In Which A Disclaimer is Given: This chapter finishes the difficulties of the Questing Beast, thus will bear much similarity to last half of S1.E13 "Le Morte d'Arthur". I, of course, do not own this episode, and as always any recognizable dialogue is being quoted from the show.
Chapter Fourteen: In Which Officially Sanctioned Solutions Lack Efficacy, Leading to Consciences and Consequences Being at Odds
From her position kneeling beside Arthur's prone body, Merlin blinked at Pellinore, wondering where he had come from, why he was staring at her so strangely, why he was attending to the body of the clearly dead Questing Beast when Arthur was the one in mortal peril, and most especially why he was suddenly only addressing her as Emrys. Why did he even know that name? Merlin had only heard it when Mordred had used it, though the dragon had confirmed that the name was hers, that apparently it had some significance in the larger destiny she and Arthur were meant to fulfill. Whatever its ultimate significance, the use of the name Emrys still managed to produce that faint chill within her that it had the first time Mordred had uttered it. It made her uneasy, seemed to give her far too much significance. But Merlin didn't have time to wax philosophical. Saving Arthur was what mattered now, saving the chance for the future to be the bright and glorious and free place she had allowed herself to dream of since coming to Camelot.
The guards rushed in when she yelled for them, and hardly giving the humbly dressed manservant a second glance, they had lifted Arthur to their shoulders and started to bear him back to Camelot. Before following, Myrddin turned to look at Pellinore again, asking him what he was going to do. He seemed in a daze, and unsure of what his future would be. A distant part of Merlin pitied that feeling. She knew what it was to feel purposeless, and she would not like to see that purpose suddenly taken away from her, the way Pellinore's suddenly had.
It was that train of thought that made her doubly determined to heal Arthur. Uttering a quick goodbye to Pellinore, Myrddin rushed home to Camelot, and to Gaius. He had to have the answer. He was a physician, he was a magician, and he had been her guide to all the things she had done so far. He had to know how to save Arthur now.
As Merlin frantically tried spell after spell from her magic book on the pale and still Arthur, she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She looked up in the confusion that was barely keeping the grief barely at bay to see Gaius with a pitying look on his face. He was sad in his own way, having cared for the prince since he was a little boy.
"There is nothing that can be done," he said gently.
Merlin clutched the book closer to her. "There is still so much we were supposed to do," she cried, tears hovering on the rims of her eyes, having to be blinked back so that they wouldn't fall.
"That is the regret of all old men," Gaius responded heavily.
Uther burst into the room then, coming immediately to his son's side. When Gaius said that he knew of no cure, Uther's grief exploded in a way the harsh and taciturn man hadn't since his own wife had died all those years ago. Gaius had told Uther the Questing Beast had last been sighted in this part of Camelot around the time of Ygraine's death. For the beast to know have bitten his son... Twice the Questing Beast had manifested in Uther's household, twice he had felt loss' great sting. He hoisted the injured prince into his arms, beginning the trek across the cobblestone of the courtyard, before the weight, physical and intangible, became too great and he sank to his knees, still clutching his son.
The knights of Camelot rushed then to their monarch, and lifted the prince up, bearing him to his chambers in a sort of pyre, lined by red cloaks. Uther followed brokenly after.
For her part, Merlin had just enough presence of mind left to follow at a sedate pace. When she reached her room, she mechanically opened the door, not even hearing the surprised words of Sevryn, who eventually fell silent. Merlin slipped off Myrddin's disguise, slipping a dress befitting the princess on instead. When she at last looked like herself, she opened the door that led directly to Arthur's room.
But she paused in the doorway. Uther was crouched at the bedside, his grief almost palatable in its intensity. Gaius was just leaving, having likely left with empty promises to see what cure he could find, but Merlin was focused solely on the occupant of the bed.
Uther's grief kept her at her place in the doorway. She did not feel she could intrude at the king's obvious distress, but she could not let Arthur out of her sight. So she stood in the threshold, lurking in that liminal place, as Arthur remained in his own liminal state betwixt life and death.
Time passed, the rooms deathly still. At last Gaius returned. He urged Uther to his own bed, saying he would keep his own eye on Arthur, that the king would be summoned at the slightest change in his state. He had just shut the door behind the king, and turned back to the bed when he saw the chair of the king had been usurped by Merlin. She sat silently, clasping one of Arthur's still hands in her own. Gaius sighed, feeling the weight of the last twenty years very keenly.
He knew Merlin would want her own hours at Arthur's bedside, so he didn't urge her away, though he suspected that Merlin had been standing vigil the entire time Uther had. Instead, he left a pitcher and basin, with a few clothes that she could dampen and lay on Arthur's forehead.
"It might ease him," he murmured as he pressed a cloth into her hand. Merlin gazed up at him with haunted eyes, but silently took the cloth.
An hour later, words finally came to Merlin. "You are meant to be a wonderful king," she told her husband. "I didn't believe it at first, but I have seen you change in this last year. I think that you will be something-, I can't even describe it. But you have to be here to do these things." And the most painful part of the whole day was that Arthur gave no response.
The dragon perched in his great cavern waiting. He knew the Once and Future King had been injured, and he had no doubt that Emrys would soon seek him, desperate for a cure. Sure enough the princess arrived, as he knew she would.
"You seek a cure for the bite of the Questing Beast," he stated slowly. The young witch nodded. "The bite is invariably fatal. Not even your magic can heal it," he cautioned.
"But there is something that can," she half stated, half questioned.
"It comes at a heavy price," the dragon warned.
"And I will gladly pay it," she said fiercely.
"Very well," he said solemnly. But he knew that Emrys was not a price that would be accepted by magic, not even for the life of the Once and Future King. He was a creature of magic, he knew things, things Emrys was yet too young to have realized. She was getting her first taste of the deepest measures of grief, but the gravitas of it hung but freshly about her. But experience was a great teacher, and Merlin would learn what he knew in time. So instead he began, "There is a isle, beyond the white mountains..."
The Great Dragon had replaced Merlin's listlessness with urgency, and with alacrity she returned to the world above the cold caverns. Ignoring Sevryn once again, Merlin quickly assumed the trappings of Myrddin and went to say goodbye to Gaius.
The old man was very grave at Merlin's words, though he realized she was determined, not to be persuaded out of her quest. It was not the first time that Merlin had risked her life for Arthur's but everything about the situation was different...
And so Myrddin rode off, on the dangerous journey, with only the luck of a rabbit's foot to give her any extra protection.
It was a journey like many others, though it felt infused with a different urgency than any previous trip. The beauty of the way was hardly appreciated by Myrddin in her single minded determination. At last she came to a body of water, a rickety boat standing ready for her. As she floated towards columns that were doubtless great in their own era, Merlin contemplated what she was about to do. There could be little doubt of what the price of a so great a cure would be, but she still found something within her that could doubt.
