A/N: Another one a day late. Sorry. My work schedule is not compatible with my upload schedule. -sigh- But I just bought a new laptop, so that may or may not be helpful! Depends on whether or not it has Word... Anyway. King Merlin is officially crowned! This is a bit of a filler chapter to get everyone settled in. Let me know your thoughts.

**EDITED**

Merlin was awakened the next morning by bright sunlight slapping him in the face as the curtains on his window were jerked back. He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow groggily, waving a hand at the curtains and sending them flying closed. They were opened again and Merlin grumbled in annoyance before realizing that someone had to be opening them and therefore there was another person in his chambers.

He sat up and peered around the room confusedly to see a young man standing beside the window with his head down and his hands clasped in front of him in a classic image of subservience.

"Um…hello?" Merlin said muzzily, scratching his head and trying to wake up enough to understand what this boy was doing in his room.

"Good morning, sire," the boy said briskly. "I brought your breakfast, my Lord. And I have taken the liberty of laying out your clothes for the morning."

It took Merlin a few more seconds before the words sunk in, blinking over at the platter of food on the writing desk, even more sumptuous than the meals with which he had been provided over the last few days.

"Wait, who are you?" he asked.

"I am your new manservant, sire."

"What?!" Merlin yelped, scrambling to get up and nearly falling out of the bed in the process in a very undignified display of the clumsiness he thought he had mostly outgrown by this point. He should have seen this coming, he realized. He was the king now, of course he would be expected to have a servant to take care of him. That did not make the prospect any less bizarre.

"Oh no, no. I don't have a servant," he said hastily and the boy looked absolutely crestfallen.

"Oh. I'm sorry, my Lord. Would you like for me to go?" he asked in a very small voice and looking so dejected that Merlin immediately cast about for something to say to fix it.

"No, you don't…I didn't mean that y…" he stammered uncomfortably. "I just wouldn't know what to have you do, that's all. I really don't need a servant."

"Why not, sire?" the boy asked, apparently baffled.

"Well, honestly, I'm more used to being on your side of things," Merlin admitted with a shrug, running his fingers through his hair.

The boy's eyes widened comically. "What?" he gasped.

Merlin shifted uncomfortably; he hadn't really expected to be able to keep this under wraps forever, but he had hoped to put it off a bit longer.

"I was manservant to a king for many years, and for several years before that when he was just a prince," Merlin told him, a rush of nostalgia hitting him hard, which was a little sad considering it had been less than a week since that had changed. It felt like so much longer than that. "I'm used to doing everything for myself, and for him as well."

"So you won't be needing my help, my Lord?" the boy asked despondently and Merlin sighed.

"I mean, if you really want to, I guess that you could stay on to tidy things up or something," he suggested with a vague gesture around the room. "Er, bring meals and things. I don't want to put you out of a job or anything, but I certainly do not need help getting dressed or anything like that," he added on quickly; he was not Arthur and as such he was capable of dressing himself.

"Of course, sire, I would be happy to help you in any way that I can," the boy said eagerly.

He was really quite young, still full of that sort of enthusiasm that got young people springing out of bed in the morning. Merlin was getting tired just looking at him, feeling very old in comparison despite the fact that he was not yet thirty.

"Right. Er, what's your name then?" he asked, realizing that in his alarm he had not thought to find out. If he was going to have a manservant trailing after him on a regular basis then he was most definitely going to be on friendly terms with him. But the boy seemed taken aback by the question.

"My name, sire?" he said.

"Yes, your name," Merlin reiterated, equal parts irritated and concerned; was it really so uncommon for nobles to care enough about servants to bother with learning their names? Although, come to think of it, he could not remember a noble ever asking for his name when he was a servant, so it shouldn't really have come as such a surprise. Arthur hadn't exactly been the average nobleman.

"It's Raime, my Lord."

"Raime. It's nice to meet you, Raime. And you can call me Merlin, if you like," he offered. "I would actually prefer if you did. I never really bothered with calling my master any of that respectful nonsense. He was my friend. And I would like to be yours."

Raime matched his smile rather timidly but nodded nonetheless.

"Alright, si—er, Merlin," he said a little breathlessly. "Is there anything that you'll be needing today?"

"Well, actually, er… You don't happen to know what I'm supposed to do today, do you?" Merlin asked sheepishly. "As it happens, I'm a bit new on the job. I haven't got the foggiest idea of what I'm expected to be doing."

