad than you be uncomfortable,” Leon admits. He wants to say he could deal a hundred days of Arthur’s anger for one day of her smile but he’s not smooth like Gwaine. 

Merlin smiles up at him. “Thank you, my knight in shining armor.”

It’s a joke. She’s joking, she has to be. 

The knowledge of that doesn’t make Leon’s heart beat any slower. “It’s nothing… I should get back I have… knight things.”

He tries not to physically cringe at that. 

“Right, knight things,” Merlin repeats, her smile not falling. “I wish you luck then, Sir Leon.”

Leon pauses at the door, hand around the latch. “If… if you wanted an honest opinion about the dress thing, you could always come to me.”

Her breathing audibly hitches and he grimaces, opening the door. He doesn’t think he can bear the rejection. 

“Tomorrow morning then? Since we’re already meeting for the itinerary and all,” Merlin suggests. 

“Yes, that sounds adequate,” he manages before making his escape. 

“ Adequate ,” he repeats to himself aghast as he hurries down the hall. He’ll be the first person to see Merlin in a dress since she was a child and he says it’s adequate . Just hang him now!

<>

Merlin is humming as she passes through the door for the first time in two nights. This is Morgana’s first clue that something is up. 

The second, most obvious, clue is Merlin’s clothes. She’s neither wearing what she wore this morning or a dress that Morgana commissioned to specially fit her color palette. She looks the same as always- dark trousers, faded blue linen shirt, thin brown jacket, and gray neckerchief.  

Her third clue is the two cream pies, perfectly fluffed and browned by Cook in the middle of the dinner tray. Merlin never brings dessert without it being requested and she always teases Arthur about his weight when he’s the one who does the requesting. 

Arthur, clearly more nervous about a blow up than cleverly devised revenge, doesn’t seem to notice at all. He’s watching Merlin, eating slowly and without attention as she goes about the process of cleaning up their bath and turning down their bed. She is prone to blow ups rather than petty revenge but there is sometimes when she has enough time to cool off and get really mean before she sees Arthur again. 

Morgana has heard the stories. Pink cloaks that she and all the knights insist are red. Rat stew. Arrows that are spelled to always miss but only if it’s Arthur handling them. 

Tonight, as dinner ends, Merlin picks up every dish and stacks them neatly almost like a normal servant would. When she’s done, she serves Morgana her small pie, pristine dessert spoon settled right where it should be. Then she picks up the second pie and sets it in front of Arthur followed by his own dessert spoon. 

When Arthur reaches for the spoon it moves. He glares at it and it moves again on the second try. On the third, it shoots right into Merlin’s hand. 

“Blast it, woman!”

The maidservant twists the spoon between her fingers. “Oh I’m sorry, sire , does that bother you? Does it upset you to have something of yours taken from you?”

Arthur loses all color in his face. 

Morgana, now more trusting of her own pie, carefully lifts her spoon and takes a hesitant bite. It’s perfect, of course. 

“You should be glad I was able to get some of my clothes back otherwise you’d be tromping all over this castle naked,” Merlin scowls at him. 

Her husband finally looks his maidservant up and down before narrowing his eyes suspiciously. “How did you manage to get your clothes back, Mer lin?”

The pie goes flying right into his face. 

Morgana doesn’t quite manage to staunch her laughter as the little tray begins to fall off leaving Arthur a mess of cream and crust. 

“Some friendly advice, Arthur,” Merlin lifts the tray with their other dishes, “when you’re doing something that is going to upset someone, you don’t take a nice person as your accomplice.”

And just like that she’s gone. 

Arthur scoops some of the cream away from his eyes and squints across the table where Morgana still sits, happily picking away at her pie. He points at her with one cream covered finger. “Treason.”

Morgana lifts another bite of her pie. “You took Leon didn’t you?”

The man grabs a cloth napkin that Merlin was kind enough to leave on the table. “He’s committed treason too!”

The queen just smiles. “Better treason than being on Merlin’s bad side.”

<>

Merlin thanks all the gods she knows and maybe Morgana too when she inspects the dresses. Most of them are simple dresses with overdresses that tie in the front or on the sides like Gwen’s which means she probably won’t have to have help. 

Unlike Gwen’s dresses, none of the underdresses are white. Unusual but Merlin is highly thankful. She already has an issue with the dress thing but a dress that’s even easier to stain with her job is a very bad thing. 

She worms her way into the brown underdress with sleeves that end at her elbows and grabs the blue overdress that ties in the front. It seems like the easiest of everything and she doesn’t even want to look at the two fancy looking dresses in the cupboard. When she’s dressed, she looks down at herself almost wishing she owned a mirror. 

The dress is… nice? It hugs her waist more than any of her shirts do and it cinches right under her bust because of where the overdress ties. She has to mess with the neckline a bit to a over the very edge of the bandaging she usually uses to keep her chest in place while she’s chasing Arthur all over Camelot. Her bow on the dress is messy too but that’s easily hidden when she ties her favorite red neckerchief around her throat. 

She doesn’t think any of it looks right. She feels half naked from the waist down without her trousers. She adamantly refuses to wear the new slippers at the bottom of her cupboard and instead yanks her boots on. 

It’s all a damn mess but she doesn’t have time to change into her normal clothes before she has to meet with Leon for the itinerary. So she takes a deep breath, ties her hair like usual, and squares her shoulders. 

She can do this. 

She is Merlin, most powerful sorceress who walks the lands, defeater of high priestesses, legend of the Druids, and maidservant of King Arthur the Once and Future King. One little dress won’t best her. 

Then she opens the door. 

Leon is there, hand raised to knock, and when he sees her he falters. He looks her up and down and then up and down again with wide blue eyes. He, of course, looks as perfect as always, golden brown hair curling nicely around his handsome face, neatly trimmed facial hair, and immaculate armor. 

“You look…”

Merlin sighs and steps forward, closer to him as she shuts her door behind her. “Silly I know.”

“…like you,” Leon finishes in a breath which confuses her greatly. 

“What?” She looks up at him and realizes they’re a lot closer than she thought, so close that if he didn’t wear several layers of metal she could probably feel the heat of him. 

He smiles at her and if not for the door at her back it would knock her off her feet. “You look nice, like you always do. I was afraid Arthur was going to try and dress you up like the Queen or something and you’d stop looking like the Merlin I know.”

Frankly, Merlin doesn’t know how to respond to that so she just looks down at the dress again. “You think I look nice?”

“How could I not?” The knight asks and for a moment her heart drops a little because of course she looks nice now, she’s wearing things that ladies are supposed to wear. “You have your boots and your neckerchief and you’re wearing your colors, sure the dress is different but you’re still dressed like you.”

That makes no sense whatsoever. 

She changes the subject away from how she looks in hopes of not embarrassing herself any farther or breaking her own heart. Swishing the skirt of the dress around she makes a face. “To be honest with you, the thing I hate the most is that I can’t fit my trousers under here… I feel exposed and what if I have to run or something.”

She walks around him and he shifts the scroll in his hand turning to follow her. “I would have thought it would be nice, with all this heat.”

“I’ve never had much problem with the heat,” she confesses, “in the winters I get so cold I’m always thankful for the heat of summer.”

He walks by her side, matching her stride as easily as ever. “Is that your only issue with the clothes?”

Merlin tilts her head, considering. “You’re too nice to tell me I actually look silly but my boots don’t exactly go with the dresses. Those slippers are too flimsy to walk around in all day and don’t support my ankles though, so I’ll have to suffer being silly… I’m clumsy enough without all this.”

Leon rubs his gloved fingers over the scroll in his hand. “I’m sure you’ll get used to it. I’ve seen you beat four bandits without the use of your hands, one little dress is nothing.”

The smile that comes to her is easy especially when he slows his pace so that she can take the steps one at a time and won’t trip. “Alright enough fuss, tell me about this itinerary. He hasn’t scheduled a tourney has he?”

The knight gives her a half guilty look as he unrolls the parchment. “He has.”

“Druids are peaceful, magic using people,” Merlin huffs, throwing her hands up, “they don’t go about, hitting each other with swords!”

“I was thinking we could change it to a knights tourney, more for entertainment and good for morale,” Leon says. 

“Shorter too though, we’d have to fill the time,” Merlin points out. 

Leon nods. “I asked Percival and he said that all the Druids he was raised around teach their children archery. It’s a useful skill and something easily set up.”

“An archery challenge then?”

“For children,” the knight specifies. 

Merlin considers this and decides it’s a brilliant idea. “I think that would be a good way to show that Druids are just like other children. We’ll need to ask Geoffrey to make some fliers to post in the town about it so people can prepare if they don’t hear Arthur’s announcements.”

“Says here that one of the Druid groups is traveling with a bardic troupe. Stringed instruments mostly, fiddle and lute, but with a female and male singer. Arthur has extended his invitation to them to play for the feasts.”

“Feasts plural?”

“One for the night they all arrive, more casual to break their fast and welcome them,” Leon details, “and one for their last night here but I get the sense it’s more for naming you court sorceress and to celebrate the lift of the ban.”

Merlin wrinkles her nose. “Don’t suppose I’ll get out of that one.”

“Not likely,” the knight agrees. 

<>

“Is that Merlin?!” Mordred gasps the question, his distraction making Elyan able to trip him. 

Arthur tenses. Merlin isn’t supposed to be here, she’s supposed to be with Leon going over the itinerary for next week. It’s the whole reason Arthur is running morning training instead of his first knight. So if she’s here it can only mean something is terribly wrong. 

Arthur swiftly disarms Sir Kay who seems frozen all of a sudden and turns around, searching for his maidservant. It’s not hard to spot her and when he does he freezes himself. 

She’s wearing one of the dresses. 

She still looks like herself, Morgana had refused to get anything Merlin would be able to refuse to wear on principle. She’s still in her neckerchief and boots and the dress isn’t all that different from her normal clothes but it’s different enough. 

She’s pointing at something on the scroll in Leon’s hand and then panning her hand out over the training field before holding up nine fingers, then six, then three. Leon nods his agreement and then asks something and she shakes her head before speaking. 

The first to break out of the stupor is Gwaine. 

The knight goes racing across the training field towards the two. Elyan curses and drops his training sword, “He’s going to say something stupid to her.”

Percival grumbles and lumbers past Arthur with Elyan at his side probably with the intention of stopping their friend. Panicking at the thought of Gwaine ruining Merlin’s amenableness to the dresses, Arthur follows quickly. 

By the time they get there they’re too late. 

He doesn’t hear what Gwaine says but Merlin huffs a laugh at him that sounds a little thin. “You don’t have to flirt with me just because I’m wearing a dress, Gwaine.”

The knight claps his hands to his chest like he’s been shot by an arrow. “What? Dress? I flirt with you every day, Merlin! How could you accuse me of such things! I’m heartbroken!”

Merlin launches herself at him, in a flare of brown and blue. She wraps her arms around him and hugs him tightly and for a drastic moment it hits Arthur. Gwaine could be the person she has feelings for, they’re close and always bantering and Gwaine does have a penchant for flirting with beautiful women and damsels in distress. 

“Thank you, Gwaine,” she breathes. 