Once the boat landed, she climbed the steps to the open courtyard, the bright green grassy carpet of the place almost a surprise to her. But the real surprise was found by the altar in the center of the room. The ragged red robes, the smirking red lips, the sensual form of Nimueh.
"You!" Myrddin cried.
"Me," the high priestess said calmly. She smirked.
The two exchanged heated words. Merlin thought it was a fairly significant sticking point that Nimueh had repeatedly tried to kill both of them in the past, but the priestess was entirely unfazed, saying that she hadn't understood their importance yet. Myrddin was unmoved by such logic. But then Nimueh started talking about the past, railing about how Uther had betrayed her and how she had been determined to take her revenge. At any other time, Merlin might have even engaged in a conversation, wondering if whatever had happened between Nimueh and Uther had actually been the catalyst for the Purge. But at that moment all Merlin cared about was getting back to Arthur with a cure, if such a thing was possible.
Eventually Nimueh complied, conjuring some rain to fill the cup that sat upon the alter. Once it was filled, the priestess conjured a flask and filled it with the liquid.
"You know the price is a life?" Nimueh asked.
"I gladly give my life for Arthur's," Merlin replied. "I always will. Or did you forget that I already drank your poison for him?"
Nimueh laughed. "The poison was never for Arthur. It was for you. But that doesn't matter now. You have agreed to the bargain, and it is struck." So saying she finally pressed the flask into Myrddin's hand and without a backwards glance Myrddin rushed off to return to Camelot.
The past day had seemed to Arthur to come in fits and dreams. Surprisingly languid dreams. He heard some of the voices around him, and yet they lacked any sort of relevant intensity. It wasn't quite like drifting away and it wasn't exactly dreaming. It was more like Arthur was half-way to the land of dreams, slipping in and out of minor consciousness on undetectable waves. He felt warm hands clasp him for hours and a minor part of his brain appreciated when a wet cloth was applied to his forehead, but it wasn't enough to give him the strength to open his eyes. Regardless, he appreciated the gentle contact and the soft murmurs of the people he loved.
But at last something different happened; a potion was dripped into his mouth. Arthur wouldn't rely too much on his deductive reasoning at the moment, but it tasted remarkably like plain water. Whether or not it was water, it had a revitalizing affect on the prince and after a moment he opened his eyes. There were Gaius, and Myrddin, anxiously looking on to see if he was alright, but comforting as those two presences were, they were not the focus of Arthur's new found focus. He was gazing instead at his father.
On some level, Arthur didn't doubt that his father cared about him. Or maybe it simply wasn't something the prince wanted to think about. But at the same time, the open worry in Uther's face, being replaced with open jubilation, was a surprise to Arthur, and a great comfort. After Gaius assured the king that the prince seemed to be well and truly mended, Uther indicated he wished to be alone with his son.
The other two didn't protest about leaving, though Myrddin linger long enough did softly brush one of her hands over his foot, giving it a gentle pat that Uther couldn't see. He didn't doubt that she had been involved in making whatever cure had woken him up from the bite of the beast. But Arthur didn't expend much thought in that direction. Instead he gazed at his father, who was sitting by his bedside in a way which conjured a half forgotten memory from around the time of Arthur's earliest recollections. Uther had only openly showed this concern for his son one time when Arthur was very young and had fallen gravely ill. Arthur remembered his father reading aloud to him as he tried to sit, and Arthur had known then that his father did love him, no matter how harsh he was the rest of the time. The sweetness of the recollection added tenderness to the current encounter. As long as Uther was willing to sit here as his father, not the king, Arthur wouldn't complain.
Gaius urged Myrddin to confide what she had bargained Arthur's life with, what terrible life price must have been asked. She refused to answer, fixated solely on healing Arthur. Despite her silence Gaius knew the terrible truth, but his old heart couldn't withstand the force of completely selfless love Merlin was showcasing in procuring this cure for Arthur. So he had administered the vial, lied to Uther about what it was, and rejoiced with Merlin when Arthur had first breathed more easily and then woken up.
And when Merlin had shown up in his quarters not long after, clearly restless and waiting, and then had gone to bed in the back room, as if they really were father and daughter, Gaius had felt like a man who had lived far too long. He'd seen terrible things in the Purge, lived through the turbulent times making choices he would powerfully regret, and a few decisions he remained proud of. He had feared for Morgana with her dreams, and Merlin with her schemes, and Arthur as he grew to be a strong man who started to question the world around him as he sought to do the right thing for Camelot, even if it meant defying his father. He'd helped all three children as much as he could, loved them all. And because he loved them, he'd continued to keep his silence about the most terrible of the things he had seen. The truth about the Cup of Life, the Isle of the Blessed, the High Priestess Nimueh, and the Purge would harm all three.
But as terrible as what he had seen was, Gaius feared worse times were to come. That now twice damned Cup of Life! Gaius cursed to himself angrily. Merlin was clearly waiting to die, all alone in that cramped little room, convinced she had saved someone she loved, and saved the peace. Perhaps the princess was even contemplating leaving a letter explaining the truth of her magic to her husband in the hopes that in this way she could be the Emrys she had been told she was, and still guide Arthur to understand magic and accept it, even though she was dead.
It was a lovely dream, and what was done was done. Gaius didn't have the heart to sully her sacrifice with the reality of what would happen. If Myrddin had been all that there was, if it had been merely an unconventional peasant who inexplicably managed to make his way into so many hearts, if had been merely a devoted friend to Arthur who had managed to curb his arrogance and start him on the path to greatness by showing the prince the way to be great, if that had been all, then maybe Myrddin's selfless sacrifice for Arthur and Albion would have been peaceful. Those who knew and loved Myrddin, Gaius chief among them, would have mourned but moved on. Gaius could not imagine that he would have loved Merlin a jot less if she had been what she had appeared to be when Gaius was first magically rescued by a somewhat clueless looking peasant.
But that was not what Merlin was. In the seemingly limitless capacity Merlin displayed to love other people and to go to extraordinary lengths to help them (Lancelot, Guinevere, and Hunith came immediately to mind), the girl frequently underestimated her own importance. Merlin was the wife of the crown prince, the daughter of a fairly powerful king in his own right, as well as one of Uther's closest allies and friends. Cyngen had followed Uther's lead in a the Purge when Uther's wife was slain by Nimueh's magic. While Gaius understood that the issue was not nearly as straightforward as that, Cyngen had only been told that Nimueh had killed the Queen of Camelot with the Cup of Life. What would he say when his only daughter was killed by the very same method under the auspices of the very same priestess? Gaius could imagine Cyngen demanding Uther's aid in return for the aid Cyngen had given twenty years ago. As Uther's daughter-in-law, Gaius was given a double assurance that vengeance would be pursued.
