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Chapter Text

At the whims of his magic and the demands of the world's various turnings, sleep never came easily to Merlin.

“Think yourself up a story,” Hunith advised him softly, her tired voice wan in the dark. Her patience never wore thin though, not once. 

Merlin told himself plenty of stories at night already, but it was better advice than she had given him the night before when she’d told him ‘if you don't try, you’ll never get to sleep’ and then, quite contradictorily, ‘don’t try so hard.”

He was growing older and better able to articulate himself, so looking into the familiar black of the night he told her that part of him never settled down to rest, that it flew around inside of him and collided with his walls. “Like the bat,” he finished, thinking of the little creature that had flown into their home not a sennight ago. 

She accepted his explanation with her usual grace, and her usual worry, not quite understanding but trying to. He could sense that she was desperate to help, but, all of the normal advice having failed, she did not know how. Merlin wished that his mother could bravely catch the fitful little thing inside of him in her gentle hands and free it, too.

Will wasn't nearly as understanding. A shift kick from a cold foot was enough to put Merlin’s little light out, or bring whatever he’d been toying with in the air clattering to the floor. Tossing and turning too much was also right up there on his friend’s list of sins. 

“Sorry,” Merlin mumbled, stopping all movement. 

“I’ll be knackered tomorrow,” Will complained, nudging him roughly as he bedded back down, pulling at the blanket they shared. As he had many times before, Will declared Merlin a bad bedmate, but he was back at the first sign of frost. 

His lack of sleep pinched his brows and stuffed his head with wool. It made him forget what he was at and it made every task no matter how simple a trial to overcome. And often, it made no sense. It made him nauseous; it made him hungry. It made him restless; it made him lethargic.

He wondered if other people with magic had the same problems, but he didn't know anyone else with magic. There was plenty he was able to figure out on his own, however. It wasn't hard, living the life they lived in Ealdor, so reliant on the rhythms of the days and seasons, and still observing festivals that elsewhere had vanished, to notice the patterns of it.

His magic wanted to greet the day at the barest blue of dawn, like the skylarks and robins did. It wanted him to witness every sunset and moonrise, and, for all he knew, the sleep he did get being so shallow and interrupted, it wished for him to observe the procession of the planets across the night sky. 

The full and new moon were sleepless nights, but so too, to his initial bewilderment, were the nights two or three days preceding it. The mystery was solved when he learned the sea was at its highest a few days after each. Even landlocked, his magic wanted to bathe in the spring tides.

When the sun stood at its zenith each day during the solstice, so did Merlin. A profound sleeplessness would come over him then but he would pass each day fuelled by a nervous energy not his own, and then all at once he would be overtaken by an exhaustion equally profound. 

Following one rainy summer solstice he had collapsed into a fevering, pneumonic heap and he slept more than he was awake. Hunith had thought he was dying and, alone and unable to leave his side, she sent poor old Will barreling perilously across the countryside for a physician she couldn't afford. When Merlin bolted awake, more rested and hale than was usual (once he had gulped water and his pottage down), Hunith had kissed and cradled him like an oversized baby in her relief and Will, with the greatest affection, hit him upside the head.

At Bealtaine, Lunasa, Samhain and Imbolc there was a fire in his belly and sparks at his fingertips. The only cure was to be up on a hill feeding the bonfires until dawn. It made him want to dance and jump over the fires, to run as fast as he could and witness every sign of the season until his lungs gave up on him. Allowing his magic to lead him usually resulted in Will bounding after him through the greenwood and puffing out “ caw , what's gotten into you?!” or his mother crying at him to please be more careful around the fire.

It was exhausting in itself, always reining in something raring to run rampant and do only the gods knew what. He knew too that he had given his mother enough trouble, being born as he was, without him slipping out of their home in the middle of the night to answer its incessant call. With great difficulty he learned to ignore the pull, to lie awake when all others were asleep and to be still when his magic tried to will him into action. 

Despite this, sometimes, he needed the still of the night as much as he needed sleep; he needed those moments to himself to allow his senses to roam. Everything around him was itself, it had something specific and recognisable to tell it apart from all else, as distinctive as the footsteps of his mother around their cottage. Just as he would know her blind, some undefined sense of his knew the stream that coursed unseen in the shaded dip in the land not far from them, it knew the life below the soil in the shaded corner behind Will’s house where mushrooms sprouted reliably when the weather turned year on year, and he knew, in the middle of the night, the moment that the big elm on the edge of the village, the one that had been struck by lighting the summer before, exhaled once more and died.

He closed his eyes and the world and its magic passed through him and sometimes it was just rhythmic and familiar enough that he could finally, finally drop into sleep. 

***

Somehow, despite the increasing worries that weighed on him, Merlin had slept more deeply and more often since he left home. It was a mystery, to be sure, but one that was more than welcome. Of course, any extra winks he got were negated by the fact that he was thanklessly moonlighting as a certain royal prat’s saviour, not to mention the intermittent psychic harassment he suffered from the dragon below the castle. He stumbled clumsily from one task to the next: muck out the stables, help Lancelot defeat the Griffin; save Arthur’s life for the umpteenth time, deal with Arthur’s sweaty socks- each harder than next. He knew that in the fog of exhaustion it was only a matter of time before he made a grave error. If destiny could only allow Merlin to be well-rested when it sent him its trials, maybe he might be able to face them better. 

Trying to eat his late morning meal at the table with Gaius, Merlin scrubbed his hand over his face, and picked up and dropped his spoon several times. He had been awake until the birds and the bakers had risen and had managed only a few meagre hours before Gaius had knocked on his door to let him know that he was late and needed to rouse the prince.

“Trouble eating, my boy?” Gaius asked across the table from him.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Merlin mumbled, head down. He had been intermittently studying the grain of the table to divert his focus from his unhappy stomach.   

“Hm, and it's nausea again, is it?” 

“Mm.” 

“No doubt it's stress.” The old physician pointed his spoon at his apprentice emphatically. “You have to remember you can't solve all of the kingdom’s problems in the middle of the night.” 

“I solve plenty of the kingdom's problems in the middle of night,” Merlin countered, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands.  

Gaius frowned. “How long has it ailed you, your sleeplessness?” 

Merlin blinked at the question. “How long?” 

The old physician didn't even nod, but seemed to wait with his spoon poised over his porridge.

“Uhm-since… It's always been this way.” 

“Always?” His old friend craned back in disbelief in his seat. “Come now, surely not?”

“As long as I can remember.” 

“You mean to tell me you’ve always slept this poorly?” 

Merlin shrugged, he wasn't sure if he should tell him that some nights, he didn't sleep at all. Gaius buried his spoon in his meal and leaned forward once more. “Do you have headaches? Confusion? Frequent evacuations?” 

“Um, yes… But it's fine.”

“That wouldn’t be my prognosis,” Gaius surveyed him with the usual raised eyebrow. Many a patient who thought he knew better had been cowed by that eyebrow. 

“I’ve always been like this,” he protested weakly, trying not to squirm now under his gaze.

Gaius sighed. The dreaded eyebrow vanished and was immediately replaced with an expression that might have been at home on Hunith’s face. “That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to fix it. Now.” He reached across the table to pat Merlin’s arm and rose groaningly to examine the draughts against the wall, ready should a patient arrive with a common ailment. He plucked one up. “Extract of valerian,” he said, dangling the little bottle within his reach. “Five drops in-”

Resigned, Merlin took it. “Five drops in my wine, I know. And no-” 

“And no more !” Gaius emphasised.