“Of course, Merls, what are friends for if not to ruthlessly flirt with you, no matter your clothes?” He jokes easily and hugs her back, patting her shoulders and that’s when Arthur notices Leon. 

Leon is looking at the two with something like sadness and reservation in his face. He’s closed off from how he looked across the field with her at his side, no longer openly pleased. Arthur gets the feeling that he wants to be the one Merlin is hugging. 

The king clears his throat. “ Mer lin, aren’t you supposed to be going over my itinerary with Leon?”

Merlin snaps back to herself in an instant, pulling away from Gwaine and flailing her arms. “Arthur, you absolute clotpole!”

He feels his brows raise in surprise. Perhaps he shouldn’t have interrupted her hug with her possible love interest. 

“Druids don’t have knights!” She hisses which is just even more confusing. “How would you expect them to participate in a tourney?!”

“Ah.” That makes more sense. 

It’s also extremely worrying because now he has to come up with something else to keep the visiting Druids entertained. 

“Don’t worry, sire,” Leon brandishes the scroll. “We’re correcting this. A short knights tourney among camelots knights and a children’s archery competition to fill the time.”

Merlin nods, crossing her arms. “And we’ll be allowing the Druids to set up booths to sell their wares while they’re here. Some in the market, in the courtyard, and around the tourney fields.”

“Brilliant, you two! I expect the fixed itinerary on my desk by the time training is up.” He grabs Gwaine around the back of the shirt and drags him away. 

The knight manages to get one last wink in and Merlin manages to get one last eye roll before Arthur thrusts Gwaine towards Percival. He really hopes he’s wrong about this, anyone would be better than Gwaine. 

<>

Acquiring a few pairs of leggings that can fit under a dress is easy and they’re mostly all the same size so he doesn’t have to worry about specific sizing. Sneaking into Merlin’s room to take measurements of her shoes is a lot harder and frankly very weird. 

Leon is thankful that the leather worker is an old friend who finds his antics amusing rather than strange and has patience with him because he has to wait until Arthur and Merlin are gone on their hunt for the Druid’s feast to actually go take those measurements. While his intentions are pure it would be terrible if she were to catch him pawing through her cupboard. He can’t imagine the shame and embarrassment he would feel at being caught. 

By the time she and Arthur are back - a large stag and a small horde of avian game in tow - Leon is ready with his gifts. 

He tries not to think of them as gifts because it lends too much to courtship in his mind. These are things that Merlin needs and he can provide for her because he is a friend and confidant. 

He still wraps the leggings and shoes in paper and twine. 

He has to work himself up to knocking and almost turns away when he finally does but Merlin calls out that she’ll be just a moment and he’s glued to his spot. The paper crinkles in his hands, which are ungloved and he’s suddenly reminded of the late hour. It’s definitely improper to be here right now when most people are having their night meal and readying for bed. 

The door opens and there she is. Her hair is damp, sticking to her neck and the side of her face in some places. She’s only in an underdress which still covers her from her elbows to her ankles but it feels wrong to see her like this with her feet bare and without an ever present neckerchief. 

“Leon? Did you need something?”

Struck from his stupor, the knight clears his throat. “Are you busy? I can come back.”

Merlin shakes her head. “No, Gwen’s serving dinner tonight I just need to go by and get their dishes on my way down to the kitchens to eat. Is something wrong?”

Leon has to do it now or he’ll be a coward and leave, so he holds the package out. “I brought you these.”

The woman’s brows raise. “You brought me a present?”

“Well I-I wouldn’t call it a present, I…” he tries to contain his words before he makes an even bigger fool of himself. “I just thought these might help, with the clothes problems you were telling me about the other day.”

She looks behind him as if wondering if someone put him up to this, like this might be ajoke, then opens the door wider. She tilts her head in and waits for him to enter before closing the door and holding her hands out. 

As soon as he hands her the bundle she sets it down on the desk and unties the twine, carefully untying the twine and scratching away the wax holding the paper closed. The few pairs of leggings are rolled with the shoes sandwiched between them and she picks a pair up and lets them unroll. She smiles, rubbing her thumbs over the fabric. 

“You got me pants I can wear under my dresses?” While the words sound like a question they clearly are not because she’s scrunching up the Camelot-red fabric and bending over. She curls her toes in and begins to pull on the leggings making it part-way up her shins before his brain catches up with the sight in front of him. 

He turns his head, trying to focus on the wall instead. Swallowing, he clenches his jaw because he can’t manage to force his eyes shut. 

I’m still a man , he wants to tell her, You may follow us through the woods and through the wars but you are still a beautiful woman, and I am only a man . 

She wiggles a little, hands disappearing under the fabric of her dress out of the corner of his eye and with the edge of his gaze he sees her do an adorable little hop before she lets the fabric of the dress fall down again. She sways, swishing the skirts around her clothed ankles and he wonders what she might look like dancing. 

Leon clears his throat finally turning fully to face her again. “There’s shoes too.”

She reaches out to touch the leather, tracing the slipper-like design of the footwear before pinching the long swath of leather that’s attached between her fingers. “I don’t know how to wear these.”

He should explain. He should pick one up and point out the parts of it and explain how they work. He should supervise her as she attempts to do them herself. 

He doesn’t do any of that. 

“Would you like me to show you?”

“Oh!” Merlin looks around with wide eyes, grabbing the chair at her desk and pulling it out so that she can sit before pausing. “You don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” he says, picking up one of the shoes. He would sit at her feet for hours if she asked and that’s probably because she never would. 

“Watch, it’s easy.” Kneeling down, he takes her ankle in hand, tilting her foot to slip it into the slipper. The leather fits her well much to his relief. Taking the leather slip in hand he wraps upwards thrice before crossing over and back down to secure the curved clasps at the end of the slip to the small loops on the shoe. 

“Now you try.” Leon looks up, intending to grab the other shoe for her and supervise her putting it on only to find her face flushed even under the light of the candles. He wonders if she’s finally found him out but she only looks away, grabbing the matching shoe. 

She leans over and he looks down at her foot sharply to avoid peering down her dress. Her movements mirror his from before, but slower and less sure. She has to readjust her wrapping once to get the desired effect. When she sits back up she smiles at the sight of her new boots, wiggling her feet a little. 

“Oh, Leon, I love them!” Merlin says, surging to her feet as soon as he’s standing and she won’t knock him over. She makes a few quick circles around the room, tearing the shoes and giving him the chance to just watch her be happy. “The best gift I’ve ever been given!”

Leon tries not to preen. “I’m glad you like them.”

“I do, I really do.”

He doesn’t offer to walk her to the kitchen that night. Frankly, he doesn’t think he can handle it. He needs time to remind himself that they weren’t courting gifts, no matter how much she seemed to like them. 

<>

The Druids will be in Camelot by the next day and all Arthur cares about is if Merlin actually has feelings for Gwaine. He could be wrong, of course, she’s close to all the knights but Gwaine and Lancelot moreso. It perhaps wouldn’t be unusual for her to hug them, she’s certainly hugged Arthur before. 

He’s still pondering this when he runs into her. 

Merlin is standing in the hall, leaning out one of the windows facing the training grounds where Arthur knows the knights are training for the tourney. She has a basket of his fresh, clean laundry at her feet and she’s wearing one of the dresses, brown with the red one that ties on the sides over top. She looks more comfortable in it than she had before they left on their hunt. 

Arthur stops next to her. “Watching your knight? Planning to finally give your favor at the tourney now that I’m not there to beat them?”

The maidservant smiles, though she’s obviously trying to hide it, and shakes her head. “Just observing. I’m sure Leon noticed but Percival is relying too much on his size again, Elyan isn’t defending properly because he thinks his speed makes up for it, and Mordred is still too nice to hit his allies and keeps falling back.”

With Merlin’s ruthless teasing of Elyan about his feelings for the baker's daughter and her advice on the girl's favorite flowers and places in Camelot, Arthur highly doubts it’s him. Percival also doesn’t seem likely but that’s more because of how they act around each other than anything about Percival himself. 

He considers Mordred. He knows they can talk without speaking and that Mordred seems to come to Merlin for advice. There could be something there that Arthur doesn’t know about. Mordred just seems so young, they saved him when he was just a boy. 

“I suppose Gwen will give Lance a token of her affection,” Merlin says, stepping back from the window. “Everly will probably come to give Elyan something too, I think they’re getting serious.”

She lifts the basket and a spark of panic hits Arthur as her dress gets stuck under her hand, coming up with the basket. He reaches out to snatch it down so the blasted woman doesn’t reveal herself to all the castle only to pause. 

She’s wearing red leggings and strange boots underneath. They aren’t things he’s gotten her and she seldom uses her pay for things like clothes, preferring to send most of it to her mother in Ealdor. “Where’s you get those?”

Merlin rests the laundry basket on her hip and straightens the dress. “Leon brought them for me last night.”

Leon is giving her courting gifts and she has no clue. “That’s awfully nice of him.”

The maidservant nods with a smile. “I was thinking of offering to polish up his armor for the tourney since I won’t have to do yours this time around.”

He’d much rather her be spending alone time with Leon than Gwaine of all people. Maybe she’ll realize that the first knight is a far better choice than her tavern brawling friend. “You should, our first knight needs to look his best with so many people visiting.”

Merlin’s face does something strange before she shakes her head. Setting off on her way again she says, “I wouldn’t be worried about that. He looks perfect all the time, it’s honestly frustrating.”

What does that mean?

<>

She stands next to Arthur and Morgana with Leon at her side to welcome the Druids. If there weren’t so much to focus on she might have reveled in it a bit. It feels like the place she belongs. Not that she was ever bothered by standing with the other servants. 

Percival and Mordred are the other two knights that Leon has chosen to stand with them, likely because of their histories with the Druids. Percival is a steady presence and Mordred… well he’s staring at one of the Druid girls and Merlin has to refrain from giggling. 

Arthur is being his welcoming self and manages to address all four Druid faction leaders by the correct names. Merlin counts that as a win. They greet Merlin through mind links one at a time which she is thankful for because fitting more than one person in her head is always a headache. More than one remarks on her appearance kindly, obviously used to her being dirty and grubby and chasing after the golden king in trousers and shirts. 

She tries not to be offended and is surpised to find that she’s actually not. 

She has on the black underdress with long sleeves today and the blue overdress that ties in front, colors that she knows match her eyes and hair. Her sloppy bow is hidden by a pristine purple neckerchief that she has suspicions that Leon snuck in with her old ones and she keeps touching the rich fabric. It matches the leggings she’s wearing almost perfectly even though they can’t be seen and her new boots which she’s growing more comfortable in by the day. 

She at least looks happy if not pretty. Happy, because for a bit she can pretend that all these practical things from Leon are more than just friendship. 

She spends the welcome feast dragged this way and that by Arthur and the Druids, the name in her head Emrys Emrys Emrys and not-

“Merlin,” Leon says kindly, holding out a goblet of apple juice and a bread roll full of meat and cheese and herb butter. “I know it’s exciting, being so close to everything you’ve been waiting for, but you need to eat too.”