But that was not the full reason Gaius was sleepless as he waited for Merlin to die. He feared for Arthur. Arthur loved his wife. Just as Uther had loved Ygraine. And while Gaius had at times glanced glimpses of the man Arthur could in time become, a king far greater and wiser than Uther, at this point in time Arthur's questioning of his father was limited in scope. He carried out Uther's orders more compassionately than Uther would have, but he still carried them out. He still respected his father's decisions. And if Merlin were to die by Nimueh's magic, then Gaius could only conceive that Arthur would exact the same punishment that Uther had. That Merlin had freely chosen to die for Arthur would be swept away in the grief and the guilt and the greed of revenge.
Gaius was an old man, with an old man's regrets, but also with an old man's memory. Merlin also had two living brothers, just as Ygraine had had. Would they become consumed with hatred for Arthur the way that Tristan and Agravaine had? Would it be not merely a battle against all magic, but a battle between kingdoms which resulted from this death?
The unpleasant but very easy to picture future made for a restless night's sleep. When a patient stumbled into his quarters with the dawn, collapsing onto the floor, Gaius' physician mask snapped into place, and the man was grateful for a task he could attend to and hope to heal. Rushing over to help the woman, Gaius was stunned to realize it was his half-sister, Hunith. She was covered in boils and appeared to be in terrible pain.
Behind him he heard a door opening, and Merlin rushed out, coming over to help him, the way she had so many times before. Weakly Gaius attempted to keep her back, but inside his mind was buzzing with the surprising information that Merlin had not only outlived the sunrise, but appeared to be in perfect health. Had the cure not worked? Would he go to check up on Arthur only to find that the prince had passed away, alone, in the night? If he remained healed, then somewhere else someone must be on death's door, because the Old Religion demanded a price, and if it had spared a loved one, it demanded the life of a loved one.
Hunith shuddered in pain, the hand Gaius held clenching. Gaius looked down at his much younger half-sister, heard the desperate and broken sob of "Hunith?" from Merlin and suddenly it was all understood. Merlin had often conveyed how much she had loved the woman, how she viewed her as a second mother. Gaius suspected that the good hearted nurse was loved more than Merlin's biological mother. Nimueh's choice of sacrifice made sense. And as Nimueh would have only seen Myrddin, taking his mother probably seemed like a more than fair exchange for the life of a prince.
With Merlin's help Hunith was hefted into a bed. Gaius had intended to lay the woman on the patient's cot, but Merlin insisted on having Hunith rest on the marginally more comfortable bed in Myrddin's quarters. Once they had made her as comfortable as possible, and Gaius had given her a potion to allow her to peacefully sleep for a few hours, the exhausted pair sat down at Gaius' cluttered table.
"What has happened to her, Gaius?"
The feeling of ominous dread which Gaius had wrestled with all night peaked again, just when Gaius had begun to entertain the weak thought that the disaster he had spent the night foretelling would be averted. He would grieve for Hunith, but her death would not spark the war that Merlin's could. So selfishly, cowardly, Gaius feared, he had been willing to accept that Hunith's life would be the one taken. But looking at Merlin's grief-stricken face, Gaius knew that Hunith's death was not an outcome that Merlin would accept. Gaius was strongly tempted to lie to her, but there were already so many lies surrounding Merlin. Gaius had long ago determined that he would never give Merlin the loneliness of the lied to. So hesitantly he explained his conclusions, that Hunith was the price taken for Arthur's recovery.
Merlin leapt to her feet. "I bargained my life for Arthur's. Mine! Nimueh had no right to take Hunith's." Gaius tried to calm the incensed girl, to at least screaming out to all of Camelot that she had been bargaining with a witch. Merlin stopped shouting, but still breathed heavily in her anger.
"The Old Religion takes a life that you value equally well to the one you would save," Gaius explained. Was it really such a surprise for him to realize that Merlin valued other lives above her own?
"That was not the bargain," Merlin insisted. "Hunith's life is not mine to offer! Thus it was not Nimueh's to take!" She cut off her own ranting, a strange look coming across her face. "You understand this because you understand the Old Religion?" Gaius nodded. "Did you know this would happen? That my life wouldn't be accepted?"
"It had not occurred to me," Gaius admitted. "I spent the night mourning your death. But seeing Hunith does not contradict anything I had come to understand about the Old Religion. To someone who actively studies this manner of magic, someone more powerful than I have ever been, this outcome would probably not be unexpected."
Merlin's face was a picture of barely contained rage. "If he knew, I will never ever forgive him," Merlin swore angrily. She strode to the door.
"Where are you going?" Gaius called out.
"To question a dragon," she responded before leaving the door, shutting it with more force than necessary.
With a heavy heart Gaius got to his feet, going to check on Hunith once more. To his everlasting shame, Gaius had done little as Uther had set the world on fire. The few people he had managed to save, Alice and Balinor chief among them, did little to assuage his guilt for all of the lives that had been lost. But he would not stand back a second time. He would prevent a second purge. And if doing so saved the life of a girl he had long since come to regard as his daughter, then Gaius could be completely happy. He understood where Merlin was coming from, her insistence that Hunith's life was not hers to give. But Gaius' own life was his to offer. Sitting down at the table, Gaius composed a brief farewell to Merlin. Words were so limited. Sadly he did not have the time to carefully compose something longer. Folding the note, addressing it Myrddin, Gaius left his quarters.
After a few minutes he found the woman he was looking for. "Guinevere," he said. The kindhearted girl turned to him with a smile. "I need to leave the city to procure an ingredient necessary to save a patient's life. I am the only one who can fetch it, and I don't wish to trouble Myrddin, seeing how he is so concerned about Arthur. Would you mind sitting with Hunith for a few hours, making sure her condition doesn't worsen?"
The girl was as willing to help him in the infirmary as she had always been, and Morgana was more than willing to release her maidservant from her duties for the day. Once Gwen was settled Gaius handed over the note. "I've left this for Myrddin, should he come round before I get back. It explains everything. Will you see that he gets it?" Gwen agreed, and with one last look around his chambers, Gaius left, ready to save the world from disaster.
Merlin was so outraged at Hunith's unwilling part in this, especially having just lost her son a few short months ago, that it was little wonder that the journey to the depths of the palace was far too lengthy. But at last Merlin had arrived at the lair. The dragon was perched in sight, waiting for her. Merlin prepared to bombast the creature with accusations, but the dragon spoke first.
"The prince is saved?" he said calmly. Merlin gave a stiff nod. "Congratulations young witch. You have made another step in fulfilling your destiny."