Of course Gaius’ treatment was equally ineffective as those he subjected Morgana to. He woke up shaking with a renewed understanding of the witch’s plight, sweat cooling on his skin and strange dreams involving Arthur's socks dancing away from him. The night was beginning to give way to early dawn and he lay there sad and frustrated, his magic making him think all the while how nice it would be to lie down in the early morning dew. 

It was nothing he couldn't cheerfully inflict on the crown prince, however. 

The chambers were still shadowy and Arthur's bleary eyes went to the windows when Merlin burst through the door with a tray of food and bread so fresh it had almost burned his fingers to slice it. 

“What time do you call this?!” the prince sputtered from his bed, his voice scratchy with sleep.

“I call it morning!” Merlin all but sang, invading further and kicking the usual discarded night shirt to one side. “Come on, get up. Early worm makes a hearty breakfast!” 

“It’s hardly morning!” Arthur exclaimed, then he flopped back down, his arm over his eyes, and gave a long suffering groan. “And that’s concerningly backward, not unlike yourself. I don't have to be awake for hours, what ungodly thing possessed you to-?!” 

“The moon, probably,” Merlin answered. He placed the tray down on Arthur’s writing desk, shamelessly stole and quickly consumed a piece of cheese before swivelling to face him to witness the prince’s face scrunch in confusion. 

“The moon ?” Arthur turned in the bed and threw a hand in the direction of the windows, which showed an oblate blue dawn. “What moon?! It's a new moon!” 

“Exactly.” It was thrilling to occasionally tell Arthur the truth. 

“Go away. Go away and come back at a normal time for normal people. Can you be normal, Merlin?” 

“No.” More of the truth again, he had to get his kicks somehow. 

“Of course you can't,” the prince said flatly. He was propped up on his elbow and had gone very still, his attractive muscles tensed. Merlin knew what was next. Arthur spoke his next words very slowly. “Get… Out.” 

Merlin did not get out. He made to bend down and pick up the nightshirt. 

“I said get out!” Arthur shouted, and with his warrior’s swiftness he grabbed and threw the little pewter candle holder by his bedside table. 

Merlin dodged it, it hit the wall and then the floor with a dull clang and clatter. He made a swift exit.

Chapter Text

After so many hours of riding through the kingdom with little rest, Merlin cared little how lumpy and hard the rooty ground was below his bedroll.   

He heard the knights in the midst of deciding who would take first watch through the democratic process of whinging about who did it last. Merlin cracked an eye open to witness the two circling each other ridiculously like a pair of old barn cats. Leon was looking on, too tired and exacerbated to intervene, he lowered himself down on his own bedroll with a groan and rolled on his front, dead to the world. 

“I’m not taking the watch twice in a row,” Sir Radnor said, his jaw jutted at his fellow knight.

Sir Bertrand threw his eyes to the bare branches above. “I’m telling you I’m too tired, I’ll take the second watch!”

Merlin groaned internally, it was cold and it was nearing the time they would celebrate Harvest Home in Ealdor, Merlin was already resigning himself to a miserable night and these two were only adding to his misery.

Sir Radnor paced and shook his head before stepping threateningly close to Bertrand. “Too tired my arse, it was me who-!” 

“I’ll take the watch,” Merlin heard Arthur say decisively, and the prince stepped calmy from beyond his periphery and into the little ring the knights had made for themselves in the leaf litter with their circling. Though it was a small act, Merlin couldn’t help the sudden admiration that gripped him. It was happening more and more lately, and more and more Merlin felt himself stepping firmly on the path destiny had chosen for him.

Bertrand and Radnor stopped immediately, checked. They shuffled and glanced at each other, and seemed to decide, silently and without issue, who would take the disputed watch. 

“You have my apologies, Sire-!” Radnor said sheepishly. 

“And mine!” Bertrand added.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Radnor offered.

“And I the second!” 

“No.” Arthur held up a hand, stopping them. He tipped his head toward Radnor. “You’ll see to the horses in Merlin’s stead and Sir Bertrand, you’ll assist with the food and the fuel until we return.” 

Merlin found it just a little disconcerting that Arthur would give the knights his jobs as punishment.

Browbeaten, they went about their tasks.

As expected, Merlin was not given the mercy of sleep. He ached with the need to do those things that he found made his magic sing inside of him, to dance, drink and feast under the last sheaf. 

Kilgharrah postulated that his magic wished to perform the rituals of the festivals. What these rituals might have been, beyond the apparently deficient customs he already knew, Merlin wasn’t exactly sure. The shape of them always seemed out of his reach, it was need without knowledge, like hunger he did not know how to sate. The dragon, as often, was unhelpful, having said something dismissive about being uninterested in the ways of man. He could offer no more advice than to say that this was a time to honour the goddess Mabon. Who Mabon was Merlin wasn’t sure, but his whole body had goosepimpled at the mention of her name, like he had been caught in an autumn wind. 

He was startled out of his thoughts by the snap of the fire, he saw the seated figure of Arthur in profile a little beyond, his edges highlighted by flickering orange as he fed sticks into the flames. He was stupidly beautiful in this light.  

Merlin’s magic drew him towards Arthur, it was an even stronger tug than the one that drew him manic with sleeplessness to the sun on the solstice. He would follow him everywhere, he was beginning to realise, step for step, through the leaves, the snow, the flowers, the dust and the leaves again, (or, if he was being more accurate, the mud, the mud, the mud, the not mud and the mud again). 

Arthur gave another stick to the flames and then their eyes met. 

“I woke you,” he said very low but just loud enough for Merlin to hear. 

“You didn’t,” Merlin told him. 

Arthur accepted this with a nod and turned his attention half-back to the fire but Merlin knew the prince was watching him in the corner of his eye. Merlin recognised it immediately, this could be one of those moments that he held close, a quiet moment where it was just him and Arthur, the often sharp edges of their bond softened by the night.

Merlin got clumsily to his feet, taking the light pack that he’d been using as a pillow with him. Arthur smirked softly at him as he settled down. The others were snoring peacefully in a rough semi-circle as they sat in silence together, each taking turns to feed the fire that really didn’t need feeding. They watched the large shifting shadows cast by the light for hidden dangers, the black of the woods and the slivered window of the moon silvered hills beyond. 

At length Merlin took out an apple from his pack. He had found it on the way, it had recently fallen from its gnarled old tree, once part of an orchard by a villa crumbled down to its foundations. He guessed it was probably a sour little thing, but he suddenly felt compelled to share it. He took out a paring knife and the peel fell and formed a large lowercase ‘a’ on the leaf litter. He cut a slice and passed it to Arthur, who eyed it highly suspiciously. Merlin found it surprisingly pleasant, if a little tart. It would be excellent stewed. Arthur must have enjoyed his slice too because he was doing a very poor job of hiding that he was expecting another piece, his eyes hungry and his body leaning close to Merlin. 

That unguardedly expectant expression, so emblematic of Arthur and the way he was, set off a laughter that threatened to wake the others. Arthur soon joined him with a bewildered laugh of his own. That laughter turned into a quiet tussle that ended in the apple being wrestled from Merlin’s grasp. When Arthur handed it back it had a big bite out of it. Merlin didn’t care, he finished it off anyway. 

Before he was really done nibbling at the core, Merlin thanked Mabon for their little meal and committed what remained to the fire. Big sparks went up and harmlessly over them, and though his magic itched to play with them, the company, the shared meal, the thanks, the small sacrifice was enough to have it simmer with happiness. 

