"Aaaand…push, Your Highness, push!" Gaius yells at Uther's wife.
And she screams, and nearly breaks Uther's hand as she pushes their child out, Gaius waiting with a blanket, despite him and Nimueh both being covered with blood and other fluids Uther is sure he doesn't want to know the details of... Nimueh flicks her fingers to cut the chord…
…but the baby makes no sound.
"Uther?" Igraine asks, weakly.
He brushes her hair back as she asks, "Why can't I hear my son?"
But she doesn't sound like she's asking – she sounds like she already knows.
Nimueh is staring at the baby in horror, as Gaius wipes it somewhat clean.
"It is a boy," Uther says, confirming what Nimueh had seen, and Igraine smiles, holding out her arms, despite the silence.
"Let me hold my son," she says.
Gaius frowns. "Your highness…he…he has no-"
"Let me hold my son!"
Gaius relents, settling the infant corpse in his wife's arms, and gods, it was not supposed to be like this, there was supposed to be the sound of a wailing baby and dancing and cheering and Gaius yelling out the door who and what it was and Nimueh cleaning the wailing baby with a flick and blanketing the babe and mother with another…
But now…as much as Nimueh has the baby clean, as if just bathed, in an instant, the baby is silent…
"He's cold," Igraine says, tears in her eyes.
…and cold.
Nimueh shuts her eyes, as Uther stares at Nimueh in shock, before looking at Gaius's turned back-
But no. She's shaking her head, as she nears him, the blood already drying in some places of her dress.
"What is happening?" he asks, seeing his wife crying at her child, but looking so…so..unsurprised. And regretful.
"This spell…it needs…it needs to be blood, sacrificed. His blood."
"Blood? I thought you said a life…" Nimueh nods, and the meaning dawns on Uther in horror. Not blood – bloodlines.
"We…we can't…but how…"
"Shh."
Uther and Nimueh both look up as Igraine smiles at them sadly.
"I love you," she says, to Uther, looking at Nimueh right after. "I love you."
He frowned. "We know…Igraine…we can…we can try for another child…"
But his wife shakes her head, looking at Igraine and Nimueh both. "I love you, both of you. Look after him."
"He's already dead," Nimueh says, leaning in.
Igraine smiles. "Kiss me?"
Nimueh freezes at the desperate note in her lady's voice, but nods, leaning forward, pressing her lips to his wife's, and deepening it, before gently pulling apart.
Igraine looks at him, and without a word, he leans forward and does the same.
She tastes of bitter herbs Gaius fed her for the birthing and of apples and spices and sweetcakes she ate while in pain, and she tastes of regret in her tongue and sorrow on her lips, an apology scrawled across it all.
As she pulls away, she smiles at them, then smiles at her stillborn son, leaning down and kissing his forehead.
"I love you," she says, before staring at him with impossible focus, reaching up one finger to the spot where the birthing chord had just been, and crying out, "Ich ágiefe ae min thée!"
"NO!" Nimueh screams, lurching forward.
But then his wife is glowing gold, and even when Nimueh touches her, she burns, and Uther stares, unable to understand, before turning to Nimueh.
"What did she say?" he asks, throat tightening at the way his sorcerer was sobbing, clutching herself, as the golden glow seeped from his wife and into his son.
"I…I…" she sobs. "She said, 'I give my life to you'."
"No…" he shakes his head, but even right before his eyes, he can see his wife weakening, none of them able to touch her, not even Gaius, standing by the table and watching with…with…
The gold fades straight into his son, seeping like cheap tavern paint after a rainfall, and his son is slowing as his wife turns paler and paler.
"NO!" he yells, seeing her die before his very eyes.
She smiles at him and Nimueh, both, and looks down at her son, before her eyes shut for one last time, and she murmured, "Love you," to no one, all of them, leaning her head back, and he watched in horror as it slumped, the last of the glow fading into his son.
And his son's eyes open.
