Hey!
Are you still with me? It's been a long time. Sorry! I've been very busy, both with good and bad things.
Bad things: my partner of many years and I ended things, which was very difficult. I also had a lot of trouble finding employment in the pandemic.
But there are so many good things, too! I got an apartment, a car, a cat, and a fascinating new job that actually utilizes my degree a little bit!
Life has been moving very quickly, and in the back of it all I've been constantly thinking about this fic. It's taken me ages to write this chapter—I must have deleted at least five pages' worth of writing, and re-written every scene a hundred times. I've finally decided to publish it because if I stare at it any longer, it'll become completely incomprehensible to me. I hope you like it. We're zeroing in on the climax and I cannot wait to share it with you!
Enjoy!
~Ra1n
Previously...
As Owain and Gwaine crashed to the ground, Merlin whirled on his heel, unaware of the tearing of bandages, and made a break for the other side of the throne room.
"Merlin, wait-!" Gaius shouted, hobbling across the tiles. Percival finished putting his shirt out and turned towards Gaius's shouts. He was just in time to see Merlin falter, hit the ground, scramble back up, and slip through the servants' entrance to the left of the thrones.
Percival took off immediately as Gwaine shoved Owain back the way they'd come from, sending him stumbling.
"Haven't you done enough?" He hissed, already turning to follow Merlin, Gaius, and Percival through the doorway.
By the time they'd reached the doorway, however, Merlin had already disappeared into the labyrinth of servants' passages.
"Come quickly, your highness!"
The young female servant hadn't bothered to knock; instead, she'd pushed the door to Gwen's temporary chambers open at a near-dead sprint, hair disheveled and chest heaving. Her eyes were wide and terrified.
The paperwork Gwen had been working on was immediately set aloft, the sheets fluttering through the air and scattering across the floor. Gwen stood up at once.
"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded. She'd only just gathered the focus to begin the work.
"The throne room," the serving girl said breathlessly, motioning wildly behind her, and Gwen's heart found her throat.
"What about the throne room?" Gwen said slowly, trying to appear calm. She folded her hands in front of her waist. Had Merlin been discovered? The alarm bells had not sounded.
The serving girl faltered for a moment.
"Smoke," she said, finally. "Smoke and yelling and-"
Gwen was already moving towards the door. "Did you see what happened?" she asked, her voice rising in pitch despite her efforts to keep it even.
The serving girl shook her head. "I smelled the smoke and came running as soon as I saw it coming from the doorway."
Gwen's smile was tight. "You did the right thing, Ana. You are dismissed."
The girl gave a little bow, her pale hair falling over her shoulders. By the time she'd stood, the Queen had already disappeared down the hallway.
Gwen didn't make it to the throne room. Instead, she was abruptly stopped by Gwaine, who burst through a random servants' passage a few feet ahead of her and stumbled into the hallway, looking panicked and disoriented.
He glanced to his left, then his right, and then spotted Gwen. His face lit up.
"Ah! Guinevere!" He exclaimed, clearly still getting his bearings. "Perfect!"
He was distracted, his eyes immediately going back to roving the castle around them. Without truly looking at her, he seized her arm and dragged her into the servants' passageway. Gwen had no time to protest as he pulled her down the hall, speaking rapidly.
"There was some trouble in the throne room," he said. He glanced back at her. "Don't worry, nobody found out about Merlin. But he did run off. Got spooked by Owain." As he said the knight's name, his tone changed to anger. His hold on her hand tightened. "Made a break for the passageways—he's somewhere here," they took a right turn, then a left, then doubled back when they hit a dead end. Gwen tugged her hand out of Gwaine's grip.
"Merlin's in the servants' passages?" she asked breathlessly.
"Yes," Gwaine said, still moving. He took a sudden left turn, and Gwen realized they were zig-zagging away from the throne room.
"And Owain? Is he here as well?" She asked, eyeing the hallways and doors as she passed them.
Gwaine spun sharply. "Absolutely not," he said forcefully. "We sent him away. He didn't need much convincing anyway. Not after the way Merlin looked at him."
Gwen's heart clenched. Merlin had been doing so well, all things considered. She hoped a confrontation with Owain hadn't set back any progress he'd made. "A serving girl told me she heard shouting and smelled smoke. Is anybody hurt?"
