And that's chapter 21. I really have nothing more to say, besides another begging for reviews. Come on, guys, let me know what you think!

Still don't own Merlin.

Chapter 21

Alina

Connor left a few days after the defeat of Cornelius Sigan. Alina regretted him leaving. She had grown rather fond of her kind-of-brother in the last few weeks. He had filled in the gaps in her memory and knowledge of this time, so that she now had enough information to be able to live here.

'You take care of yourself, little sister,' he had said moments before leaving. 'Keep up the good work.'

'Will do,' she had promised and then he was gone.

For a few months there was a blessed peace and quiet in the kingdom and Alina used that time to learn more about the powers she had inherited from the other Alina. She had told Uther that she wanted to learn more about healing, which provided her with the perfect excuse to spend a lot of time in Gaius' chambers. Merlin and she spent every spare moment they had on reading their magic books, which they shared happily with each other. Together they learned a lot. Alina was mainly interested in healing magic, which she was exceptionally good at, as opposed to Merlin, who could hardly manage to heal a scratch. On the other hand, Merlin excelled in moving objects with his mind. Alina's control of these objects was poorly at best. It happened more than once that a thing flying in the air came suddenly crashing down. The only advantage of this was that she also got a lot of practise in repairing stuff.

Using magic to fight was something they could both do very well. So sometimes, if there was no one else around, they locked the door, moved aside the furniture and practised.

The newest project they were working on was conversing with their minds. Merlin had told her that some of the druids were able to do that and now that he had a partner to practise with, he was dying to see if they could do it as well.

It was probably best that they chose to do it at that particular time, because they got very little time to spare. There was a huge jousting tournament coming up and that kept them both exceptionally busy. Merlin was busy running around after Arthur and cleaning every place in the palace. Alina had to devote herself to the tedious business of welcoming noble visitors along with Uther and Morgana.

You having fun? Merlin thought one day at her.

Fun? Thought not, she thought back at him, pleased she was getting better at this. I'm simply dying for an excuse to get out of here.

Who is it this time?

Lord Godwin is talking to no one else but Uther about something incredibly dull, so Morgana and I are really getting bored in here. What are you up to?

Handing Arthur his lances and watching him break them on less fortunate knights.

Sounds a lot more interesting than hearing this endless chatter.

Why don't you come over here?

I don't have a good enough excuse. Since Arthur can't be here, because he is so busy training, as his fiancée I have to represent him.

Well, he thought teasingly. You better get used to it, since it is part of your destiny to welcome noble guests to Camelot.

And thank you so much for reminding me, she growled over the mind link. That's just exactly what I needed to hear right now.

I think you're really overdoing the sarcasm lately, he thought. She could almost see his grin.

'You all right, Alina?' Morgana asked, distracting her from the mental conversation that was going on.

She smiled quickly. 'Just getting bored,' she replied.

'Then get out of here,' Morgana said. 'Didn't I say that sir Leon asked me to ask you to come over to training this afternoon, to help him on his jousting techniques?' she asked innocently. 'I thought I had mentioned it, but that was probably just to Gwen, to ask her to help remind me, isn't that true, Gwen?'

Gwen blinked. 'I believe it is, milady.'

'Well, if that is the case, I'd better hurry,' Alina said, sighing in relief. 'Thank you for passing the message along, Morgana. Would you give my apologies to the king?'

'Sure, Alina,' Uther's ward said with a conspirator's smile. 'You go. Have fun,' she added in a hushed voice.

'I owe you,' she promised. 'You're an angel, Morgana.'

She got out of the room as quick as she could. She really started to like Morgana, even though she knew what this friendly young woman would turn out to be. It was impossible to dislike her. With her open smile, kind eyes and quick wits she had won Alina over in a matter of minutes after they had first been introduced.

Maybe, Alina pondered as she made her way to the training field, if she truly was destined to change the legend, she could change Morgana's path in life as well. She still wasn't too sure about that whole changing-the-legend-as-she-knew-it thing, but she had already accepted that it was her destiny to protect Arthur. If she had not been convinced of that, she probably would not have healed him.

When her thoughts got to Arthur again, she became more aware of him. Most of the time she could easily ignore this still strange awareness of his whereabouts and his mood, but once she focused on it, she could feel it strongly. The prince was on the training field. She knew that even without the connection or Merlin telling her. Where else would he be only days before the tournament started? He had a reputation to maintain, so he could not afford to miss a day's training.