"Another step in fulfilling my destiny?" Merlin repeated, completely taken back at the matter of fact tone. "An innocent woman who has been more than mother to me is now lying on her deathbed."
"Albion will demand many sacrifices to become a reality."
"And I was prepared to sacrifice for it! I voluntarily offered my life to save Arthur, and with him the destiny that you told me was so vital to this land," Merlin retorted. "This had nothing to do with Hunith."
"You are as much a part of this future as the young Pendragon. More than that, you and I are kin. The magic of the Old Religion drips through our veins. We are the purveyors of the things to come, Emrys."
It was the last word which caused Merlin's rage to become unbounded. "Emrys is not my name. I am Merlin. If being this Emrys means that I allow good and innocent people to die for some future you deem is more important, then I will not be your Emrys." She meant to go on with her speech, to deny that this dragon which she hadn't even known a full year was more kin than the loving nurse who had protected her throughout her childhood. But the dragon had become agitated at her words.
"Emrys is who you are. Emrys is the magic that courses so easily through you. Emrys is why you were born, a full seven years after your brother, a complete surprise to your parents. Emrys is what you are."
Merlin backed away from the dragon, feeling as if she was seeing the creature for the first time. She hadn't always agreed with the dragon's advice, most notably when he recommended letting Uther die by Tauren's hands. But she had appreciated the counsel he'd proffered. Furthermore, she remembered fondly that first visit when, despite her protests about Arthur, she had first started to think of her magic as something precious and purposeful. She, Merlin, the overlooked youngest royal of Powys, the lonely one, she had suddenly seemed to have more to do in life than marry Arthur and then continue to be overlooked. That moment of elation had given her a fondness for the scaly beast that had made it easy to forgive him his sometimes outrageous dictates, like not helping Mordred or ignoring Morgana. But in a flash she realized that once again she'd merely been a pawn. A pawn named Emrys. Merlin wasn't important. She never had been. Even Pellinore had stopped calling her Merlin when he saw her slay the Questing Beast.
"You never even saw me, did you?" she said quietly. "You've asked me to find a way to free you before. You spin tales of Albion, but you care nothing for the people within Camelot do you? Kill Uther. Hate Morgana. Condemn Mordred. And now abandon Hunith. Is all that matters to you about Albion is the fact that you will be free of these caverns? You call me kin? We are not the same kind at all. I'm leaving you here, dragon. And I'm never coming back. I'll save Hunith, and if that means that I die, and that Albion dies with me, then so be it." Merlin was angry and hurt and feeling terribly guilty about Hunith's present states and she was fueling her emotions into words she hoped would hurt the most.
She turned to leave, and only her acute instinct and lightening fast reflexes allowed her to shield the massive fireball the dragon sent at her. She glared dispassionately at him as he roared and realized the flames don't work.
Once he quieted Merlin continued, "You once told me that Arthur was destined to be a great king, that I needed to look beyond the arrogance that seemed to typify him. So I did. And I found an Arthur that is a good man and is learning to be a just ruler. Maybe it is you that needs to look closer. Today I don't care that Arthur is supposed to be this 'Once and Future King', and that I am apparently only here to facilitate it. I care that Arthur is recovering, that he'll have days to do wonderful things, regardless of what you say those things will be. I procured the cure as Merlin. Plain little me. Arthur lives, and I for one have faith in him. And Hunith will live too, because I think a good life, no matter how humble, is worth living. Goodbye, dragon."
It was always a heady sensation to spout of in anger, particularly when one felt one had said things well. But the energy to yell at the dragon and to offset his firey blast had sapped the strength of her anger. Despite her high sounding words, her instance that she wouldn't be this Emrys, if the dragon was correct, that Emrys was her power and even why she had been born, then she didn't know if she could actually stop being Emrys. But perhaps that wasn't ultimately important. She had tried to escape her parents' insistence that she be the perfect princess bride, disliking that they saw only that in her, but despite her brief rebellion, Merlin had ultimately done what she had always been destined to do, according to her parents; she'd married Arthur. Maybe she shouldn't resent so much that she would at times be overshadowed in the minds of others by the Emrys aspect. And she agreed with the dream, to bring back magic, to unite Albion. She could follow this destiny the same way she had followed the orders to marry Arthur: on her own terms. Myrddin hadn't been the intention of anyone else. Saving Hunith didn't mean that she wasn't Emrys. She was just being Emrys on her own terms. She was being Emrys while being Merlin.
And there was one more thing she could do as Merlin. She could say goodbye to Arthur. Not in as many words, because now really wasn't the moment to drop the magical secret on her poor unsuspecting husband. One day Gaius could pass on the story of how she'd saved him, and hopefully Arthur would understand and return magic to the realm. But it wasn't time for all those words, and it looked like they were never going to be her own speeches. But she could have her own farewell with Arthur, as his wife, even though he'd not appreciate that she'd saved his life again.
Hurrying to her room, she changed into a dress. It seemed a small thing, but before heading out to insist that Hunith not suffer the price for Arthur's healing, Merlin wanted to say goodbye to her husband, and to say goodbye as his wife. Though she still greatly enjoyed being Myrddin, grateful for the disguise's ability for her to be at such places as the cave where the Questing Beast had at last struck, she wanted her husband's last memory of her to be as her.
Arthur was up and about, his arm hanging into a sling, when she slipped into his room from her own.
"At last the wife comes to see the invalid," Arthur said from his position contemplating the bowl of semi-decorative fruit on the table and wondering which one he wanted to eat. "Although I do have some vague memories of your voice as I was injured, something about the kind of king I am going to be someday..." Arthur trailed off teasingly.
"I would never inflate your ego like that," Merlin assured him. It was a ridiculous comment for the serious subject, but at the same time, Merlin was glad that she automatically retorted instead of immediately descending into mawkish sentimentality. They both sat down at the table, Merlin fiddling with her own selection of fruit. Merlin found herself reluctant to leave him. She wished she could include another person in the magic that she sometimes used to slow down the very speed of time. If she could somehow sit here with Arthur for an age, and then still be swift enough in returning to the Isle of the Blessed that Hunith could still be healed. But she knew she could not do such a thing, that she must begin to say goodbye. But how to start? She wanted to say something sincere, but also relatively tearless.
"You are a very skilled warrior, and I think you will be a great king," Arthur turned to her in surprise at words that contradicted what she had just said. Or perhaps, now that he was no longer at death's door, he was merely surprised at her serious tone. "But you must learn to listen as well as you fight."
"Any other bits of advice you feel like sharing?" Arthur asked, somewhat sarcastically.
"Just, don't be a prat. And don't employ bootlickers," she added the last part sternly. Arthur would never learn to listen if no one said anything back to him.
Arthur laughed, settling back comfortably in his chair.