Gwaine frowned. "Of course not. Merlin didn't lash out, he just ran." He ran a hand through his hair and muttered, "Maybe he should've lashed out. Would've served Owain right, barging in like that…" he shook his head. "He was practicing a spell and it got a little out of hand. The shouting was mostly me."
He was shifting nervously from one foot to the other. His eyes kept darting back and forth, but their progress through the tunnel had halted. With a start, Gwen realized the problem.
"You don't know where you are," she said slowly. It was not a question.
"No," Gwaine said after a pause. His cheeks colored with shame. "No, I don't. I don't know anything about servants' passages. Merlin's in here, and he'd know what to do if I were lost, but I don't know a damn thing about this and I—I just—I need to find him."
Gwen took a deep breath. "You are a knight, Sir Gwaine. You wouldn't have ever needed to know."
"But Merlin—"
"Merlin wouldn't blame you for not knowing."
Gwaine looked lost again. Gwen could almost understand. There was so much of a servant's life that was hidden from nobility, and Merlin had hidden even more than that. It was overwhelming to think about for her, and she supposed she knew more than most.
"We'll find him," she said. "I know these passageways, and I know all of the places a frightened Merlin would go."
She didn't wait for an answer before she shouldered her way around Gwaine in the narrow corridor and took the lead.
Gwaine quickly fell in step behind her, still worried but clearly relieved to be given some sort of direction. The servants' passages were a complex network of tunnels, and it took time to understand their twisted patterns.
"If we find him, we're supposed to meet at Gaius's quarters," Gwaine said from behind her. Gwen was making her way determinedly in the direction from whence Gwaine had come. "Percival is looking, too, and Gaius, and—" Gwaine hesitated, and Gwen spun to face him.
"And?"
"And Arthur," Gwaine said. "Arthur's looking, too. He was alerted of the commotion just as you were."
Gwen's mouth was set in a hard line.
"And nobody stopped him?"
"You know Arthur," Gwaine said. "He couldn't stand by and do nothing. And if Merlin is spotted—"
"Then let's hope we find him first," she said, cutting him off. "Merlin will not react well to Arthur chasing him down."
As she talked, she tried to remember the places Merlin would usually go. Which tunnels were familiar to him? Where would his feet take him in a panic? The first would be Gaius's chambers. The second would be Arthur's room. The third would be the stables. After that, the armory or the library.
The big question was: Where would Merlin go now?
In the last day or two, he had been relatively lucid more often than not, so she didn't expect him to go towards Arthur's chambers, even in a panic. Usually his moments of delirium only lasted a few minutes at most before he calmed down and found his bearings once again. She also didn't think he would go towards the armory or stables, considering the large concentration of knights and guards there. That just left the library and Gaius's chambers.
But, fifteen minutes and a few dozen twists and turns later, it was apparent that Merlin wasn't at either of those places.
Gwen and Gwaine both ran into a few servants on their way to the physician's chambers, and significantly fewer towards the library. But none of them were Merlin, and none of them seemed disturbed or confused enough to have seen Merlin. They'd also caught up with Gaius, who had already checked the armory, and who had been told by Percival that the courtyard was empty as well.
Which meant that Gwen was at a loss.
As she backtracked towards the throne room, her desperation increased. There were so many tunnels to search, and Merlin probably knew them even better than she did. The knowledge of passageways and secret corridors that she had once possessed had been replaced with queenly information, and tunnels were being taken in and out of commission all the time.
In fact, Merlin probably knew the tunnels better than any of them did. Merlin's group of friends and acquaintances was somehow lacking in servants, and that made Gwen uncomfortable in a different way.
Why was Merlin the only servant? Why did he have so few friends whose lives overlapped with his?
She would sometimes have nostalgia for a simpler time, before her queenly duties, when she could shuffle along unnoticed by the nobles. A time when she would run into Merlin and babble about her day while he offered to help her with the laundry. A time when he would complain about something as trivial as shining a pair of boots or sharpening a sword, and she would roll her eyes and help him gather herbs.
Such trivial things she had taken for granted. Now, she wished she could spend just one more normal day with Merlin, standing beside him and bumping elbows and hips as they hung the linens to dry in the warm sun. She wanted to wander through the forest with him, filling the air with idle chatter and their baskets with wildflowers and roots. She wished for a great many things that were now out of reach.
And then Gwen stopped, her daydreams fading.
She had an idea.
Gwen changed course, Gwaine trailing anxiously behind her as she took a few turns and ducked into a short, low-ceilinged corridor just before they reached the throne room. Everyone had already passed it in their initial search; it was located just inside the doorway and, with its dust and cobwebs, it looked largely abandoned.
