Wow. Horribly long update time stinks. I suddenly feel pretty hypocritical as I always bug people to hurry up but really, life comes first, and it comes in waves. After trying to push myself to update for about a month and a half I suddenly had inspiration while at the computer (the two seem mutually exclusive most of the time) and tada! This chapter's a tiny bit shorter than the last one, and a lot more lighthearted, so sorry all of you drama lovers, but your time is coming! I hope to not take this long ever again and am actually going to start next chapter tonight, but even if I do finish I'll probably wait a few days to create a buffer.

All of you who are still reading this story are amazing, especially you who alerted/favorite this. This one chapter got more hits/alerts/favs/and reviews (my first) than 10 chapters of my other story, so thank you all so much. And an extra special thanks to Morganaforever, if I hadn't known that there was at least one person waiting for an update, I might not have pulled this out, so thank you.

And now, on to what you've been waiting for (hopefully, I have yet to meet anyone who only reads the author's note).

Disclaimer: If I ever owned Merlin, why would I be writing potential episodes here? They would be on tv, with the real cast, and hopefully season five wouldn't take two months per episode.

Feel free to leave a review! It's my first time at Arthur/Merlin banter and I'd love to know what you guys think!

Merlin squinted in his bed as the sunlight hit his face. He rolled over and started to mumble unintelligibly about day coming a few hours too early before he remembered the dragon's disturbance the night before and groaned. A split second later the secret warlock was sitting fully alert in bed, his head already beginning to process the things he had been told the night before.

The dragon was apparently his kin. Merlin had always felt that type of connection between himself and the beast because of their shared magic in Camelot, so that hadn't come as a shock. But hearing that the dragon knew his father was something entirely different. He had always felt content with just his mother in his life, and Merlin felt that Gaius filled the role of father-figure in his life, but after losing Freya and seeing Arthur's pain over his loss of a parent, Merlin wanted to fill that connection. After all, while the dragon was never straightforward about information and tried to trick him, the creature of magic had never outright lied to the warlock. And he had promised to release him someday…

His mind made up, Merlin prepared to climb out of bed and carry on with his day when he heard the tell-tale creaking of Gaius climbing the stairs. His mentor had an almost uncanny sense of when Merlin was planning magical mischief, and the warlock knew that waking up this early and ready for the day would certainly make the old physician suspicious of his ward. So the young warlock fell back into bed, knocking half of the thin covers onto the floor and trying to quickly settle his way into the small mound that remained.

The whining of un-oiled door hinges was Merlin's cue to close his eyes and roll over. Gaius, who seemed to stay within reach of the door sighed, and called out to his ward. "Merlin! Wake up you lazy boy, it's already an hour past dawn!" Merlin mumbled out loud to prove that he was indeed up, but the excitement that was still buzzing through his veins at the thought of potentially meeting his father made it near impossible to lie still, let alone wake up at the slow pace that he normally would. Luckily the groan was enough, and Gaius was exiting the room when Merlin peaked an eye open to see the old man facing him, a his eyebrow raised despite the deep scowl on his face, "And when you're done with Arthur try cleaning your chambers. I don't see how you manage to be manservant for a prince when you can't even keep your own room organized."

The sound of Gaius retreating down the stairs was Merlin's cue to finally jump out of bed. Within a couple seconds he was fully dressed and ready to go, but took advantage of the extra time to formulate a plan. After breaking the startling news to the warlock of their kinship, Kilgharah had told Merlin that the only way to break the chains under the castle was through a sword forged of magic. Yet Merlin suspected that there were none of those in the city, perhaps excluding the vaults, but the young warlock wasn't planning on getting himself killed before then. That's when Merlin remembered the magical sword he had thrown in Freya's lake the year before. His mind made up, Merlin finally set out of his chamber, ready to finally fulfill the promise he had made when Sigan attacked. The sword made of the dragon's own breath would be what finally set it free.

Merlin took another breath to calm himself down, the millionth in the less than an hour that he had been awake that morning. Finally ready to face his prince and master, Merlin didn't bother to knock on the door before quickly walking towards the window and opening its curtains with a strong yank to let out some of his lingering impatience. Gaius had accepted his overly cheerful warning that 'the prat swore to finally make me work, and already told me to polish his armor, muck out his horses, and had an extra long day of training today so expect me to be back late' so now all he had to do was get Arthur to swallow an excuse for him being gone for the day and he could finally get the dragon's sword back. So when the prince flopped over in bed with a grumble that was far better than Merlin's acting earlier that morning, the servant/warlock prepared himself to get his first job finished with.

"Good morning sire!" Merlin found no problem letting a happy sarcastic tone into his voice, and tried to tune out Balinor and Dragonlords for at least a minute to dodge the empty goblet that now sat on Arthur's bedside table for the sole purpose of being thrown at his servant every morning.

"You seem overly happy this morning Merlin." Arthur emphasized the beginning of his name with that tone he used when he was overly tired, annoyed, bored, or a mixture of the three. "If you're so eager to do chores today, how about you start with polishing my armor? Then you can sharpen my sword before training with the knights, and muck out my stables… I'm going riding with the Lady Morgana this afternoon, and while I have seen that you are content to live in a constant mess, here you work to keep things clean, and that means that Morgana should not get her new riding boots dirty trying to care for the horses." By this time the prince was giving his servant a pointed look, ready for that banter or complaints that woke him up every morning with a chuckle.

Even though Merlin's back was to his master, the smile on his face seemed to radiate around to reach Arthur, creating that optimistic aura that hung around Merlin as potently as his hidden magic. "Well, sire," Merlin said the word in a way that already had a smile threatening to break out on his 'sire's' face, and made the prince just as glad that Merlin had to turn away to lay out his clothes every morning, "I happen to be ready to do chores today. However, despite the extreme importance of Lady Morgana's riding boots and your boundless ego, Gaius requested that I go out to gather some herbs in the forest. He's really getting too old to make the journey, and the ingredients for Morgana's nightmare drought are much stronger fresh." He turned from where he placed Arthur's tunic over the dressing screen to usher his master in to see a slight, barely noticeable frown on the man's face. "Yes my lord, I understand it is near impossible to imagine actually taking care of yourself without my assistance for a day, but sadly I'm afraid you're get too fat to even fit through the trees."

"I am not fat!" Though the prince was now behind his dressing screen at this point, Merlin knew he was now feeling a bit better.

"Well, even if your belly managed to make it through the trees, your head certainly wouldn't. I frankly don't know how you've managed to not get yourself killed already; your head and butt both make such big targets…"

"Merlin."

"Yes?"

"Shut up"

"Of course sire."

"Idiot."

"Prat."

The same goblet, that had previously landed next to Arthur's dressing screen, now crashed into the wall about two feet from Merlin's head, and the boy took that as his cue to finally fetch the future king's breakfast.