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Chapter Text

Mew. Mew. MEWWW. 

"Shhhhhh!" Merlin hisses. He looks up from his book, strokes a finger down the kitten's face from forehead to nose. "Shush," he whispers. "We're hiding, remember?" He pinches a bit of cheese from the chunk on the shelf above his head and offers it as a silencing bribe. 

She licks it up eagerly and tumbles off his leg with excitement, then pops back up on wobbly legs and bumbles back and forth. He covers his mouth with the back of his hand, muffling his laughter. "Finally, someone clumsier than me!" he whispers playfully. The kitten bobbles her head at him, eyes gleaming in the warm light of his conjured flame. 

He reaches up the shelf and grabs a bite for himself - a precious pastry from the cook's hoard. "This one's mine," he tells the kitten around a mouthful. "Now, more story?" 

Mew.

He grins, pats her on the head, and turns the page, beginning to read again in an undertone.

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"Egh," Merlin said, as they emerged into the cold, wet air of a mid-fall evening. "It's nasty out here."

"You're a damn crotchety old man," Arthur grumbled, sticking his elbow in Merlin's side. "You used to have some endurance to you." 

"Old?" Merlin repeated indignantly. As if to agree with Arthur, his knee popped loudly as he took the next step, and Arthur snorted. "I am not." 

"Cantankerous," Arthur said. They reached the top of the stairs and approached the battlements. "Cranky, with popping joints." 

"I'll have you know, your joints are louder than mine," Merlin retorted. "And you're older, too." 

"Therefore wiser," Arthur said. "Now shut up."

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"Give me one good reason why?" 

"Come on, it'll be good for you! You need the practice, Merlin." 

Merlin didn't move. 

Arthur swung his sword around, flipping it in that show-off, arrogant way of his. "Come onnnn, Merlin. Come on. Try! Just try—" 

Merlin stood up and waved his hand. He didn't need to wave his hand; he did it for effect. Arthur, laughing one moment, was dumped on his ass the next. 

"I don't think I need practice," Merlin said innocently. (Just as arrogant.) He sat back down. "What do you think, Arthur?" 

His response was a moan. And then the king rolled to his feet, readied his sword, and gave Merlin a little bring it gesture. 

Merlin grinned.

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Merlin tried to still the tremble in his hands as he followed Mordred along the stream.

The two of them had to duck under low hanging branches, and with only the light of the moon to guide them, both narrowly missed slipping on the wet, sandy stones of the bank. In the darkness, the twisted tree trunks and scraggly undergrowth would have spooked Merlin if he were alone, but Mordred's presence somehow seemed to banish all negativity but his own worries about the prospect before him.

"Do not worry, Merlin," Mordred said, out of the blue. When Merlin shot him a startled look, the druid turned knight only smiled. "Your aura is powerful. As I am already familiar with it, I can sense your unease."

"I've never done something like this before," Merlin said. He turned his gaze back to the winding path, picking his way with care. "You know I've only ever really feared magic. Learning about it, becoming it fully: all that is new."

The night seemed to warm slightly, and Merlin felt his magic shift. After Mordred's words, he found his senses tuning in to something he'd never noticed before. His interest growing, he wondered if he could now sense Mordred's aura. Sense his very emotion. And when Mordred spoke, his voice seemed warm with the same fondness and assurance.

"Nevertheless. As you've already begun to find, you take much more naturally to such learning than you first assumed you would. And tonight requires nothing of you but observance."

He stopped, then shifted to the side. Merlin's gaze followed the knight's slow gesture, and he felt his jaw slacken in awe.

Ahead of them, still at a good distance, was a pouring waterfall. The cascade of water was thin, but it's power and beauty beneath the moon's grace was still breathtaking. At the foot of the falls, dozens of lights flickered, gleaming gold amid the darkness. They barely illuminated the figures of people, dark capes on their shoulders but no hoods on their heads.

Druids.

"Come," Mordred said, waving his hand through the air. A dancing flame, no larger than a candle's, appeared in his palm. "Let's join the celebration."

And Merlin started forward, summoning a flame to his own hand and feeling a curious twitch of a smile grow on his face. Tonight, he would join the Druids in worship for the first time.

Tonight, he'd properly join his people.

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"No!" the princess said, her voice loud but petulant. She crossed her arms—or she tried too. The attempt was very serious, but far more adorable than strong in appearance. "It has garlic. Garlic spicy, Papa." She shook her head, three-year-old mind obviously incredulous that her father could ask such a thing of her! 