A precursory glance, however, confirmed what she had expected: the cobwebs that hung in the corners of the tunnel were disturbed, and the thin layer of dust on the ground was smudged.
The tunnel was rarely used; it was more of a crawl-space left behind in the construction of the castle that had been elongated, long ago, into a crude siege tunnel. It connected to the burial vaults and, further down, the catacombs that twisted their way beneath Camelot. But if they continued straight, the tunnel burrowed itself under the outside wall. It ended in a heavy iron grate, hidden in a crumbly, cave-like outcropping of rock in the forest beyond. Uther had used it occasionally in some defense strategies, but it had been largely abandoned in the last decade.
The space was uncomfortable to maneuver in, and it was almost impossible to carry supplies through it, with the low ceiling and narrow walls. Occasionally servants would duck into it for a brief reprieve from the bustle of the main tunnels, but most didn't bother to venture further in.
But Merlin had certainly known about it, because it was the fastest route to the royal forest, and therefore the best way to retrieve herbs for Gaius on a short notice.
Well, Gwen thought, at least that's what he'd always said.
Gwen had always thought Merlin daft for using the siege tunnel when he could have just as easily walked through the main gates—especially because the grate at the end of the passageway was bolted shut with a lock made of heavy lead. That, and the smell coming from the catacombs made her uneasy. Merlin had always claimed himself a clever locksmith, and more than once, she had run into him as he emerged from the tunnel, covered in dust and looking sheepish. Each time she'd asked, he'd simply said he was gathering herbs for Gaius—an excuse that she now realized was probably a lie.
Because the tunnel was also the best way to leave the castle walls undetected.
How many of Merlin's secret missions had Gwen intersected? She could think of a number of strange encounters that, in hindsight, were probably Merlin covering something up.
He probably wasn't a skilled locksmith, either.
Not for the first time, she wished she'd spent more time with him after becoming Queen. Heaven knows he'd probably needed the support, and she could have used a friend, too.
But the past was the past. All she could do now was focus on finding Merlin and repairing wrongs.
Sir Gwaine had no idea where they were going. The hallway Gwen had led him into was filled with long-cold torches and dust. Cobwebs swept at his arms and face as the corridor began to close in more tightly around them. Gwaine's heartbeat echoed in his ears, seeming to bounce against the walls that brushed at his shoulders.
Occasionally, a wall would drop away, the dark maw of another tunnel would swallow his shoulder, and he'd stumble—but Gwen didn't make any turns.
Would Merlin be at the end of this corridor? He thought vaguely that he should have brought a candle; the dimness was stretching into darkness, and the ceiling was getting lower. He walked with his knees bent and his head bowed.
Gwen continued to move quickly, no break in her pace, and Gwaine relied on the sound of her footsteps more than he did his vision. He could hear the swish of her dress against the stones. She obviously knew exactly where she was going, and her resolution grew as she got further into the bowels of the castle. Even if the place she had taken them looked wholly abandoned, Gwaine had full trust in her instincts.
He marveled at the conditions the servants so confidently and silently worked in as the ceiling and floor sloped suddenly down in the darkness. The stone turned to something softer beneath his boots. The air was cooler. Wetter. The smell of smoke dissipated.
As the temperature dropped, the corridor began to open up again, the world changing from black to gray to delicately lit. Gwaine let out a breath of relief as the ceiling and walls widened again, culminating in a large metal grate. The grate was set into the wall at an odd angle, turned slightly upwards towards the sky. Greyish light filtered down through it, and Gwaine could see a fine smattering of water droplets riding the light beams.
Gwen walked up to the door and reached her hand through the grate, feeling for something. There was a metallic rattle, and she smiled a little to herself before tossing something into the mud at Gwaine's feet: a large lead lock, twisted open.
It was scorched and warped beyond repair, clearly by some sort of magic.
They must be getting close.
As he clambered up through the square hole, he found himself standing in a small ravine, surrounded by stones. Above, the sky was overcast. A delicate drizzle fell from the heavens and dusted their hair and shoulders.
Bewildered, Gwaine surveyed his surroundings.
Beyond the rocks lay the royal hunting grounds, with its shrubs and trees poking out of the earth and casting dark shadows between them. Behind the rocks, at the top of the slope, was the castle.
Gwaine tried to gain his bearings. How had they come to be outside of Camelot's walls without passing any guards?
