1x07 – The Meaning You Give It (Part 2)

Arthur was pulled from his night patrol of the lower town, by order of the king. To his great annoyance, the guard sent to fetch him avoided his questions on why with a standard, "It's not my place to say."

He was taken to the council chambers, where only his father and Morgana were in attendance – the other members of the court presumably asleep in bed. The atmosphere was strange; Morgana was standing with her shoulders squared and chin jutting before the throne, facing Uther rather than to his right. On the throne, Uther was stewing in intense rage, red faced and breathing deeply as though he'd run out of air from excessive shouting.

Neither had looked over when he walked in, so Arthur announced himself with a pointed, "You wanted to see me, Father?"

"Yes," Uther said, still glaring at Morgana as if he was trying to bore a hole through her. "I wanted to confirm something about your hunt for the druid. You reported you've searched every room in this castle, is that right?"

"Yes, every room in the castle, every house in the lower town."

"And Lady Morgana's room, I assume, was not exempted from this?"

"Of course I -" a horrible, dreadful suspicion took root. "I searched it, though I… may have been a bit less thorough than usual."

A curtained enclose and woman's taunt replayed in his mind, in a new light. Surely it couldn't be.

Uther rose from his throne, looming over Morgana from the raised dais. "Trust – it's a funny thing, isn't it, Morgana? Given to people we care about and believe in, extended because we trust them to be worthy of it. Trust them not to use it against us."

He slammed his fist into the arm of his throne, yelling, "And this is how you'd repaid that trust!"

Uther strode forwards, down the dais until scarcely a foot separated him and Morgana. "All this time, you've been hiding the boy in my own palace! How could you betray me like this?"

Morgana stood her ground, refusing to be swayed by remorse, if she in fact felt any. How he hadn't guessed it was Morgana harbouring the druid, Arthur couldn't now fathom. Morgana was the one who protested every execution - every one except the latest, when she'd been uncharacteristically silent. That should have been a clue that there was something strange going on – of course she'd not want to risk igniting Uther's anger against her, when his attention was exactly what she needed to avoid.

His father's anger was rising in response to Morgana's unrepentance. Arthur could scarcely bear to watch the argument taking place, and he wished he could avert his ears as he had his eyes. He mercifully was allowed to remain in silence, separate from the fight, at least until Uther dragged him into the midst of it with, "Make arrangements for the boy to be executed tomorrow morning."

And despite Morgana's pleading, Uther remained adamant in this judgement. Arthur felt like his tongue was coated in ash when he replied, "Yes, Father."

Morgana was escorted out by two guards and Uther retired to his chambers. Arthur, for his part, went to the dungeons to inform the guards of the boy's sentence, seeing the elusive druid for the first time.

He was younger than he'd pictured. It was one thing to be given a description of the boy's general appearance, it was quite another to see a child huddled inwards for warmth in the cold dungeons, separated from freedom by bars of heavy iron. Arthur could feel the boy watching him, and despite his efforts to keep his voice low he had a feeling the boy heard every word.

Arthur made a grave mistake then; he glanced over and met his eyes. All the way back to his room, he could feel those light blue orbs, so prominent in a child's face, staring back at him. He hesitated at the door, one hand on the handle yet unable to pull it open. He would be getting no sleep tonight, not with those eyes staring back at him. He let go, and turned on heel, going to his father's chambers instead.

He didn't know what he expected, but Uther would not reconsider the sentence. All of Arthur's arguments broke like waves upon a rock; just noise and a dampening of the mood, but otherwise enacting no change. He was pointedly dismissed not long after, and returned to his room, violently throwing open the door to vent his frustration.

Inside his room was another unwelcome surprise the night had to offer him, again brought about by Morgana. She straightened up from where she had clearly been waiting for him, and without hesitation started asking for his help in her druid rescuing mission.

"I know you believe your father's wrong to execute him."

He could still see the boy's wide, solemn eyes staring back at him, looking too old to fit his childish face. He'd known then, looking into them, that the boy knew what was being built even now in the courtyard, and what was in store for him come the next rising of the sun. He'd never seen such despair in the face of a child.

Arthur carefully avoided looking at Morgana, not wanting to have two sets of eyes haunting his sleep. He couldn't stop himself from hearing her, though, as she continued pleading with him to break the law. To betray his king, his father.

"If I know you at all, you won't stand by and let this happen." She said, like he had any say in the matter.

