A/N: HEY! It's HERE! Super-long chapter numero tres. (#3) Whatever. Tired brain. LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG musical practice today. Night. Whatever.

This chapter is dedicated to Vaughntronic. Ever since you started reviewing, I've quite looked forward to your reviews! I know you'll review every one I update, and they always make me smile. :D

R&R and Enjoy and I'm sorry this is coming close to an end, but I have two other stories I put on Hiatus to finish this one. So . . . sorry?

Arthur POV

Waking up with Gwen in his arms was an amazing feeling. Arthur lay in his bed for a while, letting himself bask in her warmth. He could stay here all day. The curtains had never been closed, and the light from the rising sun lit the flyaways in Gwen's hair like a halo around her head. But he had things to do. Important things. He kissed her smooth cheek gently, and wriggled out of the blankets so as not to wake her.

He tugged on a red tunic made of a finer weave than his usual clothes, and black pants. He knew that he should at least attempt to look nice to meet with the council; even if he rather hated most of them.

"You're not thinking of going without me?" Gwen's tired voice drifted to his ears from the bed. He turned, buckling his belt, to look at her.

"Um . . ." Usually that was Merlin's word, but sleep still clung to Arthur with a vengeance.

"I'll get you breakfast," Gwen said, sitting up and stretching her arms over her head. She cut off his protests with a short kiss, before walking out of the room, smoothing her wrinkled dress down with her hands as she went. Arthur let himself fall backwards onto the bed, staring up at the red canopy.

Today was going to be insane. He needed to legalize magic, and he needed to do it today. To be honest, he needed to do it yesterday. Gwaine thought that the people would be happy about it, but Lancelot had said, very sensibly, that not everyone would be accepting of the facts as Arthur now saw them.

Gwen entered the room along with a very appetizing smell of bacon and toast, something that had Arthur up and at the table in a moment. It had been a very long time since he'd eaten a real meal, and the smells were like a splash of cold water for waking him up. He pushed some of the food towards Gwen, who took it gratefully. They ate in comfortable silence, each thinking of the long day ahead.

Gwen accompanied him to the council meeting, and he had her sit to his right. She looked surprised, but Arthur kissed her gently and said "You'll be Queen soon enough; why not start now?" In reality, he just didn't want to do this alone.

The lords filed in in twos and threes, Lord Parsons and Lord Brien scowling openly at Gwen. Arthur felt a brief stab of protectiveness, but Gwen's cool stare caused the men to turn away quickly. Once all of the pretentious men had taken their seats, all with expectant looks on their bearded faces, Arthur stood, placing his fists on the table top and leaning upon them.

"Good morning, my good Lords," he began, and something in his voice must have made them nervous, for a few of them shifted uncomfortably in their overly-padded chairs. "I have called you here today to let you know that your services will no longer be required." The Lords were silent in shock, staring at him with mouths hanging open. Arthur felt a side of his mouth quirk up despite all his best efforts. This was beginning to be a little bit entertaining. He'd been waiting for a while to be able to put these old men in their places. Or, rather, out of their places.

"No longer required?" Lord Parsons said, voice sounding strangled.

"That's right. This council is being disbanded. I have decided to put the idea of the Round Table into action." The Lords knew about his thoughts of the Round Table; they had always come up with what seemed like good reasons not to implement it. Arthur wondered how he hadn't known that they were really just protecting their own interests.

As they had before, the Lords let loose a torrent of denials, proclaiming their usefulness and their loyalty to the crown of Camelot and to her king. Arthur almost laughed at their panic. But he didn't. Instead, he spoke quietly, and the Lords all went silent to hear him. "My decision is final," he stated with a cold finality that had a few of the men shrinking further back into their seats. "The Round Table will be created, and you are all free to spend the rest of your life with your family at your estates." Arthur sat down slowly, ready to spring up if protests were voiced once again, but he needn't have worried. "You are dismissed." The Lords all filed out, some quickly, others slowly, and still others sulking like little children who had been sent to bed with no dessert. As the door closed behind the last one, Gwen put her slender hand on his arm.

A shiver rushed through him at her warm touch. "I'm worried that you may get a big head if I keep telling you how proud I am of the man you've become," she said playfully. He grinned at her.

"I might, at that. Shall we go speak with Geoffrey about getting rid of those pesky laws against magic?"

Gwen took his hand as they rose, and Arthur was captivated by her excited expression. "I can't wait," she said quietly.

The library was, as always, rather dark and dusty. The old Librarian looked up as the king walked in, eyebrows raised. "I heard that you dissembled to Lords' Council," he said. "I did not get the summons, it seems."