“Thank you,” she smiles at him and sips the juice, suddenly parched. He smiles back and turns away again. “Oh wait, Leon!”

He pauses, looking at her with those damnable blue eyes. “Yes?”

“After the council meetings,” she starts, “I was wondering if you could bring your armor by my room. I wanted to clean and polish it for you… for the tourney.”

His brows raise in surprise. 

“Won’t you be tired?” He questions, clearly concerned. 

Merlin waves a hand, “No more tired than after any other council meeting. Besides, after spending all day tomorrow with Arthur’s council and the Druids, I’ll appreciate the kinder company.”

Leon breathes in sharply. 

She worries at the corner of her lip. “That is… if you don’t mind. I’m sure you’ll be very tired from organizing the tourney and archery competition.”

“There is no company I’d rather keep than yours, Merlin,” the knight assures her. “I could bring food, if that pleases you.”

Merlin swallows down the urge to swoon, she’s not the swooning type, even if a wash of affection fills her body. “That sounds great!”

<>

The council meeting is neither simple nor straightforward, however in Arthur’s experience they never are. 

The Druids do their part to make things slightly simpler. The four leaders have all come with lists of magic that is inherently good and magic that can be very dangerous both for the person performing such magic or others. It’s all very neat with good crossover, an easy place to start forming laws and legislations that don’t ban all magic but still keep his people safe. 

One leader, Morathan, offers one of his wards as a physician’s apprentice and a collection of books to Gaius should everything go well and the Court Physician looks more than pleased at the prospect. He apparently spoke to Covetta the night before and was quite taken with her knowledge of herbal remedies. 

Another Druid leader remains quiet for a long time, which would be worrying if he did not know it to be Illiana who led the Druid group Morgana and Guinevere hid with. She is likely speaking silently with Merlin about Morgana like the maidservant had suggested last week. She does not put much into the talks until they come to punishments for illegal magic that don’t include death. 

“You could have Emrys strip them of their magic entirely,” Illiana suggests, the gray in her hair and the glimmer in her eyes speaking of wisdom. “For many, this is a punishment worse than death. I would recommend it only in severe cases.”

Arthur clears his throat, eyes moving subtly to his servant whose hands have gone tight around the juice pitcher she’s holding before back to the Druid woman. “She can do that?”

The Druid smiles at him, motherly and not. “Emrys is magic itself, she can do anything she can think so long as she has the belief that it is what needs doing.”

The king swallows. “I see. I’ll take your suggestion under advisement.”

It’s three more hours before Arthur can even press his seal into the documents removing the ban on magic and the death penalty for all magic. Still, he’s pleased to know his wife and dear friend are no longer in danger for just existing in Camelot. The legislature itself will have to be drafted and drafted again, discussed heavily among the council and the Druids. 

He offers them safe passage and living in Camelot's lands even after the meetings end with the week. 

Iliana and Foltust seem greatly pleased with the prospect of being able to live and trade within Camelot again after nearly three decades. Morathan and Delvina are younger, were children at least when the laws passed, but they seem happy with the idea as well. 

Finally, it gets to the part he’s been waiting for. 

“The last item for discussion today is the position of Court Sorcerer or Sorceress,” he says. “With magic welcome in Camelot again we will need someone’s Council on it.”

The three men left from his father’s council immediately look to Gaius. He wasn’t in the position before the ban but he was known to practice magic and is the most trusted of the King Father’s living friends. If he weren’t already the Court Physician, he would be the most obvious choice. 

“I have decided to extend this title to my maidservant, Merlin of Ealdor,” he says, taking her elbow and pulling her up beside his chair between himself and Leon who still stands. 

Lord Olwin shoots up from his seat. “Outrageous! A servant being given a court position? What would she know about magic?”

Lord Tallis is slower to stand and quieter to speak but clearly in agreement. “Sire, we know you care for the girl but there is surely someone more equipped for the job. Someone with more experience and knowledge in the ways of magic.”

He clearly means one of the Druids or Gaius. 

It’s not Arthur who gets to speak though. Delvina, who may be the youngest but remains the most courtly of the four Druid leaders, speaks up with clearly contained distaste. 

“You think that Emrys - magic herself, last of the noble dragon lords, defender of Camelot and all its people - is unequipped for the role of Camelot’s Court Sorceress?” She raises her neat red brows at the men. 

Oh boy…

Lord Olwin lets out a cry of shock. “My king, she must have you under a spell! Infiltrating the castle under the guise of a servant and a false name! Practicing magic in Camelot!”

“I am under no spell,” Arthur sighs, glad he’s left this part for last. 

“It is distasteful to imply that Emrys would have deceived and enchanted the Once and Future King,” Foltust says sternly. “Merlin is the name from the mother and Emrys is the name from the earth, and she has used both in the defense of this great land and it’s king - both kings much to the anger of some magic users.”

Lord Olwin points an accusing finger at Merlin. “She is dangerous!”

Arthur sees Leon subtly rest his palm on the pommel of his sword. He knows it will be in defense of Merlin, but that doesn’t make the king any less nervous. 

“Everyone in this room is dangerous,” Illiana sighs with such truth that it makes Lord Tallis look around consideringly. 

The final lord of Uther’s council speaks up but does not stand and he does not speak to the king or council, his old eyes are on Merlin. “You are the girl that gives my granddaughters flowers aren’t you? Flowers that they say remain beautiful even after the ones they’ve picked wither away?”

Merlin shifts next to them. “Sera and Sinna? Sera likes lavender, it’s her favorite color and helps with her nightmares. Sinna likes poppies because Lady Serse embroiders them on her dresses.”

Old Lord Vorcus smiles, teeth crooked and yellow but eyes kind. “Show me.”

The maidservant looks at Arthur. She almost looks as young as the day they met. When she mouthed off to him in the street and for a moment he thought she was the bravest, stupidest girl he’d ever met. He nods to her. 

Merlin sets the pitcher down on the table and holds her hands, palms up in front of her. She speaks no spell, only looks at them and her eyes bleed golden light as flowers grow from invisible seeds in her hands. Purple and red flowers bloom from between her fingers and fill the air with their sweet scents and she is left holding the bunch of them, eyes on Lord Vorcus. 

“I second the king,” the old Lord says, “Merlin of Ealdor as Court Sorceress.”

Lord Olwin squawks in displeasure. 

“I third the king,” Lady Koles says with a smile spread across her face. “Court Sorceress, Lady Merlin.”

“I fourth,” Gaius says, looking proud. 

Lord Tallis sighs and sits. “I know when I’ve been beat,” he says but does not vote. 

“I fifth,” Geoffrey nods to himself, probably wanting this over with so that he may return to his books. 

“I sixth,” Leon says, looking at Merlin like he’d give her anything she asked. 

“Well,” Arthur says, pleased, “as our last order of the day, I name Merlin of Ealdor, Lady Merlin Emrys, Court Sorceress.”

He presses his seal to the order. 

<>

Leon is still wearing his armor when he arrives at Merlin’s door, tray of food in hand. He’d realized halfway to reaching up to remove his cloak that it would be extremely difficult to carry both the food and the armor so he’d left for the kitchens. 

As he raises his hand to knock, Leon is struck by the realization that this is more improper than before. 

Before today Merlin may have been a single young woman of marrying age, but she was also just a servant no matter how high up of a servant she was. Now though, she has a title, a court position. She’s a lady. 

But if he leaves, she might think that she did something wrong or did something to upset him. She might wait all night for him and not eat because he said he would bring food. 

Leon knocks. 

Merlin answers the door the picture of a woman welcoming her lover home. Barefoot, damp haired, smiling soft and happy. 

He wants to grab her, hold her close to him, kiss her until the only breath they have access to is each other’s. He doesn’t, instead he holds up the tray of meats, cheeses, and fruits. “I couldn’t carry both.”

“Let me help you.” The sorceress grabs the tray and walks into the room, leaving the door ajar  for him to close, for him to follow. The tray goes on the desk as the door is closed and seconds later she’s crowding him. 

Like a hurricane she pulls his cloak from his shoulders and flares it out before draping it over the bare curtain bar of her bed. She moves quickly, efficiently, and his vambraces and pauldrons are gone faster than he can ever remember them being removed. For a moment he suspects magic but her deep blue eyes don’t flare gold when she deftly removes the plating that protects his upper chest. 

Once all his outer armor is removed, she reaches towards his sword belt before her hand freezes in the air and drops. “Probably easier if you remove that and your chainmail yourself.”

Taking a knight’s sword without their permission isn’t done, neither is removing their armor for them unless you’re their servant, squire, or lover. Leon swallows and drops his hands to the buckle of the sword belt, undoing it with a practiced ease and looping the belt around the scabbard. He leans it against the desk and pulls his gloves off, setting them on the surface beside the food tray. 

As his chainmail is pulled over his head, he’s relieved of it. She handles it with familiarity, years of being Arthur’s maidservant making her movements with the armor fluid. Gathering the other pieces of armor, she moves a pace away from the desk and settles on the flagstones in a puddle of black skirts. 

Left in his normal trousers and dark red shirt, he understands what she meant about being clothed but feeling naked. He plucks a piece of cheese from the tray and watches as her eyes finally glow that interesting gold. 

The armor stand toddles over to her along with cleaning and polishing supplies. As she catches the rags and other assorted supplies, she looks up at him as if she isn’t on the floor a step away from him. “You can have the chair, I prefer the floor when I do this.”

He considers this and frowns. He doesn’t like the idea of sitting comfortably above her while she works. Retrieving the tray, Leon folds himself into the floor next to her, settling it down where they both can reach. 

She makes a confused noise but doesn’t protest, claiming a handful of grapes for herself as she shifts the chainmail over her lap. The other pieces of armor are sitting on the floor in front of her and Leon has to refrain from reaching out to heap them and help her. 

The slower she goes, the longer he’ll get to spend with her. 

“Arthur wants me to do a magic demonstration before the tourney,” she admits mid-way through meticulously cleaning his mail, it’s so quiet he almost thinks he’s imagined it. 

He finishes eating the salted pork in his hand before responding. “Did he ask for something specific?”

“No,” she sighs, “the dollophead wants me to choose what it is to prove to the kingdom that the ban is well and truly gone.”

Leon thinks on this. “It has to be flashy.”

“It is before a tourney.”

“And it has to show you’re powerful.”

“Because people need to know the right person is in the position.”

“And it has to prove your allegiance to Camelot.”

Merlin stops polishing the chainmail and looks over at his cloak hanging from her bed frame. She tilts her head at it. “I have an idea, but it might scare people.”

“Most of what you can do is going to scare people,” Leon reminds her as gently as he can. “Especially when they don’t know you as we do.”

She frowns and turns back to him. “I don’t want to scare people.”

He doesn’t know how to make her feel better. Surely Arthur would tell her that it is a good thing to scare people because it will make their enemies more cautious of them. Gwaine would probably make some dirty joke and they’d both laugh it off. Lancelot would say something earnest and honorable and she would be more sure of herself. 

“People are scared of me too, and Arthur, and all the other knights,” he says because he’s not Arthur or Gwaine or Lancelot and he doesn’t know how to brush away her concerns. “Even the people we protect are scared of us because of what we can do and how we can do it.”

