In which Arthur and his destiny become stuck with one another.
When Arthur Pendragon was twenty years, one month, two weeks and one day old, he decided that he may in fact be destined to be the unluckiest Crown Prince in Albion's history.
To start with, he'd had to suffer through the humiliation of almost being killed by a beautiful woman that had been specifically invited to court. To sing, of all things. Except it had turned out that she was just as good with a dagger as she was at holding a tune, and only extreme luck and an enormous pair of ears with a boy attached had stopped Camelot from becoming heir-less.
As if that wasn't enough, his father had, in a moment of sheer idiocy (not that Arthur would ever say that to his face) decided that as a reward this boy would be given a place in the royal household. As Arthur's manservant no less.
Arthur hadn't been able to decide which was worse; the very idea of having this strange, dark-haired boy following three steps behind him offering service, or the fact that the boy, Merlin (and wasn't that just a bloody stupid name anyway?), had seemed equally, if not more, disgusted at the idea than Arthur was.
Because really, Arthur was allowed to hate the idea of this boy being his manservant (he had a perfectly competent servant already, thank you very much), but surely to this Merlin, the offer should be an honour?
However, if the look of semi-disgust, and the half-protest (which Arthur registered, even if Uther –luckily- did not) were any indicator, then Merlin would rather spend another evening in the stocks than become Arthur's servant even for one minute.
This reasoning behind this wasn't something Arthur particularly wanted to contemplate. Why should he care what this country boy thought of him? And so he rubbed away the imaginary ache at his hip, and tried not to dwell too hard; not on the fact that he was about to be saddled with an incompetent, useless servant, nor on the fact that he owed said incompetent, useless servant his life.
