Monster Hunting Is a Terrible Career Choice

by SkywardShadow

Being fugitives is hard. Hunting dangerous magical beasts for a living is harder. Being hired by your enemy to solve a kidnapping case and possibly battle a very pissed-off witch? Well, that just sucks. Oneshot, Merthur, very loose fusion with The Brothers Grimm (2005).

A/N: And here is the last of my Merlin fics yet to be crossposted! I finished this one back in November for the 2015 reel_merlin fest on LJ. Hope y'all enjoy!

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Monster Hunting Is A Terrible Career Choice
(and Other Lessons Learned)

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Lesson I: Expectations Are A Bitch

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Arthur hates witches.

And it's not just an upbringing thing, all right? He knows people would be all too happy to blame his father's often-violent flavor of bigotry and have done with it, but it's not like he doesn't have other reasons.

Exhibit A: Every witch Arthur's ever met has either a) tried to kill him, b) tried to kill his father, c) cast an extremely inconvenient spell on one or more disgruntled parties or d) all of the above. It's the nineteenth century, damn it, with guns and everything; they shouldn't even need to deal with this shit anymore, and yet every time Arthur turns a corner it seems like there's another witch, another sorcerer, trying to fuck him over for something his father has done.

They could get more creative about their motivations, at least. Arthur wouldn't begrudge someone trying to hex him just for the fun of it at this point; it might actually be rather refreshing.

(Truth be told, he doesn't really begrudge the other ones either. Well, he sort of does, because he doesn't actually enjoy being cursed or almost-cursed all the time, but Arthur isn't actually blind. He knows his father is a bit of a bastard when it comes to magical suppression, and he knows more than he'd like to about what that entails. So it's not that he blames them, but he does wish they'd stop hexing him over it.)

Of course then there's Merlin, with his big ears and downright incredible ability to trip over everything from cats to seams in the bloody flooring, and Arthur can never quite bring himself to hate Merlin. But, he tells himself, Merlin is a warlock. Not a witch. It's a completely different thing.

And anyway, he has the sneaking suspicion Merlin's been saving his life lately in addition to his regular duties, so Arthur thinks his principles can remain technically uncompromised.

He still sort of wants to kill Merlin when he gets himself caught, but that's an entirely separate issue.

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Given that he's been arrested for witchcraft and is currently sitting, useless, inside an iron cell, Merlin's expectations are pretty low.

Expectation one: They are going to kill him. Probably with fire. And that…well, that's about it for the expectations, really. Does he really need any other ones?

He supposes it's too much to hope for a swift beheading at this point, particularly given how awful his luck has been running lately. It'd been a serving girl that got him caught in the end—she'd been some feet ahead of him when she stumbled, too close to a wide-open window, and Merlin had…helped. What else was he going to do? It was just one of those things. One of those stupid, ill-timed things.

Next thing he knew the general's brother-in-law was grabbing him by the neck and clamping cold iron around his wrists, which aches like hell, if anyone's asking. And then he was being half-marched, half-dragged down the hall and flung onto the floor of Uther's war room.

He remembers Agravaine announcing to all and sundry that Uther had a warlock in his household, and then everything had gone curiously blank. Uther's furious face, the orders he'd shouted, the guards that'd come forward to haul him up off the floor…Merlin barely registered any of it. All he'd really taken in, as stupid as it sounds now, had been the look on Arthur's face. And in that moment all he'd really wanted to do was apologize.

Because the thing is, Arthur hadn't looked surprised. Which meant he'd known about the magic and he'd known about the lying, and Merlin doesn't know which is worse.

So here he is, and they're going to kill him. Soon. He knows better than to expect anything else.

He doesn't expect the son of his soon-to-be-former employer to show up at the door to the cell with a set of keys and a grim expression, and he definitely doesn't expect Arthur to stay with him once they get past the first of Uther's soldiers and the alarm bells start going off and everything goes spectacularly to hell.

This is why Merlin no longer has expectations.

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Lesson II: Talking Is Hard (or, Six Months Have Elapsed)

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The sorceress knows that the days of the witches are done, so it is something of a surprise when a figure appears in her room one day as if it owns the place. A figure with fire in its eyes.

"So this is where the great witch spends her days," it says in a dangerously insouciant voice. "I have some news for you, if you wish to return your people to their former glory."

She may not like the newcomer's tone, but the sorceress can still appreciate the power it must have taken to get here. She deigns to speak, her voice rusty with disuse.

"The old powers are returning," she says. "Being what you are, you must have felt that much. Yet it will still be a very long time before any thoughts of glory can be entertained." She spits the word like a bad seed.

The newcomer hums. "Someone is coming with the power to expedite matters, if you take advantage of the opportunity when it presents itself. You could bring him to your cause. Add his powers to yours."

The sorceress eyes the intruder carefully. "It will take more than the powers of a simple sorcerer to accomplish that."

"We agree on that. But I believe this person has the powers you speak of."

"Do you, now."

The eyes of the newcomer glimmer in the shadows, and against her will, the sorceress feels her age-old frustration and boredom begin to shift. She is interested.

"I know some of what the future holds," the newcomer says. "Emrys will come here, and soon."

The words ring in the air like a prophecy. The sorceress tilts her head, outwardly at ease even as a shiver dances down her spine.

"What game is it that you're playing, child?" she asks.

"My own," is the reply. "Of course, if you'd like to play it with me…?"

Though the expression feels foreign on her face, the sorceress smiles.

"Emrys, hm?"

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"Are you sure this is going to work?" Arthur asks through gritted teeth.

A long-suffering reply comes from somewhere to his left. "Yes, Arthur, I'm sure." A pause. "Well, mostly sure. Fairly sure." Another pause. "I mean, I haven't actually been able to practice this before in a practical setting, but assuming I've done everything right—"

"Assuming?"

"Your faith in me needs work."

"So does your concern for my welfare."

Arthur imagines he can hear Merlin rolling his eyes from whatever tree trunk he's secreted himself behind. "Fine. I am completely certain that I'll have no problems whatsoever in casting this extremely complicated and difficult spell on the fly. Does that make you feel better?"

He considers grumbling something about how Merlin has proven—in spectacular fashion—that he's capable of lying more convincingly than that, and really it wouldn't hurt him to make the effort now—but Arthur doesn't, because that's a wound that doesn't need reopening right now. Not when he's still not certain they'd ever managed to close it in the first place, and any facsimile thereof is thanks only to the fact that they don't talk about the magic.

"If I get trampled by a rampaging griffin and end up an angry spirit," he says instead, "I hope you're prepared to be haunted for the rest of your miserable life. None of your doors will ever quite close all the way again."

"I'm petrified," Merlin deadpans. "Now be quiet, I think it's nearly here."

Arthur shuts his mouth and waits.

He doesn't wait long. Within seconds he hears what sounds like hoofbeats fast approaching.

"Heads up," Merlin warns. Because naturally, Arthur had been planning on turning his back on an incoming magical beast.

Said magical beast chooses that moment to appear at last, bursting into the clearing with surprising speed for a giant lion-bird thing with talons that look like they could rip through metal. Arthur doesn't even have time to be impressed.

He raises his pistol and aims carefully at the creature's fast-approaching head, forcing himself to focus on his breathing and not his potentially imminent death by vicious magical beast.

"Ready?" he calls.

"Now," Merlin replies.

Out of the corner of his eye Arthur can see Merlin moving out from behind the tree, raising his arm; in another second he'll yell some nonsense and his eyes will turn gold and it will all be suitably dramatic, Arthur is sure, but he has more important things to worry about right now.

He checks his aim against furious avian eyes, exhales, and pulls the trigger.

It's odd—for all his muttering about Merlin's patchy ability to do anything right, and for all Merlin is a consummate liar, Arthur doesn't actually doubt that this will do what Merlin says it does.

Sure enough, his bullet changes in midair, surrounds itself with a blaze of blue fire so bright it almost hurts to look at, not that Arthur has much of a chance. In the blink of an eye the griffin has collapsed, dead on the forest floor, and the woods are dark once more. Arthur lowers his gun and tries not to stare.

"Well," Merlin says after a second, coming to stand a short distance away. "That went better than I expected."

Arthur smacks him in the arm and ignores the resulting yelp.

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It wasn't like Arthur had planned on going directly from 'loyal soldier' to 'freelancing hunter of dangerous magical beasts'. He hadn't planned anything at all, really, which was unusual for him.

But a few weeks out from their ill-planned jailbreak, while hiding out in the woods, he and Merlin had run into an extremely large and incredibly pissed-off spider that had subsequently tried to eat them. At which point they'd learned they worked quite well together as a team—Arthur with his guns and knives and Merlin with the occasional bolt of fire.

Of course then there had been the spider's brethren to contend with.

Afterwards, as they'd both stood there gaping at the all the smoking, many-legged corpses, Merlin had said in a dazed sort of way, "We really ought to be getting paid for this."

As it turned out, the spiders had been terrorizing a local village for months, eating their livestock and occasionally slower villagers. The people there were happy about not having to fear being eaten while going about their fieldwork, and in the end Merlin and Arthur left that particular village with enough gold to get them to the next.

While on the road, they'd had a similar idea. One that could possibly satisfy both Merlin's need to eat and Arthur's need to shoot things. But there had been details to iron out, of course. Such as:

"I don't like the idea of charging them for protection," Arthur had said. He didn't add that it felt too much like the way his father operated, but wondered if it wasn't obvious anyway. Merlin was more observant than he let on.

Not that he let on much, as Arthur'd had reason as of late to realize.

"We're not warlords," Merlin had pointed out, gnawing experimentally on a leafy plant he'd insisted wasn't poisonous. (Arthur was waiting to see if he turned purple before making a judgment.) "And it's not like we're charging much. Room and board for a night or two, money to keep us fed until we find another place in need of defending against things that go bump in the night. Not exactly luxurious."

"How are you all right with this?" Arthur had demanded. "Killing off magical creatures for profit? Doesn't that sit wrongly with you, of all people?"

Merlin had gone stiff where he sat, and Arthur had fervently wished he could cast a spell on himself at that moment. They weren't supposed to talk about this.

"First of all," Merlin had said, calmly, "we're not killing innocent unicorns grazing in a field. We're keeping people safe from the things that want to hurt them." He'd looked down at his hands instead of looking at Arthur. "Just because I'm—because I'm one of them doesn't mean I don't understand that sometimes things are just evil. It isn't the magic, it's the user. And as far as creatures go, some just want to live out their lives, and some want to eat children, and when it comes to the latter I don't really care if that's in their nature or not."

He'd twisted around then, given Arthur a wry little smile. "As for making a profit, I'm pretty sure this plan puts us one step ahead of starvation. I don't know that you'd call that profit. We need to eat, and we need to keep moving. It's not like we can just set up shop somewhere and start selling watermelons."

Arthur couldn't exactly argue with that.

Of course it hasn't been quite like what Merlin described, mostly because their second assignment had turned out to be an actual unicorn grazing in a field. Merlin, as it happens, is capable of being extremely pitiful when he wants. Most of it is the fact that no matter how much he eats he always ends up looking like a swift breeze could carry him off. That and the hilariously oversized ears, and the eyes, and…well, the upshot of it all is that Arthur ended up helping to smuggle a unicorn into the next territory. Such was his life now.

Thus their little business has become less of a mercenary thing than Arthur feared. They do their fair share of taking down true threats, the griffin being one example, and once they actually did get to chase off a dragon (although that one had involved less gunpowder and more diplomacy than Arthur had been hoping for). But they've also ended up faking a lot of gruesome deaths and moving a lot of unlikely things across borders.

Arthur's honor hasn't really twinged over that as much as he'd expected it to. It turns out that he doesn't have any qualms about taking money from people who hire them to kill perfectly peaceful creatures, simply because they exist.

It's possible that he's projecting, and also possible that he's a hypocrite. He's finding that he can live with both, though. At least for now.

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They need to bring back some physical proof that the griffin is dead.

Ostensibly this is because the villagers require it in order to sleep well at night, but Merlin is rather cynically convinced that the mayor just wants a trophy to display in his office. Or perhaps in front of the village itself. On a spike. From the experience Merlin has had with authority figures, he thinks that sounds perfectly in keeping with their idea of decoration. Everything always has to send some sort of message.

"We could bring back its head," Arthur suggests, sounding dubious about the prospect. Merlin squints at the dead griffin, illuminated by the witchlight hovering in his palm, and considers its very thick neck.

"Not likely," he says. "Remember what I said about normal bullets bouncing off that hide? I don't think a blade is going to do much better."

Arthur rolls up his sleeves and pulls a hunting dagger from his belt. "Right. Talon it is."

"Right," Merlin echoes, feeling slightly queasy. "Well, I'll just…"

"Go on. I'll let you know when it's done and you can bury it." He doesn't look at Merlin as he says it, and Merlin finds he has nothing to say in return.

They'd been doing so well back there, too. Bantering and everything. Merlin supposes he'd known it couldn't last.

He walks away from the clearing quicker than he needs to; Merlin doesn't really want to hear that sharp blade sawing its way through sinew and muscle and tissue. It's not a gore thing—he'd grown up on a farm after all—but killing dangerous magical creatures is one thing. Watching them get butchered is…

It's part of the job, he tells himself, and one that you agreed to. Arthur doesn't like taking pay and Merlin doesn't like this part, but they both compromise. And Merlin hasn't said as much out loud, but he would rather be the one keeping the dangerous ones in check instead of letting them run wild—giving Uther another excuse to hunt down his kind.

Still. He wonders what they would've done to him, after they burnt him, and shudders.

Everyone deserves a proper burial, he thinks. Everyone deserves dignity in death. Arthur doesn't help him put these creatures into the dirt, but he doesn't stop Merlin from doing it either, and Merlin figures that's the best he can hope for at this point.

"Merlin?"

The voice is too close, and Merlin jumps, witchlight flaring in his hand as he turns. Arthur quickly backs away.

"You're going to burn my face off one of these days, and I am going to be very upset."

"Maybe you shouldn't sneak up on people in the dark," Merlin retorts, the flame dying back down to an acceptable level.

"Shouldn't sneak up on incredibly twitchy warlocks, you mean."

Merlin blinks. Arthur's mouth tightens as he realizes what he's said.

And cue the uncomfortable silence.

Merlin closes his palm; the witchlight vanishes, leaving nothing but moonlight to see by. Arthur clears his throat.

"You can bury that thing now, if you like. Everything else has been taken care of." The "everything else" in question is dangling from Arthur's belt and sluggishly oozing blood of an unidentifiable color. Merlin tries not to examine it too closely.

"I'll do that, then," he says, still awkward. "Shouldn't take long. You can head back, let them know it's done."

"Right."

Arthur looks like he's struggling with how to word something, before shaking his head and stalking away. Merlin grits his teeth and doesn't watch him leave. Instead he heads back to the clearing to bury what's left of the griffin.

Dangerous or not, it's what he would've wanted someone to do for him.

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The walk back to the village isn't a long one, which is just as well. Arthur never likes having too much time to think after one of these jobs.

Particularly not when someone is following him.

He waits, keeping his pace even, until he comes to the massive, gnarled tree that marks the outer edges of the village border. The footsteps tailing him speed up. Arthur waits one second, two, three—and then turns on his heel.

The man following him is shoved up against the tree with a knife to his throat in seconds, and Arthur's not even breathing hard.

"Can I help you?" he asks conversationally.

"A bit more air would be nice," the man rasps, and Arthur stops short. He knows that voice, even if it comes from a life that doesn't seem to belong to him anymore.

"Agravaine?"

Even in the darkness he can see a black eyebrow rise. "I must say, Arthur, I prefer 'Uncle'."