She straightens the chainmail and lifts it, inspecting it to see if it all shines. When she decides it does, the mail fits itself onto the armor stand. “You’re knights, surely people aren’t scared of you. Honorable protectors.”

“Every person in this realm is capable of great harm from the moment we begin moving about on our own,” Leon picks a few grapes off of the vine and presses them into her hand, it’s calloused and warm and makes the tips of his fingers feel like they’ve been struck by lightning. “The difference between the common people and what makes them fear us even when we protect them is that we trained ourselves to use that ability to harm.”

She eats one of the grapes, then another. 

Finally, after moving his chest plate to her lap she says, “I was never scared of any of you. I probably should have been, I was hiding this great big thing that could have gotten me executed and you were the people Uther and Arthur would have listened to had I been accused.”

Leon remembers her sending the dragon away, he remembers her in the physicians quarters casting spells over burn paste to make the scars lessen. He remembers seeing her eyes flash golden in the dim firelight of that room and her fingers gently moving him so that she could paint that paste over his screaming wounds. 

“I was never scared of you either,” he admits. “I should have been. The ban happened right before I turned six, all my life I watched people die to magic users and I watched Uther spread hate for them. When I saw you do magic though, I couldn’t be scared of you because you were like us, you were just trying to help people.”

She stops polishing the armor plate to pluck a cube of cheese from the tray and nibble on it. 

“You know I never actually told anyone,” she huffs a laugh but it doesn’t sound happy, it just sounds tired. “I think, before Arthur found out, the only one of you who didn’t know was Elyan.”

“And you weren’t afraid we would tell him?”

“Lancelot was too honorable, when he found me out he swore to me that he wouldn’t tell but he said that I should tell Arthur and that I was the bravest person he’d ever met,” she informs. “Percival… Well he’s not really the telling type and he grew up with Druids. Gwaine, Gwaine I never even considered would tell, we both had secrets and we respected each other’s want to keep those secrets.”

“And me?”

“Until the day Arthur found out I wasn’t entirely sure if you knew or not. I always just hoped that if you did know, you would speak to me about it first before giving me up,” Merlin says. A startling sadness fills him at the sentiment, she had been so sure of the others but she wasn’t sure about him, to her he was always a threat. 

“Oh don’t make that face,” the woman huffs and he jumps, meeting her eyes. “Your allegiance is to Arthur, to Camelot. Had you told him, I would have rested easily knowing there was still someone by his side, watching his back.”

“You love him,” Leon didn’t know how much it would hurt until he said it. 

Merlin snorts, mirth lighting up her whole face. “Probably not the way you’re thinking. He’s my best friend, my brother , I would die for him and I would kill for him, and more.”

The knight in him is awed by the dedication and the man in him cheers at the idea that perhaps Merlin might have room in her heart for him. “To take you from him would have been my greatest failure as his knight and friend.”

The chest plate moves on its own, securing itself on the stand over the chainmail. 

“Don’t beat yourself up over something you never did, Leon,” she tells him, taking one of the last few pieces of salted pork. “The things we have done have brought us here today, alive and well.”

The paldron looks strange in her long-fingered hands, almost delicate despite the fact that it’s armor which has taken sword blows in the past. She digs her finger into a groove that he’s long been unable to buff away and then with the movement of her thumb across it and a glow of her eyes it is gone. 

“We cannot erase the past,” Merlin says, looking sad, “but we can learn and grow from it and we all have.”

“It must mean a lot to you, the laws being changed,” he observes, rolling a cube of cheese between his forefinger and thumb. 

She chews her lip and is silent for a long time, not speaking again until she’s finished the paldron and moved on to the second one. 

“For me, the ban just means that my kin will not be killed for helping each other. It seems like something that should always have been,” the sorceress confides. “But I also could have gone my whole life without Arthur’s recognition, protecting all of you from the shadows.”

He tries to consider it. 

In other kingdoms, Percival and Gwaine would be hung for their love for each other. In other kingdoms, common men would be banished for trying to become knights. In other kingdoms a noble like Leon would be prohibited from marrying a common woman like Merlin even with her new title. 

He’d always been glad to be a knight of Camelot, a protector of the great kingdom where his friends would be safe. “I think I understand.”

Merlin nods. “I knew you would.”

She lets the last paldron attach itself to the armor stand and finally pulls his vambraces into her lap. They’re the last two things and the tray is nearly empty. He passes her more food, only glad to have gotten this time with her. 

When she finishes, she stands with a little groan, wiggling the sting out of her feet and knees. “Leave the tray, I’ll take it down.”

Before he can protest, she grabs his cloak from the bedrail. She bundles it in her arms, almost as if hugging the fabric, and whispers a spell that sounds odd to his ears. When she passes him the cloak and the faded fabric is bright Camelot red again, it smells like laundry soap and herbs and the air after lighting strikes. 

He gets all the way back to his room before he realizes he left her with the tray. 

His armor is perfectly polished and shiny, his cloak is vibrant and smells like her, and his worries are staunched. It’s not her favor he’s carrying but he promises to wear the armor like it is anyway. 

<>

Merlin gets to wear one of the normal dresses to the tourney but it doesn’t help the thought that she’s going to have to change into one of the needlessly complicated ones and the flimsy slippers for the feast. She tries to focus on her show of magic instead, it not being a spell but instead something she just intends to do is as comforting as it is concerning. Equally concerning is having to sit front and center with Morgana and Arthur. 

“Have you given your favor to a knight, Merlin?” Arthur questions. His eyes are obviously on Lancelot and Gwen where she’s tying the bright yellow ribbon from her hair around his bicep. 

All the knights are readying on the side field and she can see Sir Leon, the red of his cloak standing out as he speaks to Mordred. The boy is staring at the new physician’s assistant who is waiting outside the medical tent. They’ll be a lovely couple and perhaps she’ll even give him favor at the next event like this. 

“No,” she lies, “I thought it might be an unfair show of favoritism, considering.”

Leon’s polished armor and vibrant cloak are her favor. She could perhaps tie one of her neckerchiefs around his arm but then it would be obvious. He would know and things would get complicated and awkward. 

“I see,” the king says and when she looks at him she finds him looking at her oddly, “maybe next time then, when the people are more used to your position.”

“Maybe,” she agrees.

“ Maybe one of the knights should ask. How come we have to be the ones to choose who to give favor to?” Morgana huffs much to her husband's clear amusement. 

“I’ll have to remind the men it’s perfectly respectable to ask their queen’s favor, if you’re feeling so left out,” Arthur brushes a kiss across her cheek. 

“Sir Kay would jump at the chance, I’m sure,” Merlin jokes. The older knight had been the most thrilled of the lot when Arthur announced his intent to marry Morgana, going as far as to send his daughters to assist with the embroidery of Morgana’s dress. 

Arthur gives her hand a squeeze before standing to address the people on the tourney field and Merlin barely hears anything he says. She’d practiced after Leon had left until well after she should have been sleeping, but she’d had candles to start with then, now she has nothing but herself. 

She tunes back in with Arthur calling her name. “And now Camelot’s very own Court Sorceress, Merlin Emrys will begin the tourney with a show of magic.”

Swallowing, she stands and makes her way up to Arthur. He gives her an encouraging grin, as sun-shiny as always. 

It’s a subtle ‘you can do this’. 

She turns out to the field and looks around at all the people. They’re waiting, watching, ready to judge her. They’re ready for her to betray Arthur. 

Leon is looking at her and he catches her eyes, he smiles. It’s handsome and reassuring, a strengthening reminder that he’s here and he’s watching too. Leon knows she’d never betray Arthur. 

She holds out her hands and spreads them apart, all her fingers extended, before flipping them so her palms can feel the light of the sun. She focuses on that light, on that warmth against her hands and pours her magic into it. 

The fire that forms in her palms is painless, warm but only just. It flows from her hands and lets it take shape, the Pendragon crest. After a second she frees it, letting the dragon become more realistic, sweeping over the tourney field with gasps and shouts from the crowd full of fear and awe. It makes a wide ark and comes back to them, landing scorchless on the ground to bow it’s great head to Arthur. 

And with that, the flaming dragon dissipates. 

Her eyes don’t find Arthur for his approval first, instead they find Leon. Because he’s seen her fell branches on bandits, he’s seen her throw people into walls, he’s seen her move things without speaking, and he’s seen her grow flowers in her hands- but he’s never seen this. He’s never seen a show of just raw power, and this was nothing, barely a drop of her power. 

She wants to know, Is he scared of me now?

He’s not. He’s looking across the wide expanse of land between them right at her with something like awe and wonder. Something that makes her heart speed up and her breath go short. 

She has to look away, or her attention is dragged away rather, by Arthur, who settles his hand on her shoulder and gives her a squeeze. “You did perfect, that was amazing!”

Merlin sags in her chair as they sit again and Morgana grins at her. “You’ll have to show me how to do that.”

She snorts. “First I’ll have to show you how to light a candle without burning down the castle.”

<>

Morgana presided over the children’s archery competition with amusement rather than specific interest. With Arthur gone to speak with the knights after their matches and send them to ready for the feast, it’s just her and Merlin in the King’s box. 

“I could send Gwen to you if you like,” she offers, “between myself, Arthur, and George we should be perfectly capable of getting ready for the feast.”

If you didn’t know Merlin you wouldn’t see the flash of uncertainty on her face. “No, she's still acting strange around me and you need her. I have my magic to help me.”

“But?” Morgana presses, searching for the root of her friend’s discomfort. 

“But choosing a dress is hard and I don’t know how you do it,” the sorceress huffs, “there’s only two of the blasted things and I’ve been debating all morning between the one that I think will be the most comfortable for the first time or the one that shows allegiance to Camelot.”

Red and gold or blue and emerald. 

Morgana had chosen the dresses herself, personally selecting fabrics and additions that would suit Merlin despite the way the other woman tries to make herself invisible wherever she may walk. Both dresses would be comfortable to wear but not necessarily if you want to blend in. 

The red one was a dark red with a curving neckline that comes to a point and sleeves that fall off the shoulders. Crushed velvet with beautifully done golden piping along the waist, breast, and hem. 

Merlin would look stunning in it but it’s heavier than the other dress, longer, with short sleeves. It would be harder to walk in for the inexperienced lady. 

The blue one is royal, deep and rich with a high neckline and a deep V down the chest. The whole thing is wrapped in sheer blue fabric crossing over the bare part of the chest and creating elbow length bell sleeves. It’s embroidered with emerald vines beginning at the waist and extending both up and down. 

It’s lighter than the other one, more breathable. The front of the dress is shorter by an inch or two than the back meaning it stops just above her ankles and she’s less likely to trip over it. Merlin also probably sees it as less ornate, less eye-catching. 

It won’t be. 

“There will be plenty of feasts for you to show your allegiance to Arthur, but as I see it that dragon was enough a show of loyalty,” Morgana informs her. “You should wear whichever one is most comfortable.”

The dress would be eye-catching because it would be Merlin wearing it, and that’s what Morgana was counting on. 

