Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine.
As it turned out, "running" was easier said than done.
It wasn't as though the physical aspect was presenting them any challenges; he and his three companions were all reasonably young and fit. The only one of them who might pose a problem was Guinevere, and that was only because her gown was laced so tightly up her back and around her abdomen that breathing heavily wasn't much of an option. Still, they could manage. They could do it.
The only real problem was that Arthur didn't know how they should go about doing it. This was hardly the first time that his castle had been invaded by people intending to do him harm, but the invader had never had quite so much familiarity as Merlin did. Granted, Morgana had lived in the castle far longer by the time that she attacked, but it wasn't so much Merlin's familiarity with the surroundings as much as his familiarity with Arthur that was troubling.
Arthur's first instincts were to do the exact opposite of his established emergency protocols, off of which Merlin was certainly basing his pursuit. But then it had occurred to him that it might have occurred to Merlin that Arthur had seen him breaking down the gates and was therefore planning on thwarting Merlin by doing the opposite of the emergency protocols. So maybe they should just stay in the tower. But then, maybe Merlin would realize that Arthur would anticipate Merlin's anticipating of Arthur's modified plan and Merlin would come straight to the tower. Plus, whatever they did, there were still other sorcerers running all over the castle…it was all very confusing.
It was so very confusing that Arthur was seriously considering just planting himself in the hallway outside of the tower to wait for Merlin to round the corner. He would then conk Merlin on the head with the hilt of his sword. No matter what powers Merlin may have possessed, Arthur had seen him unconscious on more than one occasion; surely a good old-fashioned whack to the head would take Merlin out of commission long enough for them to make their flight to the woods.
Unfortunately, Arthur was not nearly sure enough of that "surely" to risk the lives of his wife and men on its merit. As much as the hit-the-overwhelmingly-powerful-sorcerer-with-a-blunt-object felt like the most masterful of the plans that he'd come up with and as willing as he was to risk his own life in the attempt, he couldn't help but think that perhaps the other three in his party might disagree. They were probably all judging him anyway on the fact that he'd managed to go a decade with Merlin almost always at his side without noticing that he just so happened to have magic.
Then something occurred to him, and he momentarily lost perspective on the gravity of the situation in his indignation. Perhaps there was more of a reason than his own obliviousness that he hadn't noticed Merlin's magic. Perhaps Merlin had some sort of memory-erasing spell that he frequently used on the king, violating him is such a mental capacity that it chilled him to the bone…perhaps Merlin liked to slip Arthur some sort of befuddling potion that made him forget all of the magical transgressions…or maybe he transfixed Arthur with a terrible hypnosis that bent the king to his will, forcing the king to lose the memories…or maybe he magically entranced Arthur so that he was unaware of his surroundings and so would not notice Merlin's sorcery…
Or maybe he just conked Arthur over the head with a blunt object.
Arthur scowled at the thought, wishing that he hadn't begun to think about it. Almost unconsciously, he began to add up all of the times that he'd woken up from unconsciousness with a terrible headache, a lump on his head, blood in his hair, and Merlin leaned over him in concern and ready with what now seemed rather unlikely explanations for how he'd gotten into such a state.
Somehow, that was much more embarrassing than the prospect of a memory-erasing spell or a potion or hypnosis or entrancing. Blows to the head...lots of blows to the head…a decade of blows to the head...For heaven's sake, his skull was probably misshaped by now.
"That explains why my crown is so uncomfortable," Arthur said under his breath.
"Arthur?" A voice suddenly broke in, interrupting the various names that Arthur was calling Merlin in his head. His wife was addressing him, apparently more preoccupied by their immediate predicament than was Arthur just then.
"What?" he snapped, more harshly than he intended.
Guinevere winced for a moment before a steely glint appeared in her eye. "Arthur, we need a plan. You said that we need to run. Where would you have us run?"
Arthur shook his head, bringing himself back to the situation. He could focus on Merlin's cranial attacks later. That is, he could focus on them later if he didn't end up dying this night. Or maybe he couldn't focus on them because of all the times that he'd been hit over the head and knocked unconscious was now an idiot and his brain didn't even work properly because Merlin was a lying son of a…
"Arthur!"