Raime's face lit up and he hastily dug around in his pocket to retrieve a tightly furled scroll, holding it out for him to take.

"The High Priest gave this to me for you," he said. "He said that he would like for you to drop by his study sometime today. But I think the Royal Bookkeeper wanted to meet with you first to go over some numbers or other. Council meetings usually take place in late morning, I'm sure you'll be expected to attend those. And of course, knight and mage training are in the afternoon if you wish to join either of them."

Merlin nodded a bit dazedly.

It took him a moment, and a raised eyebrow from his new manservant, to realize that he should probably be doing something other than standing there and feeling overwhelmed, so he finally managed to make himself move. He sat down at his desk, feeling only the tiniest bit awkward that there was another person in the room just watching him, and gulped down as much of the breakfast that Raime had brought as he thought that he would be able to keep in his stomach when the true nerves kicked in.

He dressed in the outfit which Raime had laid out for him—a little bit showier than anything he would have chosen for himself but probably still low fare for a king—and made his way out the door, hoping to run into a guard who could give him directions to the Royal Bookkeeper. He immediately collided with someone on the other side, knocking a pile of linens out of her hand and nearly sending her sprawling along with them.

"Ooh! Sorry, so sorry. My fault, I wasn't looking where I was going," he apologized immediately, bending down to scoop up the laundry for her. Looking up, he saw a familiar face.

"It's Fran, isn't it?" he asked with a smile. "You brought me breakfast on my first day here."

She let out a squeak in lieu of a word but nodded, apparently even more taken aback that he had remembered her name than she had been that he had asked for it in the first place. Merlin proffered up the washing to her, depositing it in her outstretched hands. He caught sight of a smear of dust on one of the sheets.

"Sorry about that. Here, let me fix it for you. Ic àswæpe þæt lìnenhrægl." The dust siphoned itself off of the fabric, leaving it as clean as it had been before, and Merlin beamed at the serving girl. A smile, small and bemused and tinged with awe but definitely present, appeared on Fran's face in response. The sound of footsteps coming toward them reminded Merlin that he had places to be.

"I need to go, but have a good day, Fran. You too, Raime!" he called back into his own room.

Fran hurried past him into the room to change the sheets as she had originally intended and Merlin heard Raime immediately begin to fill her in on all the astonishing things that he had learned that morning. Merlin grimaced as he headed off down the corridor in what was the direction of the council chambers, if he was not mistaken—he was still having a bit of trouble with navigating the castle.

The knowledge of his previous employment would be all over the castle by nightfall, he was sure of it. He was not ashamed of having been a servant, not in the least, but it might be a bit of a detriment as far as the council was concerned. If being a low-born bastard was not enough to make him unfit to rule in their eyes, his years of servitude might be enough to tip them over the edge from uncertainty into outright disbelief once more.

Not that they could exactly go back on their decision now, not when the crown was already on his head—although he had chosen not to wear it for his consultation with the Royal Bookkeeper; he would come back for it before the council meeting later on.

Well, Merlin thought defiantly, if they did not think a servant fit to rule, then he would just have to prove them wrong.

The next few days were busy, but probably not really as busy as they felt to Merlin. It was all so new and so important that it felt rushed, larger than life.

His mornings were often spent shut up in a small room full of loose sheaves of parchment with the Royal Bookkeeper, a thin, stooped man with a wheezy voice and splotches of ink in unlikely places who had been tasked with getting him up to date on all the pertinent information of his kingdom. He was inundated with facts and figures, everything from records of the harvests from the outlying villages to the projected rationings of the grain stores to the amount of gold in the royal coffers and how far he could make it stretch.

It wasn't so bad, he thought. He had always had a decent head for numbers. It had happened fairly often in Camelot that Merlin would shoo Arthur off to bed halfway through his paperwork when it became obvious that the king was too tired to do it properly anymore, finishing the stack of ledgers and papers himself so that Arthur would still be prepared for the following day's meetings. He had worked with such figures before without a problem. It was just such a huge flood of information, all of which he was expected to remember if he wished for his input to be at all useful to the council.

On mornings when the Royal Bookkeeper was busy with other important bookkeeper things, whatever those might be, Merlin sometimes met with the Court Librarian. The very old man took him back through the ancient books which detailed the laws on which Carthis had been built, making sure that he was familiar with the customs and statutes of his new kingdom. After all, how could he be expected to uphold the laws if he did not know what exactly they were?