Merlin watches the children, watches as their parents stand at their shoulders, commons and Druids alike, proudly supporting kin and opponent. She reaches up to rub at her neckerchief, it’s purple today and a finer fabric than most of the other neckerchiefs. Finer than she would buy for herself, Morgana knows. 

“Who knows,” Merlin says like it’s a joke, “maybe the dress will get people to ask me to dance.”

<>

Merlin enters the hall with the king and queen meaning the general populace of the feast is likely more focused on Morgana and Arthur than her. Morgana is bright, vibrant green, with layers of darker green over top, jewels sewn onto her dress with golden threads. She stands tall and royal beside her husband who’s deep reds and browns somehow don’t clash with her. 

They’re both the perfect compliment to Merlin and Leon might notice that if not for his attention entirely being taken by the sorceress. She’s dressed in blue so brilliant that Leon can see it bringing out the color in her eyes from clear across the hall. The dress clearly outlines her figure which she always hides under layering and baggy clothes and it shows off more of her skin than Leon thinks he’s ever seen. 

She’s always beautiful but today Merlin looks like a goddess, like the powerful sorceress all the Druids speak of. 

He won’t get to speak with her until after the food comes out but he’s determined to ask at least one dance because he wants to dance with her. He’d won the tourney wearing armor that she polished so perhaps she won’t be opposed to the thought, not that he thinks she would be otherwise. She’s always been kind to him and he’s sure that won’t change now that she’s finally realized her station. She may not love him, but she is his friend. 

“ Please tell me you’ll sneak off to the food tables with me,” she says, sweeping towards him as soon as the hall is dismissed to mingle. She captures his wine goblet from his hand and sips from it, leaving a pinkish red imprint on the cup. “Arthur has George serving him so I can’t swipe my favorite bits from his plate.”

She’s wearing makeup . It’s not a lot, some kohl around her eyes and a little color to her lips, but it’s more startling than the fancy dress or the way her hair is mostly down but pinned and braided from the front to show off her lovely cheekbones and her large ears decorated with little silver cuffs. Leon breathes it all in, memorizes it. 

“Are you going to continue to swipe my wine instead?” Leon manages, a teasing note in his voice. 

She rolls that part of the goblet against her lip with a grin. “I just might, things always taste better when they belong to someone else.”

He slips the cup from her hand and takes a sip from the other side. Any other woman would be scandalized, but any other woman wouldn’t have taken it in the first place. “Maybe we should just share then. What do you fancy from the food table?”

Merlin tilts her head towards it. “Truthfully I haven't gotten much farther than the pheasant. I’ve been thinking about the damn things since I helped Arthur hunt them. Cook stuffs them with all the yummy vegetables when she roasts them.”

“We’ll have to get you some then,” he says in agreement of how mouthwatering that sounds right now. “And perhaps some of those hand pies you like.”

“Ooo!” Her eyes widen, scanning over the table. “They have those?”

“Savory and dessert ones,” he confirms. 

The musical troupe that traveled with the Druids begins to play. He wonders if he can ask her to dance smoothly, if he can suggest dancing through the crowd to get to the table faster. 

Before he can try, Gwaine is clapping him on the shoulder. “Leon! A shame I didn’t make it to fight you, would have been the last tourney match of legends! Congratulations on your win!”

He wiggles his brows and slips past Leon to hold a hand out to Merlin. “My lady, could I have this first dance?”

Merlin rolls her eyes at him and suddenly Leon feels a whole lot less jealous than what was bubbling up inside. “You want to dance with me so you can prove you were here and sneak off with Percival don’t you.”

Gwaine’s grin gets somehow wider and he winks. “Knights chambers are empty, can be as loud as we want.”

The sorceress lays her hand in his. “Don’t step on my feet.”

“My lady, I would never!” Gwaine gasps, affronted obviously only in jest. “I’m a spectacular dancer.”

She huffs a laugh and turns to smile at Leon. “Let’s meet by the food, okay?”

“I wait with bated breath,” he tells her. 

She laughs, probably thinking he’s joking too. 

<>

“So,” Merlin says, shifting easily into Gwaine’s familiar touch at her waist, “why’d you lose the fight?”

Gwaine balks, his smile going a little brittle. “You noticed that? Do… Do you think he…?”

The sorceress shakes her head. “Despite his size you and Percival are pretty closely matched. He likely didn’t even notice he left you an opening to disarm him.”

The knight's shoulder relaxes under her palm. “I wouldn’t normally, you know that. We made this bed though,” he waggles his brows at her, “whoever wins gets to top.”

“Fun bet,” Merlin shifts and lets herself be spun in time with the other ladies before coming back in. 

“Fun bet,” Gwaine agrees, “with all the extra training for this week, he and I haven’t gotten to do very much and well, a man has cravings, Merlin, needs .”

She snorts. “I should have known you’d only willingly lose a fight for sex.”

He gives her one of his usual grins, soft but somehow still smug. “You could always join us, offer still stands.”

Merlin hums. “As nice as it would be to climb in bed with two handsome strong knights-” Gwaine preens. “-you know where my loyalties are.”

“I do,” Gwaine confirms, glancing towards where the food has been put out, “and if I hear you didn’t at least ask him to dance then I’m showing at your door with pitchforks and torches.”

“Oh? I had thought you’d planned not to have to walk tomorrow.”

The knight’s face colors and he glances around at the people they’re dancing near. “You’re terrible. I don’t know why we are friends.”

“We’re friends because I’m terrible,” she says, pushing her magic between their clasped palms until he can feel the vial between them and his fingers tighten in hers. “A little gift from your terrible friend.”

“I knew I was your favorite.”

“If anyone is my favorite, it’s Percival. Wouldn’t want him to chafe.”

“Minx, I can’t believe anyone thinks you’re the innocent one.” He pockets the lube as he spins her, the song coming to an end. He presses a kiss to her knuckles and meets her eyes as he steps back. “Sorry we aren’t closer to him.”

Merlin glances at the food table. “I’ll find my way to him. Give Percival my regards.”

Gwaine ticks his finger against his pocket. “Oh is that what we’re calling it now?”

She’s halfway to the food table when she gets cut off again. This time it’s Lancelot who smiles at her sheepish and happy. “I don’t suppose I could beg you for a dance?”

Merlin’s eyes flick to the king and queen. Arthur has been watching her all night, probably doesn’t think she notices but she does and for now she’ll consider it a friendly concern as her first feast not as his servant. Gwen is at Morgana’s side and will be for at least another hour yet meaning Lance can’t dance with his usual partner. 

“Trying to get some extra practice in before you ask Gwen?” Her eyes move to the food table. 

Leon is there but he’s not alone. Lady Sevall is at his side, her fingers pressed to the crook of his elbow between his mail and vambrace where only his tunic protects him from her touch. Best not to interrupt them even if sadness and jealousy war in the pit of her stomach. 

Lancelot takes her hand in his gloved one. “You know I’d ask you anyway, you’re my oldest friend and you’re beautiful, you deserve a couple of dances.”

She had taught Lance to dance, having learned in barns and fields and her mother’s small hut. Teaching him might have been romantic if not for the fact that she taught him so he could dance with Gwen and he stepped on her feet. 

She remembers it fondly. 

He leads them right into the thick of the dancers, smoothly moving them in time with other people. 

“You’ve gotten better,” she offers up, “maybe my feet will survive this.”

Lancelot grins at her. “Well I haven’t stepped on Gwen’s yet so your chances are definitely better than they used to be.”

“You did well today, by the way,” she offers up. She still hasn’t gotten the chance to congratulate Leon, though she was a bit flushed about the whole thing and grateful to Morgana’s dramatics when he came up to accept his winnings. 

The knight shakes his head. “I was thinking I might win, but Leon was something else today. Must have been fighting for something.”

Merlin rolls her eyes. “He is Camelot’s first knight, you know, didn’t get the position just for his good looks.”

Lancelot has some very thick, very expressive brows and she does not appreciate having them raised in her direction. “His good looks, ay?”

If there were a spell to keep her from blushing and giving herself up she would already have the damn thing in her arsenal. “I know you already knew, Gwen is a terrible secret keeper. Especially from you.”

“She tried at least,” her old friend offers up. “Are you going to ask him to dance?”

“Gwaine has threatened me with pitchforks and torches if he hears that I don’t.”

Lancelot snorts and she prods him in the neck with her thumb. “I doubt he’ll be able to come after you, with or without the pitchforks, tomorrow. We’ve all seen how big Percival is and unfortunately I’m privy to the bet they made before the tourney.”

The song is coming to an end. “I guess we’ll see.”

The man gives her hand a squeeze. “You should ask him, really, don’t think I didn’t notice his magically bright cloak.”

They separate as the song ends and he gives her a little bow. She only vaguely knows how to curtsy and her legs always get tangled anyway, so she does a dramatic bow back and is rewarded with his laughter. 

She’s closer to the food table this time and unfortunately Lady Sevall has managed to cling to Leon throughout the entire song. Or he actually appreciates her company , Merlin tells herself but closer like this she can tell Leon’s smile isn’t the warm one that he has when he enjoys a conversation. 

Merlin can still feel Arthur’s eyes following her as she moves towards the food but she brushes it off. Save Leon from his conversation and swipe some food first, deal with whatever’s going on with their king later. 

A new song starts and someone catches her hand, dragging her into the swarm of elegant dresses into another dance. Her feet are already sore because the slippers give no support and her hackles are already up so she almost elbows the person until she catches sight of the chainmail. 

Mordred grimaces as he rights their dancing stance. “Sorry, you’re just hard to get a hold of tonight and I saw my chance. Wanted to dance with you before Elyan.”

The pieces start coming together. 

“Practicing to ask Covetta?” She presses, hopeful. 

Mordred flushes, he hasn’t met her eyes at all. He’s trying to keep her from figuring something out. “I don’t know if she’d actually dance with me. I didn’t win any of the rounds.”

Merlin looks around, Arthur isn’t the only one watching them. Covetta is too but her eyes aren’t for Merlin. Not like Arthur who’s kept his sights on her almost religiously since they stepped through the doors. 

“She’s watching you,” Merlin says, “Maybe she sees it like I do. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to hurt your fellow knight, you’re supposed to have each other’s backs.”

Gwaine and Lance she can understand dancing with her, she’s danced with them both before - maybe not at feasts but in taverns and her old room - and they’re some of her closest and oldest friends among the knights. Mordred wouldn’t do this unless he had a reason, of course the reason could be advice on Covetta but he also mentioned Elyan. Elyan who should have snuck out already to the bakery but remains here, currently talking to his sister. 

Something is up. 

“You think she’d dance with me if I asked?”

“I think she’d ask if you stopped avoiding her. Druid girls aren’t exactly known for their shyness.”

The knights aren’t asking her to dance because of her dress or her looks or her advice on girls. Maybe those are secondary benefits. No, they’re dancing with her because for whatever reason, Arthur told them to. 

“Galahad offered to hit me upside the head so I’d have a chance to talk to her but I didn’t want to risk the brain damage,” Mordred says, smiling at her now, more comfortable than at the beginning of the dance, meeting her eyes. There’s a trust there that she won’t dig into his thoughts. 