His father had made up his mind; to go against it now was treason. He'd be betraying everything he stood for, all for one child whom he didn't know in the slightest. Perhaps his father was right; children could not stay children forever. If let go now this boy might return as a man, with good reason to hate the Pendragons. If the boy was returned to his people, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't take up the black arts, and be corrupted by them. All sorcerers had to start out as children.

But he hasn't done anything, his conscious screamed, warring with all the logical arguments his father could give. How can he be punished for things that he might do?

"Please. If you won't do this for the boy, then do it for me."

Morgana stared straight at him, and he couldn't turn his head away from her now. Her eyes overlapped with the boy's, and he felt cornered. He couldn't say whether the boy truly deserved his punishment – his heart said no, yet his head couldn't stop cycling through his father's arguments. But Morgana felt he didn't, felt it strongly enough that she'd bet her life on it. He might not always get on with Morgana, but he trusted her, even after she'd tricked him. If she wholeheartedly believed this to be the right thing to do, then he'd quiet the voices in his head, and follow his heart alongside her.

"What do you have in mind?"

They dug out maps from his drawers, looking over layouts of the dungeons and planning how to best go about this. "This tunnel here, it looks like it leads to beyond the city walls."

Arthur retraced the tunnel to its origin, relieved by what he saw. "The entrance in is the burial vaults. That's easy to get to from the dungeons."

How to slip past the guards was a more pressing problem, one that took them about half an hour to sort out. Once they'd found a way, there was only a few more details to iron out before they could start their plan.

The door opened, and Arthur hurriedly covered the maps. To his relief it was just Merlin, who he could easily order away. To his surprise, Morgana stopped him.

"It's alright; I trust Merlin."

There was something strange there between the two of them that made Arthur pause for a moment. He wasn't aware that Merlin and Morgana were even friends, let alone were on good enough terms to trust with conspiracy. Reluctantly, he beckoned Merlin over, explaining to him what they were going to do.

Merlin instantly objected, almost in a panic to convince them otherwise. Arthur wasn't too surprised – Merlin always tried to shoot down any ideas that were remotely exciting - but Morgana looked as though she'd been betrayed.

"Why are you so against this? Do you want the boy to die!"

"Of course not," offense coloured each word. "It's just…" Merlin's eyes flickered, and he couldn't seem to find the words to finish his sentence.

"Look," Arthur cut him off. The boy's execution was only a few hours away; they didn't have time to wait for Merlin to finish blithering around and make up his mind. "We know what we're doing. All you have to do is bring my horse and open the grate. I'm the one who's springing the boy."

"It's suicide – you'll never manage it."

"I know what I'm doing." To prove a point, Arthur pulled his key ring from his belt and jingled them in front of Merlin. "Look, I've got the keys to the cells right here."

Only, on closer look, he didn't. He had all the keys on his ring except the one that would open the doors of the dungeons.

"Merlin," Morgana said accusatively, having reached some conclusion while Arthur just stared at his keys in disbelief. "Did you take the key?"

Merlin shifted in place guiltily, avoiding their eyes. Arthur for the first time noticed Merlin had his hands tucked behind his back. Arthur grabbed one of them, jerking it to the front and forcibly unfurling Merlin's fist against his spluttered protestations. Sure enough, there was the key.

How did he get it? All the keys were on Arthur's ring earlier when he'd gone to visit the dungeons, so he must have gotten it afterwards. But he hadn't been around Arthur until when he entered the room just now, and then he hadn't approached Arthur at all – Merlin was barely within arms' reach, how could he have possibly weaseled the key off of Arthur without either him or Morgana noticing?

"Hang on," Arthur said, something else occurring to him. "If you have the key then you must be planning to break the boy out. So then why the hell are you trying to stop Morgana and me from helping!"

Merlin looked as if he wished he could vanish into thin air. "Well there's no point risking all our necks."

"No point?" Arthur asked, unable to believe Merlin's stupidity despite being exposed to it on a daily basis. "How, may I ask, Merlin, do you plan to get the boy out of this castle on your own!"

Merlin pursued his lips as though holding in words, and remained silent. Arthur took that as a sign of defeat. "We need to do this together. We – Morgana and I – have already worked out a way to get the boy to safety. We don't need you messing everything up, so are you with us, or not?"

And though Merlin begrudgingly agreed with you, Arthur was still doubtful all through their planning. The time came for Morgana to go apologise to Uther, saying she couldn't sleep because of the guilt plaguing her for betraying him, and Arthur and Merlin to go fulfill their roles in the plan.

It was easy enough to knock the guards out with a combination of herbs Merlin stole from Gaius' store. The child looked wary initially, but quickly took Arthur's hand and followed him through the underground corridors to the burial vault.