The autumn breeze picked up, the flames fluttered down, sputtered and flared, and the two slid a little closer together. 

When Arthur ended his watch, he spread his bedroll out directly beside Merlin’s. The wind, chill and bound for the south, had worsened. At first Merlin was taking the brunt of it. He turned so it hit his back and, remembering his cold nights shared with Will, he wished that whatever remaining propriety between he and Arthur that kept them at a remove would vanish so that he might be able to lie along his back and steal some warmth. His shivering must have annoyed Arthur because he tossed and turned, and eventually, sat up. 

“Move over,” he grunted, indicating his bedroll. 

“You want me to-?”

“Yes, I want you to,” the prince hissed. “Just move.” 

They switched places, Merlin sliding under while Arthur passed over. He gave no explanation for their change of places, or that fact he was practically lying in the seam between their bedrolls, closer now than before. As Merlin’s shivering died down, equal parts thankful and bold, he brought himself closer too. 

Sleep was suddenly a palpable weight that sunk him into the forest floor, and somehow he could feel it pulled Arthur too. He closed his eyes and all of his muscles, taut and smarting, lost their tension. The dry leaves skittered over them but they were safe, ensconced, warm as though a blanket of rough wool had been pulled over them. Merlin smelled wet earth and sweet autumn rot as they went down down- 

Merlin was tugged awake, literally tugged awake by his ear. “Ah! Wha-?!”  

The prince’s bemused and irate face invaded his sleep crusted vision. Arthur was kneeling by his bedroll in his full armour, the morning far too bright around him, even here under the trees. “Get the bloody hell up Merlin!” he said, his teeth clenched. “We haven't got all day.” 

Merlin raised himself up on one elbow and surveyed the scene. The horses were already saddled and there was a small gaggle of knights waiting expectantly in their armour and cloaks, watching him with barely suppressed amusement. 

“How…?” Merlin began, but he had too many questions he wanted to ask. It was like the night had been pulled out from under him and suddenly he had landed in the bright of the day. He had no knowledge of the time passing, no awakenings or long stretches of wakefulness to mark the hours. Everything and everyone seemed to be ready for departure and he doubted it had all been achieved with whispers and tiptoes. Somehow he had slept through it all. 

“You sleep like the dead,” Arthur told him, rising and giving his leg a tip with his boot. 

“No, I… I don't-” he stumbled over his words, finding he was just as confused as he was parched.

Arthur didn’t seem interested in hearing excuses, he turned away, his cloak swishing, and made toward the horses. “We’re leaving, Merlin, get up now or walk back to Camelot,” he called behind him without looking back. 

Merlin tried to dismiss this blip. He had them before. But there were other nights, other hunts, rescues, quests and patrols and each time he and Arthur bedded down beside each other, it was the same story. 

By Arthur’s side, he had come to understand, he slumbered like a seed through the winter, and emerged with fresh, vernal energy each time. 

But all of this good rest had the unintended effect of making his days of poor sleep all the more painful. It was a good thing then, whether it was protectiveness for his unarmed, unarmoured servant or something else, that Arthur seemed to have made up his mind about their close sleeping arrangements when they were out on the road. 

Chapter Text

When Will died, sleep escaped Merlin’s grasp again and again.

Left and right he made mistakes, broke things, forgot things. Making himself understood and understanding others was suddenly something of such head hurting complexity that it was mostly beyond him. His usual performances failed him, his faining of humanity when exhaustion made him into something far less, or maybe, with the mounting secrets he held, something far worse. He was sure that people were trying to peer into his cracks to see what they held, and he fled from their gaze, from friendly and neutral company alike. Fearing his impaired judgement would lead to his discovery, he was extra cautious about his magic, using it only when absolutely necessary. It cried for its freedom in the cruel cage he had put it in. He turned a deaf ear to it, he didn’t need to sleep to dream up images of his own pyre; its heat was there, always. 

He needed sleep, he needed it or he would simply keel over, and like a ghost one night he found himself stalking the corridors. A full moon that his magic strained to greet called to him from the windows but he ignored it in favour of a greater pull. 

Merlin was awake the moment Arthur opened his chamber door. The prince leaned out, looking this way and that, no doubt for his missing servant. When he alighted on Merlin propped up against the wall near his feet he stumbled out a little, a flash of worry appearing and promptly fleeing when Merlin looked up at him. He must have looked alright, or at least, uninjured. 

Confused but clearly in a charitable mood, Arthur offered him his arm and hauled him onto his feet. “Should I even ask?” he said. His voice was softer and more comforting than it had a right to be, it almost made Merlin want to lean in, entrust him with his pain. 

“No,” Merlin answered. Better Arthur think him odd, odder than he already thought he was, than to be bound for the pyre because of a tired mistake.

Arthur squinted at him, but he saw nothing. With the few hours of rest that he had stolen, Merlin’s cracks had sealed themselves shut once more.

The prince stood straighter then and seemed to come to some decision. “I’m giving you the day off. Have some rest.” 

Merlin gauped. “The day off? No, I-?” 

“Are you really saying no to a day off?” 

“I’m fine just let me-!” He took a shaky step forward, trying to get around Arthur and into his chambers. 

But Arthur blocked his way. Their strange dance caused a pair of guards passing in the corridor to look over their shoulders quizzically as they passed. “No. That’s an order,” he said with finality. Somewhat awkwardly, he put a hand on his shoulder, holding him at a remove, meeting his eyes. “Just tell Gaius I had no need of your services today.” 

Defeated, Merlin could only nod and peel away. 

Later, Merlin looked up at the spiderwebbed ceiling of his little room, hearing the daytime noises outside. What had he done? Arthur was sure to sack him, his behaviour wasn’t normal. He had shown time and again he wasn’t a fit servant. How would he protect Arthur if he wasn’t by his side? 

When he returned to duty the next morning, he was utterly careful around Arthur. He kept his head down and worked but he could feel Arthur’s eyes on him all the while. When it came time for him to leave Arthur cleared his throat from his writing desk, automatically commanding Merlin’s attention. 

The prince was frowning but his eyes were keen, like he was a great deal more astute than Merlin assumed. “You lost a friend,” he said simply.

And Arthur was right. Why had Merlin thought he might be able to handle it, might be able to carry on normally? The ghost of Will cuffed his head and called a right plonker. “Yeah,” Merlin agreed. Then, “Thank you, Arthur, for yesterday.”

Arthur only nodded and they spoke no more of it.

***

Merlin needn’t have doubted that Arthur wished to keep him around. 

It was only a matter of weeks later that Arthur grabbed his goblet and drank what he knew to be poison, prepared to die in his stead. 

And not long later, Merlin tried to return the favour and give his life for Arthur, though Arthur may never come to know what he had done and all that he had risked. When it was all over, as he treated the burn on his chest alone in his little room, his thoughts whirled down into dark places. His mother and Gaius had all almost died in the whole ordeal. 

He had killed someone. An evil sorceress, but a someone nonetheless. 

It frightened him deeply, the lengths he had already gone to preserve Arthur’s life, and the lengths Arthur had gone to preserve his.  

The salve made his wound sting but he bit down on his own lips to silence whatever noise was trying to escape him.

He couldn’t shake the sense that the strength of their bond, whether it remained unspoken or not, might just kill one of them. 