She doesn’t have to, she’s figured out enough without the confirmation. 

Merlin offers a smile back because she’s perfected smiling when she wants to break down in tears. “You should tell her I’m a terrible dancer, I’m notoriously clumsy after all, say I stepped all over your feet.”

Confusion dances all over his young face. “Why would I do that?”

“So that you can compliment her dancing,” she says, pulling away as the song ends. 

She doesn’t make her way to the food table where some Lady is talking to her knight- not her knight… just Leon. Instead she leaves, three dances is more than enough to excuse her absence and she needs to find a place to cry. 

Gaius’ chambers are out of the question, her room is already someone else’s. Her own chambers make it too easy to find her. Somewhere else, somewhere she’s comfortable. 

<>

Arthur tracks her to the training field. 

She’s sitting on one of the empty weapons stands with the fancy skirt of her dress all bundled up in her lap showing off entirely too much of her bare legs. It’s so very Merlin that Arthur might smile if not for the fact that her eye makeup is smearing down her cheeks with her tears. 

“I hate you right now,” she says softly as he approaches. 

“You have the right,” he agrees, “I know as soon as I saw you I shouldn’t have suggested the knights all ask you to dance.”

Merlin sniffles, but shifts allowing him to pull himself up on the stand next to her. “I thought maybe they were asking because I was pretty…”

“You are pretty,” Arthur huffs, wrapping his arm around her to pull her into his side. She’s of the same height as him, not like Morgana who fits under his arm with ease. “I’ll keep telling you ‘til you believe me.”

“Why’d you make them dance with me?” Her voice is wet with sadness and it makes his whole chest cease up because he did this, he made his best friend cry. 

“I didn’t make them, I suggested.”

“Kings don’t suggest!” Merlin snaps, but she doesn’t pull away at least so he tightens his arm around her. 

“I thought that if I could see the way you looked at them one on one, maybe I could figure out who it was you have feelings for,” he confesses, “I didn’t realize until I saw you that I’d forgotten to consider your feelings about the whole situation.”

This time she does pull away. She shoves him too. If he weren’t who he is he might have fallen off the stand, but he’s King Arthur and King Arthur doesn’t get shoved off of stands even if it is by his court sorceress. She scrubs at her eyes, smearing the black stuff on her hands and around her face like a raccoon. 

“I can’t believe you! All this because you want to know who I’m in love with?” She’s not yelling, Merlin doesn’t really yell. She is being loud though. 

Love? She’s in love with a knight. It’s not some silly crush or some lasting pining. She’s in love with a knight. A knight that’s probably taken and that’s why she hasn’t said anything. 

“Not my brightest idea,” Arthur admits, sounding strained. 

Merlin sniffles, blinking away the tears. “You think? Gods, you’re such a dollophead.”

“I’m sorry,” his apologies to her are always sincere, rare but sincere, she wouldn’t accept them any other way. 

“I know,” she groans, “but I want to be mad at you for a while longer.”

“Take all the time you need,” he allows curling his hands together in his lap. 

It takes less than two minutes for her to speak again. “Why does it matter to you so much?”

It matters because she’s alone when everyone else is finding people. It matters because she doesn’t have to keep secrets anymore. It matters because- “You deserve to be happy, I want to make sure you get the things you deserve.”

Merlin sighs. “You can’t order someone to love me, Arthur.”

“I wouldn’t. I want you to be happy, not lied to.”

They sit in silence. The field is mostly dark, the summer bugs singing. She looks up into the sky for what feels like forever. 

“It’s Leon.”

It’s Leon! Leon, who looks at her like she shoved the sun into the sky with her bare hands. Leon, who will respect her and treat her how she deserves. Leon, who will protect her when she doesn’t need protecting from everyone and everything in the world. 

“It’s Leon?” He sounds disbelieving to his own ears which is not exactly what he was going for. 

Merlin leans forward, elbows braced on her bare knees. “I was surprised too.”

“You were?”

“We didn’t interact much until you became king, especially not one on one. You needed us that year though, and we were there right beside you gathering knights and tracking down Gwen and Morgana to bring them back from Uther’s exile.”

He reaches out, carefully pulling her into his side again, and she lets him. 

“We spoke so much then. We could talk for hours about anything while we kept you from crumbling and the kingdom from crumbling around you,” she admits. “Then there was Morgause and the Dark Sisters enchanting Morgana and that foolish man sat right in front of the crossbow leveled at his face as she told him she’d kill him unless they bowed to her… and that brave, foolish man said-”

“Long live the king,” Arthur huffs a laugh. 

She laughs too, tiny and fleeting. “I knew then that I cared for him deeply.”

He knows there’s more. “But?”

“But I didn’t know I was in love with him until you found out about my magic,” Merlin breathes. 

Arthur’s throat closes up at the mention of that day. It had been a normal hunt when the magical serpent had attacked them. They surely all would have died without her interference. 

Betrayed and scared he had pointed his sword at her. He had shouted at her. 

Then there was Leon. Standing between Merlin and Arthur’s sword. For a moment he thought his two dearest friends had both betrayed him until Leon’s words hit him like a four horse carriage. “Would you have rather been saved by magic or dead? I know which I’d pick, sire.”

“I knew as soon as he stood between us, and that’s what made it worse,” her voice shakes as if she’s going to cry again. “Back in the castle I spelled the first alcove I could find so no one could hear me and I broke down. I knew that even if you didn’t kill me you’d send me away and I’d lose everyone I cared for, my best friend, and now the man I loved.”

Arthur angles his body towards her, wrapping both arms around her. 

“He found me, I still don’t know how, and he held me until morning when we heard you were looking for us.”

He squeezes her hoping to offer some comfort. “You didn’t tell him… you still haven’t.”

“He could have anyone,” Merlin reasons into his shoulder. 

But he wants you , Arthur thinks. “We’re going back to the feast.” He drags her off of the weapons stand. 

“Arthur, I can’t!” She jerks against his hold on her arm and he’s squeezing but carefully enough that he won’t hurt her. 

“You can,” he says, walking them towards the castle. 

“I’m a mess!”

“I doubt he’ll care,” Arthur huffs, walking faster to combat her incessant tugging. 

“What are you talking about?” She grabs his arm with her free hand and pulls at him. 

“You have to go dance with him,” he tells her. It’s obvious. If she can figure out Arthur is up to something surely she can figure out Leon feels the same if they just dance. 

“What could possibly be gained from that?” They’re at least inside the castle when she tugs him hard enough that he actually has to stop and look at her for fear she’ll hurt herself. “Arthur, I’m a mess, I’ve cried my eyes out and I’m covered in makeup. I want to go to bed.”

“Use your magic then,” Arthur says, squeezing her hand, “you can leave after, I won’t force you to stay, but this is something I think you need to do.”

Merlin opens her mouth, likely to rebuke him. 

“Sire? Merlin?”

Her face goes sheet white and shocked. Arthur stiffens. As one they both look to the side. 

Leon is standing there, with his cloak bundled awkwardly in his hand and a wine pitcher under his arm. “Is everything alright?”

Arthur doesn’t know what to say, he never does when they get caught like this. It’s always Merlin spouting some nonsense about how she’s teaching him poetry or she’s caught him sleepwalking. She’s always yanking them both out of trouble. 

“Why would anything be wrong?” She asks, falsely soothing as she shakes off Arthur’s hands. “Everything is fine.”

Leon gives them a look that is somehow both disappointed, disbelieving, and concerned - Arthur’s actually unsure how he’s able to silently convey so much. He looks from Arthur to Merlin. “It just seems as if there’s something going on.”

“Just Arthur being a clotpole, nothing out of the ordinary, I promise,” she says. 

“Hey!” The protest is more actual instinct than disagreement. 

“What are you doing out here?” Merlin questions. “Shouldn’t you be back at the party with Lady Sevall?”

The knight’s nose scrunches up. “I’d rather be here with you. You seemed upset when you left and you hadn’t eaten so…” he kind of half holds up the cloak bundle. 

Arthur feels his eyebrows hit his bangs. 

“There’s a pheasant, and hand pies,” Leon says, awkwardly. 

“You stole me a pheasant?” Merlin looks like she’s about to swoon which is highly concerning considering how clumsy she is and the amount of black smudged around her eyes. 

“I acquired you a pheasant,” the knight corrects, his eyes flick to Arthur guiltily but Arthur is grinning. 

They’re perfect for each other. He can’t believe he never saw it before, it was right in front of him. He looks at Merlin. “He acquired you a pheasant.”

“It really doesn’t mean…” she makes a very strange gesture with her hands that has both men a little confused. She makes the gesture again but exaggerated and Arthur gets it . 

“It absolutely does,” he disagrees, “you can’t just,” he waves a hand at her for pine , “forever.”

“I could,” Merlin says, because she always has to disagree. 

“Should I… go?” Leon looks around.

“No, stay,” Arthur points at his knight and then the ground before looking back to Merlin. “A pheasant.”

“A pheasant,” she sighs, it’s a bit dreamy still which is just gross. 

“And you think he…” wants anyone else?

“Well it could just be…” just as friends. 

Arthur raises his brows at her pointedly. “I’ve never had just a friend steal me a pheasant.”

“I acquired the pheasant,” Leon corrects, cutting in. He looks between the two of them. “What is going on?”

Merlin huffs, throwing her hands up. “I have feelings for you!” She freezes and grimaces and turns to look at the wall for a moment before taking a breath and looking back at the knight. “And you acquired me a pheasant, so it seems like maybe you might feel something a little more than friendship for me too.”

“Merlin,” Leon addresses her so earnestly it’s a little disgusting, “I knew I was in love with you the day you hit me in the head with a training shield because you didn’t want me to see two kids picking apples with magic and then told me you thought there was a bug in my hair.”

The wheeze that leaves Arthur is violent and he covers his mouth to staunch the laughter because this is their moment and he really shouldn’t be here but he has to go past Leon to leave. 

“That was before Arthur became king,” Merlin whispers, face bright red. “That long?”

“That long,” the knight confirms. 

Oh they’re worse than Gwen and Lancelot. 

The sorceress sweeps forward and grabs the upper chest plate Leon wears. “I’m gonna kiss you now.”

As much as he cares for his friends, he really doesn’t need to be privy to their first kiss. Arthur uses their distraction to get away, intent on telling Morgana all about it. 

<>

“I’m sorry I made you wait.”

They’re sitting on her floor in a pile of conjugated blankets and pillows with his cloak spread out, the tray of pheasant and pies being picked through with their bare hands. It’s not clean or inherently romantic but Merlin is leaning against his side in the relative peace of her room, pressing torn pieces of roast bird between her lips, both her fingers and lips slick with its juices. 

She looks lovely. 

He has to catch up with her words and when he does he remains confused for a moment. It hadn’t taken her long to magic away her makeup and step behind the screen to change into one of her normal underdresses. 

Then it hits him. He fell for her first, as proven by her shock at the proclamation. Her feelings for him have been implied to have come after Arthur became king. 

He tears a long strip of white meat from the pheasant’s breast. “Don’t apologize. I would have waited forever.” 