I don't care what you prefer. Arthur bites back the childish, instinctive response and lets go of the other man's cloak. Agravaine straightens and pulls back his hood.

He hasn't changed much in the months since Arthur left home. A few more gray hairs at the temples, perhaps, more lines around his mouth, but otherwise he looks exactly the same as the last time Arthur had seen him—when he'd thrown Arthur's servant at his father's feet and called for his blood.

The reminder makes Arthur's insides go cold. "Why are you here?" he asks. "And how long have you been following me?"

"No need to be coy, Arthur. I've been following you both for weeks." So much for pretending he'd cut ties with Merlin somewhere along the way. "And I have to admit I'm impressed. You've been eliminating magical threats at every port of call; if you weren't still attached to that warlock, I would say you were carrying out your father's legacy admirably."

Arthur has to fight the urge to shove him again. It wouldn't help. "I won't ask again, Agravaine—what are you doing here? Did my father send you?"

A flicker in Agravaine's calculating black eyes—a hint of something that might actually be sympathy. "Your father wants you home, Arthur, but no. He didn't send me. I sought you out myself once I heard how you've been occupying your time."

"Why?"

Agravaine has a look on his face that Arthur's seen many times during his father's councils—like he's considering how best to spin an unpleasant situation. "You know your father gave me governorship of the Thuringian province. I've been having something of a…problem, lately, with the locals."

Arthur watches him warily. "And what does that have to do with me?"

"You and that boy are beginning to make a name for yourselves, getting rid of magical beasts," Agravaine says. He looks uncomfortable. "And there are rumors—that is, the people in this particularly backwards village are convinced that it's a witch that's causing all the trouble. I keep telling them that no witch would be foolish enough to stir things up in a province run by Uther's own brother-in-law. But they're a superstitious lot, won't listen to reason, and if I don't calm them down soon then things might end…poorly."

Arthur frowns. Agravaine's remarkably short memory aside—after all, Uther's presence had never stopped the magical attacks on himself or on Arthur—he's starting to see where this is going, and he doesn't like it at all.

Sure enough: "I want you and the warlock—"

"Merlin," Arthur cuts in sharply. His uncle raises both eyebrows but doesn't comment.

"Merlin, then. I want the two of you to return to Thuringia with me and sort all this out. You have something of a reputation now; that may help, as these people refuse to give my men any useful information. If it's truly a witch, which I doubt, then take care of it. If it isn't…" A shrug. "We will need to make other arrangements."

The gall, Arthur muses, is downright incredible. Merlin always did like to mock him for being a self-entitled noble, but surely he was never this bad. "And why on earth should we help you?"

"It's in your best interest," Agravaine replies. "Uther and I may have our differences when it comes to governing, but we both loved my sister. Your mother." A flash of old grief, quickly buried. "If I tell him I have it on good authority that both you and Merlin have crossed the border, that you've left this country behind and are forever out of his reach, he will have no reason to disbelieve me."

"Let's assume for a moment that I believe you. What about in a month?" Arthur retorts. "As you said, the business Merlin and I find ourselves in is rather specialized. Word would get back to my father eventually. Or do you expect us to settle down and run an inn somewhere?"

Agravaine sighs. "With the frankly ludicrous amount I'm prepared to pay you in return for taking care of this problem, I expect that you will lend some truth to my lies and disappear entirely."

The offer is tempting. Too tempting—which, coming from Agravaine, means there's almost certainly a catch. And Arthur can't afford to get caught now; Merlin even less so.

Arthur moves away.

"You lost the right to ask for my help the day you stuck a knife in my back and told me to thank you for it," he says coolly. Agravaine has the nerve to look hurt.

"There's no need for that, Arthur. I didn't betray you."

"You betrayed someone it was my responsibility to look after," Arthur replies. "And you went over my head to do it. That's the same thing. Goodbye, Uncle."

He moves back a few more steps before turning away, and that, naturally, is when Agravaine speaks again.

"It's the children," he says. Arthur freezes. "That's what the villagers are up in arms over. Their children have been going missing and they think it's the work of a witch."

Arthur closes his eyes as the words sink in.

And then he swears, silently and creatively.

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"Well that seems like a spectacularly awful idea."

All things considered, Merlin thinks he's taking this pretty well. After all, it's not every day you find out the man who nearly succeeded in getting you killed is asking for your help. There's an irony there that Merlin will probably enjoy later.

Arthur doesn't look much like he's in a laughing mood right now, though. "He'll let us go," he says quietly.

"You don't think we can keep outrunning them?" Merlin asks, frowning. He might not think Arthur's oh-so-finely-honed military instincts are all they're cracked up to be, particularly when they seem to advocate sharp objects as the way to solve any given problem, but he does trust that Arthur knows his father. And no matter what Agravaine does or doesn't do, they both know that Uther is the bigger problem here.

"Not forever," Arthur says grimly. "You know my father has soldiers nearly everywhere in this country now, and spies everywhere else. We have to get out of his reach."

"Land out of his reach is getting smaller by the year," Merlin points out. "People are saying he'll end up a proper emperor at this rate."

Arthur shrugs. "Maybe. But this is the nineteenth century; I think people have about had their fill of bloody revolutions." He sighs. "In the meantime, we need to get out and stay out. Agravaine is offering a way."

"Maybe," Merlin shoots back. "Or maybe he's just waiting for us to drop our guard so he can drag us back to your father."

Arthur shakes his head. "He was desperate. I saw his eyes—my uncle is an excellent liar, but he's still not as good as he thinks he is. I don't believe he was lying to me."

'Believe' is one thing, but when it comes to Agravaine…Merlin considers arguing the point further, but then he gets a good look at Arthur's face.

"We were fucked as soon as he said there were children involved, weren't we?" Merlin says at last.

"Pretty much." Arthur doesn't even pretend to be apologetic.

Merlin heaves a sigh. "So how far away is Thamur-whatever, anyway?"

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Lesson III: Confidence Will Get Your Arse Kicked

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The answer, as it turns out, is extremely far. Arthur is just grateful they got their own coach for the trip because as it is, standing in the foyer of Agravaine's disgustingly large and shadowy manor, he can tell it's taking all of Merlin's self-control not to freeze the man's smug face right off his head.

Arthur sympathizes.

But he's considered it over the long (long, long) journey to this not-especially-scenic corner of the country, and come to the conclusion that this might not be the most terrible situation to have ended up in. While the whole witch thing seems highly suspect, and obviously children going missing won't do at all, Arthur is confident that he knows his uncle. He knows every one of Agravaine's tells, every one of his tricks, and he's certain that if he and Merlin keep their eyes open (well, Arthur will keep his eyes open because Merlin is pants at anything involving subtlety), then everything will go smoothly. There won't be any unpleasant surprises.

He's thinking about this, perhaps a bit too confidently, when Agravaine adds that he's brought on an assistant of sorts, someone to make sure Arthur and Merlin don't go around causing unnecessary trouble, and then—

"Hello, Arthur."

Oh, hell.

"Morgana?" he blurts in a completely undignified way.

His sister smiles at him, her green eyes glittering in that charming way that suggests she's going to kill and eat them both for sport. It reminds him of a cat, which is appropriate, because Arthur has rarely felt so much like an unwanted rodent in someone's presence.

Next to him, Merlin makes a choking noise that Arthur interprets as 'we are so very fucked.'

The sad thing is that Arthur can't even refute it.

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The silence after Agravaine vacates the entrance hall is extraordinarily awkward.

Merlin is beginning to think his entire life consists of awkward silences and poorly placed lapses in conversation.

"Right," he ventures, once it becomes obvious that neither of the Pendragon siblings are going to put them out of their collective misery. "Nice to see you, Morgana. So can you tell us more about what we're doing here, or…?"

Morgana's eyes don't leave Arthur's. "I can do you one better," she says sweetly. "We'll go down to the village tomorrow. You can talk to the parents yourselves."

"Why tomorrow?" Merlin presses. "Shouldn't we be trying to get this done as soon as possible?" Hopefully that doesn't sound too much like 'you terrify me and I'd rather flee before you decide to rip my still-beating heart from my chest', but he suspects it does.

"You won't find anyone out of doors in Thuringia at night," Morgana replies, frustratingly enigmatic as ever. "Best to get some sleep. You never know what'll happen tomorrow."

Merlin opens his mouth to ask for clarification on that, since Arthur is choosing this one time in his life to be irritatingly silent, but Morgana turns her bright green eyes on him and the words shrivel up in his throat.

"Sleep well, Merlin," she says, before turning on her heel and walking away.

"Oh," she adds over her shoulder, "and do be sure to lock your door. Just to be safe."

"Right," Merlin repeats, meekly, but she's already gone. He rounds on Arthur. "You were loads of help there, thanks for nothing."

"I didn't realize she was going to be here," Arthur says. He sounds utterly off-balance, and Merlin's frustration abruptly dies.

Of course. Arthur hasn't seen his sister since—well, he hasn't seen her in half a year. Had no reason to think he could ever see her again. And now that they've been reunited, more or less, she seems none too pleased about it.

Merlin feels like a complete git.

"You could talk to her," he says hesitantly. Arthur snorts.

"And say what? I know Morgana; when she's in a mood like this, she'd rather claw my face off than listen to a word I have to say."

Guilt gnaws on his insides. "I'm sorry," he offers, at which Arthur smacks him upside the head and doesn't meet his eyes.

"Shut up, Merlin. I'm going to turn in."

"Right," Merlin says for the third time, but at that point he's speaking to the air.

He doesn't know why he's surprised. Arthur hasn't let him get a meaningful word in edgewise since they left Uther's household. He wouldn't let Merlin apologize, or thank him, or do anything except stew in a vastly uncomfortable mixture of silence and uncertainty, and after awhile Merlin had just stopped trying. It's been months and Merlin still doesn't feel like he's standing on solid ground.

Arthur seems to be laboring under the impression that if they don't talk about the magic, it will just stop being there at some point. It's why Merlin has been trying not to use it when he doesn't need to, why he's been lighting fires the old-fashioned way, why he doesn't use witchlight unless it's too wet for torches or lanterns.

He sort of loathes it. It feels like he's lying to Arthur all over again.

But there's nothing to be done about it. Arthur's already given up too much for him; the least Merlin can do, he figures, is play along with whatever delusions Arthur's got left.

Like if they keep pretending everything's fine, it will be. If they keep acting like Merlin's magic doesn't exist (at least when it's not necessary to prevent imminent Death By Magical Beast), it will just vanish on its own.

If that were true, Merlin would've made himself normal a long time ago.

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Lesson IV: Forests Are Scary (And So Is Morgana)

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As if Morgana weren't enough, they've also been assigned a guide, someone to show to them how to speak to the locals in such a way that they don't offend the wrong person and end up being chased out with flaming pitchforks.

That's how Morgana explains it, anyway, which means Merlin is suspicious. And not just about the logistics of lighting a pitchfork on fire without using magic.

But his suspicion melts away within five seconds of meeting Guinevere. There's just something sweet about her, like a flower with its face to the sun, and Merlin likes her immediately. (Even if she was probably coerced into this job, something she's been kind enough not to mention.)

"Everyone calls me Gwen. It's nice to meet you both," she says on their first meeting; if she's at all uncertain about the strangers who've just come barging into her village and her life, it doesn't show. "I suppose we'll be seeing a lot of each other."

"We don't plan to impose on your hospitality any longer than necessary," Arthur says in what Merlin's privately dubbed his Rich Prat Voice, all smooth politeness with the depth of a shallow puddle. He doesn't miss the way Arthur's eyes flicker toward Morgana, either.

Gwen clears her throat. Merlin wonders if she's also picking up on the tension in the room.

"Well, most everybody is going to be working at this hour," she says. "But I can show you where the last girl—that is, I can show you where it happened."

"That would be very helpful, thank you," Arthur says, and offers his arm. Merlin tries not to roll his eyes too obviously; he supposes old habits die hard.

Still, it's harder to be magnanimous when Arthur's conveniently timed chivalry means Merlin is stuck walking alongside Morgana. The awkwardness is like a physical third person jammed in between them.

"You look well," she observes as they tromp toward the forest. Somehow the way she says it makes it sound like an insult.

Merlin cringes, but he knows he's got no right to be irritable with her. It isn't like they'd been friends during his time at Uther's manor. Although they had shared a similar disdain for the trappings of nobility, as well as the insistence of the soldiers around them that anything different was automatically a threat. And of course they'd both enjoyed making fun of Arthur.

There'd always been the obvious barrier of rank between them, and Morgana is intimidating on a good day, but in retrospect Merlin thinks that they might've ended up friends anyway.

If he'd stayed. If he hadn't gotten caught and ruined everything and taken her brother down with him.

The words come out in a quiet rush. "Morgana, I didn't ask for his help. And I never asked him to come with me." Into exile, or something near enough to it as to make no difference.

Morgana doesn't deign to look at him, but her tone is withering. "As if you needed to."

He blinks, caught off guard. "What are you talking about?"

"My idiot brother has been strangely attached to you since your first day on the job, when you insulted him to his face twice in as many minutes," she says tightly. "Arthur hates it when things are too easy. He needs a challenge, he's always been like that. And you are possibly the most challenging person I have ever met."

Somehow that doesn't sound like a compliment, either.

"I didn't want to drag him into this," Merlin mutters. "I didn't—I'd just assumed he would hate me for it, if he ever found out. I didn't expect…"

She does look at him then. "Neither did I."

Not that Merlin's certain Arthur doesn't hate him, some days. Their conversations have morphed into careful, near-scripted things that dance expertly around the chasm of magic and betrayal yawning between them. Merlin has no idea how to cross it, doesn't even know if Arthur would catch a rope if Merlin threw it across.

He jolts when Morgana speaks again.

"But as you've removed him more or less permanently from my presence," she says, "I trust you're aware that he's your problem now. You're the one stuck looking after him whenever he does something especially dimwitted."

Merlin glances over, not sure if he's being made fun of. "You say that like I wasn't doing it already."

They've reached the edge of the forest now. Ahead of them Gwen seems to hesitate, but she doesn't stop, dropping Arthur's arm and walking into the woods like she owns them. Merlin takes the opportunity to move closer to her and, by a happy coincidence, further away from Morgana.

"You seem to know your way around," he says. "Do you spend a lot of time here?"

She shrugs, looking straight ahead. "My father was the village blacksmith, so we came to the forest often to get wood for the forge. After he died my brother and I took over the business, but I ended up tending the forge while Elyan was here. He's probably a much better woodsman than I am by now."

Merlin frowns. "Probably?"

Gwen's gaze flickers to him and then away. She bites her lip.

"I don't know where he is," she admits, and if that's meant to be a casual tone then it's failing miserably. "He went out to gather wood one morning and just…never came back. I never found a trace of him, and the rest of the villagers are too frightened to help me search—not that I blame them," she adds quickly. "Odd things have always happened here. We're raised to respect these woods, but I think we're all taught to fear them, as well."

"You don't seem afraid," Merlin points out.

Gwen smiles grimly at him. "My brother is the only family I have. There's no one else." She takes a breath and goes back to looking ahead. "I've been alone for awhile now. The forest doesn't frighten me anymore."

Merlin takes the unspoken hint and shuts up. It occurs to him that Arthur and Morgana aren't speaking either, which isn't too surprising on its own, but there is definitely something about this forest. Something that makes it feel sacrilegious to speak loudly.

It feels alive, more so than any place Merlin's ever been. The wind in the trees sounds like whispering, and the ground under his boots feels like it's pushing back somehow. And there's a heaviness in the air that feels almost like—like—

"This place is magic," he whispers without thinking. Gwen nods.