His mood was more of a surprise. Arthur was, there really was no other word for it, grumpy. The connection did not tell her what the reason for his bad mood was, but she could safely say that it had something to do with the training and something not going the way he wanted it to.

She spotted Merlin before he saw her.

Hey, she greeted him with her mental voice. Any objections to some company?

He turned around, one of his wide smiles forming on his face. You made it! How did you get out?

Morgana covered for me, she explained. How's his royal clotpole doing?

He chuckled. Brilliant, of course. He hasn't lost up till now, which means he's going to think even more of himself than he already did.

She came standing next to him, watching Arthur charge at sir Leon. The lance hit the other knight in the middle of his chest, shattering the lance and unhorsing the man. He made quite a fall and she could hear his muffled cry of pain, not that clearly because he was more or less canned. It was entirely beyond her how one could want to go around in all that armour, hindering you in your movements and limiting your view of your surroundings.

Merlin walked over to Arthur and Alina followed, because there was nothing else to do.

'Ooh,' Merlin said when he took the lance from Arthur. 'That has got to hurt.'

Arthur took off his helmet, probably to get some fresh air. He wasn't likely to get it in there. 'That's the point, Merlin,' he snapped. 'It's not a pillow fight.' Oh yes, he really had a bad temper right now.

'Oh, for a moment I thought it was,' Merlin muttered under his breath, so that only Alina could hear. 'It's equally pointless.'

Arthur noticed her when she chuckled. 'Alina!' he called out in surprise. 'What are you doing here?'

'Officially I'm here to give sir Leon some pointers on how to joust,' she replied. 'Unofficially I was bored to death in there, so I got out to have some fun watching you guys prepare for the tournament.'

'You're not supposed to be here, Alina,' Arthur said, very irritated. She could feel it both in his voice and through their connection.

'I know,' she replied cheerfully. 'But since I am here now, I guess you'll have to live with it. You're not afraid you'll lose, are you now?'

'Don't be ridiculous, Alina,' he said in a voice he usually saved to use on Merlin. 'I never lose.'

'Sure,' she said with something that she hoped was not too close to a smirk.

Arthur decided to ignore her. 'Fetch me another lance, will you, Merlin?'

Merlin turned around to get the lance. He's such a prat! he thought angrily.

I know, she replied in a soothing mental voice. Just be patient. Eventually he will change.

You better be right about that.

Merlin handed Arthur another lance and the prince turned away without as much as thanking him.

'Prat,' the young warlock mumbled.

'He most certainly is,' Alina agreed, because at that moment it was nothing but the truth. Arthur still had a long way to go before he was going to be the king the legends spoke of.

Arthur galloped forward again, appearing to be hitting sir Leon just as hard as the first time, which had Alina wondering how it would feel to be little more than a noble boxing ball. For some reason it did not seem much fun to her.

Then, something happened. The sun broke through the clouds, shining on Leon's armour, the light bouncing off it, straight into Arthur's eyes. And Arthur did as any man in his senses would have done: he turned away, leaving his chest open for Leon's attack. But the knight was much to honourable for that. He galloped past the prince without even trying to hit him.

Arthur's anger took her completely by surprise. The force of it had her stumble backwards, fighting to get her balance.

'Are you okay?' Merlin asked, worried. He took her arm and helped her steady herself.

'I'm fine,' she assured him. 'But he is really pissed right now.'

Even if she would not have known it through their bond, of which Arthur was completely unaware, she would have known by the way he threw his lance to the ground, jumped off his horse and walked over to his knights.

'Why did you pull out? I was wide open!' he started to shout as soon as he had taken his helmet off. 'You could have unhorsed me!'

'I was fearful that I might injure you, sire,' Leon explained.

The look on Arthur's face was priceless. Shock and then anger again. He kept on shouting at poor sir Leon. 'You had the advantage. You can't afford to hesitate!'

Sir Leon hesitated now, before he answered, but in the end he did answer. 'I wouldn't have done if I were facing a different opponent.'

Now there really was shock on Arthur's face as it dawned upon him that maybe the reason he always won, was not because he was so invincible, but because his knights were going easy on him. If she knew Arthur at all, that was bound to wound his ego.

'You are the future king, my lord,' Leon went on, braver now that Arthur was too stunned to respond to his words.

Arthur's eyes narrowed. He eyed the knight suspiciously. 'You jousted against me in the tournament last year. Are you saying you let me win?'

'No, my lord,' he replied, but Alina didn't think anyone bought that.