Despite Arthur's half-formed fears, sprung from Merlin's reluctance to cooperate, there was someone waiting there and the grate already opened. It just wasn't Merlin. It was an old man, with long straggly white hair and a beard that fell to his waist.

Arthur drew his sword. "Who the hell are you?"

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With the tip of a sword hovering right in front of his heart, Merlin was beginning to wonder at the wisdom of showing up in disguise. Not that he'd had much choice; Uther had upped security after Morgana was caught, and the city was crawling with guards. He'd had to give up on getting Arthur's horse completely - there was no way he could make off with it unseen. Even then he'd been stopped at sword point four times. He'd had to use magic to knock out the guards blocking his way, and after the second time he'd had enough of trying to desperately hide his face before the guards identified him. Using the spare flask of potion he carried on himself at all times since the mess with the griffin, he'd aged himself by sixty years. A good thing too, for the third guard to stop him had shone a torch in his face before demanding he stop.

Still, he now had to explain to Arthur why there was an old man there, instead of the young one he was expecting. "Well…"

This would have been so much easier if Arthur and Morgana had just stayed put, and not messed up his plans by being like over-eager three-year-olds trying to help yet only making things more complicated. If he could have just used magic to spring the boy from the dungeons on his own – or just been the one to take him out of the castle in the first place, like he'd originally wanted – then they'd be out in the forest looking for the other druids already, not stuck in all this mess.

"Are you deaf? Who are you? Identify yourself!"

Merlin cursed himself; in all the hours he'd spent trying out disguises, why had he never thought of what to use as a fake name?

"Emrys," piped up an unexpected voice to Arthur's side, drawing both of their attention. The boy shrank back at bit at the sudden attention, taking a moment before reiterating quietly. "His name's Emrys."

Merlin seized the boy's help gratefully. "That's right. My name's Emrys."

Arthur looked from the boy to Merlin and back, incredulous. "You know each other?" The boy nodded. Arthur lowered his sword but didn't sheath it. "Are you a druid, then?"

"Yes." That seemed the easiest story to go with. "I've come for the boy, to return him to our people."

Arthur's eyes flickered around, taking in more of the situation now that he thought he knew who Merlin was. His grip tightened on his sword; whatever he saw, he didn't like. "You don't have a grappling hook or rope or anything of that sort – how did you get the grate open?"

Merlin froze, stunned that Arthur was being that observant. In the months since they'd met, Arthur had missed many more telling signs of magic than this. Was it because he was faced with a druid, someone he expected magic from, that Arthur was able to recognise the signs of it?

Arthur's grip on his sword tightened at Merlin's pause, and his expression darkened. Panicking, Merlin started yelling, desperately erecting the veneer of a crotchety old man to hide behind, "Questions, questions, soooooo many questions! What do you think this is, time for icebreakers and little quizzing games? Let's get a move on already!"

The sound of distant echoing voices and heavy footsteps approaching accentuated Merlin's point, and with a glance backward Arthur reluctantly sheathed his sword. Still, when he climbed through he kept a wary eye on Merlin.

They started to run for the forest, Merlin lagging behind the others. He grimaced, and urged his groaning old bones on. Still the distance between him and the other two continued to widen. Arthur glanced back, and stopped, hissing,

"Hurry it up, will you!"

The deep heaving breaths accompanying his sprinting left his old lungs burning from the strain, but still Merlin pushed himself to retort, "When old age catches up to you, we'll see how fast you can go!"

He immediately regretted wasting breath arguing, as he was virtually doubled over now, trying to suck in enough air to keep him going until they reached the treeline, at least.

The sounds of the guards' approach echoed from the tunnel they'd exited, ringing deafeningly through the silent night. There was no way they'd be able to reach the treeline before the guards came across the open grate. Unless Merlin gave up on speed and cheated a little.

Merlin stopped, clutched his chest with one of his gnarled hands, and started a fake fit of violent coughing, squeezing his eyes shut to hide the condemning glow. In between coughs, he muttered a spell to relock the grate, "Fyrbendum faest. þu benda faest."

Magic warmed his irises. He felt it take hold in the distance and released his concentration, opening his now-normal eyes. The boy looked less tense than before, obviously either having heard Merlin's spell or felt the magic and guessed at its intent. As Arthur was not currently trying to cut his head off, Merlin took that as a sign that he hadn't noticed what Merlin had just done.

Unfortunately, Arthur's limited awareness of their situation meant he still felt the tension of the pursued. "If you wanted to get a move on, then get a move on! The guards will be on us any second now!"

