A Master of Two Servants: Morgana uses the fomorroh to manipulate Arthur into hunting down and killing Emrys. Little do they know the man they are both searching for is much closer than they think … AU of 4x06, 'A Servant of Two Masters'.
Warnings: gore and violence. Spoilers up to and for 4x06, 'A Servant of Two Masters'.
Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine. It belongs to the BBC and Shine.
A Master of Two Servants
Chapter Four
He had saved Arthur. That was all that mattered. Even as the mace swung towards him, even as his chest caught fire, he couldn't bring himself to care about anything other than Arthur's safety.
But it had been for nothing.
They had escaped the mercenaries. They had been heading back home to Camelot. His wound had hurt, yes, but the pain dwindled with each passing moment. A strange, detached calm had settled over his body, even if he could not seem to move. He had thought that if his death were to be like that, painless and peaceful, then he would not have minded. Because Arthur would have been safe, would have been near enough to Camelot to make it back alive and well, and he would not have failed.
But Morgana had found them. She had taken Arthur from him and left him there to die, deep within a ravine that had been forgotten by even the sun. He'd been awake when Morgana bough him here. He had noticed the rocks first, piled high around him, and the endless darkness. When she cast a spell to hide him further, it had taken all his energy to stay awake in case he needed to protect himself - though the need did not arise. Did she intend on coming back for him? He wondered why she didn't just kill him then, as he slipped unconscious again.
At first, as he drifted, all that he was aware of was Arthur's absence. He though perhaps he'd called out for his King in the drunken depths of his fevered dreams. But when, for the briefest of moments, he clung to wakefulness, he was no longer sure he had spoken at all, and all that he remembered were the mercenaries and Arthur reassuring him that he was not going to die.
Had Arthur lied? As the burning spread deep within his veins, he begun to question all that Arthur had said to him. Bitterness swept through him only to be replaced moments later by guilt so overwhelming he tried to scream for forgiveness, but couldn't find the voice to do so.
He did scream later, though, when he thought of their entwined destiny. It was too much. He had lost so much because of it, lost so much at the hands of the Pendragons that he was starting to hate that name. It teased him, taunted him, that cursed name. Pendragon. Yes, he hated the Pendragons. He hated them more than anything.
The guilt came again. This time he did beg, though he was not sure whose feet he was at. Perhaps Morgana's, perhaps Uther's. Perhaps Arthur's. He begged each Pendragon - begged one for forgiveness, one for mercy and one for acceptance - though he didn't understand why he would ask for such things. Maybe this was his trail. Maybe they had found out about his magic.
Because magic that was not yet free. He was not yet free. It was his purpose to free his kind from Uther's oppression and yet he was so far away from his destiny now. Arthur still believed him to be nothing more than an idiot, a useless fool. His true identity and everything he did would remain a secret if he died here, and although he never sought any credit before, part of him craved it then. Greed and anger and hate consumed him.
Arthur was calling him names. Suddenly, only sadness remained. It was almost more painful than the mace's cruel mark.
Perhaps he should have called Kilgharrah, he thought. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember the words to summon the almighty beast. It scared him, that he seemed to have lost his father's legacy in his delusions. But the fear passed when the dragons became something else he was not sure ever existed, and the numbness returned to his body and soul.
His magic protested to this, impulsive and inexorable. It was usually so restrained, forever bubbling just below the surface, but now it bust free into the night sky, shattering Morgana's shield into a thousand invisible pieces. Her spell was useless now. Above him, it looked like the stars had exploded, and what remained of them showered down onto the trees. From the sparks, a golden dragon was born. A dancing embodiment of the Pendragon crest breathed fire onto him, onto the forest below.
The dragons had been real. Of course they had.
He heard voices in the distance. He wanted them to see it too; he wanted the world to see it.
The feeling of letting go was so liberating that he both laughed and cried with joy, and allowed himself to nestle into the familiar warmth of his own power as it rained down on him. He sunk deeper into unconsciousness again. His body was giving in to something – he didn't know if it was the fever or the healing embers of the dragon as it circled his limp form.
In his confusion, he likened it to Arthur – golden and strong and brave – and he welcomed its soft embrace. It cooled the blaze within him until he almost believed that his King was there with him, helping him, healing him.
Maybe he was. Merlin was too lost, now, to tell.
Arthur didn't know if his body was actually his. As he looked up at the empty night sky, he wasn't even sure of who he was anymore – Arthur Pendragon, or the stranger Morgana had crafted to destroy Camelot.
