I do not own any Merlin characters, rights go to BBC. ENJOY!
"Perhaps if you showed up on time, you wouldn't be as much of a hassle to deal with."
Merlin hurried inside, ignoring Arthur's blunt retort and setting a freshly laundered pile of clothes on the bed next to Arthur, who was wearing noting but pants.
"Sorry, I was just-"
"Hurry up. We have to get going."
The sun was shining through the curtains in Arthur's chambers. Causing dust to dance around Arthur in a soft glow. Merlin plucked the clothes from the pile and began changing him into his full armor.
"Where are we going?" Merlin asked, slipping the metal plating over the Prince's head.
"Border patrol. There have been more complaints about thieves and scavengers in the towns and forest around Camelot. My father sent us to scare them off."
Merlin didn't respond but merely handed Arthur his sword.
"You're slower then usual today Merlin, which is surprising because you're always slow."
"Well if you must know, I was up late doing chores that you assigned." Merlin protested, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.
"That you could have completed in plenty of time yesterday!" Arthur rolled his eyes and headed to the door.
Merlin didn't say anything but thought back to the events of yesterday. He had spent the entire day in the woods, desperately searching for a discrete herb that would stop a dangerous sorcerer from killing Arthur.
"Come on!" Arthur hollered.
"And this is the thanks I get." Merlin sighed, hurrying after him.
The horses, along with 2 knights, Merlin and Arthur left the city and headed through the village toward the forest. Once inside, the air was much cooler and the noise seemed to be muffled by the surrounding trees. The trees whispered and hummed as the border patrol traveled deeper and deeper into the woods.
There was no one is sight for an hour. They heard low voices and the sound of a crackling fire. Arthur lifted his hand to stop his fellows and they all listened. He then pointed to a smoke stack drifting lazily up through the trees. Arthur gestured to the other 2 men to go around while Merlin and Arthur headed forward. Merlin watched tentatively and they approached.
The silence was shattered by a sharp cry. Arthur and Merlin darted forward. They soon entered the clearing where the men were fighting. They were terribly outmatched. There must have been twenty men to their mere four. Arthur leapt into the fray, his sword raised above his head. Merlin watched in horror as the first knight was killed, followed soon after by the second one. It was down to them now. Merlin ran forward and turned just in time to see a man racing toward him, brandishing a sword. He muttered an incantation under his breath and the man tripped over a root, falling face first in front of Merlin.
"Who knew you could actually take out a full-grown man, Merlin." Arthur laughed, turning to him with a wide grin on his face.
"ARTHUR LOOK OUT!" Merlin yelled, spotting a man running towards him, his bow and arrow raised. Without thinking, Merlin dove forward and pushed Arthur out of the way. The arrow sped toward him and Merlin sent it off course with a glow of his eyes. It lodged into the nearest tree and Arthur stood in time to stab the archer in the chest.
"Are you thick?" Arthur yelled, "Don't jump in front of an target like that! It's a damn good thing he was a bad shot."
"We need to get out of here." Merlin said, watching the remaining men sprinting toward them.
They ran, through thickets of trees and leaping through over-grown shrubbery.
"They're gaining." Arthur panted, slipping behind a large tree trunk. Merlin did the same. They watched silently as the bandits ran by.
"I think they're gone." Arthur sighed.
"I think not." Merlin hissed, his eyes fixed forward, stretching wide in fear. A bandit stood facing Merlin, his sword pressed to his chest. Arthur looked from the bandit to Merlin.
"Let him go." Arthur said, his voice didn't quaver.
"You fink I listen to you do ya?" The bandit responded.
"As Prince Arthur of Camelot I demand-"
"Prince Arthfer? The Prince Arthfer?"
"Yes."
Merlin groaned.
"And who are you den?" The bandit jabbed Merlin with the tip of his sword.
"Merlin." He winced. "I'm the Prince's servant."
"And what would you pay to spare 'is life?"
