I don't own Merlin.

How stupid can you be?

Why was it the Pendragons killed first, asked questions later?

The day had begun as normal before Arthur announced he was going to go on a hunt. Well, that was his hope for a quiet day out of the door. Merlin had been manservant to the Prince of Camelot - sometimes, Merlin wondered to himself if the fates were deliberately trying to cause him problems; alright, while being a manservant allowed him to be closer to Arthur if he was this great King destined to bring magic back, and that was all Merlin was interested in, stopping the hate towards magic and bringing about a new age so sorcerers and people like him who were born with their powers did not suffer the same uncertainty, the same fear of whether or not they were monsters, but a manservant… - for a short time now, but already he had been hit with a number of duties that he had already felt a strong hatred for.

Mucking the stables.

Tending the dogs.

And lastly… hunting. Merlin had already discovered Arthur, and the knights did not agree. For some reason, the musclebound idiots seemed to enjoy the idea of hunting down harmless animals. Merlin preferred his relatively harmless way of dealing with animals when he was hungry; he only needed to use his magic, but Arthur and his men seemed to take things too far into melodrama for Merlin's taste. They snuck around with exaggerated care while they looked for animals, but they didn't find any of them and they used him but apparently, he was useless. Merlin didn't care. Nor did he care whenever Arthur jeered and sneered at him, Merlin knew Gaius had warned him about using his magic in public, but he knew ways of making the idiot of suffering without said idiot even noticing. How could he notice if he suddenly tripped and fell in a pile of horse dung? But he resisted the urge.

Just.

So no, Merlin did not care one little bit if he ruined the hunt; hunting with Prince Prat was never enjoyable, especially since the idiot used him to drive animals towards him and the knights. But when he saw the Unicorn, Merlin had been transfixed by its beauty. He could feel the magic from the Unicorn, much as he'd felt it from the Great Dragon, but Merlin had quickly felt the difference. The Great Dragon's magic was burning, powerful, which fitted with the dragon's fiery nature, but it was aged and he could feel its age like he could see the age of old logs, but the Unicorn's magic seemed timeless.

And then Arthur killed it before he hacked off the creature's horn and decided to take it as a trophy for his filthy murderer father. But all that time, Merlin was aware the Unicorn was not alone. There was a cloaked man nearby. When he had gotten back to Camelot, one of the first things he'd done was to tell Gaius what had happened, although judging from the Court Physicians' face he was as disgusted by the display of disgusting glee from Uther and Arthur as Merlin was, but Gaius had made it clear there was a legend that made it clear bad fortune came to anyone who slew a Unicorn.

Naturally, Arthur and Uther were too stupid to realise it, and then things went bad. Water wells dried up, food began to get spoilt.

Merlin tried to mitigate it, but even his magic couldn't fend off the curse of the Unicorn. He heard nothing from the Great Dragon, but Merlin had little doubt the chained up beast knew what had happened, but there was little the Dragon could do, and Merlin had hoped to stop this by himself.

Merlin didn't understand why Arthur had to be so stupid when Anhora appeared; instead of realising or even acknowledging the whole mess was his own mistake, Arthur blamed Anhora for everything happening. That was what happened when all the knowledge of magic had been destroyed by an ignorant murderer like Uther. But of course, Arthur made it worse when he threatened Anhora in that hot-headed thoughtless way of his.

But fortunately, he redeemed himself when he showed selflessness when people were starving, and Anhora gave him an opportunity to make things right.

Merlin knew it was early days, but he could see that Arthur was indeed the Once and Future King. And that gave him hope, and sometimes hope was all you had.

Author's note - Please let me know what you think.