He hadn't realized it until he'd said it, but it's the truth. It's the only explanation for this vague tingling sensation all up and down his body, like an extra sense he didn't know he had is being prodded by some curious kin. Like the woods recognize one of their own.

"But how?" he breathes. He means, how can a place like this still exist? In a time of machines and dictators and relentless reason, how can such a hotbed of raw, natural magic remain unperturbed?

"The rest of the world thinks magic is nearly gone," Gwen says softly. "But they don't know what it's like here. We live in the shadow of magic our whole lives. So did our parents, and their parents, and so on." She smiles, and it makes her look like a young girl again instead of a saddened woman. "They say these trees have been growing since before people ever lived in Thuringia. That the roots are sunk so deep not even the end of the world could rip them out."

Merlin shivers. He believes it.

But if the woods are benevolent, then why all the strange happenings? Why the disappearances, the fear? Why the uneasy edge to the magic here?

Magic isn't good or evil, it just is. It's all in the user.

Is someone using the power of this forest for something?

Gwen stops alongside a brook. "This is where it happened. Kara was playing right along here, and the next thing we knew her older brother came running, saying something had snatched her away." She sighs. "All we found was her cloak—pretty red thing, it was hard for us to miss."

"Something?" Arthur repeats. "Not someone?"

"That was what he said." Gwen hesitates. "I'm sure you all think we're spouting nonsense, but truthfully, these people wouldn't be blaming a witch if they had anything else to go on. We all know the stories. Children disappearing is bad enough, but when magic is involved…"

She trails off. Merlin glances from one stony face to another and is inclined to agree; they all know how stories involving witches and children generally end. And even he can't deny that magic is involved somehow, not when the woods are practically shuddering with it.

"How did her brother get away?" Morgana asks. "Did this…something decide he wasn't worth the trouble?"

Gwen tilts her head thoughtfully. "That was the odd thing—he says he didn't escape. The way he tells it, this thing just grabbed his sister and disappeared. It's like it wasn't even interested in him."

Well, that makes zero sense. Witches of the child-eating variety aren't known for being picky with their meals. Merlin clears his throat.

"Can we talk to him? The brother, I mean?"

"You can try," Gwen says doubtfully. "But he hasn't been speaking much since that night. I can't promise he'll be willing to say anything."

A chill wind blows, whistling through the trees. A sound like whispering. A shiver crawls down Merlin's spine—under the magic of the woods, a strand of unease.

"Is there anything else out here?" he hears himself ask. The other three turn to look at him.

"What do you," Arthur begins, but Gwen cuts him off, looking at Merlin oddly.

"Yes," she says. "But we don't go there. No one does."

"I need to see it," Merlin insists, and has no idea why he does, only that it's true—there is something wrong with this forest, something outside of the magic, making his skin itch and his nerves jumpy. If he can just find the source of it then maybe he can start to make sense of all this.

Gwen is quiet. Arthur notices.

"If you point us in the right direction, we can find it ourselves," he offers, but she shakes her head.

"No. Nothing in this forest frightens me anymore."

She strides ahead of them both, her steps sure and confident, before Merlin can point out that she's said that already. As they follow her deeper into the woods, he wonders how many times she's repeated those words alone in her cold forge; how many times it took to convince herself that it was the truth.

The quiet grows more oppressive the longer they walk. Merlin notices Arthur's hand hovering near his pistol. He's pretty sure a gun would be useless against whatever might be lurking in this forest, but he doesn't think Arthur would appreciate him mentioning it. For her part, Morgana doesn't make a single acerbic comment, which in itself should probably be cause for worry.

Silence. There's no birdsong, no rustling in the trees to indicate other living things moving around. Even the sound of their boots crunching over dead leaves and fallen twigs seems muted. The woods feel unnaturally empty, and yet Merlin would swear he feels eyes on them all the same. A prickling on the back of his neck, making his hair stand on end.

It takes him a few seconds to realize they've entered a clearing. The patch of sky visible above the treetops is a hard iron gray. It was early morning when they left the village, Merlin reminds himself, clamping down on a twinge of panic, and it can't be later than midday now, but the sun is nowhere to be seen. It's dark enough to be night already, cold enough that Merlin can see his own breath, cloudy as he exhales.

He registers Arthur going still, and Gwen doing the same, but it takes Merlin another moment to realize what's before them.

It's a tower.

The structure is unlike anything he's ever seen outside of storybooks: made entirely of stone, tall enough for its spired roof to scrape the sky. It's round and spindly, so thin that Merlin can hardly believe it's managed to stand for any length of time, but it must be old because its stones are thoroughly mossed over. Covered in a thick blanket of tangled weeds and vines that look black in the dull light.

The next thing Merlin notices is that there are no doors. Morgana is circling the base of the tower, but he sees no change of expression to suggest she's found one either. High above his head, if he squints, he can make out a dark shape that he supposes might be a window.

Arthur catches his gaze and looks pointedly down. Merlin follows his eyes.

Sure enough, on the ground is an equally pressing oddity, a long stone not quite roughly hewn enough to be naturally occurring. As Merlin's eyes adjust he sees five other stones strewn around the base of the tower, forming a wide circle. They look almost like coffins—and that isn't a discomfiting thought, not at all.

"What is this place?" he whispers.

"No one really knows," Gwen whispers back. "It's been here longer than any of us can remember."

"No one's ever tried to get inside?" Arthur is eyeing the high-up window of the tower in a way that's far too speculative for Merlin's peace of mind. It's a relief when he looks down again, nudging one of the long stones with his boot.

"And these stones—why are they here? And why six?"

"I don't know," says Gwen. "I told you. We don't come here."

She doesn't elaborate, but Merlin thinks maybe she doesn't need to. The sense of wrongness that's begun to permeate the forest, oppressive to every single one of his senses, has only strengthened the closer they've gotten to this tower. Even his breathing feels heavier, slowed. And even Arthur, for all he disregards superstition and believes a good weapon can dispatch any danger if necessary, doesn't try to get Gwen to say more on the subject.

He must feel it too. Everyone must, if generations of villagers have given this place such a wide berth.

Gwen seems to gather her courage before she speaks again.

"There are stories," she says, her voice barely more substantial than a breath. "People used to say that this tower appeared hundreds of years ago, when magic first started to vanish from the world. They said a witch built it and hid herself away, that she made it without doors to protect herself. Or maybe just to be alone."

What's the difference? Merlin thinks, but he doesn't ask.

Gwen's copper eyes are fixed on the window high above their heads. "No one's ever seen her. But sometimes…sometimes there are voices on the wind, and that's when they say she's speaking. But we don't know what she's saying, either."

She shakes herself like she's coming out of a trance, a self-deprecating smile twisting her mouth as she tears her gaze away from the tower. "It's just a story. Scares the children quiet when the wind comes through, gives the parents a rest, that sort of thing."

"How is it possible that anyone could still be alive up there, after hundreds of years?" Merlin asks. "Witches aren't immune to dying. I know." I've watched them burn, but he doesn't say that either.

"Come on, Merlin," Arthur interrupts. "She said it was just a story."

Merlin would protest, but there's a strange note in Arthur's voice, and Gwen is shivering even though the wind has stopped. He can see her breath too, and Morgana's, when she draws away from the tower to rejoin the group.

So all he says is, "Right, of course. Just a story."

.

Lesson V: Communication Is Key

.

After the weird forest and its weird tower and the weird stories surrounding said tower, the obvious next step is to visit the missing girl's brother. His home is small, little more than a shack, which has Arthur gearing up for all kinds of righteous fury before he notices the tightness of his sister's mouth. That expression says she's already thinking everything he could say, and has probably already said it.

Instead he turns to Gwen. "Will the parents have gotten home yet? I don't want it to look like we're interrogating children without their family's knowledge or consent."

Gwen bites her lip. "Mordred and Kara have no parents," she says.

"They're dead," Morgana clarifies in a voice like stone, and knocks on the door before Arthur has a chance to ask. Gwen avoids his eyes as they duck through the doorway.

The boy is sitting on a bed too big for one person. He looks up when they enter, and his eyes are hollow.

"Hello, Mordred," Gwen says warmly. She seems to know everyone in this village, but given said village is about the length and breadth of a sneeze, Arthur isn't too shocked.

The boy, Mordred, just looks on. His gaze lingers first on Merlin, then on Arthur, and there's something about those eyes that is more discomfiting than Arthur's likely to admit. He feels unaccountably as though he's done something he needs to apologize for.

"This is Merlin and Arthur. They're here to help find Kara," Gwen explains.

Merlin steps forward with an awkward "Hello."

Mordred continues to look disinterestedly between the pair of them. Merlin rallies.

"How are you holding up?"

Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he tries to rally.

But where Arthur would have called him an idiot, or at least changed his expression to convey that always-relevant point, Mordred's face doesn't even flicker. Arthur wonders grimly if he's in shock.

"We're not here to hurt you," Merlin says.

Arthur very nearly opens his mouth to protest—why on earth would this boy believe they've come to hurt him?—but Mordred's eyes move to fix on his and suddenly Arthur is caught, stunned by the cold fury he finds there. It's unnatural. This is a child.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees a startled expression cross Merlin's face, one that is quickly smoothed away. He must have noticed the look as well.

Arthur clears his throat, which feels oddly thick all of a sudden. "We're here to help you," he says, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "You and your sister. Can you tell us anything about what happened the day she disappeared?"

Mordred says nothing. Arthur is at a loss. He's about to ask Gwen whether Mordred is mute and she failed to mention it when there's a rustle of cloth and Morgana steps forward. Before Arthur's disbelieving eyes, she sits down next to the boy and puts a gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Nothing will harm you while we're here," she says; her voice is soft but her eyes are bright and hard as metal. "I promise you."

Mordred stares at her. And then he swallows once, twice.

"You can't save her," he mumbles. "Kara's gone."

"Do you mean," Merlin begins carefully, but Mordred shakes his head, not taking his eyes from Morgana.

"Not dead. Just gone."

"Then we can get her back," Gwen says firmly. Mordred swallows again.

"Not where it's taken her," he says. "The monster." Arthur feels abruptly chilled, even though there's no wind to speak of. "We weren't supposed to be there. It came out of nowhere. Like a wolf-man, great black eyes and an axe…"

Mordred trails off, his gaze far away. Morgana's expression is grim, and Gwen has gone pale.

Merlin, Arthur notices, has barely taken his eyes off the boy since they got here. He's frowning now, like he's trying to work something out, only Arthur would swear his erstwhile servant hadn't actually been listening to a word Mordred said. He elbows him sharply, and Merlin snaps out of it with a glare. Satisfied, Arthur turns back to Mordred.

"Did you notice—"

"That's enough," Morgana interrupts. "He doesn't know anything else."

Arthur frowns. "Morgana—"

She fixes him with a green-eyed glare. It's no less intimidating now than it had been when they were children. "I said that's enough, Arthur."

"Maybe we should go speak to some of the other parents," Gwen cuts in swiftly. "They'll be coming back for their afternoon meal about now."

"Good idea," Merlin says. Arthur scowls at him. Merlin pretends not to notice.

"I'll stay with Mordred," Morgana says, and it doesn't sound like an offer so much as a royal edict. Arthur is tempted to make a snide comment about Agravaine and how little he'd appreciate his babysitter letting her charges go off without a chaperone, but…Mordred is still looking at her like she's hung the moon right before his eyes, and with his family gone…

Arthur sighs. "Keep your eyes open," he tells her. Morgana glances at him with something that could very nearly be respect.

"I always do," she replies.

.

Twelve or so unhelpful villagers later, Arthur's already-worn patience is beginning to look threadbare.

"This doesn't make sense," he says as they walk back to the manor, anger wound tight around every syllable. "We're trying to help them and they're saying nothing."

It's not that Merlin blames him for being frustrated. He's frustrated too. In the past hour they've spoken to no less than five families. Some have already lost spouses, or even other children, to disease or to accident. Yet they'd all been sparing with details of those missing—oh, they'd been willing enough to tell Arthur and Merlin where they'd seen the children last, what they'd been doing, but when asked for any thoughts as to a motive or other details they had clammed up. Claimed not to know, with weathered faces and weary voices.

And they'd probably been the most unconvincing group of liars Merlin's ever seen.

He supposes in a small village like this, with everyone already knowing everyone else's business, lying isn't a skill that would get much practice. He remembers that much from his own upbringing; if it weren't for the small matter of his magic he probably would've grown up with the same lack of guile. But what's so important here that they feel compelled to lie about it?

"They obviously don't trust us yet," he points out when Arthur continues to grumble. "Can you blame them? We're outsiders, we don't know what it's like to live here, and I can't imagine Agravaine's done much to endear himself to the local populace. They told him it was a witch and he blew them off; they can't assume we won't do the same."

Arthur still looks pissed. "These are their children. Wouldn't you take any help that was offered? Even if you risked being laughed at?"

"Well, yes. Unless…"

Merlin's voice trails off. He stops walking.

"Unless they had something else to be afraid of. Something worse than their children disappearing."

But what secret could be worse than suffering a missing child?

"What on earth are you going on about?" Arthur demands, turning to face him, but Merlin doesn't hear. His mind is racing, running back over every sideways look, every canny response, the shadows under Mordred's eyes, his wariness—you don't learn that kind of fear growing up in a small village like this. Not unless you've got something to hide.

There'd been something familiar about the boy's expression before, something in that helpless anger, but Merlin hadn't been able to place it. Now the resemblance becomes stark in his mind—blue eyes, dark hair, the look of an animal that's just caught scent of its hunters—and he realizes he's seen that look before. Of course he has. He saw it in the mirror for years.

He meets Arthur's eyes and knows he's gone pale. "We need to talk to Mordred again. Now."

As if on cue, a high-pitched shout cuts through the chilly afternoon. Arthur doesn't hesitate; military instincts have him turning on his heel and bolting towards the sound in an instant, and Merlin is only a heartbeat behind.

A sick feeling curls in his stomach as they reach the source of the noise. Mordred's home.

Arthur kicks the door open, not bothering with finesse. They shoulder their way into the small dwelling—and nearly trip headfirst over Morgana, who's lying on the floor with unfocused eyes and blood trickling from her forehead.

"Mordred," she mumbles, but Merlin is already looking past her, his mouth hanging open.

Standing by the open window is a monster.

At least that's what his eyes tell him at first, before he realizes it's only a man—a man draped in an iron-gray wolf's pelt pinned with a circular badge, a man with an axe on his belt and blank black eyes that don't even spare the intruders a glance, fixed as they are on the limp boy in his arms.

Arthur recovers first, drawing his pistol and firing twice with rapid speed. Both bullets hit the wolf-man squarely in the chest, Merlin sees it—but then the man moves and is gone in the instant it takes Arthur to reload.

They both rush to the window, but it's too late. The wolf-man and Mordred have already vanished from view.

"That's impossible," Arthur says, staring out at the empty field. "It's impossible. I saw…"

Merlin's fingers dig into the wood grain of the windowsill.

Morgana groans from the floor. The sound snaps Arthur out of his shock and he moves back across the room to help her stand, check the wound, make sure it's nothing serious. Merlin, on the other hand, feels as if his feet have frozen to the ground. His mind is still whirling, still putting the last pieces together and coming to the unwelcome conclusion that—

"We made a mistake," he says quietly. Arthur's response is little more than a bark.

"Of course we made a mistake, Merlin, he's gone god-knows-where—"

"No," Merlin interrupts. His knuckles are going white around the windowsill. "I mean we've been going about this the wrong way. These people were never going to tell us anything. We've been wasting our time."