"It's not spicy, Amiera," Arthur said, fighting for a calm, understanding expression. Frustration was really unncessary, and amusement would only make his daughter dig her heels in more. "Spicy means that it feels hot on your tongue, like a burn. Your soup doesn't burn, does it?" 

"Yes it does," she said, shaking her head seriously. "Spicy and burns me! Amhar says garlic is spicy." 

"Only when it hasn't been cooked," Arthur said. 

"I know, Papa," Amiera insists. "It's spicy, I right!" 

Arthur turned his head away, allowing himself to laugh silently, unable to suppress it any longer. "All right," he said once he'd regained composure. He turned back to his own soup, filled his spoon, and brought it to his mouth. "I'll just finish mine then." 

Amiera smiled triumpthantly, and squirmed and stomped a little. Arthur took another spoonful. Amiera ran to the window and gazed out, humming. 

After a few minutes, she danced back across the room and exerted a good deal of effort climbing back in her chair. 

"Papa," she said, picking up her little spoon and starting to eat, extreme "spicyness" already forgotten, "We play outside after!" 

Arthur smiled and brushed his hand through her fine hair. "That sounds fun." 

"Yay!"

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"Mordred," the king said to him one day. "I'd like you to explain something to me." 

They rode side by side, and out here in the forest, with the sun streaming down through the leaves to crown his bare head, Arthur looked so effortlessly kingly. It was in a simple way, almost a holiness of simplicity, and yet Mordred still found himself speechless. Instead of trying to overcome his reverence to speak, he merely smiled and raised his eyebrows, indicating he was open for the king's questions. 

"Merlin keeps referencing the 'world's heartbeat.' He's tried to 'explain' it to me; but you know exactly how intelligible his gibberish is. He just babbles on about the world and the nature and 'hearing it breathe.'" 

As he spoke, Arthur looked ahead, watching Merlin where he rode some ways ahead of them. There was a bird perched on the warlock's shoulder, and Merlin kept turning his head, speaking to it. Now and then, he would laugh, a hearty guffaw that often made a slight smile appear briefly on Arthur's face. 

He was trying to cover his genuine interest—genuine care—with irritation over Merlin's "gibberish." But it was simple enough to see that he really did crave an explanation. An in to Merlin's world. 

"Well, sire," Mordred said, his tone light as he turned away from his king and his lord to look over the forest around them. "You know now that magic runs through everything; it is in the air, the water, the growing plants. The heartbeat he references, the world breathing—it is the magic of life woven throughout the world. Merlin, Emrys, as magic itself—he can hear and sense all of the magic we only know as abstract." 

When Mordred turned back to the king, he found that Arthur's eyes were slightly wide with wonder. For a long moment, he rode in silence, watching Merlin's back, watching him chat happily with the bird twittering in his ear.

"Why has he only recently begun to mention this heartbeat?" Arthur asked softly.

Mordred smiled, his eyes on Merlin ahead of them. "Because, sire, he's only recently been free to feel it."

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"Oooh!" 

Arthur smiled, then huffed as Amhar's leg popped out excitedly and kicked him in the gut. "Oooh," he repeated, following the toddler's gaze out the tall window. 

"Cheese," Amhar said, pointing at the moon. "Yellow cheese, papa." 

Arthur hummed, rubbing his chin fondly into Amhar's fuzzy hair. "It's a big, yellow cheese, isn't it, my prince?" 

Amhar yawned, and then smacked his head with childish clumsiness against Arthur's shoulder. His little arms came up and squeezed in a hug. "Cheese cheese," he said with a sleepy giggle.

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"Nervous?" 

Merlin turned, guiltily shoving the spoon he'd been using as a mirror behind his back. "What are you doing here? You should be at the head of the hall." 

Pushing off the doorway he'd been leaning against, Arthur stepped fully into the room. "I have time," he said. "Thought I'd come to see what kind of antics you were up to." He mimed checking his face and hair in the reflection of a spoon, then grinned. "I was right to, wasn't I?"  

Merlin laughed slightly, pulling the spoon back out and setting it on a side table. "Fine, you ass, I'm nervous. I'm terrified." 
 
"You needn't be." 
 
