Nothing.
Arthur didn't have much used to poetry, or a rhyming scheme. He had to focus on the important matters of running a kingdom. He had to focus on the war of magic they were facing, the anniversary of the Purge coming. He was training the new batch of knights in defense of Camelot.
He never thought about how his father and mother fell in love.
He never wondered if his mother had been wooed, and what ways his father used to win his mother over. Father never spoke of her, only of her passing caused by magic. Arthur never asked questions.
Arthur could never open a book of poems to pursue after a long day.
There was never time.
He never wanted to waste time.
Arthur had too much to do.
There was no one who he could share those moments with, besides.
His heart had no time for wonderings.
No time to pine and long and desire.
He could only exist as an extension of his father.
He could only work the way his father's rules demanded he did. Training, learning, and executing.
Until...
==LHWG==
Black.
Arthur thought he knew what the color was like. He'd seen it countless times. The ink on paper. Charred flesh. The look in his father's eyes when displeased. The cloth of the dead or mourning. It was the feeling in his chest when he disappointed his father. The utter nothingness that filled his mind in the midst of battle.
But his hair...it was none of those things.
This man- who called Arthur friend and prat in the same sentence- had hair which could not be described.
To compare it to a raven's wing would be an insult (he always associated those birds to Morgana, anyway).
His hair was the black of ink on paper. The swirls of elegant letters looked sloppy compared to the curls on his forehead.
It was the black of night before the dawn, when the sky was at it's darkest.
This black seemed to be absorbing the light down on him. Pay attention to me. I'm here. I won't be ignored. You can't intimidate me.
Arthur would have called it a longing, the hours not seeing that face coupled with the hair, if not for the fact that he was the Prince of Camelot, and had no time for such things.
==LHWG==
Blue.
Nobody's eyes had a right to be that blue.
Arthur knew he was damned at the sight.
The blues that reflected like a pool- showing you what you were truly like. They hid nothing from anyone.
Honesty was the rare jewel shining in his eyes.
Every emotion came over his face and his eyes like a storm. Arthur knew if he looked too close- if he allowed himself to feel- he'd get swept away by it.
Those eyes had changed something in Arthur. Something deep.
Arthur had seen those blue eyes light up. His own heart raced at the sight- he never wanted to lose that light.
It crushed him when the blue spread- tears an awful color leaking down his cheeks. His entire body seeming to crumble under a weight that he wouldn't share with Arthur.
Those blue eyes, that broke Arthur and remade him into something new. A thing worth being called prince and friend and prat all at once.
Or clotpole.
Arthur hated it when he saw him crying- hated seeing the blue smothered by tears that had no purpose.
That light should never leave him.
Arthur didn't want to think about what should happen if that light stopped shining on Arthur.
==LHWG==
Red.
He always wore that damn neckerchief.
The one with the same shade as his own Pendragon crest.
Arthur had thought many times- just what kind of marks he could leave on the smooth skin beneath it without them being noticed.
He imagined himself leaving those marks there. He imagined the man accepting Arthur's marks- as he accepted everything else Arthur threw his direction. He would just take it- take it- TAKE IT-
His face would become so red when someone got him going. He'd rant to Arthur about problems in the castle. About how Arthur never listened to him. Which was a lie. Arthur always listened. He couldn't let him in on it, lest his servant come to realize his true feelings.
When Arthur would be king, he wanted to make it illegal for lips to be that shade of red. All day Arthur had to fight an urge to press kisses to those lips. He fought to see how they would look a brighter red and swollen and kiss-bruised.
He fought the temptations to rip away that red scrap of a shirt to see the body below. He wanted to kiss down that chest- to the heart that beat with a passion that was as rare as rubies and burned hotter than a dragon's. For when his servant thought something, he always threw everything he was at it.
Arthur wanted to leave marks all over his servant in those moments, to take him to bed like a caveman.
But he held back.
Because he refused to hurt his servant with his love.
It would be unwelcomed besides.
There was no chance that Arthur's love was matched.
That this burning in his chest in his heart, that the words that caught in his throat were caught in his servant's also.
There was no chance.
==LHWG==
Gold.
They shined like the sun.
They had the same the warmth.
Arthur's entire body lit up with it.
In relief.
In anger.
In betrayal.
In hope.
With agony.
With longing.
With want.
The Gold seared into him.
Arthur shivered when he felt the power.
There was nothing on earth like it.
The storms were cowed by it.
The earth trembled with it.
The waters- far away from here, somewhere away- were frothing at it's existence.
No wonder Morgana had feared this Gold.
For this was not the Gold of sorcerers come past.
This was the Gold of a crown.
Of fire, that burned from the gods themselves.
Of life itself made into form.
Magic incarnate.
All in one man.
A man whose own essence shined from the Gold- for they were one in the same.
A man who swore he was happy to be Arthur's servant until he died.
A man that lived and lost at Arthur's side.
Because was at Arthur's side.
Because he refused to leave- even when he should.
A sorcerer in Camelot, honestly the man was such an idiot.
Arthur flinched away when the Gold turned to him.
"I did it all for you, Arthur." He swore.
"You fool." Arthur hissed- unsure if he was speaking in rage or heartbreak. They both twisted together in his chest in tandem so tightly a sword wouldn't tear them apart. "In Camelot? Why?! Why did you come here?"
"You're my destiny. There is no where else I would rather be, no king I would rather serve."
Arthur in that moment became made and unmade by the Gold.
He loved and was loved and became love for the Gold.
The Gold flared once again. It lashed out on approaching bandits. The men were sent back some fifty feet, Landing in the floor with sickening crunches. Those that got up were dropped by falling branches of wood.
Arthur was stunned again. He fell to his knees. In his chest a turbulent of emotions stormed through him. The Gold rushed to him-fading away into that blue Arthur thought he knew so well. Lean arms held his shoulders, wrapping him up in a hug.
"I love you, Arthur." Merlin swore to him, and Arthur knew that tone of pure devotion that Merlin practically wore as a second skin. "Always."
"Idiot." Arthur growled back. He grabbed Merlin by the neck. Before Merlin could even frown or could make another argument about his magic, Arthur shoved Merlin forward for the searing kiss he'd been wanting to give for years.
==LHWG==
AN: Okay I have a headcanon Arthur write love poetry for Merlin all the time but he always burned in before Merlin could see but the knights heard plenty of it in training. So they kept an extra guard around Merlin whenever they went out in adventures because Arthur is tough but he's more tough when his boyfriend is hurt.
Happy birthday to a friend!