“I love you,” she says and his body jerks even as he turns to look at her, swallowing the food almost painfully. “I loved you the day you held me crying through the night and I should have told you then, I should have told you before then when my feelings were so deep it was hard to breathe sometimes.”

“I know now, and I’m glad you’ve told me now.”

He kisses her again and this time her lips aren’t salty from tears but instead from seasoned meat and vegetables. Her body is warm against his, molded to his side in a way he’s never felt before now that his armor is discarded on her armor stand. He revels in the press and slide of their lips, in the sturdiness of her form against his. 

They pull back from the kiss, resting their foreheads together, and she seems to study him. “It doesn’t seem real.”

“I can kiss you until it does,” he offers, without thought. Two hours ago he could barely say the things he thought to her and now he’s saying things without hesitation or forethought. 

Merlin smiles, she’s so beautiful it makes his heart bang around in his chest. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

He kisses her again, slow and deep. He wants to memorize the way her lips move against his. He wants to taste every flavor from them and see how each makes him feel. 

She’s still smiling when they retreat, but it’s smaller, more nervous. “Would you think badly of me if I asked you to stay, to hold me through the night again like you did then? In a bed, without the heartache?”

“Only if you thought bad of me for saying yes,” he assures her. They’ll have to finish eating first, clean up, but he can already imagine how it will feel to curl up with her in the bed she must think is far too big and hold her until morning. 

<>

Merlin wakes up warm and comfortable, tucked behind Leon. His fingers are still knitted through hers how they fell asleep and her forehead rests against his shoulders just above where she’s tangled her free hand in his shirt. She can’t help smiling as the dawn peaks through the window and spills across them, painting him golden and beautiful. 

She probably shouldn’t, but she leans up, combing his curls out of his face with the fingers formerly curled into his tunic. Pressing soft kisses over his jaw and up his prickly cheek she pauses with her lips pressed lightly next to his ear. 

“Time to get up.”

His cheek flexes under her lips as Leon smiles at her. “You know Arthur used to complain about your wakeups?”

“Well I wasn’t in love with Arthur, now was I?” She presses one last kiss to his jaw and pulls back, giving his fingers a squeeze as she pulls away. 

“I should hope not,” the knight huffs, clearly amused as he turns on his back to look at her. His expression is soft and happy, smile widening as he meets her eyes. “Your hair is a mess .”

She jabs him in the side hard with two of her fingers, punching a laugh out of him that’s more of a wheeze than anything. “Up you get, lazy daisy! Some of us have work to do!”

“There it is!”

He kisses her before he lets her escape the bed to get ready, pulling her in with his palm around the back of her neck. The kiss is slow and warm and their lips are chapped from sleep. She’s going to be thinking about it all day. 

She could get used to mornings together like this, her fastening his vambraces and him tying her neckerchiefs. 

<>

Morgana is glad to see that Gwen forgets herself as soon as the door to their chambers opens. Merlin gets a step in with breakfast and the dark-skinned maidservant launches herself at the other woman. They stumble, the door clattering shut, and Merlin’s magic rescues the food from its untimely demise, floating it over to the table as she awkwardly pats the shorter woman on the back. 

“Good morning to you too?”

Merlin’s eyes find Morgana and Arthur, clearly confused. 

“I’m so happy for you!” Gwen squeals, pulling back to look at the sorceress who gives her an overly sweet smile, eyes still confused. “I just knew Leon would care for you as well!”

“Right,” she nods, finally catching up. 

“Arthur told us,” Morgana clarifies, “he was very excited. We hear it was quite romantic, no one’s ever stolen me a pheasant before.”

Gwen practically swoons. “Leon really is so sweet.”

Merlin’s smile becomes much more genuine and she moves over to the table, beginning to serve them their breakfast. “If you ask Leon, he acquired the pheasant, he didn’t steal it.”

Her husband snorts but gladly accepts his juice. 

Merlin gives him a sharp look but her smile doesn’t dim. “Better eat up, we have to give our farewells to the Druids within the hour before Arthur announces my new relationship to the whole kingdom.”

“Hey!”

Morgana smiles at them and sips her juice. She knew it would all work out, it doesn’t take precognition to figure out that some people are bound to be. 

“Your hair looks very nice today,” Gwen offers up, more carefully than her earlier statements. 

“Oh, Leon did it,” Merlin says with a wave, glossing over the compliment as she steals a handful of berries from the tray. “He seemed confused by the fact that I don’t own a hand mirror at least , as if I would need something like that.”

The queen tries not to grimace at the thought. 

“No wonder you always look like you’ve just rolled out of bed,” Arthur huffs, but he’s barely holding back a grin. “We should get you one, won’t do for my court sorceress to go around looking like a slob.”

Merlin flicks one of the berries at him, nailing him in the forehead with a little flash of her eyes, leaving a purple smear behind. 

<>

There’s three weeks of them finding reasons to be around each other and that doesn’t take much. Leon finds that he and Merlin’s lives are already quite entwined between work as Arthur’s most trusted confidants, the round table business beside council business, and general things they handle as part of the court. There’s not really much change from before. 

Now though, when their work runs late or starts early, Leon can be easily convinced to stay with her. He relishes nights wrapped in her bed with her and mornings readying for the day by her side. 

He could spend all his life less than an arms length from her and never feel stifled he’s sure. 

Today is one of the few days they did not wake together but Leon doesn’t mourn, rather he rises happily and makes his way to the training field knowing that Merlin and Morgana will be visiting today. It’s one of the days that Arthur is practicing forms with the knights so it’s natural that they’ll be there, Merlin more so than the queen because Merlin comes whenever she can. 

She often works while on the sidelines, missives and quill in hand, claiming that the light outdoors is better for her eyes reading Geoffrey’s small handwriting. 

Today she has no missives, she and Morgana come around when they’ve paired off the knights for sparring. She’s wearing trousers and the queen is wearing one of her less flashy dresses, Leon notices both when the women wave he and the king down. 

“We were hoping to make use of the training field sometimes,” Merlin says, holding out a water skin to each of them. “It doesn’t have to be today but I’d appreciate it if you could suggest a day. Morgana’s training can’t really continue inside without breaking some things unless we clear the banquet hall.”

The queen grins triumphantly. “She’s agreed to start teaching me to conjure the elements.”

Merlin grimaces squeezing two fingers together. “Starting small and outdoors where I can keep an eye on her-”

She cuts herself off and jerks her head to the side, squinting between Arthur and Leon at something. “Please tell me one of you has told that boy the sword he has is too heavy for- OY!”

Most of the knights freeze, aside from the round table who are used to her bickering. 

“Vince,” Leon supplies the name for her, of the trainee who he has indeed told not to pick heavier swords just because they look manlier.

“Vince! Trade out your sword, boy!” She shouts across the field. “You’re going to take an eye out with that, there are two handed swords for someone your size.”

The queen stifles a giggle. 

“Such a mother hen, Merlin,” Arthur says around a grin, rolling his eyes. 

Vince is a nobleman’s son, separated from the common born trainees more than the other nobles. He’s been a problem since before he completed being a squire but he’s got good enough instincts that Leon isn’t willing to send him home out of the gate. If he’d just get his head out of his arse he’d likely make a fine knight. 

“What do you know?” The boy huffs, “You’re just some silly magician, probably can’t even win a fight without your fancy magic!”

Leon is too amused by the boy’s terrible personality being turned on someone else for once that he isn’t much offended on Merlin’s behalf. She can handle herself after all. 

Arthur, however, seems to think it a learning opportunity. He props his hands on Excalibur’s pommel and tilts his head at the boy. “Care to bet on that, Vince?”

The boy is as young as Merlin was when he first came to Camelot and as arrogant as Arthur. He’s good with a one handed weapon and excellent with a dagger but he’s determined to learn a dual-handed sword and he’s been a thorn in Leon’s side for months. 

Vince squints. “Pardon, sire?”

“Care to fight Merlin?” The king rocks on his feet. “Without her magic of course, she’d win before you had a chance to move if she could use it.”

“You want me to fight a woman,” the boy scoffs, he rolls his shoulder because the sword is too fucking heavy and it’s putting strain on his arms. “A woman who relies on magic to fight who probably has never touched a sword more to carry it in her whole life.”

It’s well known in the kingdom that their queen is a knight, that Arthur has extended his hand towards women to try out to be knights. Leon actually has some good prospects for next year in that regard. One such woman is squiring for Sir Pellinor right now and Leon suspects the older man has been teaching her some dirty tricks on the battlefield. 

Arthur’s grin widens, dangerous but mostly amused. “If you’re scared…”

“Of her?” The boy is clearly offended and Leon can hear the snickering from the queen at his back. 

“I think, if you can last three minutes against Merlin, then we’ll let you spar with one of the round table,” the king says. 

That’s what strikes Leon. The final test to become a knight is lasting a minute against him or Arthur. Merlin might have been in a few scraps that needed a blade to get out of, and she might be well and capable of holding her own against a bandit or two with a good dagger- but this is different. Vince is a snotty, entitled young man but he’s also one of their better knight prospects and tends to win his sparring matches. 

“My lord,” Merlin addresses. 

Leon’s concern rackets upwards. Merlin only addresses Arthur like that when something is going on. Usually when she’s being a bit of a shit or teasing the man. Now Leon feels he’ll have to watch her extra closely, he might love her but it’s not honorable to cheat even if Vince deserves to be put in his place. 

“I can’t fight the boy if he can’t even carry the sword he’s picked,” she says, sliding between Leon and Arthur. Morgana slips up next to Arthur’s other side. “It would be too easy.”

“Too right!” The king claps. “What do you say Vince, one-handed swords and no shields. You last three minutes of combat with Merlin and Percival will help you with your dual-handed sword technique.”

Well at least he’s not signing Leon up for the one on one job. He’s had half a mind to find a way to get the kid in the stocks for that mouth of his. 

Still, one-handed weapons are where Vince excels above the rest of the young men his age. Leon can’t help but feel a small sense of worry for his lover. Boys like Vince aren’t exactly the careful sort and training swords might not be sharpened but they can still damage you. 

Vince’s eyes go between the king and Percival who is fighting both Lancelot and Kay. “I’ll do it!” He makes his way towards the weapons stand to trade out his sword. 

Gwaine, the nearest round table knight to their conversation, disarms Elyan and catches the man’s sword as Merlin steps fully onto the field. He turns and with a flourishing bow, offers the short sword to the woman. “Your weapon, my lady.”

“Oh, Sir Gwaine,” Merlin takes the sword and her hold is sure, “you always know just what a woman wants.”

Elyan snorts clearly unbothered by his stolen weapon. “Kick his ass for us, Merlin.”

“You do know there’s a very real chance I’ll lose.” Merlin flourishes the sword, rolling her wrist and Leon freezes at the bastardized version of Arthur’s signature. 

Gwaine’s grin goes a little feral around the edges. “My bets on you, Merls, always is.”

Vince picks his sword, one that Leon knows is well balanced and longer than Merlin’s newly acquired short sword. He should be worried, he should be very worried. The thing is, he’s now not entirely sure which one of them he should be worried about. 