Igraine is smiling, head rolling on the pillow to the sound of her son's newborn wailing.
Nimueh and Uther both stare at her in shock, before Nimueh, crying, says, "It wasn't to be her. It was never supposed to be her. I told her that spell just to…it wasn't to be her!"
He turns, slowly. "Then who…?" But he can already see it in her eyes as she stares at him.
"You."
It is to the sound of his son crying that his world falls apart, crumbling all around him, leaving him nowhere left to stand.
"Are you sure, sire?" Gawain asked. Uther kept himself from rolling his eyes as he mounted his horse.
"I can manage a single ride through a forest on my own."
"Sire-"
"If you really must know," Uther said. "It happens to be the pressures of the castle, including the constant guard, I wish to escape for the afternoon. Now do not speak further of this."
Smiling, now, in realization, Gawain nodded. "Yes, sire…if anyone asks, where shall I say you went?"
"Down the southern deer paths," Uther said, immediately pulling the horse towards the north.
He has trusted Gawain with his life many times before in battle, and hoped he was not making a mistake in trusting the man with his privacy, right now.
It would be rather difficult to explain why he is spying on his son and his manservant on their so-called-hunt. Not impossible, but certainly difficult.
In the end, it doesn't take too long to find them. Apart from the fact neither of them really expect to be followed, he knows exactly how Arthur moves and thinks.
Besides which, he was the one to show Arthur this particular spot many years ago, himself.
"…about my socks!"
"Merlin, having matching socks is a reflection upon your mental state, and shows that you are organized, and that you know what you are doing."
"You can't even see them!"
"On the off chance someone does-"
"If someone is spying on your socks, they probably have bigger problems."
"You'd be surprised how many fairly normal and innocuous situations one can run into every day that would actually reveal quite a bit of your socks."
…this was way too familiar an argument. Socks, dresses, it seemed warlocks and royalty would never quite agree on anything wardrobe related.
"…on purpose!"
"You deserved it, you prat-"
"Oh, come here, you bloody idiot-"
Uther had tied his horse back almost a hundred yards, so he's able to slip to the edge of the clearing with deadly stealth, and hid himself in the shadows to watch.
Arthur had managed to get a grip on Merlin's wrists, and was apparently try to wrestle the boy to the ground. In a moment, he did so, easily, straddling the boy with a smirk which made Uther roll his eyes.
Merlin's eyes flashed gold – though really, of all things, gold? – and suddenly, Arthur was floating above Merlin, straight as a board.
Uther's breath hitched at the expression of child-like amazement and curiosity on Arthur's face.
He looked so much like his mother.
After a moment, Arthur caught the smug expression on his warlock's face, and promptly tried to hide his expression and school it into something more uninterested.
He failed spectacularly at it.
Arthur crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Merlin.
Merlin mirrored it.
A beat.
Arthur moved first, grabbing Merlin by the shoulders and pulling him close for a searing kiss, which apparently made Merlin lose concentration, as Arthur landed right on top of him, again. Merlin wheezed, but didn't seem to care as Arthur rolled off him, and they were still entangled in each other's limbs, and all Uther could see is him and Igraine in the very same spot, before it all went to hell.
Merlin rolled them so he was on top of Arthur, who just laughed, and laughed, and Uther turned away and headed back to the forest.
The laughter ringing in his ears was Igraine's.
Or maybe Arthur's.
Or maybe, they were both just the same.
He watches the murderers before him burn at the pyres, yelling spells uselessly to try and free themselves. But the very shackles, themselves, were specially cast by Nimueh – they can contain the sorcerers and their magic, without being damaged during the execution.
The crowds around him cheer, images of dead maidens fresh in everyone's minds. The corruption of the power of Earth.
Once the last sorcerer falls silent, Uther turns and goes back into the castle.
Where did magic draw the line?
Was there a line?
As he stands in the doorway to his chambers and watches Nimueh feed Arthur with magically enhanced milk, all he can do is wonder.