***

When Freya died Merlin kept his distance, though he fought a war with that need inside of him, whether it was his magic or his own stupid feelings, to be near Arthur at all times. He knew it wasn't Arthur’s fault, he had only been fighting what he thought to be a monster, but the brief, vivid nightmares that startled him awake hadn't got the message. 

He tried to remember the prince’s kind words, “something's been upsetting you, hasn’t it?” He tried to call to mind the hand on his nape, the offered smile. But Freya’s face, pained, resigned, invaded each time. 

It wasn't Arthur’s fault, it wasn't- 

In bed, alone, with the castle veiled in night and sleep, Merlin cried quietly. 

In the morning he hated to see Arthur’s face fall into poorly disguised concern when he couldn't quite return his tentative smile. Still though Arthur respected his reticence and didn't ask questions.  

When Merlin dreamed again it was him in Freya’s place, slaughtered as a monster by the crown prince of Camelot, but it was in Arthur’s arms that he shook and bled. 

***

In Morgana's haunted expression, in her pale face, in her fits of sickness he saw his own worn reflection. He had the answers to the questions he had asked himself long ago because here, at last, was someone else captive to the magic inside of them. Kilgharrah knew that Merlin felt a kinship with her, and warned him again that she was dangerous, that she posed a great threat to Arthur.

So he didn’t extend his hand in friendship, he didn’t whisper his secrets to her. He watched as her magic, her sleeplessness and her fear whittled her into something near demented, desperate, and he turned his back. 

As usual he lay awake in the very dead of night. He found no comfort in knowing he wasn’t the only one.

Then he did more than turn away. He raised his hand. 

Anything, anything to protect Arthur. 

Chapter Text

Kilgharrah robbed what little sleep he could get, he never let him rest. It took its toll. He found himself being poked out of his grey daydreams by Arthur or the knights, or jumping at the simplest of things – once Gwen had entered the tent he was occupying on the edge of the training grounds and, his back turned, polishing, he startled so badly that he yelped and she screamed in reply, dropping the armour she’d been holding in an almighty clatter.

At this rate, some magical threat could come for Arthur and Merlin would be too impaired to stop it. Or worse, the prince could be assassinated the moment he managed to shut his eyes. 

What a tragic end to the story that would be.

He couldn't let it happen. 

He had not been capable of proper judgement when he freed Kilgharrah, he knew, because not even in his wildest nightmares had he imagined the destruction the dragon would reap. It was his fault, and it was his fault too that his father had been killed. The man should still be living and breathing in his cave and not dead in a hastily dug grave in the woods. He would still be alive if he hadn’t-

Merlin heard Arthur’s voice immediately through the closed door, but he did not stir from his bed. 

“I’m afraid he’s rather ill, Sire,” Gaius’ muffled voice explained, responding to a question Merlin could not hear. 

“Rather ill? What do you mean rather ill?” he asked, his voice louder now, pure disbelief dripping from the words, like there should be nothing, even sickness, that could take Merlin from his side.

“A fever,” the physician lied.

There was a pause. “When will he return to service?”

“I cannot say.” 

Footsteps, stilted ones.

“Is it bad, Gaius?” Arthur said faintly. 

“I’m caring for him,” was Gaius’ answer.

When Arthur was gone Merlin emerged with his blanket around his shoulders and stood in the doorway to his room. Gaius glanced up at him but did not cease his bumbling, there were still wounded around the town and he was clearly preparing to do rounds. “You let on to him that I was dying or something, why?” 

“Not a bad idea to worry him a little,” the old man answered, like there was something righteous in it. 

The blessed sufficiency of the sleep he had without Kilgharrah boring into his mind carried him back to Arthur’s chambers the following day, grief and despair set aside, for now. It was evening and someone had already served the prince his meal. Arthur froze, his knife in the air, and his gaze stuck on Merlin for a while, assessing him silently before clearing his throat.

“Good, you’re back,” he said. He discarded his knife and leaned back in his chair. “I had George clear my schedule tomorrow, we’re going hunting.”

Merlin blinked, catching up, he had barely entered the room. “Hunting?” 

“Did your fever take your hearing? Yes, Mer lin, hunting.” 

It was Merlin’s turn to assess the other now. He wasn’t fooled by the mock-casual way Arthur was sitting in his chair; there was tension in every line of him.

“Unless of course, you’re still...?” The word unwell went unspoken and Arthur seemed to still his movements to hear the answer. 

Merlin found himself leaping to reassure him. “No, m’fine. Shouldn’t be too hard to hand you pointy things for a few hours.” 

Arthur visibly relaxed. He rolled his eyes. “It should be, if you only took it seriously.”

Hunting, it turned out, was an excuse for time away from the castle because they simply rode from one quiet spot to the next. They rested and dipped their feet in sun glittered streams and springs until the sky went pink and the light faded.

They were taking a late meal together when Arthur finally spoke his reason aloud, unprompted. “I needed some reprieve, some time to just…” He trailed off and looked at Merlin a little beseechingly, like he was begging him to understand why he abandoned a still charred and grieving Camelot for this. 

“Y’don’t need to explain, not to me,” Merlin reassured him. 

Arthur's open and vulnerable expression, his creeping smile despite his still troubled eyes let Merlin know that he had said exactly what the prince needed to hear.

Guilt hit him then, as suddenly as an arrow. He had a compulsion to confess to Arthur that it was he who released the dragon so that Arthur could finally put his as yet unused crossbow to use. But he quickly put his own dark thoughts aside because he saw now that there was something a little desperate in the prince’s expression, something that Merlin recognised. Despite all of the things and the people that needed his attention, Arthur was crying out for rest, and unable to ask anyone else for it, he was seeking his permission from Merlin. Merlin gave it to him. Surreptitiously he put wards up around their camp and set a spell on the most likely area for an approach that would gently misdirect anyone who would decide to walk that way. 

They slept pressed back to back. It wasn't an hour later that Arthur turned and threw an arm over him. Nothing about his breathing indicated that he was asleep.

Merlin smiled inwardly and wriggled closer. Their breathing fell into time and Merlin dreamed of a coronation in the great hall, the sun golden, the crown golden, the new king, golden. 

In the morning Arthur, tireless, selfless Arthur, was back and Merlin promised himself that he would not let his mistakes bring harm or strife to the prince again. He would try harder, do better.

And all of this felt achievable, because Merlin had just had the best sleep of his entire life. 

Chapter Text

The kingdom was recovering from Morgana’s invasion and the king was all but catatonic in his chambers. Arthur’s schedule had never been more full yet he faced the running of the kingdom with a grace and stoicism that Merlin had always known him to be capable of. It wouldn't do just to be a good servant, Merlin was his shoulder to lean on. But as Lunasa neared he found himself less and less capable of being that shoulder.

“What’s wrong, Merlin?” Lancelot asked. He had accompanied him to the yard and had offered to exercise the horses that had been too-long cooped up in the stables. Finished and sweating in the summer heat, he was just now helping him stuff hay into nets.  

Merlin sighed and punched the hay down a little harder. “Arthur has me run off my feet, that’s all.”  

“There’s not something else?” his friend pressed. “You needn’t tell me if you don’t want to, but if you do…” 

“It’s-” Merlin looked around and over his shoulder. 

Lancelot moved closer, seeing immediately that this was something that Merlin needed to whisper, even though they were clearly alone in the stables. 

“It’s Lunasa, my…” he left out the word magic. “It wants to um, celebrate I guess... I’m not really sleeping.”

“What do we do, then, to celebrate?”