"Don't ever change, Merlin. I couldn't have asked for a better wife," he said.
Merlin felt a warm feeling spread through her at that, rising to counter the enormous wave of nostalgic homesickness she felt at saying goodbye to this man. She'd found so much in Camelot, but most of all, first and foremost, Camelot meant Arthur, so greatly did the man define the place she now called home. In light of the confrontation she had just had with the Great Dragon, Merlin was pleased to realize that what she had discovered with Arthur mattered more to her than the possibilities she had discovered with her magic.
And that realization was what helped Merlin find the proper words to say farewell without actually saying goodbye. "I'm happy being your wife until the day I die," Merlin whispered. The words flowed out on a swell of honesty and sentiment that her raw emotions produced. Standing up, she moved closer to Arthur's chair. Once she was before it, she bent down to give him a goodbye kiss.
Arthur was a bit encumbered with his sling, but he still managed to get Merlin onto his lap. His good arm was braced behind her head as he tilted it back to kiss her. Merlin crushed herself into his torso as much as possible, one last moment for such closeness. At last she broke away, pulling herself out of the chair. She walked to the door without looking back, but once she reached it, she gave in, turning to see Arthur one last time before she left. At his slightly ruffled appearance, and his confusion at her leaving, she felt again that sweet, bitter love, too terrible in its intensity to leave anything but her honest sadness on her face.
"Merlin? What's wrong?" Arthur said, starting to lift himself out of his chair.
"I'm just," she paused, "really happy you aren't going to die. I love you."
"I love you too, Merlin," he said as he sat back down again. As Merlin walked down the steps, heading towards her last necessary goodbyes, she was glad her last image of Arthur would be of him wearing that indescribable expression he always assumed when he said he loved her and his eyes affirmed his words.
Guinevere looked up from her position nursing Hunith. In the long hours since Gaius had left, Gwen had been musing on how hard this must be for Myrddin; he had lost his brother, Arthur had been on death's door, and now his mother appeared to be as well. Thus it was in surprise that she realized that the person who had burst into the chambers was not Myrddin but the Lady Merlin.
"Where is Gaius?" she asked.
"He said that he had to run an errand; he asked me to look after Hunith."
At the mention of the woman, Merlin's focus had switched to the sick woman. She walked over and gazed tenderly at her.
"Has Myrddin told you about his mother?" Gwen asked, seeing no other way to account for the expression, unless Merlin was exceptionally compassionate. But the girl shook her head.
"I have repaid her love most poorly," Merlin muttered sadly. This was surprising.
"You know Hunith?"
"She has always been like a mother to me, my best confidant in childhood." Before Gwen could assimilate this surprising confession, Merlin seemed to realize exactly who she was speaking to. "Hunith was my nurse since the time of my birth," Merlin clarified. "She was an indispensable part of my life in Powys for many years, until I more closely approached marriageable age and my father felt that such attachments were discouraging my willingness to comply with my duty and marry." Merlin smiled wryly. "I fear that he read certain entirely absent affections into my relationship with Will. But he was only ever a brother."
"And Myrddin?" Gwen asked. Merlin looked at her in confusion. "Surely your father must have worried also about your closeness with Will's brother."
Merlin smiled in surprised, shaking her head in amusement. "I don't believe that it ever was considered an issue what my relationship with Myrddin was." But levity never lasted long in a sick room, and soon Merlin was thanking Gwen for her care of the woman. "You have a good heart, Gwen. Don't every lose that." Gwen was surprised, but pleased by the compliment. Sharing this bedside vigil, even if only for a few moments, made Guinevere feel closer to the other woman. Silence fell for a few minutes before Merlin seemed to remember the hurry she had arrived at the room in.
"Did Gaius say when he would be back?"
"No," Gwen answered. "He said that he would likely be out of sight for some time. He left a note." Merlin looked shocked and upset. Before Gwen could ask, Merlin had snatched up the note. Gaius had actually left it for Myrddin, but given the hitherto unknown closeness of the two individuals, Gwen hoped that it would not be a problem that Merlin had been the one to read it.
Whatever was in the note, it upset Merlin further. With nary a word, she fled from the chambers.
Arthur wasn't really sure what to make of his wife's last visit, but he at last labeled the variety of emotions her visit contained as one more incomprehensible thing about her and so put it from his mind. But several hours later, when he had not heard anything further from his wife, and because he was bored with injury, he went out in search of her. She was not in her own chambers, so he went down to the royal physician's.
To his surprise, it was inhabited by two people, neither of whom he was expecting. Guinevere looked up at him as he entered.
"Guinevere!" he exclaimed. "But where is Gaius? Or Myrddin?" The servant indicated the sick bed.
"They both had errands to attend to. They asked me to look after Hunith while they were gone." Arthur approached the bed in surprise.
"What has happened to her?"
"She was apparently struck down with this sickness while en route to Camelot. She has begun to look better in the last few hours or so."
"Has Merlin seen her?" Arthur asked in concern, as he sat down by the bedside. He knew that his and Hunith's overlapping illnesses must have been hard to bear.
"She was here early this morning," Gwen said. "I had not known of her connection to Hunith. I had expected Myrddin to be the one to burst in here in concern. To think that those two have known each other practically their whole lives!"
Arthur smiled, adding his own opinion on Merlin and Myrddin. "Sometimes I am startled by how different those two are, and sometimes I feel that they are exactly the same." They were both silent a moment, thinking about the complicated connections they each had with the other.
"Did she say where she was heading next?" Arthur asked eventually. The servant shook her head.
"She read the note Gaius had left for Myrddin and then left in a hurry."
It turned out the note was still in the room, and Arthur, any guilty feelings masked by annoyance at her unexplained disappearance, read it.
"Dear Merlin, My life is already near to its end. There has, for the most part, been very little purpose to it, very little that will be remembered. In contrast Merlin, your life is destined for greatness. Live by the tenants I have taught you and I believe you will in time become the protector and queen to a great king, will fulfill one of the greatest destinies ever. To have known you has been my greatest pleasure and to sacrifice myself for you is but an honor. You are, and always will be the child I never had. Gaius."
Arthur didn't understand what the letter meant, why it would cause Merlin to depart with such great alacrity, unless that sentence about sacrifice was a literal one, though that gave no answers. The letter seemed a goodbye, which made no sense, as little sense as the farewell sounding tone of Merlin's own visit to him.
Arthur shook his head in frustration. Something was going on here, something he didn't quite understand. But Merlin would have to return sometime, so Arthur made his way to Merlin's chambers in his own silent vigil, mirroring the one Merlin had held over him. If Merlin had run off on some mad, dangerous scheme now, when he wasn't yet well enough to follow her (if he even knew where she had gone), then she better have a very good explanation.
