A/N: Two updates in one day... Well, ain't I awesome? Well, no I'm just pretending I'm asleep so my aunt doesn't try and talk to me about my health and well being... Love the woman, but once she gets on the topic of herbal medicines, there is no stopping her.

Captain Ozone, thank you for the squeal. And the remorse is pretty much the only reason why he's helping Merlin, (for now)... :) Person, yes. There is a baddie. But it's not what you think... Ughhh... How to explain with not explaining? This is a prequel to what's to come. Introduces all the main players of my fic... And there's a bit more of Merlin/Arthur banter in this chapter. Not like insults, just 'Who the hell do you think you are?' between the boys. They've just met. Let's ease them in.

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin... I just don't.

Little Women

As Merlin got up from the bed to help Gaius with the research, a wave of dizziness crashed over him. He started to fall, but Gaius quickly steadied him with a hand on his back. Didn't the people say that when they first felt ill, they felt as though their dinners would reappear in their mouths? Just thinking of it made Merlin's dinner feel as though it would pass through his mouth. He had to suppress his gag.

When Gaius released him, it took a few more moments for Merlin to get his legs to stop wobbling but when they did he went over to where Gaius was already climbing the ladder, pulling down books. If there was one thing Merlin was good at it, it was reading. It wasn't his favourite thing to do, but he was one of the few people in his village who could read, picking up the habit when he read Gaius's letters with his mother.

When he was four-years-old, he searched for books in Ealdor, but only the old read and their books were often on the village accounts. So Hunith wrote to Gaius, and he started sending him books and soon, Merlin was reading everything, from books of science to books of lore and often would read to the other children and send them home with tales that frightened their parents.

He stumbled over to the desk - Merlin's gangly legs always were too much for him to handle - to sit at the workbench. "Gaius? Do you remember that book on medicines you sent me? The one with herbs and their uses?"

Gaius looked down from above him, vaguely surprised as though he hadn't expected Merlin to read it at all. "Yes?"

"Well we used that and none of the normal herbs work. So we made one of those sniffing things. The ones that wake you up. Still, nothing."

Gaius leant forward and peered at Merlin curiously. "Could you show me what poultices you used?"

Merlin nodded and pushed passed Arthur to go to Gaius's workstation. He stumbled again from being dizzy, only this time and Arthur steadied him with an arm under his elbow. "Is falling over a common occurrence in your life?" Arthur asked.

Merlin looked up at him, quite surprised he was still there at all. Isn't he a prince? Don't princes have better things to do than sit in a physician's chambers? He shrugged it off. Honestly, who was he to say? He had no experience in Royal living. "Will says that I only have two positions in life. Flat on my face and up on my feet. He says, despite that I'm usually spending most of my time somewhere in between."

Arthur snorted. "Well from what I can tell, he's right."

"Merlin!" Gaius called urgently.

Merlin sighed and went over, doing as instructed and showing the poultices stuffed with mint that Merlin efficiently turned to paste and then used to bind with some other foul smelling herbs. Only then did he start to bite his lip. "Quite honestly, it's not much from memory. I read the books you sent me. I mean, I don't remember what else I put after that."

Gaius smiled gently. "I think I do, and I believe I know why it didn't work. It is a brew made to awake those who have fainted and those ill from a cold. Usually, they are not in such a deep sleep as your friend Will is. Though I applaud you for your skill. Do you practice with the books I send you?"

Merlin shrugged. "There's not much to do in Ealdor except for make sleeping draughts to put in the cow's breakfast and watch them fall." He grinned a little at that, but it faltered when Gaius gave him a disapproving look.

Arthur laughed. Again, Merlin looked up and wondered what he was still doing there. He was in Camelot, and this was the prince. If Arthur caught scent of the fact Merlin had magic, he would die by fire before he could be cured. On the upside, he'd probably be asleep throughout the whole process.

"I believe this illness is one of sorcery," Gaius said, hissing the word like it was a conspiracy.

Merlin flinched and shook his head. "There are no sorcerers in Ealdor. Everyone in Ealdor is scared of magic. There was a Druid camp two days walk from where we lived, and they were not welcome to trade with us, even when our crops were all dead, and we had no food for the winter."

He felt ashamed at the thought of how many had died that winter all because the people were too scared of magic. Merlin and his mother had gone days without food and just being reminded of how foolish his village had been made him burn with anger. It made him wonder what they would do if anyone had found out about his gifts.

Will had accepted him, but they were life long friends, and always would be. He may not have understood Merlin's magic but didn't hate him for it.

From the corner of his eye, Merlin saw Arthur sit down across from them. Arthur looked sick, out of nowhere. Merlin wondered why curiously, but then a knocking at the door made him, Gaius and Arthur turn. "Come in," Gaius called out.