"I planned on speaking with the more rational members of that body later, to ask them if they would be willing to be a part of the Round Table," Arthur murmured, running a calloused finger along the leather book spines. "I suppose your answer would be yes?"

"You . . . would have . . . supposed correctly, your majesty," the man said, shuffling from behind his table. "What is it you are looking for?"

Arthur felt Gwen squeeze his arm, as if to give him strength. He didn't need it, but he was grateful for it. Geoffrey had been his tutor when he was younger, had taught him all the propaganda his father had come up with. All the same, Arthur had always had the feeling that he agreed with it about as much as Gaius. Which was to say, enough belief to save their lives, and with enough scepticism to save their humanity.

"The laws regarding the usage of magic," he said, looking the man directly in his pale eyes. "I wish to abolish the unfair stipulations against magic."

Geoffrey's fluffy white eyebrows rose in surprise, before a rare smile touched his mouth. "If I may, my Lord, it took long enough."

Arthur couldn't help but laugh.

It took only a moment for the librarian to find a pile of old-looking parchment covered in some dust. Arthur recognized his father's signature on the bottom page when he looked, but the writing must have been done by a scribe.

Arthur ran his right hand up through the thick pages, letting them flop from his fingers to the table. He gave a low whistle. "That's a lot of words for one law."

"It covers many contingencies, my Lord," Geoffrey said. "The first two pages are the more . . . applicable parts of the law."

Arthur skimmed the first two pages, which gave a synopsis of the why of the whole thing. The language was flowery and so stilted that Arthur sometimes found himself wincing at words such as 'murder' and 'monster' and 'evil' and 'purge'. Gwen took the first page when he had finished it, eyes jumping from line to line, the librarian looking over her shoulder.

The second page contained more of the actual law, that magic was hereby declared an act against the crown of Camelot, and that it would be considered the highest act of treason capable in the nation. "Can't we just scrap all of this?" Arthur asked. "This is a lot of stuff to re-write, and honestly, I don't think I could stand to read all this damn stuff even one more time."

"We can . . ." Geoffrey said slowly. "Though you can also declare the law void as soon as this afternoon, in which case, it wouldn't even need to be re-written. Simply made void."

Both Arthur and Gwen looked open-mouthed at the old man. "I . . . was not taught of that particular loop-hole in my lessons," Arthur said, surprised.

"Because the Council did not like it," was all the librarian said in response. "It's perfectly fine and perfectly, bindingly, legal. The reason laws were rewritten was usually because the person rewriting the law wanted the original law to never be found again. In this case, I think, it sets a good precedence of the fact that this is wrong and Does. Not. Work."

Arthur supposed that made sense. He turned to the beautiful woman at his side. "Gwen, do you think you could organize a speech for later today?"

"Of course," she said with a gentle smile. "I'm guessing you want to check in on Merlin?"

"You know me so well," he said fondly, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of her soft nose.

ARTHUR POV

Arthur pushed the door to the healing chambers open with more than a little trepidation. He knew it was silly, Yara had not left the room for close to two days now, but he couldn't help himself. Maybe this was what it was to worry about a little brother.

Merlin was awake, out of the bed for the first time for what felt (to Arthur) like months. It was really only days. The boy's face was still pale, but he smiled at Arthur with all his old energy. Yara was sitting next to him, a small flame in her hand, which she smothered as he came into the room.

"I thought you couldn't do battle magic," Arthur said, hoping his tone was conversational, rather than confrontational.

"I can't make a flame much larger than that, and it takes a lot of energy," she said. "And it could be part of healing. Sterilization is very important in the field of healing. It would do no good to stitch up a wound just to have the patient die of blood poisoning later."

Arthur supposed that made sense. Yara excused herself, going over to the far corner, where there was a pitcher full of water and began to scrub her pale hands, which were covered in soot.

"I'm voiding the law in a couple hours," Arthur said. He made a wry face. "I'm gonna have to improv the whole speech." Merlin snorted.

"You really are hopeless without me," he said fondly.

Arthur couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. Merlin was going to love this. "I hope not. I mean . . . I'll need to be able to get along with another servant once my current one becomes Court Sorcerer."

Merlin's mouth slackened. He stared at Arthur for so long, the king began to get uncomfortable.

"You're kidding."

"Nope," he said, and the joy that lit Merlin's face almost made Arthur totally forget about what had caused all of this. Almost. But he couldn't really ask too much, that particular thing had occupied the front of his mind for what felt like a long time.