He couldn't say that he didn't enjoy these meetings in a way. Seeing the way that magic factored into the laws was rather fascinating, especially when he had only ever known absolute prohibition of any such thing. There were whole classes of hexes and curses that were strictly forbidden, spells and rituals which were punishable by death, but Merlin understood those; Arthur had a point when he said that completely unfettered sorcery was a bad thing.

There were regulations set down for the practice of magic, for what was and was not acceptable. As tedious as all the legal jargon that he had to sift through to get to the heart of the matter was, the laws themselves proved to be as interesting as they were pertinent.

A time or two he had even been taken aside by Sir Gerund, who had given him a rundown of all the big families of Carthis: the names he needed to know, who was related to whom, the political scandals and the tensions between the various Lords, anything that might be of use in the politics of a royal court.

All of it was good information for him to have, but it stretched his brain to capacity sometimes. He had spent much of his time in Camelot pointedly ignoring all the petty struggles of the court, choosing to focus on the more important tasks, such as getting his chores done on time and keeping Arthur alive.

He was not at all used to watching every word that came out of his mouth and keeping a close eye on whom he was speaking to, trying to determine the angle that would be most effective in achieving his goal. It was almost as exhausting to think that way as it had been to look over his shoulder all the time and struggle to keep complete control of his magic so as not to be executed, and just as stressful.

He'd drawn out a chart on a large piece of parchment with names of Houses, and squiggly lines denoting relationships and alliances, and annotations on points he needed to remember about them. He referred to it often, hoping it would stick.

The late mornings usually found him in the council chambers surrounded by stuffy Lords and haughty Ladies who had not yet made up their minds about him, some of them having warmed up to him considerably while others remained dubious. Only Lords Ellison and Tennison still disparaged his abilities now that he'd been crowned, though they usually did so quietly enough that they could reasonably pretend they had not said anything at all. It set Merlin's teeth on edge, but he held his tongue; with his position as precarious as it was, he could not afford to risk losing the support of the other councilors by further alienating the pair of them.

He kept a cool head about all the passive aggression and pointed remarks and backhanded compliments, listening carefully to everything that was said and offering whatever solutions came to his mind. Wisely, he opted to stay silent when he did not feel informed enough to make a good decision, instead listening to the suggestions offered up by others and assimilated them into his growing bank of knowledge about the kingdom to be referred the next time the topic came up.

Oftentimes the meeting took place around him, in a way, the councilors speaking mostly to each other and not including him in the conversation unless he inserted himself, which he made sure to do on a regular basis simply to remind them that he was, in fact, still there.

Although the members of the council were still a bit chilly towards him, the palace staff simply adored him. Not that that was much of a surprise, as he had always been very popular among the staff in Camelot, but that was different because he had been one of them. The servants here regarded him with a sort of awed admiration, as if they couldn't quite believe that he was real. He was royalty, their superior, but he treated each and every one of them as his equal, and they loved him for it.

Merlin wished that he had the opportunity to venture forth into the lower town, to speak with the townspeople one on one and get to know some of them personally, but he simply did not have the time for it, not with everything that he still had to learn and catch up on.

He'd barely had the opportunity to visit Llamrei in the royal stables, and he'd only managed that because he'd swathed himself in an enormous cloak and used copious amounts of magic to make sure no one recognized him as he snuck down there in the middle of the night—it had been a challenge, but he'd needed a moment of that unconditional, nonjudgmental affection that only animals provide. He'd needed that piece of home to keep himself anchored.

But he vowed that at some point, once he was more settled into his position, he would make the time to meet the townsfolk properly.

Mordred dragged him out to the training fields most afternoons to work with the mages. He learned the proper stances, the correct forms, a variety of new spells both defensive and offensive, and how to use them properly in a battle. All of it came to him easily, as natural to him as the language of the Old Religion was, as if he only needed to be reminded of something he already knew somehow. He found himself wondering why he had been reluctant in the beginning.

It felt fantastic, using his magic, stretching it, pitting himself against others and testing his limits. He found himself paired with Mordred more often than not, the younger knight being one of the few strong enough to hold their own against him for any appreciable length of time.

Every session brought more reverential looks from those around him as they took in his immense power, whispers of Emrys permeating the crowd whenever someone of Druidic heritage caught sight of him. The Druids knew him on sight, and it hadn't been a day before it began to spread. Plenty of people had been skeptical, but Druids commanded a good deal of respect, and their instincts were to be trusted. With all the Druids in agreement that he was, in fact, Emrys, the rest had no choice but to accept it as truth.