Gwen must have seen the confusion in Gwaine's face.
"One of the many long-forgotten siege tunnels," she said softly.
"Shouldn't it have guards on it?"
Gwen shrugged. "Guards attract attention. Not a lot of people know of it, aside from a few servants. And besides that, it is usually locked."
Gwaine looked at the ruined lock lying inside the doorway. Merlin had certainly not treated the lock with any manner of delicacy. It only served to remind Gwaine of just how powerful Merlin was, and just how much he'd hidden during their adventures.
He could have broken himself out of bindings. He could have escaped any cell. He could have evaded his enemies easily.
But he'd been handicapped by Camelot's laws and his devotion to Arthur.
It made Gwaine's blood boil.
Gwen was already moving along the ravine towards the trees, and as Gwaine rushed to join her, he saw what she was following.
Leading away from them, bare footprints were clearly pressed into the mud. They were smeared unevenly, the grass dragged forward in some areas and trampled in others, a sort of zig-zaggy dance between the rocks that indicated a lack of balance, panic, or both.
It was obvious who had made them.
They didn't have to travel far before the prints took a sharp left turn, burying themselves into the shallow wall of the ravine and emerging amongst the trees. Here, they became deeper and closer together. Gwaine thought he could see traces of blood mixed in with the dirt, but there wasn't time to stop and inspect them. The air was cold and wet, the trees provided very little protection, and Merlin's health was fragile at best. Gwaine wasn't even sure how he'd managed to get as far as he had, but then Merlin was always defying expectations.
Gwen slowed. The prints had begun to meander from one tree to another. There were smears of mud and blood on the trunks, and handprints in the soil.
She reached the edge of a clearing and stopped. Gwaine stopped just behind her, taking in the scene before him.
In the center of the clearing, Merlin lay on his back, his spine pressing into the wet earth, his arms resting palm-up. His chin was tipped up towards the sky, his eyes closed against the steady rain.
The rain had soaked through the front of his shirt, plastering the blue fabric to his chest as he breathed. The bandages gave uneven bulk to his form through the cloth. They poked out of the edges of his sleeves and twined their way around his narrow wrists and fingers, now covered in mud. The bandages of his right hand were burned away, revealing taut pink skin and angry lesions where he must have grasped the lead lock to open it.
He didn't turn to look at them as they approached. He didn't, in fact, make any indication that he knew they were there. Gwen only knew he was conscious by the way he held his head, face towards the sky like a flower bending towards the last dying rays of sunlight. She could see the rain running in rivulets down his cheek, pooling in the shell of his ear before soaking into the earth.
Gwen hesitated, afraid she might spook him further into the forest if she proceeded incorrectly.
Although—she glanced at his bare, bloodied feet—he probably wouldn't outrun them for long.
Gwaine's brow was furrowed. He didn't know how to approach, either.
Before they could figure it out, Merlin opened his eyes.
They looked as grey as the sky.
"Merlin…" Gwaine's voice was a low rumble.
Merlin tilted his face towards Gwaine. Grey irises flicked beneath dark lashes. He was less looking at Gwaine as he was looking through him—there was no recognition in his eyes. Instead, something frantic stirred behind them. His breathing picked up.
With difficulty, he lifted his trembling arm from the earth and aimed his burned palm at the knight. The grey turned to gold sluggishly beneath his lids.
Gwaine felt a strange heat spread across his chest: a warning.
His heart broke. Merlin was ready to defend himself from whatever memories he was fleeing from, but he was hesitant. Would he have used magic in the dungeons if he'd been given the chance?
Gwen's gaze flicked rapidly from Merlin's outstretched hand to Gwaine's face, and she must have seen the mix of emotions in his expression because she took a step between them.
"Merlin," she said in a rush. "It's me. It's Guinevere. And Sir Gwaine is here, too."
Merlin's eyes traveled lazily up the hem of her skirts before landing on her face. Focus came slowly, but with it came calm. He dropped his hand into the mud and turned to the sky again, lashes fluttering against the rain. His lips parted to release a breath.
He looked completely spent.
The clouds rolled above them, and Merlin's strained breathing evened out as he gazed at their roiling depths. They were Druidic clouds, not natural ones, and they seemed to swirl above Merlin in patterns only he could understand.
Slowly, Gwen moved away from Gwaine. This time, Merlin seemed unbothered.