"What the hell are you—"

Merlin turns. With nothing to cling to, his hands are trembling. "Don't you get it? These children were taken for a reason. The families must've suspected—but they couldn't say anything, because their children are probably in trouble as it stands, but if outsiders knew why they were taken then they'd definitely be killed."

He can see the moment it clicks: Arthur goes very, very still. "You don't mean—"

"Yeah." Merlin takes a deep breath. "They have magic."

.

Lesson VI: Shit Hits The Anachronism

.

To his credit, Arthur manages to hold in the explosion until after they've half-carried Morgana back to Agravaine's manor and his physician, leaving the old man with the unwelcome job of trying to get Morgana to submit to treatment.

The second they're back outside, however, all bets are off.

"Why didn't they say anything?" Arthur bursts out. He sounds so righteously furious that a laugh rips its way out of Merlin's throat against his better judgment.

"Do you hear yourself when you speak?" he wants to know. "Maybe it's escaped your notice, but people with magic don't exactly get a warm welcome in places where your father has control. They were scared. Mordred was scared."

Arthur's jaw tightens. "If Mordred had spoken up, we wouldn't have left him alone. We could have kept things from getting out of control like this."

"If he'd spoken up, he had no way of knowing whether you'd help him or throw him to the wolves," Merlin snaps.

"He could have trusted—"

"You can't trust anyone!" The words tear themselves free from his chest, and suddenly all the bitterness Merlin has been swallowing down is following in their wake.

"Do you know what would've happened to him if the wrong people found out about his powers? They would have tied him to a stake and set him on fire and watched him die screaming. And it wouldn't've mattered that he was a child, or that he was harmless, or that he would never hurt anyone—they would've killed him anyway, because people are vicious when they're afraid."

He's breathing harshly. Arthur is staring at him.

"Merlin…" He blinks, frowns. "Merlin, the paving stones are levitating."

So they are. Merlin shakes his head like he's trying to get rid of an obnoxious fly and the stones go thudding back into their original places.

Basic loss of control resulting from an emotional outburst; it's a mistake he'd stopped making when he was a child, yet here he is. There had been so many opportunities to slip up in the manor house of the Pendragons; in retrospect, he supposes it was a miracle he hadn't been caught sooner.

"He was scared," Merlin repeats. "What was he supposed to do?"

Arthur rubs his hand over his mouth. He doesn't meet Merlin's eyes.

"Do you think it ever occurred to him," he says in a low voice, "that maybe it wasn't the magic as much as the lying?"

Merlin stops in his metaphorical tracks. "What?"

Arthur ignores the question and moves on. Typical. "So what Mordred told the others about that man in the wolf pelt not wanting him…"

Forcing himself to focus on the situation at hand, Merlin answers, "Just a story. He's older than Kara, isn't he? His magic is stronger than hers; he probably got scared in the woods, lost control and distracted the wolf-man long enough to get away."

He'd known something was odd about Mordred from the start. He just hadn't known what it was—he's never been around other magic users long enough to recognize what the signs felt like. It's only here, in this strange little village and its outlying woods, that he's becoming acquainted with the feeling of magical saturation.

Arthur is staring hard at the tree line. Merlin follows his gaze out of habit.

It still doesn't make sense. Something doesn't add up. Merlin's gone his whole life without running into another witch or warlock, twenty years without a single other magic user crossing his path, so why now? What are the odds of so many magical children being born in one village? Why…

"Six," Arthur murmurs.

Merlin blinks. "What?"

"Six," Arthur says again, his mouth a hard line. "Five children had already gone missing before we got here. Mordred makes the sixth."

"And…?"

Arthur gives him that look, like he's being really stupid about something. Usually something that wouldn't be obvious to anyone but Arthur. "Where else have we seen that number recently?"

An image flashes in his memory: a circlet of stone around a tower. Oh, shit.

"The tower," he says numbly. "The coffin stones."

Arthur nods. "Not that it is in any way my area of expertise," he says, "but given the circumstances this seems to be a magic…thing."

Merlin gulps. Normally he's all for exhausting every possible option first, rather than just leaping to the tired "Magic Is Always Bad" conclusion, but in this case… "Yeah, I think it's safe to assume that this is definitely a magic thing."

"Wonderful." Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose. "We'll have to go in tonight, then."

"Tonight?" Merlin repeats, hoping he's gone abruptly deaf. "And do…what, exactly? We don't even know who's doing this, or why. And that man with the wolf pelt looked…" He shudders, remembering the blank look in those eyes. "Dead. Like he wasn't even awake while he was moving. Never mind the fact that you shot him and the bullets might as well've been daisies for all the good they did."

"What's your point?"

Old gods save him from the self-certainty of ignorant prats. "My point is that it's stupid to go charging in somewhere we're not familiar with, against an enemy we literally don't know. Anything that can make a person look and act like that man back there is something I don't want to deal with blindfolded."

"All sound strategic points," Arthur says flatly. "But there were six stones, and now six children are gone. You and I both know that something strange is going on inside that tower, and you said it yourself—we don't know any of the details. Including how much time we have before it's too late to save any of them. Are you really willing to take that risk?"

"You're talking about risk?"

"For God's sake, Merlin!" Arthur explodes. "This is one situation where we can't afford to sneak around like—"

Merlin's head snaps up. Arthur stops, looking stricken, but the damage is done.

"Cowards?" Merlin says coldly. "For wanting to stay alive?"

"Merlin—" Arthur doesn't finish the sentence. At least he doesn't look away.

"We've another hour or two before sundown," he says instead. "We should spend that time gathering supplies and working out a strategy."

"Right," Merlin says dully. "I'll go back to Mordred's house first. See if the wolf-man left anything behind."

Arthur nods. If he doubts Merlin's sudden acquiescence then he doesn't show it.

Merlin turns away, pausing only for a second when Arthur speaks.

"I wouldn't have turned him in," he says, almost too quiet for Merlin to hear. "If he'd trusted me, I would never have betrayed that trust."

Merlin says nothing. Eventually he hears Arthur's footsteps going in the other direction, and only then does he start walking blindly down the path.

Coward.

If that's what Arthur really thinks of him, Merlin supposes bitterly that it's not much of a surprise. To people like Arthur—soldiers, born and bred for the purpose of dying nobly for whatever cause—he supposes doing what it takes to survive is cowardly. There's no middle ground between being canny and being craven.

The fact that Merlin's not just worried about himself anymore doesn't seem to make a difference.

He's not sure at what point this became the case (Merlin can only assume he suffered a severe concussion at some point and this is the result) but if something happens to Arthur he'll—well, he'll be extremely upset, is what he'll be.

But Arthur's not here, is he?

Merlin's steps slow. He stares down at the worn path under his feet.

Arthur isn't here right now. And if he's so all-fired determined to go striding into the dragon's mouth, there's no way to stop him short of hitting him over the head with a blunt shovel. And even that might not work.

Merlin can't stop Arthur from being a noble idiot. He's proven that over and over again.

But maybe he can beat him to it.

Before he can think too hard about it, Merlin starts walking again. But this time he changes direction. Steps off the path and starts walking through the thick green grass, heading in the direction of the forest.

It looks like he's got an appointment with a witch.

.

Lesson VII: Arthur Cannot Get A Word In

.

The tower feels like it's calling to him.

It's probably the only reason he's able to find the clearing so easily. After all, Gwen only showed him the path once. But there's still something about this forest—something inexorable, something that pulls him in like the undertow of the tides. Magic, green and ancient and deep and beckoning. And always focused on the tower, the dark eye of the storm.

Merlin has no idea what he's going to find up there, but for once he isn't worrying and wondering. His mind is cleared by purpose—he's going to do this because there's nothing else he can do.

That knowledge doesn't stop him shuddering when he enters the clearing. The long stones each have a thinner stone laid alongside them now, like lids for a box, and his stomach churns at the sight.

He doesn't want to move closer, but he does.

Mordred is lying inside the nearest coffin, eyes closed, pale enough that Merlin's heart stutters—but no, his chest is moving. A slow, steady, sleeping breath.

A quick walk around the clearing shows five other children, all in the same state. Merlin's afraid to touch them, not knowing what kind of spell is keeping them asleep. Something tells him he can't interfere like this. If he wants to fix the problem, he's going to have to go straight to the source.

The source.

Merlin looks up. And up. And up. The tower seems to stretch all the way to the cold gray sky.

How in the hell am I going to get up there?

Merlin glances around doubtfully. There's nothing that looks like it would make a decent ladder, and he might be magic but even he can't just make things appear out of thin air.

Gwen's legend rings in his memory. For a moment he feels a pang of pity for whatever witch had walled herself into this tower, leaving no doors and only a single window to look through. It must have been lonely to be so high above the rest of the world.

His gaze slides back up to the stone spire and snags on the thorny vines growing over the face of the tower, and an image clicks in his mind.

Maybe he's not good enough to make things materialize from nowhere, but he can definitely encourage already-existing things a little. Merlin closes his eyes and calls up his magic. It bubbles up in him like warmth, like home; it reaches out to the vines and their roots, nudges them gently into the shape he wants.

Unbidden, a note of irritation: This isn't evil. This isn't harming anybody.

When he opens his eyes again, the stronger vines have knotted together to form something of a rope, reaching from eye level all the way to the tower window. Merlin fairly beams despite the situation. He can't help it—he's been holding his magic back for so long, trying not to remind Arthur it exists. Stupid, really, but…

Well, Merlin doesn't like to think about it too much. All thinking about it does is remind him that he'll probably never balance what Arthur's given up for his sake. Whether Arthur thinks he's a coward or not.

Although, he thinks, stepping forward to test the strength of the rope, this could be a start. If anyone can appreciate an incredible act of stupidity done for the right reasons, it will be Arthur.

If Merlin lives through it, that is.

He looks up again and starts climbing.

.

It takes every ounce of Arthur's self-control not to turn around, walk back to Merlin and apologize. Fortunately, he thinks, sardonic, he's always been blessed with an abundance of self-control.

Except of course when it comes to making a complete arse of himself.

He strides and glares his way down the halls of Agravaine's grossly opulent manor, startling several servants out of his path. And then he feels guilty about that too.

This is all Merlin's fault. He never used to concern himself with things like what the servants thought of him. Certainly his father never had.

Arthur reaches his room and shuts the door hard behind him. He walks over to the desk where his various weapons are all laid out, sits down and begins to clean his favorite pistol. The task is usually enough to clear his mind, but it doesn't seem to be working right now.

It's strange, Arthur thinks. He's done a lot of things lately that his father wouldn't approve of. Rebelled, he supposes.

And, well, the rebellion thing is still very new. Uther's household had never left much room for anything other than complete and unconditional obedience. Which had always made sense to Arthur; if you're going to be a soldier, you can't be going about questioning authority all the time.

It was only in the last year or so that Arthur had begun to wonder whether some orders ought to be questioned. Or whether some measure of rebellion might be necessary—even beneficial—in order to be a good leader.

At the time, the very thought had felt tantamount to treason. And so far he's tried not to think about the timing, although he suspects the start of his downward spiral was uncomfortably close to the day a skinny boy from god-knows-where had shown up looking for servant work.

Of course, Arthur muses, cleaning more forcefully, there's healthy rebellion and then there's out-and-out revolution, and the latter can easily be the death of an army.

He'd never had any illusions about which one saving Merlin's life would be.

Thinking about that day makes Arthur want to kick himself all over again.

Coward. He'd as good as called Merlin a coward, when he'd known—he'd seen firsthand what could happen if people like him weren't careful enough.

But then, the word hadn't really been aimed at Merlin, had it?

Arthur's hands stop moving. He puts the cloth down.

Before, Merlin had kept his secrets to stay alive. Now, out here, Arthur's been forcing him to keep them for—what? So that he, Arthur, doesn't have to remember every time he looks at Merlin that he's betraying everything his father has fought for?

So he can go on pretending Uther wasn't wrong about everything?

The whole thing is a sham. It's not even the magic he's frustrated with (although Arthur's still working through his issues there) so much as the lying, and the sneaking around, and even if he understands why Merlin never told him he still feels irrationally angry about it.

But what good is a leader who shuts his eyes and forces others to do the same? What good is a coward to his friends?

Arthur gives up and stands up so fast he nearly upends the chair.

Maybe he's not certain what's right or wrong anymore, but he's pretty certain that he's just made a mistake. One that he needs to fix before they go tearing off to face an unknown magical threat.

He's halfway to the door before it opens and Morgana comes in, half leaning on the doorframe.

"I'm coming with you," she says curtly.

Thrown by the sudden interruption of his moral epiphany, Arthur needs a moment to regain his bearings.

"What?" he manages. "Are you out of your mind? You should be in bed, not—"

"I don't care," she snaps. "I've been here longer than you have. I care about these people and I will see this through."

"Morgana—"

He sees the agony in her eyes then, the sneering mask stripped away and suddenly she's just his sister again.

"I promised him," she says, miserably. "Mordred. I promised I'd keep him safe, and look what happened. I owe him this, Arthur."

Arthur opens his mouth and then closes it. There is absolutely no way for him to argue that further, least of all when Morgana is looking at him like that. He sighs.

"Fine, but if—"

"Morgana!"

The shout comes echoing down the hall. Arthur gives up. Clearly the universe at large has decided he'll not be finishing any of his sentences today.

"In here," Morgana calls back, and a moment later Gwen comes skidding into view.

"Mor—oh." She stops short at the sight of Arthur. "Wait, you're here?"

"Yes?" Arthur offers, feeling rather lost. "Is there someplace else I was meant to be?"

"No, I just…" Gwen bites her lip. "I was coming to tell Morgana that, ah…"

"She was going tell me when you and Merlin had gone so I could follow," Morgana supplies. "In case you tried to sneak away before I had the chance to corner you."

Arthur rubs his temples. "Of course. But I'm still here, obviously."

"Then why did I just see Merlin going into the woods?" Gwen demands.

Arthur stops moving.

"Come again?"

"I just assumed you'd gone ahead, I thought…" Gwen trails off. "He's gone in there alone?"

Arthur waits a moment for the cool, calculated calm he'd learnt under his father's command to kick in, clear his mind of everything except for what needs to be done. A soldier's calm.

It doesn't come. All he feels is an icy, trickling sort of fear.

"We're going after him," he says. "Now."

Morgana and Gwen both nod. Arthur takes a moment to go back to the desk, grab the one pistol he'd managed to clean and a good knife. And all the while he thinks that he really should have seen this coming—Merlin never does like to make things easy for him.

.

Merlin, naturally, stumbles trying to climb over the windowsill and falls.

It's not a promising start. Especially since he hits a stone floor hard enough that his vision nearly blacks out. It takes a minute for his head to stop swimming, at which point he slowly forces himself to sit up.

Bad idea. His head pounds mercilessly and his eyes—his eyes—

It's not them, he realizes slowly, as the pain begins to subside. He hasn't suddenly gone blind thanks to a concussion; it's just that the room inside of the tower is so dark that he might as well be. He can't see a damn thing.

Merlin stands carefully and murmurs a spell. Witchlight blooms from his palm.

Not that the illumination illuminates much. The room is small and round, no light coming through save for that he's making. Broken and disused furniture is scattered here and there, draped in cobwebs so thick Merlin doesn't want to think about how long they must have been sitting there.

In the center of the room there is a large, canopied bed, thick white webs covering it like a funeral shroud. The shadows seem denser around it, somehow. Shivers run up and down Merlin's spine. He doesn't want to get any closer.

Standing opposite the bed, propped up against a wall, is a magnificent mirror.

Even through years' worth of tarnish, Merlin can tell that the mirror is a gorgeous work of craftsmanship, intricately wrought with gold and set with jewels that would've long since been stolen, if this tower wasn't for all intents and purposes impenetrable.