As Merlin once again approached the Isle of the Blessed, she heard in horror the echoing chants of Nimueh, and when she finally rushed in, it was only to see the terrible sight of Gaius' body, collapsed against the altar. She looked up at Nimueh in the anger which had steadily been mounting as she rushed from Camelot. This confrontation would yield no unexpected sympathy, nor magical discussions about the Questing Beast or Magic. Merlin's anger, exasperated by the furious ruminating she'd had during her latest horse ride, was far too consuming.
"Well, well, little princess," the high priestess said in surprise. "I had not expected to see you here. But don't worry; another life has already been exchanged for your husband's. He will live."
The words were so utterly dismissive of Gaius, in the same way that the dragon had been about Hunith, that Merlin felt appalled at this manner of specimen of powerful magic. She looked at the smirking face, no sign of contrition. No sign of self-righteous sadness even. Just smugness. Merlin gave a fearsome glower. Cutting straight to the point, Merlin said, "I bargained my life for my husband's. Not Gaius'. Not Hunith's."
"Your life?" Nimueh said in surprise. But for all Nimueh's cruelty, there was also a fair amount of cunning. It only took her a moment to connect the dots. She laughed. "Well, I'm glad to see that my attempts at seduction as Cara were not rebuffed due to my lack of skill."
"Your age certainly didn't help," Merlin retorted. "I demand you take the life we agreed on."
"The old religion doesn't care who lives and who dies," Nimueh said condescendingly.
In frustration, Merlin sent a beam of magic at the high priestess, but she caught it with her hand, laughing at Merlin's own inexperience.
"We could be great, you and I," Nimueh said. "It has been a long time since Uther considered me a friend, and yet here he has welcomed a witch into the heart of his family. With your position and my power, Camelot could be returned to it's magical glory."
"I would never join forces with such cruel and selfish magic," Merlin said. Nimueh shrugged, disappointed but not surprised. Making small circular movements with her hand, she conjured a fireball to send at Merlin. The lithe girl was able to dodge the first, but was hit squarely in her chest by the second one Nimueh sent. Merlin landed, winded and wounded.
Though Nimueh had intimated at their previous conversation that she had not earlier grasped the importance of Myrddin, she wasn't too troubled to have killed the princess and her supposed importance. She made her way away, not caring about either death. Thus she was completely surprised to hear the voice say, "You should not have killed my friend." Merlin watched with satisfaction the shocked expression on the witch's face, especially as Merlin summoned an amount of power she didn't know she possessed. The skies darkened in accordance to Merlin's anger, the black clouds rumbling, and before Nimueh knew the depth of rage that Merlin had conjured, lightening flashed from the heavens, incinerating the cruel woman.
Merlin rushed forward to Gaius then, pulling the old man's body into her arms. The sky cried as Merlin did, all the isle covered with streaks of water.
Gaius stirred after a few minutes, and Merlin was overjoyed at his return. They both laughed weakly at the power Merlin had displayed, the good humor helping keep Merlin from being properly horrified at her latest actions. After a few minutes, when the rain had finally stopped, they made their way back to the boat, and once more to Camelot.
Night had crossed into the earliest whispers of morning when Arthur was startled awake from the seat he had been dozing in by the hearth. Looking around to see what had woken him, he realized that his wife had at last returned. Feeling stiff from the uncomfortable position he had slumbered in, he stretched as he approached his extremely bedraggled wife. Her dress was ripped and torn, and overall she looked as if she had been caught in a storm and then left to dry outside.
"Where have you been?" Arthur demanded.
"Out," she replied curtly.
"Obviously. Why? With both Hunith and I nearly having died, I should think that you would have been here, instead of gallivanting about the countryside."
"I had things to attend to," Merlin replied flatly.
"What things?" Arthur demanded. But Merlin proved unwilling to answer, and finally in sheer exasperation and exhaustion, Arthur stormed from Merlin's chambers.
After some much needed sleep on both their parts after Merlin returned from the Isle of the Blessed for the final time, Arthur had again confronted his spouse. But at her continued insistence at telling him all sorts of things, except the truth, all the concern he had felt at her absence converted solidly to annoyance. He refused to come to her if she was going to lie, and she refused to go to him with the truth, so they remained at an impasse, which lasted about a week.
As the evidence of the Questing Beast incident faded—Arthur looking increasingly like his usual robust self, Merlin no longer worrying about the frightening ease with which she had commanded the heavens, Hunith fully recovered and back in Ealdor, even the oppressive feeling of being Emrys easing up—Merlin found herself wishing Arthur would just let his annoyance with her go. She wasn't going to tell him what she had been up to, and the sooner he accepted her story of an epic herb quest gone wrong, the sooner things could return to normal. She missed spending time with Arthur in the evening. For the last several months almost every night they came together, sometimes simply to be in the same room as they dealt with their own affairs, sometimes to debate various matters of state, other days spent in merriment, jesting, laughing, playing chess.
Merlin had dismissed Sevryn, deciding that if she was going to be left resolutely alone, she could spend time reading up on the Purge in a book Geoffrey usually kept guarded and which she had stolen in her bid to understand what had made Nimueh bitter and cruel, and if she could find any merit in the priestess' accusations that it had been Uther who betrayed magic first, not the other way around. Of course, Merlin had to keep this book secret, but then again, how convenient for her that the palace had so many loose floorboards under beds, perfect for hiding illicit tomes! She had just wriggled under the bed in order to fetch it when she heard the door open. Quickly she pulled herself off the floor. Standing she found herself staring at Arthur, who was shaking his head in amusement at what he once again saw as inexplicable behavior.
He stared at her, she stared at him, both obstinately maintaining their position until at last Arthur said, "This is ridiculous." He strode towards her, a few steps later Merlin flew at him and they were kissing passionately. Somehow they ended up on Merlin's bed. "Sometimes I think you are so annoying," Arthur said between kisses. Merlin let off a strangled little laugh. "Sometimes I feel that you only listen to me when I don't want to talk," Merlin gasped.
Arthur laughed back, their dueling tongues ending any more words they might have had. Arthur's hands rested on her shoulders, and catching hold of neck of her nightgown, gradually slid their way down Merlin's arms. His lips soon followed, and the lower they went, the less Merlin was thinking of anything except this moment.
Until suddenly Arthur stopped.
Blearily Merlin opened her eyes, seeing Arthur fixedly staring at a point mid chest.
"What is this?" he asked in a low growl. It took Merlin a minute to think what he was talking about. At last she remembered: Nimueh's last fireball. The flesh left behind had blistered and scarred, leaving a perfect circle of smooth, permanently red flesh. She had recovered from her fight rather rapidly, healing quickly what could have been a mortal blow thanks to her magic and Merlin had been eager to put the episode out of her mind. The fact that she was now sporting scars she wasn't last week and that Arthur, rather well acquainted with her body these days, might notice had not occurred to her. And there had been absolutely no provision that covered fireballs in her story of gathering herbs (not that Arthur had believed it). She had practically just handed him proof that she had lied.