Not hardly; unless they'd thought ahead to have someone with grapping hook and rope meet them outside that obscure tunnel. Since that seemed unlikely, Merlin wasn't too concerned about the beleaguered guards catching up anytime soon. With any luck, they hadn't been close enough to see the grate had been open in the first place and had turned around; after all, coming to an empty dead end with a locked grate, the easiest assumption would be that the escapee had fled in a different direction.

"You think you know everything," Merlin grumbled, resuming a light walk. "Well, you try running when you're old and arthritic, and we'll see how fast you can go!"

"We don't have time for this!" Arthur looked ready to tear his hair out at Merlin's plodding pace.

Something absolutely delicious occurred to Merlin then. "Then perhaps you should carry me."

"What?" Arthur asked, gobsmacked some random old man would dare say something like that to him.

"Unless you'd rather get caught by your father's men…"

Arthur had an angry bulge in his neck, a few truly impressive blood veins popping up to their full glory. "Fine," he bit out, crouching down to let Merlin climb on his back. "If it means we can get away sometime tonight!"

Merlin climbed on like Arthur was a stack of hay, making no effort whatsoever to keep his fingers and knees from digging into him. Arthur's muscles were all tense; doubtlessly the prince was struggling to hold back a veritable verbal explosion at this treatment. Once Merlin was secured on his back, Arthur started to jog.

Without an old man dragging the pace, it didn't take them long to reach the treeline. The lingering tension melted away now that the branches and darkness concealed them from view of the citadel. Merlin closed his eyes, extending his senses to reach his locking spell in the distance. To his relief, it was still in effect; the guards either hadn't managed to get the grate open or hadn't tried, assuming the dead end meant their lead was a false trail.

Merlin, rather enjoying himself now that pursuit seemed unlikely, opened his eyes again. The first thing he saw was the back of Arthur's head. It was then that it really hit him that anything that "Emrys" did could not be traced back to Merlin by his master. A smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth, and, on a whim, Merlin dug his heels into Arthur's side like he would to a slow-moving horse.

Arthur came to a full stop, apparently so stunned he forgot the imminent danger he thought they were in. "Did you just kick me?"

From beside them came a choked noise, like a laugh aborted. The boy's hand flew to his mouth, covering it, but couldn't take back the amused little noise he'd already made. This was the first time the boy showed the smallest sign of even momentary cheer. Feeling absurdly pleased with himself, Merlin winked.

He quipped back to the prince, "Now who's wasting time?" Kicking Arthur again, he called out, "Onwards, Fleetfeet, my trusty steed!"

"Call me Fleetfeet again, and I'll…"

"What would you rather, then? Starrunner? Moonsparkle? Featherflower? Starsparklefeather Flowerrunner?"

"Shut up or I'll drop you."

"Do you have no respect for your elders, you green-bellied whippersnapper?"

"I… green-bellied? That's not a word."

"I think you'll find it is."

"Says who?"

"Everyone."

"Define 'everyone'."

"What are you, two? I would have thought that a prince would have had an abundance of education, but very well, I shall oblige: everyone, you see, means every - which in turn means each individual or part of a group without exception - person, that being…"

Arthur veered to whack Merlin's head against a low hanging branch. "I'm sorry, you were saying?"

Merlin rubbed his sore head, grumbling. He tried to ignore the cockiness practically screaming out in Arthur's posture and the muffled laughter coming from the young druid's direction. They continued on in silence until even the highest walls of the city were completely blocked by the thick overgrowth. Then Arthur asked,

"How far until we join up with the other druids?"

"Um…" Merlin stole a glance at the boy, who looked away without answering Merlin's unvoiced pleas for intervention.

Taking any longer to reply would look suspicious, so Merlin invented, "It's against our laws to allow outsiders to learn the location of our dwelling place."

Arthur didn't question this, perhaps seeing the sense in such a law for people in hiding. Instead he frowned, and said, "Wait… if I can't come with you, then why am I still carrying you?"

Merlin blanked. The answer, obviously, was that Merlin hadn't thought that far ahead when he'd bullied Arthur into comporting himself like a pack animal.

He recovered quickly though, his retort a bit rushed in an attempt to compensate for the slight pause. "What a harebrained thing to ask! You are still carrying me simply because you haven't put me down yet!"

Arthur released Merlin's legs and abruptly leaned backwards. "Allow me to correct that!"

Merlin's loose grip was shaken by the unexpected movement. He tumbled away, landing groaning on the ground. The fall would have stung mildly in his regular form, but in his elderly one he felt as though he'd fallen from a tree.