It was the first time Merlin had been outside since before his imprisonment. It was also, perhaps, the first time he seemed at peace since he'd been rescued. The significance was not lost on them. It was almost as if they were waiting for the other one to make the first move.
Instead, the silence stretched on.
Gwaine's adrenaline was fading, and he was slowly becoming aware of the rain seeping through his shirt, chilling his skin. He could hear the drops plopping against the curled brown leaves that lay scattered between the tree trunks. The wind rushed and swelled through the branches. He shivered.
He wished he could bring Merlin inside, where he would bundle him up and change his dirty bandages and tell him stories until he laughed again (he hadn't been successful yet, but he'd gotten a few grins and heavy breaths, and with his damaged ribs, that was probably enough), but he was afraid that any motion would send Merlin spiraling back into another one of his delirious panics that Gaius probably had a name for, but no remedy.
Merlin surprised them both by speaking first.
His throat worked around a voice as low and as wet as the rain. The way he was lying, flat on his back with his arms outstretched, tightened his ribs and made his voice sound wheezy.
"Give me a moment," he said. "I just need to rest. The trees…"
His eyes fluttered closed.
"This is fine." He tangled his fingers in the grass below him. "I'm fine."
Gwen and Gwaine exchanged looks. They weren't so sure they believed that, but was he convincing them or himself?
"I'm sorry," he said, more quietly. "For running."
"You have no need to apologize," Gwen began, but Merlin spoke before she could finish.
"I was down there again."
He turned to look at them suddenly, his eyes fluttering open.
"I know I'm not," he reassured them. "Right now. I do. I'm not losing my head, promise. But sometimes it doesn't matter that I know. Sometimes I'm down there still. And I just needed to take a breath."
His eyes wandered back to the treetops and sky beyond.
"I should be fine," he huffed. "I know I should." His voice wavered. "And I want to be, but…"
Gwen stopped him. "We understand, Merlin."
"You don't." He took another breath. "None of you can."
"We want to," Gwen said.
Merlin looked at her incredulously. "You'd want this?" he asked, and Gwaine looked over Merlin again, looked at his jutting ribs and fading bruises. He knew to remain silent, but all he wanted to do was talk, to comfort, to make silly jokes.
"I only meant I want you to talk to me," Gwen said softly.
Merlin laughed bitterly. "I do talk to you." He reached a hand up again, floated his fingers lazily in the air. Gwaine could taste electricity on his tongue. Was that the storm? Or was that Merlin playing with the storm?
"But sometimes it feels like a dream."
"What feels like a dream?" Gwen asked, her gaze turning to Gwaine. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her cheeks flushed despite the frigid rain. The hairs around her face were standing on-end with the static in the air.
"All of it. Before, and during, and now." Merlin's eyes were still closed. "Especially now."
Gwaine bit down on his tongue. He wanted to ask questions, but Merlin only ever really spoke to Gwen, and this was the most Gwaine had ever heard him say about himself. So he preoccupied himself by looking around the clearing. Had Merlin chosen this spot, or had he collapsed here? Had he missed the sky like he missed an old friend? How could he ground himself while surrounded by so much dizzying space?
Merlin turned his head violently in their direction, eyes flying open. "I know this isn't a dream," he reassured them. "I know."
Gwen made a noise of acknowledgement in her throat, and she seemed to be biting her tongue just as Gwaine was.
Merlin dug his fists into the mud. "But when I was down there? When…when I was…" He faltered. "...I thought I would just wake up one day. I hoped it was a dream."
He took a deep breath, wincing as it pulled at his damaged ribs. His voice didn't rise in pitch or rhythm.
"Or a nightmare, I suppose." He laughed, though it wasn't funny. "And then after a while, it felt like before was the dream. That perhaps I had imagined the whole thing, that I'd imagined Gaius and all of you, and...being a servant, even. Because none of it made sense anymore." His voice wobbled. "How could it? How…how could I have gone from that to..."
He squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing. He pressed his raw forearms against his chest. His hands came up to circle the place where the collar used to be, smearing dirt over the necklace of bandages there.
It was obviously a protective pose, a habit. Had he laid like that in the dungeons? Had he wrapped his fingers around the collar like that? Had he tried to protect his arms and ribs and his face?
Gwaine was kept awake picturing it sometimes: Merlin withstanding torture. He didn't know much about Merlin's experience aside from the obvious; Gaius hadn't been forthcoming and Gwaine didn't want to ask.