Merlin gave him a scathing look, and Arthur shrugged. "Merlin, this ceremony changes nothing but your name. You've already been performing the duties for years."

"I might trip," Merlin said. He sounded petty, exactly as he intended. It'd be better if Arthur thought he was only nervous about the aesthetic, anyway. 
 
But to his surprise, Arthur saw right through him. 
 
"Just trust yourself, you idiot. I do." 
 
And he knew it. Of course he knew it - he wouldn't be here, about to be publicly acknowledged as a respected advisor and Camelot's official Court Sorcerer, if he wasn't. But to hear Arthur say it, so simply and easily, as though it was nothing. 
 
Well. It was everything. 
 
"Thank you, sire," he said, meaning the honorific more than he ever had. 
 
Arthur smiled softly - a little shyly. Then he stepped closer, clapped his hand on Merlin's shoulder, and then wrapped both arms around him. "Now, I expect you to march down that hall right on cue," he said. 

Merlin couldn't speak for emotion, but Arthur didn't seem to care. He just drew back and shook Merlin's shoulder a bit, his eyes full of understanding, then turned and disappeared from the room. 
 
Merlin let out something between a laugh and a choked sob. He wiped his eyes quickly, shaking his head even as he smiled, and turned to face the hall doors.

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"That's enough, Merlin!" Arthur said. 

Not in the way he'd have once said it, harsh and demanding, out of some overblown sense of pride. No. Now, he said it firmly, as though reining Merlin in. 

"That's enough," he repeated, more gently, while Merlin stared at him. "You're running yourself into the ground, and I'm sick of it. You don't have anything to prove. By the gods, will you slow down." 

You don't have anything to prove, Merlin's mind echoed. You don't have anything to prove. 

"Don't I?" he said, not looking at Arthur's face. "Don't I though? Prove magic is good, prove it's worth everything..." 

Prove you're good enough, his mind whispered. 

Arthur sighed, in that gentle huff way of his that really wasn't a sigh at all. "Not anymore, you idiot."

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"Papa, I had a crazy dream," Amhar said, bursting into the room. 

Arthur was sitting at his desk. "Well then, my lion, come and tell me," he said, smiling. 

Amhar was already on his way, and when he reached Arthur, he put his little hands on Arthur's thighs and did his childish best to pull himself up. Arthur put his hands under his son's armpits and hoisted him up. The little prince started babbling before he was even finished getting settled. 

"I dreamed about Uncle Merlin," he said excitedly. "And Uncle Merlin took his magic biiiiiiiig and he put it in the sky. And then, you were in the sky, Papa! And you held a big yellow flower that was your sword, and the flower was the best sword, because it was very very good and big and..." 

Arthur nodded, trying not to laugh, and with one hand kept sorting through the papers before him while he listened.

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"Guinevere!" Arthur cried. He ran toward Amhar, snatched him up, and pried the dangerous item from the toddler's grip. "This sock is dirty!" 

He looked up to find Gwen pressing her lips together—obviously suppressing laughter. 

"What?!" he snapped. 

She rose to her feet and came toward him, now taking the sock from his grip. "Arthur, he's a baby. Everything ends up in his mouth. A dirty sock isn't too bad."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. He turned toward the wardrobe, rummaged for a clean pair of socks, and handed them to Amhar as he set him back on the floor. 

And as he stepped over to his desk, he muttered petulantly, "A clean sock isn't too much to ask."

Chapter Text

It took Arthur years before he could recognize Merlin in pain. 

Partially because Merlin really was one of the Silent ones; he bore it more stoically and more silently then some of the toughest knights. And partially, as Arthur eventually learned, because Merlin found it so incredibly hard to really trust people. 

He did not open up, not even to Arthur, without enough pushing to raise the dead soul of a normal person. It took years to develop the trust between them that Arthur was finally able to skip much of the necessary pushing. 

"Merlin," he said one day, in late fall when the days were growing shorter and the nights longer. "Sit down." 

They were both older. Not old—and gods, Leon would never let them say the word anyway, since he was not and so obviously they couldn't be either—and it'd been years since the bad days. The turmoil after It. Enough years that it always took Arthur a minute or so to count back and see exactly when It had happened. 

"Hm?" Merlin answered, not looking up. 

"Sit down," Arthur said. "I can tell that leg of yours is hurting." 