"Is there nothing in the knight's code about how to treat your elders?" Merlin groaned, rubbing his aching limbs as he clambered to his feet.

"That would fall under "protect the weak and defenceless". For you, I'm protecting you from the results of my temper, should I have to carry on like a mule for a second longer. It was to spare you greater repercussions - you should be grateful."

"Oh yes, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude, my Lord," Merlin muttered, wiping dirt off the robes he'd borrowed from Gaius.

Arthur's head tilted a bit and his eyebrows narrowed, like one who'd encountered a familiar object yet couldn't quite come up with its name. Merlin's lighthearted gripes evaporated; had that last barb been too much like himself?

Merlin beckoned the boy over, and half-turned, eager to move on before Arthur had more time to analyse whatever had flagged his attention. "We'll be going then, no sense delaying."

Arthur snapped out of whatever he'd been thinking, looking startled at this reminder of their common purpose: to help the boy. He stood there awkwardly, like one left dangling with no clear idea about what to do next.

He looked to the boy. "Is that it? I don't even know your name."

The boy hesitated, and Merlin couldn't blame him. There was a power in names; they could mean the difference between Merlin the bumbling manservant and Emrys the druid, between Keith the taciturn peasant and Balinor the dragonlord. Names were more recognisable than faces – spreading quicker and more freely without necessitating so much as a glimpse of the ones they labeled. If Merlin had been in the boy's place, he too would not want to be known by name by Uther Pendragon's son.

On the other end, it was surprising that Arthur wanted to find out something so personal of one of his father's enemies. There was a league of difference between having mercy on your adversaries, and daring to acknowledge them as individual human beings. Merlin should know – his first days in Camelot had been caught between the two. Once the ones you labelled those people were given individual names, it was harder to remain detached from them. Merlin's own life had been much simpler when the men in red had been a nameless mass being of terror.

At long last, the boy replied, "My name's Mordred."

Arthur nodded slightly in solemn acknowledgement, like he had an inkling of some of the risks the boy was taking in trusting his name to him, or of the headaches he was bringing upon himself by giving one of his father's adversaries a name rather than a label.

"Good luck, Mordred."

Taking that as a farewell, Merlin and the boy turned to go. Arthur called out after them. "You must never let it be known that it was I who helped you."

Unable to let that pass unremarked upon, even given the weighty moment still lingering in the air, Merlin called back one last gibe. "Oh, well it's a good thing you told me that; I was planning on blabbing to Uther the next time he invited me 'round for drinks! Good job you warned me – after all, what would a hunted man know about keeping his mouth shut and being discreet?"

Arthur didn't answer back, though Merlin strongly suspected he hadn't done himself any favours come morning, when the prince would already be in a foul mood due to exhaustion, made only fouler by the memory of an insolent old man with a sharp tongue.

Merlin and the boy continued through the forest alone in silence for a long while, the chill night air seeping through their cloaks. The shadows of the tree branches looked sinister where they blotted the starry night sky and – though Merlin was sure he was more than a match for anything in these woods – the indistinguishable animal cries sent chills up his arms.

The boy, at least, seemed surefooted; this was his domain, it was clear. Merlin wondered if perhaps the secret hiding place for the remaining druids mightn't be found within this very forest. The boy walked onwards a step ahead of Merlin, stopping occasionally to examine trees that to Merlin looked like any other tree, but to Mordred appeared to be significant.

After a long examination of one such tree, Mordred turned around and announced, « You can go back. I can find my way home from here. »

"Are you sure?" Even though Mordred seemed at home here, the idea of abandoning a child in the woods, at night, didn't sit well with Merlin. "It'd make me feel better to see you back safely."

The boy bit his lip, his eyes shifted away from Merlin's gaze. « I'll be fine. »

"Still…"

« I grew up in these woods, » Mordred said, oddly insistent. « I know how to stay safe in them. I'll be fine. »

Merlin hesitated, still. He'd rather been hoping to talk with the druids – the adult druids – who hopefully had answers to some of his questions that Gaius didn't. If nothing else, he thought they could explain to him the name Emrys. Vortigern calling him Emrys could have been a mistake, as could Mordred calling him Emrys, but that two people separated by several decades with no contact between them – as evidenced by Mordred's lack of knowledge of Merlin's additional alias Myrddin – making the same mistake seemed beyond the realm of coincidence.