The fomorroh had control of most of his mind, but somewhere the real Arthur remained. He felt like an intruder within his own body. He watched on as a spectator, forever fighting for dominance over the snake as it slithered through his consciousness, stealing away his thoughts and his memories. Sometimes, he would black out, only to snap back into his prison moments later. Somehow, he knew that time had passed, that he fomorroh had won, briefly, and taken complete control. It filled him with fear to think of what could happen if the fomorroh held that dominance for so long that he lost himself.
At least, for now, his body seemed to be a somewhat useless weapon. Arthur was childishly smug that the fomorroh had not yet been able to make him move from the large ditch not far from Camelot, where he presumed Morgana had left him after he lost consciousness. True, it was not the most comfortable of places, but Arthur did not want to return to Camelot. He feared what would happen if he did. So they lay there – two intruders entwined within one body, fighting a war no one would ever see – and started at the black night. It was peaceful, but that was not good. If Arthur let himself get distracted, he would lose to the fomorroh again. He could not allow that to happen.
As the fomorroh became more and more entranced with the darkness of the night (it seemed particularly attracted to the shadows, as if calmed by them; unsurprising, really, for a creature of dark magic, he thought, and quickly blamed his new knowledge of sorcery on the influence Morgana had on his mind), Arthur worked at hiding away any memories the serpent could use against him. If he could contain them within this prison of his, Camelot and his friends might yet be saved.
Strangely, he could see it all much clearer now, the most pivotal moments in his life, even if the real world seemed somewhat distorted. His first kiss with Guinevere, the moment he met Merlin, knighting the men that had sworn to help him reclaim Camelot - it was as though he was seeing it all for the first time. He felt the elation when Gwen's lips found his; breathed in the feeling of finding something he had been searching for all his life, just as he had when Merlin had challenged him in the Lower Town; lived the liberation of going against all those ridiculous traditions of nobility; and gripped the pride he felt towards his friends as they gathered at the Round Table for the first time and pledged their loyalty to Camelot. He swore the fomorroh would never take that away from him. Never.
Just when he thought he had done it, sealed off all that was dear to him, he heard the voices and his control slipped. He was sucked under the surface for what felt like only seconds, but when the fomorroh loosened its grip on him, the sky was red, not black, and he knew it must have been longer.
No, that was not the sky that was red. The knights of Camelot were here, their cloaks forming a parachute above him. Why were they staring at him? He wanted to tell them to leave him here. He wanted to scream that he was not the Arthur they knew. But all that came from his mouth was a muted grunt, any comprehensible words quashed by the fomorroh.
A hand landed on his cheek. "Time to wake up, princess. No, nu-uh, no way. I said wake up. I need you to tell me where Merlin is. Come on, you big, lazy, spoilt brat, where is he?"
Panic flooded through him at the mention of Merlin's name. The emotion attached him suddenly to his body that he forgot, momentarily, just why he felt it in the first place. All his senses rushed back. He could feel the pain in the back of his head again, though it was not as bad as it had been in Morgana's hovel.
The newfound awareness of his body allowed him to get a few words out, though it appeared the fomorroh had full controlof his voice. He had intended to tell them about the clearing he and Merlin had stopped to rest in, but what came out instead was an emotionless, "I don't know."
The next slap was harder, the intention behind it less to wake Arthur up and more to ensure he understood that Gwaine's patience had not improved in his absence. "I swear, Arthur, if you've lost him–"
Before Gwaine completed the threat, the world went black. The fomorroh had full control long enough for the knights to have loaded him onto Leon's horse. They had not put in him an especially comfortable position, but he found himself unable to protest. Around him the knights were talking – no, the knights were arguing, Gwaine's voice the loudest. He heard Merlin's name, before the fomorroh overpowered him again.
The next time he was allowed awareness, it was to find that he still could not see all that well, though it was not the fomorroh's doing this time. The sky was on fire, or at least that was what it looked like. A thousand golden stars were shooting from the trees and up into the dark night. They burst into smaller constellations before simmering back to earth. It was the most beautiful display of magic he had seen.
It was much to his surprise – and the fomorroh's as well, for it was then that he first realized their emotions had become somewhat jumbled, and he could feel the serpent's as he supposed the serpent could feel his (a thought that disgusted him profoundly) – that he could force a single word of his own out.
"Merlin," he wheezed, voice strained. It was more than frustrating that the first and only word he'd managed to say was that, but the light – bold and buoyant and wise, alive with new beginnings and yet already so tested by something he could never hope to understand – reminded him so much of Merlin that it was impossible to think of much else. The fomorroh didn't like that one bit.
The knights were staring at him again. Gwaine's eyes bore into his own, a frown knotting his eyebrows together, and then realization dawned across his features. "Follow the light to its source."
"What?" Leon asked, confused.
"You heard me," Gwaine snapped, swinging his legs onto the saddle. "Follow the light."