An old injury. Most of Camelot didn't know it existed; only Arthur and a few others knew Merlin well enough to see the tiny hints of hidden pain. With Merlin, there was never anything too obvious as a muttered, "Ouch." Even a bad day might result in only a faint squint by the eyes. 

"Hm," was all Merlin said, but he immediately reached for a chair and pulled it over, sitting without so much as a sigh or an eyebrow twitch of resistance or cover-up. 

Arthur returned to his own work, something like happiness pulling at his lips.

Chapter Text

Patrós! Aithusa blasted into Merlin's head.

Merlin sat bolt upright with a startled cry, then closed his eyes and pressed the palm of his hand against his forehead. With his other hand, he pulled the covers back around him and chided Aithusa gently. Aithusa—what have I told you about mindspeech while I'm sleeping.

Yes, the dragon answered immediately, his young voice already as equally deep as Kilgharrah's, Yes—but Patrós! The sun is up, the world is awake. Today is a... He paused, and then he growled something in the dragon tongue that Merlin roughly translated as enormous, incredible, exciting day!

Despite himself, Merlin smiled. Shaking his head, he pushed back his sheets and stood up. Yes, micros, he transmitted fondly, It's a big day for you, isn't it?

Aithusa gave a high-pitched screech, one of the last little behaviors he still did that gave away his true age. Instead of sending words, he sent a blurred, mostly implied image of himself romping in a field, with the walls of Camelot a white gleam in the distance.

Well, since you've woken me, I'm coming, Merlin told him as he pulled off his sleep tunic. You'll need to be dazzling for a ceremony like this.

Merlin wouldn't be allowed to look too shabby either. Not on a day so important, when the people of Camelot and their king meant to pay homage to their dragonlord and his dragon.

Aithusa pummeled him with a flare of excitement and joy, and Merlin grinned widely. He pulled on a light, finely made overcoat over the rest of his clothes and beckoned his boots from the corner. Narrowly avoiding a painful fall as he dragged them on, he hopped here and there across the room until finished.

"All right," Merlin said, still a little breathless. "Ready or not, now's the time."

He stepped forward and turned, his magic whirling around him in a golden transport shield. When its glow faded, he stood on grass with the open sky above him and a white dragon bounding toward him on strong, healthy legs.

"Patrós!" Aithusa bellowed, and Merlin burst out laughing as Aithusa skidded to a stop in front of him. 

"Missed me?" he said, spreading his arms wide. Aithusa butted his chest, and Merlin obligingly reached to pet his muzzle, which was caked in dried mud. "Come on, micros. Let's get you cleaned up."

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"Arthur."

The king jumped—literally jumped—and spun around, hands raised as if in combat. Except he didn't hold a sword and shield—he held a pastry and two cookies. 

Merlin started laughing, trying to be quiet enough that he wouldn't disrupt the night silence. Arthur scowled and stood up straight again. 

"What are you doing sneaking around in the dark, you idiot?" 

"Me?" Merlin whispered, still chuckling. He stepped closer and gestured at Arthur's fistfuls of treats. "You're the thief creeping around his own castle with handfuls of stolen goodies." 

"They're for Guinevere," Arthur hissed back. "You know how she is right now." 

"Mm-hmm," Merlin said sweetly. "And that bite in the cookie...?" 

Arthur scowled again. "Shut up." Then he broke the nibbled cookie in two and silently offered Merlin the untouched half. "Now go to bed." 

With a grin, Merlin took the cookie, and as he moved off down the corridor, he bumped into Arthur and saw his expression change to fond exasperation. 

"Prat," he whispered over his shoulder. 

"Shhhh!"

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"Still think you're not valuable?" Gwaine said. He was grinning, but with none of his usual swagger. No, Merlin thought, as he looked at the knight through drooping eyelids, it wasn't a grin. It was a soft smile. 

"You're certainly an idiot, even if you are a valuable one," Arthur said, and cuffed Merlin over the head. But it didn't hurt, and it was more a brush than a cuff. 

Merlin smiled, feeling drowsy and amused. And safe. 

"Let's move out," Arthur called, as Percival hefted Merlin off the ground. 

"Let's go home," Arthur added, so quietly he might not have even said it. 

Merlin had just enough energy to smile before he drifted off.

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"Merlin." 

"Yeah," Merlin said absently, focused on his task.

Arthur tried to speak, then coughed. He still had a dry tickle at the back of his throat. "Would you make the fire a bit bigger." 

