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Chapter 1: Old Friends
It wasn't the first time Arthur had had this kind of dream. He had been getting them fro years. He also knew (never mind how crazy it sounded) that they weren't just dreams. The dreams where more like memories. Fuzzy hazed memories, but memories none the less. His father had thought he was crazy, as had everyone else, but his three friends.
He had grown up with Leon and more than once had endured the same nightmarish memory. They were knights fighting off the army of a crazed woman, hell bent on killing them. Leon called out to him when a boy was about to stab him in the back. They would turn to see an old man screaming his name. The two boys would never tell, only keeping their strange dreams to them self after their parents had been concerned enough to send them to a psychiatrist, when they were ten.
Two years later they meet Gwaine. They had made fun of his name only to have the horrific flash backs of watching him being tortured next to a man they didn't recognise. Since that moment, they were the closes of friends and inseparable. If Arthur didn't know any better he'd had said they'd have known each other their entire lives. Gwaine was a joker, a much needed addition to the duo, Leon was always so reserved and quiet and Arthur was arrogant and proud.
A year after that they meet Gwen and Arthurs arrogates fell away, well for the most part, and both Gwaine and Leon agreed that he became less insufferable, but he did change. Gwen was beautiful kind and loving. She was everything that made a person beautiful wrapped up in one wonderful package. But she, like the boys, was having strange dreams and tried to avoid them. They were the strange boys she kept seeing in her dreams. But Arthur managed to wiggle his way in to her hart and a year after his father's death, at the ripe old age of eighteen, they moved in together.
This is where they were now with Arthur and Gwen asleep in their bed whilst, Gwaine and Leon were passed out on the couch, from their late night binge drinking, curtesy to Arthur's twentieth birthday party. Arthur was having a rather lucid dream.
A boy, maybe a year younger then him. All elbows and knees stud in front of him. The boy's foot was resting on the target shield.
"Hey come on that's enough" His voice was so familiar.
"What?"
"You've had your fun my friend."
"Do I know you?"
"I'm Merlin."
The name caused him pain. He felt grief, anger and loneliness all at once. He wanted to strangle the boy and hug him at the same time.
Just like that the scene changed. A man, an older man was being pressed down on a chair eyes wide looking up at him, Arthurs sword at his throat. Just one more move and he'd be dead…
The doors swung open to reveal Merlin.
"Arthur! Don't!" He rushed to his side. "I know you don't want to do this!"
He was overwhelmed with anger. "My Mother is dead because of him!"
"Killing your father won't bring her back."
The scene changed again and the two were sitting on the steps of a castle.
"Maybe you should take some time…Become King."
…
"Arthur!" Gwen's voice shattered his dream and he jolted upright in their bed, only to be met by a man in a mask pointing something at him.
"Get up!" the man growled. Arthur didn't move, but instead shifted in front of Gwen. He looked around to find his two friends beaten and bloody, tied up in the corner.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
A strange light came from the point of the strange object and hit him on the chest. Letting out a scream of pain when it felt like he was being stabbed by millions of burning hot knifes. Gwen screamed his name in fear.
Arthur gasped when the pain ended, looking at the man in shook.
"I said get up!"
Slowly he got to his feet covering Gwen the best he could. "What do you wat?"
"Oh shut up!" Another voice came from the living room. It was a woman's voice. She spat on Leon as she said her next words. "Muggles. Are they all this stupid or do we just have the look to get a bright ones." She walked over to Gwaine. "All though this ones quite handsome."
Arthur who was being led by the first intruder Gwen clinging to his back, glared at the women who was leering at his friend.
"Let's just grab this and be done with it." The man muttered board from behind them.
"If you insi…" But she couldn't finish that sentence because Arthur had shoved Gwen out the way and punched the man. Causing him to drop the strange object. The women, momentarily stunned, was attacked by the still boned Gwaine, who swung his legs underneath her.
"Sorry Sweetheart you're just not my type." He huffed as he tried to wriggle his way out of his bonds.
"Why you little... Petrificus Totalus" She yelled and Gwaine froze instantly. She raised her hand to Arthur who was now wrestling with the man on the floor. "Cruic…"
"I don't think you want to do that." A third voice boomed. The voice held so much authority that everyone in the room froze. The four friends couldn't help but think that the voice was familiar and when Arthur turned to see an old man standing there with pricing blue eyes.
"Merlin?" he whispered.
"Hello Dolephead."