"Gwaine, you're not–"
Gwaine was riding away before anyone could persuade him otherwise.
"What was that?" Elyan demanded.
"I don't know," Percival replied. "I've never seen anything like it."
"It looked like sorcery," one of the other knights added.
"And Gwaine believes it will lead him to Merlin?" Leon questioned, incredulous.
Percival squinted through the darkness. Most of the golden embers seemed to have gathered deep within the forest and he thought, for a moment, that he saw a dragon. He passed it off as a trick of the light and decided, anxiously, that if his friend was riding into danger they needed to do something - preferably follow him into the line of fire, as always. "We should follow him."
"What about Arthur?"
Arthur wanted to tell them to follow the light as well. It felt familiar, like the light that had found him in the caves all those years ago, when he had been searching for the Mortaeus flower. But the fomorroh protested, and when he was next awake, they were riding through the forest. He could feel Leon's presence behind him, securing him in the saddle. His body still refused to do anything, and he didn't feel so smug about it now, as he flopped embarrassingly in Leon's grasp.
Ahead of them, he could see only gold. It was like an army of fireflies had stormed the forest. At first, it was almost unbearable to look at, but once his eyes adjusted he couldn't help but stare in wonder. It was remarkable.
The sound of shouting assaulted his eardrums as Leon's horse approached the light. It was Gwaine, he realized, and the terror that washed through him at the sound of his friend's own fear was so strong that he was able to move of his own accord and grip the saddle. Leon was too focused on the yelling knight to realize.
"Hurry up!" Gwaine was saying. "Bring the supplies! I said hurry up!"
Leon leapt off the horse and Arthur's useless body slumped forward until his face was nestled in the stallion's wiry mane. Still filled with dread, he pushed all his weight left, until he toppled off the horse. He was able to get his footing by clinging to the reigns and, once he was sure that he could walk, he rushed forwards. It looked as though they were inside some kind of ravine – a secret castle that nature had built from rock and moss. It was so dark there, the golden light having disappeared completely, that he wondered if the sun had ever touched the ground they were stood upon.
"Sire, you shouldn't be up," Leon said, the first to realize that he had managed to get off the horse. The others knights were crowded around something on the floor, which had their full attention.
Unwilling to waste any time trying to force words out of his mouth, Arthur simply shoved past Leon until he had broken the circle of knights and saw what, exactly, they had all been looking at.
Gwaine was right. The light had led them to Merlin. The relief at seeing his friend, while short lived, was enough to push the fomorroh so far back into his mind that for the moment he barely felt its presence. Arthur put his hand on Merlin's uninjured shoulder, clinging desperately to him in fear that this would be the last time he would ever be himself around Merlin. There was so much he wanted to say, but the fomorroh still would not allow him to speak, even if it had backed away as though wounded by Arthur's claiming of power.
It was his desperation to help Merlin alone that allowed him to stay within his body for so long. Wasting no time, he instantly begun helping Gwaine remove the makeshift binding he'd tied around Merlin's wound when they had stopped to rest in the clearing. Merlin stared at him through half-sealed eyelids, eyes so glassy with fever Arthur doubted he saw anything. It was a wonder he was still conscious.
Gwaine was quick to swap the ruined cloth of Arthur's old tunic for a proper bandage. Neither he nor Arthur could bear to look at the wound for long. As soon as Merlin's chest had been wrapped, the cloth serving only to stop the bleeding, Gwaine ordered Percival to find him something for the pain and fever. The knight did as he was told straight away.
Arthur didn't dare speak, in case the effort caused him to lose control once more, as Merlin was given the tonics. The servant watched him the whole time, as if looking for something. Did Merlin notice something different about him? Before Arthur could tell, Merlin finally lost consciousness.
"We need to get him to Gaius now," Arthur forced the words out, afraid of the risk he was taking in attempting to speak. "Ensure he is treated straight away. Is that understood?"
Some of the knights looked as though they were going to protest. They probably believed he needed medical attention as well.
"Is that understood?" he demanded, desperate. He needed to know that Merlin would be all right, before the fomorroh took control.
There was a collective reply of, "Yes, sire."
Arthur breathed out a sigh of relief, a quiet "Thank you" making its way past his lips before the fomorroh reclaimed dominance. He didn't remember anything after that, not even returning to Camelot.
A/N: Arthur and Merlin POV, and the longest chapter yet, to make up for the filler. I bet you all thought Morgana had Merlin hidden somewhere really exciting. Nope, it's just a ravine. That's a little anti-climatic, isn't it? She did intend to go back for him, in chapter 2, if Arthur didn't cooperate (I don't know how if I made that obvious enough), if you're wondering why she didn't just finish him off straight away.
Magical dragons = Merlin equivalent of flares.
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