A/N: Sorry for the long update... But it's well worth it. I've finished the next three chapters. I'm just reading through them. I haven't had internet, and when I did, I was re-hospitalised. I'm pretty sure the doctors are trying to kill me, though that could be me becoming paranoid...

Thanks, bubzchoc and A maze thing for the reviews. :)

Disclaimer: Morgana would have had some redeeming qualities about her if I owned Merlin because I've read the Arthurian legend and in the end, she actually... you know what? I don't own Merlin. :)


To Make a Potion

Merlin was woken well before dawn by a quiet Gaius who nodded his head for Merlin to follow him out of the apprentice chambers. Carefully, he untangled himself from his best friend - the two sharing the small bed as they had shared everything in their life, with an argument and eventually begrudging acceptance - and followed Gaius out into the main chamber with a large yawn.

"Sit, please," Gaius said as he too sat. Merlin took the seat across from him and pondered what could be so urgent. His body ached from his time in the stocks, and his legs were bruised from Will's kicks, but he stretched out the pain and tried to make himself comfortable. "We need to talk about the potion."

Merlin yawned wide and nodded his head sleepily. "I know all the ingredients. I have the map marked up with where they are. I've read the preparation at least seven times and wrote out three copies of detailed instructions. I think I'll be alright."

"You need to learn how to listen and shut up sometimes Merlin," Gaius muttered. Merlin tried not to look offended as Gaius continued. "The illness that has struck your village is one made of magic and the only cure is one made of magic."

Merlin frowned. "But... Magic is forbidden in Camelot."

"But not in Essetir," Gaius whispered. Merlin became very interested in the table suddenly as Gaius leant down closer to his level. "Merlin. I know you have magic."

Merlin jumped, and his eyes opened wide. "What? How?!"

"Your mother once asked me to bind your powers, but I couldn't. I have dabbled in the arts of magic but was never that strong."

The more Gaius spoke, the more in shock Merlin found himself. "You have magic?"

"Not quite. I can use magic. But I haven't properly since the Great Purge, except of course when I made the potion for you and Will."

Merlin stared at the old physician with a new amount of respect. "You risked execution for me?"

Gaius nodded and clasped his hand over one of Merlin's cheeks. "Of course," he smiled. "I may not have been in your life physically all these years Merlin, but I care for you and your mother very much."

Merlin smiled gently back. "Thank you, Gaius. This means the world to me."

Gaius looked upset but patted his back. "Merlin, have you ever cast a spell before?"

Merlin shook his head. "I just... Do things."

Gaius looked surprised. Hunith had told him about Merlin's powers before, but he had been unsure of how much her ignorance of magic had to do with what she said. "Well, then I'll just have to teach you how to cast a spell."

"Alright then... Let me just wake Will."

"Will?" Gaius's one raised eyebrow jolted up even higher.

"Yeah. It's alright. He knows about my magic, and he'd kill me if I learnt a spell without him."

Gaius groaned as Merlin rushed up the stairs to wake his friend and decided he was glad he never got around to having children of his own.


At dawn, an exhausted and nervous Merlin stood far outside the gates of the lower town, leaning heavily on Will. Never in his life had he tried to hone and direct his magic, often letting it roam free with his desires and wishes. The whole training session had taken a lot out of him. The spell was more complex than he thought necessary.

Gaius stood by, holding berries he was force feeding Merlin for energy, and shooting worried glances up the hill, waiting for Leon and Arthur.

"Are you going to be okay, Merlin?" Will asked quietly, supporting his friend heavily. "I can go with his High Royal Pratness and collect everything if you want. All you need to do is brew the thing."

Shaking his head, Merlin said, "You couldn't tell a carrot from a turnip and Lord only knows how little this prince knows about herbs and roots. No, I'll feel better knowing I'm there. My mother's been ill for four days now, Will."

Sympathetically, his best friend nodded, and they waited as four horses came riding down from the hill. Merlin was surprised to see Morgana and Gwen ride down alongside a very annoyed Arthur. Both girls were in trousers and shirts too, which was even odder. Before Merlin could ask, Gaius called out, "What are Morgana and Gwen doing?"

Arthur demounted and looked angry. "I left Morgana in charge of telling my father I was going on a hunting trip. Instead, she told him she requested that Leon and I accompany her to visit her Aunt's, stating womanly business needed to be attended to. But she didn't consider my father would send a messenger out to Lady Patrice, now did she?"

"How was I supposed to know? Uther always turns a blind eye when I mention any womanly thing and allows me to do as I wish." Morgana rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I looked at the list. We can gather much of it on our way to the House of Burgoyne; I will stay the night with Gwen at my aunt's while you are making the potion and distribute it to Ealdor. The second guard will pick me up in the morning. You pass by her town on the way, anyway. How hard can it be?"

Gwen got off her horse and handed the reigns to Merlin. "Sorry," she whispered. "It won't take us too far out of the way."

"Doesn't matter," he said, quietly hoping that in the end, it wouldn't. Will mounted Gwen's horse first, and Merlin turned to Gaius. "Thank you, Gaius."

"It was my pleasure, my boy." Gaius embraced him warmly and kissed the top of his head. "Do come back to visit. Only next time, maybe we can avoid vexing the king."

