Merlin was so tired. Why did he have to work for the prat? He couldn't stand him sometimes. Sure he was Merlin's best friend, but Arthur sure doesn't think that about Merlin. He is giving Merlin all of these chores to do. It wasn't fair. Why did he have to clean Arthur's clothes, muck out the stables, clean the CHAMBER POT, and clothe Arthur? Arthur had HANDS for a reason. There is no reason for the prat to put clothes on himself.

"Merlin! Are you even listening to me?!" Arthur inquired.

"Of course your Highness. You want me to muck out the stables, clean your room, and clean the chamber pot, along with polishing your armor and sharpening your bloody sword! Anything else?" ranted Merlin.

Arthur stood dumbfounded for a moment. Then he said:

"Merlin! You are not allowed to talk to me that way! I can have you put in the stocks for that."

" Sorry your Highness. While all you have to do is wait for me to change your clothes and do everything else for you, while you get to go to sleep immediately after you're changed! I, on the other hand, have to do everything else for you. Then, when I get done with you, I have to go out into the woods to pick some herbs for Gaius. After that, I have errands to run for Gwen because I said that I would help her out with her chores. Finally, I get to go to bed. It's normally about 3 in the morning! I get TWO hours of sleep and then I have to go get your breakfast and get your LAZY ass out of bed!" Merlin rants.

Arthur just stares at Merlin. Merlin felt bad, but he also felt satisfied to finally get that off of his chest. Because he felt bad about yelling at Arthur, he left immediately to go get started on his chores. He figured Arthur wouldn't want to see Merlin until morning, where Merlin would have a peace offering. Otherwise known as Arthur's breakfast.

Merlin hurried to stables. He wanted to get this done as fast as he could. When he got to stables, he sees that some idiot had left the stable doors open, so the horses got out. That meant he had to track them down. Merlin groaned and took off after the horses. Merlin didn't see a person standing just inside of the stables.

Finally, Merlin had found all of horses and brought them into the stables. He noticed that a candle was already lit. Merlin looked around. Somebody had cleaned the stables!

Merlin figured that he might not want to spend too much time admiring the stables, for he still had a lot to do. So, Merlin headed towards the next place on his list: the armory. When he got there, he started searching for Arthur's armor. When he finally found it, he lit a candle and looked at the armor to see how bad it was. He was shocked! The armor also had been cleaned! Merlin didn't notice the person leaving the armory. Merlin was dumbstruck! Who would do Merlin's chores? Surely not Arthur because he didn't give two craps about Merlin! But Arthur was the only one that knew about Merlin's schedule. Not even Guise knew! Merlin didn't know. Oh well, he thought. Might as well move on.

So Merlin moved on to the next thing… cleaning Arthur's chamber pot. Merlin headed off to Arthur's room. Merlin, again, didn't notice the person watching him by the castle wall.

When Merlin got to Arthur's room, he found the door locked. He tried and tried to get it open. After five minutes of knocking and pushing the door to get it open, Merlin gave up. He didn't want to use magic because he could see the light from the candle, so that meant that Arthur was still up. So Merlin decided to see what errands Gwen had for him. He would wait for Guise because Guise was still upset with Merlin about last week. It wasn't his fault that all the stone animals turned to life! So Gwen it was.

When Merlin got there, he knocked on the door. Gwen opened up the door with a surprised look on her face.

"Merlin!" she said surprised.

"Gwen!" he said just as enthusiastically.

"What are you doing here?"

Here Merlin was confused.

"Gwen, I told you yesterday that I would help you with some of your chores…"

"Oh! That's ok Merlin! I uh… I finished them earlier today, so you don't have to worry about it."

"Um… ok then. If you're sure?"

"Positive"

"Alright then. Goodnight Gwen."

"Night Merlin."

Merlin was suspicious. He was almost certain that Gwen looked relieved to close the door. And he also knew that she was lying about finishing them earlier. Why would she lie to me, he thought.

Brushing off that incident, he hurried to get to Gaius before he went to sleep. When he got there, Gaius had left. Merlin saw a note on the table. It read:

"Merlin. Somebody has already picked the herbs that I needed. They told me to tell you that they were sorry. Please go to sleep. I will be staying in the lower town for the week. There is an illness spreading. I'll be back by Sunday."

Merlin really wanted to know who this person was. He did all of Merlin's chores, plus his errand for Gaius and helped Gwen. WHO WAS THIS PERSON?

Merlin was so busy thinking, he didn't even realize that he fell asleep. The next morning, he woke up just before dawn. Merlin figured that he might as well get dressed. When he was all dressed, it was time for him to get Arthur's breakfast. After skillfully climbing the stairs with the clotpole's breakfast, he tried the door again, this time to find it unlocked. When he opened the door, he found Arthur already dressed.

"Here's your breakfast Sire."

"You never call me Sire unless you want something. What do you want?"

"I wanted to apologize for yesterday. It really was-" Merlin got cut off from Arthur saying:

"It's fine Merlin. I didn't even realize that you had that much to do, so it should me apologizing. I'm sorry Merlin."

Merlin stood there dumbfounded. Arthur NEVER apologized. Then Merlin saw something in Arthur's hair. He stepped forward.

"Arthur? What is this? It's… EW! How did you manage to get poop in your hair?!"

Merlin lifted the poop up to his nose and smelt it. It was horse manure.

"How did you get horse manure in your hair. Even I don't get it in my hair when I…. you did all my chores didn't you?" Merlin asked.

"Um… well, when you said those things to me yesterday, it made me realize that I push you hard already, not even thinking that you have other things to do."

"Well thanks Arthur. Umm. I really don't know what to say."

"Well, I didn't clean my room OR my chamber pot."

"Really?! Fine."

Not a lot changed from that day, except for the amount of chores Merlin has. He now only has to muck out the stables, polish the armor, and clean the chamber pot.