"Right," said Arthur, more loudly and with all of the authority that he could muster. "We need to…"
Realizing too late that he didn't actually have a plan and that he probably should have found a way to stall before beginning a sentence indicating that he had any idea what they should do, he decided to just go with his instincts and say whatever was the first thing that popped into his mind.
"We need to split up," he blurted out, wondering even as he spoke where the hell that idea had come from.
"What?" asked Guinevere, looking as though she was trying very hard to be patient with him. Her fingers twitched in what Arthur hoped was nerves or frustration rather than any sort of urge to swat him in the head. If there was an aggressive attack to that particular area by this point, he'd probably start bleeding from the ears and develop a facial tic.
"We need to split up," said Arthur again, and then he realized. He nearly smiled; it was strangely validating that, even as he had become accustomed to the ways in which a king is obligated to do just about everything with the input of a council, his instincts still served him well enough in times of stress.
"Why on earth would we split up?" asked Guinevere incredulously. From the looks on the guards' faces, they agreed with the queen. Unfortunately, lacking the position as Arthur's wife, they didn't have quite the same amount of freedom to question Arthur more ridiculous-sounding proposals. That was actually part of why Arthur liked having guards around. Unquestioning acquiescence was also very validating.
"Because Merlin knows me," said Arthur, beginning to get excited. "I've been trying to think of some maneuver that we could do, some secret strategy to outsmart him. But he knows me, and he'll probably end up doing whatever I do. He'll find us, and I have no doubt of that."
Guinevere didn't say anything, although Arthur recognized the warning signs as she crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows, averting her gaze in an attempt to retain her patience. He hastily continued.
"He'll find me," Arthur amended. "But maybe if I'm random enough, I can hold him off until dawn and he's normal again and I can kill him for being a stupid lying traitorous…traitor."
Guinevere's eyes flicked toward his face, looking alarmed at Arthur's words. Then, she seemed to correctly interpret that Arthur's threat had been more spiteful than genuine. Arthur wouldn't kill him the instant that he was Merlin again. Or try to kill him, anyway.
Arthur didn't like thinking about the unlikelihood of his managing to kill even a normal Merlin in a fight that did not involve him sneaking up on his manservant, so he kept speaking. "But either way, I'm not going to risk your life—your lives," Arthur corrected himself, nodding at his two men. "I'm not going to risk your lives on a plan like this. I'll just run around and leave a trail that Merlin would recognize—don't ask me how I plan on doing that, because I haven't figured that out just yet—and have him chasing me all over until the sun rises. It will give you time to make it out of the castle and to the woods with the others."
"But what if Merlin finds you?" she whispered, real fear beginning to overcome her features, and distracted as he was, he felt a distant sort of pride in the fact that she was so readily disregarding any fears about her own well-being for concerns about someone else's. Still...
"Don't worry," Arthur muttered belligerently. "He'll probably just smack me over the head with a stick. Then he'll wake me up in the morning and tell me that a troll did it or something."
"What?" She was beginning to pale, and he resolved to stop spitting out every random complaint about Merlin that popped into his head and had to sound apropos of nothing to anyone not privy to his current suspicions regarding his head.
"Nothing. Look, if he finds me, I'll try to reason with him. Merlin still had to be in there somewhere," said Arthur forcefully. Perhaps if he could convince her, he could convince himself of the fact...
"But what if he isn't?" she asked, still very quiet.
Arthur shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "That's why we have to split up. King and queen can't both be lost. One of us needs to make it out, for the sake of the people. And I'm sorry, Guinevere, but of the two of us, I think that Merlin is more likely to go after me. And I think that I might be more likely to get through to him."
Guinevere snorted, color beginning to return to her face. "You think?" she asked, affectionate exasperation in her voice. "Yes, Arthur, I imagine that you might be the likely one to get through to him."
Arthur chose to take this as acceptance of his plan. "Alright, you three need to leave. Now. Don't tell me where you're going. And don't take the east corridor. I'm taking the east corridor. You," he said, looking at his men. "Do as the queen commands. Her words are mine."
They nodded and, seeing the expression on Arthur's face as he looked now at his wife, turned away with a discretion that Arthur would not have imagined them possessing.
He and Guinevere just looked at each other for a moment before she took a step toward him, clearly intending to embrace him. He stepped back and gently put his hands on her shoulders, stopping her. "No goodbyes," he said lightly, knowing that the last thing that he could handle just then was any sort of kindness.