He didn't mind too much that everyone knew, but he was glad that no one had made mention of the prophecies; he wouldn't know what to tell them, not with him and Arthur so at odds.

Whenever he joined mage training, Merlin asked questions of his instructors. He pressed them to try new and more daring things, and he challenged their assumptions of what was possible and what was not. He was not sure if they appreciated this about him or if they found it irritating, but that didn't stop him from doing it. There was too much joy to be found in pushing the boundaries, in experimenting.

He worked with Mordred periodically on splitting his focus in order to accomplish two spells at once. It took the young knight a considerably larger amount of effort than it did for Merlin, who was quickly becoming quite proficient at his newfound skill, but he had managed to pull it off a handful of times. Merlin found himself beaming with pride every time Mordred made even the tiniest bit of progress.

In return, Mordred had insisted on training Merlin in swordplay. Merlin's lack of enthusiasm for the prospect had not dampened the young knight's determination in the least and Merlin spent several hours with a sword in his hand, working through a slightly watered down version of the secular knights' training, which Mordred still attended alongside the mage sessions. Mordred was a very patient teacher, much more so than Arthur had been back when Merlin had first started and he had used Merlin as a training dummy under the guise of teaching him.

Merlin actually found himself enjoying these sessions, much to his own surprise. Maybe it had something to do with how Mordred was surprisingly funny when he let down his guard. The joy of true freedom, the thrill of the acceptance and respect they had both found here, brought about a much less tightly controlled Mordred, one who smiled freely and laughed openly. It was a nice change, one that made Merlin very glad that he had asked Mordred to accompany him.

But even better than the physical training sessions were the evenings Merlin spent in Kane's study, working with Kane individually or joining in the bustle of activity that surrounded the Lower Priests in their workshops. Whenever he could find the time, when he was not stuffing his head with information or giving or taking beatings—depending on whether he was using magic or sword, respectively—on the training field, he made his way up to the tallest tower in the east wing.

The idea he had proposed on that first day, the transportation crystals, had delighted the Lower Priests when Kane had explained it to them and they had been working on it diligently ever since. They had blown up several crystals in the experimenting process when the pendants they made were unable to handle the amount of magic being forced into them, but now, only a few days later, Merlin had been presented with a functional prototype.

It was a surprisingly small circular pendant made of three different types of crystal—the three that Merlin had initially suggested, he was very satisfied to see—all fused together into a single entity through a very tricky and highly theoretical piece of magic that Kane had not had the time or the patience to explain to Merlin in full, the smooth edges of the shape etched with delicate runes. Merlin wore it around his neck, reaching up periodically to infuse it with more magic. Sometimes it was just a trickle, not nearly enough to make even the smallest dent to his supply of energy, but enough that it added up quickly. The pendant was soon throbbing with power, enough for several transportation spells should he need them.

Merlin found himself beaming every time he thought of it, immensely proud of having been a part of this new spectacular innovation. They had already started work on Merlin's next proposal: a cloak which could be imbued with a spell of invisibility, so that the wearer would not have to hold the spell himself and therefore would be free to do other things while maintaining his stealth. The initial attempts at getting the enchantment to stick to the fabric had all failed, but they were now working on working runes into the fabric itself the most recent experiment gave some promising results. They were dickering over whether weaving them into the weft would be more effective than embroidering them in.

Merlin had so far managed to avoid dining with any important people—luckily for him, it would take some time before word of his coronation spread to monarchs who would actually wish to visit Carthis and get the measure of him, so he had some time to settle into his role and hopefully not make a fool of himself.

For now, he broke his fast alone in his room, or sometimes chatted idly to Raime, who listened attentively from his place at Merlin's elbow and answered readily enough if Merlin addressed him first. He was a nice lad, really, quick-witted and funny. Lunch was usually spent in the same way, although he had twice now requested that his meal be brought to him in the council chambers so that he could continue going over papers and records and notes from the meetings that he had suffered through that morning.

Sir Gerund had joined him a few times for dinner in the smallest dining hall, and Mordred a couple of times as well. These were the most pleasant, as Gerund often fell to reminiscing about his childhood, regaling him with tales of his father as a youth which Merlin ate up like a starving man presented with a banquet.