Merlin stopped and squinted, noting the word ‘we. ’ He ached to share this and after a moment’s hesitation, he gave in. “We’d make fires up the hills, have a feast, drive the cattle into the water to cleanse them. Not that we have any cattle here.”

“Would horses do?” 

Merlin nodded.   

Lancelot smiled conspiratorially. “It’s hot, very hot, the horses would benefit from a trip to the river.” 

The horses were tied up at the base of the promontory hill, cool now having been led through the water. The castle, despite its immensity, was tucked out of sight. Instead their view was of the treetops and the path, appearing here and there through the canopy, that Merlin had taken all those years ago when he first came to Camelot. This spot felt as secluded as it felt exposed to the open air. Merlin breathed and his breath came in easier. He set about taking the firewood he had carried here off of his back.

Some might argue it was too warm for a fire, but they had to dry their wet clothes somehow. 

“Light it.” Lancelot urged him once they had laid out the wood together. Merlin knew he wasn’t trying to spur him on, it was gentle assent and he could take or leave it.  

Merlin raised his hand. The air waved with heat, and the wood blackened, charred and popped until flames whooshed forth.  

Lancelot’s mouth was agape watching the last of the sparks when Merlin looked back. He laughed at himself when he caught his friend looking and settled down against a stone. Merlin settled beside him and watched his handiwork, the flames were pale in the sun but blazing strong. 

He remembered other hilltop fires and those he shared them with. 

“You said you haven’t been sleeping,” Lancelot prompted.

Merlin sighed, scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. I wish the world would stop long enough for me to catch my breath.” 

“Why do I feel that it might be within your powers to stop it?” 

Merlin scratched the back of his neck. “Ugh, well…” 

Lancelot seemed to choke on nothing. “You’re not joking?” 

“It’s not particularly restful though… Can’t do it for long.” 

“So if stopping time is off the table, will you sleep tonight, will this help?” 

“I sleep better when I’m next to Arthur.” 

Lancelot raised an eyebrow at him, turning his head slowly toward him. Then he laughed. 

Merlin laughed too at the ridiculousness of it all. He wiped tears from his eyes. “I don't know why you're laughing, or why I'm laughing,” he struggled. “S’not funny.” 

The other shook his head, recovering. “No, but I believe that makes us a pair.” 

“What, you also sleep better when-?” 

The knight cut him off with a good natured laugh, but his eyes were a little sad. “No, I meant,” he trailed off, “Arthur is… in love.” 

“With Gwen,” Merlin finished for him. 

“Yes.” 

“And Gwen…” 

Lance nudged him where they sat. “But we carry on, if only for the love of them.” 

“Yeah,” Merlin nodded, looking down at his feet, then back to the flames. By now, his magic was settling like a sleepy dog by the fire. “Thank you, Lance.”

“And where have you been?” Arthur asked later, arms akimbo. He reached for him and led him by the back of his neck the rest of the way into the room. He leaned close suddenly, his nose scrunched. “You smell of smoke.” 

Chapter Text

The Dorocha were defeated. Lancelot was gone. 

Every new grief was just that, new grief, no one before quite prepared Merlin for the shape and strength of the next. That didn’t stop him from going through the same motions, from the sleeplessness to the midnight walk to Arthur’s door. It wasn’t long later that Arthur emerged with a candle, expecting him, and brought him quietly inside. 

They didn’t go to the bed but sat on the sheepskin by the fire and shared a cup of wine that looked black in the meagre light. 

Arthur was sitting with his back against one of the chairs, looking deeply tired. “What Sir Lancelot did, never has there been a more noble man,” he said eventually. 

Merlin nodded in agreement and sniffed, quickly dabbing at his eyes before they spilled. 

Arthur raised the cup in a silent toast to the departed knight, took a swig and handed it over. Merlin did the same. The wine was suitably strong and burned his empty stomach. They had both expected to sacrifice themselves, Merlin realised, and in this way Lancelot had sacrificed himself in both their steads. 

They drank, and at length Merlin looked into the cup with its dwindling contents, only to be reminded of that dark place, those towering ruins. What a terrible place for a shining life to end, for a friend to die.

They sat in silence for a long time. The heat of the fire did nothing to stop Merlin’s shivering, borne as it was from exhaustion and emotion. Selfishly, he found there was more than just their shared loss on his mind. 

The last time that they sat alone by a fire like this Lancelot was alive and Arthur, expecting to die, had given something most precious, too precious, to Merlin. Steeling himself, he fished for the little pouch he’d secured around his neck. Arthur was watching him intently, barely an arms length away, highlighted in firelight. When he took it off and took out the sigil that had belonged to Arthur’s mother, he swore he heard Arthur swallow audibly. It quickly warmed in Merlin’s hands but his fingerprints left smudges on the silver. 

Shakily, he tried to pass it to Arthur. His voice was very tight when he spoke. “You should give this to Gwen, not me.” 

Instantly, a different kind of grief washed over the prince’s face. Merlin understood then that it was as he dared not let himself think or believe. This thing was a confession made manifest, the admission of a man who thought he would die tomorrow and not live out the implications or consequences.

Arthur didn’t take it. He looked ahead, though not at the flames, his eyes were unfocussed. “Gwen was beside herself, you saw her. She cared for me but it was Lancelot that she truly loved, I realise that now.” 

“Arthur-” Merlin started, feeling the sigil grow heavier in his hand.

“Maybe she could grow to love me,” he continued. “I certainly… Or I thought I did… When I was honest with myself-” 

Merlin’s heart was like the thump of a hare’s hind foot. “I can’t accept this,” he told him, breathless now. 

“Why?” 

Merlin looked into the prince’s sad, unguarded eyes, thought about all of his terrible secrets and despaired. “I’m not worthy,” he choked out. 

Arthur looked ready to crawl towards him, maybe to embrace him. “Merlin, you’re worthy of-!” 

They were careening fast into unexpected and dangerous territory, he needed to get them off this course. “To hold it, Arthur!” he said frantically, allowing them the pretense that they had been talking about something else all along. “I can’t, it was your mother’s!”

Arthur sat up slowly, opened his mouth but then closed his eyes and bit down whatever words he was going to say. Instead, roughly, he said, “I never felt worthy of holding it either. She died bringing me into this world, and now a friend has died for Camelot when it should have been me.” He slid closer then and reached out.

Merlin thought that he would finally take it but instead he closed Merlin’s hand around the object. 

“If you won’t keep it for yourself, then I ask that you keep it for me until I feel I’m ready for it,” he beseeched him evenly, though his eyes betrayed some of the emotion that he was rapidly locking away.

Merlin didn’t like the idea that Arthur thought so little of himself. Gentle Ygraine would think him more than worthy, not only of her sacrifice but to carry this symbol of her name, he was certain. 

Ygraine, there was another point of pain and guilt, another reason why he could not accept this token for himself. Merlin had lied to this man that he loved, he had lied too much to let himself be known like Arthur wished to know him, or to allow him to bear the burden of so complicated a love. 

So he forced himself to nod and say, “I will, I don't agree with you, but I will.” When Arthur let go of his hand, his magic felt wounded, like it had been slapped hard away from the thing it wanted, that he wanted, most.  

He tucked the sigil back inside the pouch carefully, willing his own emotions down.

Arthur cleared his throat. 

Merlin looked up. There was almost no room at all between them now.

His voice was low, a little broken like he’d been shouting. “I’ll understand if you wish to…” leave , he didn’t say. 

Merlin shook his head emphatically. “I’ll be by your side Arthur, right where I’m supposed to be.”