She seemed to understand, and the look of hurt that had briefly flashed across her face was immediately replaced by a grim sort of determination, and he remembered again why he loved her.
Then she turned and ran, holding her skirts above her feet. The guards followed after her.
Arthur watched, suddenly terribly uncertain, until they were out of sight. Was this a good plan, or were they all going to be dead before dawn? Merlin wasn't the only dangerous sorcerer prowling these hallways. If Guinevere met any of the others…
He shook his head. It was done, the decision made. Worrying about them wouldn't do him any good. Not when he had his own role to play. He looked down the east corridor, took a deep breath, drew Excalibur from its sheath, and began to run.
It only took him a few random turns into various hallways for him to begin to feel silly. He felt as he did when he and Morgana would chase one another through the castle as children. He was faster, but she was sneakier. Or, as she liked to phrase it, he was the brawn while she was the brain. Either way, Arthur's strategy was almost always the same: put as much distance as he could manage between where he had left Morgana and himself. It had usually worked, and he'd be proud of himself.
But Morana hadn't been a powerful sorcerer hell bent on his destruction. And Arthur had known where Morgana was before he'd started running. And Arthur had known that Morgana had the reason of a person with her own mind. Besides, they had been children. His strategy didn't seem quite so foolproof as it had when he was eight years old.
Yet he ran on. He ran, rubbing his neck at the ache that came from the frequency with which he turned to look behind him for a pursuer and trying to hear over his own heavy breathing, listening for footsteps echoing toward him. He had eyes to look forward; he only hoped that his ears would serve well enough to cover him from behind.
Unfortunately, his faith in his ears—ever receding as the blood begun to pump painfully through his brain at the exertion and what was probably a malfunctioning brain anyway thanks to a certain sorcerer—failed him, and it was as he was turning back for another glance behind him that the attack came from the front.
It didn't even hurt at first, and it was only as he was flying backward through the air that he realized that he had been racing through the same outdoor corridor on which he'd been standing when he'd first seen Merlin racing away upon Arthur's horse, only that afternoon. There was something darkly appropriate about where this was happening.
When Arthur hit the wall behind him, the breath was knocked out of him, and he was doubled over for a few seconds before he recovered enough to seek out his attacker. He had dropped his sword when he'd been thrown, the unexpected blow knocking Excalibur from the hands trembling from the sprinting. He found that he didn't even mind. He knew, somehow, that it wouldn't matter. What good was steel against sorcery?
Still, Arthur drew a dagger from within his boot and waited. He wouldn't die without a weapon in his hand.
After a moment, a figured appeared over him, standing in the shadows and looking down at him. The man swayed, and Arthur wondered distantly if the attack had taken something out of him. That made sense, didn't it? Arthur was worn out from blows that he inflicted upon others; surely it had to be the same for sorcery. Still, the swaying didn't give him any hope. Arthur's last deliberate thought before he garnered the courage to look up at his face was that he was terribly glad that he'd sent Guinevere away.
In the back of his mind, Arthur realized with a terrible sadness that looking up at the face of the sorcerer standing above him would have been so much easier if it was a stranger rather than the man whom he had trusted and befriended above most—and perhaps all—others. If only it wasn't him, if only this final blow was coming from a man who had never smiled at Arthur and had never laughed with—or at—Arthur, who had never stayed by Arthur's side when all sense should have sent him running in the opposite direction, who had never earned so very much of Arthur's faith that there was now an emptiness and shame that Arthur had never before felt, who had never ever been assigned as his manservant in the first place…if only it could have been someone else. Anyone else. The dying wasn't even so bad, but if only it couldn't have been Merlin…
Still, Arthur was no coward and, with all of the courage and will that he could muster, he raised his head to look into the face of the man that would be the last that he would ever see, hoping despite himself that he would see some sign of familiarity in that face, hoping that there was something of Merlin in him still…Arthur raised his head to look at his eyes, remembering the blue of Merlin…
But when Arthur looked into his face, he saw only the gold of a sorcerer.
And, before it happened, before it all ended, before it was all over, there was just enough time for Arthur's heart to break.
.
.
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This was originally half of another longer chapter, but I got excited and decided to post it now. If there's interest, I'll keep going. Or I might just keep going anyway. I like this one. :)
Thank you for reading, and please review!