Merlin didn't answer, still preoccupied. Arthur coughed again, partially to get his attention, partially because the scratch was still there. Merlin finally looked up. 

"Huh? Oh. Oh, mhm." He casually waved his hand, and the fire jumped in the fireplace. Even across the room at his desk, Arthur could feel the heat. 

He closed his eyes briefly, then made himself sit up and return to his work. He might still be getting over this illness, but that didn't mean Camelot was any less busy. His fingers were still a little stiff and ached holding his quill; he'd only just today gotten Merlin to let him get up. 

So he certainly wasn't going to give in, not even for the comforting warmth of his bed. 

Something soft pressed down on his shoulders, and he looked up in surprise as Merlin tucked a blanket around him. 

"Gwen has that speech already in hand," he said, eyeing the mostly blank parchment in front of Arthur. "Take care of the other papers, Arthur." 

He squeezed Arthur's shoulder, and Arthur felt one last layer of warmth leak into him and spread through his body, this time from Merlin's magic. 

Closing his eyes again, he savored the relief, physically sensing his aches ease. Merlin tugged at his blanket, putting the last touches on his handiwork, and then stepped away. 

"Don't fall asleep, or I really will drag you back to bed." 

Arthur opened his eyes, unable to resist a smile at Merlin's retreating back. Picking up his quill with new energy, he shook his head and dragged a nearby stack closer.

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"You know what I hate about working for Arthur?" Merlin complained to Gwen, as they passed briefly in a hallway. 

"His socks?" she asked, considering Merlin whined about the stench on a daily basis.

"The prat's bathing habits," he said in a fierce whisper as a threesome of servants bustled past. "For the love of Camelot, Gwen! He has a bath almost every day!" 

"He is a prince," she said, already giggling. 

"He's a spoiled prat!" Merlin said, and then grimaced apologetically as everyone in the vicinity shot him looks. "And I'm sick of lugging water buckets around." 

Gwen stopped laughing and looked quizzical. "Why?" 

"Why what?" 

"Why are you lugging the buckets around?" 

Merlin made a face, tilting his head, and must have looked confused enough to prompt further explanation, because she went on, "Merlin, you're the prince's manservant. You're one of the highest ranking servants in this castle. You can... ask other servants to do it?" 

"I can?!!”

"Since when are you so efficient?" Arthur asked, coming in to carelessly track mud all over the clean floor. "Do you break the law or something?" 

"Since someone actually told me I had the power to fucking delegate," Merlin muttered under his breath. 

"Oh gods, did you?" Arthur said, having only heard silence, and turned to look at Merlin through slanted eyes. 

"I haven't done anything illegal today, sire," Merlin said truthfully, and left to tell the stable boys to muck the prince's horse stall.

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"Uncle Merlin." Amhar poked at Merlin's thigh. "I wanna tell you something."

Merlin pulled himself away from the conversation and looked down, smiling to see Amhar leaning against him. "Yes, Amhar?"

"You're my best friend," Amhar said in a carrying child's whisper. He cupped his hands around Merlin's ear and added seriously, "But don't tell anyone, shhh."

Merlin pressed his lips together, trying not to look at the suppressed hilarity on the faces of those around the table. "Never," he whispered back conspiratorially.

Amhar giggled and scampered to the other side of the table, where he pulled himself onto his little chair next to Arthur's. The king was smiling widely, and he bent and pressed a quick kiss to the brown curls before turning back to his meal.

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"Merlin," Arthur said, frowning at his breakfast. "You're going to help me." 

"I am?" Merlin said, raising an eyebrow. 

Arthur gestured with his sausage. "Yes, you're my servant, it's your job." 

Merlin paused just long enough to make it seem like he was actually thinking about it. "Well, what is it?" 

"I need to give something to Guinevere for her birthday." 

"You have caught on," Merlin said. Arthur glared at him. 

"What should I give her, you dolt." 

"I don't know—what does she want?"

"I don't know!" 

Merlin shrugged, sticking his head in the wardrobe to rummage for the day's outfit. "You could ask her." 

Arthur sighed, irritation apparently fading to a less heated level. "She deserves more thought than that." 

"She seems lonely," Merlin said, trying to get him moving. "Maybe a friend would be a good gift." 

"I can't just purchase someone for her, Merlin." 

He didn't answer, waiting for the pieces to click. 