But there's more to it than appearances. Merlin can feel a power emanating from the mirror's surface, which is curiously free of dust or cobwebs, but he can't tell whether it's benevolent or…not.

If he's supposed to be searching for a powerful magical troublemaker, though, the mirror and the bed are the most likely suspects and Merlin is not going near that bed if he doesn't need to, so mirror it is.

Feeling foolish for it but holding his breath anyway, Merlin takes two steps forward and turns to face the glass.

His own reflection looks blankly back at him.

Merlin looses his breath—so it was nothing, then—but then the reflection begins to shift. Light fills it, even as the room around him remains stubbornly dark; the furniture begins to repair itself and set itself to rights, the cobwebs are brushed away as if by invisible hands, and the dust of ages vanishes into thin air.

And the bed…

Merlin whips around to look behind him, but the room is dark and cobwebbed and the bed is still. He turns back to the mirror's reflection.

A woman reclines on the bed, as regally as any queen. She is young, but somehow Merlin gets the feeling that she is older than anything else in this room. Her long dark hair is knotted with braids, her blood-red mouth twisted in a mocking smile, but it's the eyes that do it—they're the kind of blue Merlin imagines you'd see at the bottom of the ocean, just before all light died and your air ran out. Those eyes are bottomless, thoughtful, and fixed on him, pinning Merlin like a butterfly to a card.

"Hello, Emrys," the tower witch says sweetly.

.

Lesson VIII: Witches Do Not Handle Rejection Well

.

It's dark in the clearing. Arthur is beginning to wonder if it's just always dark in this forest. That seems to be in keeping with the rest of this damned village.

Morgana makes a pained noise as the stone coffins come into view. "Mordred."

She runs ahead, Arthur and Gwen a step behind. She was right—Mordred is in one of the coffins, sleeping but alive; the other children are likewise breathing but unmoving.

"Why don't they wake up?" Gwen whispers, horrified. "What is this?"

Arthur crouches down next to another one of the coffins. This one holds a small, pale girl with sharp cheekbones. Something about her reminds him of Mordred, sunken-eyed and frowning, and the resemblance is enough to make him think this might be his sister Kara.

Without thinking, he reaches out and touches her shoulder.

A creaking groan comes from the trees.

All three of them look up, sharp, hands going to weapons—Morgana and Arthur have their guns and pointy implements, while Gwen brought a poker from the forge. Morgana's mouth is tight.

"A bit of advice, dear brother," she says. "When dealing with magic you don't understand, touch nothing."

As if to demonstrate enthusiastic agreement with her point, several of the trees nearest the clearing uproot themselves, loudly, and begin to move toward them.

Even Morgana doesn't have a snappy retort for that one.

"On the upside," Arthur says after a moment, "my uncle will never be able to call any of you superstitious again."

"She put a spell on the coffins," Morgana says grimly; she and Gwen have instinctively backed up to stand beside one another. "To keep anyone from interfering with whatever she's trying to do."

And you walked right into it, you prat. Arthur doesn't want to know what it says that he's starting to hear Merlin's voice whenever he does something particularly stupid.

"You should go, Arthur," Gwen says, her eyes fixed on the advancing trees (and that isn't a sentence Arthur ever thought he'd be contemplating). "Merlin will need all the help he can get."

Arthur stiffens. "I am not going to leave—"

Gwen turns on him. The look in her eyes is fierce. "We all know the stories. If whatever is casting this spell dies then the spell should end, shouldn't it? And maybe those children will wake up as well. I'd say that's more the priority right now."

"Seconded," Morgana says. "Go and save that village idiot of yours. Since that seems to be your life's calling now." Arthur looks up sharply, but his sister's smirk is free of venom.

He battles with himself a moment longer before coming to the conclusion that they're probably right. And also that insulting them by suggesting they can't take care of themselves would be a foolish move, particularly when they're both in possession of sharp objects.

"Be careful," he tells them instead.

"Have fun battling the witch!" Morgana calls cheerfully.

.

Emrys?

Merlin's throat makes a clicking noise when he swallows. "I don't know who that is."

The witch laughs, a high, lilting thing. "Of course you don't. You wouldn't know a thing about the prophecy."

"Prophecy?"

"That Emrys will be the one to restore magic to its rightful place," she says, still smiling. "I was told he'd be here soon. I hope you won't take offense, but you don't exactly look like a savior."

Merlin's got a sinking feeling that the only thing that's going to need saving anytime soon is his own neck, but he keeps that thought to himself.

"So then why the children?" he asks. "What was your goal here? Because it all seems a little opaque to me."

"They are children of magic," she answers. "Their abilities are still small, yes, and muted, but together they might have been enough."

Merlin does not even sort of want to ask this question, but the job is the job. "Enough to…?"

The witch's smile widens. He can see every single one of her too-bright teeth. "I'm being rude. I haven't introduced myself, have I? My name is Nimueh."

"The tower witch," Merlin says faintly.

She nods. "That is what they call me around here. But it's terribly unimaginative. They called me by another name, once." For a moment her eyes are far away. "They all did."

In the mirror, Nimueh moves gracefully from the bed and stands. Behind him, Merlin can hear the creaking of the bed—and then the creaking of limbs, like a bent old tree unfurling its spine. He doesn't dare turn around.

The creaking grows more pronounced as Nimueh's reflection saunters nearer. Merlin has to fight down every instinct that is screaming at him to run.

"Can't you see?" she murmurs as she moves. "It's already begun. Those children, you yourself—" Her eyes flash toward the witchlight in his palm. "These woods are powerful, and my magic has made them stronger still. Now I have finally seen some results: many of the children born in this village now have the gift. They are my living proof."

She'd been experimenting. Merlin swallows hard. "Proof of what?"

Her smile widens. "That magic is returning. I would have waited until their gifts were more mature, but the world is changing too fast. I don't intend to stand idle."

"What do you intend to do?" He just has to keep her talking, Merlin thinks frantically. He just needs to keep her distracted long enough to think of a way to stop this, and then…

She's right behind him now. He can feel cold, fetid breath on his neck, completely at odds with the beautiful woman in the mirror. It's enough to make his skin crawl. Don't turn around. Don't turn around.

"I will take back what was stolen from us," she says, a thread of old rage weaving into her voice as she warms to the topic. "In absorbing those children's magic I will have enough to revive our ancient partnership with the earth, and we will regain our mastery of the old powers. No new firearms or metal armies will be able to subjugate us then. We will be free, and it will be the turn of men like Uther Pendragon to fear us."

Merlin twitches at that name, and Nimueh's hand finds his shoulder, her nails pricking his skin. "You bear no love for him, I see. What has he done to you, child?"

"Tried to have me killed," Merlin admits, the memory making him pensive. "I know a man like Uther doesn't deserve the power he has. I'd know that even if I didn't have magic."

"Yes," she says bitterly. "I do not leave this tower, but I still hear things. I see. He is the sort to mistrust any whose ways are different from his own, and to hunt them down for it." Her eyes fix on his in the glass. In this unnatural light, they almost seem to shine. "It is the will of the world that you would come to me now, Emrys. Lend your powers to mine, and we will right this wrong together."

It's hard to deny that what she's saying makes a good deal of sense. Magic has been all but stamped out, and people like Merlin live in constant terror that somehow, someone will find out what they are and tie them to a stake for it. It's no fault of theirs. They didn't ask for their magic, but the laws of the land don't care. Uther Pendragon doesn't care.

But what about his son?

He remembers the last thing Arthur had told him, before they'd parted ways: I would never have betrayed that trust. He'd been too hurt to think about the implications of that at the time, but…

There's a kernel of hope there. It's not much, but from where Merlin is standing it looks much better than despair.

He blinks hard, trying to focus on the still-smiling face in the mirror. There's something very off about Nimueh, legends aside. There's something wrong in her eyes—a pure sense of purpose twisted and malformed by ages of living in isolation, nursing her old hatred. There's the way she said it will be their turn to fear us.

Fear. Haven't they all had enough of fear by now?

"I don't think you're wrong about the world changing," Merlin says at last. "But I also think that people can change too. They can change their minds about us, I've seen it."

Nimueh raises one perfect eyebrow. "The boy who travels with you? I see."

"I really don't think you do," Merlin insists, flushing. "Look, you—do you even know who he is? He's got more reason than anyone else to hate us and he still threw everything away to save my life. Can you honestly look at that and think there's no hope left?"

"One man cannot tip the scales, even if he wished it," she says flatly. Her tone changes. "Although I see that you are…attached to him. If we were to join our powers, he would kneel at your feet."

Merlin tries to jerk away, but Nimueh's nails in his shoulder hold him fast.

"I don't want him to—I don't want anyone kneeling to me," he says, repulsed. "Is that really what you want? Just flip everything backwards, and they can grow up terrified of us instead of the other way around?"

"Fair is fair," the witch says coolly. "We will build such a dynasty that none of them will ever be able to hunt us down again. They won't even be able to think it."

Maybe it's just the masochist in him, but Merlin finds himself rolling his eyes. At the ancient and probably insane tower witch. Maybe Arthur's been right all along and he does have a death wish. "So we're controlling people's thoughts now? Well, that's just brilliant. What part of this makes us any better than Uther and his men, exactly?"

Her nails tighten, biting sharply into his flesh, and he has to bite down on a noise.

"You dare compare me to Uther Pendragon?" she hisses, a fire in her eyes that reminds him—and not comfortably—that she has had a very long time to be very pissed off about this. "You dare put me alongside the man who has slaughtered our kind, driven us to the very brink of extinction? The man who has thrown the balance of the world off so far that it now trembles upon a knife's edge? You dare, Emrys?"

"And you'd just turn it all the other way around!" Merlin snaps, unable to stop himself. "We know what it's like to be afraid all the time. How the hell could we live with ourselves knowing we've done the same to someone else?"

Nimueh stares at him. Her grip on his shoulder hasn't loosened at all; Merlin sees nothing out of place in the reflection, but he can feel blood trickling down his arm.

"You disappoint me," she says. "You were meant to be the salvation of our kind, but I see now that you don't have the stomach to do what needs to be done."

She moves so fast Merlin has no time to react. There's an instant of searing pain as she releases him from her grip, her nails ripping through his skin, and then he's being flung sideways and—suddenly, sickeningly—up.

His head cracks as it hits the stone near the ceiling, making his vision go abruptly spotty around the edges. If he makes it to tomorrow, which is looking less likely by the second, Merlin knows his head is going to feel like a bruised fruit.

At the moment, however, he has bigger problems.

On the floor below, he sees the withered husk of something that was once a woman. Her gown hangs from her grayed flesh in shreds, her hair white and grown so long it pools on the floor. Lines are etched so deeply in her face that she no longer resembles anything much as a twisted woodcarving. Her reflection may be perfect, but the ages have done their work on Nimueh as well as the rest of the tower.

She watches him with milky, sightless eyes. Her mouth does not move when she speaks, but he hears it all the same and cringes at its bitterness.

It makes no difference in the end. I have survived alone for this long.

Merlin's head is swimming, the sensation mixing with vertigo to nauseating effect, but he's still opening his mouth to say something. Ideally something clever. The spell isn't finished yet, after all; there might still be time to fix this—

Then out of the corner of his eye he sees a shiny blond head clambering through the window, and the only words Merlin can come up with are 'oh' and 'fuck'. In that order.

.

Lesson IX: Arthur's Plans Are Basically Shit

.

For the record, Arthur would really rather not be doing this.

"This", of course, being the sneak attack on an apparently very old and apparently very irritable witch who's fond of casting spells on children. Or using children to cast spells—it had gotten a little confusing there, what with the whole eavesdropping-whilst-dangling-out-a-window thing, but either way. Definitely bad news.

Climbing the tower, at least, hadn't been as much of a pain in the arse as Arthur was anticipating. There'd been a conveniently placed vine rope reaching from the tower window by the time he'd gotten there, which he's assuming is Merlin's work because nature is never that convenient.

And so here he is, hauling himself up through said tower window with no plan and no weapons beyond a pistol and a knife. Superb.

The first thing he sees inside is Merlin, becoming intimately acquainted with the portion of wall nearest the ceiling and looking down at him with an expression that suggests he's in rather a lot of pain. Or perhaps that's just what his face does when Arthur is in the vicinity.

And then of course there's the ancient crone, standing there like a woman recently returned from the dead and making every single hair on Arthur's body stand on end.

There's no time to think it through, no room in which to hide or regroup, and despite the pale eyes that suggest the witch's physical sight is long gone, Arthur has the unwelcome feeling that she'll be able to sense his presence somehow.

So he pulls himself out of a crouch, unsheathes his knife in the same motion, and—

"Arthur, don't," Merlin is shouting, but Arthur's already running forward, and then suddenly he's very much not.

He is, in fact, moving sideways. Also upwards. Oh, lovely.

He hits the wall with what he believes to be a prejudiced amount of force, his knife hand pinned to the stone as expertly as if it'd been nailed there. Merlin is giving him a frustrated look from a scant few inches away, like he'd been doing so well before Arthur showed up.

"Fancy meeting you here," Arthur tries.

"You idiot, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you. She's fond of having a captive audience, isn't she?"

"At least there's a view," Merlin replies flatly, for which Arthur would dearly love to hit him if he could move his bloody arms.

"Yes, a wonderful view of the power-mad witch who's going to kill us all, Merlin. It's so good that you're capable of looking on the bright side at a time like this."

Loathe as I am to interrupt such a touching reunion. A bemused female voice speaks the words directly into his head, and Arthur twitches at the intrusion. The voice is rich, cool, completely at odds with the crone standing below them.

Her milk-white eyes fix on his, and Arthur swallows hard.

Arthur Pendragon, she breathes into his mind. It is the will of the world that you should come here now.

"She's fond of saying that, too," Merlin mutters.

You must admit there is truth to it, the witch continues. The son of my most hated enemy comes into my tower on the very night that I am set to regain my former power.

Arthur has no idea what she's talking about, but given his previous experiences with witches he can make an educated guess. Merlin makes a sudden movement next to him.

"Leave him be," Merlin warns. Warm laughter ripples through Arthur's head in response, which is not encouraging.

Oh, I do see, Emrys. You would have him kneel willingly.

Between the words and the way Merlin goes even more pained-looking as he hears them, Arthur is really beginning to feel like he's missing something here.

"I think we've already covered the kneeling conversation," Merlin says. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure we've been over this. No kneeling. Kneeling is bad."

The crone shrugs a shoulder. It creaks. Arthur feels absurdly like laughing.

Very well. I shall have to think of another use for him. For you both, Emrys, if you won't see reason. Let me think…

Arthur has a really, really bad feeling about this. He cranes his neck to get Merlin's attention.

"Can't you do anything?" he asks quietly. "Use your—your magic, get something free?"

"Don't you think I've been trying that?" Merlin hisses. "I've been trying, I'm not an idiot, but she's too strong. If she were distracted then maybe—"

He stops, midsentence, the blood draining from his face.

"Merlin?"

Mutely, Merlin shakes his head. His arm is moving to his side, which should be good news, especially as he's managed to pull his own knife from its sheath—but, as has already been established, nothing is ever that convenient.

"Merlin?" Arthur repeats, a little more urgently.

"Your arm," Merlin manages, which is completely unhelpful, but Arthur's gaze drifts down anyway in case his arm has somehow managed to wander off without his knowledge, and—

His arm has somehow managed to wander off without his knowledge. His hand, the one grasping the knife, is pulling away from the stone as if compelled by magnets.