It has only been a few days. Igraine's funeral, and this band of murdering sorcerers soon after…Camelot was in deep mourning.
She might not be able to take much more.
"How is he?" Uther asks, leaning on his table as Nimueh sets down the feeding clothes and gently rocks the drowsy baby in her arms. She's wearing one of the dresses Igraine made, particularly fancy daywear that Nimueh hated. Now, it swishes about her body as she dances with the little prince.
"He misses his mother, at times," she says, but her head is tilted in a soft smile. "But he enjoys a full belly and a warm body just as much as the next infant. Easily contented. Just like his mother."
Uther swallows and watches Nimueh slowly dance about the room. The baby is, indeed, just like his mother, easily lulled by Nimueh's voice as it – he – is. He wonders if Arthur will always be easily prey to Nimueh's voice, like Igraine was.
"From the shining castle," Nimueh sang, softly, "To the glist'ning moors. One day, some day, this kingdom shall be yours."
He smiles as he remembers this lullaby from his own youth. He wonders when Igraine taught it to Nimueh – for she would've been the only one – as he still wonders where magic's line is drawn.
"Tall and proud and mi-igh-ty, you will rule so fair," and that line of the song comes out almost as a plea. "And to all of your enemies-"
"Of you they shall beware," Uther sings softly, sitting in his chair.
Nimueh looks up, startled, surprise in her eye, but her song never falters, even as Uther sings with her.
"Dream tonight of all that's yours, the land, the seas, the skies," and Uther hopes one day, it will be so much more. "And one day, you will be king, so true, so just, so wise."
As Nimueh continues on, singing without him, Uther murmurs for them both to hear, "Let's hope so."
Once the baby is sleeping, Nimueh sets him down in the bassinet by the bed, before sitting on the bed and watching Arthur.
Now he wonders if she is looking for Igraine as much as he is.
"Were you really going to kill me?" he asks.
Nimueh doesn't respond.
"Well?"
She is still enraptured by his son. His, not hers!
But still Igraine's, either way.
"Answer me, damnit!"
Slowly, she turns to him.
"You're my friend," she said. "Occasionally more, and I am proud to call you one of my best friends, but still my friend, nonetheless. Igraine…she is my everything."
And that is the crux of the problem, right there.
Duty, or heart?
The curse of the blessed.
Camelot, or Igraine?
Arthur, or Nimueh?
Duty, or Heart?
And where was the line drawn?
The next time is almost an accident – almost.
Though really, they were growing complacent in hiding the magic in Camelot.
Lounging about in a spare room which barely even has a proper door, it was easy for Uther to stand in the shadows outside and listen to them.
"…into the water."
He heard a drop of something into water, and remembered the servant girl was carrying a basin in with them.
"I…I…" Morgana sounded excited. "I see it!"
"I don't," Arthur said.
"Patience," the servant girl chimed. Guinevere, that's her name – the blacksmith's daughter, the smith that consorted with the sorcerers that tried to kill him.
There is the sound of rushing water, despite their apparently only being a bowl. "Okay, Morgana, calmer," Merlin said, voice calm and steady. "Now – think only of Powys, okay?"
Powys?
He blinked in surprise – they were looking into the conflict with Powys?
As far as he knew, Arthur thought it was a bad idea, taking that ridge on the border between them.
So why the hell was he looking into it?
"Okay, now, focus on the front lines – no, no, don't try and focus on anyone in particular, yet," Merlin said. "The book says it's best to do it in steps. Now – do you have the front lines?"
"Y…yes," she said, sounding almost breathless.
"I see it!" Arthur said, suddenly. "It's dark – maybe the water? – but I can see it."
The water and basin were already hints of scrying, and he knew Morgana sometimes dreamed the future – woman's intuition gone insane, right? It had to be, her dreams were just dreams – but this?
"They aren't moving," Morgana said. "I think it…it's…the armor – some of it looks almost like the tournament kind."
"We only do that for…show…" Arthur said.