Gwaine didn't know which bandages covered defensive wounds and which didn't. He didn't know if Merlin had the opportunity to defend himself at all. When he'd been tied down, had he tried to fight back? Had he tried to escape? Did anybody know?
Did Merlin ever talk about it?
Gwaine had some scars that he didn't like to talk about, but it felt wrong to think Merlin had them, too.
Merlin's fingers tightened a little around his neck.
"Sometimes I'm still in those dreams. And sometimes I'm not. And I'm afraid I'll wake up down there again. And I just...I just want to sleep."
He whispered the last part.
Gwaine was moving before he fully realized what he was doing. Gwen hissed something urgently, but Gwaine didn't hear it.
He couldn't speak without scaring Merlin? Fine. But he couldn't bear to stay still and watch.
His legs walked across the clearing. His feet squelched through the mud. Merlin flinched with each step, but there was no prickling heat or golden light. Gwaine's hands motioned towards the muddy patch of earth beside Merlin, who nodded mutely, clearly torn between his instinct to bolt and his want for normalcy.
Gwaine's knees knelt in the damp grass. He felt the rainwater seep through his trousers. He stayed an arm's length away as he laid down. The forest floor was spongy and cold. Merlin was close, but not too close; he could hear his raspy breathing but he knew that even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to reach out and touch him.
And then he couldn't help himself. He spoke.
"You can sleep," he found himself saying. "We can stay here for as long as you want, mate. And we'll be here when you wake up."
There was a long silence.
He was afraid to look. He didn't want to see the fear and distrust in Merlin's eyes, regardless of whether it was aimed at him or not, so he kept looking at the sky instead, blinking rapidly as droplets coated his lashes and fell into his eyes.
"If I go back in," Merlin said suddenly, and Gwaine mustered the courage to turn his head. Merlin was looking right at him. His gaze was unwavering.
"If I go back in," he said again, slowly, "then a war will happen."
"I think…" Gwaine swallowed. He was struggling to maintain contact with Merlin's solemn eyes. They looked too grey to belong to him, too old and dull and exhausted. "I think the war will happen regardless," Gwaine managed.
The words came out before he could process what he was saying, and he immediately winced.
Merlin, though, cracked a small smile.
"That's true," he said.
"So we can stay out here as long as you'd like."
Merlin's eyes moved to just beyond Gwaine's shoulder, and he followed them to see Gwen approach. She laid down on Merlin's other side, and while Gwaine couldn't be sure, he thought maybe she reached out to take his hand, because Merlin turned his head very sharply towards her.
Gwen could do that; Gwen could touch Merlin, could offer him comfort. Gwaine was jealous in a way that was hard to describe. He hated being feared all the time, hated the way Merlin's shoulders tensed at the sound of his boots when he walked in. He hated the moment when he entered Merlin's chambers, the moment before Merlin recognized him as Gwaine and only saw him as A Knight Who Might Drag Him Away.
And he hated that, despite how terrible he felt, Merlin felt worse.
The silence returned to the clearing, punctuated by the chime of the rain against the puddles and tree branches. Low thunder rumbled in the distance, but it was not a threat.
"It's very beautiful," Gwen whispered. Gwaine could only guess that she was looking at the clouds as he was: how they swirled like jam into porridge.
"Yes it is," Merlin said softly. He frowned. "That's what he said, too."
They didn't need to ask who he was talking about.
"This isn't my magic, though," Merlin murmured. "It's the Druids."
He shot a glance at Gwaine. Merlin and Gwaine hadn't had a real conversation about magic, although Gwaine had traveled and seen enough to not have specific prejudices for or against it.
Gwen continued to fill the silence. "Can you do this with your magic, Merlin? Make a storm like this?"
She could talk about the magic because Merlin had spoken with her about it a little already. Gwaine suspected they'd even had a few conversations about his time in the dungeons, although he couldn't be sure.
Merlin studied the clouds for a moment, frowning.
"Yes," he said finally. "I could."
The use of past-tense wasn't lost on any of them.
"By yourself?" she asked, her voice a mix of awe and curiosity. Gwaine remembered how many Druids it took to keep the storm going. There had been five or six pairs of glowing eyes in the forest.
"Probably," Merlin said. "I've never tried to cast with anybody else."
He didn't quite seem proud, but he didn't sound sad, either. It was something in the middle, but Gwaine felt something twist in his gut. Merlin hadn't practiced magic with other people? Ever? In all his years with magic—which, from what Gwaine had gathered, was his entire lifetime—he'd never had a magical ally? Friend? Acquaintance? Somebody to practice and cast with?