All at once they're freed from the wall, which would be a relief if they weren't abruptly an inch away from slamming into one another. On instinct Arthur manages to bring his free arm up, grab Merlin's wrist as his knife-wielding hand plunges toward Arthur's chest.

Thankfully Merlin has the presence of mind to stop Arthur's knife-hand as well; he'd be gutted otherwise. But now they're locked in place, hovering tens of feet in the air while their bodies struggle against them.

A cold feeling, like an icy hand gripping the back of his neck, comes over Arthur as their situation becomes starkly clear. The witch is playing with them, and the only way to end the game is if one of them manages to kill the other.

"Nimueh, stop this," Merlin shouts, blue eyes wide and horrified. The witch ignores him. Even Arthur, painfully mundane as he is in this company, could have predicted that much.

The bizarre midair wrestling match continues. Arthur watches, with a sick sort of fascination, as Merlin's eyes flicker to gold, to blue, and then back again. He mutters furious-sounding nonsense under his breath, probably trying to rip Nimueh's spell apart at the seams even though he himself said it was useless. His wrist is beginning to tremble in Arthur's grip—he's losing strength, and Arthur's own knife is slowly, inexorably gaining ground. Pressing closer to its target, inch by inch. He can't drop it; he's tried but his fingers won't obey, and for all his magic, Merlin isn't a trained soldier. He doesn't have the edge in physical strength.

There's only one way this is going to end.

Unless…

The witch below makes a hissing sound, almost like she's disgusted by the spectacle she's created.

Disappointing, says the voice in Arthur's head. I expected so much more.

Sweat is beading at Merlin's temples. His eyes have stayed golden for nearly a full minute, but now the color fades, leaving behind only exhausted blue. He meets Arthur's gaze with helpless fury.

If the witch were distracted, he'd said, then maybe his own magic would stand a chance. It stands to reason. Arthur doesn't know much about magic, but basic strategy supports the theory: get your enemy to look one way and then cut their legs out from under them.

There's only one way Arthur knows to distract an enemy who holds all the power.

They have to give her what she wants.

"Merlin," he says, trying to get him to focus. "Merlin, listen. You need to concentrate." Merlin scowls, but Arthur cuts him off before he can say anything. "You're more powerful than she is. She wouldn't keep trying to recruit you otherwise. If you catch her off guard—"

"If," Merlin croaks, still difficult even in his obvious exhaustion.

"You don't think I have a plan?" Arthur retorts. Trying to ignore the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, he loosens his grip on Merlin's arm.

Merlin's eyes go wide. "Arthur, don't you fucking dare."

Arthur tries to shrug. It doesn't really work. "It's not like we're burdened with other options. But you'd better make this work, or I'm going to haunt you from the grave."

"No." Merlin shakes his head furiously—he's actually afraid, Arthur realizes with some disbelief; all this time at the mercy of the evil witch and now he's afraid? "Arthur, no."

"This is your world," Arthur says firmly. "You're the only one who can end it."

"You can't—"

"Can't?" Without meaning to, Arthur lets out a shaky laugh. "You know me, Merlin. I never listen to you."

And he lets go.

Merlin's knife slides between his ribs, oddly less painful than he would have thought. More like having a bucket of ice water dumped on him than anything else.

The force of the blow shoves him backwards, the hilt of the knife slipping from Merlin's fingers, and then Arthur is falling, the stone ceiling of the tower getting further and further away. But that seems like a negligible detail now, as his vision is going black with alarming speed.

The last thing he sees is Merlin's face, horrorstruck, shouting something Arthur can't hear. He gets smaller and smaller until the darkness finally swallows him whole.

.

Lesson X: Smashing Things Usually Works

.

The spell releases him the instant Arthur hits the ground, but Merlin barely notices the fall, or the blazing pain all along his side as he hits the stone floor.

Arthur lies a few feet away, his eyes closed, blood staining his shirt a vivid red around the hilt of Merlin's knife. His chest isn't moving. Merlin feels like his own has caved in.

Arthur wouldn't even be here if he hadn't saved Merlin's life. Twice, now.

I'm sorry, he wants to say, but he can't seem to find his voice. Nimueh has seated herself in a high-backed chair at the foot of the bed, posture as elegant as a queen's.

I have to say, I am surprised, she muses. And I have lived a long time, Emrys. It takes much to surprise me.

There's a short silence, heavy with consideration.

Then the witch speaks again: Come here, my woodsman.

The wolf-pelted man moves out of the shadows. Merlin hadn't even noticed him, doesn't know how long he's been standing there, but he doesn't have it in him to be startled.

Nimueh motions with her grossly overlong nails. The wolf-man steps forward, his eyes black and blank as he obeys.

Her crooked white fingers brush the badge on his chest. There are runes on it, symbols Merlin hadn't noticed before.

In one swift movement, Nimueh wrenches the badge from the man's chest—except, Merlin realizes with horror, it isn't a badge. It's a spike. Merlin can practically feel the power radiating off of it as the wolf pelt falls from the man's shoulders.

The wolf-man—the woodsman's eyes widen for a moment before they roll back in his head, his body collapsing to the ground. Merlin can't do anything but stare.

Thoughtfully, Nimueh examines the magical instrument in her hand, still stained with the woodsman's blood. It takes much to surprise me, she repeats. And yet your friend managed it. That's something that should be rewarded, don't you think?

Merlin has a sudden cold feeling. "Don't," he croaks, but Nimueh is already standing. Her tattered gown trails behind her as she walks over to where Arthur lies, as she kneels next to his body.

The son of Uther Pendragon for my servant, she says, amusement gilding the words. I have a weakness for irony.

She shoves the spike into Arthur's chest and he immediately sits bolt upright, gasping as air claws its way down his throat.

His eyes, when they open, are as black as the woodsman's had been.

No. Even as Merlin watches, horrified into stillness, Arthur's wound begins to knit back together, to heal. The blood congeals, flows only barely around the head of the spike.

You will help me to complete the spell, son of Pendragon, Nimueh murmurs. Eyes blank, Arthur gives her a dull nod and begins to stand. Merlin feels like he ought to be looking for a weapon, for something he can use that can't be turned against him, but what is any of it worth? His magic isn't strong enough to beat Nimueh outright. She isn't even focused on him now; her white eyes are fixed completely on Arthur. And like hell is Merlin going to start a magical firefight when Arthur is in the middle of it.

Now what? What can I do?

"What…"

For an instant Merlin wonders wildly if he's starting speaking his thoughts out loud, but then both Nimueh's head swivels in the opposite direction. Merlin follows her gaze in the mirror's reflection.

The woodsman is standing—well, barely, pale-faced and covered in blood from the wound on his chest, but standing all the same. His eyes are clear and brown and fixed on Nimueh.

"What have you done to me?" he rasps, the look on his face one of undiluted horror. Even in the midst of all this other shit they're mired in, Merlin feels sorry for him.

The man takes too long to die, Nimueh says, sounding bored. Dispatch him, Arthur.

Merlin realizes what will happen before it does. The woodsman still has his axe, but Arthur will draw his pistol, and one of two things will happen. Either Arthur will succeed and kill this apparently innocent stranger, or he'll fail and be killed first.

Arthur's hand goes to his holster. Nimueh's beautiful reflection smiles, satisfied. Fury boils in Merlin's gut at the sight, rising in his chest—she has no right, she has become the thing they all want to destroy us for fear of—and as his own reflection's eyes swim with gold, a tiny crack appears in the mirror.

Nimueh twitches, confusion crossing her face.

Arthur raises his pistol.

And Merlin understands.

The mirror's surface is flawless, untouched by centuries of rot and dust; the spiders that have done their work all over the rest of the tower have refused to touch the glass in its golden frame. They fear the power emanating from it, the power that has bled so deeply into this forest.

Power from the mirror that holds a too-ancient witch's soul.

Merlin's magic flows in a rush, understanding its purpose, and a harsh wind blows through the small tower window. It buffets the mirror back and forth, slamming it back against the wall. Another crack appears. And then another.

Nimueh cries out in pain as her tower itself seems to lurch, the duel postponed for a moment as its participants try to steady themselves. In the glass, the witch's eyes lock on Merlin's with fury. Her attention is back on him now.

All at once he feels it again, the invisible force trying to drag him to the side where he won't be a nuisance. He reaches out and grabs hold of the mirror's frame, clings to it even as the rest of his body lifts off the ground from the force of Nimueh's unnatural wind. His own wind isn't enough, knocking the mirror around isn't enough, he needs—he needs—

His eyes snag on a small bright shape in the corner—the knife Arthur had dropped when he fell. Merlin dares to let go of the mirror with one hand, stretch it out—the knife rises—

Arthur's eyes meet his in the mirror. There's nothing in them but emptiness.

Merlin squeezes his own eyes shut. Gods, this had better work.

He swings his arm in a vicious arc and the knife follows, its hilt smashing directly into mirror-Nimueh's beautiful face.

Merlin hits the ground as Nimueh screams, her voice rising and rising to a pitch no human should be able to reach. A spiderweb of cracks appears on the glass, spreading faster than Merlin's eye can follow. He turns and his jaw drops.

The tower witch is shattering.

Her face—no, her entire body is covered in the same cracks that Merlin put in the mirror glass. The sound of breaking fills the air as both wind and witch continue to howl. But her eyes are still on fire, and Merlin thinks if he can just hit the mirror one more time—

A hand clamps down on his shoulder, and he starts.

"Allow me," the woodsman growls over the wind.

Before Merlin can say anything the woodsman takes a step forward and, with his bare hands, wrenches the largest piece of glass from the mirror's frame. Blood runs between his fingers as he turns and moves for the window, fighting the wind every step of the way.

"Stop him!" Nimueh shrieks over the tempest.

Arthur moves too fast for a man who was dead a few minutes ago; Merlin screams a warning but it's no good—one moment Arthur is running full tilt at the woodsman and the next, they're all gone. Arthur, the woodsman and the mirror shard—fallen through the window and disappeared.

There's a shattering sound from below.

Nimueh's screams abruptly stop. When Merlin turns his head, numb with disbelief, there's nothing where she once stood but a pile of dust.

And of course that's when the tower begins to collapse.

.

A chunk of rock that used to be half the ceiling nearly smashes into Merlin's face, at which point self-preservation instinct manages to edge out his shock.

He scrambles toward the window and the vine rope. It's still intact, at least for now, and there's no time to look down or to think about it before he's slinging a leg over the windowsill and starting the long climb down.

He doesn't spare another glance inside the small dark room, still reeking of old magic and bitter sadness and rage; doesn't bother lingering over the shattered remains of the mirror, that last great anchor for Nimueh's ancient soul, or the pitiful pile of dust that used to be an incredibly powerful sorceress. Let her blow away on the wind for all he cares. She's done enough damage.

Back and forth the tower begins to sway, great boulders of rock falling to the earth below and contributing to the peculiar sensation that the world is crumbling around his ears. The wind is still whipping around outside, harsh on his face as he tries to get to ground before the entire thing collapses.

But it's too high, he realizes as the world gives a particularly vicious lurch. It's too—

"Merlin!"

From far beneath him, a distant scream, barely loud enough to be heard above the wind.

"Merlin, you have to jump!"

A female voice—Morgana, he realizes, which doesn't explain why the words are completely mad.

"You're mad!" he shouts back, craning to see over his shoulder. "It's too high up!"

"I'll catch you!"

There's more, but her words are stolen away by the gales, leaving Merlin unconvinced. She'll catch him? From this height? He's more likely to kill them both.

Another massive stone groans as it gives way, but this one hits his vine on the way down—not hard enough to sever it, but enough to present the unpleasant possibility.

Morgana is shouting again. "I'll catch you, Merlin! You have to trust me!"

Merlin clings to his vine, tries to brace himself against the wind and the doubt. Everything has gone spectacularly pear-shaped somehow, which he supposes is what comes of facing off with legendary tower witches with no plan whatsoever. Really, he's brought this on himself.

On himself, and on Arthur, who'd been stupid and loyal enough to follow him here.

Arthur, who might be dead on the ground right now for all he knows. Merlin closes his eyes as the tower shudders.

I hope you're not dead, you utter prat.

He lets go.

.

Lesson XI: Merlin Is Not A Fan Of Clichés (Well, Most Of The Time)

.

The fall feels long and short at the same time. For a few moments Merlin knows nothing but freezing cold, the wind screaming in his ears—

And then he slams into something, hard enough that at first he thinks he's gone and hit the ground after all and death will shortly be upon him, but no. It's not grass under his back, he realizes, eyes still shut from reflex; it's—it's—he has no bloody idea what it is.

Merlin opens his eyes and meets Morgana's, which are blazing gold.

She lowers her arms and Merlin thuds ungracefully to the ground that's still a foot or so away. He barely notices the ache, still stunned from one surprise too many. Morgana is looking at him with the strangest mixture of defiance and fear he's ever seen in his life.

He has so many questions that none of them manage to come out.

"I won't say anything," is what ends up leaving his mouth instead, before he's considered what those words mean. More secrets.

But Morgana nods with relief in her eyes, and Merlin remembers how trapped he'd felt in Uther's household—suffocated by the stark certainty that if he ever slipped up, his life would be forfeit. He wonders how much worse that feeling would've been if he'd grown up with it.

If he'd grown up with—oh, hell. "Arthur?" he says, a little frantic.

Morgana shakes her head, face bone-white. "I tried to slow their fall, but I don't know…" Her voice falters. "Gwen was hurt in the fighting. I—I need to see to her."

Merlin drags himself up to see Arthur and the woodsman lying unconscious on the ground, miraculously uncrushed by any rubble. He runs over.

The woodsman groans as Merlin kneels down in the dirt. Alive, then. The knowledge does nothing at all to loosen the vise of fear gripped tight around Merlin's throat: Arthur hasn't moved, hasn't done anything but lie there, cold and still.

Nimueh's spike is gone, rotted away like old wood. She must have put enough of herself into it for the thing to disintegrate once she was dead. Arthur is bleeding sluggishly from the place where the spike had been, but it doesn't look like a bad enough wound to keep him knocked out like this.

"Arthur?" Merlin tries, feeling stupid even as he does it. There's no response.

It's the spell. It has to be. Arthur doesn't look especially injured or even bothered, more like he's sleeping on the forest floor. But he'd been attached to Nimueh's magic. The sudden loss of it must have hurt him inside somehow.

"Arthur, come on. This isn't funny."

He knows his words are all useless, dead dull things falling from his mouth like rotten fruit. If he had the power Nimueh thought he did, he could fix this. If he were the threat Uther feared, he could fix this. If he were Emrys—

This is your world.

Arthur's words in his mind. They're strangely grounding.

Merlin takes a breath and tries to concentrate past the haze of panic. He puts his hands on Arthur's chest, closes his eyes, and sends his magic out.

It's not long before he finds the root of the problem. Nimueh's magic had dug deep in such a short amount of time; Merlin pictures a cruel black thing hooked into Arthur's heart. Seeing it now, Merlin thinks it's nothing short of a miracle that losing the spike hadn't killed the woodsman, let alone Arthur.

Thinking like that isn't gong to help. He breathes out, slowly, tries to let his magic spread out. It feels warm, a bright golden thing in his mind's eye. Maybe that brightness can smother Nimueh's darkness for good.

But the remnants of her spell fight back, repelling everything he tries. Merlin is starting to feel drained, exhausted, like he's losing ground. He doesn't know how much time has passed. How the hell can one witch be so powerful when she's already dead?

A shadow crosses his eyes, and Merlin opens them.

Morgana is standing over them both, looking down at her brother with an unreadable expression on her face. For one agonizing second Merlin isn't sure what she's going to do.

Then she kneels across from him on the forest floor.

"What can I do?" she asks quietly.