"Okay, look for Arthur and Uther," Merlin said. "If they're together."
A pause. "They're not."
"Then Uther," Merlin said. "It's him we're concerned about."
He would admit to himself he was surprised. What the hell were they going on about? What about him concerned them, now?
"He's standing at the front," Morgana said, after a moment. "And this is just for show. Powys…Powys overstated their forces. They will lose if they try and fight."
"But, is he hurt?" Arthur asked, voice sounding off, as if talking to someone else.
"No one is hurt, except for Powys's pride," Morgana said, with a morose sigh. "Damnit."
Damnit?
"Morgana, I can't believe you would wish such things on Father!" Arthur said at her swear.
"I don't want him dead, Arthur!" she said. "Just hurt – enough to leave the kingdom in your hands for a while. If he sees how well you can run the kingdom now, he will be more amenable to abdicating-"
"Morgana, have you met our father?" Arthur said. Our? Hm, Morgana certainly never accepted Uther as her father around him. "Either he will be or he won't be, but seeing me rule well will not change that. He's a stubborn ass."
Well – that was always nice to hear in such blunt terms, especially from your own son. He rolled his eyes to himself as Morgana said, "Like father, like son."
"Oh, no," Arthur said, sounding almost like a hunter. "When it's my father, it's 'stubborn', when it's me, it's 'determined'."
Uther smiled. He had said something quite similar, though it had been Arthur and Kay, not Arthur and himself.
"Er, your majesties?" Guinevere cut in. "So even if your father pursues this, there will be no battle? No bloodshed?"
Morgana sighed. "No, Gwen, don't worry – Uther will run around showing off his shining army to the world and Arthur is going to roll his eyes when Uther says that going after the ridge was worth the effort, especially as there was no bloodshed over it."
"Well, at least we can also say that you're getting better at this," Merlin said.
"Maybe she can predict next week's tournament, now," Arthur said, and Uther could hear the grin in his voice.
"You won't get any help from me," Merlin said. "Unlike you, 'sire', I happen to have a conscience."
"You're lecturing me on consciences? Wait, you think I don't have one, Emrys?"
"Emrys?" the maidservant asked, while Morgana said,
"Why does that sound…familiar?"
"It's my prophetic name, apparently," Merlin said. "The Druids call me it – like Mordred? – and the Dragon, and those evil sorcerers from East Anglia, and, well, you get the idea. It's like my magical name or something, Merlin Emrys."
"Your name of nobility," the maidservant said dreamily, to which Arthur snorted.
"Merlin? Noble? He still can't go a full day without tripping over his own two feet!"
"Actually, those are usually your feet that you love to trip me over, 'sire'…"
And they spiraled back into their incessant bickering again. Really, they were like an old married couple, the way they acted.
Though it was reassuring. His will was much stronger than Nimueh's had been, anyway.
"Uther, please," Nimueh says, begging, practically.
He looks away from her, around her rooms – sparsely decorated, as she barely ever used them – as he says, "You have until dawn tomorrow to leave."
"No!" she cries, lurching towards him and grabbing fistfuls of his tunic, making him stumble back with her weight. "Please…Camelot is my home!"
"Magic is no longer welcome in Camelot," Uther said, coldly, still looking away from her. "It was magic that has been tearing this kingdom apart, and magic that took my wife away from me."
She stares in shock.
"Magic brought you your son!" she cries out as she steps back.
"And that is why I am allowing you this chance to run," he says. "Pack your things, quickly – I know you love your books – and-"
"No," she says, coldly, rage in her voice finally making him look, and regretting it.
Looking at her, he wonders for a moment if she saw this coming. Mostly by her dress…he has come to measure her moods by her dresses.
When she is feeling well, she will wear the elaborate court dresses Igraine made for her. When she is feeling particularly full of grief, she wears the soft nightdresses Igraine made her. When she is feeling nostalgic, she wears a luncheon dress Igraine made in a fit of Igraine-like madness.