Merlin threw his arms around Arthur with a laugh, and Arthur gripped Merlin to him almost as fiercely. There was something about this whole thing that made Merlin so much younger than he really was. So much more vulnerable. Merlin pulled back with a smile still planted firmly on his thin face.

"You won't have to do without me completely now will you?" Merlin asked. "I'll still be available to write speeches." Arthur smiled. Not everything was going to change.

"Has Sir Gwaine dropped in at all today?" He directed this question towards the girl, who was now splashing the water at her face.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. He left just a couple minutes before you came in. He said Sir Leon had scheduled a training session and that he'd talk with the librarian afterwards."

Arthur was surprised at his surprise at the training session. What had he been expecting? Life didn't stop just because it should have, or seemed to. Merlin flashed the girl a smile.

"It's a good thing she's staying here, I'm lousy at healing magic," Merlin said to Arthur.

"Which is odd," Yara said, walking towards them with water dripping from the ends of her long pale hair. "Since you're supposed to be, like, omnipotent."

Merlin sighed. "I am not all-knowing or all-powerful," he said. It sounded like he said it a lot, which had a crease appearing between Arthur's eyebrows. "I may be Emrys, but I'm still just human."

"Wait, wait, hold up," Arthur said, holding his hands up in a gesture of complete bafflement. "Who is Emrys?"

"Emrys," Yara said slowly, still looking at Merlin rather than Arthur, "Is the Druid's savior. He was, is, the man prophesied to bring magic back to Camelot and help the Once-and-future king, that would be you, Arthur, create Albion." She stopped for a moment, as if considering something. "He's . . . also the most powerful Warlock to ever live."

Arthur felt like the air was knocked suddenly out of his lungs. He had known that Merlin must be unusual, even for a sorcerer (how else could he have survived so long in the very heart of Camelot?) but the most powerful one ever?

"Well," he managed to say at last. "I guess I would be pretty high-maintenance, huh?" Merlin laughed, a laugh that seemed to release all the tension in his skinny body, as he slumped forward to the table.

"You have no idea," he grinned.

Arthur POV

The speech went well. It was really all a blur for Arthur, who had almost never felt as nervous in his life. The sun had seemed oddly bright, white fluffy clouds in view only on the very distant horizon. There was a feeling of . . . entirety, as if all of nature was holding it's breath.

The people gathered in the courtyard were standing stock still, as if all of them, even the normally restless children, were holding their breaths. The crowd was an overwhelming combinations of colors, some of them bright enough to be for holidays. Arthur supposed some of them were already celebrating the reason they were in the closed-off area.

His armor had been polished by some of the servants, and he wore his red Knight's cape. Behind him stood Sir Percival, Sir Leon, Sir Lancelot, Sir Elyan, and Sir Gwaine, also in armour and capes. Gwaine's restless shifting was as close to silent and still the knight ever got. Arthur put his gloved hands on the balcony wall before him and took a deep breath..

"People of Camelot," he said, and his voice carried, echoing around the walled yard. "It has recently come to my attention that a large group of innocent people have been wrongly persecuted for as long as I have been alive." Actually, because of the circumstance of his birth, but Arthur didn't dwell on that. "Magic," he said, "can be used to heal far more easily, for some, than to hurt." There was a sudden flame of sound among the gathered people below. They saw where this was going. He remembered a parting instruction from Merlin regarding the speech.

"Don't talk about your father, Arthur. Don't even mention him. The people need to know that you make this with no reservations, and they should not be reminded of what Uther said to convince them that magic was evil." His friend had also asked that Arthur not tell the people that he had magic. He wanted to do that on his own, which Arthur understood.

"In light of this," he continued, "I have decided to repeal the laws against magic, or the use thereof. There shall, of course, continue to be punishments for wrongdoing, but these punishments shall not differ from magic-user to the common people." The courtyard had fallen dead silent at this announcement. The people stood as still as if they had been turned suddenly to stone. Arthur made a bow to his people. He didn't know what possessed him to do it, could almost feel his father turning in his grave, but it felt right.

"Long live the King!" called a voice from the crowd, and the rest of the people joined in, even the knights at Arthur's back. "Long live Arthur! Long live the King! Long live the King of Camelot!"

A/N: So . . . I think that was the longest chapter I've ever written for this story. 2,760 words exactly without the Author's Notes. Drop me a review? The Epilogue will be up . . . in a few days. Most likely. As the review number goes up, the number of days goes down. (Kind of like the size of molecules. As you go up the periodic table, they get smaller. I think you can tell what I was studying for earlier)