Merlin feels a surge of relief he can't entirely account for. "You can lend me a hand," he says. "A hand and some magic would be great."

She nods, tight-lipped, and puts her pale hands uncertainly over his. The bleeding of her magic into his own is tentative at first, but it gets stronger as the seconds go on. Merlin forcibly shoves the whole 'Morgana has magic holy shit' revelation to the back of his mind, shuts his eyes again and stays on target.

The bitter black root of Nimueh's magic is still there, but it's having a harder time fighting him off, now. It's weakening in the face of his and Morgana's combined strength, and even though it's still fighting, Merlin knows the scales have tipped.

See? he wants to tell Nimueh, dead and blown away to the winds. We're not all gone. Uther can't kill us all, even if we're living right under his nose. And we don't have to do everything alone.

It's almost anticlimactic in the end. The last of the dark magic crumbles away like rust and doesn't leave so much as a trace behind. Merlin opens his eyes on a sigh of relief.

Arthur hasn't moved.

"Merlin?" Morgana is frowning. "Is he…"

Merlin's stomach clenches. "Nimueh's magic is gone. He should be…" The words desert him as he stares helplessly at Arthur, still sleeping like a princess in a damned fairy tale.

A fairy tale. He blinks.

"Oh no," he says slowly. "She wouldn't."

Morgana's eyes sharpen. "What is it? Is there more to the spell?"

"I mean…" Merlin lets out a disbelieving laugh. "Look at where we are! We're—we're in an enchanted forest, under what used to be a really tall tower with a witch in it. She had a magic mirror and everything. And—" The woodsman groans helpfully from somewhere nearby. "And there's a woodsman! Or hell, a wolf-man. Either way it fits. And didn't Gwen say that girl was wandering around the woods with a red cloak?"

"I sincerely hope you're going to start making sense soon."

Merlin flails in frustration. "Doesn't any of that sound familiar? Did you read any fairy tales as a child?"

Morgana gives him the flattest look he's ever been on the receiving end of. "You do know whose household I grew up in?"

Oh. Right. He probably should've guessed that much.

He rallies. "My point is that Nimueh clearly had a thing about old stories. Maybe she was trying to scare the shit out of the villagers, or maybe she just had a really poorly developed sense of irony but either way, it'd make a bizarre sort of sense for her to…add something to the spell."

Morgana is still staring at him blankly.

He looks down at Arthur and coughs as pointedly as he possibly can.

It's at that point that Morgana appears to cotton on, because she mostly stops looking concerned and starts looking far too amused.

"So in other words, you need to wake him up in the usual way?"

"The—" Merlin squints. "I thought you didn't read any fairy tales?"

She waves him off. "That's hardly even a fairy tale anymore. It's a cliché."

Merlin makes a face. "And—sorry, but what was that about me waking him up?"

"I'm certainly not going to do it!"

"Gwen?" he asks, perhaps a smidgen desperately.

"Out cold," Morgana replies, the words at complete odds with the serene smile on her face. "I'm afraid my brother is entirely in your hands."

Merlin looks around, definitely desperate now. The only other potential option would seem to be the woodsman, but as he's also unconscious it doesn't look like he's going to be very useful.

"I don't think—"

"I'm going to check on Gwen," Morgana says, standing up and leaving before Merlin can come up with another argument.

Which leaves just him and Arthur. Somehow it always seems to come back to that.

"Right," he says to no one. "I…right."

Arthur continues to lie there, unmoving and supremely unhelpful.

At least he isn't a toad.

There's nothing else for it. Merlin starts to lean in and immediately feels ridiculous. This is ridiculous, and nonsensical and—and petty. He suddenly wishes Nimueh's mirror were still intact so that he could smash it all over again.

But…

When you really think about it, Merlin tells himself, Arthur did give up everything for him. It seems that the least Merlin can do in return is wake him up from his magically induced coma. He wonders if it might go some way towards making them even.

Probably not, he decides, and bends down and kisses him anyway.

When he pulls back, Arthur's eyes are wide open.

"Well," Arthur says after a moment. "That's certainly one way to be woken up."

.

"The spell," Merlin tries, helplessly. "It was a kissing thing. It's always a kissing thing."

Arthur stares. "I'm going to pretend I have the faintest idea what you just said."

"He just saved your life with his mouth," Morgana chimes in from a distance. Merlin briefly considers murder.

"…Right."

"Sorry?" Merlin offers. Arthur is looking at him very strangely. It's possible he has a concussion—likely, in fact. Merlin wonders if perhaps Arthur's concussion will render him incapable of remembering any of this.

And then he's torn between wondering if he wants Arthur to forget, or if he wants him to remember.

He's saved the trouble of battling with himself as Morgana makes a relieved sound: Gwen is awake. Merlin turns around.

Gwen is sitting up and looking around in confusion. "The trees…?"

"Stopped when the tower began to fall," Morgana tells her. Merlin makes a mental note to ask later what the hell she means by 'trees' and 'stopped'.

"And—" Gwen catches a glimpse of Merlin and Arthur, both in one piece, and her face softens. "Thank god, you're both…"

Her voice trails off as she notices the fifth member of their party—the woodsman who, Merlin realizes, still hasn't woken up.

Gwen staggers to her feet, ignoring Morgana's protests, and makes her way over to the sleeping man. She kneels down next to him, and suddenly Merlin cottons on.

"Elyan?" Gwen whispers.

Her brother. Her missing brother, who'd gone into the woods to chop wood. Merlin is an idiot.

Gwen's brother doesn't move at the sound of his name. She's pressing her sleeve to his wound, the puncture where Nimueh's spike had been ripped from his chest, but even the pain of that isn't enough to pull him from sleep. She looks at Merlin. "What's wrong with him?"

"Well," Merlin says awkwardly, "you could try kissing him. It seemed to work for Arthur."

Gwen stares like she's not quite certain she heard him right. Merlin sympathizes.

As she looks doubtfully down at the woodsman's face, though, Merlin is struck by a sudden inspiration. "I imagine the forehead will work just as well? I mean, I don't think curses are usually too particular about these things."

Gwen nods, looking relieved, and bends to press a kiss to the woodsman's forehead. Thankfully it seems the world at large has decided to stop fucking with them for today, because he begins to stir.

"Elyan?" she whispers again, tears in her voice. Merlin decides now would be a prudent time to look away.

"Why is there so much kissing and crying going on?" a mildly irritated voice asks. Merlin's head jerks up. Some feet away, Mordred sitting up in his coffin and watching the whole scene with eyebrows raised.

Actually, now that Merlin's paying attention, there are quite a few curious pairs of eyes peering at them from inside the stones. Looks like they won't need to drag bewildered family members out here to kiss their children awake, then. That's convenient. Morgana is already crouched next to Mordred like a mother duck reunited with a duckling; Merlin tries not to grin because he doesn't have a particular desire to be eviscerated.

Arthur, who's finally managed the feat of sitting up, is looking in the same direction. "So we did it, then."

"Looks like it," Merlin agrees. "Children awake, trees no longer moving—apparently—and the witch is…" He cringes. "No longer an issue."

"Ah." Arthur is watching him steadily. "And you're all right with that?"

Merlin blinks. "What, with everything basically ending well? I think I'll manage."

"No. About Nimueh." Then, when it becomes apparent that Merlin isn't getting it, "I would have thought it would be…uncomfortable, killing one of your own kind."

Frowning, Merlin says, "Nimueh wasn't 'my kind'. I don't think she was anybody's kind anymore. Even if some of us do want the power balance evened out, we're not about to put spells on children to do it." A knot has formed in his stomach. "If you don't realize that by now—"

"I'm not naïve, Merlin," Arthur cuts in. "I know all magic users aren't evil masterminds. Anyone who has spent any length of time with you could figure that much out." He considers. "And I mean that with emphasis on the mastermind bit."

Merlin rolls his eyes, the knot loosening even as he does it. "Thanks."

"It's not a question of magic, not really. It hasn't been for some time. It's a question of trust." Arthur's eyes pin him. "If I am ever in a position to make laws as my father does, that will be the only criteria for protection under them."

There's a moment where Merlin feels like he can't breathe properly.

"Pretty sure that's treason," he manages.

Arthur quirks an eyebrow. "I'm consorting with a known warlock. I'm pretty sure I've been committing treason for months."

Months or longer, Merlin realizes, remembering Arthur's lack of surprise when Agravaine had turned him in. Arthur had known about the magic before that. Arthur had known, and kept quiet.

And now Arthur is promising what Nimueh hadn't thought possible: a future for all of them, whether they've got magic or not.

Arthur's mouth twists up a bit as he watches Merlin try to digest what's been said, and something in Merlin finally gives way.

"Are you feeling tired at all?" he asks. Arthur looks considerate.

"We just spent the afternoon battling an evil witch bent on destruction," he says after a moment. "Also, I got stabbed, hexed, and flung out of a window. I think we can both take exhaustion as a given."

Merlin has to try really, really hard not to roll his eyes again. "Not what I meant. I meant magically tired. Like…" He swallows. "Like the spell hasn't completely worn off yet."

He sees the exact moment when Arthur twigs, blue eyes widening for an instant before his expression returns to normal.

"I—" Arthur clears his throat. "As I've said, magic is not my area of expertise. But I wouldn't be averse to…making sure."

Merlin swallows again. His throat is dry all of a sudden. "Just to make sure," he repeats, and leans forward again.

His heart is knocking against his ribs. He's irrationally convinced Arthur can hear it when they kiss, hammering in his chest like it's going to bruise the skin there, but at the same time he doesn't really care, because this is so much better than it had been when Arthur was asleep.

They kiss until Morgana interrupts with a long-suffering sigh of, "If you're going to 'consort with your warlock' any further, Arthur, please do it out of sight of the children," at which point they both remember that oh, yes, they're in public.

Well. Maybe not so much public as at the foot of an ex-tower in the middle of an obscenely creepy forest, but Merlin isn't convinced that's any better. Particularly when Morgana is right and there are six very young pairs of eyes paying them far too much attention.

There's something of an awkward pause.

Then Mordred's voice pipes up from the stone coffin in which he is still, inexplicably, sitting:

"Can we go home now, or do we need to kiss someone for that, too?"

.

Lesson XII: Near-Death Experiences Are Surprisingly Conducive To Bonding

.

The return trip to the village is long in his mind, and Arthur isn't looking forward to it, as his legs feel like stone weights and there's a fog in his head he can't quite shake.

But necessity demands that he move, so while Merlin herds the children into a group, Arthur makes a valiant effort to stand. He thinks he's doing rather well until the world pitches sideways and suddenly Morgana is the one holding him up until he gets his footing back.

"Thanks," he mutters, embarrassed.

"Don't mention it," Morgana replies.

A few feet away, Gwen is doing the same for the woodsman—who, Arthur has been informed, is actually her brother and has a name. Elyan. Arthur is extremely glad he hadn't managed to injure him (or worse) when he was…not himself.

"Is that everyone?" Merlin asks, looking to Gwen. She counts heads.

"Yes," she answers, her smile weary but real. "That's all the missing ones."

Mordred has grabbed the hand of another child, the small dark-haired girl Arthur had guessed to be Kara. He has a look on his face that promises woe to whoever suggests they'll have an easier time walking the forest path apart. This day, Arthur reflects, is proving to be a surprisingly good one for reuniting siblings.

"We should get moving," Elyan says. "The temperature will be dropping soon."

They make for a big, eclectic group picking their way through the dark woods. Merlin, lighting the path with a flame he's conjured in the palm of his hand, keeps glancing back at Arthur as if making certain he's still there. Arthur might find this sweet if he didn't find it intensely annoying instead. Honestly, it's not like he's going to collapse like some fainting damsel.

"I can't decide," Morgana says abruptly, and Arthur realizes she's been following his gaze, "whether this consorting nonsense makes it more or less understandable that you left us for him."

Oh, wonderful, Arthur realizes. They're going to have this conversation now, when Morgana knows full well he can't get away.

"That had nothing to do with it," he protests. "I assure you, the—consorting is completely new."

She glances sideways at him. "And yet you left."

"I did." Arthur sighs. "Morgana, you know as well as I do that our…" He has to force the words out, rebellion still a new feeling even after all this time. "That our father goes too far sometimes. Look at Merlin—he's an idiot, and basically useless, and he still nearly got tied to a stake for something he can't control. I couldn't just—"

Morgana makes a very unladylike noise of disbelief. "Merlin isn't a harmless kitten, Arthur. You only think that because you're the one he'd do anything to protect."

Arthur opens his mouth to protest—well, everything about that statement, but something stops his tongue. Idiot or not, Merlin did do something to destroy Nimueh. Arthur didn't see what, he'd been somewhat preoccupied at the time, but something obviously happened because the witch is now dead.

For all his wide-eyed innocence where hapless unicorns are involved, Arthur's never thought that Merlin lacks the will to do what needs to be done. Implying otherwise would do him a disservice.

"It doesn't matter," he ends up saying instead. "I trust him."

Morgana's frown deepens.

"Mordred and Kara's parents were killed for using magic." She says it like a challenge. "They were two of the last to die when Uther's soldiers purged this region. That's why their children live alone."

Arthur closes his eyes, feeling as if he's just been hit. "And that's why Mordred was so wary of us."

"Can you blame him?"

"No." He shakes his head. "No, I can't."

People are vicious when they're afraid.

A minute passes in silence, and then another. When a third goes by without any of Morgana making any of her characteristically acidic remarks, Arthur speaks up again.

"This needs to stop," he says. "I don't want to see any more villages like this one, where people are more frightened of the laws against magic than they are of their children being taken from them. They'd rather have their families at the mercy of an unknown sorceress than risk talking to the authorities. That can't continue."

"And what would you suggest?" Morgana asks curtly.

"I don't know yet," he answers, honest. "But something needs to change."

Morgana is slowing down. When Arthur looks at her again, he finds that she's taken to staring at him like he's grown an extra head.

"You don't agree?" he asks. She scowls.

"Honestly, Arthur, it's like you don't even—of course I do." She's looking at him hard. "I just didn't know you did."

They start walking again.

"If it's any consolation," Arthur offers, "I didn't plan to leave. It just…felt like the right thing to do."

Morgana doesn't respond. Arthur tries for levity.

"And besides, I couldn't leave Merlin to fend for himself. You know he'd have been dead inside of a week—probably because he tried to befriend some wild magical beast and it gored him instead."

That provokes a tiny smile, at least, which Arthur counts as a victory.

He hadn't let himself dwell on Morgana's absence these past months. It was just one more thing he couldn't change, so he'd flung himself into the makeshift monster hunting business and tried to ignore the ache of everyone left behind.

He doesn't think he'd realized, up to this point, just how much he'd missed her.

The tree line begins to thin. Soon enough they'll reach the open field that leads back to the village, and the children will all return home, and Arthur will collapse in the first available bed and know nothing until morning. Or possibly the afternoon.

"What will you do?" Morgana asks suddenly. "Once things have settled down."

Arthur almost shrugs before the pain in his shoulder makes him think better of it. "I don't know. Agravaine made it clear that he wanted us to disappear as soon as the job was done."

"Agravaine owes you," Morgana replies, the steel in her voice for once not directed at him. "You've saved him having to explain to Uther why the province he governs has been overrun by a renegade sorceress."

Well, there is certainly that. "I'll have to discuss it with Merlin. Even outside this country, I imagine there will always be more people in need of saving from manticores, or whatever hellacious thing it'll be next week."

"Poor Arthur," she says. The teasing is so familiar it makes his chest hurt. "The life of a hero must be so difficult."

