A/N: First Merlin fanfiction. I know that the beginning is entirely cheesy, but I swear, it should get better. Please review/tell me what you think, it's most appreciated. (:
Light emerged over the clearing, bright red painted the sky, shining upon a misty field. Frost melted in the growing warmth, birds yet to beat their wings of the morning dew, silence held in blissfully still. Yet, it two figures disrupted the peace, tearing through the high stalks of golden grain. The youngster stopped short, pulling his companion to a halt. The woman glances back at the young boy, whom is tired and distraught, she looks about, wary, but kneels before the child, fixing his cloak.
"I want to go back," he pleads softly, looking for answers, yet the woman gives none. She looks over his head distantly, as she too, seems to desire the warmth and protection of home, now deserted into the cold of night. "Can't we go home?"
The woman shakes her head, pulling the boy's hood forward, gently brushing back his golden locks, "I fear not, my child. We are going on an adventure, be strong." She kisses his forehead, and as she pulls away, her eyes flash golden, and the boy visibly relaxes, slipping into her arms.
Burdened by the child, she carries him in her arms, moving for the forbidding forest which borders upon the edge of the golden fields. She stops just outside the eerie mist, hesitant, at this point, if she was really doing the right thing. The forest was a risk. Yet, in the distance, warning bells chime, and she decisively surges forward, fleeing over the crisp terrain.
"Be strong, young prince..."
"Arthur, Arthur?"
The blond youth was jerked awake to a sweet voice calling him, the nightmare's snare releasing his mind. "Ah," he groaned, turning over to see soft, brown eyes gazing at him in a state of worry. "Guinevere," he cried, pulling up his covers in embarrassment.
His modesty eased her mind, but did not do well for the red blush that crawled to her lovely features. "I'm sorry, I just..." she stood to leave, as to forget the reason she had come in the first place. However, she stopped, nervously twisting her hands in the apron she was most commonly fixated in. "I wanted to wish you a happy birthday, breakfast is ready." And she left him.
Arthur relaxed as soon as she disappeared, falling back into the covers and scowling himself for being caught in such a state. He sat up, and was quick to get dressed, just in case Gwen decided that he needed to be checked upon again.
"You didn't have to do all this, you know..." he says calmly, however, grateful that she did. He shovels the plate into his mouth greedily, as this were a feast fit for a king, much more than the scraps he lived after.
She smiled in amusement, but modestly nodded from the other side of the table, "you only become a man once."
He paused, looking over at his childhood friend, Guinevere. She had always spoiled him, been a voice of reason when he had none. Soothed his sores, or the strikes of disciplinary father (though in all fairness, he was quite a rebellious child, believing he was never meant to a farmer), Gwen was good to him. He cleared his throat, capturing her kind gaze, and the words he meant to say caught in his throat. "Guinevere, I-"
"Arthur!" boomed a deep voice, from outside the humble residence- speaking of the devil.
Gwen, catching the hint, stood, Arthur in toe, leading over to the back door. How many times she might of sneaked into the house to see him, out of his father's supervision. He meant to mouth his grievances, but her sweet smile stopped him. A gentle hand rest upon his cheek, and then a pair of soft lips planted a kiss to the other. "Happy Birthday, Arthur," she mouthed and fled.
"So, where are we going? To town? All this secrecy isn't like you. Come on, what is it? The tavern? Promise, I won't tell mother," he was silenced by his father's quiet glare. Following him in a slight pout, he had expected more than an unusual walk through the forest.
At last, after what seemed forever, his father stopped to sit upon a moss covered log. He patted a seat beside him, and he leveled himself down, keeping his mouth shut, as he didn't wish to be scolded again. They sat for a minute, and finally the man beside him let out a long sigh, rubbing his worn face with calloused hands. Suddenly, he looked very old, and delicate to Arthur, who swallowed nervously.
"Arthur, first, I would like to say, how proud I am of you. To raise you from a young lad, to a young man, it has been one of the most..." the old farmer laughed, rubbing the back of his neck in dry humor. It was then that Arthur looked away, but a hand on his shoulder caught him. "I'd be proud to say you are my son, for if only you were."
His mouth suddenly became dry. And it was now father's turn away, and gaze off into the distance. But Arthur was locked, the worst of his horrors becoming known. In his childhood, he wanted anything to but the son of a farmer, and that was easy to dream, as he didn't look anything like his father, nor his mother. They both had common, brown hair, and brown eyes, but he was the complete contrast. Blond, with blue eyes, his mother called him her jewel in the rough. However, that was his fantasies, when he wished to be more, when he was dissatisfied by a carefree life. Yet, that seemed suitable now, with Guinevere...
"I've been preparing for a long time to tell you, but, I just, it was hard. I should have sooner, I'm sorry Arthur," he felt the hand on his shoulder tighten. His eyes stung, and even as he tried to blink away the truth, it remained an awful reminder.
"Why-?" he heard somebody croak, refusing the whimper of a voice to be his.
"I truly am, but there is no time, and what I might tell you, you may not wish to believe, but you must." He gave a curt nod, as though there was little else that could surprise him. He was wrong. "You are Uther's son. The Lost Prince of Camelot."
The words didn't want to sink in. But as they reflected from the surface, Arthur could not deny a snort. What dry humor, him, a mere servant, a farmer, a prince? What dry humor. "You can't be serious," he murmurs to himself, shaking the swelling feeling in the pit of his stomach.
"I am. And there is more, you must know-" the old man's words were broke by a sudden, sickening, thud. The impact that made him fumble.
His face paled, lips trembled, and his body fell limply into his son's shoulder. He groaned, blood pooling to his lips, the young prince, anxiously turned to see a barbed arrow sunken deeply into his father's shoulder, holding him up so that he might not fall to the forest floor. He sank to his knees, cradling the man in his arms, there was nothing he could do. His fingers tightened upon his father's shoulders, fighting between the urge to cry, or shout in despair. But shock numbed him, as he held the dying man in his arms, his father, who raised him. The man murmured something, his unfocused eyes glaring into open space, so he pressed his ear down to the man's lips, as to hear the last word he'd ever speak.
"Run."
So he did just that.