The door was pushed open, and a dark skinned serving girl with curly locks around Merlin's age stepped inside. She cleared the way, stepping aside to hold the door open for another pale skinned girl, around the same age with long tendrils of black hair and pale green eyes.

Merlin's jaw dropped and his heart pounded in his chest at a million miles an hour. He stood up from his chair. The pale beauty walked in, and she looked surprised to see Arthur. "When did you get back?" she asked, her accent lilting.

Arthur cleared his throat, still a little green. "This morning."

"Well then, I suppose you proved your manhood, then?" The girl raised one of her perfect eyebrows in an arch, and Merlin wondered who she was. He stumbled forward as he moved towards her, but tripped over his pant legs.

Before he could hit the floor, Arthur grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him back up to his feet. "You weren't kidding when you said you fall over a lot, were you?"

"I rarely kid about falling over," Merlin said absently too busy staring at the female newcomer.

The girl noticed him for the first time. "And who are you?"

Merlin opened his mouth to speak, but Arthur interrupted. "This is Merlin."

Without meaning to, Merlin snapped at the Prince. "I do have a mouth to reply with."

The girl smirked at Merlin as Arthur frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Sire," Merlin added as an afterthought. Not knowing Arthur well enough, Merlin didn't know that the face Arthur made was one that begged its many onlookers to ask themselves if they knew who he was addressing. Not being a part of Camelot or even a citizen of its lands, Merlin couldn't have cared less about the Prince as long as he wasn't burning on the pyre.

The girl threw her head back. "I am the Lady Morgana," she said, smiling. "The King's ward."

Arthur scoffed. "You're not the Lady Morgana yet," he corrected her. "You're just Morgana."

The girl marched over to them, balling up her fists by her side as if prepared for war. She was quite tall for her age, a head taller than Merlin, and made it to Arthur's shoulder whereas Merlin managed to just meet his chest. "In three and a half years, people from all across the five Kingdoms will call me Lady Morgana and they will all adore me." Her eyes blazed with beautiful fury, but Arthur just snorted.

"You? You think they'll adore you? Stop kidding yourself, Morgana," Arthur snorted.

Morgana looked as though she was about to kill. "Enough, children," Gaius scolded. When both turned to him accusingly, he pointed at both with stern fingers. "You are not yet a Lady, and you are not yet the Crown Prince. However, both of you are disturbing me. Merlin and I need to work now. We are on a strict deadline."

As if waiting to be called upon, a wave of dizziness struck Merlin, and his knees gave out underneath him, reminding him that their time was limited. He would have hit the ground had Arthur not hooked his hands underneath his armpits from behind. "Are you ever vertical?"

"Are you ever not a prat?" Merlin garbled weakly, but no one quite heard him.

"Sit him down." He could hear Gaius speak, but things were spinning a little until they found solid ground again at the table.

Merlin looked up and flashed everyone's concerned face a grin. "I should probably start reading now."

"What's the matter with him?" Morgana asked, curiously staring.

"An illness of sorcery has struck down his village, and I brought him back here to help him save it," Arthur said, a little smugly. Merlin felt as though he was watching Lorna and James - rest their souls - trying to outdo the other during the village tournament - which were just a bunch of boring games for the children. Merlin and Will detested them but Hunith forced them to participate.

"I'll help," Morgana piped up, having approved of Merlin's awestruck attitude. "Gwen and I only came to see if you wanted herbs collected. We were quite bored, weren't we Gwen?"

The serving girl bowed and nodded. "Yes, milady."

Her serving girl scurried along after her but stood a little away from them, no one quite noticing her. Merlin only now took her in with her butter yellow dress that was hand stitched with little floral embroideries. "Hi. I'm Merlin," he said, waving at her.

She giggled a little and blushed. "I heard Prince Arthur."

Arthur snorted from behind them. Merlin just frowned at him then looked back at the girl. "I'm not quite a fan of people introducing me. Your name is Gwen, right?"

"Yes." She smiled kindly, and her cheeks burnt the colour of pink roses. "I am Morgana's handmaiden."

Merlin grinned. "Pleasure to meet you," Gwen giggled, and Morgana looked disapproving of their interaction but held her tongue.

Morgana and Gwen, true to their words helped with research. Merlin found out quickly that Gwen could not read at all, and Merlin was left to wonder to himself why reading was such a gift amongst the poor.

After a while, even Arthur started to help them, grumbling that they were working too slow. "Sire, do you not have duties to attend to?" Gaius asked, once they'd been through half the library.

Arthur shook his head. "Father said to check up on Merlin and for you to go to him as soon as you have found a cure. That was all."