Their eyes caught. There was a crease between Arthur’s brows, ever confused by his servant’s abiding loyalty. “I’ll understand if you wish to leave my chambers .” 

It was just like Arthur to take for granted that Merlin would be by his side, even when he’d almost died just a day ago, even when he’d rejected his barely veiled advances. Merlin couldn’t help his small, watery smile. 

That seemed to relax the prince. It was clear however, that despite Merlin’s rejection, Arthur didn't want him to leave. 

“I’ll stay right here, I think,” Merlin reassured him, trying to maintain his smile. 

Arthur searched his eyes, and Merlin was sure that he saw the battle he fought within to keep himself from reaching out. Then, respectfully, the prince bowed his head and withdrew.

The bed was reserved for lovers and they were not that, so Merlin took the chair by the fire, his heart aching. Under Arthur’s borrowed furs he slept long but shallowly and dreamt of departed friends.

Chapter Text

The great sweep of the darkened grove seemed to breathe, and Merlin, despite the peril that had preceded this moment, breathed too, surfaced, seemingly, from the fitful, wakeful dreaming of the past few years. 

When was the last time he had breathed so deeply? When he had allowed his senses to extend to what was around him or roam beyond? This place… this place and everything in it was not just there for his perceiving, it whispered to him in a language of its own and yet he understood; he understood the exactitude of the yew trees’ reaching, their very ancient, deliberate pace toward the south where the sun made its path, he understood that the short-lived insects crawling and on the wing did so inexorably toward their very own destinies. 

Here, he found he could peer through the tight, familiar weave of magic. He saw that everything was made of the same fine masonry and was the way it was by sublime accident, like the gods had planted the seed but had stepped away to let nature take its course. 

“How did you know this place was sacred?” Arthur asked, reclining against the slope, his mail and sword catching the light occasionally. Arthur, Arthur, troubled, older, but alive, the man that magic had sculpted for itself, deliberate, perfect.

“Well it’s obvious.” 

“Pretend it isn’t.”

“Everything here… is so full of life, every tree, every leaf… every insect. It's as if the world is vibrating, as if everything is much more than itself.”

“You feel all that?” Arthur asked him.

“Don’t you?” 

The king shook his head. 

Finished with tending the fire, Merlin sat on the opposite slope and asked, “what will you do?” 

“I don't know. My heart says do everything I can to save Mordred, but I’ve seen what misery unfettered sorcery brings. Before my father outlawed magic, Camelot was almost destroyed by sorcery and in my own time Morgana has used it for nothing but evil… What would you do, in my place?” 

“Me?” Merlin panicked. “I’m just a lackey, maker of beds.” He had this dream before, this nightmare, to have to choose between Arthur and magic, one man or a whole people, he had made the choice again and again and it had always been Arthur. Kilgharrah and sorcerers both accused him of turning his back on magic; for years, or maybe since the beginning, he had been his king’s servant first and Emrys last.

“Lackeys can be wise,” Arthur urged him on.

It would be too cruel if it wasn’t what Merlin deserved. Arthur was supposed to be the one to bring magic back to Camelot and unite Albion but here, now, fate seemed to have diverged from the path that depended on his survival. Merlin had heeded none of Kilgharrah’s warnings, Morgana and Mordred were still alive and magic was still a death sentence in Camelot. 

Here, now, surely, fate was punishing him, presenting him with two choices, both contradictions, both equally impossible.

Across the way, Arthur was watching him very intently. “It’s not like you to be silent,” he commented.

“The future of the kingdom is at stake,” Merlin stalled.

“And a man’s life,” he added.

Merlin swallowed, a killer’s life, the life of the one fated to take Arthur away from him. Now, with Arthur listening like this so openly, waiting for his opinion, Merlin had the chance to save his people, or do the unspeakable to save this man that he loved. 

The trees were taking their long exhale and in their breath they whispered Emrys . The insects sang and in their song Emrys, Emrys!  

He felt pulled in every direction, everything here, from the living to the inanimate told him it would not lose that which made them. It all cried out to him as one, and although nothing could speak true words he heard it all the same, the name that had always felt bigger than he was, Emrys! Emrys! Emrys!  

He did his best to ignore it and he told Arthur, “you must protect Camelot, you must protect the world you spent your life building, a just and fair kingdom for all.” 

“You’d have me sacrifice a friend?” 

“I would have you become the king you’re destined to be.”

Arthur sat up, the fire lighting his face. “If I do save Mordred, all of my father’s work will be for nothing, sorcery would reign once more in Camelot, is that what you’d want?” 

Merlin didn’t answer. He didn’t know the answer, not when such a world could still lead to Arthur’s death by Mordred’s hand. There woud be nothing golden about an age brought about in this way, upon Merlin’s mistakes and Arthur’s life. 

The grove was not just speaking his name now, it was speaking Arthur’s, Arthur who had as many names as he. It had always known his name, Merlin realised.

“Perhaps my father was wrong, perhaps the old ways aren't as evil as we thought… So what should we do? Accept magic, or let Mordred die?”

‘We,’ they had always been we, even if neither of them had said it aloud. Merlin’s view of him washed over with tears. Arthur was made by and of magic, if Merlin was of magic, then they were of each other; he was one, always one, with Arthur.  

All span about him, calling to him, calling to Arthur though he could not hear it. It was overwhelming. He hadn’t realised that he had fallen back onto his bedroll until Arthur lurched from where he sat, alarmed. 

“Merlin, what-?!” 

He could see it. The ‘circle of fate’ was indeed closing, but here was an opportunity to take a path unseen when all others had been barred to them, an altered fate. And suddenly he understood. Magic was showing him the way forward, it cherished Arthur as he did.

Arthur’s concerned face invaded his view of the moon silvered canopy. His hands were on his shoulders as he looked over him, mild panic twisting his beloved face. 

Merlin allowed Arthur to help him back up into a seated position and hold his shoulder to steady him.

“Merlin tell me, what’s-?” 

His tears spilled so that when he opened his mouth in a silent sob, he tasted salt. He gripped the other’s arm tightly until the words came, his breath hitching irregularly. “You can't deny it forever… magic, and you can't fight it. Maybe you can't feel it but it's-it’s in everything.” 

“...What? ”

“Please,” he choked. “Magic must be embraced in Camelot once more.” 

Arthur reared back onto his haunches but he kept his eyes on him, cautious. “You've never been one to defend magic, why now?” 

“Because- I…” He tried, but his throat tightened, he didn’t have the courage just yet. “Like you said, the old ways, they're not- they’re not as evil as you thought. It’s your destiny to make sure all of your people are-are free in Camelot.”

Arthur’s expression shifted to something new, like something was dawning on him. He reached out again, held his arm. “You’re shaking… You talk so much of destiny, tell me, why?” 

“You're the Once and Future King.” 

Arthur made a bitter, mirthless noise.  “So I’ve heard… Once, Future and Dread King.” 

“Dread King to some, but that was my fault, I should have… I could have… I didn't know how…” 

Arthur shook him a little. “You’re starting to sound mad, more mad than usual. Talk plainly. Why? ” 

He had to answer him, it was too late now. What a strange relief to finally be on the precipice of this confession. The grove held its breath. “Because I have a destiny too, I was born to serve you, to help you do what you were always meant to do.” 

Arthur scrunched his nose in disbelief, he looked like he might laugh, like there was a possibility of this being a strange and elaborate joke. “Born to serve me? To serve me?! Born?!” 