Today, she needed comfort, from what he does not know. She is wearing a simple red dress Igraine made just before Arthur was conceived. It leaves her arms scandalously bare, and the skirt of it looks torn to strips, making her look like some forest fey, and was made purely for Igraine's aesthetic pleasure. But he knows Igraine put her artistic touch into every single strip she cut with purpose and determination, sewing through the day, and right through the night as well, by firelight, smiling for Uther's exasperation from the bed as she did so, and Nimueh's lazy protests from beside him.
He remembers this all too well.
If it weren't for the look of shock on her face, he would feel certain that she knew this was coming, the way she clutches at some of the strips as she swallows, rage and sorrow battling in her eyes. The few trinkets there are in the room are trembling, shaking with the force of her rage.
"You cannot do this to me," she says. "I am your friend-"
"Was," he says. "You were my friend. I am no longer a friend of magic…and you said as much, yourself – you are not just learned of magic, but you are magic. As such-"
"Stop hiding behind your king's mask!" she hisses, sparks around her fingertips flashing in the dim candlelight of the room.
A small wind picks up in the room. "You have already hurt me enough. My sisters and brothers, are all dead, thanks to you. The Druid elder, you made me watch just because we once shared some magic. You burned my friends right in front of me. You would not let me stop my godson from jumping in the flames when he tried to rescue his parents! You…you…please. You have taken so much from me, my friends, my family…my love. Do not take away my home."
"Camelot is not your home anymore," he repeats harshly, despite the small whirlwind in the room, which had caused some guards to wait hesitantly out by the door. "Camelot will not be home to anyone of magic, not anymore! I will save her from this corruption before it becomes the death of her."
"If you banish magic, you will be the death of Camelot!" she shouts at him, sobbing, clutching her own waist as she screams, "The Old Religion cannot be banished by your idle whims!"
"Then it will be driven out by the power of man and man alone," he yells back.
Her lower lip quivers. He doesn't know why he picks that out in particular, notices it so vividly, but he does.
"Please…don't take Arthur from me. He is all I have left of Igraine. Please…"
"Arthur is all Camelot has left of a peaceable future," he says.
"He is born of magic!" she yelps. "Do not think it will stay away from him, forever. You will leave him defenseless? You will kill your own son! Kill him like you killed Igraine!"
His blood freezes at those words, and Nimueh's face falls, regretting, for a moment, her words, before suddenly, her face hardens.
Even if she does regret her words, she is not taking them back.
His face starts to match. The mask of a king seems to have become his face, and he wonders if the face of Uther will become his mask as he yells, "GUARDS!"
The two guards from outside rush in immediately, and everything dies down as they grab her arms, and she collapses, her knees almost brushing the floor but her body held up by the guards as she says, "You will regret this, Uther Pendragon."
"I already do," he says. "Now leave – and do not come back. Ever."
He turns away before he can see or hear any more. She is the last link to his dreams of using magic to build Camelot, and he knows he will crumble soon.
Camelot needs a better king that what Uther can give.
But Uther is all she has.
"Your son is ill, sire," was all that the castle page had said, and Uther was out of his chambers like a shot.
It wasn't long until he reached Arthur's chambers, and walked in to see his son lying in bed, Gaius standing over him, Merlin behind him, and a young chambermaid going about tidying the room as Merlin helped Gaius with his various herbs and spices.
He could see their faces. The chambermaid seems content, Merlin annoyed, and Gaius long-suffering but not urgent. He could see that Arthur was apparently fine.
That didn't change the pang of terror he felt at yet again seeing his son laid out on his bed, pale and sweating and looking worse for it.
"What has happened?" he asked coolly, though, despite his inner torment. He was a king – if nothing else, he always held a strong front, no matter what.
"Just a simple illness, sire," Gaius said, reassuringly, in the tone Uther recognized as how Gaius conversed with any other parent when their child was hurt or ill. Or when Gaius knew the king was more worried than he would let on. "Given time, he should recover just fine."