Vortigern had meant to summon a fatherless boy warlock named Emrys who had not yet been born. Merlin fit all that criteria except the name and, ever since Mordred carelessly used that name to thank him, Merlin wasn't so sure about even that. What if Vortigern hadn't made a mistake in whom he summoned?

Whoever Emrys was, whatever that name entailed, if a young druid boy knew it, then surely the adults could tell him more.

Mordred, however, didn't seem inclined to lead him to them. It was difficult to tell what the boy was thinking, but he was watching Merlin unblinkingly, the whites of his pale blue eyes standing out in the darkness surrounding them. It was almost unnerving; Merlin had to remind himself that Mordred was just a boy, to fight against the uncomfortable feeling of being scrutinised.

Merlin must have been taking too long to respond, for the boy said, « You can't come with me any further; no outsiders are allowed to see our camp. »

Maybe it was paranoid of Merlin to think so, but that sounded remarkably similar to the excuse he'd just used to brush off Arthur. But then, the boy knew Merlin had magic, so he had no reason to lie. Trying to push the feeling of being fobbed off away, Merlin nodded, forcing a smile, and told himself that maybe he'd have another chance to speak to adult druids.

In the meantime, he couldn't help but ask one more question of the one druid he currently had access to. "When you call me Emrys… what does that mean?"

It took the boy a long moment to answer. Merlin waited impatiently, wondering what so difficult about the question – regardless of whatever the significance of the name was and whether a child even knew it, the question had been straightforward enough. Just when Merlin was beginning to be certain the answer he'd get would be I don't know, the boy surprised him with a cryptic,

« Being Emrys means what you make it mean. »

"What?" was Merlin's eloquent response to that useless answer.

« We all have our destinies, » the boy's voice grew more confident as he spoke, like there was some strength hidden in the words he was unearthing as he spoke them. « For as long as we live, they will be there, waiting, inescapable. But the path to get there is as important as the destination itself – and the path is of our choosing, not Fate's. »

Lovely. Riddles. Merlin was forcibly reminded of that blasted inscription about the red and white dragons that Vortigern had forced him to work out, and Oilell's vague answers to his questions, and couldn't help but wonder if it was part of the culture of the magical community to give answers that didn't feel like answers. If so, then for the first time he was grateful he'd been raised in a thoroughly unmagical village, if only to avoid turning into a riddle maker himself.

« So you see, Emrys, » the boy continued, sounding strangely cheered, like there was some great kernel of hope in his words that Merlin was missing. « A name means nothing in the beginning. But one day, it will. Once you give meaning to it, that is. »

The whites of the boy's eyes gleamed up at him in the pale moonlight. As Merlin stared back, trying not to feel unnerved, he wondered if the boy had no idea what Emrys meant, either, and was trying to hide it under a ton of nice sounding waffle. He didn't really feel like the boy had answered his question, but – whether because Mordred truly didn't know a more satisfactory answer or because he for some reason simply refused to be more forthcoming – Merlin could tell that that would be as much answers as Mordred was willing to give.

Nodding his head, Merlin muttered, right, as though he understood that spiel that seemed more air than substance. Apparently taking that as a dismissal, the boy turned to go. Merlin called out one last thing, unwilling to part like that. "Goodbye, then, Mordred. I hope you get home safely."

The boy looked back over his shoulder, surprised. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but Merlin thought he saw the flash of a quick smile. « Farewell, Emrys. Someday, we'll meet again. »

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It was late in the day when Arthur stormed into his chambers. After some gruelling hours of combing the land for a boy he had no real intention of finding but had to pretend he did to play the part of the dutiful son and prince, Arthur's scowl was a sight to behold. Merlin, crouched on the floor, paused in his scrubbing of all the filth it'd accumulated during the days when an injured druid outweighed chores for the demands of his time. He wished desperately he could use magic to send himself far, far away from his sleep-deprived, irate master.

Arthur's eyes narrowed in Merlin's direction, and the servant gulped. Merlin was in for it and he knew it.

"Where the hell were you last night?" Arthur hissed, looking like he'd much enjoy shouting instead but not wanting his voice to carry outside his chambers. "You were supposed to meet me by the grate."

"Well, you know what they say: the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that," Merlin hedged.

Arthur's unimpressed glare could have withered the most spritely of sprouts. Merlin, however didn't quail – he'd expected this much hostility. Instead, he baited, "Well, Emrys seemed like he had it all in hand."

Arthur's reaction was instantaneous and, had Merlin not been walking a thin line trying to offer up lies as excuses without Arthur catching onto him, it would have been highly comical. "Wha- you know that empty-headed, bizarre, insolent…" Arthur went quiet all of a sudden, blinking at Merlin with gears turning behind his eyes, reassessing the boy in front of him.