“I was born with magic and of magic, and all of this time I've used it for you, to protect you. You’re supposed to be a great king, who will unite Albion under peace.” 

It was a solid few seconds before Arthur spoke again. “You don’t- Merlin, you can’t have magic, you can’t have been born with it! And I’m-!”

“I was. More than that, Arthur, I feel everything, always, the moon and the sun, everything, it’s always had a hold on me, demanding a worship I don’t always know how to give. I can feel the animals, the trees, the water, the heart of the world beating hot below us, but most importantly I think I’ve always known you, I was always meant to be by your side. The druids call me Emrys.” Before Arthur could act, from the hidden pouch beneath his neckerchief he took out Ygraine’s sigil. He went forward and Arthur fell back, scrambling backward and away, looking above and behind him for the sword that he had jammed into the earth. Rather than follow him, Merlin kneeled, sitting on his knees, and bowed his head. He presented the sigil to Arthur in a cupped hand.

Arthur’s unkingly scrambling stopped abruptly. “Merlin,” he whispered, in horror and in pain.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Punish me for deceiving you, my life is yours,” Merlin said in anguish. “I’ll go gladly to the pyre if you wish me to, I’ll gladly die by your sword, if that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want..!” His grimace fell into sadness, he righted himself, sitting again on his bedroll, his sword in reach once more. “I thought I knew you.” 

Merlin’s tears made a reappearance. “You do, I’m still me.”

Silence again, then, “If I’m to believe you, if this is true, why tell me now? Why not before.”  

He laughed bitterly. He rose his head to look at him. “You’d have chopped my head off.” 

Arthur paled and looked away. “I don’t know what I would have done.” 

“And because this is my last chance, not just for my people but for all of Camelot, and for you. I loved you too much, before, to put you in that position.” The word slipped out because now, for once, he would tell the whole truth.

Arthur's head snapped up. “You loved me?”

“Love you,” he corrected. “But it doesn’t matter now.” He bowed his head lower, exposing his neck like he was putting it upon an executioner’s block. He held the sigil higher. “You have always been a worthy king and a worthy man, but I’ve never been worthy of you. You should take this back. That it’s come down to this, accept magic or face ruin, Mordred lives or he dies, it means I failed. It should have gone different.”

The grove was still quiet, completely in fact, because not a sound reached his ears now. It made Arthur’s silence all the more deafening.

“Arthur?”

“If what you say is true,” Arthur said slowly. “Show me. If I’m to make this decision I need you to show me that it’s the right path. Stop bowing to me. You’ve never bowed to me before, don’t start now.” 

When he righted himself, the king’s eyes were wet. Arthur made his way backward, back to his bedroll. He didn’t reach for his sword. “Show me.”

Merlin placed the sigil on his own thigh, putting it down would feel like sacrilege, putting it back in the pouch around his neck would feel wrong. 

He raised his hand and from the embers of the fire, a small dragon coalesced, every detail perfect, alive as magic was alive. When it moved its wings, it shed benign little sparks into the air.

Arthur watched. He looked like a man shipwrecked, Merlin recalled moments that he had seen him like this, when he was grieving his father, when his kingdom was captured.

“It’s hard to believe… All this time.” 

“I know.” 

More silence, and then Arthur looked from the dragon to meet Merlin’s eyes steadily.

“And everything you said about destiny, all of that is true?”

“Yes.”

“What else can you show me?” 

“Anything.” 

“Anything? Then do it, anything.”

Merlin took a moment to decide what to do. “Bléwaþ.” 

Arthur flinched, no doubt it was the change of his eyes in the dark, his recollections of when pain or heartache had proceeded just such a thing. Merlin’s magic seemed to focus on Arthur, to show him a gentle, but impossible spectacle of wood anemone unfurling from the earth all about him. The buds rose then opened one by one, the flowers were white and gleaming in the night. They did not stop until they formed a carpet between them. At some point in the process, Arthur’s mouth had fallen open.

The dragon Merlin had conjured was still flying in place in the air. He let it perform a little loop before he dismissed it, and it became a small shower of light.

“Can you heal a person with your magic?” Arthur asked hoarsely once he had recovered.

“Yes, though not as well as I’d like.” 

“Can you curse someone?” 

“I haven’t tried.” 

“Kill?” 

“Yes.” 

That seemed to surprise and sadden him both, but it did not seem to scare him. “You don’t think magic is evil?”

“No, do you?” 

“I don’t know what to think anymore… But you’re the person I trust most.” Trust, he said, not trusted. “Should I accept magic again in my kingdom?”

“You’re still asking me?” 

“Yes.”

Merlin wasn’t sure if his heart was soaring or falling, he was teetering on a terrible precipice, he was standing at the fork of two paths. “You should accept it because it can be used for good. Magic is at its most dangerous wielded in revenge, that’s all you’ve seen of it all of your life, it’s my fault that you haven’t had the chance to see it any other way. But you’ve been a good king to the druids, and to Mordred, you did that on your own, you learned that they were peaceful.” 

Arthur’s eyes were haunted. “I’ve made mistakes, things I can’t take back.” 

“So I have I,” Merlin smiled sadly.

He nodded and was lost for a moment to contemplation.

The fire snapped.

“Then I’ll accept it.”

A disbelieving sob was ripped out of Merlin. Defying his king for perhaps the thousandth time, he bowed once more and his tears pattered into the newborn leaves. 

“But you need to tell me, tell me everything.” 

He wiped tear after tear from his face as he rose. “I will, Arthur, I’ll tell you, I promise,” though the prospect brought him a renewed wave of dread. “I want to show you too, what magic can be like.” 

Arthur lay back on his bedroll and breathed, like the past few minutes had been a great exertion. Merlin sat sentinel through the other’s silence. When the fire showed signs of dying, he pocketed the sigil temporarily, rose and picked his way through the flowers to tend to it. 

When he glanced over at his king, his expression told Merlin that he was seeing Arthur at his most vulnerable. He looked ready to break into pieces and Merlin could feel the pain his other half was in. “You said you love me.” 

And at that, all Merlin could do was surge forward through the wood anemones, if Arthur met him with his sword he would do as he had said and die glady. Instead he was met with waiting arms that Arthur said in whispers had waited too long to hold him, lips that had he said had waited too long to kiss him. 

The first songs of the dawn chorus started when all was still in deep darkness. Merlin could feel the sun’s approach below the horizon and he wondered if the birds did too.

“Don’t fall asleep, it’s almost time,” Arthur told him. 

That was a tall order. He was warm here by the fire, his head in Arthur’s lap, thumbing the sigil in one hand. He had insisted that he keep it, that he had long meant for it to be his.   

Merlin had told him everything, and still the king had not killed him, still he was scratching his fingers through his hair, he had even said ‘thank you.’

“Have you ever given into it?” he asked above him.

“Hm?” Merlin stirred. “Given into what?” 

“These uh- wishes of yours, what your magic compels you to do?” 

Merlin turned up to look at him, yawned. “What, lie naked in the grass at dawn?” 

Arthur burst into barking laughter, folded over him a little to squeeze him. “Is that what you want to do?” 

“Yeah,” he mumbled, settling back down.

“Merlin, you’re falling asleep again. What else does it want you to do? Merlin?”

Chapter Text

All around Camelot, the hearths were cold and by now, Merlin knew, the homes were empty.

Upon this tree-lined hill he could see the long procession of people, and soon, the man who led it, distant but regal in his crown and heavy red cloak. He and a small crowd of druids waited silently for them to arrive by the wood and tinder piled high into a peak at the crest.