The queen grabs the hourglass, looking to her husband as Vince and Merlin take their positions. Vince’s stance is the perfect picture of a young knight in training. Merlin’s is different, familiar, not like Gwaine’s lazy starting stance or Arthur’s strike first form. She hasn’t planted herself like Percival… it’s-

Arthur starts the round. 

Vince strikes forward, footwork sure. 

Merlin spins out of the way, a glancing parry, feet light as she twirls around the boy almost baiting him. It’s a purely Mordred move, their youngest round table knight who hates hurting his friend and always focuses on defense. Merlin won’t be able to defend the whole time if she wants to win and the sand is running. 

“Those are Mordred’s moves,” he notes to Arthur as she deflects another blow. 

The king nods. “She practiced with him a lot when he first became a knight. From what I can tell this is the easy part, the hard part is being able to cast with your empty hand without anyone else seeing.”

Vince is catching onto her defensive strategy by the time Morgana has to flip the hourglass for minute two. He changes the slope of his shoulders, closing his body off more, forcing her to be the one to hit to keep up the fight. 

Merlin’s sword goes from in front of her to parallel with her, elbow back, sword high. Her feet are surer, no longer on her toes. It’s a move that is all Gwaine and the knight must recognize it because he lets out a gleeful shout. 

She comes in fast and hard the same way Gwaine does, strength and speed evening up but still not to the level of a knight. It’s clear that she’s watched him a lot and adapted his stance to her thinner build but this sword isn’t as long as Gwaine’s and she has to compensate for it. 

Morgana’s hand is hovering over the hourglass to switch it to the last minute when Vince registers the compensation. The hourglass flips and the young man shifts, bringing his sword against Merlin’s on the outside so that it jerks against her fingers looking as if it’s going to fall out of her hand. 

Leon sighs not ready to hear the boastful little idiot smack talking Merlin all day when he knows she could kick his ass from here to Cidress with no hands. 

Merlin catches the sword in her opposite hand, blade down, pommel up. She brings the pommel up hard against Vince’s wrist and when his hand spasms she ticks the pommel into the handle of his and jerks. 

Vince’s sword goes flying to the ground and Merlin levels hers backwards against his throat. 

That’s Leon’s move. 

The other knights are cheering. Vince is glaring at the woman. Arthur is clapping Leon on the arm. 

“That was my move.” He barely even registers his own voice. 

It’s an old move, one he only practices when she’s reading him legislative papers and patrol reports in her room. He prefers two handed swords so he practices those on the field, he keeps up his one-handed abilities on his own time. 

“What?” Arthur’s looking at him with a furrowed brow, clear confusion. 

“She just won with my move,” the state of his voice is practically a growl and he doesn’t mean for it to come out that way but his whole body is hot. He feels like he’s going to shake right out of his skin. 

The king snatches his hand away and it’s like he’s released a tether he had on Leon. The first knight moves across the field with such purpose he almost doesn’t hear Gwaine. 

“Holy shite, it’s happening!” Gwaine hisses. 

Leon ignores him, reaching out. He grabs Merlin around the arm and she whips her head around, smiling broadly at him. His fingers tighten and she gasps, looking him up and down. 

“Congratulations on your victory,” he manages, mostly for the benefit of seeing Vince sneer out of the corner of his eye. “I need to speak to you, privately .”

Merlin swallows and drops the sword, “Of course, let’s…”

She allows him to lead her, pulling her by his hand around her bicep off the training field. Gwaine looks far too pleased but Leon can’t think because all his brain seems to be feeding him is images of Merlin with a sword, disarming a man with his move . The queen grins at them Arthur ushering the knights into some semblance of order as if he’s trying to give them a chance to escape. 

They do escape. 

He pulls her towards the closest place with a lockable door, ignoring the cliche that is a knight pulling his lover into the armory because the only other person who has a key is Arthur. Arthur won’t interrupt them, hell he’ll probably keep the knights on the field for an extra long time just so there’s no possibility he might run into them in the act. 

The table he presses her against is mostly clear with all of the training gear on the field. She has a moment to steady her hand again at the side of it before he’s cradling her face in his so that he can kiss her. It’s not a nice kiss, it’s fast and messy and she laughs into it kissing back just as hard and quick. 

He’d considered for a moment while he dragged her here that maybe she wouldn’t want this but her hands fist in his padded tunic and drag him close, pressing their bodies tight against each other. He doesn’t wear full armor to training like this but it’s still not enough, he needs to feel her. 

“My move,” he growls when he pulls back from the kiss, a little out of breath and tearing at his gloves so that he can get his hands back on her jaw. 

“Yours,” she pants, barely getting it out before he’s kissing her again. 

“You used,” he gasps between kisses, “my move.”

“Yes.”

He presses his thumb against her chin and tilts her mouth open so that he can lick inside. She had something with oranges before coming to the training field, she must have because somehow he can faintly taste it on her. She groans around his tongue, shifting her legs apart so that she can pull him tighter against her. 

He rips his mouth from hers to grab her around her thighs and drag her up on the tabletop, pressing between her legs until they’re wrapped right around his hips. “You baited him into it,” he realizes, scraping his teeth across her bottom lip as he moves to kiss up her jaw. 

“I did.”

He loves her. He would follow her to the ends of all the lands and beyond that. He would let her hold a sword to his throat and thank her for it. 

His fingers slide beneath her tunic, tracing the top of her trousers. “Let me taste you?”

Merlin moans, her head falling back enough that he can nip at her throat above her neckerchief. She shifts and her whole body falls back against the table. “Please, Leon!”

She tilts her hips up when he curls his fingers in her trousers and smalls, allowing him to pull both down. They table around her boots and he yanks one off to free at least one leg so that he can kneel between them, pulling her to the edge of the table. 

The dark curls around her slit are matted with wetness and he uses his thumbs to spread her open, lapping at her folds. She shudders above him, hips jumping. A perfect sign to keep going, to lick everywhere he can reach and taste everything she’ll give him. 

He quickly learns she responds well to hard, fast presses of his tongue against her hole and glancing tastes of the hard bud at the top of her slit. She thrusts down on his tongue, when he slips it inside of her, keening and begging more, Leon, more to which he responds happily. He presses as deep within her as his tongue will allow, passing his thumb over that bud in sweeping circles which make her body shake as she hooks a leg over his shoulder trying to bodily press him deeper. 

So Leon switches, pulling his tongue back to lick up her slit as he tests a finger at her clenching hole. 

Merlin moans out as he presses in. “Yes! Yes!”

Someone is sure to hear them, they must. Over the rush in his ears, all he can hear is her, her heavy breathes and her lovely sounds. He wants to commit them to memory and never let them go.

She’s hot and tight inside, squeezing around his finger and he can only imagine how she might feel around his cock. He’s a patient man though, he can wait until she agrees to marry him. He can revel in the way she tastes, the way her walls go tight around his fingers, the way she moans his name as he tilts his finger up and sucks on her bud.

He can find pleasure in the way her body surges and thrashes against him. In the way, thick warm release gushes against his lips and fingers. He can find it in the way she tastes and sounds and the way her fingers feel curling tight in his hair. 

He’s intent to drag her into a second crest, fitting another finger into her. He wants more, wants to drink her down until she’s weak with it and can only gasp his name. She attempts to pull him away before he can and he presses intently against her, tracing his tongue around where she stretches to fit two of his fingers, coaxing her into letting him stay. 

She does, she lets him suck at her folds and her bud, pressing his fingers into her to search for all the spots that make her body react. He pulls another wave of pleasure from her that has her crying out, her whole body trembling. 

“Leon, love, no more,” she gasps, pulling him away. She weakly tugs him up her body, kissing him with a hunger that’s easily matched. It’s messy, even messier than before. 

She’s tasting him, licking over his lips and dipping her tongue behind his teeth to run across his. She’s tasting herself and that makes his already aching cock jump within his trousers. He plans to press against her hip, take his pleasure by rutting against her. 

Her fingers find his laces instead, plucking them apart and slipping into his trousers. Her fingers wrapping around that hot, aching part of him are a blessing and a curse and he moans against her mouth. Her strokes are awkward and short and she becomes frustrated quickly, pulling him from the confines of his trousers so that she can wrap her hand fully around him, extending her reach from root to tip. 

Merlin’s wrist is still at an awkward angle but she makes up for it with the way she squeezes. Makes it even better with the way her thumb sweeps and plays across his drooling head. She brings him off quickly, helped by the fact that he’s already keyed up and lost in every bit of her. 

“Come on, let me feel you, love,” she murmurs against his gasping mouth and the sound of her voice is what drags him over. 

He paints her fingers, her wrist, part of her hip with his spend. Shuddering and moaning her name, he clenches his eyes shut and presses his forehead to hers as he rides the wave of pleasure. She combs her free hand through his curls murmuring sweet things he can barely hear and never process over the blood roaring in his ears. 

“I love you,” Leon says because he needs to say something and if he asks her to marry him with his cock going soft in her hand he’ll run himself through with his own sword. 

“I love you too.” She presses sweet kisses against his face. 

<>

With a little help from Merlin’s magic they step back on the training field with a quarter hour to spare looking almost more put together than when they left it. Other than an ache from her thighs rubbing against her trousers she feels on top of the world. 

Morgana and Arthur are sparring when they return and Merlin can’t help the smile that crosses her face at the sight of their happy faces. They won’t be able to do this soon with Gaius halfway through with his fertility charts and herbal remedies, Covetta tasked with vitamins needed to support a pregnant queen. 

It does mean that Lancelot and Gwaine are watching the other knights though, tasked with helping where it’s needed and watching for any accidental injuries. 

Gwaine welcomes her back onto the field with an arm thrown over her shoulders. “You know Percival swears by aloe for beard burn.”

Merlin snorts. 

Leon trips. 

<>

Three years later…

Morgana hums, shifting Ygraine in her lap. The two-year-old doesn’t look up from her wooden dragon despite the way her father rushes into the throne room, stumbling past one of the columns to hide behind it. 

Moments later the doors are thrown open again, Merlin wielding a metal vase like a bat as she stalks into the room. She spy’s Morgana in her throne and Leon next to her and casts a suspicious look around the room before pinning her husband with a glare. “Did you know about this?!”

Leon shifts his own two-year-old up on his hip and Balina casts her wide blue eyes on her mother, thumb firmly in her mouth rather than the little wooden knight in her free hand. “How could I, my love?”

The knight inclines his head, giving away Arthur’s position and the king curses. Morgana watches with great amusement as her husband dodges around his court sorceress and flees the throne room. “Treason!”

Merlin gives chase, leaving the two of them alone with the children once more. 

“You knew,” she presses. 

Leon inclines his head, after all lying to the queen is treason. “Gwen and Covetta may also be pregnant.”

Her laughter fills the throne room. “Oh Arthur,” she sighs happily when she calms, him passing her a goblet of water as she presses a hand against her stomach. “When will he learn?”

“It is Percival’s assumption that he enjoys beautiful pregnant women being angry at him,” the knight supplies clearly amused. “Gwaine posits that it’s because beautiful pregnant women are slower than just beautiful women.”

And like that she’s laughing again, Ygraine giggling happily at her mother’s glee.