"I will pay anything." Arthur responded. Taking a step forward.
"Don't you move!" He called, "Or I kill 'em."
Arthur stopped short. Merlin glanced at him, balling his hands into fists.
"Please listen to me, killing will not solve anything."
"I kill ooh I like."
"Not today you wont." Arthur lunged forward as the bandit whipped his sword around to face him. Arthur grabbed the blade of the sword and sliced open his hand as he wrenched the sword from the man's grip. Arthur threw the sword onto the handle side and killed the man with swift grace.
"Well then, Merlin. Let's get back, there are probably more of them coming…. Merlin?"
Arthur looked around for his servant, something spluttered nearby. Merlin was lying on the forest floor, blood oozing from a gaping wound. Arthur ran to his side and kneeled down next to him.
"Merlin, it's alright. We're going to get you back to Giaus."
"Your hand…" Merlin spluttered, taking Arthur's hand and examining the cut in the skin. Arthur retched it from his grasp and leaned down to look at the Merlin's chest. There was a long gash running all the way down from his shoulder to his hip. He was groaning and he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Come on Merlin." Arthur pulled him to his feat where he swayed. Arthur put his arm around his servant and began half-pulling, half-dragging Merlin back down the path.
They had been walking for over an hour when Merlin grew limp beside Arthur.
"Merlin?" Arthur's voice shook as he laid a half-conscious Merlin down in a small clearing.
"Come on. We have to get you back." Arthur said, gently touching Merlin's sweaty face, brushing back stray hair.
"A-Arthur…. You have to leave…. Leave me" Merlin gasped.
"I'm not going to do that." Arthur protested, picking up Merlin and swinging him over his shoulder, he moaned in pain.
"Come on Merlin, were almost there."
There was a thundering of footsteps behind them and Arthur wheeled around to see a horde of men rushing toward them, swords raised. Arthur set Merlin down and unsheathed his sword. He ran toward the men, sword at his side. Merlin mumbled, "no. Please."
Arthur was fighting six men at once. There was no way he was going to make it without help. Merlin sat up, the pain in his chest was insurmountable but he ignored it. He looked around for something to stop the others but not injure the once and future king. He saw a long tree towering over the majority of the fighters and he mustered up all of his strength, and muttered an incantation. The tree began to fall and Merlin yelled, "ARTHUR MOVE!"
Arthur sprinted away from the falling tree and leaped clear just as the tree feel, where the prince had been seconds before. Arthur scrambled to his feat, looking winded, and ran to Merlin. Merlin's head lulled on its side. The last of his energy was gone, like a candle that spluttered then extinguished. Merlin felt hands on either side of his face and he opened his eyes a fraction of an inch.
Arthur's voice seemed to be coming from miles away, muffled and distorted in Merlin's pain. Merlin couldn't understand the words the prince was speaking. Soon, he felt his strength leaving him and knew he had only minutes. He couldn't use magic to heal himself; he had spent the last of his energy saving Arthur. It seemed fitting; Merlin thought to himself, that his last act was to save Arthur, save him like he always did.
"Merlin… MERLIN!" Arthur's voice shook him from his exhaustion, bringing back his senses. Merlin opened his eyes and wheezed in pain.
"I want you to stay alive… now that's an order."
"When do I ever follow your orders?" Merlin smiled weekly at his friend. Arthur smiled too, but it faltered when Merlin's eyes closed and his head fell limply on the grass.
"Merlin…" Arthur seemed to be looking at him from far away, as though he was falling further from his friend and if he let go, the world around him would fall away as well. Arthur bent down and checked his friends pulse. There was the faintest of heartbeats there. Arthur felt Merlin's chest, which was no longer rising and falling. It lay still, like one of the trees in the forest, silent and petrifying. Arthur's breathing became ragged as he felt for Merlin's pulse again. It was gone.
"No…" Arthur said, his voice mingling in confusion and panic. "Merlin?"