Merlin's stomach twisted; had invoking Emrys in his excuses been a miscalculation? Should he have let Arthur's anger at being abandoned the night before blind him to the events that had taken place, have let Emrys wash away to be a faint memory blurred by time? Was Arthur right now putting two and two together, and realising that that string of adjectives were ones he used almost daily on his manservant…

"So that's why he was so rude!" Arthur accused. "What did you tell him about me!"

… or was Merlin overthinking this completely?

"I should have guessed you'd gotten to him," Arthur blithered on in irritated oblivion. "God help us, but your insolence must be contagious."

"Er…" Merlin said, not wanting to be held even indirectly responsible for the things he'd done as Emrys but not having prepared an excuse to fend off this strange line of reasoning. "Well anyways," Merlin continued on with the lie he'd practiced, ignoring this little wrinkle, "I ran into him after almost being caught near the stables by your father's men, and he seemed to have everything under control. Since the horses were a no go with your father's upped patrols, we arranged it so I'd get the grate open for you all, then close it while Emrys was leading the boy back home so you wouldn't be followed."

"Wait, so you were there the whole time?"

"Yep."

"Where!"

"Waiting out of sight of the city walls – I didn't exactly fancy being spotted by the guards."

"But why didn't you say anything, if you were there!"

"There wasn't exactly a lot of time to go through the whole song-and-dance of explanations." Arthur looked unimpressed. It wasn't a very good excuse, but Merlin couldn't come up with a better one so that was the one he was going with.

"You know what I think?" Arthur narrowed his eyes. "I think you thought it amusing leave me floundering in the dark, with a cracked old druid as a guide and my plan thrown out the window!"

"Of course not!" Merlin quickly rebutted, trying to sound scandalized. The memory of Arthur's face at being told to carry him made it difficult, and he suspected his twitching lips ruined the effect. Though Arthur wasn't quite right, he was closer than he usually got – Merlin might not have set out to pull the rug out from under Arthur, but once he saw the opportunity he certainly hadn't let it pass by.

"Well, I'm pleased that somebody at least is in a good mood – so you won't mind then, having to wash my clothes and shine my boots so it doesn't look like I've been trekking through the woods all night." Arthur kicked off his boots at this, launching them at Merlin and flopping onto his bed.

Merlin scowled at where they'd landed, muddying his clean floor. "Now look what you've done," he grumbled, moving the dirty items onto a chair. "Now I have to scrub this again."

"If you'd done this yesterday - like I asked - then this wouldn't be a problem."

"Oi! I was busy!"

"What could you possibly…" Arthur trailed off, his brows narrowing. "Morgana. She seemed awfully confident you'd want to be drafted into conspiracy."

"Yeah, well, I was sort of the one who smuggled the boy into her chambers in the first place."

Silence. Long silence. Then… "You?"

"Yes, me," Merlin said, unsure whether to be worried or offended. "I saw him in the courtyard, he told me the guards were after him for being a druid, and I thought – well, Morgana protests the executions, right? And I was pretty desperate, and her rooms weren't far…"

"But… it was broad daylight! And you couldn't have known she would help – if you could even get him there unseen! Why would you risk that?" A thought seemed to occur to Arthur. "Did you know Mordred?"

"No, he… reminded me of someone." Himself, actually, four-years-old and lost in the cold stone halls of the men in red. Not that he was going to tell Arthur that, no matter how much his expression conveyed his dissatisfaction with just that as answer.

And then, an idea struck him. Sure it hadn't worked with Gwen, but if he kept his mouth shut about the magic bit this time… "Back in Essetir, I was once captured by, erm, slave traders, and a druid woman rescued me. I guess… he reminded me of her."

Not really, the only real similarities were that they were both druids, very quiet, and had an annoying penchant for vague riddles. It certainly wasn't what he been thinking when he'd seen the boy in the courtyard, but it sounded plausible enough as a motive and, moreover, introduced Arthur to a secondary sympathetic druid.

A kind helpful sorceress would be a stretch too far for Arthur, but a plain druidess of ambiguous magical talent… Watching him from the corner of his eyes as he scrubbed, Merlin could see he wasn't rejecting the idea, at least, even if he looked perturbed by the thought.

Maybe Mordred's appearance in their lives was a blessing in disguise, Merlin thought optimistically. He didn't think the prince would have been so open to hearing about innocent druids prior to helping rescue one himself.