Merlin grinned and mounted the horse behind Will as Gwen got on Morgana's horse. "Good luck," he called out. "And be careful!"

Their party took off and went to their first destination, the caves located deep within Darkling Forest. Merlin was the only one small enough - and brave enough in the case of Gwen being tinier than he was - to crawl through a narrow hole and retrieve the root of a flower that only grew in the cracks of the cave.

"Hey!" he called out while inside. He tried struggling out of the hole but it was such a tight fit, he could only move one way. Up ahead, there was a thin strip of light that led out to the world above somewhere; only Merlin didn't know where that somewhere was and if he could fit up the sliver-sized opening.

"There isn't exactly room here to turn around in –" Two hands grabbed his ankles, and he was yanked back, yelping as his stomach dragged across the stone. He turned on his back and looked up to see Arthur dusting himself off. "Thanks," he said gratefully as Will hauled him to his feet.

He still wasn't sure of how to act around the prince, seeing as the last time they had spoken he was pretty much telling him he was going to be overthrown. So he took his cues from the older boy and acted as though it never happened.

The next thing they had to find were wood ear mushrooms that grew near the tops of the trees in a forest a little way away. "But careful," Merlin warned Will as he climbed a tree with Leon already in the branches of another. "Some of them will act like poisons if we take them for the potion."

"How are we supposed to know which ones?" Morgana called out, climbing over branches with Gwen standing underneath her as if ready to catch her if she fell.

"If they're black, don't touch them. They should be an earthy brown and soft... And fleshy," Merlin read the instructions. He started to climb his own tree, and only Arthur refused to get up on a branch. "Got one!" Will shouted out.

"Me too!" Morgana yelled.

"We need fifteen, at least," Merlin called back. He was near the top of an unusually tall tree and grinned happily when he saw a whole branch covered in the stuff. "You lot, come here!" Merlin shouted out. "I found a whole bunch!"

He could hear them dropping down from their trees, and Arthur was the first to appear on the ground below him. He looked around then said, "Drop down your scarf."

"It's a neckerchief!" Merlin snorted indignantly.

"Whatever it is, drop it."

Merlin grumbled and fiddled with his scarf and let it fall, his neck feeling terribly cold without it. Arthur caught it and opened it up to make a catchment. "Drop them down, so you don't squash them as you climb back."

Merlin begrudgingly agreed that it was a good idea. He started scraping the wood ears off and letting them fall into the open basket of his neckerchief, counting at least ten.

When Arthur, Morgana, Gwen and Leon weren't paying attention, he leapt down from the branch and fell to the floor, catching himself with magic. Will stepped beside him and patted his back. "Good on you, Merlin. Finding new and exciting ways to get yourself killed. Is the pyre your aim, this time?"

Merlin shoved him lightly and snorted. "Shut up."

They found over half the ingredients by nightfall and reached the town that Morgana's aunt by marriage lived in and subsequently owned. "She's a foul woman, but my only living relative, so Uther makes allowances for me to see her. Quite honestly I rarely actually go, and she rarely ever enjoys my company, unless I'm silent and still," Morgana explained to Merlin as they approached the town.

At the gates, Merlin and Will got off their horses and bade farewell to the girls. "Thanks for helping," Merlin said to them. "If it weren't for you two we wouldn't have found those wild berries."

"It was all Gwen. I just climbed on her shoulders," Morgana shrugged, but she was very obviously trying not to grin.

Merlin laughed and hugged them both goodbye, and Will followed suit. "Will you visit?" Gwen asked.

"Of course," Merlin said. "I have to. I owe you both." Gwen's arms flew around his neck, and Merlin stumbled back a bit but held her.

"Come soon. And bring your mother. I'd love to meet her." A churning in Merlin's stomach made him want to say, 'If she's still alive.' but he just smiled and agreed.

They departed, sharing a horse as they went into the town and Merlin and Will hid in the bushes just outside the gates so no one would report to Uther they were there. Leon and Arthur would tell the Lady Patrice they had hunting to do, and a second guard would pick up Morgana in the morning.

When they were well out of hearing distance, Will grinned. "The Lady and the Serving Girl? Merlin, you heart breaker. Really? What would Freya say?"

Merlin hit Will in the gut. "They're just friends... And anyway. How would Freya know?"

"You've dipped your fingers in a lot of pies, my friend."

"What does that even mean?"

"I... I don't know actually."

Merlin regretted asking when Will began to ponder out loud who stuck their fingers into a pie in the first place?

Merlin worried the longer it took for Arthur and Leon to arrive, and when they finally did, they were grinning. "We went to the markets," Arthur said proudly.

"Bought some silks to match your shiny shoes, now?" Will asked.

"No," Arthur growled. "We found the rest of the items on the list." Arthur then procured from his rucksack, all the flowers and roots they needed to make the antidote. "We're a night's ride from Ealdor. If you two don't need your beauty sleep..."

Before he could finish, Merlin and Will were already up on their horse and had taken off, Leon and Arthur following closely behind.


A/N: I also want to shout out to all the followers, subscribers and favourite's I've gotten from this story. (Author favourites too)

Much appreciated.

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