"I don't have much time," Arthur growled from the bed. "I am a prince with duties, and I have been injured and laid up in bed too many times as it is-"
"Then maybe now you'll listen to me when I tell you taking a swim at midnight so late in autumn is a bloody bad idea," Merlin said, grinding some herb and sprinkling it into a jar of a thick-looking fluid of some kind.
"What would you know? If my knights-"
"It was a stupid idea for them, too! I said as much-"
"And pray tell, Merlin, why am I the only one who's sick?"
That was actually a very good question.
"Because you're the only one who wanted to go swimming under the waterfall and spent more than twice as long in the water as any of the other knights," Merlin said, handing a goblet of something over to Arthur as Gaius checked something in a book. "At least they were intelligent enough to know not to stay in the water for long."
Even his own son was not immune to the stupidity of youth, Uther knew that much. But this…
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but he's right," Uther said. "It was a ridiculous idea."
"Father!" Arthur said, indignant. "It's a ritual we do every season's pass, you used to-"
"Staying in the water? Waterfalls? At the dawn of winter?" Uther challenged. Arthur just glared, and he rolled his eyes and hoped Gaius wouldn't tell either of the boys he had done the same thing himself.
Twice.
And unfortunately, had fallen ill both times.
Gaius, apparently reading his thoughts, gave him an amused smirk and eyebrow raise when the boys weren't looking, and Uther returned it with a petulant expression and a warning look in his eyes.
The court physician just shook his head and rolled his eyes at the sheer bravado-induced stupidity of Pendragon men, before turning back and handing another leaf of some kind to Merlin, who added it to the jar.
Uther fought a strong urge to sigh in relief as he left Arthur's chambers.
As soon as he was alone in his chambers, he gasped, almost sobbing to himself as he set on the bed, assault by memories of Arthur after the Questing Beast incident, pale and unmoving and trickling along the path to death. He remembered the fear when Arthur had been left out to fight the gargoyles, and when he had seen Arthur's body from across the court, the next day, before finding he was just unconscious. He remembered when a wound of Arthur's had gotten infected when he was a boy, and Uther was so terrified, and it wasn't because the Prince of Camelot might die, but because his son might die. He even remembered the near-deaths Arthur has run into, watching him get bucked from his horse just a few weeks before his official knighting. He remembered watching those snakes appear from that blasted knight's shield, about to kill Arthur. He remembered the chalice from Bayard, and the terror of it could've been Arthur as he watched Merlin fall to the ground-
And, of course, Merlin. Looking back on many of Arthur's run-ins, he was started to see where the boy's magic might've been a crucial influence. It might have even been as far back as Lady Helen.
As he remembered the sight of the knife sailing towards his son's heart, he can't find it in himself to resent the boy's magic if that was what saved Arthur.
Merlin really did have a ridiculous amount of loyalty towards Arthur. Which actually almost didn't make sense, considering how much they bicker and fight over everything.
Then again, maybe that was just a sign of their trust. Or a symptom – he couldn't be sure which.
"You could say…there is a bond between us."
As he poured himself some wine, Uther remembered that day all too well, his gut clenching in pride and terror as he walked towards what he had been so sure was certain death. He remembered seeing Merlin with that sword – what happened to it, anyway? – and ordering the boy to prepare him for battle. For all the boy's clumsiness and fumbling, his hands were almost impossibly smooth when it came to armor.
"Tom's not the royal swordsmith. I'm surprised Arthur went to him."
"No, that was me."
Where did the boy get that blade? Considering it killed the undead, and simply by how it felt in his hands, well – it couldn't be a normal sword. It had to have had magic. Merlin had to have enchanted the sword, somehow – that would explain why he was so hesitant to give it to Uther – but that still begged the question of what actually happened to it.
"I felt he needed a better sword."
Better sword, indeed.
"Look after him."
Even now, Uther does not regret saying those words to Merlin.
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