AN: Hello there! This is probably a two-shot, and maybe a little OOC. It made me happy. It's just meant to be an optimistic and fun little reveal scene that could have happened. Read on, friend! :)
The patrol was ambushed. As usual. Luckily it had happened while Gwaine was in the middle of one of his long-winded speeches about apples. And food. And mead. And pretty much anything that was entering in his head. So that's something. It was, speech including, a normal patrol. Arthur and Merlin up front, as Arthur insisted on coming even though he knew it would probably be ambushed. The prat. Behind him was Leon, then Percival, then Gwaine, then Elyan. Just as Gwaine was rating his night's sleep by the number of apple/food related dreams, something spooked the horses. They took off running, and it must have been magic because without fail every single member of the patrol - though not Merlin, Gwaine noticed - was thrown from his horse. As soon as they had all landed, large, strong men leaped down from the trees and materialized (not literally) from the bushes surrounding the trail. A huge mountain sloped up on either side; they were trapped.
"Bandits!" Arthur yelled. As if it weren't obvious. They all drew their swords, and Merlin ran behind a tree, having dismounted. Gwaine wondered about that. Why is it that Merlin is always running and hiding? Certain times, he'd seen the young manservant be braver than all the rest. Gwaine also noticed that Merlin was behind the tree Arthur was fighting in front of. What did he intend to do?
Gwaine heard the clash of sword-on-sword, and he whipped around. Sure enough, Elyan had just been knocked down. He was fine, though a little shocked. The huge, burly man - bigger than even Percival - was smiling menacingly, and the ground shook when he stepped. Gwaine knew he would have to defeat him with skill. That was fine. Skill was his specialty.
"Hey, mate!" He screamed, getting the big guy's attention and drawing him away from Elyan. He lumbered over, lifting a sword almost taller than Gwaine himself. The guy was huge, but he wasn't fast nor graceful. He stabbed, Gwaine parried, and threw in a stab of his own. It wasn't to actually hit the bandit, it was to force him to parry. He did just that, making Gwaine smile as wide as his apple dreams did. Or apples themselves. Mustn't get distracted, Gwaine told himself. The guy stabbed again but Gwaine sidestepped, and the big, heavy guy wearing big, heavy armor stumbled forward, the weight he had put into his stab pulling him down. Gwaine knock the butt of his sword into the guy's head, denting his helmet and knocking him out cold. He could've killed him, but it didn't feel right. So instead he helped Elyan up, and surveyed the scene to see who he should help. Elyan had moved on and was helping Leon, Percival was doing quite well on his own. He turned to Arthur, just in time to see the bandit (probably the leader) whack his royal dollop-headedness clean over the head. Arthur crumpled, and the guy was just about to stab the king through his heart. Gwaine tried to run towards him, but cold sharp steel sliced down his leg and he fell too. It was the huge bandit! He had somehow regained enough consciousness to slice Gwaine with that immensely long sword of his.
"I knew I should have killed him," Gwaine muttered to himself. This had all happened in the half a moment that the leader of the bandit's sword was still moving to Arthur's unconscious body. Gwaine watched helplessly. Then he saw something that took him completely by surprise, so much so that he wasn't even sure he had seen it. Merlin, of all people, poked his head out from behind the tree. He glanced up, then looked back at the bandit. He seemed to come to a decision. Then, he muttered something in a low whisper that Gwaine could not make out. His eyes glowed a brilliant gold. The tree branch which he had glanced up too a moment ago was severed clean off its tree, and it fell with perfect timing, knocking out the bandit.
Merlin had just saved Arthur's life. With magic.
Gwaine lost consciousness.