Struggling to hide his smile, Merlin put away his bucket and cloth and gathered up Arthur's laundry. He started off in the direction of Gaius' chambers – he had a lot of chores backed up, and wanted to get through them as quickly as possible.

"Merlin!" Gwen's voice called after him.

He turned, and saw her half-jogging down the corridors after him, a laundry basket clutched in her hands as well. Probably also behind on her chores. She drew pace with him, and Merlin changed directions to the laundry room, resigning himself to wasting time washing Arthur's clothes manually.

A serving boy rounded the corner just then, carrying an empty tray. Gwen glanced at him, then said, looking at Merlin very intently, "It's too bad, about that boy escaping, isn't it?"

"Hmm? Oh – oh, yeah. Still, at this point I doubt they'll find him – he's probably back with his people by now."

"Shame." Gwen bowed her head, her loose thick curls curtaining her face, but not before he saw her smile. "I don't know what to tell Morgana – she feels so guilty, betraying the king like that after all he's done for her, that she couldn't sleep last night."

"I'll ask Arthur to drop in on her – he'd know how to break the news best."

The serving boy veered off in the direction of the kitchens. Gwen glanced around twice, and lowered her voice. "About what you were saying before, about the woman who helped you…"

An air bubble seemed to be clogging Merlin's throat. "… yeah?"

"Well, I was thinking… remember when my father was sick, and then he wasn't, and then the guards found that poultice and I was – was…" apparently she couldn't bring herself to finish.

"Yes." As if he could ever forget…

"Well, it's never really made sense to me, how it got there. Even with the whole afanc explanation for the plague, I've never understood why a sorcerer would conjure the beast and then heal one person in the entire city. I thought maybe the king was right and it was to set me up… but then why just me? Why not heal more people, get more people implicated? And why heal anyone at all, why not just – just make me belch fire, or something, if all they wanted to do was make trouble?"

Luckily these were rhetorical questions, because Merlin didn't think he was up to trying to answer them. Gwen steamrolled on, "Then I got thinking, when the boy came, and you told me about that woman… what if there were two sorcerers? One killing, one healing?"

This, by the long silence afterwards, was not a rhetorical question. "… I guess that makes sense," Merlin said, trying to look as though this was a new idea to him.

"Right? I opened the window that night to let some fresh air in – I thought it would be good for him – and so maybe somebody was just passing by and saw my father and... it sounds crazy, I know, but -"

"No!" Gwen jumped a bit at his exclamation, nearly losing a stocking from her basket. "Sorry… no, no, it doesn't sound crazy at all. In fact, it, er, makes a lot of sense. I think you're right and, um, the sorcerer probably didn't mean for you to get arrested, and felt really guilty about it… Have you talked to Morgana about this?"

"Morgana?" Gwen said, thrown. "No, I don't want to upset her – you know how she gets about the executions – and she's been so stressed by her nightmares and so worried about the boy… Do you think I should?"

What if magic isn't something you choose – what if it chooses you?

"I think she'd want to hear it." Since the revelation of her prophetic powers Merlin hadn't seen much of Lady Morgana, and he couldn't imagine how she must be feeling. "Like you said, about the executions and the boy… she's always been alone in her, er, opinions, and she'd probably be happy to hear your, ah, theory."

"Hmm, I suppose. She did seem very fond of the boy, and he might learn magic one day… she'd probably want to hear that it might not necessarily turn him evil." Gwen smiled, "I think I will, thanks, Merlin."

They'd reached the laundry room now, and he held the door open for her, balancing his basket awkwardly on his hip to do so.

"Thanks," she muttered, steadying it with her foot so he could pass through as well. "… Do think we'll ever see him again? The boy, I mean. I know Morgana wants to."

Mordred, the boy whose arrival shook Merlin's little group of friends to the core. Morgana for once finding others sharing her opinions, Arthur pondering uncomfortable matters, Gwen questioning whether her near-death experience was a botched attempt to help… His arrival brought change like a flood, uprooting everything yet leaving the ground softer and more arable in its wake.

Despite the danger he'd brought, Merlin couldn't help but be glad it was him Mordred had called out to for help.

"Well, ever is a very long time; someday, we may."

/**

Merlin has finally taken up his secret identity!

How DID canon!Merlin, on the spur of the moment no less, manage to sneak a horse out of the royal stables and past a city on high alert? I tried to come up with something, couldn't, was a like, "screw it, no horse!"

And this is the chapter of… talking? Well, there was a lot that Merlin had to say. He'd be an utter fool to let the perfect opportunity to challenge some worldviews pass by without comment, right?

**/