Merlin however, did not respond. He did not sit up with some witty remark, telling Arthur that he was a prat and cracking a smile. He simply lay there. Arthur knew it before he could feel it, as though he could see the life leaving his body, that Merlin was indeed dead. Arthur closed his eyes and felt tears trying to fight their way out of his eyes but he blinked them away furiously. He would have time to morn later. For now, he needed to get his body back to Camelot, back to Giaus.
How would Giaus react? The poor fellow would never be the same; Merlin was like a son to him. Arthur felt a wave of guilt and panic wash over him, making his whole body tingle. He would have to tell him what happened, how he had encouraged Merlin to come with him and how it was supposed to be a simple border patrol. No one was supposed to get hurt. How he wish it could be different and that he could take Merlin's place. Because Arthur didn't deserve to live while Merlin died. The world needed both men, for without one, it seemed incomplete. What was a coin without it's other side?
The realization seemed to hit the prince flat in the chest, making him sink onto the damp grass beside his servant, staining his knees. Merlin was more than a servant he was a friend. A friend he had lost. A friend who died so he, Arthur could live. How was that fair? How could the life of a prince be so much higher than that of a servant? Arthur felt Merlin's death drilling a hole into his chest, poking through his ribs and piercing his heart. The protective cage around his heart was punctured, he had let someone in and they had suffered the consequences. Didn't his father tell him about consequences for his actions?
Arthur stood up, and walked away from Merlin's body, to think, to not see, to not feel if only for a moment. He walked from the clearing and into a ticket of trees past the place where the tree had fallen and crushed those men. He should have been crushed there for it would be better to how he felt now. The weight of the death was something Arthur wouldn't have expected, for Merlin was different… a part of Arthur had died with his friend.
Arthur leaned against a tree and took deep breaths, envisioning his return to Camelot, carrying Merlin in his arms, seeing the look of horror on the faces of Gwen, Morgana, and Giaus and fearing them. He had done this to their friend.
Something loud crashed overhead. Arthur looked up and saw a great mass he couldn't place. He ran back to the clearing, his eyes still turned upward. Seeing nothing, Arthur glanced down to find Merlin's body was gone. Arthur let out a strangled cry of rage and confusion. He looked up again just in time to see the tip on a large skeletal wing whip into the air.
"COME BACK!" Arthur yelled.
The Great Dragon turned its head to gaze down at the prince.
"Arthur." It said solemnly.
"You…? I thought you were dead."
"You thought wrong."
"What are you doing with Merlin? I need to take him back to Camelot." Arthur said.
"Not at the moment."
"But he needs a proper burial." Arthur protested.
"Merlin's time is not yet finished here." The Dragon said, watching as Arthur lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
"But he's-"
"His body may have died, but his consciousness has not yet left him. The boy is stronger then you give him credit for."
"But… how is that possible?"
"You and Merlin's destiny is not yet over, Arthur. Do not fear. Merlin will return."
The Dragon rose a few more feat into the air, still carrying Merlin's body in his powerful claws.
"WAIT! I don't understand! Where are you taking him?"
The Dragon flew further into the sky until he was just a tiny pinprick in the sky. "Please…" Arthur whispered, letting his guard down and a tear escaped his eye. He wrenched his eyes from the opaque hue of the sky and they fell on something red mere feet away.
It was his scarf. Arthur leaned forward and plucked it gently from the grass, tracing his hands through the material of the scarf, feeling it's warmth and fringed edges. It comforted him somehow and he stood. As he set off back to Camelot, feeling hallow, he thought about Merlin. About the first time he met him, and how their friendship had grown, into a bond. A type of devotion to each other, something that Arthur wasn't ready to let go of yet. He had to stay devoted to Merlin and the things he stood for. Arthur needed to believe in what the Dragon had said, whatever it took. Perhaps that is what the Dragon was doing, bringing his friend into the world of the living. Arthur found himself standing, gazing up at the sky where the Dragon had flown off.
Perhaps…