The sun was setting near to the south-west, as it did this time of year, lighting the sky in pink and orange and then a deepening purple as the dark gathered and as the people of Camelot stepped from the trees onto the hill.

Bridging the gap and as his people slowly filed into a rough circle, Arthur greeted the druids. He bowed his head, clasped hands with them, greeting each by name as he did so. There was one robed, white-haired woman whose name he did not seem to catch, but whose wizened hand he held regardless. Merlin didn’t think he knew her either, in fact, he had failed to notice her until this moment. 

Mordred and Kara approached, and Arthur squeezed their shoulders and congratulated them on their recent betrothal. 

His smile was wide, boyish, when he finally turned to Merlin. Merlin kissed his cheek, cold from the journey and smiled back. Arthur caught the happy tears that ran unbidden from his eyes. 

This was the first Samhain fire in Camelot since Arthur was born. Magic had proved itself a boon to the people, particularly for the farmers and the sick, and most had embraced it readily. Kings and their kingdoms come and go; it shouldn’t have surprised Arthur that there were those among his people who were holding fast all this time, waiting for the end to the dark days. And here they were, even as they stepped foot into winter. 

The damage had been done however, and it was irreparable. There were creatures of magic vanished from the world, whole peoples and their knowledge lost or whittled down to their smallest units, manuscripts locked in a vault, two dragons, one dragonlord. 

The people took their places and their murmurings settled in anticipation as all light except that of the stars and the moon, disappeared from the sky. 

Behind them, pitch torches were being lit and one by one they were handed to them, Mordred, Kara, the elderly druidess, Merlin and Arthur. They came to stand at five points around the wood heap, their torches throwing heat and sparks into the night.

“The sun is at its half-way point between light and dark!” Mordred said, unseen to Merlin on the opposite side, just loud enough that all could hear. There was a pause and his magic told him the second something had caught, a change in the masonry. The crowd followed, cheers going up across the hill. 

“Just as the year wanes, the triple goddess shows us her aged face!” Kara shouted, confident, unafraid, happy. Another pause. More cheers.

To his right, the druid woman knelt slowly, her knees clearly giving her trouble, and touched her torch to the tinder. “The dead walk among us once more,” she declared, her voice hoarse, deep rather than thin, yet infused with her years. The flames caught immediately, Camelot’s people cheered again. This time, Merlin saw them looping arms around each other, embracing the people that remained and remembering others that had departed.

“Let this fire honour them!” Merlin said loudly, trying to keep the wobble out of his voice. He took the step forward and brought his torch down. Beside him, the old woman was regarding him, her face half-lit. Her slightly milky eyes had a depth of age that he had not seen on another person. Recognition, old and familiar, like his mother, like the old elm, like the river unseen or the mushrooms by Will’s house that still appeared year after year, brought a cradling warmth that in turn brought tears to his eyes. 

A fresh cheer told him that the fire had caught. 

There was a flash of a smile in the woman’s eyes just before they left him and she craned her neck up to gaze at the stars. 

Merlin, a tearful smile of his own on his face, looked to Arthur. 

The fire was already captured in the gold of his crown. His gaze was fast on the bonfire, solemn. He knelt too, and it looked like he was showing fealty and begging forgiveness both.

His voice rang out over the hill when he straightened. “Let this light be a beacon so that they may join us this night!”  

They stood back. Merlin uttered his spell at the smoking pile. The little fires flared high. Merlin’s hand slipped into Arthur’s. 

Soon, the fire, the largest he had seen, was roaring up into the damp night air. They had to stand well-back, or feel the burn on their skin. Huge embers moved with the wind, burning out, falling uselessly to the grass or landing on the clothes of people, only to be patted out by the palm of a neighbour. Gwen and Gaius found them, then the knights, Gwaine, Percival, Leon, Mordred. Who else was here with them sharing the heat of the fire? Merlin could only guess, only the prickling of his skin told him that they were there. It had been a long time, he supposed, since Camelot’s dead had been able to find their way home. 

When the fire was low and had burnt down to a more reasonably sized bonfire, the wheel was brought out from the dark. The wheel was a circular bale of hay shot through with a long sturdy pole so that it could be rolled. 

Merlin and Arthur took their position on one side, Mordred and Kara on the other. Rolling the thing took effort, even more so when they approached the heat. Merlin was laughing and sweating when they brought it into the fire, scattering the burning wood and setting it alight, the disturbed flames flaring dangerously around it. He was laughing and sweating even more when they tried to roll it out to the other side. 

“Come on, Merlin!” Arthur egged him on in his ear, seeing his struggle. 

Too breathless with mirth and effort, Merlin didn’t have a retort, especially not when Arthur was looking at him so softly like that. 

Finally clearing the fire they brought their fiery charge to the very crest of the hill. 

“Make way!” Someone shouted. Others echoed the words until the crowd parted.

They pushed.

It left them, sending flames into the air and embers into the grass as it tumbled, bounced and picked up speed. It became a pinwheel, a violent and quickly disappearing comet curving down the unseen contours of the hill, flashing in and out of view until it was a dying star in the far distance. 

The crowd erupted into the loudest cheers yet.

Orion was setting and the moon was well-past its meridian when the fire finally died into air shimmering, smouldering cinders. 

Those who had not brought something with them were scattered and searching in the dark for mosses, mushrooms and other things that would insulate and burn slowly. Gwen handed out a few tin containers that she had made to aid their efforts. 

Lit and cradled carefully in the hands of hundreds, the embers made their way down the hill to the many hearths of Camelot. Merlin held his ember in his cupped hands, a naked glowing thing spelled not to burn him or be put out by the light wind that battled it. Arthur walked with his arm slung around his shoulders, tucking him close.

Cook would have lit the hearth in the kitchens so they went to their chambers. Placing it among the tinder, they breathed life into it together. 

There was a simple bread of dried fruits sitting by the fire, an offering to the dead. In an untouched room not far from theirs, they had placed another offering. Morgana’s support had dwindled over the past year until she and the threat that she had long-posed had all but disappeared. Some said that she lived wretched and alone somewhere far from here, others said she was gathering her strength and others still said she was dead. If she was dead, neither Merlin nor her brother wished to leave her spirit wandering and uncared for while there was still memory of her in this world. 

They undressed and went to bed.

Merlin stretched beside Arthur, his joints popping, before lying down next to him.

He could warm them with just a word, he did not. Under the blankets they warmed each other’s night-chilled skin, lying close and clasping hands until they could run them up and down each other’s sides and backs slowly. 

They stayed like this on the edge of sleep for a spell until Arthur stirred a little. 

“Hm?” Merlin asked wordlessly. 

“What was the name of that druid girl? I didn’t know her,” he asked. 

Girl? Kara had been the only druid girl there, but Merlin knew he wasn’t talking about her.  

“She lit the fire with us,” he went on.

“My heart,” Merlin laughed, wondering at the strangeness of it, this odd difference in their perception and experience. “We were in the presence of the goddess.” Thinking about it now, just as he hadn’t noticed her arrival, he also hadn’t noticed her leaving. 

But a beautiful dream was dangling just within his reach, too enticing to take in his love’s noises of disbelief and demands for an explanation. 

The dead returned to the otherworld, the rising sun lit the land, the tide began to pull away from the shore, the final ember died in the wind on the hill, Arthur gently kissed Merlin’s closed eyes and in his arms, Merlin fell sound asleep.