But Merlin was not going to concede so easily. "I should think after four months of marriage that answer would be obvious," Merlin retorted. Banter sometimes worked in distracting Arthur. Then again, sometimes not, as he replied,
"Yes, Merlin, after four months I know exactly what marks are on your body and where. I know that you have a birth mark on your thigh, and one on your back," Arthur caressed each spot as he mentioned it. "I know that you have a scar from our impromptu mace fight and that you received this battle wound on your arm from a bandit. But I also know," here his voice became slightly louder, "that your chest was completely unblemished last time I was in your bed. Given that you have mysteriously disappeared in the week since then, and that you refuse to tell me where or why, I can't help but wonder what foolhardy scheme you were engaged in and then lied to me about."
Merlin tried to wiggle out from underneath her husband. His being half on top of her, and her being half-clothed, was giving him an unfair advantage. As she began to push him off, reaching to pull her nightgown back over her torso, she started chattering in a easy tone, trying to make light of it.
"Well you know me. I was always the clumsiest manservant you had ever seen and would rather not dwell on my latest embarrassing fall down…" Arthur wasn't having it. Seeing all too clearly that Merlin was trying to run away, leaving him with little more than some flimsy excuse, Arthur swiftly moved to keep her where she was. Swinging his left leg over her right, straddling her legs so that her movement was effectively restricted, he simultaneously grabbed her wrists and lightly but firmly pinned them to the pillow on either side of her head. He leaned down so his face was mere inches above hers. The closeness gave her little choice but to meet his eyes.
"Merlin. Even when you were an idiotic manservant from Ealdor I trusted you; I talked to you. Since our marriage I have continued to confide to you my doubts and my fears. Do you have any idea how worried I was when I realized that your bizarre little speech about my future as a great king and to not employ bootlickers was punctuated with your unexplained disappearance?" He said all this in an intense whisper, his blue eyes holding Merlin's own in a fixed gaze. "First my certain death sentence, then my miraculous recovery with some mysterious tincture you and Gaius procure, from seemingly nowhere. Having recovered, and processed what might have been a convoluted farewell on your part, I go searching for you only to find a dying Hunith in Gaius' chambers with only Guinevere to attend to her. A day later you return, tired, wet, and looking distinctly the worse for wear. Clearly you were up to something, and that something appears to have injured you. What. Was. It?"
Merlin swallowed. It did not seem like a particularly good time to confess her magic, but she sensed that an unwillingness to disclose the truth now would severely damage their relationship. As Arthur had pointed out, he had always been willing to confide in her, and yet here she was lying to him, again. Merlin had freely gone to barter her life for his, not because a dragon said he would be a great king (though she believed that) but because she genuinely loved him. What had started as merely the love of a strong, though unusual, friendship had morphed into lover-like love, so much so that she didn't even know where friendship ended and romance began. But she did know this: whether or not she revealed her magic, if she was willing to die for him, she needed to be willing to trust him.
"You were sick. You heard Pellinore; there is no cure for the bite of the Questing Beast."
"Then how am I alive?"
Merlin looked away. By Camelot's law, and already proven with Gwen and the afanc, even seeking a magical cure was punishable by death.
"You are too important. You are going to be one of the greatest kings of all time; I couldn't let you die. I heard of a place of the Old Religion where I might seek a cure: the Isle of the Blessed. I went there and bartered for your life."
"What was the price for this cure?" Arthur's tone had remained carefully neutral so far.
"A balance is required; a life for a life. I asked the high priestess to exchange my life for yours." Arthur let go of her hands, suddenly shifting his weight, so he was sitting upright on his knees.
"Merlin! You idiot! How could you even think of giving yourself up for me? You are the future queen of Camelot; you can't go off and-"
Whatever was supposed to come next in the prince's rant was cut off by Merlin's own, as she sat up. His face was only a few inches from hers, though she had to look up to meet his angry eyes.
"And you are the future king!" This argument reminded Merlin of the dragon's and in truth, when Arthur had been injured she'd been thinking less in terms of his impending kingship and more in terms of her impending widowhood. "I couldn't let you die when it was in my power to save you, you prat. And don't even pretend you wouldn't have done the exact same thing for me!" Merlin couldn't read the expression in his eyes in the moment before Arthur suddenly crashed his lips into hers, the intensity of it pushing her back among the pillows. Little else was said out loud for some time, each passionately affirming what they felt for the other in a nonverbal way. And so, the exact origin of their argument faded from their minds for awhile.
With Merlin's back to his front, and his arm wrapped protectively around her waist while their breathing evened out, Arthur leaned his head on his right elbow, reflecting back on their truncated conversation. Gently trailing his hand across her stomach, his fingers brushed against the smoother skin of the circular burn. There were still some unanswered questions.
"If it was your life for mine, then why are you still here in my arms?" he murmured in her ear. He felt her shift so that she was on her back, and could look up at him. In the dying embers of the fireplace, her face was shadowy, and it seemed to be clouding over in anger as she thought of what to say.
"Nimueh tricked me. When I returned with the cure from the Isle of the Blessed, I thought I would die once you recovered. Instead, the next morning, I found a dying Hunith. I was so upset that the innocent woman who basically mothered me would be used thus that I determined to return and demand that she take a just price, the price we agreed upon. I-I came to see you before I went. Say some sort of a goodbye."
"And it didn't occur to you that I would rather hear the word 'goodbye' than a promise that you would be happy being my wife until the day you died, when you believed that day had already come?" Arthur's annoyance was back, a hint of steel reproof entering his voice.
"Given your reaction to my bargaining my life, I clearly was right in thinking that you wouldn't have let me go," Merlin retorted, but then she sighed. "Gaius had taken advantage of my absence. I returned to his chambers only to find that he had anticipated my actions, and was riding off to sacrifice himself in my place. He left me a note. I chased after him." Here she paused, and Arthur got the sense that the next words were being chosen very carefully. Despite the less then candid rendition, the story thus far made sense with the few facts Arthur had, including what Gaius' note had been all about.
"The sorceress told me that the balance of nature didn't care who died only that someone did, and that if I joined with her we could control the world. I was just angry, so angry, angry at her deception, angry at the pain she had caused, the plague, the poisoning, the wraith, …. I fought her, I killed her. And so ultimately it was her life for yours."