The two of them had been troublemakers, Merlin was pleased to hear, much like he and Will had been back in Ealdor but with the added spice of thoroughly disrupting the peace and serenity of court life. The story of his father setting a breeze to blow up the noblewomen's skirts and knock askew old Lord Riggen's hairpiece had Merlin choking on his wine and wishing fiercely that he had known Balinor before all that mischief had left him.

The few dinners he had shared with Lady Penbrook had been similar. She had all the courtly bearing of the most regal of queens, but the smirk that often tugged at the corner of her mouth hinted at an underlying good humor. She shared even earlier stories of when Balinor was a mere child always trying to sneak away from his minders, of having to hitch up her skirts and chase the little prince through the stacks of the library to keep him from avoiding their lessons on magical history. Penbrook was a talented witch and an accomplished scholar, steeped in arcane knowledge and only too keen to share it with Merlin.

Only once had he been joined by Lord Melbourne, which had made for stilted and uncomfortable conversation. Merlin's first instinct had been to crack jokes to break the tension, but something told him that would be exactly the wrong thing to do in present company so he'd stuck to small talk and rehashing the latest council sessions.

All in all, he felt like he had handled himself relatively well. He had not knocked anything over, at least, or committed any horrible gaffe, and Lord Melbourne had given him a more respectful bow when they parted ways for the evening than he had when he'd shown up, so it couldn't have been too bad.

By the end of every day Merlin was exhausted. He collapsed into bed with his brain buzzing with facts and figures and names and theories and stances and terms and he slept like the dead until Raime came in to chivvy him out of bed the next morning. Now Merlin knew why Arthur had always been such a bloody pain to rouse. He hoped that whoever had replaced him as Arthur's servant was bold enough to physically drag the lazy arse out of bed to wake him up, since that was often the only way the feat could be accomplished. He seriously doubted it, though.

It had taken a whole lot of persuading, but he had finally broken Raime of his fear of upsetting his master and convinced him that it was alright for him to use force in waking Merlin up. Twice now, Raime had had to start dragging him from his bed in order to rouse him, though he hadn't yet actually dumped him on the floor like Merlin often had Arthur, but he was sure the time would come when such extreme measures became necessary and that time would come soon.

But tiring as they all were, Merlin was thankful for all the distractions of the day because they kept him from dwelling on his less pleasant thoughts.

He missed Camelot. He missed it so much that he ached with it. He was quickly coming to love Carthis, with all its magic and its freedom, but Camelot would always be his home. He missed his friends, all of them. He wanted to go to the tavern with Gwaine and laugh over his outrageously exaggerated stories. He wanted to sit with Gwen and gossip teasingly about Arthur just close enough for him to overhear and then laugh childishly when he caught them out. He wanted to help Gaius prepare his remedies and only half-listen to the old man prattle on about the properties of the herbs he had just gathered. He wanted to go on a campaign and be teased relentlessly by the knights even as they helped him with all the chores that were supposed to be his as the servant.

And most of all, he missed Arthur. He wanted nothing more than to be back at Arthur's side, sharing that silent sort of communication that they had developed years ago that allowed them to know exactly what the other was thinking with only a glance. He missed the banter, the childish bickering that had kept them both sane over years of strife and betrayal. He really hadn't been away long, but it was the longest he and Arthur had been apart since Merlin had first arrived in Camelot.

When they'd parted ways at the campsite, Arthur had said they'd be in contact soon, but Merlin hadn't gotten any correspondence from Camelot. It had only been a few weeks, though, so perhaps he just hadn't gotten around to it yet. Or, the more likely option in Merlin's estimation, Arthur simply did not want any contact with him. The relationship between Camelot and Carthis was obvious and it was unlikely that either kingdom would renegotiate their stance, so really there was no reason for them to discuss it at all.

Merlin wouldn't write to Arthur. There wouldn't be any point, and Arthur wasn't likely to want to hear from him anyway. That thought was a weight around his neck, dragging him down even as he struggled to keep his head high. Merlin had always valued the relationship he had developed with Arthur, and yet he had underestimated just how much it would hurt to lose it.

But, no matter how much he wished he could just go back, he couldn't have that anymore. Not only were they leagues apart, but his friendship with Arthur was surely damaged beyond all repair. Arthur would never trust him again, not after everything he had done, all the lies he had told.

That part of his life was over, the part where Arthur was his everything, and he had a new life to live now. So he turned over in bed and buried his face in the pillow, thinking instead of grain stores and sword stances.