Gwen hummed. "I would love to see you call a storm," she said.
Merlin shrugged. He said something that sounded like "me too," but Gwaine couldn't be sure that he'd heard anything.
"I have once before," Merlin said aloud instead. "It wasn't as big as this. It was a small one when—" he faltered. "When I...killed...Nimueh."
He shot another anxious glance, this time at Gwen. Sure, the knights had killed people in battle, but that was with swords. It was a bit of jolt to be reminded that Merlin, too, could kill—just as efficiently as any knight, or perhaps more so. Gwaine had heard some of the stories that Gaius told; he knew that Merlin had been more an executioner than he could fathom. Still, it was different when the words were coming directly out of Merlin's mouth. They'd somehow managed to skirt around the topic for days.
"I heard," Gwen said, and the next phrase was rather cryptic: "When I asked Gaius about the mark on your chest, he told me a little about Nimueh."
"Yeah." Merlin seemed to know what Gwen was talking about, at least. Gwaine remembered that there had been a lot of blood and scarring on his chest when he'd first seen him. At the time, he'd assumed they were all from Arthur. Now, it appeared that he had been mistaken.
Not that it mattered. Sometimes Gwaine knew when to pry and when to wait, and this time, he elected to wait.
"You'll have to tell me all about your adventures sometime," he said, and prayed that Merlin took the request as what it was: acceptance. "Maybe you can even teach me a trick or two. Can you change water into mead?"
Merlin quirked a little half-smile. "I'm pretty sure magic can do that."
"Excellent."
Silence filled the clearing again. Gwaine knew that regardless of what he'd told Merlin, they'd need to get inside soon—if not for Merlin, then for Gwaine himself. His wet clothes were cold and getting colder. There was mud in his hair, and his eyelashes flicked water onto his cheeks each time he blinked. There were tremors running gently down his spine, despite him trying to relax into them. He could faintly see fine mist billowing from his nose when he breathed, and the air had the sharp smell of an oncoming cold snap; no doubt there would be a frost the next morning, or perhaps the day after. Winter would come soon enough.
"Can-" Merlin paused, reconsidering. He tried again, forcing confidence into his tone:
"Help me up."
Gwaine was fairly certain that the red spreading across Merlin's cheeks had nothing to do with the cold, and everything to do with the sheepishness that came with asking for help. As it was, he didn't quite meet Gwaine's eyes as he took his arm.
There was a split second after Gwaine made contact where he froze, waiting for Merlin to flinch away. And Merlin did flinch, but it was with very little force, and he didn't pull away. Gwaine took that as permission to continue.
Muddy rain water dripped down Gwaine's back as he stood. His grip around Merlin's bicep was strong but careful, steadying him without too much contact. With Gwen's help, Merlin managed to get up onto his feet, where he swayed unsteadily.
The clearing smelled like dirt and wet linen. Above, the clouds still swirled, but Merlin's slight form felt more solid under Gwaine's fingers than it had in weeks.
Merlin was present here and now; he was a person that Gwaine could touch and care for.
Merlin tentatively looped an arm over Gwen's shoulders, and Gwaine was able to quash the disappointment he felt in his chest. It had to be enough that Merlin allowed him to take his arm; it was more than he'd been comfortable with before.
He still felt a pang of jealousy when he watched Gwen wrap an arm around Merlin's waist to steady him against her, but that quickly melted away when he turned to look at Gwaine. He studied him, frowning slightly. After a long moment, his mouth curled into a grim smile. He jerked his chin towards the castle walls and took a deep breath.
"I suppose it's time to face a war."
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The phrase "like jam through porridge" is a reference to a quote taken from Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. The full quote:
"When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself round making red trails like the picture of a meteor in my astronomical atlas. But if you stir backwards, the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not notice and continues to turn pink just as before. Do you think this is odd?"
-Thomasina Coverly
I'm not a math expert, of course, but I love to think about this quote. The character speaking is a child genius who is interested in chaos theory and iterative algorithms. She notes that things are destined to spiral into more and more intense chaos once set in motion, with each iteration of an equation or action building off the result of the last one. It is impossible to predict the future without knowing the exact starting point, even with rigid structure and rules.
...which sure does sound like destiny to me...how about you?
Than you for sticking around during the extended hiatus.