Gaius sighed and apart from occasionally calling the older man over to assess whether they had found the right thing or not, no one really spoke. Occasionally Merlin would gaze over at Will but turn back to his reading, determined to find the cure.

But his vision was blurring.

He had been walking for two days straight without rest, then ran from the camp filled with the dead for what felt like days until he reached the knights of Camelot. He had barely eaten and was so tired he felt his face might fall off.

So by mid-afternoon, the fact that Merlin was constantly trying not to fall asleep was no surprise to him. But when he outright collapsed in the evening, all he could think of was that Ealdor customs be damned, he shouldn't have kissed Will's forehead when he left him.

Arthur couldn't help his desire to help Merlin. Ever since the boy collided with him in the forest and gripped onto him for dear life, Arthur felt it his duty to ensure that the boy was properly cared for. He convinced himself he was performing his duty by guaranteeing the boy recovered but after the Druid camp and his immense guilt he felt as though he had a chance to redeem himself through Merlin.

He was tired from a sleepless night, but he'd stayed awake for longer and was now pushing through the books, trying to find something similar to what Merlin described. He couldn't deny he was hungry, however. His stomach was growling for a decent meal, but Morgana hadn't budged at all, and he'd be damned if he caved before her.

For a second he stared at his father's ward and smiled, remembering their childhood together. They had grown up in each other's homes. Goloris was his godfather and Morgana more like a sibling than a ward. But the two always seemed to bring out the worst in the other. They were constantly fighting. On more than one occasion they had needed to be separated from seriously harming each other. But at the end of the day, he would kill for her, and he never had any doubt that she would do the same.

He snapped out of his thoughts as he caught sight of everyone else studiously reading, but the serving girl who just stared over her mistresses' shoulder at the pictures. Arthur had known her just as long as he'd known Morgana. Her brother was good friends with Leon, and they had spent many days together, but for the life of him, Arthur could never remember her name.

It became harder and harder to read the words on the page as the night wore on. Candles lit the physician's chambers, but the long slanted writing that covered most of the pages were blurring in front of Arthur's eyes. Merlin kept tilting his head forward and blinking slowly. Arthur was watching him do just that when Merlin fell forward into his book, and his hand fell out underneath his head knocking over his water-filled goblet.

"Merlin!" Arthur turned to Gaius who had exclaimed the boy's name and Morgana started screaming. Her serving maid gasped, knocking back phials as Arthur and Gaius went to Merlin's side.

"What's wrong with him?" Morgana shouted, rushing over too, as the nervous maid backed away.

Arthur shoved Morgana back too when she got too close. "Give Gaius some room."

Morgana stuck her tongue out at Arthur, but still backed away, clutching her serving maid's hand when she stumbled into her. "I think his exhaustion has caught up with him," Gaius said. He opened one of Merlin's bright blue eyes, and there was a thick ring of orange around the iris. "Oh dear."

"What?" Arthur asked. "What is it?"

"His illness is progressing much faster than Merlin said it had in the village. If you would Arthur, take him into my old apprentices' chambers. There is not much I can do for him with no cure, and the table is hardly a place to rest him. There is another bed in there, and I cannot carry him."

Arthur grimly nodded and bent down, lifting Merlin up with ease, as he would a small child. The boy was almost a stick, with no meat on his bones. Do they not feed the people in Cenred's Kingdom?

He went into the second chamber where Rowan, Gaius's ex-apprentice had lived and put him in the bed. He was just going to leave him above the sheets, but then Merlin shivered and in his sleep grasped onto Arthur's shirt and buried himself into it. A small part of him wanted to hit the boy for making his heart twinge in such a way, but he was small and innocent looking and determined to find a cure for his village.

Maybe Merlin was his redemption. Maybe if Arthur could help save the life of one innocent boy, his nightmarish acts would become a distant memory. He lifted Merlin up again, clutching onto him as he pulled back the covers on the bed and put Merlin down inside, then pried off his fingers and covered him.

Arthur decided then that he would not let Merlin die. He would do everything in his power to help him, and to make it up to the Gods for what he did to the Druids. He would save the village of Ealdor and find the cure, and he would deliver it to Merlin's people and regain faith in himself as a Prince.

"Got it!" Arthur looked over his shoulder and went out into the main chamber where Morgana was jumping up and down, a book in her hand. "Gaius, I found the illness! I found it, and there is a cure written right next to it."

Arthur smacked his head. Or Morgana would find the cure and Arthur would deliver it. Whatever. As long as he found his redemption.

Those cookies from last chapter are still up for grabs.

Ages:

Leon - 19

Arthur - 15

Morgana - 12 (almost thirteen)

Merlin - 12

Gwen - 12

Will - 12