"A pet!" Arthur cried a moment later. Merlin popped out of the wardrobe. 

"That's a good idea!" 

Arthur grinned at him. He ran a hand through his hair. "A pet," he repeated. "What sort?" 

Merlin laid out the clothes he'd chosen and left the room for a quick chore, leaving Arthur to figure the rest out for himself. 

A few days later, Gwen was the happy owner of a four-month-old kitten, a black tomcat with a white ear that she named Earl. Merlin's gift was a handmade cat toy, a small bobble on a string tied to a stick.

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"That's it?" Lancelot said, setting his tankard down as Gwaine finished his story. Merlin had jumped up and made for the bar in the middle of it, too embarrassed by all the attention and recognition. "That's your impossible thing Merlin did? Just wait until you hear my story." 

The other knights all smiled, elbowing each other and leaning forward. 

"This isn't even the most impressive one," Lancelot said, just because he could, and noticed Arthur's eyes in particular widening further. He took a sip of his drink, drawing out the moment. 

Across from him, Gwaine glanced at the bar, where Merlin was taking a long time to get a refill by chatting with the barkeep. "Come on," he said, trying to make Lancelot admit it was all a joke, "You can't seriously mean that what I saw him do wasn't the hardest thing he's ever done." 

Lancelot smiled, a mix of both sadness and pride. Gods, Merlin still hadn't changed much. He still hid so much of himself. He was slowly changing, slowly getting better at letting himself be seen, letting his enormous and near limitless talents be recognized and valued. 

Lancelot, as he had for years, would continue to bridge that gap, carefully coaxing Merlin across it by slowly revealing what he could. 

"Oh no," he said, when Gwaine looked back at him. "He's done far more impossible things." 

Gwaine sat back in his seat, lounging against the wall, and Arthur straightened, waiting. Percival, Leon, and Elyan, crushed onto one bench with Percival in the middle, took sips of their own tankards, settling in for another Merlin myth. 

Lancelot smiled again, shot a glance at Merlin, and told them.

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"Arthur," Merlin said, and at the tone of his voice, Arthur immediately looked up. 

As he expected, Merlin looked extremely nervous, mixed with guilt and weariness and that tense look he never seemed without, as though he was physically resisting the secrecy that longed to drag him back into it's lonely waves. 

"What is it?" Arthur said warmly. 

"I just... I need to ask you something. Tell you. No, ask." 

Arthur nodded, waiting for him to go on. 

Merlin swallowed hard. He had both hands in front of him, one hand gripping the opposite wrist with enough force to leave his knuckles white. "I'd like... to visit my mother. Because I'm worried about her." 

Concerned, Arthur sat a little straighter. "Is she all right?" 

Merlin huffed, his expression self-deprecating. "She's probably fine. I... well, I didn't want to tell you. I will!" he finished, almost explosively. "I will. I didn't want to and... and I haven't, yet. But, I keep... my things... I'm losing them or they might be getting stolen—" 

"What?" Arthur interrupted, standing up. "They might be, or are you just saying that because—" he shrugged a little, not quite sure how to phrase it— "because of everything?" 

Merlin sighed. "I think they have been stolen." 

"Merlin." Arthur couldn't resist the reproach in his voice, although he regretted it when Merlin just nodded like he deserved it. "You could have told me," he said quietly, and then he moved on before Merlin had a chance to disappear in a puddle of guilt and shame. "What has been stolen?"

"Stupid things," Merlin said, but he finally let go of his wrist and ran a hand through his hair instead. "Some clothes. My... nice boots. Some of the gifts. From the ceremony." He didn't meet Arthur's eyes, but Arthur still knew. Those last items, at least, had been anything but "stupid" in Merlin's eyes. "It doesn't really matter, Arthur. But I know why, of course... and everyone knows I'm from Ealdor. I'm worried, if this happens to me, what might happen to Mother..." He trailed off, shrugging a little, clearly embarrassed. 

Arthur stepped close to Merlin, putting his hand on his shoulder, then pulling him toward the door. He hated this whole situation, that this was happening to Merlin in the midst of so much change, uncertainty, and fear. When he was already struggling to find his footing again, both in public and in his private friendships. 

"Go and visit Hunith," he told Merlin, when they stopped by the door. "And I want you to take Gwaine and Elyan. Yes—" he held up a hand at Merlin's open mouth— "Yes, I know, you can protect yourself. But considering what you just told me, a few extra swords around you wouldn't be unwise." 