He's about to make an appropriately scathing reply when Merlin looks back again—and then, at the bemused look on Arthur's face, he pulls a face of his own. One that clearly says that yes, he's realized what he's doing, and yes, he's just as disgusted with himself as Arthur is with him.

"It has its moments," is what Arthur ends up saying.

Morgana rolls her eyes, but Arthur can't quite bring himself to take the words back.

.

Their return to the village passes in a haze of happy shouts and tearful reunions, which Arthur tries to skirt around as much as possible. By the time he's satisfied that all the children have gone back to their homes, and Gwen has hugged everyone fiercely enough to make their ribs groan in protest, and the remaining three of them have trudged back to Agravaine's manor, Arthur is beginning to rethink his earlier certainty about not collapsing. Collapsing is sounding better and better by the minute.

They part ways in the upstairs hall. Morgana's mouth is twisted up wryly.

"Since the you two look as if you'd fall down in a gentle breeze, I'll handle making the report to Agravaine," she says.

Arthur stands up straight and opens his mouth to tell her he is perfectly capable of reporting to Agravaine himself, thank you very much, but Merlin elbows him sharply and thanks Morgana a little too effusively for Arthur's liking. His sister, naturally, gets one more smirk in at their expense before walking away.

"Don't keep my brother up too late, Merlin," she adds without turning. "He does get so grumpy when he's tired."

"What," Merlin says flatly, and the last thing Arthur hears before she turns a corner is Morgana's laughter.

There's a long moment where they both just blink after her, looking, Arthur imagines, like particularly dimwitted cows.

"Right," he sighs. "I'm going to turn in."

"Wait," Merlin blurts as Arthur's hand goes to his door handle. "Could we—I mean. Do you have a minute?"

Arthur turns to him with eyebrows raised, and watches with some amusement as Merlin turns a spectacular shade of red.

"That's not what I—I just think we should talk, that's all."

Curious, Arthur opens his door and waves Merlin inside.

He nudges a few weapons out of the way and sits on the desk, because if he sits on the bed he will actually fall asleep between one breath and the next; Merlin takes the desk chair.

Merlin seems to struggle with his thoughts for a moment before he says, "What are you going to do?"

Morgana had asked the same question. Arthur doesn't have a better answer now than he did an hour ago.

"I'm not sure. That depends on what—" And then Merlin's exact words fall into place. Arthur frowns. "What do you mean, what am I going to do?"

Merlin isn't looking him in the eye. "Well, I just thought—I mean, if Agravaine's willing to pay as much as he claims to get rid of us, you don't really need me around anymore. We don't both need to stay in the monster hunting business."

The words all come out very fast, like Merlin is rushing to get rid of them, so it takes Arthur a second to parse it all.

At which point he leans forward and smacks Merlin briskly upside the head.

"Ow!"

"You," Arthur says calmly, "are an idiot."

"What are you talking about?"

Oh, for God's sake. "You can't honestly think I've stayed with you because we have such a spectacularly profitable business partnership."

Merlin is going very red again, mostly around the ears. "I didn't want to assume anything! Not after…"

He hesitates, and into the ensuing silence flows the memory of their last, unpleasant conversation before Merlin had gone storming off to face Nimueh on his own. Arthur remembers his own words and cringes.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I never should have said that to you."

Merlin looks at him incredulously. "You're—Arthur, I stabbed you. Pretty sure I'm the one who ought to be apologizing here."

"At least you had the excuse of being under a spell. I was just being…"

"An arse?" Merlin offers.

Arthur reminds himself that Merlin is within his rights to be petty right now. "Yes. And you should know that I—I didn't mean it."

Merlin shrugs, obviously uncomfortable. "I know you didn't. But it got me thinking anyway."

"Merlin—"

"No, hang on, just hear me out." Merlin looks up. "Agravaine wants us to disappear with what he'll pay us. And I was all for that at first, believe me. But the more I think about it, the more I think that would just be letting Uther win." He takes a breath. "Nimueh had no hope anymore. She thought she was alone in everything. She thought that if she could make other people afraid of us, instead of the other way around, then we'd finally have peace."

"And you disagree," Arthur prompts.

"I'm still here," Merlin says simply. "And there are…others, others like me. And if I stick around, if I show them that they can have a place here without having to be afraid all the time, then it's worth the risk. I want to stay. And if Uther wants to send his soldiers after me again," he adds, eyes flashing in the firelight, "then he's welcome to try."

Silence, save for the cracking and popping of the fire in the hearth.

"No more running," Arthur says quietly.

"No more running," Merlin echoes.

Arthur considers. What Merlin's suggesting is more than the personal rebellion he'd instigated the day he'd left his father's household; this would be open revolution. There would be no going back, not ever.

It was a witch who tried to kill you, a hard voice in the back of his mind reminds him. It sounds, Arthur realizes, a lot like Uther.

And it was a warlock who saved my life, he thinks. And he thinks maybe Merlin is right. Maybe his own instincts were right—magic isn't intrinsically good or bad. It's all in the user, and maybe magic users deserve the same chance to prove their worth as anybody else.

Maybe, sometimes, a revolution is necessary.

He says, "As long as we're baring our souls, I have one more point."

Merlin looks apprehensive. "Oh?"

Arthur waits until Merlin looks at him properly. Then, "I made you think that it was your magic I took issue with. And don't get me wrong," he adds, as Merlin's incredulous face makes a return, "the magic definitely took some time to sort out. But mostly it was the lying. I understood why you did it and I was angry anyway, and I took it out on you. It was badly done."

Merlin's mouth is hanging slightly open. Arthur considers mocking him for it before deciding that now is probably not the time.

"Oh," Merlin manages at last. "I didn't know. That. Erm."

"I told you before, didn't I? That it was a matter of trust?"

"Well, yeah, but I thought you were talking generally?" He twists his hands together. "So it wasn't…" And cringes. "I mean, you don't…resent being stuck out here?"

This idiot, Arthur thinks with a deeply disconcerting level of fondness. Honestly.

He sighs and leans back on his hands. "You know," he says, "you'd be absolute rubbish at running a revolution on your own."

Merlin straightens, stung. "Excuse me?"

"I mean, really, think about it. One soldier wearing iron and you'd be useless."

"Weren't you taking a breather from being a complete prat?"

"That's why you'll need someone on your side who can actually fight."

"Someone—" Merlin stops. Twigs. "Arthur, are you—"

"It's not like I've got anything else to do," Arthur points out. "So in addition to killing dangerous magical beasts, why not, let's spread hope to people of the magical persuasion. Certainly that won't seem like a mixed message."

"I couldn't ask you to do that."

"No," Arthur corrects him, "you wouldn't. Which is why it's so fortunate for you that I'm going to do it anyway."

Merlin is outright gaping now. "But—your father?"

Arthur's fingers curl into the wood grain.

"I used to think the same way he did, you know. I probably would have continued to think that way if I hadn't left. But my father is wrong in this." He imagines it will get easier if he keeps saying it. "And maybe someday I can make him see that."

He can see the doubt in Merlin's eyes, because he is a terrible liar—really, how he managed to hide his magic for as long as he did will forever be a mystery—but Merlin nods anyway. "We can show him. Together."

He sounds so serious about it that it seems the only reasonable thing to do is to bend down and kiss him. So Arthur does. Leans forward, cups Merlin's jaw and presses their mouths together.

Merlin's eyes are dark when they break apart.

"So," he says, "is this going to be a thing now?"

Arthur shrugs, trying and failing not to smile. "If you like."

Merlin makes a show of considering, mouth pursed, before he grins.

"I guess you'll do," he says, and this time he stands up to meet Arthur in the middle.

.

Lesson XIII: In Which There Is An Epilogue

.

Her brother leaves in the morning, he and Merlin riding horses added as part of Agravaine's reward. Morgana imagines it chafes them to be carrying gold paid by a man who betrayed them both, but Arthur seems to have learned when to place practicality above principle. She suspects she has Merlin to thank for that.

Gwen kisses both their cheeks before they leave. Elyan shakes their hands.

"Sorry about trying to kill you," Arthur tells him. Then, wincing, "Twice."

Elyan shrugs. "Water under the bridge, my friend. I hadn't been doing so well myself, but you helped get me home, and I'm grateful for that." He smiles at Gwen, whose eyes are bright.

Morgana can empathize. It's quite something to regain a brother you'd thought was lost to you.

It's her turn then. She and Merlin exchange only nods. He knows she has entrusted Arthur to him—mostly because she has no other choice, but still. And she knows he will keep her secret, if only because he knows what it is to live with an axe blade hovering over your neck. There is nothing else for them to say.

Then there is Arthur.

Her brother extends a hand after a few seconds of heavy silence. Morgana eyes the offering, unimpressed.

She's not certain who moves first, but they end up in a tight, brief hug.

"I'll write," Arthur murmurs in her ear.

"You'd better," she replies, and digs her fingernails into his shoulder to punctuate the point. They pull apart.

For the second time in a year, Morgana watches her brother leave. But this time she feels a strange certainty that she'll see him again someday.

And the stranger thought that maybe, when that day comes, she'll be able to tell him the truth.

When the horses and their riders have turned into nothing more than tiny specks in the distance, Morgana finally turns away. She says her goodbyes to Gwen and Elyan and goes back to the manor. She walks down the long hallway and up the stairs to the door of Agravaine's office. She knocks.

"Come in," he calls.

She does.

Agravaine is sitting at his desk, considering papers. He looks up when she enters. "Ah, Morgana. Arthur and his warlock have gone?"

Morgana holds Merlin's name in check behind her tongue. "They have."

"Excellent. I want you to send this out with my fastest messenger." Agravaine stands, walks around the desk and hands her an envelope. Morgana looks at it.

She pauses.

"This is addressed to Uther," she says.

"Yes. Quickly, please."

"And what is it you need to tell my father in such a hurry?" Morgana asks, honey in her voice. The mention of her connection to Uther has its intended effect; Agravaine answers rather than dismissing her out of hand.

"His son was just sighted on my lands," he says. "It seems like something the general would want to know."

Morgana turns the envelope over in her hands. "I was given the impression you had promised them safe passage from Thuringia."

"And by the time that message reaches Uther, they will have safely left the province. My end of the bargain is held."

She hums thoughtfully. Then, murmuring a spell, Morgana lights the paper on fire.

Agravaine had turned back to his desk, but he whirls at the sudden heat of the flame. Shock is ugly on his face. "You—"

"My brother," she interrupts delicately, "believed in your word. He's still naïve, I'm afraid. It's actually quite sweet." Morgana smiles. "I am not my brother."

"What is—"

"You never had any intention of letting them go. You were always going to go running back to Uther—after they saved your reputation, of course."

"You have magic," Agravaine breathes, sounding stunned. Morgana ignores him.

Her voice hardens. "I understand why Uther sent you here, to the middle of nowhere—you are useless. Even here you've failed. You lost control and had to ask the very people you stabbed in the back to do something about it. You have done nothing to protect these people or provide for them."

She crumples what's left of the paper in her fist. Ash sifts through her fingers.

"But I will," she says.

When she looks up again, Agravaine has recovered sufficiently for the calculating look to be back in his eyes.

"You're right, of course. I made a deal with known fugitives," he says. "And you have magic. We both know enough to destroy one another. Why not forge a partnership instead?"

So predictable. Morgana gives him a sympathetic expression.

"Oh, Agravaine," she says. "When I tell Uther that you're a traitor who conspired with a known warlock, who do you think he's going to believe? His failure of a brother-in-law?" She doesn't bother trying to keep the disgust from her voice. "Or his own daughter?"

Morgana sees the flash of a knife blade just before Agravaine moves—sloppy, desperate; she must have truly caught him off guard—and her magic reacts almost before she does. Her arm comes up and sweeps to the side; Agravaine follows.

She slams him into the bookcase at the far end of the room. A brief spasm of surprise crosses his face before he crumples to the floor.

He doesn't get up.

Morgana stands very still until two of Agravaine's soldiers come bursting through the door at the noise. Then she turns, all confidence.

"This man is a traitor," she informs them coolly. "He made an attempt on my life. Take him away to await the justice of Uther Pendragon."

One guard looks to the other, a short, silent conversation.

Then, "Yes, my lady."

In moments, the doors have closed behind them and Agravaine is no longer the ruler of Thuringia.

She is. For exposing a traitor, Uther will have little choice but to grant her that much.

Morgana dusts off her hands. She walks past Agravaine's desk to a window that takes up most of the wall, and looks down at the village below.

She thinks of the people there who have lived in fear for so long, afraid for themselves and their families—Gwen and Elyan, Mordred and Kara, so many others. Agravaine had failed to protect them, either from Uther's laws or from Nimueh's threat. Whoever had ruled them before Uther's rise to power had likewise failed.

She will not fail. She will keep them safe.

And those children will not grow up in fear of what they are.

Morgana turns away from the window. She sits down at the desk, reaches into her pocket, and carefully pulls out a shard of mirror glass.

A bright blue eye glares resentfully out at her.

You lied to me, Nimueh's voice hisses in her mind.

"I did no such thing," Morgana answers. "I told you Emrys would come, and he did. It was your own fault for making things too complicated—fairy tales, Nimueh, really?"

You are a seer, the sorceress snarls, ignoring the jab. You see the future in dreams; do you expect me to believe you did not know the king would be with him?

Morgana frowns. "What king? What are you talking about?"

The eye in the glass widens. Nimueh's disembodied voice echoes with laughter.

You did not know! There is another piece to the prophecy, child. Emrys is but one side of the coin.

Ice trickles down her spine. "And the other?"

Nimueh pauses before she answers. Always so dramatic.

The Once and Future King, she says. He and Emrys together have the power to restore magic and peace to this gods-forsaken land. Another high, lilting laugh. I thought the boy's companion was nothing more than a soldier. You thought to use me to discover where Emrys' loyalties lay, and use him in turn to help your cause—not realizing he was already bound! Oh, this is funny.

Morgana's fingers tighten around the mirror shard. Its edges cut into her flesh, blood welling up and smearing the surface.

It had been shock enough to discover that the supposed savior of their kind was her brother's idiot servant. Stranger still to realize Arthur has a part to play in all this. Whose side will he be on when the time comes?

It doesn't matter.

Morgana closes her eyes to steady herself. Whatever her brother does, she has chosen her road. She will not fail to walk it now.

I will assist you, Nimueh is saying. Help me return to a body, and I will join my powers to yours. Together we will be formidable.

"A partnership," Morgana murmurs. She's getting quite a few of those offers today.

She looks down into the mirror, into the tower witch's bright blue gaze. "But I told you before, Nimueh. My game is my own. I need no other players."

The eye flashes with rage—once powerful, now impotent. You pulled me into 'your game', then turned around and helped Emrys defeat my spell on his king. You do not play by the rules, Morgana.

"True," Morgana agrees, steel in her voice. "And you never said anything about using children."

She drops the shard to the floor.

What are you doing? Nimueh demands with sudden fear.

"Starting as I mean to go on," Morgana answers, and grinds the mirror shard under her heel.

A horrible shriek pierces her mind for an instant—and then it is gone, and when Morgana examines the tiny slivers of glass remaining, no ancient eye peers back.

Nimueh is gone.

Morgana sits back in her chair.

"A king, hm?" she says out loud.

Their land has not been ruled by a king in a very long time. Longer still, she muses, since a queen has done so. And as for a witch-queen…

Morgana smiles again. There is a future unfurling that she does not need dreams to see, one in which men like Uther fall before her power. It will take time, but she has been patient this long. She can wait.

Arthur and Merlin have a destiny written in the stars. Morgana has sheer will.

She wonders which of them will reach their goal first.

Now, Morgana thinks, the game can truly begin.

.

The End (?)

.