Arthur wasn't fooled at least. His anger pulsed through their connection. He turned to face the other knights, who all looked down, not risking it to meet his eyes. 'It doesn't matter who I am. I do not expect any special treatment from you' (he looked at Leon whilst saying this and the knight looked down in shame) 'from any of you! Is that understood?'

The knights all nodded, but Alina could see that they only did this because he expected it from them. When it came to it, none of them would really want to win from Arthur. And it looked like she was not the only one who noticed this.

Arthur walked away from them.

'I can't believe it!' he snarled when he walked past Alina, beckoning for her to come with him.

'I'm not surprised, really,' she said calmly.

He halted immediately. 'You knew?'

The truth would be that she knew because she knew the show inside out, but it would be far from wise to try and explain that to Arthur. So she just shrugged and said: 'Well, there had to be some reason why you always win.'

'What's wrong with thinking I win because I'm actually good at this?' The steam was practically coming out of his ears by now.

'Nothing,' she replied. 'It's only wrong to think that you can always win, because no one can, unless, of course, others let you win, to prevent you from having to deal with the consequences of a bad day, like the rest of us.' After saying that she left him to think that over.

Merlin

By the time they had reached Arthur's chambers, the prince had been talking and thinking himself into one of his worst tempers in months. Arthur had been going on and on about others letting him win and how that was not fair and Merlin was tired of listening to his ravings as soon as he had started them. But since it was part of his job to put up with everything Arthur did, he was stuck listening to him.

'How am I going to prove myself if my opponents aren't trying their hardest!' Arthur wondered very loudly, throwing his helmet onto the table.

'I'm sure it's not happening all of the time,' Merlin replied absent-mindedly, wishing Arthur would stop throwing his armour so forcefully to the ground. It was his job after all to make sure that it was in perfect condition and repairing it was something that he did not have too much time for now, not on top of all the preparations for the tournament. Maybe if he used magic…?

His words had, however, not the soothing effect he had hoped for. Quite the opposite, actually. They only seemed to further enrage Arthur. 'So, it's happening some of the time?' he asked sharply.

Oops. Everyone in Camelot, apart from Arthur and Uther, knew that the knights let Arthur win whenever he had a bad day, as to not damage his reputation. On good days, Arthur didn't need their help, because he really was a skilful warrior, but still, it did happen. Only Arthur was not supposed to find that out. It was an unwritten law in Camelot.

'No, I'm certain it isn't!' he quickly said, but he could see that Arthur was not fooled for even a second. He had made a slip-up and Arthur jumped on it like a hungry wolf on a piece of meat.

'Now you're doing it!' he exclaimed. 'You're telling me exactly what you think I want to hear!' He threw the last bit of armour smashing on the stone floor.

'Yes,' Merlin said without thinking, his mind mainly preoccupied with asking himself how in heaven's name he was going to get all those dents out of the armour before morning with all the other chores he had to do as well.

Arthur's disbelieving look pulled him back into reality.

'Eh, no,' he said, looking desperately for a way out of here before he could say anything that would infuriate his boss even more. 'What was the question?'

'Argh!' Arthur sighed in anger. 'That just proves it! All my life I've been treated as if I am special!'

Well, that might be because you are, Merlin thought.

'I just want to be treated like everyone else!' he said, sighing again.

There was a genuine wish for that in the prince's voice and suddenly Merlin found that he wasn't angry or annoyed with him anymore. It must be hard in some ways to be always the special one, to never be able to slip away into anonymity.

'Really?' Merlin asked.

'You have no idea how lucky you are,' Arthur said.

Lucky wasn't exactly the word Merlin would use to describe his circumstances. Right now he had a whole armour to repair on top of all his other chores and he had no idea how he would get them all done by morning without using magic.

'Well, anytime you want to swap places, just let me know,' he said, collecting the bits and pieces and then lifting the armour off the floor.

He had not expected Arthur to take this seriously. But when the prince turned around, his whole face lit up at the idea. 'That's not a totally stupid idea,' he said, sounding completely serious.

That was of course not what he had meant. It had been merely a joke, so now it was his place to tell Arthur something he apparently did not want to hear. 'You're prince Arthur. You can't change who you are.' After saying that he walked out of the room.

But right before he disappeared out of earshot he heard Arthur talk to himself. 'Yes, I can,' he said in the tone he always used when he thought he had a brilliant idea and Merlin could not help but feeling that this one, like all the others, meant nothing more than an awful lot of trouble coming his way.

Trouble is certainly coming. Wait for it…