Merlin hesitated, but finally nodded, conceding the point. 

"Good. Go." 

"Thank you," Merlin said, his voice a little thick. 

Arthur smiled and gave him a little shove out the door. "Go." 

And I'll take care of the other problem while you're gone.

Chapter Text

Merlin woke in the night. He hadn't intended to, but as soon as his eyes opened, he pushed back the blanket and silently got up. Since he was awake, he might as well refill Arthur's bedwarmer. 

He opened the door between Arthur's room and the servant antechamber, grateful that the door had silent, well-oiled hinges, and stepped into the room, heading toward the fire. Then he stopped, startled to hear noises in a room he'd expected to be quiet. 

It wasn't sick noises that might normally be in a sick person's bedchamber, like a stuffed nose struggling to breathe. It was unexpected and unnatural: erratic, restless movement, grunting, then a whimper. He turned his head toward the bed, making out Arthur in the dim light, his head turning and twitching on his pillow. 

Merlin started toward the bed. As he drew closer, he could see that Arthur's eyes were closed - he was still asleep - but his face was moving: switching quickly between relaxed and tormented and back again. 

He twitched again, head rolling to one side, grimaced, and whimpered. His mouth moved. His faced relaxed again. Merlin stood still, watching, his mind catching up with his eyes. 

Nightmares. He knew a fever could bring them on, but he'd never seen it - he hadn't seen enough fevers. He stepped closer, taking a cloth from a full basin on the bedside table. He'd abandoned it there hours ago, when Arthur had flipped out about having it on his head. 

Wringing it out, he sat carefully on the edge of the bed and folded it before laying it on Arthur's forehead. For a moment, Arthur relaxed further, and then he tensed, his breathing growing faster. 

"Easy," Merlin said quietly, but it was too late. 

Arthur grimaced again, making a noise in his throat, then shook his head quickly and opened his eyes. His hands flew out from under the covers and he sat up halfway, giving a low cry that turned into a groan. Quick movements with a fever didn't feel great.

Merlin leaned forward and helped him lay back down slowly. 

"What are you doing, Merlin?" Arthur said blearily, before he was even back on the pillow. "It's the middle of the night." 

"I'm your servant," Merlin said, straightening the cloth on Arthur's head. Thankfully, the prat didn't protest. "I'm tending you, like I'm supposed to." 

"Is there any water..." 

There was a cup on the bedside table, well within Arthur's reach, but Merlin picked it up anyway. He brought it to Arthur's lips, since he was already propped up enough to drink it, and put it back on the table after he'd taken a drink. Arthur turned his face away, closing his eyes, his forehead creased faintly with pain. 

"Are you all right?" Merlin asked without thinking, straightening the blankets and pulling them back over the prince, since he'd thrown them off in his hasty awakening. "You were having a nightmare." 

"I have them all the time," Arthur said dismissively. He was half-asleep again already, and feverish, or Merlin knew he'd have never admitted it. 

"Me too," he said quietly, tucking the last of the blanket in and standing up. "Sleep well, sire." 

"Thank you, Merlin," Arthur murmured. 

Merlin gave a half-smile, then moved back toward the fire to stir up some coals and refill Arthur's bedwarmer, as he'd originally meant to, before returning to his own bed to sleep a little easier than before.

Chapter Text

"I don't do this kind of thing, Merlin," Gwen whispered, trying not to panic completely and run in terror back to her tiny, familiar little home in the lower town. "I don't spend time in the limelight. I actively run away from it." 

"I think you spend more time there then you think," Merlin said, his face serious, but his tone as sweet and encouraging as ever. "Gwen, you've been taking on increasing responsibility and leading more and more for months. A few years ago, you'd have thought that was impossible, but you've done it so well. And..." He came closer and put his hand on her upper arm. "You've enjoyed it. I've seen you enjoy it." 

"This is so different," she said, touched but still afraid. "This is so, so different." 

He hugged her, without even hesitating, and she laid her head on his shoulder. "It is different," he agreed. "You have every right to be afraid. But I believe in you, and so does Arthur, and you'll take it a day at a time, and you'll be great, I promise." 

She smiled faintly, hanging onto his words and his friendship. "You're such a good friend," she told him. "Thank you." 

"You're a good friend too," Merlin said. "And you'll be the best queen."