Merlin had killed a powerful sorceress, one that apparently had been behind three attacks on Camelot. And she had done it to save him. Obviously there were more details, but at the moment, they didn't matter so much to Arthur. He was relieved she had confided this much to him, more relieved that she was still alive to confide it. He began to see why Merlin had been reluctant to confess what had happened, not only for the magical nature of his cure, but more so for what was clearly a haunting battle. For now, it was enough that they had both escaped the Questing Beast alive.
One of these days Merlin hoped that she would reach the point where she wouldn't wake up feeling vulnerable and hesitant after sharing a new measure of intimacy with Arthur. The first two times she'd been besieged with these feelings had been after she had fallen asleep in Arthur's arms grieving for Will's sacrifice, and then again after the unicorn affair had been concluded.
Last night Merlin had merely been grateful that Arthur had accepted the obviously magical nature of his cure calmly. But now that passions had cooled and the cold shrewdness of morning had returned, Merlin felt she hadn't the slightest idea how Arthur would accept her decision to technically commit treason to save the crown prince's life. Regardless of Arthur's reaction, she didn't regret her actions, so mentally berating herself for her cowardice, Merlin opened her eyes, rolling over to look at Arthur. Her husband was also awake, regarding her seriously. Before she could make a joke about that, Arthur said,
"Do you think I'm a hypocrite?" Merlin's surprise was evident, and he continued. "Thrice I have been saved by magic, yet I am sworn to hunt down every magic user, and in fact have arrested and watched executed many men and women in the past."
"Thrice?" Merlin asked, rapidly trying to calculate which of her many magical rescues Arthur was actually aware of. Arthur obliged with a list—by the mysterious orb in the Caves of Balor, by Will's sacrifice, and by the recent cure—and Merlin was relieved to know that Arthur had not realized who was ultimately responsible for each of those rescues.
"I punish sorcerers, and yet they have three times saved my life. I've always been told my life was worth more than ordinary people's, but I cannot stay complacent that others give their lives for mine and I blithely execute their friends and relatives for their efforts." Arthur's words stunned her, as Merlin had never thought about how Arthur must feel about this. She'd been so selfishly pleased at how he'd accepted Will's purported sacrifice and the rescue at Balor that she had not taken the time to really sympathize at what it meant to be raised to hate magic. Such hatred had always been unreasonable to her because she'd always felt the thrum of magic in her veins. Perhaps magic's goodness was not nearly so clear cut when one did not feel so greatly connected to it. But at the same time, Merlin had an uncomfortable thought. Perhaps the way Merlin acted according to her own models of right and wrong, making decisions that Arthur would never have been compliant with because she was convinced she knew best, perhaps that was what the dragon had been doing, and why he had been willing to accept Hunith's death when Merlin herself so adamantly wasn't. Merlin didn't like this unexpected killing of kinship with the dragon, and so tried to suppress the comparison in favor of listening to Arthur's confession.
Arthur had rolled onto his back, folding his hands behind his head and speaking to the canopy. "How can I accept my life at their efforts and yet hunt down all magical beings with determined ruthlessness? It is as unpalatable to do so as it was to let Myrddin die from the poison that would have killed me and do nothing to save him." He fell silent for a moment, but Merlin filled the gap with her own frantically racing thoughts.
Coupled with the thought that simply wouldn't be ignored, namely that she wasn't so different from the dragon, Merlin had a disquieting sensation that if anyone was the hypocrite in the situation, it was she. In a sense, Merlin's lifelong deception was forcing a sort of hypocrisy on those around her. Gaius lied to Uther frequently to cover for her, having forsaken his oaths to reject magic all in her aid. She'd encouraged Lancelot to lie, first to be knighted, and secondly to protect her. She'd sought out Morgana when she rescued Mordred. Over and over again, putting people in a position to lie. All her life she had hated the shadows she had felt confined to. Overshadowed in her parents' minds by her brothers, her magic also long contriving to keep her there hidden and thus safe. But perhaps all of the shadows were not circumstance. In some ways, with all these layers of lies, she was building her own shadows. Was there a way to change Arthur's mind about magic without constantly resorting to half lies and full lies and fantastical quarter truths, without constantly circumventing his own beliefs? Because nothing had induced the type of guilt as realizing how Arthur viewed what she'd considered a slow magical education. She wouldn't change what she had done with her magic, because even if her actions had been disguised in the dark, saving people's lives felt like a series of shining achievements. She did, however, feel contrite that she hadn't given Arthur's well-earned reputation for being honorable much of a thought. She acted according to her own code of ethics honed by technically having been born a criminal, but Arthur clearly did not view her habitual illegalities with an equally resigned eye.
Not knowing what to say, Merlin cleared her throat. Arthur turned to look her in the eye. It made the next statement much harder to force out. "Honestly," she began, knowing that however misleading the answer would inevitably be, she needed to at least retain an honesty of sentiment, "I had not thought about it that way. I've grown up knowing about magic, and I," Merlin swallowed again, forcing herself to keep meeting her husband's earnest eyes. "I don't know why your father hates all magic so indiscriminately, but I'll never regret saving your life."
Arthur nodded his head thoughtfully at her response. But Merlin so longed to give the man she loved to distraction more peace of mind. Hopefully one day he would see how unjust his father's decrees were, and together they could become rulers who embodied every law. Until then she didn't want him to blame himself for the choices she had made. "In all those cases, it was someone else's decision to save your life. Regardless of whether it was the right choice, their actions are not your responsibility."
Merlin hopped out of bed to gather her clothes up and get ready for the day, leaving Arthur to his introspection, but his voice stopped her, and she turned back to him in question.
"I just wanted to say, thank you. For saving my life, and being willing to offer your life for mine." Merlin smiled gently at him. Here was something she could say without figuring out just how much she wanted to fall into the dragon's dictates and without knowing if she would calmly accept the name Emrys. The response was easy, and in a lifetime of lies she was grateful for having shared a little of the truth of what had happened with Nimueh, that she had proven with her actions how much she cared about Arthur. And so Merlin simply said,
"You are always welcome."
Alternatively titled: In Which At Least Some of Our Participants Begin to Grasp the Amount of Sacrifice That Will Be Required For Albion
I write out of order, jotting down various scenes when the ideas or the relevant moods come to me. It therefore is always an interesting experience when I finish up my editing of any one installment, making sure the scenes transition at least relatively smoothly despite having unfolded on my screen over a span of months. This chapter had some of the most radical revision because it contains one of my very first scenes, written over a year ago. It was that scene that gave me the idea of how this story was going to develop as a whole. Publishing it now feels a little like publishing my first chapter all over again. I see my writing as it used to be, and then look at the areas which I feel much more confidant in now. Basically what I am trying to say is that I hope that people still enjoy the story in the bit over a year I've been writing it and that on the whole they find my story to be on the whole becoming better as I become a stronger writer. If you have a moment to make a comment, I always welcome the feedback.